Chapter Four

Coryfe picked his way through the trees like a child picking their way through a meal. I could not blame him. The floor was thick with undergrowth that hid hazardous roots and dips, and every now and again, an unexpected explosion of brethren folk would be unsettled by our passage. He had almost shied twice now at such an occurrence; once when little sprites that had exploded from a bush he had brushed against, their gossamer dragon-fly wings whipping against us as they passed, and the second time when a scurry of fur-clad beings I did not get a good look at had raced across our path, pursued by a fox that stopped and looked at us with too wise, unafraid blue eyes.

Rivyn was less patient. “Have you never ridden this horse across anything other than a road or field?” He demanded, reaching around to claim the reins from me. I held them out of his reach, and he blew out a frustrated breath.

“He isn’t my horse, he is my father’s,” I replied. “How is it that your magic was stolen?”

“None of your business.”

“You made it my business when you stole me,” I pointed out.

He considered that. “I angered the wrong person, and this is my punishment,” he replied after a long moment. It sounded like a Fae punishment, I thought. I wondered who he had angered and how.

“I’m sorry,” I was. His misfortune had resulted in my predicament. “So, what do you need to do to reclaim it?”

“I need to rebuild enough magic to destroy the artifact in which my power has been trapped,” he said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“And how do you rebuild magic?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“And you don’t provide enough answers.” I peeked into my bag at the fairy man. He was asleep. “Where were you headed when I found you?”

“I wasn’t,” he shifted on the saddle, bringing his thighs closer to mine. I felt the heat crawl through me and hoped I had not reddened in a way that he would notice. “I was escaping from somewhere. But I do have another book I need to retrieve.”

“Can you cast another flashy portal and send us back to where we were?” I wondered. 

“Why would I want to do that?” He was confused by the question.

“To return me to where you stole me from?” I suggested. “This has been an interesting adventure, but I’d like to return to my journey, now, please.”

“I need you,” he replied. “I cannot return you.”

“Why do you need me?” I glanced over my shoulder at him, frowning.

“Well, you have a horse, for starters,” he pointed out, his beautiful face amused by my presumption that he would return me now that he had stolen me.

“You can’t just go around stealing people for their horses.”

“I’m considering it borrowing,” he said barely suppressing his laughter. A sharp retort was on my lips when he stiffened against me. “Smoke,” he pointed above the trees, distracting me. “Do you see?”

“Yes,” I could see it, just, above the foliage. “We should be cautious,” I told him, stopping Coryfe and sliding from the saddle. “Not all who light fires are of mankind.”

“True,” he dismounted with athletic grace, landing lightly and tossing back his dark hair. “But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Either way, they might know where we are.”

“I’ll go look.”

“Why you?”

I shot him a look. “You have never hunted.”

“I have,” he scowled. “Frequently, in fact.”

“Not on foot,” I observed. “Or you’d be able to move through the forest quieter. You are like a...”

“Like a what?” he arched a brow.

I did not have an example that I would dare give – none of them were complimentary. “You aren’t quiet.”

“I can be quiet,” he was offended.

“Fine,” I retorted. “You go and see what’s ahead.” I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Fine, I will,” he strode off in the direction of the smoke, his long legs eating up the distance swiftly. For a while, I could make out the midnight blue of his cloak and the darkness of his hair through the foliage, and then he stepped between two trees and went beyond my sight.

I could hear him however, the crack of twigs underfoot, the rustle of dead leaves, and a curse word drifted back. I smothered a laugh, imagining that he had tripped on a root, or his cloak had become snagged on a branch. Where-ever he had come from, despite his proclamations otherwise, he quite clearly had not spent his time in the forest hunting.

A city, I thought, from the soles of his boots and his manner. Somewhere sophisticated and urbane. He was muscular and strong, but his palms were not heavily calloused, and his mannerisms were of someone of wealth and superiority.

I looked at Coryfe. “I could just...” I could just ride away, abandoning the mage to his quest. But I sighed. The mage was right. He needed me. I had never been needed before and it had appeal that to him I was useful rather than a burden.

I made myself comfortable and ate an apple whilst I waited. The fairy man crawled out of my bag and sat, holding on to the strap, with the air of someone as bored as I was, biding time waiting for the mage’s return. “What do you think?” I asked him. “Have we given him long enough to get into trouble?”

The fairy man responded and slid back into the bag. “I agree,” I told him, and tied Coryfe to a branch. “I’ll be back soon,” I told the horse, and began to weave my way through the trees towards the origins of the smoke.

After a few minutes, I could smell the smoke of the fire, and shortly after, I could hear the crackle of the flames. I crept forward with caution, trying not to make any noise that would give me away. I could not hear the rise and fall of voices, or the sounds of a horse shifting beneath its tack. Just the crackle of the fire.

It was too quiet.

I put my back to a tree and peered around its trunk into a small clearing. The leaf matter had been crunched down, flattened by something heavy, I thought. But there were no signs of horses, or mankind. No wagon, no tent. No packs, or bedrolls. Just the flattened area and the large fire, ringed by sizable rocks.

Rivyn and a faun were bound up on the ground next to the fire. I met the mage’s eyes as I peered around the tree. His heavy brows rose as he tried to communicate with me. I rolled my eyes back at him.

I heard it before I saw it, lumbering through the undergrowth. Something big, I thought. It explained the crushed leaf matter. Sure enough, through the scrubby bushes, an ogre appeared. I had never seen one, but nothing else could be so similar to man and yet also so large. He made Rivyn seem dainty by comparison.

He was dragging a large cauldron behind him, sloshing water.

He was preparing to cook himself a meal, I thought, grimly, and Rivyn was on the menu. The mage was entirely too much trouble.

The ogre’s efforts had left sweat in rings beneath the arms of his threadbare, homespun tunic, and beaded on his forehead. Unlike the hearth tales, his skin was not green, nor his pate bald. He had a head of red ringlets that, cleaned and groomed, would not have looked out of place on the head of a village girl going to the fair. His brow was heavy, his jaw under bitten and strong, and his nose was flattened by comparison, the bridge wide.

He began adjusting the fire and placed the cauldron over the coals with a grunt of effort, before turning to his trussed captives, his expression thoughtful. Stewed mage, or stewed faun, I imagined him thinking, or both? I wondered if he intended to cook Rivyn fully dressed, and whether his spell components would add flavour, or detract from it.

What to do, what to do, I thought fretfully. Would an arrow do enough damage to prevent Rivyn’s hot bath? I would need to aim for an eye, I decided, stringing my bow carefully and drawing an arrow. If my shot was true and there was enough power behind the arrow, it might pierce through the skull and kill the ogre. If my shot were not true, I would find myself next to Rivyn in the cauldron.

The little fairy man crawled up to my shoulder and clung to my ear. He began to hum the refrain of a lullaby.

“Sing?” I whispered.

He began to sing it louder, at the top of his little volume, I suspected. Shoot my arrow, or follow the directions of my fairy? The hearth tales would have me do the latter. The fairy man had no reason to mean me ill, and I had rescued him, so perhaps he had reason to aid me.

“I’m going to die,” I murmured under my breath, but obediently began to sing along.

The ogre paused and cocked his head. To my surprise, he did not come crashing through the undergrowth in search of the singer, but instead he yawned widely. I wound my way through the lullaby and began again. He sat down heavily, his eyes growing heavy. I repeated the song, and he began to snore. The fourth time I sang just to be sure, and then crept across the clearing to where Rivyn was tied. He was awake, frowning at me. The faun was asleep but woke when I cut his bindings.

We tiptoed away.

“Where did that come from?” Rivyn asked me once we were clear, and the ogre’s snores were faint in the distance.

“Shh,” I hissed at him. “You’ll wake him.”

“Oh, no, he’ll sleep for hours, between the lullaby and dragging that cauldron around,” he dismissed my concerns. “And wake hungry and grumpy, no doubt.”

The faun caught my hand and pressed it to his lips, speaking rapidly, his unusually boned but handsome face animated. His golden eyes with their rectangular pupils sat oddly in such an almost mankind face. I could not look away, but I also could not understand his words. He presented me with a set of pipes, placing them into my hands, and closing my fingers around them.

“He’s giving you his pipes in gratitude for saving him,” Rivyn supplied.

“Oh, thank you,” I was baffled. “That’s unnecessary.”

Rivyn said something to him. The faun bowed low to him, almost scraping the ground with his horns, and then retreated, disappearing into the trees, leaving me holding the pipes.

“You should keep the pipes,” Rivyn told me. “If you play them, any faun within hearing distance will come to your aid. It might be useful one day.”

“Oh, I feel bad. He didn’t need to give them to me,” I put them into my bag.

“He’ll make another set,” Rivyn was unbothered.

We had reached Coryfe and he untied him before mounting. Rivyn put my quiver and bow over his shoulder before holding his hand out to me. He lifted me easily, putting his arms around me to hold the reins, and urged Coryfe onwards. The fairy man chattered at him from my shoulder.

“I know,” Rivyn replied to him. “But I don’t think she does.”

“What don’t I know?” I asked.

“Never mind,” he said airily. “Well, that was an interesting adventure. Next time, you can go investigate.”

I laughed.

As we made our way through the trees, I considered his question. “I don’t know where that came from,” I told him. “My fairy told me to sing a lullaby, so I did.”

“Do odd things happen when you sing?” he asked.

“I don’t tend to sing,” I was not sure why.

“Hmm,” he murmured. “I wonder why that is.”

“Maybe because I can’t sing,” I replied, frowning. I could not remember who had told me that, but someone had.

“Well, obviously you can,” he pointed out.

“But not well.”

“We should cross the stream, so the ogre loses our scent,” he suggested, changing the subject. “And have a drink. I don’t know about you, but I could use one.”