Chapter Thirty-Two Wayland
Chapter Thirty-Two
Wayland
Wayland had never had the opportunity to travel much beyond Emain Ablach.
He’d certainly made the odd journey—like the diplomatic mission his father had sent him on the winter he’d met Fia—but such excursions were always on Gavida’s whim and at his bidding.
Wayland had been like a homing pigeon—he’d use an enchanted looking glass that allowed him to cross vast distances in the blink of an eye, cluck out a pointed message to whomever Gavida was trying to manipulate (usually something along the lines of Give me this magical artifact you’re hiding before I smite you and everyone you hold dear), then hurry back home before anyone broke the rules of hospitality by slitting his throat.
He’d attended revels and feasts, sampling local delicacies and local beauties alike, but rarely saw much at all of the environs he was sent to.
Tír na nóg, for all its varied landscapes, was a foreign land to him. And it was becoming painfully obvious the same was true for Idris.
Since they’d started walking late that morning, the younger man had been torn between staring over the mountainous horizon with wonder verging on fear and poring over the makeshift map Laoise had drawn for him like his life depended on it.
Which Wayland prayed to any gods who were listening that it didn’t.
Because Idris wasn’t particularly good at reading it.
In contrast, Hog was aglow with cheeky excitement, running her claws over Idris’s sleek red hair and murmuring.
Wayland experienced a burst of affection tempered by rising guilt.
There had been an awful moment that morning when he had been utterly certain that no one would choose him as a traveling partner.
That he would not be second choice or even last choice, but no choice at all.
That he would be left alone once more by the only people in his life he had ever given himself the opportunity to care about.
Then Idris had—choosing Wayland over his own sister, no less.
Having Idris by his side was an undeniable comfort. But the thought of leading him into the heart of danger twisted a thick, impenetrable knot in Wayland’s gut. Gratitude warred with unease, and he made a silent, fervent wish that this wouldn’t be a journey either of them would regret.
“Laoise said after we leave the Barrens, it should be a few days’ hike through Tír na Sámhachta,” Idris was saying as they made their way through a narrow gully edged in glittering black rock.
“The Land of Tranquility?” Wayland shrugged. “Sounds boring.”
“No—these symbols are trees, not mountains.” Idris frowned, flipping the scrap of dried-leaf parchment scrawled with Laoise’s harried lines of charcoal. “In which case we’re headed straight for Tír Fhiáin.”
“The Wild Lands?” Wayland whistled. “Less boring. The maidens there are said to be utterly insatiable.”
Idris colored, staring even harder at the map. Hog, draped leisurely over his shoulder, blew speculatively on the leaf paper and flicked her tail in glee when it warped from the heat of her breath. Idris jerked it away from the draigling.
“Hog! Don’t,” he scolded, even as Wayland reached out and plucked the map from his surprised fingers.
“That’s enough of that.” Wayland folded the map—if one could even call it that—and tucked it into his trousers before smiling broadly.
“We are in the mountains. Murias is westward, beside the sea. We follow the sun, and if that doesn’t work, we follow the water.
And if that doesn’t work, I can sense where we need to go.
” He gestured to Fáilsceim, sheathed upon his back.
“Perhaps we’ll even get lucky and find a few folkways to help us on our journey. ”
“Folkways?” Idris gave him the same aggrieved look Wayland had received from every single boyhood tutor forced to school him. “Everyone knows they can’t be mapped.”
“My point exactly.” Though most folkways were somewhat reliable and remained open for years, creating safe shortcuts for Folk across the realm, the ficklest could open and close in mere moments. “If you’ve got your nose shoved into that crude map, you’ll never learn how to spot them.”
“How do you spot them?”
Wayland hesitated. In truth, he had traveled through precious few—Gavida’s forged mirrors were more precise and less capricious.
The only folkway Wayland had ever interacted with at length was one that had opened for about a month on Emain Ablach when he and Irian were boys.
It had been a useless one—its exit two feet behind its entrance.
He and Irian had, of course, made a game out of it—if you dashed through fast enough, you could sometimes smack yourself in the back of the head or kick yourself in your own rump.
“I believe there’s a shimmer to them?” He hemmed. “Or maybe a strange shadow—”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?” Idris accused.
On his shoulder, Hog hissed a mewling laugh, repeating, “Do you? Do you?”
“Give me back my map,” Idris demanded.
“Shan’t.”
“Now, Wayland!” Idris’s expression turned caustic. “I refuse to be led through lands unknown by someone without common sense.”
“Common sense is for common people.” Wayland made his tone arch. “And I, my darling man, am one of a kind.”
He stuck his nose in the air and marched on ahead of Idris, ignoring the stream of well-chosen epithets being hissed at his back by both man and draigling.
It was late afternoon on the following day by the time they left the Barrens.
Beyond stretched the plain Irian had named Mag Tuired—the old killing fields where Eala had ambushed them with her army of the dead.
Remembered fear arose in Wayland—the visceral horror of watching Irian’s tall black stallion hobbled by decrepit hands, seeing Fia sprawled helpless between ravening corpses, and smelling the stench of dust and decay mingling with the searing char of Laoise’s draig fire.
Now the plain was still and quiet, scattered skeletons and broken weapons crisscrossed with lines of black ash the only evidence of their struggle.
“What is it?” Idris asked.
Wayland hesitated, then told him what had happened. Idris blanched, staring out over the plain with fear glossing his own eyes.
“We could go around,” he suggested, hopefully.
Wayland shaded his eyes against the red burn of the setting sun. To walk around the plain—keeping to the foothills—would add a day to their journey at least. And would necessitate camping beside the killing fields.
“No,” he decided. “We cross it. Now, before the sun sets and plunges us in darkness.”
Idris whistled but didn’t complain. “You are brave.”
“Not really.” Wayland laughed as he stepped onto the flat, scrubby expanse. “My inborn laziness happens to be far stronger than my native cowardice.”
Despite his bravado, Wayland’s heart thundered a shameful crescendo between his ears.
Sweat slicked the muscles of his back as they picked their way across the desolated landscape pocked by the half-buried bones of Fomorians and Folk.
But though Wayland steeled himself for the earth to shake and split, for the flesh-draped skeletons to reach for their weapons, the plain was still and silent.
Neither man spoke, for there was nothing to say that the dead had not already told.
The sun had slipped away beyond the purple line of moors marching toward the horizon when Wayland’s boots struck the stony hill beyond the plain, edged with heather and gorse, and he sucked in air touched by smells of new grass and fresh water.
“Another hour,” Wayland promised. Both he and Idris were tired after the day’s long hike, but neither of them wished to camp beside Mag Tuired. “Then we find food. And a place to sleep.”
It was pitch black by the time they reached a narrow wood of thin silver trees, their leaves chiming like bells.
The ground beneath their feet was carpeted with velvet moss in hues of midnight blue.
They were both too exhausted to make a fire or find provisions—they nibbled on a few leftover fruits from the valley before bedding beneath their cloaks.
Hog continued to favor Idris, but in the middle of the night Wayland awoke to her snoring directly in his ear, draped around his neck like a scarf.
In the morning, all the trees had grown luminous fruits bathed in silver dew, dripping with scarlet nectar that tasted of honey and starlight.
“Don’t eat that,” Idris warned from where he was viciously lacing his boots. “It could be anything. It could be poisonous.”
“Coming from the man who grows cave mushrooms and fillets salamanders,” Wayland pointed out as he cut a slice of mystery fruit, “that’s a bit rich.”
Wayland filled his empty belly. He didn’t tell Idris that the sweetness clung to his mouth long after they walked on, leaving him thirsty for something he could not name.
The next morning, they found a folkway by accident, when Idris stepped into what seemed like a shallow puddle and disappeared into the ground. Wayland stared after him, jaw dropped, until he had no choice but to get on his hands and knees and stick his face straight into the mud.
Idris had fallen ten or more feet onto his arse between towering black roses, the petals velvety with moisture. Wayland almost laughed until he saw the death glare Idris was shooting him.
“Here.” He reached an arm. He was fairly certain they were on the correct route to Murias—the wrongness he’d touched with his mind via Fáilsceim hummed like a curse at the edge of his awareness. Gods only knew what detour this folkway might send them on. “I’ll help you.”
But no matter how they both strained, their fingers didn’t even touch. At last, Wayland sighed, clasped a griping Hog to his chest, and jumped in after Idris.