He stuck his nose in the air and marched on ahead of Idris, ignoring the stream of well-chosen epithets being hissed at his back by both man and draigling.
It was late afternoon on the following day by the time they left the Barrens. Beyond stretched the plain Irian had named Mag Tuired—the old killing fields where Eala had ambushed them with her army of the dead. Remembered fear arose in Wayland—the visceral horror of watching Irian’s tall black stallion hobbled by decrepit hands, seeing Fia sprawled helpless between ravening corpses, and smelling the stench of dust and decay mingling with the searing char of Laoise’s draig fire.
Now the plain was still and quiet, scattered skeletons and broken weapons crisscrossed with lines of black ash the only evidence of their struggle.
“What is it?” Idris asked.
Wayland hesitated, then told him what had happened. Idris blanched, staring out over the plain with fear glossing his own eyes.
“We could go around,” he suggested, hopefully.
Wayland shaded his eyes against the red burn of the setting sun. To walk around the plain—keeping to the foothills—would add a day to their journey at least. And would necessitate campingbesidethe killing fields.
“No,” he decided. “We cross it. Now, before the sun sets and plunges us in darkness.”
Idris whistled but didn’t complain. “You are brave.”
“Not really.” Wayland laughed as he stepped onto the flat, scrubby expanse. “My inborn laziness happens to be far stronger than my native cowardice.”
Despite his bravado, Wayland’s heart thundered a shamefulcrescendo between his ears. Sweat slicked the muscles of his back as they picked their way across the desolated landscape pocked by the half-buried bones of Fomorians and Folk. But though Wayland steeled himself for the earth to shake and split, for the flesh-draped skeletons to reach for their weapons, the plain was still and silent.
Neither man spoke, for there was nothing to say that the dead had not already told.
The sun had slipped away beyond the purple line of moors marching toward the horizon when Wayland’s boots struck the stony hill beyond the plain, edged with heather and gorse, and he sucked in air touched by smells of new grass and fresh water.
“Another hour,” Wayland promised. Both he and Idris were tired after the day’s long hike, but neither of them wished to camp beside Mag Tuired. “Then we find food. And a place to sleep.”
It was pitch black by the time they reached a narrow wood of thin silver trees, their leaves chiming like bells. The ground beneath their feet was carpeted with velvet moss in hues of midnight blue. They were both too exhausted to make a fire or find provisions—they nibbled on a few leftover fruits from the valley before bedding beneath their cloaks. Hog continued to favor Idris, but in the middle of the night Wayland awoke to her snoring directly in his ear, draped around his neck like a scarf.
In the morning, all the trees had grown luminous fruits bathed in silver dew, dripping with scarlet nectar that tasted of honey and starlight.
“Don’t eat that,” Idris warned from where he was viciously lacing his boots. “It could be anything. It could be poisonous.”
“Coming from the man who grows cave mushrooms and fillets salamanders,” Wayland pointed out as he cut a slice of mystery fruit, “that’s a bit rich.”
Wayland filled his empty belly. He didn’t tell Idris that the sweetness clung to his mouth long after they walked on, leaving him thirsty for something he could not name.
The next morning, they found a folkway by accident, when Idris stepped into what seemed like a shallow puddle and disappeared into the ground. Wayland stared after him, jaw dropped, until he had no choice but to get on his hands and knees and stick his face straight into the mud.
Idris had fallen ten or more feet onto his arse between towering black roses, the petals velvety with moisture. Wayland almost laughed until he saw the death glare Idris was shooting him.
“Here.” He reached an arm. He was fairly certain they were on the correct route to Murias—the wrongness he’d touched with his mind via Fáilsceim hummed like a curse at the edge of his awareness. Gods only knew what detour this folkway might send them on. “I’ll help you.”
But no matter how they both strained, their fingers didn’t even touch. At last, Wayland sighed, clasped a griping Hog to his chest, and jumped in after Idris.
The scent of the overgrown flowers was intoxicating, but beneath it lurked something darker—a coppery tang, like blood. They did not linger, hastening their pace as the wind whispered tantalizing secrets. That night, they camped on a hill overlooking the rose field, their fire flicking low. They had nothing to eat or drink, and for the first time, Idris sat closer to Wayland than was strictly proper—their shoulders brushing and their boots touching. Wayland held his breath and tried not to look at the other man head-on—as if he were a wild animal who might spook. His fingers twitched with the urge to reach out and touch Idris, but he twined them together and thought of what he’d said the night Idris had fixed his nose.
I’ll wait.
The folkway saved them a week of walking. Soon, Wayland noticed evidence of the corrupted wild magic billowing dark anddamaging above the ruined city of Murias. It hummed, tense and terrible and tempting, slicking along his limbs and whispering in his ears. He wrapped his hand around Fáilsceim’s haft, but that only made things worse—the hum became a shout, throbbing feverishly through his mind and expanding and contracting with the force of his breathing.
They passed through a swamp where the trees wept tears of amber sap and the mud underfoot was black and fetid, sticking to their boots like tar. Strange lights floated above the water—wisps of sickly green and mutilated violet—beckoning them deeper between the trees. Idris followed them. When Wayland caught him by the arm and spun him away, his gaze was wide and slack with wonder. Wayland shook him, hard, his panic fading when the other man’s eyes slowly cleared. But instead of showing relief, Idris’s expression warped with disappointment… fury… overwhelming sadness. Tears welled in his eyes, stained yellow and black by the strange lights flickering and flitting through the swamp.
“What is it?” Wayland asked, alarmed. Hog leapt from his shoulder to Idris’s, wrapping her chubby limbs around his neck and laving the tears from his cheek with her forked tongue. “What’s wrong?”
But Idris swiped angrily at his eyes, settled the sheet of his hair carefully over his face, and trudged onward through the swamp.
“Nothing,” he ground out. “Let’s get out of this place.”
