“She’s gone. Wake up.”
“Whazzat?” Fern startled awake at a hand on her back and searched her surroundings wildly. The disorientation of finding herself sleeping on the ground in the middle of nowhere was profound. Specters of guilt and dismay still haunted her from the fading tatters of her dream.
The heavy scent of cold grass in the shadowed valley and the sooty funk of a recently expired campfire quivered her whiskers. When was the last time she’d slept out of doors? Had sheever?
Struggling to a sitting position, Fern drew her cloak—currently serving as a woefully thin blanket—tighter around her. In the sharp morning chill she was spectacularly glad to have fur.
Astryx straightened and loomed above her, edged in what little morning light had made an early advance over the eastern hills. It took a solid ten seconds before Fern’s recent memory slotted into place and she realized who she was looking at, where she was, and that she would not be stumbling out of bed to feed a hungry gryphet anytime soon.
“The goblin? How? Wh-Where is she?” Fern’s mouth was still asleep. She glanced in muzzy confusion toward the wagon and the ringbolt, sans rope.
Even in the dim light, she didn’t have any trouble interpreting the flat expression Astryx returned. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have bothered to wake you. I need you to watch the camp while I hunt her down. I’ve seen signs of hazferou in the area. The bounty doesn’t specify that Zyll should be uneaten, but itisimplied.”
Nothing in her tone hinted that ajokewas implied, though.
“Hazferou?” Fern scrubbed sleep sand from both eyes with her paws.
“A bit like a giant chicken. But with teeth. And venom.”
Thatbanished any lingering drowsiness, as surely as plunging through the surface of a frozen pond. “I thought you said this wassafe countrywhen you were sending me off towalkhome?”
“It was. Now, it isn’t.”
“And you want me to stay here? Alone?” She snatched the red book from her satchel and brandished it. “If a bunch of devil chickens attack, you want me to, what,readthem to death?”
Astryx plucked the book from Fern’s paws and tested its weight. “I think you could get some power behind this if you used both hands.”
Thatwas a joke. Fern wasprettysure. Nothing seemed very funny at the moment.
“Fuck me.”
“What a foul mouth you have.”
“Seems appropriate to the situation? I’m coming with you.”
Astryx glanced at the draft horse and scratched her ruined ear in a gesture that Fern was beginning to understand meant she was debating something. “I suppose if there are any cries of distress, you can translate.”
Fern winced inwardly at that.
The elf approached the stub of a branch where the horse’s reins were tethered and untied them. She looped the leather in her fist and then tucked them into his halter, patting his shoulder with her other hand. With absolute seriousness, she said, “All right, Bucket. You see any hazferou, you kick them and run.”
“Your horse’s name isBucket? Is that a play on words, or just a really boring name?”
Astryx frowned. “What do you mean, a play on words?”
“Um. Never mind.”
The elf shrugged, swept up her sword in its sheath with the baldric still attached, and strode purposefully west of their campsite and into the undergrowth with nary a backward glance.
Fern squeaked and hurried to follow.
While it was technically dawn, and allegedly, this involved the existence of sunlight, the forest beyond the road was positively stygian. Fern also knew about enough woodlore to fill a teaspoon.
As a result, while she did her best to follow Astryx into the gloom, her cloak snagged on brambles, leaf litter clung to her fur, and whippy young branches slapped her in the face.
She tried to be quiet about it, but in addition to the general trampling and bumbling, the occasional curse made it past her lips, too. Sotto voce, but still.
After a few aggrieved glances over her shoulder, Astryx stopped, waited for Fern to catch up—scratched and panting—and without a word, slung the rattkin onto her back.
