The Child Thief

His head throbbed. His brow was swollen and sore from where Ulfger had punched him. His ribs hurt with every breath. He gently probed them and winced, wondered if they might be broken. The mist felt as though it were moving in on him, suffocating him. He closed his eyes, trying to calm himself, trying to figure out what he should do, and it was then he caught a familiar scent. He inhaled deeply—just a trace of honeysuckle and pond water. The Lady?

Peter felt a slight warmth against his chest and opened his eyes. The necklace—Mabon’s star—began to glow and Peter caught a faint glimmer ahead in the mist. He approached; before him, a dusting of gold glittered just above the clammy gray earth, gently weaving and flowing, like a lazy creek. Peter remembered the Lady spoke of her Mist. Is this her doing? He followed the Path.

Peter found thoughts of the Lady dominating his heart; at one point, he could swear he heard the distant echo of her voice calling, only it wasn’t his name, it was—Mabon.

How many times had he snuck up to the Lady’s Garden? How many times had he lain hidden near Avallach’s shrine in hopes of a single glimpse of her? And in all those years, only once had he seen her, there in her courtyard, talking and laughing with Hiisi. When she’d laughed, Peter had smiled while tears fell from his eyes, his desire to be near her so vast his whole body ached.

The mist began to thin and Peter heard the lapping of waves and got his first whiff of the sea. The gray earth and mist gave way to a drizzly, pebble-littered beach. He stood facing a rocky ledge. The ledge was topped with scraggly spruce and pine. Peter saw no sign of tropical lushness, no sign of faerie kind whatsoever. The air here was cold and damp, sharp smells bit at his nostrils. He heard strange birdcalls. Yet, somehow all of it was familiar and it dawned on him just where he was. He felt a chill, and not from the harsh wind. Peter realized he was back in the world of men-kind.

PETER CLIMBED TO the top of the ledge and looked back. The shifting mist clung to the shore, giving no sign or clue to the magical kingdom hidden in its midst. His first instinct was to head back into the Lady’s Mist, to return to the safety of Avalon’s forest. He shook his head, grimaced. There’s no safety there, he thought. Not for me. Not anymore. Ulfger will hunt me relentlessly.

He looked up the coast, the endless miles fading into the winter grayness—a world of men. What’s here for me? he wondered, and again grimly shook his head. Death, or at best a life of hiding in holes, like Goll. Peter fought back the tears. Is there no place for me? He wiped angrily at his eyes. I have to go somewhere, at least for a while. Maybe one day Ulfger will grow tired of hunting me and I can return. Maybe, but not now, not this day.

Peter headed over the rise, felt a tugging on his heart, and stopped. It was her, the Lady. Even here, he felt her. It was as though she was part of his soul, and the thought of never seeing her again was almost too much to bear. “I will come back.” And if I have to kill Ulfger, I will find a way.

He moved inland, crested the ledge, and a wide, sprawling valley opened before him. Peter caught a telling trail of smoke far below, could just make out a cultivated field and a cluster of buildings. The old fears snuck up on him. He could almost still hear the sounds of the men and their dogs chasing him through the woods, surprised by the intensity of those long-ago memories. He suppressed a shudder, took a deep breath, and pushed his chest out. “They’d best be wary of me,” he stated. “I’m a creature of Faerie. A shadow in the dark. I will cut their throats as they sleep.”

He clutched his belt and remembered he no longer had even a knife and that the world of men was full of wolves, bears, and hill cats. His lips tightened into a thin line and he started down the slope.

The shadows were growing long by the time he found the road. The dirt overturned with fresh horse tracks, plenty of them, and Peter heard Tanngnost in his head, the old troll warning him of his foolishness. But Peter trailed the road, keeping to the bushes, slipping soundlessly from tree to tree, the way he did when trying to sneak up on the wild faeries. He smelled smoke and then stumbled upon the body.

It was a young woman. She lay on her back in the ditch, the torn remnants of her dress trampled into the mud. Her legs splayed wide apart, the horrible wound between her legs crusted with blood and bared to the world. Deep slashes riddled her small breasts and dark bruises stood out against the pale skin of her thin neck.

Peter clenched his jaw and stared into her unblinking eyes. Looking closer, he could see she was barely more than a child. He wondered what sort of games she’d liked to play, wondered what a child could’ve ever done to deserve such a death. Peter felt his dread give way to anger, to hate. He remembered why he never wanted to grow up, never wanted to turn into one of them.

The rays of the late-afternoon sun cut across the tops of the pines and the shadows began to deepen. Peter left the girl and continued to trail the road.

The next body Peter found was that of a man hanging from a tree. He was badly burned and a crow pecked at the charred flesh hanging from his cheek. A sign hung around the man’s neck, painted with a white cross. Tied to his feet were the heads of a woman and two children. Peter saw no sign of their bodies.

He could see the village now, could just make out the gray shapes in the deepening shadows. The acrid smell of smoke saturated the air.

He came upon a man lying in the middle of the road, the side of his head crushed, his blond hair clotted with blood. He still clutched his spear. Peter crouched next to him and pried the spear from his stiff fingers and a knife from his belt. Across the road lay a scorched pasture; in its center, a smoldering pile of burned bodies. Peter guessed there were close to fifty bodies and every one that he could see had been decapitated. A company of crows cawed and pecked at the choicest morsels. He heard Tanngnost again, telling him to leave now, but Tanngnost had also told him that curiosity would be his undoing. Peter smiled at the memory of the fretting old troll, stood, and headed toward the village.

Peter crept along the ditch, keeping low and to the shadows. He slipped past a burned-out barn, only its blackened framework still standing, then came upon three wolves feeding on the body of a woman. Her protruding belly had been slit open and their snouts were wet from gorging on its contents. As Peter neared, the wolves lifted their heads and gave him a warning growl. A tiny infant’s leg hung from the jaws of one of them. Peter gave them a wide berth and continued into the village.

Most of the structures had been burned to the ground. Here and there, a few timbers still smoldered; other than the distant cawing of crows, the village was still and quiet.

Peter slipped within the burned hulk of a stable, crouched in the shadows, surveying the town from between the slats.

A huge cross of freshly hewn timber had been erected in the center of the square. A man hung limply from its beams, a rope stretched taut across his neck, chest, and beneath each arm. Great iron nails had been driven into his hands and feet. He wore a long robe adorned with dancing animals and swirling symbols of the sun, moon, and stars. His robe had been slit up the front. Thick rivulets of congealed blood ran down the insides of his legs, forming a dark pool on the ground. Peter could see that his genitals had been butchered and stuffed into his mouth. No less than thirty heads hung from the cross: men, women, and children. In the deepening shadows, several of them appeared to stare at Peter, as though they might start talking to him at any moment. Peter didn’t like it, didn’t like anything about this place, decided there was nothing here for him, after all, decided it was time to leave. But he heard the heavy tromp of hooves heading his way, then the deep voices of men, and ducked back down.

Two men came into view, leading a horse. The horse pulled along a line of tethered children. The men were wearing chain mail beneath matching blue tunics with white crosses on their chests; short swords hung from their belts. Peter counted eight children; older children, for the most part. Their hands were bound behind their backs and a rope was looped around each of their necks. They were covered in soot and mud; several were bruised and bleeding from ugly wounds. They had despondent, haunted eyes, the eyes of children who’d seen too much.

“So, there you are,” came a man’s call from somewhere behind Peter. Two more soldiers came out of the woods, heading right for his hiding spot. Peter felt sure they were talking to him. He froze, not so much as breathing. But they tromped right past. There was a girl between them. She was tall, long in the leg, but still a girl. She wore a simple, rose-colored dress, spattered in mud, one sleeve torn away. They pushed her roughly along ahead of them and joined the men by the horse.

“We found a few of them hiding up on the hill,” one of the soldiers said. He was stout and bald, one of his legs was shorter than the other and he walked with a pronounced lurch. “The others got away, but we got the one