The Hostage Prince (11 page)

U
p close, Aspen decided, the Sticksman was even stranger to behold. His eyes weren't actually colorless, but the very lightest of blue, like a midwinter sky or an old robin's egg. And he smelled of something strange, something sweet and decayed: rotting pear or last feast day's pudding. Aspen felt as if he'd met the Sticksman before—though he was certain he hadn't—or that he would meet him again someday. It was a strange sort of feeling, and he had to physically shake it off, like a wet dog, before getting down to the business of the ferry.

“How much to cross the waters, riverman?” he asked, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

The Sticksman bent over strangely, his waist apparently where Aspen would have thought his chest should be. “Two pennies for each passenger and a silver for the Sticksman.” He cast a blank gaze over Aspen's shoulder. “Four pennies and a piece, it seems.”

“What?” Aspen said. “We are plainly three.” He pointed to Jack Daw and the girl. Or tried to. They were no longer behind him. Exasperated, he turned and followed the Sticksman's gaze to see Snail walking slowly toward them, while Jack unaccountably sat on the ground behind her.

“What in the three kingdoms . . .” he began, then stopped. He saw movement in the gloom by the cavern entrance. The movement quickly became figures. He was not sure from this distance, but there was really only one thing they
could
be with that height and brawn and chest armor, kilts below . . .

“Border Lords!” he shouted to Jack and Snail, hoping that conveyed the situation and its urgency.

Snail's head whipped up and she looked toward the entrance. She understood immediately and began running toward Aspen.

Why is he still sitting there?
Aspen thought, then yelled again. “Jack!”

Jack didn't move, and now it was too late. The Lords had reached the old drow. Two stopped and swung their weapons at his back, but the rest came on. Aspen could see the shine on their armor and the drawn weapons, and knew he should be doing something, but he was transfixed by the sight of his only friend in Unseelie lands being slaughtered like a trussed ox.

Mab take that stupid girl!

Only Old Jack Daw wasn't dead. And not dying, either. In fact, he was lurching to his feet, his arms—which had been bound behind him—released by the Border Lords' swords. He was spitting something out of his mouth.

What a plan!
Aspen thought admiringly.
He is keeping them occupied whilst we escape!

Jack was now pointing at Aspen and Snail and shouted something Aspen couldn't make out because Snail had finally reached him and was tugging at his arm.

“Let's go!” she cried. “Now! Now!”

Her tone finally spurred him to action and he was right behind her when she leaped into the long, thin boat. An arrow whizzed past his head and he threw himself down, stretching flat on the bottom of the boat. His head was right next to the Sticksman's feet, the creature somehow already aboard though Aspen had never seen him move.

There was a dull
thunk
and the tip of an arrow was suddenly poking through the side of the boat.

“Time to go, Sticksman,” Aspen called to the ferryman, who stood calmly at the back of the boat, his long pole in the water.

The Sticksman looked down and said placidly, “The coins, young master.”

Three more arrows
thunk
ed into the boat and Aspen tried to make himself as skinny as possible. One arrowhead had landed right next to his eye, and he found himself momentarily admiring the workmanship of the thin stone tip.

Then sense returned and he screamed up at the Sticksman, “I am a prince of Faerie!” His face was hot with anger and fear. “When we reach my home my father shall shower you in coin!”

The Sticksman cocked his head to one side. “I do not require a shower of coin.”

The arrows stopped and Aspen heard running footsteps on the dock. He felt tears prickling his eyes.
To come so far and be stopped now because of a greedy oarsman.

“I require two pennies per passenger and a silver for the Sticksman,” the Sticksman said, now addressing the runner.

“I have pennies,” Snail cried as she scrambled on her knees to the Sticksman. She reached into her apron and produced four small copper coins. “Midwives always carry coins in case we lose both mother and child,” she explained to Aspen, “and need to pay the Soul Man.”

When Aspen looked dubious, she added, “To put on their eyes for their passage to the Land of the Dead.”

“Land of the Dead?” he said witheringly, as one would to a child who still believed in Father All Fur delivering presents at the Solstice.

“And the silver?” the Sticksman asked, as he took one hand off the steering pole and pulled a long bone knife from his belt.

Aspen glanced at Snail, who shook her head. Then he looked back up into the Sticksman's big blank eyes, trying not to stare at the knife, trying not to tremble. “I carry no silver,” he said at last.

“Your kind never does,” the girl snapped. “And, of course, your friend didn't supply it.”

“
He
had no time,” Aspen snapped in return, emphasizing his own doubt.

But the Sticksman nodded. “Then you shall owe me a single favor.”

Aspen's instant thought was that a favor from a Seelie prince was worth a lot more than one silver coin, though that thought seemed uncharitable given the situation. And, eyeing the knife, possibly fatal. But before he could agree, a young Border Lord leapt into the boat, bare knees flashing below his kilt.

“I have you,” he cried, hand reaching for Aspen's throat and smiling so broadly his teeth looked like fangs.

Quick as a snake, and as deadly, the Sticksman lashed out with his dagger.

Without a single cry, the young Border Lord tumbled backward into the water, which suddenly boiled with a red foam.

“He did not pay,” the Sticksman said, voice blunt as a cudgel. “No one boards without payment or promise.”

Gulping, Aspen looked over the side of the boat at the red foam. His throat seemed ready to close, so he turned and said quickly, “A favor. Agreed.”

The Sticksman pushed lightly on the pole and the boat sped away from the dock, faster than it should have, but not fast enough for Aspen's heart, which seemed to be beating in his throat.

There's magic at work here, but none I recognize,
he thought
.
It was old magic, from before the time of the fey. He had heard about the day the Unseelie uncovered the cavern and found the Sticksman, who was already there, pole in hand. Aspen had thought it just a tale but now was no longer certain.

Owing such a creature a favor
, he thought miserably
, is probably a bad bargain.

Still, they
were
on the water and heading toward the other side.

Whatever gets me home,
he thought.
And I am a prince. I will keep my promise
.

More arrows hit the boat. Even more arrows missed their target and fell in the water. Aspen could hear them splash.

The Sticksman didn't seem to notice, and no arrows came anywhere near him, as if he were, somehow, invulnerable to them. Or warded against them. “You will need to stand now,” he said. “And draw your weapon.” He looked pointedly at Aspen's sword.

Aspen chuckled, though with very little humor. “Not till we are out of bowshot.”

The Sticksman didn't offer an argument. He just shrugged and said in his affectless voice, “They come.”

There were more splashes than
thunks
now, and Aspen risked a quick peek over the side. Though only twenty pushes on the pole from the dock, the boat was moving swiftly away from the Unseelie shore and heading for the Hunting Grounds. The Border Lords were swarming on the sands, and five of them, one a red-bearded giant, were clustered at the end of the dock. But they could not go across, as there were no other boats or ferrymen. Still—so it seemed—Jack was pushing them into the water, pointing at the receding boat, shouting at the Border Lords to swim after, to shoot.

“Follow!” he screamed. “Or the king will have your heads. If he gets to the farther shore, this is war!”

He is good
, Aspen thought.
No one will connect him with my escape and we are already out of reach.

The Border Lords seemed oddly reluctant to go into the water, though they—unlike the faerie folk—could swim. Aspen had seen them ford shallow streams, and bathe in pools. But here only a few of the younger ones were venturing into the shallows, several in water up to the bottoms of their kilts. They shook their swords and staves in the boat's direction but did not try to go farther out.

Aspen ducked back down. “No they are not coming,” he scoffed. “They cannot possibly swim to us. The river is swift and deep, and see—they are already backing away. They will have to go the long route. Jack has planned it all well, even to giving himself an alibi.”

The Sticksman glanced over Aspen's shoulder as the arrows began falling again. “Not
them
,” he said witheringly before nodding toward the front of the boat. “
Them.
”

Aspen followed the Sticksman's gaze, but could see nothing except the boat's high prow where Snail lay, clutching three knives. He recognized one she'd taken from the ogre's back. The other two he did not remember seeing at all.

Suddenly, with a roar, a big green wave smashed into the bow and sluiced down the shallow deck, sending Snail sliding along with it. She slammed into Aspen, nearly impaling him with the smaller knife.

He fell backward into the Sticksman's legs, which felt thin, bony, and fleshless beneath the robes. The roar of rushing water went on, as if they were now in rapids Aspen had not noticed before, but the high waves hitting the boat had calmed.

“There is blood in the water,” the Sticksman intoned.

“Yes, well, you put it there,” Aspen said.
Rather snippishly
, he thought. Though given the situation, he could forgive himself the tone. He might have said more, but he was trying to disentangle himself from Snail. Unfortunately, she was trying to stand at the same time, and he ended up tripping her instead.

She fell hard into his stomach and he felt the air leave him in a rush. He struggled to push her away.

“Oh, be still!” she shouted.

Mind your station!
he thought angrily, but did not have his breath back enough to say it.

“And as I hold the steering pole,” the Sticksman said, “so it holds me.”

“What does
that
mean?” Aspen managed to croak.

“It means he can't fight,” Snail said.

Over the roaring water, Aspen heard a new sound. An eerie hooting, long and low, like the bottom note on one of Moon's bone flutes.

“Fight what?” He finally had breath again.

“Them,” the Sticksman said.

The hooting stopped, and the arrows as well, and in the relative silence, Aspen suddenly heard the shouts from shore turn to shrieks of surprise.

And pain.

“The mer,” the Sticksman added, a bit too eagerly.

And
, Aspen thought,
with a bit too much satisfaction
.

“
F
ish
men,” the prince said. He sat up and looked over the ship's side. “Good for eating, I warrant, though little else.”

Snail couldn't decide whether he was putting up a brave front or was really that stupid.

Either way, I must have better eyes than him,
she thought,
or he wouldn't say something so dumb.

On the near shore, Snail could see that the young Border Lords standing in the shallows had begun thrashing and kicking in the water. Suddenly, one started to scream, high and womanish, before flopping facedown, as if being pulled under by an unseen tide. The others began to beat the water near him with the points of their swords, and one reached down to grab his arm, then backed away frantically.

She saw the flash of an iridescent tail near the fallen warrior's feet. A head lifted that was crowned with eely, green locks of hair. The creature's shoulders, like that of a burly man in his bath, were bare. When it turned its head toward her, Snail could see it had a mouth full of sharp teeth.

All at once, the sea around the young Border Lord's body frothed and boiled, and then suddenly the body was gone, as was the mer, though his wake was pinioned by a shower of spears from the shore.

When the young Border Lord's tam popped up on the water's surface a moment later, his companions set up a loud lament, but none of them waded back in to fetch it, not even the man who'd reached down to grab his friend.

As she watched, something cold and wet, like the slap of a fish tail, seemed to wrap itself around Snail's heart. She started to sit back down when, all at once, she was clutched from behind.

She could feel the coldness for real now. It seemed to begin at the point where she'd been grabbed and radiate around to her front. She gave a little scream, and struck out with the small knife in her hand, even though she knew it would never be enough. Still, when her blade jammed into the creature's arm, the mer screamed like a boggart's wife in labor, a high, awful keening.

At the same time, Aspen took aim at something with his sword, and swung hard, crying, “Duck your head, girl!”

Without hesitation, she ducked, though she was simultaneously being pulled up and out of the boat. Aspen's sword swished over her head but she never heard it connect. Nonetheless, the merman let her go.

The knife must have stayed stuck in the creature's arm, for it was pulled from her hand and was quickly gone, along with the mer, down to the bottom of the sea.

Snail fell forward into the keel of the boat and lay facedown in a puddle of water. For a long moment she didn't dare move, or at least not on purpose, though her entire body was trembling. She didn't think it was from fear. She was well past that and into full-blown terror.

“Girl!” It was the prince's voice.

Even shaken as she was, all Snail could think of was that the toffee-nosed fool could simply not remember her name.

“Snail!” he cried, pulling her out of the puddle and turning her over. “You cannot breathe water, you ninny, so stop trying.”

At that she thought,
Ah, I have mistaken him. He does care,
though he still talks funny
. She opened her eyes, now befogged with the brine, then blinked rapidly about ten times. When she could see again, she noted that his face was white and shaken.

“How did you
do
that?” he asked.

“Do
what
?” She honestly had no idea what he meant.

“How did you kill the mer?”

“
Kill
it?” How could she have done any such thing? After all, the prince was the one who'd swung a sword at the creature, almost taking her head off as he did so. “But I thought that your sword . . . ?”

He managed to look both shamefaced and alarmed at the same time. “Never connected. It was already . . . gone.”

“The sword?”

“The mer.”

“
Gone?
”

“Dead.”

“
Dead?
” Then she remembered. “I stuck it with the knife. The one I took from the ogre's back.” She wondered where the other two knives had gotten to. “But it was such a
small
knife and would have made such a
small
hole.”

“The ogre was bigger,” he mused.

She nodded.

They stared at one another, before the prince said at last, “But the mer wasn't cut anywhere. Not anywhere I could see. It just seemed to . . . well . . . turn grey and die.”

“Same with the ogre,” she said.

The Sticksman, in his flat voice, intoned, “Arum.”

“Cuckoopoint?” Snail said.

“What
are
you two talking about?” The prince, himself, looked as if he was turning a bit grey.

“Cuckoopoint and arum, one and the same. An herb. A poison,” Snail explained. “An extremely
deadly
poison,” she added, though she was thinking all the while:
Honestly, princes know nothing about the real world.

“On the blade?” the prince asked.

All at once Snail's mouth made an O. She grabbed off her apron, bunched it up, though careful not to touch any part of the pocket, and flung it into the river. “Of course! Of course! How could I have been so stupid.” She turned and washed her hands in the puddle beneath her, scrubbing as hard as if she were about to help at the birth of a baby. Part of her knew that if she'd been poisoned, she was already well past saving.

She looked up at the prince who seemed astonished at what she was doing. “I could have touched the blade,” she said. “I could have cut you when I fell. I could have—” Afraid, ashamed, she broke into tears.

“Look—we are both all right.” He held out his hands, palms up, toward her and tried to smile, but it was more grimace than grin.

Why
, she thought,
he's trying to comfort me. And almost making a job of it! Though Mistress Softhands would never have given him a passing grade.

As the apron settled on the top of a wave, another merman—this one more silver than green—leapt high into the air as if to avoid the smock, almost hovering above it. He showed his teeth at them and hooted, then dove, effortlessly, back into the sea. But all around the boat, the water boiled for a long moment, and now Snail understood why.

“Stay low,” the Sticksman said, his face furrowed as a tree trunk. “I believe they are afraid of you now, lady. They will soon be gone. But till then, best be safe.”

Lady!
Snail thought.
He called me Lady!
It was unthinkable. But perhaps, away from the Unseelie lands, not so unthinkable as all that.