Brandon Ashveil's Arc

Chapter 4 of 18

Brandon left Dayna's longhouse at dawn. She stood in the doorway with the firefly lantern still burning in her hand and did not wave. He walked north with the bond a low hum behind his ribs. He could feel the fae lord as a pull, no sharper than a compass needle. He did not know if the man was bleeding. He did not know if the man was strong. He only knew the direction. By midday the road narrowed into deer track. He watched a pale-blazed buck cross the path ahead of him and stop. The buck stared at him too long. Its ears turned toward the trees on his right before it bolted. Brandon dropped into a crouch and drew his knife. They came from three sides. Two fae in green leathers and a black hound with red claws that moved low through the brush. Word had run ahead of him on the road, he knew it now. A human marked by a fae lord's blood did not travel unnoticed. Someone wanted him stopped before he reached the groves. The hound came first. Brandon met it with the knife and took its weight on his shoulder. Teeth found his forearm. He drove the blade up under its jaw and rolled clear. The first fae hit him across the back with a staff. He went down on one knee. The second fae raised a short curved blade. An arrow took that one through the throat. Dayna stepped out of the ferns with a short bow and a second arrow already nocked. Her ginger hair was full of leaves. She looked small and furious and entirely out of place in a forest of pointed ears. The remaining fae turned toward her and she put the second arrow into his chest before he finished the turn. Brandon stared at her from the dirt. "You followed me," he said. "I knew you'd walk into it," she said. She knelt by the fae she had killed. She cut a lock of hair from his head and dropped it into a pouch. Then she pried open his hand and pared a nail. "Not the lord. But close enough kin to be useful." "You came for a piece." "I came for you." She did not look up. "The piece is a bonus." Brandon's arm was bleeding where the hound had bit him. The blood was his own. He noted this with a small flat surprise. The bond stayed quiet in his chest. Whatever the fae lord was doing far to the north, Brandon could not feel it now past the noise of his own hurt. Dayna cut a strip from her sleeve and tied off his arm. "They knew I was coming," he said. "They'll know again," she said. "Word's on the road. Next ones won't be three." She helped him up. They walked north together. The track climbed toward higher ground, and somewhere ahead of them the sick fae lord waited in a grove where iron meant nothing.