Bloodied and Muddied
The sun didn’t take as long to cross from horizon to horizon as it would back in our world. Before we knew it, it was time to hide our tracks and find a vantage point. We settled as comfortably as we could on a high bank covered with young walnut trees and made sure we knew the way to the water, and the one away from the lake, blind. Control might have been impossible, but preparation still counted. I wondered whether Rareș was doing the same.
“Any final advice?”
Get her alone.
It sounded simple enough, but dusk came, the ethereal beings of cold flame rose from the water back to their playground island, and I still had no idea how to accomplish such a thing.
At first, only one Iala landed, her mirrored image dropping from the sky as she rose. She tested the scorched ground here and there with her rounded hoof, setting little leftover bits of grass and twigs on fire. Looking around, she hopped and skipped and finally must have deemed the place safe. The others floated up at her whistle, Perdy sad and desolate among them.
“There they are, on time.”
Cheșa tapped my shoulder and pointed at Perdy.
“I saw. Do you think, if she knew we were here, she’d want to talk to us? She seems so much sadder than I’ve ever seen her in town.”
He shrugged, then nodded. Probably.
“It’s the only thing I can think to try. Hand me your knife.”
Cleaner and much newer than mine, the silver-coated edge sparkled brilliantly in the reflected violet light of sundown. I shuffled a little closer to the shore with Cheșa on my trail.
The Iele stood knee-deep in water, white gauzy garments raised, happily stomping about chasing frogs. Only Perdy sat on the same high ledge as before, staring wistfully into the waves. Now and then she looked up, searching through the woods, maybe hoping to see us again.
I picked my moment as best I could when they were at their most distracted and aimed a reflected stripe of light at her feet. I’d hoped to get her attention, and hers alone, but it wasn’t working. Between the shifting waters and burning grass, there were so many flickers about, one more was hard to spot.
I tried again, aiming halfway up her thigh. Sunlight would have made that task easy, but the nature of the light there was so fleeting, so unstable. I’d almost given the entire idea up when an errant flame from under the hooves of a Iala set fire to a dry patch of cattails, lighting up the whole clearing. Its reflection in the flat of Cheșa’s knife struck Perdy right in the eyes.
She flinched and shielded herself against the brilliant flash. A quick gasp escaped her and drew the attention of all her companions. In a heartbeat, she stood and used her sudden inhale to start a song, a clever excuse to soothe her sisters. Some relaxed right away, others looked suspiciously about themselves. The knife was hidden again under Cheșa’s dark cloak, and we were safely tucked behind leafy shrubs.
Picked up by many voices, the song rose in volume and bounced off the surface of the water. It had a slow but powerful rhythm, like the heartbeat of some gigantic forest creature, and made the ground vibrate beneath our feet. For a moment, I was lost in the beauty of it.
As the others carried the song forward, Perdy soundlessly slid into the water and, after a few long seconds of swiftly gliding just beneath the surface, was by my side. “Anna! I’m….”
She seemed at a loss, so I found the words for both of us. “So happy to see you. I’ve missed you. I’ve been worried.”
Stunned, she stuttered, “H-happy? I think I owe you some explanations, surely?”
“Nothing owed. And anyway, we have no time.”
She glanced back at her sisters, and I checked for Cheșa, who was nowhere to be seen, probably hidden in a shrub waiting for trouble.
“They won’t mind that I’m gone as long as they don’t catch sight of you.”
“They’re not who I’m worried about.”
It struck me that up until that point, I’d avoided making a decision about what to do once I found her. Perhaps I was preparing for the disappointment of never finding her, or perhaps it was because I had so few options that weren’t repugnant to me. What could I do? Drag her back by force? And with Rareș aiming to kill their sovereign, would I leave the others to their fate?
Perdy raised her eyebrows at me, and I took a deep breath.
“I’d love to talk to you about whether you’d be happier here, or on the other side, but Rareș is coming—”
“The smith?”
“And he’s after your queen.”
“We’d never—”
“We need to warn the others.”
Maybe it wasn’t a perfect choice, but it was one I could live with. The threat Whispers posed to Whisperwood was real, but complicated. Right before me stood twelve young women who were in imminent danger. They sang and played, carefree and not hurting anybody, their beautiful voices causing ripples across the surface of the water.
Perdy shook her head. “I don’t understand. I’d half hoped, half feared you’d take me back with you. I trust you and hated running away from you, but they made me. They won’t listen to you, no matter what I say.”
I reached for her by instinct, not knowing for sure whether my hand would even make contact with such an immaterial being. Her hand felt solid, though, and warm to the touch, and like that of an old friend. “I know, but we have to try. It’s the right thing.”
Something tickled at the back of my head. I looked out over the water again, where the Iele were settling down to braid their hair and wash their gauzy dresses. Yet, somehow, the vibrations over the surface of the water kept getting stronger.
It wasn’t the song. Something else was causing the ground to rumble. Something that had probably once been a smith, now come to set the world to rights according to him.
All plans out the window, I rose from our hiding place and dove into the water, waving my arms like a lunatic. Perdy grabbed the back of my dress, but it was too late. They’d seen me. I shouted, “Run! Flee!” and they listened, their blue trails chasing up into the sky. Some broke toward Perdy, arms outstretched. Others, probably more aware of the distance and danger, stopped them.
“What’s going on? Anna!”
In moments, they’d all gone, and the lake became infinitely darker and far more fearsome than it had been. A flash of silver drew my eyes to where Cheșa now stood, at the ready and with a look of rage and excitement on his face that sent shivers down my already drenched and chilled spine. He stared into the woods, fixated on a point above which the treetops swayed and from where nightbirds flung themselves out with disgruntled screeches.
“Perdy, you have to go too. I’m sorry.”
Her frown was held together by grim determination. “I’m not leaving you again.”
I’d barely caught a glimpse of something large between the trees when shadows swooped above us, making me flinch in recognition. It could have been anything, maybe, but it wasn’t. I now recognized the outlines of Pricolici as well as any newborn chick recognizes the hawk overhead.
More shadows rippled across the surrounding water, making it roil and heave. They wrapped around me and dragged me down, hands held tight behind my back. I fell with a splash and a scream, muck shooting into my throat and eyes. A desperate yelp from Perdy – she was probably as trapped as I.
My vision narrowed to a rapidly darkening stripe. The more I thrashed, the more the reality of how well secured I was sunk in. It took every inch of willpower I had just to stop and think.
If I stayed calm and kept my face above the water, I could breathe. I did, and there’d never been anything in the world as sweet-tasting as that gulp of air.
Perdy whimpered nearby, and I heaved my body toward her, uttering a prayer of thanks when it worked and I slithered forward. The Pricolici shadows didn’t seem to want to drown me. My weight pressed on my elbow painfully as I shuffled across the sour, liquid mud toward her. Dry leaves crackled in my ears.
Rareș’s booming voice, now even deeper and more resonant, filled the air.
“I’d love to eat you alive, Prick-dictor, but I’ve already got what I want tied into neat little bundles, ready to take away. We don’t have to do this.” A pause, followed by more booming. “Unless, as it turns out, this was your wish all along. Well, well.”
I craned my neck back as far as I could, but only got a glimpse of Cheșa readying for a fight. What was beyond him was also beyond me, and I wanted to comfort Perdy more than I needed to see. I took a mouthful of rotting leaves and tasted their revolting sweetness in my nose. Perdy was only a few steps away, but the more I rushed, the more pain I inflicted on myself.
Rareș’ voice rose again, in answer to I knew not what. “These woods are mine, now. I’m king here. Be very sure you want to challenge a king before you point that toothpick at one.”
Focusing on his disjointed, one-way speech was impossible. It was like hearing a madman ramble to himself, and I had little doubt that he was, in fact, more than a little mad. Was there anyone in that place who wasn’t? Instead, I crawled the last of the way to Perdy, on her back in the muck, and laid my head on her shoulder with my last desperate lunge.
“Hey, sweetie. Hey, are you all right?”
“They’re holding me tight.” Her voice was small and filled with tears. She took little gasps in between each word.
“It’s fine. It will be fine. I’ll get us out of here.”
“He’s going to kill me.”
“I won’t let that happen. There has to be a way out of these shadow bindings. And Cheșa will take care of Rareș.”
“You don’t know Cheșa, Anna.”
“He’s helped me and taught me every step of the way. He’ll take care of us.”
“They call him the Whisper Killer.”
“The….” I was at a loss. Could that have been true? He’d been so, so kind to me, but there was so much I couldn’t know about him. I had no immediate counterarguments.
“I stayed away from him, always. Watched from a distance. Reported back. He did things to Whispers in that Tower. Secret things. Artjom didn’t know. People said he wanted to kill the strongest ones among them…us, all.”
Was it ‘them’ or ‘us’, I wondered? I needed to know more, but I had no chance to ask for details. Perdy whimpered, staring over my shoulder, wide-eyed. That close, I could tell she had no earthly smell and no real weight to her body, but her pupils dilated in fear just like any regular human.
Twisting, I rested my back to Perdy and finally faced Rareș and Cheșa. They were much closer than I expected, and moving much more quickly than I thought possible. For a bare moment, there was something white and golden and massive towering over the dark-clad Praedictor, but almost immediately the two clashed and a spray of warm blood shot onto my face and in my nose. I coughed and sputtered, tasting iron all the way down the back of my throat. Tears blurred my vision and mixed with the blood to create a ridiculous pink haze filtering over the dark scene.
I choked again and shook my head, but my eyes stung and refused to open properly.
“Perdy, what’s going on? I can’t see.”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell who’s more injured. They’ll kill me, either way. The smith, he’s stronger. His horn went straight through—”
“Horn?” I choked, spitting someone’s blood out of my lungs.
“He’s stomping at him, pushing him back. He’s so much bigger.”
I blinked hard, but it didn’t help. My eyes burned. I tried rubbing my left eye against my left shoulder, but it was just out of reach. “Damn it!”
“There’s so much blood. Cheșa is bleeding all over Rareș’ fur.”
I twisted back the way I’d been, with my head on her shoulder, and rubbed my face all over her side and back. It was uncomfortable, and she protested, but her light garments were enough to clean the dirt and blood from my eyes and give me some chance to see properly.
I rocked around as fast as I could, rolling over my sore wrist this time, not caring about the pain. It was as bad as she’d said, and worse.
There was no Rareș. Not really. The only things left of him were his scraggly red beard, his bald head, and his startling musculature. All of it rippled beneath immaculate white fur now, and his eyes shone gold and red like fires. He stood tall enough for me to pass under his four long, oddly jointed legs without much struggle, and on his head a massive set of gilded horns rose like branches. I almost thought, for a moment, they looked like elk horns – but where those would be flat and rounded, these all ended in vicious sharp points, many covered in gore and dripping blood. The monstrous stag with a human face made my stomach turn.
Behind him, several Pricolici skins lay abandoned in the grass, their wearers now shadowy tendrils keeping us tied. Under Rareș’ command, no less. I struggled against the shade that bound me, but while flexible, it was unbreakable.
Rareș shook, trying to free himself of Cheșa, who clung to the mane running down the back of his neck. One moment Rareș stood on his hind legs and resembled a giant version of a human being, the next he was on all fours and seemed an enormous elk. Then, when he crouched low to the ground and lunged up to shake his rider off, I realized what was odd about his joints. Though most of his appearance tried to suggest a large herbivore, really it was only a thin veneer over the body of a predator. His knees were back-jointed, like those of a feline, and his movements were no less supple and graceful. Whatever mien of herbivore he had was but a ruse.
A frustrated bellow escaped him, and the muscles on his back seemed to shudder and wriggle by a design of their own under his thick skin. Startled and revolted, Cheșa relaxed his grip and tumbled down to one side.
Rareș stomped on him, hard. The crack of Cheșa’s sternum made my vision go black for a moment. When he lifted his foreleg, however, Cheșa was there, gripping tightly again. I was petrified and couldn’t even decide who I was rooting for. It should have been Cheșa, every step of the way, but nothing was certain anymore.
Rareș brought him up to chest level, preparing to trample him into the ground. Cheșa’s clever little silver knife found its way between the bone and the tendon at the back of his hoof and shot out, cutting the vital tether. Rareș screamed in pain, somewhere between the roar of a waterfall and the moo of an ox. He stumbled backward, and the knife found another soft target right under his sternum. Holding on to it with both hands, Cheșa dragged downward, then collapsed to the ground like a broken doll that had finished unwinding.
Rareș fell next to him, sticky purple coils oozing out of the cut in his abdomen. For a moment, all was quiet.