The Gates of Winter (10 page)

“What is this?” the rider said, a sneer crossing his freckled face. “Mortals? A kind of quarry, to be sure, but none so noble as that we hunt. How did you get here?”

Grace was so startled she could only answer with the simple truth. “We came by the path.”

“The path?” the rider snapped. “And who gave you permission to tread upon it?”

Durge cleared his throat. “The path is here for all. We need no permission to follow it.”

Ire flashed in the rider's eyes. “You are wrong, mortal. The path belongs to us, as does everything in this wood. You are trespassing here.”

“Then we'll leave at once,” Grace said. Like a candle burned to a stump, the desire to talk to the Little People had sputtered and died within her. In spite of his boyish appearance, there was a predatory air about the rider. His eyebrows slanted over his green eyes, lending his face a cruel aspect. “Let's go,” she said, tugging Durge's arm.

“Not so quickly,” the rider said, guiding his horse in a quick circle around them. Other figures stole into the glade. Some slunk on four legs while some pranced on two; some slithered on their bellies, and others flitted on wings as delicately woven as a spider's web. Grace had glimpsed such creatures on Sindar's ship, but only fleetingly, out of the corner of her eye. Here they gathered in plain view.

It was hard to be sure how many of them there were, given the way they kept weaving in and out among the trees. There were greenmen with round bellies and beards of oak leaves, prancing goat-men with shaggy legs and curving horns, and swan-necked women who wore gowns of white feathers—or were the feathers part of them? Tiny beings with butterfly wings and ugly, long-nosed faces darted about on the air, and golems made of sticks bound together by vines stared at Grace and Durge with hard pebble eyes.

“Stay close to me, my lady,” Durge rumbled as he reached up to grip the hilt of his greatsword.

The strange beings formed a circle around the two mortals. Like the boy on the horse, the goat-men and swan-women carried bows with arrows ready, and the butterfly creatures carried tiny bows as well, fitted with darts no larger than toothpicks. The greenmen carried wooden cudgels, and the other beings bore stone-pointed spears or wielded long thorns like knives.

“Tell me quickly,” said the one on the horse. “Which way did the king go?”

Grace shook her head. “But he didn't go anywhere. King Boreas is in the castle.”

Even in anger, the rider's boyish face was beautiful. “Not him, you dolt. I couldn't care less for the comings and goings of some foolish mortal who dares call himself a king. I speak of the true king—the forest king. Which way did he go? Tell me, and perhaps we will spare your wretched, finite lives.”

Like a ray of light, understanding pierced the fog in Grace's brain. “The stag. That's who you're hunting.”

The boy's eyes sparked with green fire. “We are always hunting him. Every year we slay him and spill his blood upon the ground. And every year he comes again, so we may begin the hunt anew. Now speak up, or it's your blood that we'll spill. Which way did he go?”

“That way,” Grace said, pointing to a gap in the trees directly opposite the place where the stag had vanished. Durge turned to stare at her, but she gave her head a slight shake. She didn't know why she had done it; only that the stag had been so majestic, so beautiful.

The rider grinned and lifted the silver trumpet, blowing a ringing note. “This way!” he said, motioning to the others, and urged his horse in the direction Grace had pointed. Grace dared to breathe a sigh.

Two greenmen bounded into the clearing, coming from the direction the stag had gone. The rider whirled his horse around, a frown on his elfin face. He leaned over in the saddle, and one of the greenmen jumped up to whisper something in his ear. The boy sat up at once, his face a mask of fury.

“You lied to me, mortal. The king did not go the way you pointed.”

Grace shook her head, searching for words. Durge pressed close against her.

“You are a fool to protect the forest king,” the rider said. He climbed down from his horse and advanced on them. “Don't you know it is his fate to fall to our arrows? You will pay for your deception.”

“Hold right there!” Durge roared, and in a swift motion he drew his greatsword, holding it before him.

Laughter rose from the strange beings, a sound like falling water. The boy threw his head back as peals of mirth escaped him. Durge frowned, then his expression turned to shock. His sword writhed back and forth in his hands. With a cry he dropped the blade, and Grace saw it wasn't a sword at all, but rather a great silvery snake. It slithered away across the snow and vanished into the forest.

Durge stared at his empty hands, then clenched them into fists. “Stay back,” he said, standing before Grace. “You cannot harm her.”

“You're right about that, mortal, I can't.” He gazed past Durge at Grace. “The light of the forest is in your eyes. It's faint, but even your mundane blood cannot sully it. You shall be spared.” His gaze moved back to Durge. “But this beast is mortal through and through. Since we have been denied our true quarry for today, we will make sport of this one instead and hunt him like the animal he is.”

“No!” Grace said, her voice rising in panic. “It wasn't his fault. It was I—I was the one who lied to you!”

It was no use. The hunters were already moving. The queer beings shoved Grace aside and swarmed around Durge. He swatted several of the things away, but they kept coming. A root tripped Grace—or was it the limb of some creature?—and she fell to her knees. She heard Durge let out a roar, but the sound was drowned out by laughter. She crawled until she found a tree, then used it to gain her feet.

There were too many of the beings for Durge to fend off. They had pinned his arms and legs, and though cords of effort stood out on his neck, he could not break away. The creatures tore at his clothes with twisted hands, leaving him standing naked in the cold. A pair of antlers was placed on his brow and fastened in place with ropes woven of vines.

“Durge!” Grace cried out.

He could not turn his head, but he met her gaze with wide eyes. “My lady, you must flee this place! Take the path back the way we came. Go now!”

No, she couldn't leave him. If she had told them the truth about the stag, this wouldn't be happening. She gathered what remained of her will and hurried to the boy.

“Let him go,” she commanded.

“That I will,” the boy said. “It would make for poor sport if he didn't have a head start.”

He gave a flick of his hand, and the creatures moved away from Durge. The knight staggered and caught his balance. He was hairy in his nakedness, and with the antlers he looked not unlike one of the goat-men. A queer expression crossed his face—not pain exactly. Rather, it was the face one would make if something precious were being torn away.

“My lady,” he said, but the words were oddly slurred.

A spasm passed through him, and Durge hunched over. When he looked up again, his eyes were dull and wild, and his lips pulled back from his teeth. The rope that had tied the antlers to his head were gone. Instead, the things sprang from his brow, curving and growing longer even as Grace watched.

She stared at the boy. “What have you done to him?”

“Nothing so very great,” the boy said with a smirk. “A man is but an animal at heart. All we've done is to help him remember that fact.”

Durge let out a snarl, crouching and spinning around, the whites of his eyes showing. The fey beings laughed and raised their weapons.

A wave of terror crested in Grace. “Run, Durge!” she screamed. Could he even still understand her words? “Run!”

For a moment it seemed dim recognition shone in his eyes, then with a roar Durge sprang forward, running across the snow on bare feet, and vanished into the trees.

“You said you'd give him a head start,” Grace said, turning toward the red-haired boy. “How long?”

The boy laughed. “I'd say he's already had more than long enough.” He lifted the trumpet and blew a shrill note. “Let the hunt begin!”

12.

Grace ducked as a hail of arrows hissed through the air. They stuck quivering into trees or sank deep into the ground. A tiny arrow shot from the bow of one of the butterfly creatures caught in Grace's cloak. She plucked it out; the tip was sticky with green sap. A brief examination using the Touch confirmed her fear: The green substance was some kind of toxin.

The red-haired boy leaped onto his horse and urged it into the forest after Durge. The fey hunters bounded or flitted or scuttled after, fitting new arrows to their bows as they went. They seemed to have forgotten Grace in their glee for the hunt, and in moments all of them were gone. Grace reeled, gathering her wits, then she picked up the hem of her gown and dashed into the trees after the hunters.

There should have been a trail where the fey folk had trampled the ground, but instead she saw only Durge's footprints in the thin layer of snow. She followed them. The trumpet rang out again, and it already sounded alarmingly far off. Grace ran faster. Branches scratched at her face and tore her clothes. At some point she lost her cloak, but she didn't stop for it. Despite the cold she was sweating, and her breath came in ragged gasps.

Several more times Grace heard the call of the trumpet, and each time it was fainter than the last. She lost Durge's trail on a stony patch of ground, and when she heard the trumpet call again, it was off to her left, and so distant she could hardly make out the sound over the thudding of her heart.

Grace staggered in that direction, but after that she did not hear the sound of the trumpet again. The sweat froze her dress stiff as her pace slowed, and she grew clumsy with the cold. At last she could go no farther, and she leaned against the trunk of a gigantic tree. She listened, but there was no trumpet call, no trilling of high laughter; the forest air was still and silent.

“I've lost him,” she mumbled with numb lips.

Pain stabbed at her heart. Durge was gone—the kindest, truest, and dearest friend she had on this or any world—and it was her fault. The agony of that thought was too much to bear. Grace threw her arms around the tree, pressed her face to its trunk, and wept.

“Are you well, daughter?” said a kindly voice behind her.

Grace pushed herself from the tree. A moment ago the forest had been gray and bleak, but now green-gold light sparkled through her tears. She wiped her eyes and gasped.

“Whyever do you weep so?” said the old woman who stood before her. “Is it for this great father of trees you embrace? If so, then dry your tears, for he is not dead. When spring comes, he will be green and full of life again.”

Grace stared, sorrow and shock receding. Like the light, a feeling of peace radiated from the old woman. She was tiny and withered and beautiful, her skin as delicate as flower petals, her hair as fine as spider's silk. She wore a robe the color of snow, and in her hands was a wooden staff every bit as gnarled as the fingers that gripped it.

“Who are you?” Grace said.

The old woman smiled, and her eyes—the same color as the light—sparkled. “I suppose you may say I am the queen here, even as you are queen out there.” She made a sweeping gesture with the staff. “Of course, my reign is nearly at an end, and yours is only about to begin, daughter.”

Grace struggled to comprehend these words, but she couldn't, not quite. Her brain was dull and slow from fear and cold. “I'm not crying for the tree.”

“Then for whom is it you weep?”

The words tumbled out of her in a rush. “It's Durge. The boy—the one with red hair—he and the other hunters are chasing him through the forest. And they've done something to him. They tied a pair of antlers to his head, only they aren't just tied in place anymore. They're real. The hunters are going to kill him, and it's all my fault.”

The old woman cocked her head. “Your fault, daughter? Now how can that be?”

Grace felt more tears welling up. “I lied about the white stag. I told them he ran one way when he ran the other. But he was so beautiful. I didn't want them to kill him.”

The other shut her eyes and gripped her staff. “Yes,” she murmured. “I see it now, and I should have known that Quellior was part of all this.” She opened her eyes. “That was kind and selfless of you to help my husband escape.”

Grace shook her head. “Your husband?”

“As I said, I am the queen of this place. And is he not the king?”

Yes, that was what the red-haired boy had called the stag—the forest king. “So he's safe, then?” Grace said. “The stag? I mean, the king?”

The old woman nodded. “For now. But in time Quellior and his hunters will catch him, and they will slay him.”

“No!” Grace said, cold with horror. “They can't!”

The old woman gave a soft sigh. “It is the way of the wood, daughter. Every year Quellior and his hunters pursue the forest king, every year they slay him, and every year he returns again. However, the king is newly risen. It is not yet time for them to catch him, and it is because of you that he escaped. So for your good-hearted deed, I will help you.”

“What can you do?” However, before Grace finished uttering the words, the old woman moved her staff, and a thicket of trees parted like a curtain. Beyond was a glade, and a scene that made Grace's heart stop.

The red-haired boy—Quellior—sat on his black horse, an arrow fitted to his bow. The other hunters gathered around him. Like a fallen beast on the ground, Durge lay below them. His eyes were shut, his hair tangled with leaves and twigs, the antlers jutting from his brow. A dozen tiny darts pierced his skin. Quellior laughed and pulled the arrow back to his ear, ready to send it flying down into Durge's heart.

“Stop!” Grace cried out, tripping over roots as she dashed forward. She fell to her knees beside Durge, covering his body with her arms. “Leave him alone!”

“Wood and bone, how did you get here?” Quellior sneered in his high voice. “But it's no matter. My arrow can pierce two as easily as one.”

“I should think it will pierce none at all,” said a sharp voice, and at the same moment the arrow in Quellior's bow sprouted leaves and tendrils. The tendrils coiled around the boy's hands like green snakes, binding them. The other hunters gasped and chattered and fluttered their wings.

Quellior glared at the old woman. “Blood and stone, Mother! I nearly had him!”

Grace blinked in astonishment. Mother?

The old woman marched into the glade, staff in hand. “Shame on you, Quellior.” She cast a stern eye at all of the hunters, and they quailed under her ire. “Shame on all of you. Is this mortal man the quarry you are bound to hunt?”

“She denied us our quarry,” the red-haired boy said, glaring at Grace. “So we were hunting this one instead.”

The forest queen's eyes flashed. “Answer my question. Is this mortal your true quarry?”

Quellior hung his head and sighed. “No, Mother.”

“I should think not. Now off with you.” She gave a flick of her staff. “All of you. You shall find the forest king again when summer comes and is in its waning days.”

Quellior lifted his head, and there was a queer look in his eyes. “If summer ever comes again, Mother.” He cast one hateful glance at Grace, then his horse bounded away through the trees, and the other fey hunters followed.

Grace cradled Durge's head in her lap. She smoothed his mousy hair from his brow, and she could not help marveling at the way the antlers melded with his skin and skull. She touched a tiny arrow that jutted from the skin just above his collarbone but could not bring herself to check his pulse.

“Is he dead?”

“No, daughter,” said the forest queen, standing above her. “The darts of the winged ones bring sleep, not death.”

“Then how can I wake him up?”

“Are you sure you wish to, daughter?”

Grace stared in blank confusion.

Sorrow lined the old woman's face. “A mortal man is not a beast, but he may be made to act like one. I fear Quellior has played a wicked trick upon your friend. If he were to wake now, he would not remember he was a man at all, but rather would think himself an animal.”

In a way he did look like a beast—naked, dirty, and wild. But Grace knew the true man that lay beneath. Her tears fell on his face, washing away some of the dirt. “He's not a beast. He is the kindest, bravest, and truest man in the world.”

“If you can see that in him, then perhaps there is a way you can help him.”

Grace looked up, hope surging in her. “How?”

“You must join your spirit with his. You must show him how you see him—not as a beast, but as a man. If you do, he may remember himself.”

For a moment Grace trembled. All her life she had kept others at a distance, afraid that if they drew too close they would see what she really was and would recoil in horror. But Durge was her friend; if she could see good in him, she had to believe he would see it in her as well.

She steeled her will and ran her fingers over Durge, plucking out the darts where she found them. A groan escaped him, and he stirred, eyelids fluttering. He was waking up. If he did, he would run from her, she was sure of it; she had to hurry.

Grace pressed her hands against Durge's chest and shut her eyes. Instantly she saw his life thread. It was somber gray, as she remembered it, only marked with a wild streak of crimson. He let out a grunt, moving beneath her, but before he could twist away she reached out and gripped his thread, bringing it close to her own shimmering strand. In her mind she pictured Durge as she knew him: kind, strong. Good. Then, with a thought, she braided the two strands together.

I love you Durge!
she called out.
Come back to me!

For a single moment she could not discern Durge's thread as a separate thing from her own. They were a single strand, gleaming and perfect.

No, not perfect. There was something else there. Something sharp and dark and terrible, pressing dangerously close. What was it? Before Grace could tell, a gold light welled forth, encapsulating her, and she knew no more.

She must have fallen asleep. Grace pushed herself up to her elbow and used her fingers to comb leaves from her hair. The gold light was dimmer now, but still comforting, and she felt warm. Durge lay beside her, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. The antlers had fallen away to either side. She laid a hand on his forehead; the skin of his brow was unblemished, save for the lines of worry that furrowed it even in repose.

Grace smiled, then rose. Her cloak, which she had lost earlier, now hung on a nearby branch. She cast it over Durge, covering his nakedness, then knelt beside him. Her smile faded as she touched the center of his chest. When their threads were one, she had sensed something inside him—like a shadow, but different. Harder, colder.

“So you've seen it within him, daughter. I thought you might.”

Grace looked up. The old woman—the forest queen—stood above her.

“You can see it, too?” Grace said.

The old woman nodded. “It was clear to my eyes the first moment I saw him. But then, ever have we hated the cruel touch of iron, and we know it when it comes near us.”

Grace was no longer warm. “What are you talking about?”

“There is a splinter of iron in his chest. It lies dangerously near his heart. And it works its way nearer each day.”

No, it was impossible. Durge couldn't be one of
them
. Then Grace remembered the pains he had felt in his chest the night of the attack on Calavere. She examined his chest. A dozen scars traced white lines beneath dark hair, but she recognized them as the remnants of the wounds he had received on Midwinter's Eve over a year ago, when he was attacked by a band of
feydrim
.

Durge was a marvelous warrior, but all the same she had been amazed he had been able to fend off so many
feydrim
by himself. Grace had always wondered how he had managed to get away from the creatures. . . .

But what if he didn't, Grace? What if he didn't get away—at least not until they let him go?

She shut her eyes, and though dread filled her at what she might see, she reached out with the Touch, gazing into Durge's body. Now that she knew what to look for, she saw it immediately, an inch from his heart. The splinter was no bigger than the tip of her little finger, but it was cold, so terribly cold.

She opened her eyes. “Oh, Durge, what did they do to you?”

She could see it clearly, as if the memory had lingered in his flesh and she had glimpsed it like a ghost image on an X ray. Even his greatsword was not enough to keep so many
feydrim
away. They swarmed over the brave Embarran, dragging him down, knocking him unconscious. Only they did not kill him. Instead they fell back as a figure strode into the chamber, clad in a bloodred gown, a smile on her pale face. It was Lady Kyrene, who had been Grace's first teacher as a witch, and who had traded her living heart for one of iron. Kyrene knelt, taking something small and dark, and pressing it deep into a wound in Durge's left side. He cried out, a sound of despair and agony, only by the time his eyes opened, the others were gone. He couldn't have known what they had done to him, why they let him survive.

“They wanted to turn him into a traitor,” Grace said, and it felt like a splinter of metal had pierced her own heart. “Only they wanted to do it without us knowing.”

“Yes,” the old woman said above her. “But his heart is far stronger than they believed. Evil always underestimates the power of good—that is its greatest weakness. All this while, he has resisted.”

“Then he can keep resisting it,” Grace said, grasping for hope.

The forest queen shook her head. “He is mortal, daughter. Even a man so strong as he cannot resist forever. Soon now, the splinter will reach his heart.”

Grace could barely speak the words. “What will happen when it does?”

The old woman met her eyes. “His heart will turn to ice, and he will become the willing slave of the Lord of Winter—the one whom you call the Pale King.”

A moan escaped Grace. “I have to get it out of him. I have to operate before it's too late.”

“It's already too late, daughter. He should have perished that night. It is only the enchantment of the splinter that has kept him alive. If you remove it, he will die.”