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Astray - Chapter Six

William had smelled the stench that emanated from the heart of the enchanted tree once before in his life. When he was a young boy he and his grandfather Ludlow had gone into the woods on the grounds of the Swift Estate to catch William a large black beetle for a magic trick Ludlow was teaching him. They had drifted farther into the woods than either of them had realized, talking about magic and a new card pass William had perfected that very morning, before they were brought up short by a horrible, stomach-churning stink that permeated the air.

A few yards ahead in a small thicket there was a dead doe, flanked on either side by two nearly dead fawns. The mother had been shot by a hunter and had somehow managed to find her way back to this thicket and die beside her children. The fawns - still new and wobbly - had been starving for God knows how long. Ludlow had sent William racing back to their gamekeeper, a crotchety old fellow named George, while he waited with the foundlings.

George had made William tell him the whole story twice.

"Aye, I know that very thicket," he said as he reached for his gun. William was horrified. He had tried to keep George from going to the

fawns, but had been no match for the hale gamekeeper. He sat on the stoop of the man's small cottage and hugged his knees to his chest, tears sliding down his face.

His grandfather had sent him to the gamekeeper knowing full well that the only humane thing they could do was to put the poor creatures out of their misery. Ludlow had known the outcome and yet had made William the instrument of the fawns' death. He had never quite forgiven his grandfather for that.

And he had never forgotten that smell.

Now years later he found himself surrounded by that very same smell. The memory of that muggy afternoon with his grandfather was a like a cold, hard seed buried deep inside his chest that had just miraculously sprouted. He caught his breath and looked down at the downy tufts of brown hair on the soft skull of the baby he clutched tightly in his arms. He could feel the child's tiny heartbeat against his collarbone.

He saw the hem of Tamara's skirt disappear through the opening they had

used to enter the tree. He started to follow her out, but the moment he moved towards that passage a wave of pure dread washed over him so powerfully that he staggered back a step. Even as he did so he watched as the air inside that hollow in the tree rippled with passing magicks, and then the opening was gone, replaced with new, healthy wood. He pressed his free hand against the inner wall of the tree's heart, but it was firm and solid under his fingers.

The babe in his arms yawned. William looked down into its tiny face and his heart beat faster. He had no idea if it was the tree itself, this ancient, enchanted thing, or some external magick that had sealed him within, but nothing was going to keep him from returning these children to their mother. William ran back to where the other babies lay swaddled in the faerie furs and cloaks on the ground and placed his babe amongst them. Then, with trembling fingers he turned to where the passage through the tree had been. With his anger and frustration and his fear for the children, so too did the power he had inherited from his grandfather rise within him. Sparks of golden light danced at his fingertips. "By the power of Zariatmek�" William began.

The Faerie Princess was like no other woman Tamara had ever seen. Her long pale hair hung in loose waves to her knees, with threads of gold interwoven amongst the pale strands. She held her blade aloft and her arms were pale and sinewy, powerful muscles rippling underneath the firm flesh. Her teeth were like tiny pearls in a large, ripe mouth, but this mouth � which should have been sensual and beautiful to behold � was set in a rictus of pain and anger. It was easy to see why Wild Edric had fallen in love with her at first sight.

Of course, the Faerie beauty had not been trying to kill him at the time.

Tamara still held the squirming babies in her arms. The Faerie princess and her ladies-in-waiting - or whatever they were - had not harmed the children thus far, but they would have no qualms harming Tamara. And if she had to do battle with these terrible women, carrying the babies could prove a fatal hindrance to her ability to defend herself. She wracked her brain for something, anything to keep the babies out of harm's way.

The idea alighted upon her feverish mind not a moment too soon.

Nothing, William thought. Damn it!

He had summoned every ounce of power he possessed and had been unable to reopen the tunnel to the outside world. His efforts were futile. He felt as if he had been given the task of putting the whole of the ocean in a teacup. The babies were all crying now, and William wondered if the crackle of energy from his thwarted spell had upset them.

He crouched amongst them and, unsure of what to do next, began to sing a lullaby that his Mother had sung to him when he was small.

His voice was terrible. He had been kicked out of the choir at prep school the moment his voice had changed from pure soprano to yowling hyena. Yet, he sang regardless, and miracle of miracles, the babies quieted. Two or three of them even fell asleep. Well, he thought, perhaps my voice isn't so terrible, after all. That choirmaster had been a bit of a jealous one, really, hadn't he?

With the children his first concern, William decided his best hope was to simply wait. Solid wood would not keep Bodicea out, and once Tamara

realized he was trapped, William was certain she would use the ghost as a way to communicate. Then the two of them would find a solution. He felt a bit pathetic, waiting to be rescued, but there was nothing else to be done for it.

"Omni malifigant!" Tamara snapped, and she felt the weight of the two infants lift as they were plucked from her arms, carried aloft by her magick. In her mind's eye she pictured a pair of large wicker baskets she had seen at the Rose and Thorn Inn, and even as the image came into her head she contorted her fingers and called the baskets to her. The babies were scooped from the air, and with another quickly muttered spell there appeared a pair of elegant white geese with long graceful necks, who clasped the handles of those baskets in their black beaks. They lifted the children into the air and flew quickly away.

The Faerie Princess and her ladies had hesitated to see the babies floating in the air. It did seem they meant the infants no harm and if that was so, Tamara might have protected herself simply by keeping the children with her. But she would never have put the babies at risk for her own sake.

"Well done!" Bodicea called, but the spectral queen never let her attention be diverted from the Faerie women. Only a fool would do so. Their cunning was legendary.

"You shall pay for your impertinence, young sorceress," the Faerie Princess said evenly, her eyes gleaming with burning hatred, her voice cold as ice.

Tamara had no time to think. She felt six pair of eyes fix on her and as one, each of the Faerie women lifted their hands and with a single flourish, a flick of their wrists, Tamara was thrown back against the enchanted tree, bark scraping her through the fabric of her dress. She felt their fury lancing into her flesh, skewering her mind.

"Stop..." she whimpered, the pain almost unbearable.

"Use magick, girl!" Bodicea yelled. "Defend yourself!"

Yet Tamara saw that the ghost, too, seemed trapped in the Faeries' terrible, magical grip. There would be no help from that quarter, and something had happened to William, to the tree... there was no trace of

her brother, nor even of the opening that had been there only moments before. The power of the Faerie women was like the fangs of dozens of serpents breaking her skin, venom shooting through her veins, burning. And yet in the midst of her agony, Bodicea's words crystallized in her mind.

She was Protector of Albion, and she had the power to defend herself.

"Morior Maleficus!" Tamara's words turned the Faerie magick back upon the ethereal women, but now each tiny fang was a dagger. Tamara's spell had set their attack back upon them at triple its strength. There came a collective shriek, more of fury than of pain, and the Faeries were driven back. Tamara sneered and took a step toward them, magickal fire coalescing into a ball between her hands. She shaped that magick, and she propelled it toward the Faerie Princess in a flash of blinding, blazing light.

But she was no fool. If they would not harm the babies, Tamara had no reason to stay and fight them on her own. Tamara used the fiery distraction to fling herself to the ground and crawl under the cover of the trees. Behind her, she heard cries of rage and pain, and she smiled,

remembering the agony she had felt only moments before. She was not cruel by nature, but could summon no sympathy for the Faeries.There was a ripple in the air beside her and Bodicea appeared there, crouched in the dirt. The ghost was now as solid as she had seemed when they first entered the enchanted woods. Tamara noticed for the first time that Bodicea's skin was flushed with blood. She was more real in that instant than any ghost had a right to be, and in her nakedness, so vulnerable that Tamara forgot, for a moment, how fierce the warrior queen could be, and was afraid for her.

"Are the Faeries that powerful, Bodicea, that they can turn you almost human?" The ghost nodded her head, but another yowl of fury from the clearing made her stiffen.

"We shall speak of this another time. That is the princess Godda herself, back there. Go now. I will distract them so that you may escape."

Tamara frowned deeply, her teeth gritted in anger. "I will never leave William behind-"

Bodicea shushed her. "Go now!"

A twig snapped behind them and an unnatural breeze whispered through Tamara's hair and brought a strange, earthy perfume, like flowers and blood. Tamara glanced back and caught her breath as she saw one of Godda's ladies-in-waiting crouched behind a screen of branches, like a cat ready to pounce. Bodicea let out an inhumane howl and charged the Faerie.

Tamara did not stay to see the outcome. She picked herself up and began to run. Tree roots impeded her flight. Large and twisted beneath her feet, they almost seemed to want to trip her. She tripped once, but was able to catch hold of a sapling and steady herself before she hit the ground. Within her was a terrible dread and a chilling certainty that if she were to fully touch the ground she might never get up again.

Then, as if her body were caught in a large, silken spider web, she could go no further. Her limbs felt heavy as she tried to push forward, the energy terrifyingly sapped from them. She let out a scream that caught in her throat and became little more than a whimper.

This is mad, she thought. What's happened to me?

Then she heard them. The pounding hooves of Wild Edric's hunting party echoed in the dimness of the forest and she knew that she was trapped in their spell. The Faerie Princess must have called for his help when she discovered she could not capture Tamara alone. Now, she had more than one enemy to contend with and she was utterly helpless to save herself.

Tamara Swift did not believe in tears. Whenever she felt them prickling the back of her eyes, she would bite the inside of her cheek. She had cried enough as a child, always falling and hurting herself as she tried to keep pace behind William.

When William had gone away to school, she had cried herself to sleep for a month. Their father had not understood all the emotion, but her grandfather Ludlow had doted on her, teaching her card tricks and telling her stories of his time spent touring the world as a magician. She had been determined after that never to cry again, never to show her vulnerability if she could help it. And that resolution had held well until recently when the strain of losing her grandfather and father to the fight against Balberith had loosed her tears once again.

Her cheeks were wet when she heard the horn sound. She swiped at them with the back of her hand and turned to gaze up at the handsome visage of Wild Edric himself. He was perched on the back of his horse, watching her. She did not see the rest of the hunting party, but knew they were not far. They had given the intended coupling some privacy. It made Tamara's stomach lurch.

"Why the tears, my pretty young maid?" he asked, his voice smooth and melodious in her ear. In an eye blink, he dismounted from his steed and was beside her, nuzzling her neck with his scruffy cheek. His lips were mere inches from her ear and she could feel each warm breath on her throat.

She steeled herself against him: his voice, his smell. She knew it was all carefully cultivated to seduce her. There was magick here. She was determined that unlike so many others, she would not give in. She stiffened in his arms, willing him to leave her be.

He laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. She was not under his sway and now he had realized it. Edric would have to use force to get what he wanted from her. He was a ghost, of a sort, that much was certain, but

with his connections to Faerie he was certainly no ordinary ghost, for he grabbed her by the arms and whirled her around to face him, and his grip was as solid as that of any man, and far stronger.

He is so very handsome. The thought came unbidden and Tamara shook it from her mind. Edric laughed, sensing her dismay. He touched her hair, staring down into her eyes, silently begging her to give in and enjoy the moment. As his lips moved down to find hers, Tamara found herself starting to give way.

There was a terrible scream from behind them, breaking Edric's spell. Tamara pushed him from her and started to back away. She knew that scream. Apparently, so did Edric. His eyes widened in shock. He put a hand out, but quickly drew it back.

"You should go, milady." His voice was no longer malevolent. If anything, it held a note of fear.

"No, she should stay," came a voice from the shadows. Godda, the cruel-eyed Faerie Princess, stepped out of the trees to join them, her crimson sword gripped tightly in her hand.

In that moment, as she glanced first at one and then the other of her tormentors, the pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place. Tamara wanted to laugh. Wild Edric and the Faerie Princess were not in league. They were estranged!