By early afternoon, the land became hillier, the grass growing in thick tussocks as the road wound through stands of spruce, ash, and poplar. Even the smells became familiar to Max as they neared his old farmhouse. Ahead he saw its stone chimney peeking from behind a hilltop.
“Let’s have a look,” Max said, glancing back at his roommate, whose cramped expression had not changed since morning.
“It might be inhabited,” chattered David, his face blue with cold.
“I’m sure Toby could do with a rest. There might be food. And I know there’s clean water nearby.…”
“If you insist.”
Toby was more than ready for a rest. As they slowed to a trot, the smee was snorting and sucking at the air, trying to catch his breath while steam rose off his flanks. Dismounting, Max and David stretched their aching limbs and led the grumbling smee around a wooded hill where they could approach the house from a less exposed position.
“I’ve really got to get into training,” grumbled Toby. “Too much roulette.”
“Shhh …,” said Max, creeping forward to peer through a gap in the fragrant pines.
There was the farmhouse, but sadly not as Max remembered it. Its red door had been kicked in and the shutters torn away while the wind rippled over puddles in the animal paddock. The windows were dark, and it appeared that much of the roof had burned away in a fire. A feral cat was lounging in the doorway, yawning and cleaning its fur.
“It looks uninhabited,” whispered Max, motioning the others to follow.
The three emerged from the woody fringe of the farmhouse’s clearing, stepping through the small orchard where Toby turned up his nose at the fallen remains of rotted fruit. The paddock was empty, except for the scattered bones of two sheep. Max glanced at the dark stones of a nearby well, remembering the pulpy, giggling monster that had lived in its depths. Toby was ambling toward it on weary legs.
“Don’t water there,” said Max quickly. “There’s a lake nearby. I’ll just look inside and then we can go.”
He soon regretted his decision. The cat darted inside as he approached to poke his head inside the door to see the ruins of his former home. The farmhouse had been ransacked, everything of value broken or carried away by scavenging humans or goblins or whatever else had happened by.
“Not quite as you remember it,” said David sadly, coming up beside him. The boy peered his head inside at the wet, warped floorboards and the frosted mold. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Max without much conviction. “I was stupid to hope it would be the same. I’m surprised it’s still standing.”
“At least we got them out,” said David, referring to Isabella and the children. “We’d never have done so without Mr. Bonn. He was a funny one.”
“A kind and thoughtful imp,” Max mused, recalling Prusias’s secretary. “Who’d have thought they exist? I hope he’s okay.… He was a good friend. I first heard about Yuga from him. ‘Patient Yuga,’ he called her.”
“I’ve heard that tale,” said David. “The imps revere her. These days she might require a different nickname. Yuga’s not so patient anymore.… Holbrymn is a wasteland.”
“Have you ever seen her?” Max wondered.
“Just a glimpse once or twice through the observatory when scrying was still possible. Never in person, thank God. You think Mad’raast was big? Yuga’s the size of a hurricane—a living, breathing, ravening storm that stretches to the horizon.”
Max shook his head at the image’s mortifying scale. Toby ambled up, chewing on a mouthful of grass from an old haystack by the paddock.
“What do you say, Toby?” said Max. “Can you do another thirty miles?”
“In thirty miles, do I get to cease my role as Shaggy the Bucktoothed Wonder?”
“For the night at least,” Max assured him. “If you can go thirty, we’ll reach Broadbrim Mountain and my friend will have you lounging in a wagon and eating chocolates all the way to Piter’s Folly.”
“Promise chocolate and you’d better deliver,” sniffed the smee. “This road is hell on my hoofs. I almost miss being limbless.” With a shudder, the horse spit out the hay and tossed his head. “Very well—a gulp, a trot, and then some rest. Let’s get this over with.”
After drinking his fill from the lake, Toby was once again cantering down the roadside. As dusk settled over the landscape, the mountains loomed ahead, their snowcapped peaks obscured by dark clouds gathering at the summits. More than once, Toby slipped on the wet road whose stones were growing icy as daylight waned and the temperature fell.
“How much farther is it?” he gasped, slowing to a hobbling walk. Leaning forward, Max saw that the smee’s lips were flecked with frothy spittle, his breath coming in desperate, sputtering puffs.
“I think you’ve done enough for one day,” said Max, swinging his leg over and helping David down. He gazed up at the sky and heard the low rumble of thunder from the mountains. The temperature was still dropping, and Max worried that they might be in store for freezing rain. Squinting ahead, he tried to estimate how far it would be to Nix and Valya’s. He doubted the vyes still lived there, but he hoped their villa would be in better repair than the farmhouse. “I think it’s another six or seven miles to a house I know. We can gut it out or we can make camp now.”
“A roof trumps a tent,” declared Toby, walking slowly in a circle.
David nodded but was rubbing his behind and looking peevish. The sorcerer was not accustomed to riding for hours at a stretch, but rather strolling along at his own pace. David was perhaps the most traveled person at Rowan, but journeys via magic tunnel were undoubtedly less taxing to his behind than hours spent riding bareback atop a cantering horse.
“I’m happy to walk for a bit,” he grumbled, loosening the straps on his pack.
“Cloak-and-dagger’s fun, isn’t it?” Max needled, looping an arm around David’s narrow shoulders. His voice dropped to an urgent whisper. “Look! I think there’s our double agent at the cafe up ahead. Not the waitress—the man smoking a cigarette.
“That’s hilarious, Max. Truly.”
Grinning, Max turned to address Toby when something caught his eye.
There were riders on the road behind them. At such a distance, they seemed little more than bobbing black specks, but there were many. They were still a good ways off, but they appeared to be riding swiftly.
Max spoke sharply. “Off the road! Toby, take a smaller shape. Quick, quick, quick!”
Seconds later, Max, David, and a gray hare hurried off the road, crossing a narrow strip of dead grass and slipping into the woods. The light was already fading, and Max silently wished David would be more careful as the boy blundered through bracken and branches, cracking leaves and twigs underfoot. When they were a hundred yards in, Max brought the group to a halt.
“You two rest up here,” he whispered. “I’m going back to have a look.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
David gripped his arm. “Remember your shine,” he cautioned. “If they’re spirits …”
Max nodded. He’d already thought of that and was bundled up not only to ward off the cold but also to minimize the chance that any spirit would glimpse his aura. In his cloak, he carried a mask of dark fabric whose only opening was a narrow band across the eyes. Slipping it on, Max pulled his hood down low and stole through the twilit wood back toward the road.
He selected a mountain ash some twenty yards from the roadside. Taking hold, Max climbed high enough to count the riders but stayed low enough to remain hidden by the branches of a neighboring spruce. As the rain began, Max watched and waited.
The showers were sporadic, but whenever the clouds parted, the moonlight revealed a potentially lethal minefield of watery slicks and icy stone. Max could now hear the horsemen coming.
They had not camped at nightfall as he’d hoped but continued at full gallop even as shadows fell over the land. Whatever their purpose, it was urgent. Edging forward, he peered out into the darkness to see if the riders had lit any torches.
When he saw none, Max knew they were not human. No man or woman would ride so hard in such conditions without so much as a torch to light their way. The riders were getting closer now, the ground thundering at their
