Songs_of_the_Satyrs (15 page)

He couldn’t imagine that someone would want to eat him. It seemed so . . . unnatural.

But then he remembered that look in Crydon’s eyes—the rage and hunger—and realized what it meant.

Erstwhyle stilled his heart and found his throat feeling tight and dry. Satyrs get drunk more quickly than do humans, but the effects wear off more quickly, too.

He pulled hard upon the leather cords that bound him. They were stiff and icy.

Human feet are easy to tie, because they are so large. Not so with Erstwhyle’s sharp little hooves. He kicked at the bonds and struggled free, stumbling to his feet. Then he pulled at his hands.

As a satyr he was stronger than a human; his training as an acrobat had made him stronger still. Now he strained. The friction warmed the cords. With every twist and pull, the leather stretched. In moments he broke free.

He opened the door and stood looking out. The chill air had teeth as sharp as a wolf cub’s. A thick fog covered everything, as dense as gruel, yet the full moon provided a gloomy light. A dog was barking at the castle gates, and in the distance he could hear horns blowing—not the deep throaty call of war horns, but the high song of hunting horns.

Amilee!

He imagined her running through the cold night, barefoot and naked, while Crydon chased her upon his charger with a boar’s spear in hand, dogs yapping wildly on her trail.

It would not be a fair hunt in the snow. She would not be able to escape, not with her footprints providing a clear trail. She would not be able to outrun him for long before the cold took her.

Yet what could Erstwhyle do?

The castle gates would be closed, the drawbridge up. With his horns and hooves, he could not just sneak out, even in this fog.

Urgency swept through him. He wanted to help Amilee. He needed to be sure that Baron Blunder was alive. He wanted vengeance. He could not do everything at once.

Amilee and the prince were far away, and he didn’t know where Baron Blunder might be. He decided to check the Great Hall.

A satyr’s eyes are better than a human’s in the dark. Though the night was fast coming to a close, the shadows were deep. He made his way through town, stepping more quietly than a human could in the snow, for his sharp hooves made very little sound.

He followed the aide’s track back to a servants’ entrance at the palace. He pulled open a small door, which moaned softly as swollen wood scraped paving stones, and nearly fainted when he spotted a guard in the dark, with a dying lamp above him. The guard, a fat sot, sat in a chair by the door, snoring lightly. A huge mug of ale rested at his side, empty.

Erstwhyle crept in, closed the door behind him, and stole the guard’s weapon—a strange long kris made of black metal. The kind of thing one might use when making sacrifices.

Erstwhyle crept along a corridor to the Great Hall and peered through a curtain. The fires in the hearths had burned down to smoldering embers, and most of the candles in the skulls had been blown out. There was no sign of Baron Blunder or any of the guests.

A lone waif hummed an old folk tune as she bent over a table, scrubbing it clean:

I love you, and I always will.

Till the mountains fall forever,

And the moon stands still . . .

Upon the podium sat the prince’s dinnerware. The golden goblet gleamed in the ruddy light.

He gave it to me, Erstwhyle thought, and then he stole it back and tried to kill me.
A murderous rage built.

He’d have to check the roundabout for Baron Blunder. But first there was a small matter of vengeance.

He crept through the room as silently as possible. His hooves made tiny clattering sounds on the marble floor. The waif didn’t seem to notice.

He reached the podium, climbed the steps, and grabbed the heavy flagon. There was a platter and dinnerware all of gold, too. He took the forks and knives, tucked everything into the belt pouch, and used the platter as a breastplate.

As he slunk down from the podium, he heard the serving girl emit a soft yelp. She gaped at him in surprise.

With a single leap he crossed forty feet and drew his black kris, then swung it and stopped the blade an inch from her heart. “Quiet!” he hissed.

She gasped, chest heaving, and looked as if she might faint. She was young, only sixteen perhaps. She had wheat-colored hair and eyes that were robin’s-egg blue. Her skin was pale as cream, and like all serving girls in castles, she had that “hand-picked” beauty to her, with a doe’s legs and lashes.

“Oh, sir,” she begged too loudly. “Spare me!”

“Quiet!” he demanded again.

“But I know thou art a lowly creature, given to animal pleasures,” she said, trembling. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she came to a hard choice. “Do with me as you will! Satisfy your lusts upon me, but please, please let me live!”

Erstwhyle groaned. The red priests had done their job well on this one—telling tales about the unnatural lusts of satyrs in order to justify their crimes.

“Look, you seem like a sweet girl,” Erstwhyle assured her, “and under better circumstances, I might even hope to court you. But right now, I’m looking for a friend of mine. Big fellow? He came in the Ship of Fools.”

“He left—hours ago,” she said. “All of the bards and fools departed. Soon after you won the goblet . . .”

“My friend would never have gone without me!”

“But it was said that you took your cup and left,” the girl continued, still scared out of her wits. “The guards said they let you out the city gates. You were afraid that someone might steal your prize.”

Of course. The prince had sought to cover his crime. Half the bards and fools in the country would be hunting Erstwhyle now, hoping to purloin his golden cup.

Even Baron Blunder . . .

“Last I saw Baron Blunder,” Erstwhyle said, “he was being held by the guards.”

“They let him go,” she said. “He stormed off in a rage. He was quite wroth with you!”

Was it true? Had Baron Blunder been persuaded that he was so faithless?

It’s the horns. And maybe the tail and hooves. People never trust you if you’ve got horns and hooves.

Erstwhyle must have scowled, for suddenly the wench nearly swooned, and he had to grab her with his free hand to catch her.

She moaned, eyes half closed, and begged, “Please, sir, take me if you must.”

“Perhaps I’ll rip your bodice another time, milady,” Erstwhyle quipped. “But if you could manage to remain quiet for a few minutes, I’d be forever in your debt!”

Conveniently, she let out a sigh and fell limp, so he laid her gently on the floor.

He went to the guests’ cloak room and found his great cloak still hanging on its peg. He donned it, pulled the deep hood up to cover his horns, then crept out the way he had come, past the sleeping guard, and into a chilling fog.

He slunk through the pre-dawn. Ice crystals entered his open mouth with every breath. The air smelled of fresh bread and firewood, for the bakers were up cooking for the troops. He passed a hovel and heard a baby cry and a mother trying to quiet it. Otherwise, the fog and cold smothered all sound. He wondered how to escape the castle and realized that he’d have to go over the wall.

He reached the base of some stairs leading up to the top of the wall. A young guard stood there, peering through the mist and darkness.

“Is someone there?” the guard asked.

Erstwhyle crept closer, then raced forward. He threw back his hood, showing his horns and golden eyes.

The guard shouted, fumbling for his blade.

Erstwhyle rammed him with his horns and sent the lad flying. By the time he pulled his sword, Erstwhyle was darting up the steps, three at a time. He reached the top, just as the guard began shouting.

Erstwhyle peered down through the fog. Castle Crydon was perched upon a huge crag. No human could have hoped to jump from it safely.

The first drop over the wall was only twenty feet, and he found a nice little outcrop there, with perhaps four inches of ledge. Beyond that, all was fog.

He leapt, landed soundly on the ledge, and slipped on icy stone. He went sliding down a slope, grabbed at a small tree, which slowed his fall until it yanked free. He spotted another perch twelve feet down below and leapt for it.

A boulder came bouncing past his head, pushed from the wall above.

He gave a startled cry, dropped to a tiny ledge, and held his place. Rocks and ice went rolling past.

He waited for a few seconds, then began taking a circuitous route, bouncing from one tiny outcrop to the next—a feat only a mountain goat could have managed.

Another set of boulders came tumbling through the fog. Shouts of “Get him!” rose from the walls. Arrows whizzed past, fired blindly.

He raced west a few paces, and in twelve leaps reached the bottom of the hill. The river that might have swirled around it was covered in ice and snow. The only sign that water lay beneath came from dry cattail rushes that clustered along the banks.

Erstwhyle feared that it might be too thin to hold his weight. Hooves were great for leaping around on rocks, but tended to split ice like a dagger. He sometimes wished he had the monstrous feet of humans, as unnatural as they looked in the animal kingdom.

There was only one way to test the ice. He leapt out as far as he could and landed with a belly flop, sliding.

He was only a dozen feet from the shore when he heard a soft crack and waited to fall. He was painfully aware of the weight of his gold. He swore not to part with it, even if it meant drowning.

On hands and knees he crawled three paces before the ice broke and he slipped under . . .

***

Two hours later, Erstwhyle slogged along a forest road in his wet cloak. A thin film of ice had formed outside it, which created a surprisingly nice layer to hold in the warmth. The interior was lined with rabbit fur, and though he felt sopping wet and miserable, he was warm enough.

At this rate, with my body heat, it should only take a few weeks to dry out!

What made him more miserable was thoughts of Amilee. The hunting horns had gone silent long ago, which meant the huntsmen had found their quarry.

It was not hard to follow Prince Crydon’s trail. A dozen hunting horses and thirty dogs will make a mess out of fresh snow. Among their tracks, Erstwhyle found those of Amilee—the bare footprints of a young girl.

With the coming of dawn, shadows were fleeing, and the fog began to lift. Stark pines, almost black beneath their mantle of snow, rose up on each side of the trail.

Erstwhyle had passed through town in the darkness and had spotted the Ship of Fools outside an inn, but Baron Blunder was nowhere to be seen. Erstwhyle hadn’t been able to wait for his old friend. So he’d forged ahead.

Now, as he topped a hill, he heard the jangle of mail and harness, the tired panting of dogs, the clop of hooves. Crydon’s hunting party was returning.

Erstwhyle leapt off the trail, raced a hundred yards, and dove beneath a small pine. The cold needles beneath it carried a musty scent, and he bellied down, tried to see his own tracks. His prints stood out in the snow.

His heart pounded in terror as the hunting party came riding into view. Hounds sniffed at his trail. One let out a keening cry.

The red priest rode up and peered at Erstwhyle’s tracks. “Milord,” he shouted, “a stag passed this way! A large one. Shall we give chase?”

Erstwhyle suddenly wished he had dropped more deer pellets into the man’s food.

Prince Crydon rode up, resplendent in black: his cape, fish-mail armor, and the long hunting lance he bore tipped with blood.

The hounds sniffed at the ground, peered up at their master, tails wagging, eager to continue the hunt.

Crydon’s dark eyes flashed. “Looks like a trophy,” he said, keenly interested. Then his shoulders sagged. “But that damned girl wore me out . . .”

He turned and rode away, his retainers at his back.

***

Erstwhyle found Amilee in the snow—naked, pale from blood loss, and freezing cold. She had a single wound to the belly. A lance had run her through. She was lying with blood dribbling from her mouth. She had put a bit of snow over the wound, as if to stanch it.

The rising sun lay hidden beneath a lid of gray clouds, and Amilee looked as if on a bed of swan’s down. He blushed to see her pale breasts revealed.

To Erstwhyle’s surprise, she still breathed.

“Amilee!” he cried as he neared, taking off his cloak and laying it over her.

“My love?” she panted. “Is that you?” She peered about blindly, moaning in pain.

“Stay still,” he begged. “Can you move?”

For a moment she struggled to take a breath; then she said, “He caught me . . . after sunrise. Should have . . . let him have me . . . sooner.”

Amilee lifted her head, propped herself up, but a gushing sound alarmed Erstwhyle. He peeked beneath the robe and saw blood ooze from her wound. He wouldn’t be able to move her for fear that she’d bleed out. And he couldn’t let her stay, lest she die of cold.

He took her hand, found it as chill as ice. He searched for words to comfort her, but none would come.

She looked at him, smiled faintly, her blue eyes seeming to bore into him. “Get me to the ship,” she said. “Dress me . . . dress me in my old brown dress.”

He knew the one—a peasant’s dress, the one he’d first seen her in. A dirty and worn thing lying crumpled in a trunk. She hadn’t worn it in weeks.

“I will,” he promised.

She seemed to pass out. He feared she might never speak again. Then she roused enough to say, “Carry me back to Littleford, to me mum. I don’t, don’t . . . want to be buried here.”

“Did he . . . did he ravish you?” Erstwhyle begged. He hated the Dark Prince. Yet somehow he imagined that if he had confirmation of the deed, he could hate the man more.

She began panting and suddenly gripped his hand with ferocious strength. Her back arched. She let out a cry, and then a moan, as if she’d just had some grand notion.

Amilee stopped breathing. Her hand fell. Tears threatened to blind Erstwhyle. Oh, how he fought them.