Gossamyr (17 page)

"Sorry, Father, I tried."

A swipe of her fingers through the dust in the cart drew a line.
The hum of Faery jittered upon her fingertips. Bringing them to her
lips, Gossamyr blew the dust away. It sifted through the air, slow
and receding, until but one final particle twinkled to naught.

"If I were your father, I'd be here by your side, helping."

"Shinn must lead the Glamoursiege troops against this
threat." It was for her to prove herself, to return the
champion. "They risk falling to the Red Lady's allure. As I've
said, I do not."

"This mission of yours seems a trifle ill stacked, and not in
your favor."

"What mean you?"

"Your father
and
his troops fight these beasties,
while you are one lone woman."

"But I have not been charged to battle an army of revenants.
My task is much more singular."

"Would that you could simply attempt such a singular task.
But I sense we've not seen the last of those skeleton things."

Indeed, the Red Lady's thirst for Enchantment would not wane, but
increase.

"She attacks only the males?"

"Fear not, Ulrich. I can do this."

"Yes, but can I?"

An hour later, they arrived at a stable that offered change of
horses for travelers going to and from the city for a fair price.
Faery coin purchased the one remaining palfrey from the dark stall at
the back of the stable.

"I must admit my surprise."

Gossamyr flinched as Ulrich touched a wet tip of his shirt to the
cut on her arm. The revenant had not escaped to Faery without
claiming some damage to its aggressor. He dabbed carefully, like a
doting Mince. "What surprise?"

"You do not bleed ichor. Nor do you heal at a remarkable
pace."

"Why should I? As I have said—"

"Yes, yes, half faery, half mortal. But not even a sparkle?
I've no lint cloth to cover the wound, but it no longer bleeds. It is
shallow and should heal aright."

"I've no worry for scars."

"Indeed, a remarkable woman." A snap of his bejeweled
fingers called Fancy to his side. He tugged the saddlebag, checking
that all was secure, then followed with a smoothing pat to the
leather. "We should be off. You were able to procure a mount
from the stables?"

"Yes."

A match to Ulrich's mule, what might have once been a fine riding
horse, now looked to be ready for pasture. With little choice,
Gossamyr had paid the stable owner for the palfrey, glamourizing the
coin by suggesting he spend it quickly. Better luck that way, for
Faery coin lasted only so long as it desired. A mortal who hoarded
the precious coin might return one day to find nothing but a whisper
of dust.

Leading the tired gelding toward where Ulrich waited on his mule,
she saw him laugh and shook her head. "I saved him from becoming
horse stew!"

"A most noble effort, my lady."

Mounting the horse bareback, she tucked the cumbersome wool gown
up around her waist. Her leather-bound braies and bare feet received
a lifted brow from Ulrich.

"Paris will offer the comfort of dress you seek." He
handed up her staff.

The horse groaned as she heeled its flanks, but in its defense, it
took off in a feisty gallop, leaving Ulrich and the mule in a cloud
of dust.

Hours later the distance between windmills shortened and spirals
of smoke from the grand city could just be seen coiling on the
horizon. Eerie tendrils of the unknown shivered through Gossamyr's
system. She felt traces of residual glamour coil away with every
ponderous clod of the palfrey's hooves. 'Twas a heavy fall of
something unnatural coated her flesh, invisible, but knowingly
mortal. The air had become less light, but she could not determine if
it was a foreboding to danger or a physical change.

A rub of the cut on her arm made her wince.
You don't bleed
ichor.

Once she had asked her mother to
twinclian
for her, and
when Veridienne had lifted a refusing chin, Gossamyr learned that day
how different they truly were from the common fée.

Do you not wonder?
—she recalled Veridienne's mad
query but days before her disappearance—
What we mortals are
like?

We mortals? Of course, her mother often forgot her daughter bore
half-fée blood in her veins, so focused had she been on
herself. Mortals must imagine loving a Faery lord as a grand vision.
Yet, Gossamyr had never once dreamed to love a mortal man. Only, she
did spend much time perusing the bestiary.

Had
she savored the thought of meeting a mortal man? Mortal
touched as she had become, she favored the sensation of Ulrich's
flesh to hers. It did not spread a chill through her. Would a kiss be
as favorable?

A shake of her head sorted her thoughts. What is this? Thinking to
kiss the man? Truly, these delusions were not her own. Gossamyr would
not allow the mortal passion to trounce this mission. Nor must she
succumb to wistful dreams of stolen kisses.

Now she could not press her mount to more than a walk. Nudging her
toes into the palfrey's side served little more than to make the
beast whicker at her. A fat, pollen-loaded humble bee buzzing from
one clover patch to the next marked a swifter pace than she did.

With thoughts to abandon the beast to a peaceful death in the
meadow, she suddenly jerked up her head. Pricking her ears, Gossamyr
homed in onto the minute thunder of hooves. Nowhere in sight, but the
pace of their approach verily pounded in her veins.

"Ulrich" she whispered. Staff spinning, she tucked it
under her arm, at the ready.

The man pulled rein beside her. "What?"

"Listen."

He shrugged. "A stream babbles nearby. We parallel the Seine
by less than half a league—"

"No. Two of them. At a good pace. Heading this way."

"Travelers?" He shrugged again, but Gossamyr saw his
move to slide a hand across his ever-coveted saddlebag. "Where?
Behind or ahead?"

"Ahead. There!"

Two black chargers gained the horizon, their hooves beating the
road to a fury in their wake. Could merely be an equipage with an
urgent message. But Gossamyr suspected otherwise. They yet roamed
Netherdred territory. And the oncomers charged lick-for-leather.

"Armagnacs!" Ulrich yelled.

The same they had avoided by traveling around Aparjon. "What
beast be they?"

"Frenchmen! But fear them, my lady, for they only have mind
to annihilate."

Leaping from the horse and giving it a slap to flee toward the
meadow, Gossamyr slid her staff along her arm and assumed a defensive
pose in the center of the road. Drawing up straight, she nodded.
"Have at me!"

"Gossamyr, I don't think you should—"

"Follow the nag," she hissed at Ulrich.

"I don't think so!"

If he had intention to start that again. "There are but two
of them. I can manage!"

"Come, my lady, toss the poor man a bone. At least let me
appear
I can defend myself."

"You cannot fight clutching that saddlebag as if a favorite
child."

Gossamyr heard the oncoming shout, "He's got it!"

She lifted a brow. Who? The soul shepherd? Got what?

She hadn't time to consider what the Armagnacs wanted from Ulrich.
Aligning the staff along her forearm, she flung her arm around,
landing one of the riders across the chest and successfully unseating
him.

Spinning to the left, she planted the point of her staff in the
ground and swung up her legs toward the rider tormenting Ulrich with
a wickedly curved falchion. She succeeded in kicking the horse's
flank, bringing the angry beast around. Landing her feet, she swung
up the staff and clocked the rider between the eyes. The horse,
angered at her assault, tried to stomp her. Seeing the
obsidian-glossed hooves rise over her head, Gossamyr dropped to a
roll and spun under the horse's belly. A shimmer of glamour snuck
beneath the horse, spiraling it on its hind legs to land away from
Gossamyr.

Steel cut the tension. Equine snorts misted the air. Gossamyr
stood, spat out a mouthful of road dust, and faced both men clad in
black leathers and shining mail, their falchions swinging in tandem
as they approached. Gold fleur-de-lis decorated their gray tabards.
The symbol of Paris; Gossamyr recalled it from the bestiary. Indeed,
Frenchmen. So why should they attack?

Thrusting up her staff before her, she blocked both weapons. The
applewood had been forged of an ancient tree and of dragon fire. Hard
as steel, it would not be thwarted. Nor would she.

"Achoo!" Wavering off balance, Gossamyr sensed the sweep
of sharp steel and followed her equilibrium to the ground. She landed
palms first. A curved blade cut into the dirt but a breath from her
littlest finger. As quickly, it was cleaved from the earth in a
spatter of fine dirt that again tickled her nose.

The shrill of another blade alerted Gossamyr. She rolled, twisting
her staff to catch the bravo between the legs. His slicing attack
abruptly veered from her and he collapsed in a groaning tumble.

"What do you want?" she said, jumping up and spinning to
strike the other across the knees, and bringing him down with a yelp.

"We want what he gots!"

"The prize," the other grunted. "Ouff!"
Gossamyr connected to his throat. Bloody spittle sprayed the air.

"What does he gots—er, have?" she asked.

The two exchanged vacant looks. "Don't know. But it has
power!"

"Have at me!" Ulrich shouted. Bravado splashed the air
with an abbreviated punch of his fist. Yet he had moved safely to his
mule's side.

Ulrich? A prize?

Gossamyr felt steel slice her shoulder. She brushed a hand over
the wool undergarment, touching blood. A shiver drew up a mist of
faery dust. Not completely Disenchanted then. The flitter of the
fetch's wings hovered high above.

Her eyes watered. A sneeze threatened. But through the blur of
tears she assessed the situation. Both men felled and groaning, yet
on their knees and recovering.

A
thwap
of her staff to the men's skulls—swing,
connect, spin and connect—knocked them out.

The midnight chargers huffed out foamy breaths behind her. One
falchion had landed the ground, point first. Glinting steel quivered.

Elation from the fight made her jittery and loose. A swing of her
staff and a decisive stub of it into the ground placed a mark of
triumph before the Armagnacs. Who be willing to stand with a fix to
challenge her? Standing over her carnage, Gossamyr swiped a hand
across her brow. A nod and a satisfied smile. "Most splendid."

Hand-to-hand combat delivered double the thrill of a well-met
tournament. This danger was everything she had hoped it to be.
"Blight, I'm good."

Over her shoulder she sensed the fetch's
twinclian.

Do not worry, Shinn,
she thought.
I fare well away from
your side.

She cocked a look over her shoulder. Ulrich bristled with pride.
"I took out one before he could jump—"

"Very well. So you did."

Retrieving the falchions—careful to grip only the
leather-wrapped hilt—Gossamyr handed them to Ulrich. He took
them, awkwardly and unsure what to do with the vicious blades that
were the size of his thigh.

"Now." She strode past Ulrich to Fancy and slapped a
hand onto the saddlebag. "To what they were after."

"No!" Blades clattered as Ulrich dropped them. One of
the falchion tips landed his shoe. He fell to his haunches, clutching
his foot. "That is my private cache!"

Gossamyr ignored his protest. She did see no blood, so the blade
must have missed toes. Instead, she upended the saddlebag upon the
thick summer-sweet grass and out spilled a twist of black linen,
which splayed open to reveal its long and glittering treasure.

"Bloody elves." She fell to her knees, not daring to
touch the item. "What have you done?"

Gossamyr gripped Ulrich by the hair and forced him, scrambling on
his knees, over to the spilled contents of the saddlebag.

"What evil have you done?"

"My lady, have mercy, I am not evil!"

"Why then, do you carry an alicorn in your saddlebag? What
madness possesses you?"

"Release me, foul faery!" Pushing from her grasp, the
man made to cover the contraband horn with the thin black cloth.

Shoving him aside, she plunged to the grass on her knees before
the sacred article. The alicorn sparkled with Enchantment. Carved
with interlinking symbols of purity, innocence and wisdom, the
twisted bone verily hummed a canorous song that Gossamyr felt in her
bones. She recognized the curved, intertwined symbols from her school
studies. 'Twas an unpardonable crime to remove such from a
unicorn—far more wicked than murder; more devastating than to
dabble in magic. All of Faery wept when such occurred, for the
severing of any source of Enchantment crippled Faery profoundly.

"It is mine." Ulrich smoothed the cloth over the sacred
object and clutched it to his chest. "I purchased it from a
hawker a week ago."

"A hawker?" Gossamyr huffed. Unbelievable!

"An old man with a cart hobbled roadside betwixt Sees and
Tourouvre."

So much she wanted to say, to tirade, to condemn and accuse—
and yet what could she say? Did the man know the significance of what
he possessed?

"I do not believe you," she said firmly. "Some
roadside hawker sold you this? Unknowning?"

"Indeed! Displayed amidst his wares of various distinction;
wood sabots, candles, obsidian blades, wicker baskets; it sat amongst
a basket of shells and stones. Pretties, he called them."

"He knew naught what he was selling. He could not!"

"Oh, he knew. The man did look to have survived a journey
through Hades. He wanted to be rid of it something desperate. And I
now know why."

"Why?"