Isle of Winds (The Changeling Series Book 1) (16 page)

Karya looked up at him. “Well, you’re not going to be any use if all you can do is cough and wheeze with exhaustion, are you? Sit down.”

Woad appeared out of the foliage, carrying an armload of branches. He bounded over and dropped it into the patch of bare earth Karya had cleared.

“Campfire!” the faun said brightly, and without further ado, hawked and spat into the wood, which flashed and promptly burst into merry crackling flames.

Robin stared, astonished. “I didn’t know you could do that,” he said wonderingly at Woad, who puffed his skinny chest out proudly and grinned.

“The things you don’t know would fill five of those books you’ve got in your bag,” he teased. “Trilobites know more than you.”

“Woad has a little skill in each of the towers of the Arcania,” Karya explained, warming her hands on the crackling fire. “He’s too undisciplined to focus on one in particular, as most panthea do, but his skills come in handy.”

“Can you do that as well?” Robin asked, flopping down on the ground on the other side of the flames.

“I have no skill for fire,” the small girl muttered. “But I’m the best tracker around, and I have other talents elsewhere.”

“Boss has strange memories sometimes,” Woad began proudly, but the girl gave him such a murderous look that he snapped his mouth shut.

They ate a little of the food Hestia had packed for them. Woad sniffed it suspiciously but decided against risking a meal from the human world. After a while he wandered off to find a squirrel. When he had gone, the silence at the tiny campfire became uncomfortable. Robin cleared his throat. “So … um … how do you and Woad know each other then? He called you ‘boss’. Does he work for you?”

“He is bound to me,” she replied with a shrug. She gave a weary half smile. “He’s more like a tiring pet, I suppose, in some ways.”

“But it was you who sent him to spy on me at Erlking, wasn’t it? And it was you who sent me that letter?”

“Yes and yes. Someone had to keep an eye on you, didn’t they?”

“Well, Henry and Phorbas didn’t leave the grounds and they still got kidnapped, didn’t they? I thought no one was supposed to be able to get hurt there?”

Karya stared into the fire, eyes narrowed. “Yes, I’ve been thinking about that. Very puzzling. I don’t suppose the old girl can watch over much with eyes made of stone. Clever little loophole. Strife has a mind like a corkscrew.”

Robin poked the fire with a stick for a while, looking around at the alien shapes of the ancient forest.

“So, Woad is bound to you? What does that even mean?”

“I saved his hide,” Karya explained. “We met earlier this year. I was … well … let’s just say I had just left home and I was – still am – trying very hard not to be found. I was travelling and I came across an extremely loud faun stuck in a bog. He was sinking quickly – his own stupid fault for not looking where you’re going, but that’s beside the point. The short version of the story is, I helped him get free and since then he says he owes his life to me.”

She glanced up at Robin, one eyebrow raised, “I can’t seem to shake him,” she said. He thought she was joking, but it was hard to tell.

Robin grinned. “He seems alright to me,” he said. “He certainly likes living with us at Erlking, I mean.”

“Well, he’s got no one else but us,” Karya said. “He’s an outcast from his tribe.”

Robin looked up at her through the crackling ashes of the flames. “Why?”

She shrugged. “That’s for him to tell you, not me. Point is, he’s all on his own … same as me.”

“And me,” Robin reflected.

Karya snorted with what might have been amusement, muffled as she was in her huge coat. “That’s three of us alone,” she muttered.

“Well then,” he said. “Perhaps we call all be alone together then … and that won’t be so bad.”

* * *

Robin had evidently dropped off at some point as he was abruptly awoken by Woad kicking at his legs. The sky seemed lighter, the promise of dawn not far off.

“Come on. We have to get going. They won’t open up in full daylight,” he said.

Robin struggled to his feet, aching everywhere. He had never slept outside before; Gran had never really been big on camping. The closest she had ever come to the great outdoors had been a cup of tea at the local garden centre. “What time is it?” he mumbled, shouldering his pack and checking that Phorbas’ dagger was still tucked into the belt of his jeans.

“Time to go,” replied Karya bluntly, shouldering her own knapsack. She turned and swept out of the clearing, followed by Woad.

Robin sighed, and set off after them.

The sky, glimpsed through the interlocking branches above, was turning a scarlet-gold when they eventually came to a stop.

“Finally,” Karya breathed. Robin noticed, with some small satisfaction, that the girl was as out of breath as he was. “And not a moment too soon.” She looked at the burning sky. “The sun will be up any minute.”

Robin came up beside her. They’d reached a large clearing, empty of trees. In the centre rose a towering grassy mound. It looked as though someone had buried a giant in the woods and the grass had grown, lush and green, over the fallen form. An archway was set in the side, sealed with a round slab of old stone, and several small towers poked out of the huge mound at odd angles, some issuing wisps of blackish smoke. It was a moment or two before Robin realized that these were chimneys.

Frankly it looked like the creepiest, most uninviting Hobbit-hole he could imagine. “This is where the redcaps live?” he asked, staring.

“Underground,” Woad replied. “In the dark with the grit and the worms. This is just the entrance.”

“Let me do the talking,” Karya said. “In fact, you two wait here by the trees until I call for you.”

She walked off without waiting for a reply. At the door, she placed her small hand in the centre of stone and muttered something Robin couldn’t hear. For a moment, nothing happened. Then he heard a chittering noise deep in the earth, growing louder.

He was just considering how much he really didn’t want to meet these redcaps, when the large slab rolled aside with a gravelly roar and, over Karya’s shoulder, he saw one for himself.

The creature was small, smaller than Woad even, and skeletally thin. Its head was much too large for its body and wrinkled like old fruit. The fingers were very long and ended in sharp claws. The redcap’s ears were tall, pointing straight up above its head, and it had blood-red skin, making it look like an evil lobster.

He watched the redcap peer at Karya with tiny black eyes. It chattered something harshly, too quiet for him to hear, and Karya replied.

“That’s a redcap?” Robin hissed to Woad, who nodded, scowling. “It’s hideous.”

“So would you be if you lived your whole miserable life deep underground with dead bones,” the faun muttered. “It’s not really red. They paint themselves that colour. They’re as white as fish bellies naturally.”

Karya was gesturing back at Robin and Woad. He felt the redcap’s flinty eyes fall upon them from across the clearing. Then the creature was gone.

Karya waved them over encouragingly.

“What’s happening?” Robin asked as they approached.

“He’s gone to tell the Chieftain we’re here. We’re going inside,” she replied.

“Into the big grave full of monsters?” Robin said as cheerfully as he could. “Sounds great.”

“They’re … interested in you, I think,” Karya mused. From the sound of her tone, this didn’t seem very reassuring. “Put that knife away, though. If they see it, they’ll want it. They always want something.”

Before he could say anything, the demonic-looking creature reappeared, a spluttering torch grasped in his bony hand.

“In,” it snapped. “Big feast today. You come at good time, soft ones. You are guests of Chieftain today. Hurry though, sun up soon, light too much for open doors.”

It turned and disappeared into the darkness.

“Watch your step,” Karya said and followed it inside.

Inside the mound, a low, dark corridor of musty-smelling earth led deep into the hill. It went down forever and ever, or so it seemed to Robin, corkscrewing into the earth.

Eventually, the passageway opened into a gigantic, vaulted chamber. An echoing underground crypt the size of a train station. Twisting stone columns supported the roof and countless chambers led off here, there and everywhere. Steps went up and down from every conceivable opening. From the ceiling, bridges connected the upper levels in a mad cat’s cradle of flying traceries.

And everywhere Robin looked, there were redcaps – hundreds of them, all hurrying about their business like alien red ants. The place was like a maze.

No
,
not
a
maze
, Robin thought.
It’s
a
hive
.

Their guide hurried them on to the far end of the subterranean hall where, upon a raised stone dais, sat a particularly wizened and ancient-looking creature. Unlike the other redcaps whose skin was as scarlet as blood, this one’s was the deep purple of an old bruise. It wore a filthy-looking robe of gold and black, and a tall black rimless hat. All of its teeth were gone, giving its face a caved-in, mushy look. It looked fast asleep.
Or
worse
, Robin thought.

As they approached, Karya gave a deep and graceful bow, gesturing at Robin and Woad to follow her lead.

Their redcap guide scurried up to the stone throne and chattered something into the ancient one’s ears in its strange clicks and pops. The old creature’s eyes snapped open and peered at the three children, lingering on Robin as if he were a particularly tasty morsel. Its eyes were wide and yellow.

“A strange selection of creatures here in our barrow,” the redcap chieftain said, its voice a dry whisper. “Two outcasts we see here … and a fae from the human world. A fae indeed. It has been an age since we have seen your kind abroad in the Netherworlde, child.” It beckoned with a long and trembling finger. “Come closer, Faechild, so that we can see you clearer.”

Robin looked sidelong at Karya, who nodded almost imperceptibly. He warily approached the stone, uncomfortably aware that countless redcaps had stopped what they were doing and hundreds of gimlet black eyes were now trained on him.

The redcap chieftain grabbed him by the chin as soon as he was within reach.

“A fae … with no horns … and blue eyes?” it rasped in a wondering whisper. “Rumours had come to our barrow that such a creature was abroad in the Netherworlde. News travels fast for our kind, but we would never have believed it, had we not seen it with our own eyes.”

It turned Robin’s head from side to side, beady eyes studying every inch of the boy’s face as though considering buying him at a cattle market.

“Umm…” Robin said uncertainly, wishing that Karya would say something. He didn’t want to seem rude by wrenching his head free. He had no idea what customs he might be offending, but he didn’t like the feel of the creature’s leathery fingers on his face. Its grip was surprisingly strong.

“What mana does it possess, we wonder?” the redcap hissed to itself. “What stonework?”

“He carries Seraphinite,” Karya said conversationally.

The chieftain gave a quick inhalation of sour breath, releasing Robin’s face so suddenly that he almost toppled backwards. The redcap’s eyes flicked to the mana-stone strung about Robin’s neck.

“Seraphinite…” it mused. “Well, we are most surprised. Many years has it been since such a stone was seen anywhere west of the Whispering Sea.”

Robin’s hand came up to cover his mana-stone reflexively. The redcap did not seem to notice. It held up its gnarled old hand, displaying a heavyset and very ornate gold ring. It was set with a large black stone, glittering in the torchlight.

“Jet we have,” it declared. “Jet is strong and wise, good for Earth Tower. Good for tunnelling. You surface folk, your mana stones are weakened by the sun. Seraphinite? Good for ghosts, no good down here.” He sounded smugly self-satisfied.

Karya stepped up onto the dais beside Robin, gripping his elbow companionably. “We need information, Deepdweller,” she said, in her most respectful tone. “You see and hear much. We have lost our friends and think they may have passed through the Barrow Wood. Have your people heard anything?”

The chieftain sat back slowly on its stone throne, gathering its dusty robes around itself.

“Our people hear everything,” it said. “Every footstep echoes into the earth, every shadow falls upon the ground, and we are under it, and we listen well.” It looked from Robin to Karya in a calculating manner.

“What will you trade for the information you seek? We do not work for renegade panthea or outlawed fae, or for your kind girl. Not without…,” it spread its long fingers like purple twigs, “… compensation.”

“I have a little money,” Karya replied. “Not much, but it’s brass and unmarked, and I can get more, maybe silver? It will depend how useful your information is.”

The chieftain sneered. “Brass, silver, what use are shiny metals to us? They run through the body of the earth, and so do the redcaps. We can find our own metals.” It snorted dismissively.