It was dark on the other side, for he had appeared within a small cave. Light entered from an entrance some ten feet away, but the area around him was too dark for him to make out much. He froze when a deep rumbling vibrated through the air, making the hair on his neck stand up.
Could the goddamn cat cross between worlds? Was it making the sound he heard? Please let that be the cat, he begged silently. “It’s just me,” he said aloud.
Something was behind him, and he felt its breath on his neck. Whatever it was sniffed at the air, and Will clenched his eyes shut. The rumbling vanished, and so did the presence he felt. Cracking one eye, he turned his head, but he saw nothing.
Unsure what to do, Will stumbled forward awkwardly. “Thank you,” he said to the empty air, feeling foolish.
The area outside was different than the other places he had seen in Faerie, rather than a forest it was a wide field interrupted only by large stones that cropped up here and there. The sun was bright, the wind was cool but not chilly, and other than the strangeness he felt everywhere in the fae realm, it seemed entirely pleasant. He stepped out under the sunshine and nearly tripped over a large branch on the ground.
Except it wasn’t a branch. As his eyes focused on the thing, he realized it was an enormous femur, sticky with blood and drying bits of flesh. The rest of the carcass lay scattered around him. Will hastened to put some distance between himself and the remains, noting the numerous other old bones hidden in the grass.
A movement in the distance caught his eye, and he saw Tailtiu across the field, some hundred yards distant, waving her arm to get his attention. She stood beside a massive rock formation that jutted at least twenty feet into the air. Will wasted no time crossing the distance to meet her. She looked nervous when he drew closer.
“How long did you have to wait for me?” he asked.
“Too long,” she answered. “This is as close as my people dare approach, and even this is risky.” She pushed something into his hand, and when Will glanced at it he saw a piece of paper.
“What’s this?”
“You keep asking its name.”
Unfolding the scrap, he started to sound out what was written there, a habit he had picked up while learning to read. Cath Bawlg.
His aunt clapped her hand over his mouth. “Don’t say it, and that goes double in Faerie.”
“So the goddamn cat is a native of the fae realm?” asked Will.
Tailtiu shook her head. “It lives wherever it wants. For the past century or so, it has lived here.”
Will frowned. “I saw the remains of a lot of kills back there. If something eats here, doesn’t it become part of your realm?”
“Not if that thing is already immortal,” said Tailtiu. Her voice dropped to a whisper, “And whatever it eats does not return; its prey remains dead—forever—including us.”
That was certainly ominous, but it bordered on a topic he had been wondering about. If even the plants and animals of Faerie were immortal, and Elthas was the Lord of the Hunt, what happened to the things he hunted and killed? From what she had just said, it sounded as though they eventually regenerated or returned to life in some fashion. It also made it abundantly clear why the fae feared the Cath Bawlg. And I’ve been feeding it an egg every now and then, thought Will. The more he learned, the more he realized that nothing surrounding his grandfather had been even remotely normal.
Looking around, he saw a distinctive shimmer on one side of the rock formation. “Is that the crossing point?”
His aunt nodded. “It leads to a small spring close to Branscombe. The town is to the south after you cross over.”
Will offered her his hand, and together they crossed over, where he found himself once more surrounded by moderately dense forest. The spring was something of a disappointment, for it was little more than a damp place on some rocks that fed a trickle heading eastward through the forest. He supposed it must eventually meet other such flows and become a river, but at this point it wasn’t even enough that he would want to try drinking it.
Following a small game trail, they went south, and after just a few tens of yards, Will saw the underbrush open up. There was a road ahead, following an east-west course. Looking out, he could see a wooden wall to the west. Branscombe was within shouting distance.
“You can go home now,” said Will. “This is all I needed you to do.”
“The bargain was for three days,” insisted Tailtiu.
“I don’t need you for another day,” he said, giving her a hard stare.
She stared back at him unflinchingly. “Then you shouldn’t have bargained for three.”
There was no way he could enter Branscombe with a naked fae girl beside him. “I thought it would take me three days to get here, or longer,” he explained. “They’ll arrest me if I try to walk through the gate with you. Humans don’t take well to naked girls gallivanting about.”
Tailtiu turned away. “They’ll arrest you anyway. Mark my words.” Then she began walking back toward the hidden spring. “Call me when you need me. I still owe you one more day.”
That settled, he walked briskly down the road. An older man with a cart reached the gate just ahead of him, and the two guards there ushered the man through without a word.
Will started to follow the cart through, but one of the men called out to him, “Stop! Who are you, trying to sneak into Branscombe?”
Will drew himself up and straightened his shoulders. “I wasn’t trying to sneak.”
The other guard broke in, “You were hiding behind that man’s cart.”
“Walking behind it—in plain view,” insisted Will. “You didn’t tell that man to stop,” he added, pointing to the cart as it pulled away.
The first guard, a man with an impressively bushy mustache, gestured at Will’s belt. “You can’t bring a sword into town.”
“You have swords,” returned Will, but then as he looked at the two men he realized they actually didn’t. They were equipped with spears and knives. “Well, you have spears anyway.”
The mustached guard glanced at his companion. “Ned and I are constables, smartass. The weapons are part of our job. What are you anyway? You’re dressed up like a soldier.”
“A Darrowan soldier,” said Ned as Will handed him his sword and belt. “That’s the Prophet’s crest on the boy’s coat.”
Will glanced down at his gambeson and mentally cursed himself for not thinking to remove the embroidered sun on his chest. “I’m not a boy, I’m seventeen. I’m here to join the King’s Army.”
The guard with the mustache leaned in, fixing Will with a suspicious glare. “Are you a spy, boy?”
Will’s jaw dropped. “I’m not a spy. I’m from Barrowden. This isn’t even my coat.”
The two constables exchanged glances, then Ned said, “Where’d you get the armor from then?”
“They burned my village,” answered Will, trying to project honesty. “I crossed the pass to get here. I took this from one of their sentries.” When that failed to convince them, he added, “Would a Darrowan try to sneak into Branscombe wearing this?” He pointed at the sun crest.
Mustache rolled his eyes. “Exactly what a Darrowan spy would say. Hand over the belt knife too.” As Will did so, the guard went on, “You expect us to believe you killed a soldier and took that gambeson?”