Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (44 page)

“Oh, and boy?”

Scavenger looked up at this Burden. The boy’s mouth was set in a thin line.

“Don’t sleep in public places anymore. It’s not seemly.”

Scavenger clenched his teeth, but he couldn’t hold back the words. “Do you have a better idea?”

The boy raised his chin as if Scavenger had slapped him. “Excuse me?”

“I was wondering if you knew somewhere else I could sleep. No one seems to want Red Caps in their cabins.”

Burden shook his head slightly, as if he couldn’t believe what Scavenger had said. “We all build our homes, Cap. I suggest you do the same.”

“You have the help of Domestics. They won’t even talk to me.”

Burden shrugged. “Haven’t you a leader? Go talk to him.”

Scavenger stared at the boy for a moment, unable to believe what he had heard. Of course Red Caps did not have a leader. Foot Soldiers ordered Red Caps about, as did Warders, but no one organized them. Red Caps were forbidden by the Black King to organize. If more than two were seen together in a public place, they could be arrested, even killed.

“There’s no one,” Scavenger said. “If you don’t want me sleeping near your precious wood, I would suggest you talk to someone.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you should be more cautious about how you talk to your betters?”

Scavenger swallowed his first response. “I am in a dilemma, sir. You tell me not to sleep in public, but no one has helped me make a private place. You tell me to talk to the leader of my unit, but I have no unit and no leader. I simply want to do what you tell me.”

Burden shook his head. “I didn’t mean for this to be such a production,” he said. “Look, boy. Just sleep somewhere out of the way. Figure we need the wood and water.” He pointed to an empty gray patch near the very edge of the Shadowlands. “Sleep somewhere like that, a space no one will ever use.”

For a moment Scavenger pictured his hands wrapped around Burden’s neck, his little fingers choking the air from Burden’s lungs. But Burden was Infantry. He was trained to be strong, even if he had no magick. He would be able to overpower Scavenger in a moment, and then Scavenger would have to face the Warders or Rugar for punishment.

Scavenger tucked his pouches under his arm, grabbed his cloak, and stood. “Sorry, sir. I’m glad you told me what to do. I will move out of your way now. Thank you for the help.”

“Certainly,” Burden said. He turned his back on Scavenger and began lifting pieces of wood to carry them somewhere else.

Scavenger stood for a moment and watched the boy’s easy strength. Such grace, such confidence even though he was still Infantry. It was as if he knew he would get his magick someday.

And he would. Fey who grew tall and willowy grew into their magick. A Fey who stopped growing at child height, as Scavenger had, would never get magick at all.

But they all treated him as if his brain had stopped growing as well. And it hadn’t. The boy didn’t even recognize the sarcasm Scavenger had used in speaking to him. The boy probably thought Scavenger wasn’t capable of such an advanced way of speaking, just as the boy didn’t realize that Red Caps needed comfort too.

Scavenger sighed. He would go to the Domicile and see if he could beg some food from the Domestics. Then he would scout the Shadowlands for a new place to sleep.

FORTY-TWO

A full moon gave the woods a silvery glow. Theron led his party quietly down the path. Twenty fighters, even armed as heavily as they were with holy water, seemed hardly enough to take on the entire Fey army. Still, the plan made a lot of sense. If the Fey could be destroyed with a touch of the liquid, perhaps their secret hiding place could be destroyed as well.

He just hated being the leader of the team that launched the attack.

The group following him moved more silently than he’d expected they would. He had grown up in the woods—one of the reasons Monte had chosen him for the job—but except for his friends, the rest were city boys who had shown a particular aptitude for fighting. Theron hadn’t expected them to be so calm nor so quiet.

The full moon helped. The woods weren’t as dark as he had seen them. It was almost like daylight out there, a thin, silver daylight, but daylight just the same. The air smelled of pine and the Cardidas, which flowed a mile away. The rustling of animals had spooked the troop a few times, but he recognized the sounds. A deer rooting, a hawk hunting, a tsia baying for its mate.

It had rained just a bit as the force was setting out, and that, too, had been in their favor. Theron saw the prints of another person on the path, just ahead of them, and he knew that someone had been there before. The prints probably had no relation to the attack, but he couldn’t be too sure. He had warned the others to be prepared, that the Fey might have advance warning.

The goal, as Monte had explained it to him, was to get as much holy water through the Circle of Light as possible. If the attack force could get through that Circle as well, so much the better. What Monte hadn’t said—and hadn’t needed to say—was that the force probably would not come back.

The Fey were smart, Theron had to give them that. When Monte had described the location of the hiding place, it had not surprised Theron. In fact, it made him realize again just how smart they were. He knew the area. Most of the hovels had been abandoned years ago. One was owned by a childless couple who were probably elderly or dead by now. The only true cabin had been the site of a spectacular murder on the day of the invasion—the Fey obviously making plans that early for a base in the region.

The woods there were tamed, but empty of Islander life. Too close to Jahn for some, too far for others. No stream that fed off the Cardidas, and the Cardidas itself a bit wild at that point. No one had thought to start a village there. That part of the forest was too hard for conventional living.

Finally he reached the double oaks mentioned in Monte’s description. The sight of the two trees, their roots almost blocking the path, soothed him. When he had seen Monte read the instructions off a sheet, he had wondered how many hands the instructions had gone through. Theron was terrified they would find themselves in the woods completely lost, advantage lost, and the Fey finally warned of their arrival.

The slaughter would be horrible.

The slaughter was always horrible when the Fey had the element of surprise. They killed quickly, ruthlessly, and viciously. A party of twenty would be dead even before the leader had realized the Fey were nearby.

Theron stopped at the double oaks and put a finger to his lips. The others stopped too. He could barely make out the faces in the weird silver light: Kondros, Matio, and Adrian, Theron’s friends since they were boys; Bendre, Cyta, and Lysis, the only volunteers for this campaign; Ure, Surl, and Ort, members of the King’s guard; and the others, stretching back into the dark. They all watched him silently. He couldn’t even hear their breathing.

He pointed toward the Cardidas. They had all known that they would leave the path eventually. He waited until they were together before showing them the way they would have to go. Theron put a finger to his lips and slipped off the path.

The ground was damp from the rain, and the air had an earthy smell. The landmarks were as Monte had told him: a large rock to the left, a slender deer trail through the weeds, a dead tree pale and thin in the moonlight. When Theron reached the spot where the Circle of Light should be, he stopped again. Monte had not mentioned the most obvious landmark of all.

A circle in the ground large enough to fit several people inside comfortably. There was no fire hole inside the circle, nor did there appear to be any trampled grass. The circle itself was made of dirt. Grass poked through, as did tiny flowers. This circle stood in the middle of the clearing where Monte had said they would find a Circle of Light in the air.

The hair stood up on the back of Theron’s neck. He hated changes and misinformation. It made him nervous. If Monte hadn’t made it clear that this plan was the King’s, Theron would have stopped right there and turned the troop around.

The moonlight in the Ground Circle seemed brighter than anywhere else in the forest. It was almost as if someone had taken a lamp and hung it from a tree so that the light would spill into that one patch of ground. But there were no tree branches above it.

Theron swallowed. He scanned for the Circle of Light, wondering how he would see it in the bright moonlight. The sky was an odd blue-gray there, also tainted by the moon.

No animals rustled. The troop was alone in the woods.

A hand grabbed his shoulder, and it took all of Theron’s discipline to keep from crying out. He glanced over. Kondros, his round face clearly visible in the light, then nodded toward the clearing. Theron shook his head. Kondros pointed. Theron followed the direction indicated by Kondros’s finger.

There, just above the circle on the ground, was a matching circle in the air. Only this circle was composed of flickering lights. He stared at the lights, thinking they were somehow familiar. Then he realized they mimicked the will-o’-the-wisps he had seen near the Daisy Stream at night when he’d been a boy. But they weren’t will-o’-the-wisps. They had a regular pulse and a different shape. He almost believed that if he touched one, it would speak to him.

Kondros’s grip remained tight on Theron’s shoulder. Theron had taken a step into the clearing without realizing it. He glanced at his friend.

The Circle was bigger than he expected. They would have no trouble going through it.

Theron put his hand on Kondros’s. Kondros nodded and let go. Theron turned to the group and help up three fingers. The gesture was repeated by the men in the front so that the men in the back could see.

He was thankful he had described four different plans with them. The third was the most cautious method of attack.

The group fanned out around the clearing, staying away from the Circle itself. The first squad of four—Cyta, Adrian, Ort, and a young recruit named Luke, whom Theron suspected to be too young even to serve with the guards—opened the pouches on their hips and pulled out the holy water. Someone in the guard unit a few months back had modified the containers. Instead of the religious vials, the men now carried goat bladders with spouts on the top: a quick squeeze, and water streamed from the spouts. In this new form the water had twice the distance of a splash tossed from a bottle. A fighter could actually aim the spout, squeeze the bladder, and shoot an arc of liquid two body lengths with accuracy. The containers created a new weapon, one that kept the fighters away from the Fey and their strange powers.

The remaining group placed their already tainted arrows into bows, waiting for Fey to appear. They stood in firing position around the edge of the clearing, knowing that they would have to be vigilant.

Theron tensed. He was the only one who had not drawn his bow. Instead, he clutched a knife and his own container of holy water. The others could shoot. If he saw a Fey, he would kill it with his own two hands.

The four leads crouched as they crossed the clearing. Cyta was the small unit’s leader. He paused with a movement of his hand when they reached the outside of the drawn circle. Then he shot a bit of holy water inside. Nothing screamed, and nothing disappeared. The light remained bright, the clearing empty.

Cyta stepped over the dirt line. His skin turned silver in the light. Adrian followed, as did Ort. Luke hesitated before stepping across. He was the only one who looked back to see if someone—or something—was behind him.

Theron’s grip on his water container tightened. His entire being was on alert. Kondros’s breathing suddenly seemed very loud. The faint shuffling of feet, the slight movements the other men made, put Theron’s nerves on edge.

Cyta walked toward the Circle of Light. His expression was rapt. He held his container before him like a shield. His three companions followed. Cyta stopped in front of the flickering Circle. Slowly he put his free hand forward. It went past the lights and looked as if it were eaten by blackness. Then his entire body shook, and he flew backward, landing outside the circle on the ground, and near the trees.