Page 25 of The Blight of Hollowmire

Now that things are at a bit of a lull, I have time to reflect. I’m still too close to the castle to be at ease. Surely, Mother and Father will send people out after me—no one will like to think about a soon-to-be apocalypse beast wantonly crashing through the kingdom. I’m still unsure about whether or not they’ll lock me in the dungeon if they haul me back, which would definitely put an end to my quest before it has truly begun. I’m only a half-day’s journey away from the castle—the courtly heart of Hollowmire—and the nearby village where I plan to make my inquiries into the mysterious fortune teller is a good three days on foot from here. The less time I spend in the forest, the better, and I marvel at the audacity of the unconscious human who has obviously encountered things that I would prefer not to. This woodland is the realm of monstrous things—things that I don’t fear, exactly, but that I bear a healthy amount of respect for.

It fits with my perceived understanding of humans that this man with the nice sword and even nicer horse would endanger them both due to a glut of misplaced confidence in the face of the unknown. Whether from ignorance or audacity, I can’t be sure until he wakes and I can ask him directly.

Instinct urges me to leave this man here and continue on my way, but some fragile thread pulls me to him. Would it not be a waste of my precious time to leave him now, helpless, only to have him be eaten by something hungrier and more motivated than the bogunder?

Even more of an irritant is my curiosity—a human in Hollowmire! What is he doing here? Where can he be going? From whence did he hail? And beneath the iron-tang scent of his copious blood and the fetid bog water, why does he smell like apples and sun-warmed stalks of wheat?

Giving in to my curiosity for a mere moment, I shuffle over to his prone body on my knees to better examine him. Grabbing a chunk of soft, dewy moss, I gently wipe the mud, dried blood, and mixture of viscera from his face.

His ears are small and strange and too round compared to ours, but in many other aspects he looks almost fae. His hair is a deep golden on top, but his cheeks sport a darker blond beard, close cropped and well kept. Silver dusts his temples and seems to be marching stalwartly up his head and down through his whiskers, which almost certainly means he is of a middling age. What that means for humans, however, I cannot say. Time works differently here for us than it does for humans.

His lips are full and his cheekbones high, but his nose is crooked and his face a map of scars. One across his eyebrow, one on his upper lip, three thick ones pulling down from his temple to his cheek, as if some brutal clawed thing slashed at him. Despite these marks of imperfection, he is—irritatingly—handsome. His body is thick with muscle but even more scarred than his face, suggesting a life of violence and brutality.

I scoff. If this human is so used to battle, it’s bewildering that he entered the forest alone and expected to survive. Then again, maybe he didn’t. Was this his final wish? To die in battle instead of wasting away to dust in a bed after a lifetime of adventures?

“Why are you here, little human?” I whisper, more curious than cautious.

He does not answer, which is sensible considering he is unconscious.

I sigh, and sit back on my heels, so needled by my own curiosity that I make the riskiest decision of all. I will stay with this human for a while—at least until he rouses and I can ply him with my questions. It would be unfair for me to leave him now, anyway, as helpless as he is.

My fortune teller inquisition will have to wait.

We cannot stay here, though, close as we are to Hollowmire Castle and its hungry bog.

Down by the stream, I cut down two young saplings and lash them together, then tie the human’s cloak between them to fashion a makeshift palette.

“We’ve got to find safer ground, Handsome One,” I say softly to the horse. “I can lead you, but your master won’t be able to ride. Do you think you could help me with this stretcher?”

I’ve no idea if the horse understands me, but it feels more polite to ask than to simply throw a rope around his saddle and hitch up his unconscious rider. I needn’t worry, though—the beast stands perfectly still while I lift the human onto the palette and fasten it to the saddle. From the human’s pack, I pull out a fine wool blanket and tuck it around him, which will hopefully keep from jostling his injuries too much as we make our way deeper into the wood.

Nibblebones scampers back and forth while I tend my care, sniffing at the horse—who exudes extreme indifference to my corpse weasel—and diving in and out of the human’s bags.

“You may pilfer food only,” I tell her sternly. “That we may replace. Everything else belongs to the living human. His treasures are not grave goods for you to hoard, little one.”

She chitters indignantly, and emerges with a large chunk of bread clamped in her mouth. The horse steps cautiously, and it sends a sharp ache through my chest to think of this animal being injured and yet clearly so loyal to his master as to trust a strange fae in a stranger forest.

I walk at the horse’s head, gently holding the reins to guide him better to even, smoother ground. I know this part of the forest well, and there is a ruined cottage a few leagues in, coincidentally on the way to the village that I’d planned on visiting, anyway.

We follow the clear stream as it winds through the trees, and it strikes me how peculiar this autumn is. The early chill, the strange nights of frost, the paltry harvest from land that’s always been fruitful and fecund—whatever it is that’s shifted the balance of nature’s rhythms or perhaps angered the gods, it’s reached the interior of the forest, as well.

Sunlight struggles to reach the ground here, the birch and willow trees that border the bog giving way to thick oaks, elms, and a few evergreens. Reaching out with my keen senses, I feel for the detritivores and decomposers that should be more numerous than anything. The answering sensation I get is wrong. It’s not absence, exactly, but something closer to… waiting.

Shaking off the prickling sense of wrongness that swirls in my gut, I pause every half-league or so to check in on my charge. He sleeps fitfully, mumbling and sweating through some unseen terror. I suspect he’ll begin thrashing around again and open up his wounds, so I lash his arms and legs to the frame of the stretcher and hope whichever god oversees ignorant humans is feeling merciful.

After a few hours of plodding and careful encouragements to the horse, we reach a dense part of the woodland lorded over by towering oaks more stooped and gnarled than at the outer edges. Between the ring of trees sit the remains of a river stone cottage, once roofed in timber and thatch, now pockmarked with holes that would let the sunlight in if there were any. Next to the back of the cottage is a feeble lean-to that once served as a stable, so I unhitch my makeshift stretcher at the cottage entrance and lead the horse there.

“Nibblebones, did you find any feed in the human’s bags for this animal?” I ask, pulling a dirty but mostly sound pail from the corner of the lean-to and carrying it down to the stream. I scrub it out with a handful of sand and fill it with the cool, clear water, then lug it back up and set it down for the poor beast.

While the horse drinks, Nibblebones emits a high-pitched squeak and tugs at the top of a bag, unearthing a small amount of oats and horse bread. As soon as he finishes drinking, I dump half the contents into the bucket and offer him a gentle scratch on his withers. I unsaddle him and carry the gear and bags into the cottage, which looks a little worse for wear.

There’s a small table and two chairs that are almost certainly rotten, and a bed covered with a mold-eaten straw mattress. The floor beneath the holes in the roof is covered with piles of brown and rust-colored oak leaves, and it appears something has been nesting in the hearth.

“Well,” I say to Nibblebones. “I hope our guest isn’t particular.”

I do my best to clean up as much of the cottage as I can without proper supplies and drag the human onto the bed. He moans softly—the sound coming out raspy from between his dry, cracked lips.

“I seem to remember humans needing to eat and drink more often than is prudent,” I say aloud. “Little darling, would you perhaps be able to catch us a rabbit tonight?”