their hunt. The brook where he called the fairy ring had long-since been crossed, the ill-twisted trees that protected the portal surrounding them once more. Through the canopy the Carn Cavall and Snowdon grew in the far distance, the mountain heights an unattainable safe haven the knight now wished more than anything to be within reach.
“Where are we going?” Bran breathed hard.
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
“The stream back there maybe?” Bran suggested. “Hide our passing?”
“A movie cliché, nothing more,” Richard said. “These hounds are far too well-trained to be thrown off our scent so easily.”
The pursuit echoed everywhere, no longer just behind, the barks on top of them. Richard slowed to a quick walk, eyes casting about for the right spot.
“What are you looking for?”
“There,” Richard pointed out, moving up the gradual slope where anorexic trees grew in stagnated competition with one another. There wasn’t much space between them. In their midst, a tiny outcropping of granite broke free from the forest, a serrated throne within the malformed, dark wood.
“This is your plan?” Bran asked increduously.
“Stay close behind me,” the knight ordered. “And remember what I said about the trees.”
Bran flinched where he was almost touching one.
“Exactly,” Richard said simply as he backed them against the thrust of rock.
Minutes passed, each one an eon as the inevitable approached. It didn’t take long. The first hound burst into view, as large as the cu sith but sleeker and faster, like an Irish wolfhound. Dirtied white wheaten fur coated its frame as the canine barked low to the ground until it sighted Richard and Bran, red ears flattened against its box-like head. Others quickly joined it. Twelve dogs circled them, each threateningly cutting off escape.
Richard stood in front of Bran, muscles taut for the fight. He called Arondight and it materialized into his hand without difficulty, the runes along its silvery blade throbbing azure.
The dogs growled lower in response but did not flinch, digging in.
Minutes passed in stalemate.
Then a hound more powerfully built and larger than the others emerged from the path of their flight. Upon its back rode a short, stocky man with a matted copper beard and matching wild hair.
The hounds moved aside, their eyes still fixed on their quarry.
With both hands gripping the thick fur of his mount, the rider grinned maliciously, his hunt over. Only when the houndmaster drew close did the knight see he was not alone; behind him rode an ancient woman, her cheeks gaunt and wrinkled, her stringy gray hair falling over blue-tinged skin as if dunked in ice. Death hung upon her, permanent and unyielding, but in her watery orbs a fire of terrible life burned with murderous malice.
“Now be still, my pretties,” the short man cajoled, his green eyes never deviating from Richard. “Tell ya when, tell ya when, ah will.”
The beasts whined, their desire obvious.
“Be still yourself, Goronwy,” the ancient woman growled, her gaze shifting from Bran to Richard as she slid off the lowered hound, rags hanging from her bones as if in afterthought. “Let me off this flea-bitten beast.”
“We have no quarrel with you,” Richard snarled.
Stormy eyes fixed on the knight. “Nah, not with me. With someone else. Come with me now, like a good lil’ one.”
“Never,” Richard replied, his ire raising flames along Arondight.
“You know me, yes?” she prodded.
“I do. The Cailleach,” Richard answered. He looked around. “Odd summer day today, isn’t it, witch?”
“Yar, knight,” Goronwy said beside the ugly woman. “Powerful, she is. Don’t give my dogs reason to be let loose.”
“Bring those dogs closer and they will be whining, houndmaster,” Richard taunted.
“Oh, they will, in time,” the witch cackled. “They love flesh and—”
Richard didn’t give her a chance to finish. He flicked the tip of Arondight in the direction of Goronwy and sent a ball of azure flame shooting forward, a whoosh of burning air. The mount of the houndmaster shied away, eyes wild, as he cowered, fear twisting his warding limbs.
Before it could incinerate its intended victim, the flaming ball broke course, pushed aside by a powerful gust of wind to disintegrate harmlessly into one of the malformed trees.
“Knight of nothing,” the Cailleach cackled, her hands coated in ice.
“What does your master want?” Richard asked.
“You,” she said. “Both.”
“Not a chance.”
“In my world now, portal pup,” the Cailleach sneered. “The High King paid well.”
“Paying you in how many lives to be his bitch?” Richard spat. “What else have you destroyed, other than the seasons?”
“I do that for free. Eternal summer. For his war,” she said,