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Arn tensed. “Have a care where you cut.” Her own dagger rested comfortably at her belt, though she did not lay hand to it as the spearman sawed at the strands.
He made no reply, working delicately at the ash-pale clinging stuff, his blade almost flat against my mantle. Aeredh returned from the head of the column, Eol behind him. Snow still clung to the captain’s hair; though the force of the wind was broken, it was still too cold under the trees for any melt.
“Easy, my lady shieldmaid.” Aeredh peered past Arn, and let out a soft breath. “It is best to move with caution here. The more speed, the tighter the trap.”
“What is it?” My hood was pushed back, but the wolf-fur meant I could not see precisely what Yedras did, and he stood almost indecently close. Living heat brushed against my mantle, less a cessation of the chill than a fractional difference in its intensity. “Does it grow like lichen? How do the trees live, so covered?”
“I am not sure how, only that they do.” Aeredh glanced at the oak looming over us. “And no, the veils do not grow. They are spun.”
Eol slipped past, halting to speak with Gelad who walked behind Yedras, and a murmur went down our line. The men gathered close, Elder keeping outer watch while the wolves of Naras attended to what business was needful for a midday halt.
“Spun?” I held my breath as Yedras sheared the last bit of clinging from my sleeve. “I am sorry, my lord Elder. I should have taken more care.”
“No need for sorrow.” He scrubbed at the blade’s flat with his fingertips, a flicker ofseidhrgiving a heatless spark. “But you are lucky the tree is dead, and this an old web fallen from its proper place.” He tipped his chin up, and I followed the line of his gaze to the shrouded canopy. Thin blankets stretched tight or wound aboutbranches, holes rent in no pattern I could discern, a faint powdery bloom upon each overlapping gossamer pane—I could not tell how such thread could be spun, let alone woven.
Waybread was produced, and a swallow of winterwine given to each Secondborn. Arneior settled into an easy crouch near Efain and Soren, the two men checking each other’s gear while she examined the process, being very interested in Northern weapons and fasteners. Eol’s gloved fingers brushed mine as he handed the wineskin over, and when I was done he drank, his throat moving as he swallowed a scant measure.
“Soon we shall need torches.” He showed his teeth after swallowing as if the vintage tasted of strong mead, stinging while settling in the stomach.
“That is no hardship.” I realized I was whispering despite the hush, and so were my companions. “Fuel aplenty here. And I may be useless in all else, but at least I can provide flame.”
“Useless?” He stoppered the skin with a savage twist, looking down at me with what seemed honest surprise. “Hope is rarely so, my lady Question.”
“Rarely so?” I could barely believe he was indeed speaking to me, instead of disdaining avolva’s aid; I counted it a pax-offering and essayed a smile. “Is that a riddle?”
“No.” Eol looked past me as he did many times during our travels, his dark gaze moving from each member of our group to the next. He took much care with his men, for all they were so few. “The things which live here spin this fabric, and many are those who have been caught in it. We are fortunate winter makes them slow, but that bears its own danger.”
What had changed, that he seemed so willing to grant some information? Yet I had other questions. “What manner of creature? Do they hibernate, or—”
“Sol?” Arneior uncoiled, and the word was a sharp bark. For a moment I thought her simply cautious of a man so close to her charge.
I had no time to wonder, for there was a skittering rush nearby; a cold breeze ruffled my braids. The oak’s dead limbs thrashed, twigs festooned with rot-pale cloth shaking free. I might havecried out, startled, butseidhrthundered in my ears and Eol moved, blurring-quick.
My arm was nearly wrenched free of its socket. I flew, a short stomach-flipping journey ending on hard-frozen ground, a bare root digging painfully into my hip. There was little time to complain, for Eol of Naras landed squarely atop me, rolling us both aside with another wrenching effort as something large and glowing-pale lunged, sharp spear-legs burying themselves where we had rested a bare moment before.
“Sol!” Arn yelled, and one of the Northerners cursed in the Old Tongue—a term of surpassing vileness, almost scorching frozen air.
Dazed near-witless, I could only blink as the thing’s bulk flickered aside, drumbeat-footsteps in pattering succession. It was unholy quick, and a rising growl shattered the stillness.
A shaggy ink-mass poured itself upward; Eol coalesced from its depths, his sword ringing free. Every blade had left its sheath, and there was a sharp twang as Daerith loosed, the arrow flicking to bury itself in a mass of weeping, fungal-glowing globes. Scabrous luminescence clung to a hairy hide, for in the gloom of Mistwood those long-legged predators carry what little light they need upon their abdomens and in their terrible, bulbous, many-faceted eyes.
Arneior skidded to a stop and bent, her hand closing about my wrist as I thrashed. She hauled me upright, looking over my shoulder, and her freckles glared no less than her woad-stripe.
By the time I could turn, my mantle all awry and my throat full of sour copper, all I witnessed was a whitish blur the size of a well-grown ram scuttle-diving into deep shadow. Branches thrashed afresh, snow pattered down, and I still had little idea what, by the bright gods and the dark, had happened.
“We must move.” Bits of ashen clingcloth stuck to Aeredh’s hair. His hand shot out, closing upon Eol’s arm; the captain looked ready to dive into sparse undergrowth, and strained against his hold. “Gather torch-limbs, as many as you can carry.”
My shieldmaid nearly dragged me along, and did not halt until we were surrounded by Northerners. “Fast,” she said, softly. “By the Wingéd, I did not see it in time.”
“They hunt by stealth.” Gelad was pale too, but not nearly so much. “Are you hurt? Either of you?”
I felt almost transparent. My head still rang; had the thing attacked withseidhror was I simply stunned? I could not tell, and patted at my skirts. I brushed my sleeves, tugged them into place, and a great wave of shuddering passed through me. “No.” I was shaken, bruised, and dizzy, but it seemed little enough. “Not… by the gods, that… that thing…”
“’Tis gone now.” Arneior held her spear aside and examined me for damage almost roughly, finally sliding her free arm around me for a brief, bruising hug. “Leaving only its stink.”
So it was, a noisome odor lingering heavy at the back of the throat. A long streak of rotting ichor fringed with strange velvety patterns as it dried was the only evidence of the skirmish—that, and a few broken twigs wrapped with rotting, clotting not-cloth. The sticky, hanging veils moved slowly on soft invisible breezes, and each time I glimpsed one twitching I almost flinched.
It took me a few moments to kindle the first torch, but I accomplished it, and lit a few others besides. When I looked up from the task, shaking my bare fingers and pulling my glove back on with hurried tugs, I found Eol watching. Perhaps he was irritated at my stupidly needing rescue, for the wolf in him was visible again, a restless flicker under his skin, a savage brightness in his dark eyes.
