Wren felt more relieved than otherwise to hear the command. No longer need he worry about dragging Shrike down or holding him back. He nodded.
A slight smile graced Shrike’s lips. He strode off in utter silence. Soon he vanished amongst the trees, leaving Wren quite alone.
Too late, Wren wondered how Shrike intended to find him again. He glanced around. None of the surrounding trees or stones or sticks or snow appeared particularly notable to his mortal eyes. Perhaps Shrike’s keen fae sight found something more remarkable in this quarter of the wood. Or perhaps he would use the acorn trick again, as he’d done when he’d first sought Wren out more than a year ago.
The wind had persisted throughout the course of the hunt. Sometimes it howled across the lake. Other times it whistled through the trees.
Now, however, as Wren crouched alone in an unremarkable spot, the wind whimpered.
Wren cocked his head at the sound. For a moment he thought he’d imagined it. Then it came again; a distinct cry of pain carried along in the biting wind.
Shrike had told him in no uncertain terms to remain where he was. Still, as Wren sat and shivered and listened, the sound of another creature in agony wrenched even his hardened heart. He arose to follow where the cry might lead. Perhaps it was nothing. Or perhaps he might do something useful in the hunt after all.
The whimpering wind wound through the trees on an unfamiliar path. Wren winced at the sound of his own boots crunching through the dead sticks and snow. The pained cries—not true screams, but rather the bitten-off involuntary sounds of one who didn’t wish to reveal their wounds to the world yet felt their agonies all the same—grew louder as he went. Soon enough he stumbled on their source.
In a queer hollow where the snow swept against the enormous roots of ancient pines lay a faun. Sprawled, rather, with one leg caught aloft in a snare tied to a tree-branch. The particularly fine wire had encircled their hoofed foot between hock and pastern, drawing tight and slicing deeper and deeper into the furred flesh as the faun struggled. They had an unstrung bow slung across their back and a quiver belted around their waist. Their arrows had spilled across the snow in their fall. Now they struggled to retrieve them, their whole body stretched taut to bring their fingertips a fraction of an inch away from the arrowheads which might serve to cut them free from the snare which, if they continued struggling, looked well on its way to slicing through a tendon and crippling them.
“Are you all right?” Wren called out, more to announce his presence than to receive the obvious answer.
The faun glanced up, startled, and choked off another yelp of pain as even this slight yet sudden movement drew against the ever-tightening snare.
“Let me help,” Wren added in haste.
The faun stared at him.
Wren held out his hands, palms upraised, to show he meant no harm.
Hazel eyes with horizontal pupils flicked up and down Wren’s frame. The bell-shaped ears, which had pinned back against the skull amidst the dark cropped curls, flopped down to their natural restful position, and the rest of the body relaxed soon after, like a longbow unstrung.
Wren forced a polite smile and approached the faun with measured steps. He reached toward the snare, then hesitated, seeking permission with a glance. The faun granted it in a nod.
The slender snare, slick with blood, proved far too tight to untie by hand. However, it was not wire, as Wren had first supposed. Rather it was some sort of vine, dried and prepared in fae fashion to create a springy yet unyielding thread. Wren followed its path back to the tree-branch securing it in place and found the knot there as impossible as the loop around the poor faun’s leg. Unable to find purchase on either knot with his fingernails, Wren dipped his hand into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew his pen-knife.
The faun’s goat-eyes flew wide. In an instant their whole body tensed again, the ears pinned back, and their gaze flicked from the sharp point to Wren’s face and back again.
Wren didn’t see the cause for alarm. The pen-knife’s blade ran hardly as long as his own thumb. Certainly not a weapon capable of any real violence. Then, as he puzzled over it, he recalled that, unlike most blades in the fae realms, his pen-knife had a cutting edge of steel—otherwise known as an alloy of iron. No wonder the faun looked nervous.
“I’ll be careful,” Wren promised.
The faun didn’t look as though they entirely believed him, but with a hard swallow, they nodded nonetheless.
Wren slipped two fingers beneath the snare and slid the pen-knife between them, careful to keep its cutting edge pointed inthe opposite direction from the faun’s flesh. He gave a swift tug toward himself and away from the faun. The snare snapped in twain.
“There you go,” Wren said, quickly shutting the pen-knife and tucking it back into his pocket.
No sooner had the blade vanished than the faun leapt up. Wren scarce had time for a belated flinch. He’d hardly supposed they’d prove so spry considering all they’d endured. Yet there they went, hopping around on one hoof to regather their lost arrows. They’d snatched up most of them before they turned to find Wren still staring. Wren half-expected a reproof for his rude silence. Instead, the faun smiled a most charming smile, one which revealed a very handsome dimple in their left cheek.
“Many thanks, my lord,” said the faun.
Wren didn’t think he would ever get used to hearing that title. Still, he forced a smile as he replied that the faun was most welcome, adding, “Have you anything for your wound?”
The faun blinked at him, looked down at their bleeding leg, then back up with a shrug.
Wren couldn’t take quite so casual a view of the matter. While the snare had not cut anything vital—or so it seemed to Wren’s eye, untrained in medical science—it had almost flayed the flesh, leaving a gory mess in its wake. Fae might not prove so susceptible to infection as mortals, but it couldn’t be good for the faun to run amok through the wild woods with such a wound.
And so Wren dipped his hand into his waistcoat pocket a second time.
The faun took on a wary stance. Wren didn’t blame them. But rather than another iron blade, Wren withdrew his handkerchief.
