He told himself that it didn’t matter. The boy was alive—that was all that mattered. Alive and breathing, though considering the odds they faced, there was no way of knowing how long that would remain the case.
“Where are we going?”
This from the boy, each word colored in disapproval. “Farther,” Cutter said, not bothering to turn.
“Farther,” the boy repeated. “How much farther?”
Cutter gave him no answer, for he had none to give. He knew that each step they took into Fey lands increased their peril, knew that, by now, the creatures of the Black Woods would have found their companion dead and would be stirring to action. He did not doubt that some of them watched him and the boy already, marking their progress, scheming schemes and plotting plots. But they could not turn around, not yet, for he knew also that the men—his brother no doubt among them—were following, just as he knew that his brother’s hatred would not allow him to balk at entering the Black Woods, that he would not so easily watch his prey escape. No, he would come, he and his men, and should Cutter and the boy stop, should they turn around now, it was only a matter of time before they would be found.
So, then, he made one bad choice to avoid making another. Sometimes, it seemed to him that that was all his life had ever been, choosing one evil over another. Or, perhaps, it was that evil men who lived evil lives only found themselves confronted with evil choices. The how of it didn’t really matter, though. What did was putting as much distance as he could between the men pursuing him and the boy, of keeping the boy safe for as long as he could. It would not be forever, he knew, perhaps would not be more than a day, but he would do it for as long as he could. There was nothing else.
He would do it because she had asked him to.
Come no further, Destroyer. Kingslayer. You are not welcome here.
The words were not spoken, as such, but floated to him as if carried on the breeze, formed in the soft sway of tree branches overhead and the rustle of their leaves. It did not sound like a man but seemed as if the Woods themselves had been given a voice. The boy heard it too, evidence of which could be seen in the surprised sound he made. “Cutter?” he asked, his voice sounding soft and frightened and far younger than his years. “What was that?”
Cutter heard the rustling of undergrowth as the unseen speaker moved toward them, but even had he not, he would have felt its presence as it drew closer, so he only waited, saying nothing. The boy would have his answer soon enough and, if Cutter was any judge, he doubted it would be one he liked. Most, ignorant of the Fey and their ways, would have called what appeared out of the trees, less than a dozen feet away from where Cutter and the boy stood, a demon. They would have been wrong, of course, but he could not have blamed them for thinking so just as he could not blame the boy for his panicked gasp.
The creature was ten feet tall at the least, dwarfing Cutter the way he normally dwarfed other men and women. Its body was a deep, vertiginous green, its face an ebony darker than night itself and its eyes—which were three or four times larger than a man’s—were of a deep, vibrant green which made Cutter think of great massive forests with trees which had existed since the beginning of time. A forest in which ancient things moved and roamed. An incredible creature, terrible and beautiful at the same time, and a creature who Cutter recognized.
“Shadelaresh,” he said.
The creature shifted, its green eyes flashing a deep dark green so dark it was almost black. Its great mouth opened wide displaying teeth which looked as if they were made of bark. It yawned open, that portal, and the creature tilted its head back. A voice began to emerge, though without any movements of the creature’s mouth. And not a single voice but what sounded like dozens, all whispering together, slightly out of sync so that it made a fading sort of echo.
No one has called me that name in fifteen of your years, mortal. None since your great betrayal.
“Cutter,” the boy said, stepping up beside him, “we should go. There’s only the one and—”
Cutter put a hand on the youth’s arm. “It’s too late, lad. They’re all around us now. Only look in the trees.”
The boy did, but Cutter did not bother. He knew well what he would see there, figures shifting and moving at the trunks of the trees, figures which might have been thought to be just trees themselves, if not for the intent in their green gazes. They were creatures similar to the one before him, though much smaller, much younger than this being who had lived for countless centuries and which was now regarding him with unmistakable hatred despite its alien appearance.
“What does he want?” Matt whispered.
“Not a ‘he,’ lad.”
“It’s…a woman then?”
“No, not as such. The Fey often do not have genders, not at least as we think of them.” The boy opened his mouth, clearly preparing to ask another question, dozens of them, likely, but Cutter held up a hand, silencing him, as he looked back to the creature. “What would you have me call you, then?”
The creature studied him with those deep green eyes for what might have been over a minute then it tilted its head backward and its mouth yawned open once again. I
