“What the fuck am I doing?” she mumbled to herself, with an unhinged giggle.
“Yeah, I dunno why you signed up for this,” observed Breadlee. “There’s already a goat. Why did we need more bait?”
“So somebody can drag the goat indoors if they come?” said Fern. “I don’t want her to get killed.”
“It’s just a goat. It’s not like it’s sapient.”
The goat lifted its upper lip spitefully in the knife’s direction.
“Astryx will make sure I’m safe,” replied Fern, with what she pretended was firm resolve.
But resolve had nothing to do with it. Her reasons had more to do with something Astryx had said to her in the monastery stable.
You belong, if you want to.
And maybe she did want to.
Hardly a feeling she planned to share with sentient silverware, though.
So they waited.
And waited.
Eventually, as moonless dark descended, Astryx lit a series of torch poles in both directions along the road and brought out a stool for Fern to sit on. She also fetched a lit oil lantern and placed it on the road beside the rattkin and the goat. It cast a wobbly pool of faded light that threw their shadows outward in dark stripes.
“Are you sure about this?” asked the Oathmaiden.
Fern settled onto the stool with a sigh while the nanny nibbled at her cloak. “Seems like a squire’s duty. What about you? Are you sure about this?” She gestured toward the elf’s wounded side.
“I’m hale enough,” Astryx replied, with a collegial squeeze on the shoulder that made Fern sit up a little straighter.
Breadlee sighed wistfully after the Blademistress as she retreated to the building with Nigel held at her side.
“Oh, get over it already,” muttered Fern.
Then a piercing, ululating cry split the air. The torchglow picked out Zyll’s red eyes in flecks of fire atop the roof as she pointed into the woods.
“Dead-lings!”
33
Fern couldn’t see anything to begin with.
Then a bristle of shadow penetrated the margin of torchlight several yards down the road. At first, she thought it looked like nothing so much as an ambulatory shrub.
This impression crumbled in moments.
The dirty gleam of mud-smeared bone, the wink of teeth, the stringy remains of cadaverous flesh—all became clearer as it drew near. As though a riot of ivy had tunneled upward through a grave and brought along everything it found along the way, greenery choked its battered rib cage, swaying in mossy beards as the greenling staggered in her direction. Its skull was misshapen, blown out and crowned with a tangle of holly that snaked in and out of its orbits. The lower jaw bobbed, disconnected, in the ferns choking its collar.
Each footfall was a rustle and clatter as it advanced unerringly toward her.
Fern stared transfixed at this shambling nightmare of creeper and decay. It moved so slowly that her horror and fear hadn’t yet muscled their way to the forefront of her mind. The goat beside her shifted anxiously from hoof to hoof, panting in quick, hard breaths.
A noise behind Fern made her turn to discover three more of the horrible things, and they were much, much closer. Then her feardidfind purchase.
“Astryx!” she cried. She forgot all about getting the goat back into the tavern.
The nanny’s thinning patience with her snapped, and it jerked the lead from Fern’s paw, fleeing into the darkness with a bleat of dismay.
