Summerkin (17 page)

And overhead, the first gray smudges of dawn appeared in the sky.

It was time. Fer stepped out of Twig's and Fray's embrace and cocked her head, listening to her land. From the other Way, down a path and past the Lady Tree, she felt a shudder. Now that dawn was breaking, Arenthiel and Gnar and Lich and the other Lords and Ladies of the hunt were battering through that other Way. Then came a shuddering in the ground under her feet.

“Be ready!” Fer shouted. “They are coming!”

Twenty-four

Arenthiel and his hunt thundered into the clearing, scattering Fer's people. The sun had just leaped into the sky, and in its light the hunt was blindingly tall and golden, and they were armed not just with spears but with their glamories and their power to rule. Arenthiel was at their front, riding his tall golden horse. Blood dripped from slashes on its side—he'd spurred it hard during his hunt. Right behind him rode Gnar on her dragon-mount, carrying a spear, and Lich on his fish-goat, with his long bow drawn. A few other Lords and Ladies were ranked behind them.

Fer's people gathered to face them. Through the bond of her kinship with them, Fer could feel their terror and awe at the glamorie ranged against them. Fray and the other wolf-guards bared their teeth; the rest, weaponless, stood ready to fight. Around the edge of the clearing, tall and treelike and short and stumplike, were the deep-forest kin, standing still and silent.

And
, ready to fight alongside her people were the pucks, some in their dog shapes, some as horses, all of them flaming with fierceness. It was right that the pucks were here. They were the ones who knew best how to live without
rule
.

Bows were being drawn; spears were being lowered—the hunt was about to begin.

“Stop!” Fer shouted. Her people made a path for her, and she strode to the front and into the space between her people and Arenthiel and his hunters.

From the lofty heights of his horse, Arenthiel, as beautiful and perfect as ever, looked down at her and gave a careless-sounding laugh. “Well, little
human
,” he said. “You had your chance to ally with me, and you failed to take it.” His voice sharpened. “Instead, you joined those thieving pucks. So now it falls to us to deal with them as we see fit, and then we will deal with you, and your land will be mine. You have no power to stop us.” He pointed at the Way, which shone like a golden mirror in the blazing sunrise. “There is your Way, Gwynnefar. Flee to the human world, where you belong.”

Staring up at him, Fer felt something strange welling up in her. It was anger—fury that curled her toes and made her eyes blaze and made her hair feel like it was standing up on end. Her bees' buzzing grew loud as a roar behind her words as she spoke them. “How dare you,” she said, her voice shaking. “All of you.” She pointed at Gnar and Lich and the rest of the Lords and Ladies. “This land and its people will never be ruled by anyone. And definitely”—she pointed straight at Arenthiel—“not by you.”

She was bound to this land and its people, and she would show Arenthiel what that really meant. She waved her hand and her bees swarmed around her, buzzing furiously. She stamped her foot and the ground trembled. The deep-forest kin at the edge of the clearing swayed like trees in a growing wind. “How dare you come into my land, threatening my people,” she shouted.

“We shall see about that, false Lady.” Arenthiel gave a sharp gesture and his Lords and Ladies surged forward. Arrows flew; spears were lowered.

From all around her came snarls and shouts as her people responded, leaping to meet Arenthiel's hunt.

“Phouka!” she called, ducking an arrow that sizzled past just over her head. The horse kicked out with a forehoof, sending a Lady flying from the saddle of her goat-mount, and dashed across the clearing to her. “Watch Rook!” she shouted at the horse. “Don't let anybody hurt him.”

Phouka snorted and, shouldering aside a charging Lord, trotted to the edge of the Way, where he stood over sleeping Rook, all four hooves planted, immovable.

In the clearing, arrows zipped past. A puck shifted in midleap, turning into a huge dog that carried a Lord off his mount and onto the ground. A clot of bees zoomed after a shrieking Lady. There were screams and shouts. The hunt's spears flashed in the sunlight.

Fer stepped farther into the clearing. “I've had just about enough of this,” she murmured to herself. Under her feet she felt her land trembling. But not with fear. It was
waiting
. Waiting for her to call it forward, to join the fight.

“Lady, look out!” she heard Fray shout. Turning, she saw Arenthiel on his tall horse, charging toward her, drawing a long knife from his belt as he came.

She stood firm. The power in her land flowed up through her feet and legs, filling her whole body. She would
not
let them spill blood here.

The deep-forest kin were waiting; she could feel their roots trembling with anticipation. She nodded to them.
Now
. All over the clearing their roots exploded from the ground. Like whips they cracked through the air, sweeping Lords and Ladies off their mounts. She flicked a finger and grass grew up over the legs of their horses and goats and stags, bringing them to a snorting, wide-eyed standstill. More roots erupted from the dirt, looping themselves around Gnar and Lich, dragging them down to the ground.

A few Lords and Ladies squirmed out of the roots' hold and tried to flee; the deep-forest kin caught them in their branchlike arms, holding them more tightly the harder they fought to get away.

Silence fell. The bees returned to her, hovering over her head. Her own people and the pucks backed away from the root-imprisoned enemy.

Arenthiel pried himself up from the ground, kicking his feet free of the grass that caught at him, slashing at the roots with his knife. Her bees buzzed a warning as he paced toward her. His tawny beauty was smudged with dirt, but his eyes glittered golden and keen. “I have waited long enough for my time,” he panted. “I am far more suited to rule this land than you are.”

“Don't listen to him, Lady,” shouted one of the pucks. The leader-puck, she thought it was. “He's rotten to the core—we can see it!”

“Curst pucks,” Arenthiel hissed. “As soon as I am done with you, Gwynnefar, I will deal with them.” Roots oozed up over his feet, and he kicked free of them and lurched toward her again.

She let him come, though she felt the land quivering, wanting to seize him. “I am the Lady of this land.”

“You are a part-human interloper, and no Lady,” he said, crouching, getting ready to spring.

“I know what I am,” she said more quietly. She steadied herself and reached into the land.

As Arenthiel leaped toward her, raising the knife to strike, the ground opened under his feet. Down he sank, struggling wildly as tiny grass roots crawled over his skin and dirt surged up like a wave, until he was sunk into the ground up to his neck and covered with grass, all but his wide, golden eyes and his wide, gasping mouth. He struggled, but the land held him fast.

Fer went to crouch beside his head. Her anger evaporated, just like dew on a hot summer morning. She rested her fingers over where his ears were, and the grass pulled aside, so he could hear. “I know you stole the crown and that you planned to steal my land,” she said calmly to his grass-covered face. “You've failed.” She considered what she wanted to do with him. Not death. She couldn't stain the land with his blood. Hmm. “I think I want you to do two things,” she said.

Arenthiel spat dirt from his mouth. His eyes narrowed. He started to hiss out a curse at her, and the grass crawled up over his face and snapped his mouth closed.

“Don't say anything,” Fer said firmly.

The golden eyes glared at her. She pulled the seeing-stone out of her patch-jacket pocket and stared into his eyes, and now that she knew what to look for she could see past their beauty, deeper and deeper, and then she saw that the pucks were right—way down in there was something very, very old, akin to the High Ones, but also not like them at all, something using the shell of a beautiful body to do ugly, rotten things. The old thing in there resisted. She pushed back. This was a land of green, of long summer days, of fresh life. That rotten core didn't have any place here.

The resistance in his eyes shriveled.

Fer put the seeing-stone back into her jacket pocket. She tapped Arenthiel's mouth, and the grass let him catch a gasping breath. “I want you to swear to end the hunt and never hunt the pucks again,” she said.

Silence. Then, in a cracked, ancient voice, he said, “I will never hunt again.”

“Louder,” Fer ordered.

He coughed out a clot of dirt. “I will never hunt again,” he said. “Once, twice, three times I swear it.”

“Thank you,” Fer said, getting to her feet. She walked over the quivering ground to where Lich and Gnar were wrapped in roots and held by branches.

“Well, Strange One,” Gnar said, still fiery, even with gnarled roots pinning her to the ground.

“She's a Lady,” Lich gasped. One of the deep-forest kin held him in a tight embrace; he looked half squashed.

“Lady Strange One, then,” Gnar said.

Fer sighed. She'd hoped maybe Lich and Gnar would be friends, but they weren't. “I'm not sure what to do with you,” she told them.

“We know we shouldn't have listened to him.” Gnar pointed with her sharp chin toward where Arenthiel's grassy head poked up out of the ground. “But we didn't know what you were up to.”

She really was strange to them, Fer realized. She'd helped them once before, but helping, she realized, was not something they understood. Well then, they'd have to learn. “You are free,” she told them. “The land will let you go if you'll swear to take off your glamories.” She fixed them with something she hoped was a Ladylike glare. Then she spread the glare around, to include all the Lords and Ladies in the clearing. “You will
all
swear to take off your glamories. And you're all going to go back to your own lands and instead of ruling, you're going to figure out how to help the people who live there. Got it?”

“I swear it!” Gnar said, grinning. She ripped her arm loose of the ground and with her other hand started scrabbling at the sparkling web of glamorie that covered her. As it peeled off, the roots released her, and she staggered to her feet, shivering. She ripped off the last of the glamorie and dropped it to the grass. The ground opened where it landed and swallowed the glamorie up. Lich did the same, shivering as he tore the glamorie from his skin and dropped it to the ground.

The rest of the Lords and Ladies struggled free of their bindings and knelt on the grass. “We promise to remove the glamories,” they swore, a binding oath. To break it would be to break their bonds with all the lands and their people. Several of them were weeping, and they were all pale and shaking.

“What about him?” Lich asked, pointing at Arenthiel's grass-covered head.

Right. Him. Fer went back and crouched beside him. “Two things, I said,” she reminded him. “The second thing I want you to do is to go away from this land in peace. Will you swear to do that?”

“I swear it,” he croaked, utterly defeated.

“Good.” Fer waved her hand and the ground spat out Arenthiel; he landed in a dirty heap on the grass. He creaked to his feet. His golden skin sagged from his bones; his hair was caked with dirt, his eyes were dull. He looked around the clearing at the wreckage of his hunt; he looked down at himself and saw his perfection destroyed, and slowly, like a tree falling, he toppled over and lay facedown on the ground, unmoving.

Fer frowned. Was he injured? She went to him and pulled him over so she could see his face.

“Careful, Lady,” Fray called.

“It's all right,” Fer murmured. Arenthiel wasn't going to hurt her; not now. His skin had wrinkled and cracked; his eyes had sunken deep into his skull; even his hair had thinned and turned brittle.

Fer waved her hand, calling the bees. They hovered in front of her face. “Keep an eye on them,” she said, and pointed at the Lords and Ladies. Then she turned to her own people. “Fray,” she called.

The young wolf-guard stepped forward. “Yes, Fer-Lady!” she answered.

Fer grinned up at her; she grinned back. “I need some boiling water.”

“Righty-o,” Fray said.

Twig stepped up beside Fray and folded her arms just like the bigger wolf-guard. “What can I do, Lady?”

“I'll need rags for bandages too, and plenty of honey.” Some of her people and the pucks had been injured in the brief battle—she had to get to work on them as soon as she could.

Her people leaped into action, racing to build fires and off to the Lady Tree for other supplies.

Fer reached into the pocket of her patch-jacket, pulling out the leather pouch that Rook had brought to her. She knew what she'd find inside. Herbs from Grand-Jane. There was lavender and valerian and mullein in labeled cloth bags. These were healing herbs; they were even more powerful on this side of the Way. She found a small jar of lavender honey, too, and an elderberry tincture, and there was even a little mortar and pestle wrapped in a cloth. It was exactly what she needed. Just like Grand-Jane, to think of everything.

With sure hands, Fer tipped herbs into the mortar. She looked up. More of her people and the Lords and Ladies gathered around; the pucks did too, keeping their distance. The leader-puck edged closer. “Our pup will be all right?” he asked. Rook, he meant.