“It is,” Sparrow said tensely. “Something is odd about this. The Hound that Coppertomb fought was not so wild.”
I opened my mouth to ask her to clarify but my stomach pitched forward as our flock of ravens suddenly began to descend, at first slowly, and then quicker and quicker, little caws of exhaustion escaping them as those holding us flew away, delivering us to the backs of others, and still others, and then fewer and fewer, until we landed on a clump of moss with nothing but a single floating feather still remaining of what had been our escort and a pitched battle playing out barely a half-dozen steps from where we’d been set on the rock.
Wittentree,Bluebeard murmured in my mind.
Yes, very good,I agreed but inside something was gibbering.
CHAPTERNINE
I found my feet,gasping, Bluebeard still pressed to my back, an arm of his wrapped around my waist. His head pillowed on my shoulder. He pressed deliriously against me, his mouth making little kisses along my shoulder blade as his mind wheeled free, either quoting poetry or making it up on the spot.
A terror to the Wittenhame, one mortal girl by oath claimed, she careth not that they be lords or ladies famed, and so I draw my eyes to her and tuck her deep within my breast, why find me now my wandering heart when I have hers to make a nest?
If I had the time, I’d sit and record it and gaze into his strange, beloved eyes as he told it me, but we had been dropped just steps from a battle and that had me somewhat preoccupied.
I focused my eyes and tried to take in what was happening, bracing the lantern pole in front of me.
“If, in the cockles of your limited mind you have conceived of a plan to plant us in the jaws of one of those things again,” Grosbeak snarled at me, “then I am compelled to remind you that not only am I your last living friend, but I also saved your life by macerating the rose that held Antlerdale’s curse, taking the death of a prince of the Wittenhame upon myself on your behalf.”
“Did you inherit Antlerdale, then?” I asked but I was only paying them half a mind.
I was counting. Four remaining warriors. One was Wittentree, one was a Wittenbrand warrior I did not know, though her fierce demeanor and multiple braids made her look like kin to Wittentree. The other two were very familiar to me. No longer dressed as mirror images, they were still Frost and Yarrow, the pair that once guarded Marshyellow and who I commanded to drown him in the sea. I had thought them dead with him, but I was wrong, it would seem.
“Only the living may inherit, though were I alive, I would make Antlerdale so strong that I could challenge the Bramble King himself.”
“Your bragging does not benefit you,” Sparrow huffed. “And you are not her only friend.”
“Are you calling yourself my friend now, Sparrow,” I said absently. “I had not thought you would stoop so low.”
The Hound was not faring well against these five. It took a snapping leap at Wittentree, only for her relative to chop its hamstring with her double-headed axe. The dog let out something that sounded like both scream and whine before attempting to leap forward again, its hamstrung foot dragging behind it.
I edged backward, trying to keep an eye on my footing and the battle both at once.
Sweet torment close yet far away, her voice would still my longing. But it’s her silence I must crave, or spoil all our hoping. Attend your ears and bend your lips and place on me a blessing, then tangle me in strings of love, hark to my song confessing.
Bluebeard, shhh,I begged him with my mind. He was distracting me too much. And who raved in verse, anyway?
The way my breath seemed to tumble at his soft, soft kisses and the knowing that as he slipped in and out of consciousness it was ever me on his mind, was just too much. I had a battle to keep out of and a talking head to verbally spar with and I couldn’t do that when I could barely think — which was what his poems did to me.
Shhh,he agreed in my mind and I rolled my eyes. He was going to be the death of me, too.
“You will admit I am friend to you in action if not in heart,” Sparrow said coolly.
“I will,” I agreed, still watching the battle. I thought it best to remain out of it. I was no warrior, but as I watched, I wondered if these were allies working together, or enemies forced into partnership. They did not seem too concerned with the safety of one another.
“Also, you should take two steps back and one to the left. Right now, I would wager.” Her voice was so clipped that I scrambled to do as she said, and we stepped out of the way of a sudden swing of one of the Hound’s heads, neat as you please.
I panted a heavy breath. “Should I be fighting, too?”
“Spare us that!” Sparrow spat. “Leave it to those who are good at it.”
“And there’s Yarrow with a strike!” Grosbeak said happily. “Klopfen rounds to the flank again, and yes! Another heel chop! Excellent, excellent work!”
“Grosbeak’s always enjoyed a good gladiator match,” Sparrow said to me, as if confiding. “He served as the Bramble King’s champion for a season of entertainment once. I did not care for his loose form or dramatics, but everyone said his costuming was the best.”
“What is a gladiator match?” I asked as Wittentree dove under one of the snapping heads and deftly slit one of the Hound’s throats while her kin — Klopfen? Ran up its back and hacked at the place where the spine met the shoulders.
“A fight to disfigurement between two competitors for the amusement of the crowd,” Sparrow said.
