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Simon drew a breath through his teeth and then took the right-hand path. One was as good as another just now, and he suddenly felt that he should be moving. It wasn't just the darkening sky; the very air seemed thicker than it should be.
When he first saw movement to his left, Simon told himself that it was a bird or perhaps a squirrel. There were enough of them in the forest. Then, as he caught a glimpse of something gray and low to the ground, he tried to make himself think of badgers or perhaps a stray dog. No matter that his fingers were already moving in the beginnings of a warding spell. That was just nerves. This was his family's land. There was nothing dangerous on it.
Then Aladdin bolted.
Simon flattened himself against the horse's neck just as a tree branch snapped and fell through the air above him, scraping his back and sending down a shower of leaves and small twigs. He swore and yanked hard on the reins, but Aladdin ran on. Simon saw no trace of gray in the undergrowth now, no movement other than theirs, but the bloody horse seemed not to care.
Simon darted a glance behind himself just to be sure. The forest there looked empty too, but when he snapped his head back to the front, he saw a fallen tree looming ahead. He closed his eyes and hung on.
The landing was hard enough to bruise, but Simon sent up a quick prayer of thanksgiving just for being alive and still on the gelding's back. When he opened his eyes again, he saw a clearing ahead-and a ring of stones inside it. Time and neglect had covered most of the stones with vines and grass, but their shapes were unmistakable. They were square-cut dark stones, each only a little shorter than a man.
The ground at the center of the ring was glowing.
At first, the light was a blue dot, only about the size of his fist, but then it blazed like a newly lit gas lamp. Rings of the same glowing blue energy spread out from it, rippling across the mossy ground and out to the stones.
Some kind of energy was building here. Simon wasn't sure he wanted to be present when it peaked, and he knew he didn't want to be on the back of a panicking horse. He kicked free of his stirrups, tightened his fists in Aladdin's mane, and yanked backward with all his strength.
He was expecting to be thrown, which let him tuck his head and take most of the impact on his shoulder, but it still hurt spectacularly when he landed. Aladdin, damn his hide, bolted onward across the clearing and into the forest beyond.
The ground hummed with power. As Simon got to his knees, he saw the stones out of the corner of his eye-dark rock outlined in blue-white fire. His hair lifted, standing on end.
Instinctively, he turned away from the circle, closing his eyes and throwing one arm up to shield his face. A second later, the earth shook and a light flashed blindingly bright, even through Simon's closed eyelids. He had the momentary sense of some Power passing over him, of something great enough to terrify any mortal man.
Then the light was gone, leaving only a faint blue afterimage and the rapid hammering of Simon's heart. He opened his eyes.
There was a girl in the circle.
She was almost Simon's height and slat-thin, with lightly tanned skin and darkish hair that hung down her back in a lank braid. The leather trousers and vest she wore did little in the service of modesty, but moral outrage was not the first thing that came to mind upon seeing her. Caution was.
The woman had a knife strapped to each wrist, another at her waist, and an angular silver pistol holstered beside the knife. She might have had more weapons yet in the large pack on her back. Simon wouldn't have been at all surprised.
As he began getting to his feet, she heard and snapped her head around. Her eyes were narrow, her body tense. She reminded Simon of a wild animal poised to run or fight.
She'd clearly been doing the latter already. Looking more closely at her in that moment of stillness, Simon saw that the upper part of her right boot and the leg of her trousers above it hung in shreds. He glimpsed red beneath the tatters and more on her vest near her collarbone.
"You're bleeding," he said.
She relaxed, at the shock in his voice more than anything else, and felt at her face before looking down the length of her body. "Not mine," she finally said. Her accent was strange-not quite American but close to it-and her voice was low. "Not mostly. Some scratches on the leg."
"You should have them seen to," Simon said. "I'd-"
He stopped himself for a second, wondering if he really meant to take this half-wild creature back to the house. But she was a woman alone, however well armed, and wounded, with both night and rain coming on.
Simon sighed. "I'm Simon Grenville. And I'd be glad to show you back to the house."
If I can find it.
The woman stepped forward and offered a hand. Simon took it, unsure for a moment what she expected, but she evidently had no such doubts. She shook hands like a man. "Joan," she said. "Daughter of Arthur and Leia."
Simon wouldn't have been surprised to hear Sultana or Yen Xing-or Titania, for that matter, as unlikely a fairy as "Joan" would have made-but he'd expected nothing so ordinary. "A pleasure. I'm-"
"Down," Joan barked. Then she swept Simon's legs out from under him.
She followed him to the ground with more control, one hand darting to her belt. Her weight hit Simon's chest, and her hair fell into his face, blocking his vision.
Oh, good. She's mad. I'm going to die here.
There were three short, high-pitched noises. Three bursts of silvery light flew overhead. Then there were screams.
They weren't human screams. No human throat could make those noises. They had a shrillness and a buzzing quality around the edges that put Simon in mind of angry bees, only many times larger.
"Fuck," Joan snarled, and fired again.
Another scream stopped midway through, cut off by a quieter, much wetter noise. Then silence.
Joan was lying atop him, most of her body pressed firmly against his. Simon had imagined the general situation in his youth; it was not nearly as pleasurable in fact.
For one thing, he was getting quite tired of being knocked to the ground, especially now that he had a large rock pressing into his back. For another, Joan was all angles, and one of her elbows was practically stabbing him in the ribs. Up close, she also smelled: not dirty, but rather acrid and sharp, as if she'd washed her hair with lye. Her hair wasn't really dark at all, he realized then. It was simply covered with something viscous.
She got off him quickly. It wasn't a moment too soon.
Away from her, the smell was different and worse, rank-sweet like burnt honey. Two...creatures...lay in the grass near the stones.
Both were more than half Simon's size and doglike but with six legs each and horns. Hairless. Gray. Simon understood the wet noise now. One of the creatures no longer had a head, only a mass of bone and red meat. That was still less horrible than the twisted, eyeless flesh of the other and its gaping, razor-lined mouth.
Simon turned away toward Joan, and that was almost worse. She was looking thoughtfully at the bodies, the silver gun in one hand. Clear tubes ran out of the gun and into her arm just below her elbow, pulsing slowly. Simon could see her blood moving through them.
No oath could have expressed his shock, and none came close to encompassing his disgust. He made an inarticulate sound in his throat.
Joan looked up and absently tapped the top of the gun with her free hand. The tubes detached from her arm and began recoiling. Their ends were covered with tiny teeth. Simon watched them, hypnotized by his revulsion.
"You're in a hell of a lot of trouble here, Simon Grenville," Joan said.
