II. The Untimely Teind
The portal the Yvag knight opens hovers at the top of a rise that overlooks the glittering city of Ailfion. Thomas is already seated in the tall blue grass behind the portal, himself glamoured as more grass, barely distinguishable from it. But no one is looking his way in any case.
A second knight emerges. Crossing over, each of them unglamours, casting off the appearance of Elizabethan guards in steel cuirasses and baggy leggings, becoming spike-faced and golden-eyed, and wearing shiny black armor that’s edged in silver sections—like flexible carapaces that only highlight the oddness of their jointed limbs.
Following behind the two, a blond young man of perhaps sixteen years stumbles nakedly through the opening as if tied to them. Thomas can’t see much of his face, but knows it will be slack, his eyes unfocused. It’s impossible for him not to think of his long-dead brother, Onchu. Behind him comes a third and final Yvag. The knight transforms as the two others have, bends double at the waist, and seals up the gate with its own glittering ördstone. Rising, it tucks the stone away in the breastbone pocket of the armor.
Thomas, his bow laid across his lap and three arrows at the ready between his fingers, does not move so much as to breathe.
Within moments a horde of tiny, flying creatures reaches the knights and their captured teind. He thinks of them as hobs or fae. Some green, others a dull earth-red, they have strange heads like mushroom caps, teeth as fine as fish spines, tiny wings, and claws as sharp as miniature sword blades. The first one he ever encountered, with Waldroup, proved to be some kind of little flying machine that dissolved when cut apart. They acted as though alive, however.
The hobs circle the knights and their captive, then fly straight back toward the fantastical city to announce the teind’s arrival. The squealing bastards love open portals; he has no idea why.
The knights close up around their teind to head down the grassy hillside.
Now is the moment.
Exhausted as he is, Thomas rises up. His shape is like a deformity in the nocturnal landscape. He draws and fires all three arrows in quick succession. The slender points puncture the slick armor, and all three knights drop where they stand. One quivers violently an instant, then stops.
The naked teind remains, precariously upright, robbed now of both will and guidance.
There is no time for more. Quickly, Thomas circles him, bending again and again to snatch back the arrows. Only one of these catches on something, and he rips it free. He wraps a rag around the tips and shoves the arrows back into the quiver, then digs a hand into the chest pocket of his own Yvag armor, drawing his ördstone, and slashes the night.
Nothing happens.
He slides a finger across the stone, cups his palm. The stone is dark, none of the tiny jewels glittering—but, no, one does spark and then immediately fades. Dead. The stone is dead.
Something has happened to it, or this is a trap. Either way, he’s stuck on this hillside above Ailfion, with a glaikit teind. He risks a glance in the direction of the plazas, sees the domed top of the Queen’s massive summer house.
The fae horde wheels about over the plaza of Hel and streaks right back for him. Oh, they’re easy enough to kill individually. En masse, though, they’ll shred him to pieces in a few seconds’ frenzy.
Thomas quick drops to one knee beside the last Yvag knight that emerged, pulls the body closer, and reaches into its sheathlike armor, grabs its ördstone. This had better work.
The stone flickers, its jewels run through a sequence he has viewed a hundred times.
He stands, focuses, and slices up across the night. A thin green fire follows his hand, flexes and pops open. Beyond it lies a wide path enclosed between rows of monstrous white trees. Taking hold of the naked teind, Thomas launches him through the open gate, and hangs on, using the teind’s momentum to yank himself in after.
The youth sprawls in the middle of the Þagalwood pathway. Thomas cuts down, sealing the portal behind them, his last view that of the hideous little hobs swarming ever nearer.
He scoots over to the youth, shakes him. The teind remains stupefied. They don’t have the luxury of time here. He presses the stolen ördstone up to the boy’s face. “Wake up, you!” he insists.
The teind’s eyes flutter. Open. They slowly and with some confusion regain their focus. When they do, the naked teind yelps and scrambles back. He reaches the edge of the path before Thomas can grab him and shout, “Stop!” He quickly concentrates and unglamours, becoming visible in his own Yvag armor. He pushes at the helm and it pools at his throat.
“What’s . . . ? Where?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll explain it all. Just allow me a moment.” He stands, holding the stolen stone, and concentrates hard on the destination that had been chosen for—well, for whenever that had been. He still doesn’t know what happened with his walk through Þagalwood. He will find out, but after this little adventure is over.
He cuts then a sliver, just enough to ascertain that it’s night. He can only hope for the rest. He cuts down. Immediately the smell of brine assails them. “Go on,” he urges. “Go through, quick now before they find us here. They will come after us.”
“Who?” He’s covering himself, or trying to, his hands pressed over his genitals.
“Yes, you want all the answers, naturally. Come on.” He leads the way, and the teind can only follow him out into the oceanside night.
Thomas seals up the second portal. They might find it, he knows, but it should take them a good long time given the thousands of cuts that have been made by the Yvags themselves into and out of Þagalwood.
He has done this before, but dear God, has he ever been this tired? What has happened to his stone?
Thomas sloshed out of the marsh not far from Hythe. No one seemed to have been keeping watch. He had concentrated on the hut he owned here, but between the borrowed ördstone and his exhaustion, he’d arrived near rather than in it. At least they’d arrived unseen, which was all he could ask for.
“It’s cold,” complained the naked youth.
“I know, and I do apologize. What’s your name?”
“I’m called Piers. But—”
“A plowman’s son, no doubt.”
The boy blinked, clueless.
“Never mind. Come on. There’s a hut up ahead we’re going to. It’s not far. I have clothes for you there.”
“You have clothes for me? I understand you not at all. I mean, how did I come to be naked and here? And where is here and where were we just now—those trees? They were trees?”
“Best you never mention them to anyone at all,” Thomas replied. He took that opportunity to glamour himself in a respectable outfit with a ruff. Piers seemed too busy being naked and confounded to react to the change that had taken place.
The first hint of dawn was just coloring the edge of the sky, and he could make out the shape of the hut he owned, which stood perhaps a mile from St. Mary’s Church and the village of Hythe.
“Here we are.” He found and opened the door to the hut. It smelled like vermin had been living in it, which they probably had, though there should have been nothing to sustain them in here. No one had informed the mice.
Thomas took out the borrowed ördstone and navigated by its blue light. He found the shelf, high up, where he’d stored the bag of clothes, and handed that to Piers. “You’ll find something in there. They may not fit well as I could hardly foretell your proportions, but ’twill do until you are safely arrived in Calais or elsewhere on the coast and can make your way deeper into the Low Countries perhaps, or France.”
Blond Piers pulled a pair of braes out of the bag, then a shirt and padded doublet. “France? How so France?”
Thomas had placed his bow up on the high shelf. “Just now you can’t go back to—where did they find you?”
“Chel-Chelmsford.” The question seemed to have unsettled him. “What happened to me?” Holding the doublet, Piers stopped. “Tell me how I came to be naked and here. And where indeed is here? And who are you that has rescued me?”
“Yes, of course.” Thomas drew a breath. “Tell me first, was there a priest or an alderman perhaps in Chelmsford who took a special interest in you?”
“There’s Alderman Fleetwood.”
“Fleetwood. Mmm.” He must remember that name. “Well, through your friendly alderman, you were chosen by the elven to be sacrificed. He selected you, and as likely, he it was ensorcelled you, stole you from your home, and had you removed to Ailfion.”
“Fleetwood. But he’s—”
“A good man? That is how it always seems. In truth, though, he’s neither of those things. You are the fruit he picked, and the proof of this pudding is that you are here, which, as you ask, is Hythe, if you know it, the central of the Cinque Ports on the coast, not too far from Romney. I had made plans, but I suspect they are not in place any longer. We’ll have to seek a ketch that will carry you across the narrow neck of ocean.”
Piers seemed still to be thinking about all that Thomas had told him. He said, “Fleetwood’s not a man?”
“Well, his skin and bones are those of a man. It’s his soul the elves own.”
The doublet was too large for Piers, but it would serve. Thomas reached out to him with a leather purse. “Tuck this in under your doublet and keep it hidden. It’s sovereigns and ryals, enough for you to tour all of Europe for a year, should you prefer. And also to buy clothes that fit.”
He took the purse, stared at it. “Where did this come from?”
“Under those boards there.” He pointed into one corner.
“I—who are you?”
Thomas replied, “Best if you can’t answer that. Enemy of the elven, that’s enough to know, for you, for them. But, then, they’re unlikely to have the opportunity to hunt for you when their tithe is now overdue. At least, that is my hope. Time and teind wait for no elf.”
Piers tried on stockings and then looked at the shoes. There were three pairs in the bag. He found one that fit.
Thomas nodded. “That will do, certainly for the time being. Let us see what we can find for you. We may have to pay a wherry to take you as far as Hastings to get you across. I’m sure once the Brede Inn is fully awake, we’ll get something to eat and then locate you some kind of transport.” He put his quiver of arrows up on the shelf, then replaced the bag to cover the weapons.
In fact, to their good fortune, at the inn was a boatman who knew of a ketch anchored at Romney this day that was bound for Dieppe. They walked with him to his skiff, and Thomas paid him two shillings to see that the youth got on board.
“Will I see you again?” Piers called.
“With luck you’ll never need to. Travel safely, young Piers.”
As the boatman steadied the skiff, Piers climbed in, and off they went.
Thomas watched for a few minutes, then turned and walked back to the inn. He desired a room. One with a bed in it.
What month and year this was could wait until he had slept for a day.