The Gates of Winter (9 page)

11.

Grace woke to the sound of bells.

She sat up in bed, the shards of a dream falling away from her like broken pieces of glass. Her hair was snarled, and her nightclothes clung to her, cold and clammy with sweat. The space beside her in the bed was empty and cold; Tira had spent last night in Melia's chamber. Frigid air poured through the chamber window, along with hard granules of snow. The wind must have pushed it open.

Grace scrambled from the bed and reached to pull the window shut. She halted. Twenty feet below, at the base of the castle's north wall, prints dented the crust of new snow. She couldn't be certain, but it looked as if the prints had been pressed into the snow by small, cloven hooves. She lifted her gaze, toward a feathery smudge hovering in the distance. The hoofprints made a line pointing straight toward it. Gloaming Wood.

Shivering, Grace shut the window and moved to the fireplace. She stirred up the coals, threw on several sticks, and as flames leaped up she shucked off her nightclothes and pulled on a wool gown the same frosty purple as the predawn sky.

As she dressed, her mind raced. It was the sound of bells that had roused her from her dream, and she had heard bells yesterday in the castle garden. The Little People were trying to communicate with her, she was certain of it. But what was the message?

Grace tried to remember the dream the bells had awakened her from, but it was already growing fuzzy. She had been alone in some sort of castle or keep, running down empty halls, searching in shadowed chambers for something. Searching for a key. But the key to what?

To hope,
she thought, only she didn't know why. Was that what the Little People were trying to tell her?

She grabbed her cape, tossed it around her shoulders, and threw open the chamber door, to the round-mouthed surprise of the serving maid standing on the other side. She carried a tray with a pot of
maddok
.

“Perfect timing,” Grace said, pouring a steaming cup and setting the pot back on the tray. “I wouldn't have made it far without this.”

The serving maid stared, slack-jawed, as Grace hurried down the corridor, sipping
maddok
as she went.

This is mad, Grace. Completely mad.

Which was precisely why she needed help. She stopped in front of a door and knocked. It opened after a scant second—by all the gods, didn't the man ever sleep?—and Durge gazed at her with somber brown eyes.

“Good morrow, my lady.” He wore a tunic as gray as the keep Grace had seen in her dream. “Though I suppose it isn't morrow yet, as the sun is not yet up.”

“But you are, Durge. And I'm glad, because I need your help.”

“As you wish, my lady.” He eyed her fur-lined cape. “We are going out, then?”

“We are.”

“Then allow me to fetch my cloak.” He retrieved the garment, which was warming on a chair by the fire—that was Durge, always at the ready—and threw it about his thick shoulders.

“Don't you even want to know where we're going, Durge?”

“I imagine I'll find out when we get there, my lady.”

Grace winced. She didn't deserve this kind of loyalty, but all the same she was grateful.

“We'll need our horses,” she said.

They rode away from the castle just as the sun crested the horizon. The cold air pinched the soft flesh inside Grace's nostrils and made her jaw ache, but she was warm inside her heavy gown and cloak, and it felt good to be free from the castle's stone walls.

Beneath her, Shandis cantered lightly over the frozen ground. Last summer, Grace had left the honey-colored mare in Castle Spardis, and she had believed she would never see the horse again. However, a few days after their return to Calavere, she was thrilled to discover Shandis was in fact housed in King Boreas's stable. Aryn and Durge had brought the mare with them when they journeyed from Spardis to Ar-tolor last Krondath, and Ivalaine had returned Shandis—along with Durge's gigantic charger, Blackalock—when she visited just before Midwinter. Durge rode Blackalock now, following Grace as she led the way north, away from the castle.

After an hour, they crossed the old Tarrasian bridge over the River Darkwine. Chunks of ice floated on the water below. Once on the other side, they were no longer in Calavan. Gloaming Wood was closer now. Grace could make out the wispy branches of bare trees; she leaned against Shandis's neck and urged the young horse into a full gallop. She knew Durge would warn her it was reckless to ride so fast over the snow, but first he would have to catch her.

Icy wind numbed her cheeks as the snowy landscape rushed past. Grace risked a glance over her shoulder; she was right—Blackalock pounded furiously after Shandis, and Durge wore a glower of disapproval. That was good. Durge needed something to worry about, and this way he wouldn't stop to think about where they were headed.

Many stories were told in the castle of Gloaming Wood. For as long as anyone could remember, the patch of primeval forest had been a place of shadow and rumor. Folk spoke of lights that shone among the trees late at night—lights that would draw a man into the wood, only to disappear once he was deep among the trees, leaving him lost and alone. Some whispered of hearing queer music or eerie laughter when they passed near the eaves of the wood, and it was said a man could not come within a hundred paces of the forest with an axe in his hand. A terrible fear would come upon him, leaving him shaking and pissing.

When Grace first heard such stories, she had dismissed them as fabrications of the castle's common folk. Then she had met Trifkin Mossberry and his peculiar troupe of actors, and she had been forced to adjust her thinking. The Little People were not products of a fantastical imagination, at least not on this world. Elfs and dwarfs and greenmen—all of them were real. And at least some of them dwelled in the shadows of Gloaming Wood.

By the time Durge caught up with her, they had reached the edge of the forest. Grace brought Shandis to a halt and waited for Durge to dismount and offer his hand to her. In these heavy clothes, she would never make it to the ground by herself without falling facefirst in the snow.

“Thank you, my lord,” she said with what she hoped was a winning smile as Durge helped her down. “You're every bit as strong as you are courteous.”

The knight scowled at her, his mustaches twitching. “Do not try to distract me with idle flatteries, my lady. I can see quite well where you've led us, and I must say I am not pleased. This is a queer and perilous place, and while it is not for a knight to question his mistress, I must wonder all the same why you've brought us here.”

She gripped his hand. “I've come to ask the Little People for help.”

“My lady, you must do no such a thing!” The knight pulled his hand from hers, his brown eyes wide. “The Little People might have aided us in the past, but it was done of their own will and for their own purposes. Surely this is a dangerous scheme. We should return to the castle at once.”

She was not surprised by his outburst. Durge was a man of logic; he did not like meddling with magic. Grace understood how he felt, for she was a scientist herself. However, if she was going to face the Pale King and his army, she needed help from any source—illogical as it might seem. She moved toward the line of trees. Though they were bare, she could see no more than a dozen paces into the wood.

“It can't be so dangerous, Durge,” she said. “Otherwise, you never would have ridden through the wood that day over a year ago, and you never would have found me, lying there in the snow.”

Durge let out a foggy sigh. “That I came upon you here is something for which I will ever be grateful, my lady. Still, it is my duty to question this deed. Even that day I found you, I was riding only through the eaves of Gloaming Wood, following a game track no more than a hundred paces in. I could still glimpse the plains through the trees. If we would find whom you seek, we would be forced to venture deep into the forest, and surely it is impossible for mortals to go there.”

“No, I don't think so.” She touched the papery bark of a tree. “I think I've been in there once before.”

Durge gave her an odd look, and she thought of the time when she and Travis had gone looking for Trifkin Mossberry in Calavere. They had entered the little man's chamber only to find themselves, not in the castle, but in an impossible forest. Even then, with Trifkin Mossberry to protect them, she and Travis had not dared to linger. Durge was right; this forest was perilous for mortals. However, the Little People were trying to tell her something, and Grace was going to find out what it was.

“I'm going in,” she said, gathering her courage. “You can wait here with the horses.”

Durge gave her a sharp look out of the corner of his eye. “I should think not, my lady.”

Grace knew better than to argue. She took Durge's hand, and together they stepped into the wood.

As the trees closed around them, so did a quietness. There were no birds flitting among the bare branches overhead, no small animals scurrying through the underbrush. The only sound was the crunch of snow beneath their feet.

While it was dawn in the world outside, here it was as if the sun had not yet risen. The air was a misty gray, and the trees crowded together, so at first it was difficult to pick a route among them. However, they soon came to a path, most likely worn by deer and boar. As best Grace could tell, the path headed toward the heart of the wood, and they started down it.

“I do not like this,” Durge rumbled. “It seems too easy to come upon a path so quickly.”

“Maybe this is our lucky day,” Grace said. She was going to say something more, but their voices, low as they kept them, rang out unnervingly on the still air.

Durge shook his head. “Mark my words, this path is surely cursed. It will lead us down into a ravine, or over a cliff, or to some other unseemly demise.”

Despite her trepidation, Grace almost laughed. She knew it wasn't his intent, but somehow Durge's gloomy admonitions always seemed to cheer her up. She tightened her grip on his hand, and as they walked she tried not to think of fairy tales in which children met with bad ends in dark forests.

Soon Grace lost track of time. She expected the air to lighten as the sun rose higher into the sky, but if anything the light grew grayer yet. The trees all looked the same to her—tall and slender, with pale bark—and the path wove left and right but on the whole kept leading them deeper into the wood. Despite her heavy garments and the exertion, the cold began to creep into her joints, and ice collected on Durge's mustaches.

At last Grace realized they would have to turn back. She was shivering so violently she could hardly walk in a straight line, and, while Durge was making a valiant effort, he could not keep his teeth from chattering. They had not seen so much as a squirrel, let alone a dwarf or greenman. If the Little People truly dwelled here, then they did not wish to be found. Grace started to tell Durge it was no use, that they had to turn back.

A high, trilling note rang out on the air. The sound echoed away among the trees.

“What was that?” Grace whispered. It had not been the music of bells.

“That was the call of a trumpet,” Durge said.

The sound came again, and it was closer this time—a note so high and pure and wild it caused Grace's heart to beat in a swift, unfamiliar cadence.

“It sounds to me like a hunting call,” Durge said, gazing around. The path had widened into a small clearing.

Grace hugged her arms around herself. “The king's huntsman wouldn't come so far into the forest, would he?”

“He might, if he were on the trail of a fat roe,” Durge said, though he sounded doubtful.

Grace hoped it was indeed the king's huntsman, and that he had blankets with him, and a flask of spiced wine.

The trumpet sounded again, so close the sound set Grace's ears ringing. At the same moment, a bank of evergreen bushes on one side of the clearing shuddered and burst apart, and something large and sleek and white bounded through. It paused, standing no more than five paces away, and Grace found herself gazing into dark, liquid eyes.

It was a stag. The beast was tall and muscled, its coat a silvery white that blended with the trees. It held its neck arched and proud, and its head was crowned by an enormous pair of antlers whose points were too numerous for Grace to count quickly. The stag let out a snort, then sprang away to their left, vanishing among the trees.

“May steel break and stone splinter,” Durge swore. “I've never seen so magnificent a beast.” He reached over his shoulder to grip the hilt of the greatsword strapped to his back and took a step forward.

Grace grabbed his arm. “No, Durge. Don't go after it.”

He frowned at her. “Why not, my lady? It would make a fine prize to offer the king.”

She struggled for words. She didn't know why it was wrong to hunt this animal—only that it was too proud, too fabulous to be pursued by mortals such as they. However, before she could speak, another trumpet call rang out, followed by the pounding of hooves. Grace and Durge turned to see a horse leap over the bushes from which the stag had burst moments ago.

The horse was every bit as beautiful as the stag, though in an entirely different way. It was short of stature—no larger than a pony—its legs delicate, its coat pure jet. A silver star marked its forehead.

Riding the horse, without benefit of either saddle or bridle, was a boy. He appeared to be ten or eleven years old, and he was lean and lanky, with a shock of red hair that stuck up from his head. A bow was slung on his back, along with a quiver of arrows fletched with green feathers. Despite the cold, he wore only a pair of leather breeches, leaving his chest and feet bare. His skin was brown as
maddok
.

In the boy's hand was a small silver trumpet. He blew it again, then called out in a piping voice, “This way! The king has come this way!” He touched his horse's neck, and the beast spun around, ready to lunge into a gallop.

Grace and Durge stood in its path. Before they could leap out of the way, the horse skittered to a halt. Its rider glared down with malachite eyes, and only then did Grace see the stubby horns that protruded from his brow. This was no boy.