Page 105 of Confounding Oaths
Captain James stepped back. “You sure?”
Once again, Mr. Caesar chose honesty. “No. But I think—Barryson, it’s … it means more, doesn’t it? If you do it yourself. It’s more likely to … work?”
And, much as Mr. Caesar hoped he wouldn’t, Barryson nodded.
In his mind, Mr. Caesar had been carefully telling himself that it would be easier this time. That the boar was smaller, and a smaller animal wouldobviouslybe easier to stab forcefully in the throat.
He should have remembered that he knew nothing about livestock.
Smaller it may have been, but it was angrier, stronger, its hide tougher and its throat harder to find. A gentleman, Mr. Caesar was at once sure, would never dream of performing such an action unaided.
But a soldier would. A brother would. His cousin, come to think of it, had. And so he struck.
The beast struggled forcefully, wrenching the knife and his wrist both, and tossing its head in a way that Mr. Caesar would insist for all of the next eight minutes had cracked one of his ribs.
But it died. And the offering was accepted. And once more the beast was hoisted into the tree, and once more Barryson soaked hishands in the blood, mingled it with the blood of the horse, and then, when he was satisfied with his preparations, stood in the space between the trees and said in a loud, clear voice: “I’m waiting, Freyr. I stand before you with blood on my hands and blood in my hair and ask passage. Now open thefuckingdoor.”
And to Mr. Caesar’s sincere surprise, he did.
Between the hanging corpses of the horse and the boar, the air swam and mist rolled in and then away to reveal a path lit by a very different moon.
Barryson turned to his companions in triumph. “Gentlemen, shall we go?”
The men fell in and, cautiously, Captain James in the lead, they stepped through into fairyland.
Chapter Twenty-two
Once more I took theshape of a songbird, for in my native land I am not invisible, even to mortals. Fortuitously, Titania’s kingdom (which is also Alfheimr, which is also several other worlds known by several other names; reality is a jewel of which you mortals see only facets) is densely wooded and the path on which the company now walked was lined by black-and-silver trees, bare-branched and beckoning. So I perched myself amongst the thorns and watched.
Sensibly, the Irregulars and their aristocratic associate proceeded through the woods as though the trees themselves were self-aware beings of limitless malice. And while they were, in this instance, incorrect (the malice of the trees was, in the strictest sense, limited), it was a very reasonable precaution.
The colour scheme of this particular end of Titania’s realm being distinctly monochrome, anything that fell out of its distinct silver-grey spectrum stood out some way, and so it was for the flash—caught through the trees—of golden hair just off the path.
“Look lively”—this was Callaghan—“that might be the Bickle girl.”
“Or it might be a trap,” warned Jackson, though he fell into position regardless.
“Do we actually have any weapons with us?” asked Mr. Caesar. “I for one did not go armed to a costume party.”
Around him, the Irregulars demonstrated all the various ways they had violated this basic precept of masquerade etiquette, from the simple expedient of incorporating a sword into their outfit to more complex arrangements of knives in boots and pistols in concealed pockets.
“Clearly a foolish question,” Mr. Caesar conceded.
At a silent command from Captain James the unit, with Mr. Caesar bringing up a decidedly ununitary rear, crept through the otherworldly woodland towards the entity that might have been Miss Bickle.
“Careful,” whispered Barryson. “Some of the things in this place are shape-changers.”
That, of course, was slander.
As the Irregulars crept forwards they saw that the shape in the distance was indeed Miss Bickle, or looked like her (and therefore definitely was; if you are ever lost in fairyland the first and most important piece of advice I can give you is to trust absolutelyeverythingyou see). And she was in what to any other mortal would be distress, slender creatures of split bark and dead sap inching ever closer to her, grasping hands extended.
“Are you dryads?” she was asking. “I have always yearned to meet a dryad.”
They were not, strictly speaking, dryads. Dryads are a species of nymph and so tend to adopt more pleasing aspects in order to better tempt mortals to leave them offerings. These beingswere something slightly other, fairy-folk making a game of being trees.
And our games seldom end well for humans.
I flitted to a nearer branch in the hope of seeing better and, as I encroached, I noticed something else moving amidst the treetops. Not a bird but a winged woman, a sly and nimble figure with steel at her fingertips.
