Dandelion Fire (31 page)

“They cannot reach Hylfing quickly,” Roland said. “They can be stopped.”

Frank puffed out his cheeks and crossed his arms. “They have opened the old ways, you nit. They reached Badon Hill quickly.”

Roland scowled at Frank and then turned to Mon-mouth. “Why are we to trust you? You helped to capture the boy beside you and assisted in the deaths of our brother-faeren.”

“If Mordecai once overthrew Nimiane, then I wanted to find his son and help him,” Monmouth said. “Help him do it again.”

Henry's mouth went dry. His throat tightened. Mon-mouth's gray eyes were staring right through him. “I can't do that,” Henry said. “I just need to get to Hylfing and meet my family. That's where they were going. I need to get them out of there.”

The fat faerie raised his eyebrows and looked around at the other four faeries.

“And so we came here,” Frank said. “To the closest hall of faeren. He's nothing next to Mordecai, but he's his son, and the witch and wizards are after him. We owe him some abetment.”

“That's for the committee to decide,” Roland said quietly. “Mordecai abandoned us, and a notice has been issued on him.” He nodded at Henry. “We can't just ignore that, even if we are on some forsaken outpost. The notice must be officially waived in committee after appropriate appeal. Or other action will be taken. The
committee will decide. We'll send him back to the Central Hall. Radulf can hear you.”

“Radulf,” Frank said loudly, “is a one-toed sloth. The union code is clear on pauper sons and green men. The pauper sons formed the union in the first place. Ralph Radulf will drag things out, table motions, move to recess, and then just bury him alive in some hill somewhere for further deliberation!” The fat faerie's voice rose even further. He stood on his toes. “Endor wakes, Roland! Nimiane, daughter of Nimroth and every other ancient life-sucking death-demon, is looking for him, Roland! She sends her wizards to Hylfing now, Roland! Let's do more than call the committee!”

The fat faerie dropped back to his heels, sputtered his lips, and waved his hands above his head. Finally, he stuck out his tongue and was quiet.

Roland chewed his lower lip and then rubbed his freckled nose. “You may be right, Franklin, but I'm the one who'll have my hair sheared for a mistake. That one,” he pointed at Monmouth, “is free to go, so long as he doesn't return to the wizards. But the WC is off to Central. You and I will escort. Loam here will act in my absence.”

“You mean drink and play cards in your absence,” Frank muttered. Loam smiled. “Well,” he continued, “if we must, we must. Fix the door, then.”

“I'm coming as well,” Monmouth said. He looked at Henry. Roland shrugged.

* * *

Henry hadn't seen the buckets behind the table. He didn't know how many more there were, but Roland pulled out two. They were battered and rusty, and he set both of them on the table. One was full of black dirt, the other of water.

Singing quietly under his breath, Roland cupped his hands in the water, turned to the stick door frame, and dribbled it down over the lintel. Filling his hands again, he rubbed the water first on one post and then the other. When that was done, he filled his hands with black earth from the second bucket and nodded at Frank.

“Turn them around,” he said.

Frank couldn't turn them around, not kneeling side by side in the doorway. So he pulled them both into the room and had them stand.

Henry creaked gratefully to his feet. His toes throbbed as blood rushed back into them. Inside, they both turned their backs to Roland and examined the mud sculptures around the entrance. Just above it, Henry recognized the man from the seals on his letters and from the tomb on Badon Hill. This time, his beard and eyes and crawling vines were all crudely formed with mud. It was still unnerving.

“Right,” Roland said. “Lead them backward. Loam, scrape the door clean when we've gone.”

Someone pulled Henry's backpack. Another hand gripped his arm. He was led around one side of the table, Monmouth around the other.

Monmouth was held back. Henry was being taken first.

Henry watched Loam holding Monmouth tight, making certain that he did not turn his head.

He stepped backward into the smell of roots and compost. Utter blackness surrounded him, carried by a warm underground wind. His mind slipped away, back to Kansas, behind the barn. He was watching the storm roll in, watching dandelions sprout up around him, watching their fire and listening to the stories in their names. He was on Badon Hill, smelling trees and moss and sharp sea air. He was falling off a building in Byzanthamum.

Henry opened his eyes. Light flicked from somewhere behind him. He blinked, but could see nothing. Darius was in this world, going where he was trying to go. He put his hand to his stomach. He could feel the sealed-up lines even through his shirt. He did not want to see Darius again.

“Roland?” a voice asked. “Fat Franklin? What are you doing? Who are they?”

“They are pauper sons, both green,” Frank said. “We've brought them because they need our help.”

Roland cleared his throat. “The Central Committee needs to assemble. I didn't know what to do with them.”

A hard, acidic voice rattled in Henry's ears. “Who are you, Roland, to summon the committee?”

And another. “Since when do provincials summon anything?”

“Misters Braithwait and Radulf, sirs,” Roland said quickly. “I apologize. But there was a notice—”

“Since,” Frank's voice rang out loudly, “the before-unknown seventh son of Mordecai arrives, pushed before a storm of darkness. Nimiane of Endor, once entombed, sits in Carnassus's seat.”

“Yes,” the first voice said, “we have been informed. But she seeks no quarrel with us. This boy, the small one, a notice has been issued, has it not? Is he not the Whimpering Child who disturbed and unearthed and dusted off this old evil before releasing it? Hold him in a lower borough. Hold them both. We will deal with them in time. The committee is slated to meet at week's end.”

Hands grabbed Henry from all sides. He tried to struggle, but strange speech slid into his ears, and his legs went limp. He fell, but did not reach the ground. Small shoulders were propped beneath his arms. He was being carried. Half of him at least. His knees dragged on the ground behind him.

“Week's end!” he heard Frank yell. “Do you hear that, Roland? Good we have taken action! The elder faeren will sit in committee by week's end. The relief is overpowering. I wonder the witch-queen hasn't surrendered herself already! I hope we have room for her on the agenda!”

The voice died as Henry was dragged gradually down through the tunnels. His eyes were foggy and unfocused. No matter how much he blinked, he could see nothing more than the occasional smudge of light around him.

He heard a door open, and he was thrown inside.
Shortly after, a body landed on top of him, and the door slammed.

“Monmouth?” Henry asked.

The body grunted.

Henrietta, though tired beyond her experience, had not fallen asleep easily. The lumpiness of the ground and coarseness of her cloak-blanket would not have bothered her. The lumpiness in her mind was the problem. Caleb had refused to answer any of her questions. He had merely smiled at her and promised to answer her in the saddle tomorrow.

But she hadn't been able to stop asking herself the questions tonight. Even when she did fall asleep, she didn't think she had. Her dreaming mind asked as many questions as her mind awake. The only difference was that it imagined answers.

Caleb was her uncle. This was her father's world. She was traveling to meet a grandmother that she had never heard anything about. Caleb had only said that she was happy, but not well.

Did she have cousins? How many? What were they like? Would she hate them? Would they hate her? Would she ever see Kansas again? Could she learn to keep hawks? What had her grandfather done to FitzFaeren? Was Eli really evil?

And there was the witch. Would her new world even survive? Had she helped destroy it before she'd ever seen it?

She was sitting on a tall horse, not as heavy as Caleb's, cloaked in gray, holding a horn bow, smiling down at Henry and Anastasia and Penelope and Richard. And Zeke. Then she woke with a jerk.

Caleb was lifting her body. He laid her on the log. She teetered and sat up.

“Stay there,” he said, and he turned and ran.

The sky was gray, dully anticipating the dawn, and men were yelling. Horses neighed and stamped.

Not far from her, a dappled mare lay on its side, dead. Its eyes were rolled back in its head and a clot of dried blood hung from one nostril.

“Caleb?” she yelled. “What's happening?”

Then she noticed the tall grass all around her. It had curled. Even in the dim light, she could see that leaves on the trees were mottled and dry.

She stood up, holding the cloak tightly around her shoulders. Hooves pounded, and Caleb came roaring toward her, running beside his great chestnut. As he approached, he kicked off the ground and swung onto the horse's back. He had no saddle, it was on the ground near Henrietta's feet, and no bridle to speak of. On the horse's hooves came the black dog. The horse stamped and puffed beside her, and Caleb reached down, gripped her forearm, and pulled her awkwardly up in front of him.

“Leave the tack!” Caleb yelled. “Weapons only!”

Other horses and riders were already galloping away, down the gentle slope toward a break in the trees. Caleb
clicked his tongue, the chestnut crouched its rear legs and sprang forward. Henrietta had thought it was going to rear and shake them off, but instead, they were pounding down the hill, Caleb's hand pressing her head down as they tore through branches and then leapt a stream.

The birds were screaming in the air, and the enormous black dog passed them and rushed ahead, leaping logs before they did.

There was no talking above the drumming of the heavy horse hooves and the snapping of its hocks ripping through grass and brush. Caleb held her tight with one arm as the horse puffed like a train between her legs. Other riders were stopped ahead. The dog rushed into them and then backed out, nosing in circles through the grass. It pawed a dead quail, then nosed another small animal, a rabbit or gopher of some sort.

Caleb somehow brought his horse up. Turning sideways and pawing at the ground, it stopped as two more riders joined the group. Behind one of them was tied a body wrapped in blankets. The other led a horse on a lead. On it were two more bodies.

When the horsemen had all gathered, Caleb spoke.

“We will eat as we go. Forgive me, all of you. We should have pressed on through the night, but I did not fully understand the danger. It would have been better for the horses to collapse beneath us than to lose those three.” He nodded at the bodies. “Pray for them as we ride. I hate to think of their strength poured into the
enemy.” The chestnut turned, stamping. “We push hard, but if the mounts die, they must do so beyond the doorway.”

The men nodded and turned their own horses. Some were saddled, some were bare. The horses' eyes were all wide, and their nostrils flared broader than Henrietta's fist. The men's faces were as hard as stone.

Caleb clicked his tongue again, and the horse gathered itself and galloped toward a break in the trees, this time not as quickly. A black shape crept into Henrietta's vision, and she looked down to see the dog running beside them.

“How did they die?” she asked. She had to yell to be heard, and her throat was tight.

They leapt a log and a smaller stream, and Henrietta's face bounced off the horse's neck. She would have fallen had Caleb held less tightly.

His voice was calm. “They and the horse drank from the stream. Two of the birds fell as well.”

This did not clear things up for Henrietta. All the horses had drunk from the stream the night before. She'd been given water from it as well. “How is this happening?”

“Sorcery,” Caleb said. “The wizards' new mistress has begun in earnest, and we are caught too far north. If the horses are slow, some of us may die before the sun sets.”

“Are they behind us?”

“Not yet. But soon. Tomorrow, maybe, or in a few hours. And it is not likely that they will be behind us.
They will be in front of us, in the hills around my city.” She heard Caleb blow out a long breath. “She is much stronger than I had hoped. Her draught flows through the ground and through watercourses. The weakest things have already given up the struggle and faded. The stronger leave, or they will die as well. We will not touch any water until the world grows green again.”

Henrietta remembered the night before. “Is Eli coming with us?”

“He made his decision. He cloaked himself and fled in the night on a stolen horse, ever afraid that death may overtake him. That is still a terrible thing in his mind.”

“Aren't you afraid of dying?” Henrietta asked. She knew she was.

“I have ridden with death, and walked beside it. Some say I have sought it. The search would not have been difficult, but I look for the death of my enemies first. That is much harder to find.”

After a moment, Caleb continued. “When I am called, I will go. But that call has not yet come.”