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Cheers!
Terri
Into the Tricksy Wood
“Up and alert, child.” A poke in the arm from the dastardly fan woke Verity some time later. Apparently, she’d conjugated herself into a stupor.
“I’m not a child,” she said automatically through a jaw-cracking yawn as she pushed herself upright. Luckily, Nanny the Fifth was otherwise engaged and not on the lookout for insubordination. “What are we doing?”
“Preparing for the journey through The Tricksy Wood.”
The Tricksy Wood. The name flooded Verity’s veins with excitement. She had heard tales of the forest that stood between Cavill Green and Aethos. The road through it was the only way to the City of Wonders, as the way otherwise blocked on one side by the Cragmere Mountain range, home to tribes of unfriendly dwarfs, and on the other by Welthian, a deepwater seaport on the rocky coast of the Indigo Sea, run by sea elves and not open to unauthorized traffic.
The Wood was said to be full of many strange creatures and peoples. Spokes and Uncle Del had both regaled her with tales of the horrors one might encounter on the way through.
Apparently, if you stayed on the road, there was no danger- or not much, barring the usual ruffians and outlaws. But if one strayed onto any of the side trails that branched off along the way, or paused too long at a crossroads, one might find oneself lost and captured by ogres or Elven people looking for human slaves. Or drained of the human essence the Faeries coveted for their own enjoyment.
And of course, the landscape changed without notice. The only unchanging thing in The Tricksy Wood was the road humans had forced through it.
It was all terribly exciting for a girl who had grown up the sheltered daughter of the baron and baroness of a minor hamlet in Victurnia. She leaned out the window for a look-see as they approached, hoping to find a troll lurking behind a tree trunk, or at least eyes peering forth from the shadows.
Nothing. Although big and imposing, still only regular trees and bushes under a late afternoon sky. She frowned in disappointment, pulling her head back in.
“May I ride up top with Mr. Spokes, please?” Verity asked in her prettiest polite voice, a direct contrast to the aggressive desire she felt to explore a faery wood.
Nanny the Fifth gave her a sideways glance, probably not fooled in the least, but after a moment she gave a sharp nod. “You may. The road is wide enough to keep the fae at bay, and Spokes is an old hat at getting us safely through. But here, take this, and keep it out, just in case.”
Verity grabbed the object her governess pushed into her hands. It was a rusty iron railroad spike.
“Is this cold iron?” she asked, turning it over in her hands, the rust coloring her skin orange. Cold iron was the only thing that killed a faery. Other metals such as hot forged iron and steel only burned them.
She wasn’t sure she possessed the backbone to end a life, even a faery life. Or that she would want to. Imagine all the knowledge lost with one killed faery. It made her heart hurt to think of it.
“No. But it’s enough to make any bold faery think twice about taking you. Now, up you get. We’re close. I’ll follow directly.”
Verity pushed the hatch in the ceiling and, using the windowsill as a step, pushed herself up and out onto the top of the carriage. She settled into the front seat next to Spokes and took in a deep breath. Did she detect the scent of something fae in the air? Like flowers and glitter dust, if glitter had a smell. She smiled to herself, chalking it up to a vivid imagination.
“Welcome topside, Miss. I’m surprised Herself let you up.” The barnmaster was wearing a set of blue-tinted goggles and earplugs, which explained why he was speaking far too loud.
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Spokes.” Verity craned her neck, trying to take everything in. They were still on the edge of Cavill Green, which meant rambling stone walls and orderly fields dotted with sheep surrounded them on both sides and behind. But up ahead the shadowy forest loomed, the likes of which she had never seen.
Evergreens stretched for the sky like arrowheads among the massive oaks and ash trees whose branches spread over the land as though protecting a secret. Alder bushes and other scrub surrounded the rest like low-lying sentries. The air was heavy and still the closer they got. Keep out, or else. Except, of course, for the yawning maw of the road through, where even the foliage seemed to shrink back and make way.
“I’ll need you to put these on, Miss.” Spokes handed her a spare set of goggles and two spongy balls for her ears. “To block the faery haze if we run into trouble.”
“I’ve heard about faery haze.” Verity settled the goggles on her face, the rubber lining of the eye pieces cool upon her skin. The tinted lenses gave everything a bluish hue. “Uncle Del says a faery can make you lop off your own finger and not even feel the pain.”
“Your uncle is an unrefined oaf to tell a gently bred girl such a story.” Nanny pushed her way up behind them, her skirts swallowing up most of the bench seat behind them. She was wearing her own black goggles and leather earmuffs. “The fae are not as dangerous as the gentry would have you believe. Not all of them, anyway.”
She hefted a sturdy black crowbar and tested its weight with both hands. “A strong defense will waylay most attacks. Keep a sharp eye out.”
No problem there! Verity peered eagerly towards the rising forest. “What are we looking for?”
“Wisps. Lights in the forest that will tempt you from the trail. And Canons. They will appear like someone you know. Don’t be fooled.”
“And lunatic wasps,” Spokes added grimly. “Nasty little buggers that’ll paralyze you with one sting, and then serve you up to the others for a price.”
Nanny made a face. “Good gad, man. No one’s seen a lunatic wasp in these parts for years.”
Spokes made a sharp noise at the horses when they tried to slow down. “Don’t mean they aren’t there.”
“Wisps... and wasps? That’s very confusing.”
Spokes shrugged. “Well, I didn’t name them, miss. I just know what they are.”
“How do I tell the difference?” Verity looked between them, her excitement flattening into a small disc of anxiety that dropped into the pit of her stomach.
“Wisps lure you in,” Spokes said. “Canons, too. Wasps attack you straight up.”
“So we ignore wisps and Canons. What do we do if we see a lunatic wasp?”
Verity didn’t like the dark glance Spokes and Nanny shared over her head. It was Nanny who answered her.
“We trust the horses to outrun them and the road to keep them at bay.”
“And if they don’t?”
“We fight. And pray we make it to safety.”
Sunlight retreated from the leafy overhang the closer they got until they breached the Wood, swallowed up in the dusky twilight that enveloped the carriage. It was as though they had passed through a gateway into another world. The sound of the carriage wheels became muted and dull. Even the birds hushed as they entered. Hiding from them? Or from something else that was watching them as well?
Verity felt very small. She quickly shoved the earplugs in, then gripped her spike in both hands until her fingers ached, suddenly very glad for Spokes’ presence beside her and even Nanny the Fifth behind them.
The plugs muffled all sound, almost erasing the nervous clip of the horses’ hooves. If it weren’t for the vibrating rumble of carriage wheels over the ground, she’d be able to pretend they were floating over the ground.
Around her, the air stilled and chilled. The feeling that something was glaring at her made her shoulder blades itch.
“Does it always feel so- unfriendly?” she asked, her voice thin and tinny in the strange atmosphere. Now she was sure she was yelling, too.
“Almost,” Spokes replied, twitching the reins as the horses shied a bit to the left. He guided them back into the center. “The Wood don’t like folk traveling through. Back when I was a boy, there was no road. Folks who wanted to travel to Aethos took their chances. More often than not, they didn’t make it through.”
“But the road changed all that.”
“Yep. The mechanists in the city built the road out of a mix of gravel and cold iron dust. The Fae can’t abide it and will leave you be as long as you stay on it.”
Shivers crawled up Verity’s spine as a low howl sounded somewhere off to the right. “But they can tempt us, can’t they? To leave the road?”
“Oh, aye. The wisps out there will lead you to no good end. Best practice is to ignore everything. And hurry.”
Another higher howl answered, closer this time. She frowned, watching a swirl of glittering light appear to chase alongside the carriage a safe distance from the gravel of the road. Another swirl appeared up in the trees, leaping along with abandon, but never towards them, always parallel.
Verity glanced to the left, catching sight of something blue and bright past a copse of alders. She blinked as it appeared again, ethereal and wondrous, beckoning to her, promising her... something...
“Grab her, Spokes.”
“Miss? Maybe you should head back inside t’carriage.”
Verity started, realizing that she was leaning far out over the side of the carriage as if to jump. In fact, the only thing stopping her was Spokes’ grip on her arm. The iron spike lay forgotten on the boards beneath her boots.
“Good gad!” she gasped. “What was that?”
“Faery haze.” Spokes’ brow furrowed as he gently pulled her back. “A wisp. They’ll take you off the road if they can and drown you in t’bog. Will you go inside?”
She picked up the spike and centered herself. “I’m fine. Now that I know what to look for. How long till we get to the inn?”
“We’ll be there by soon, Miss.”
Determined to maintain her composure and her senses, she settled back to watch the scenery go by.
It was quiet, if not peaceful, for all of a quarter hour.
“To the right, Spokes.” Nanny called out sharply, just as something buzzed right by Verity’s head.
“What is that?” she tried to get a good look as it circled back around, but was too fast to track. All she could see was a streak of purple glitter in its wake.
“Lunatic wasp,” Nanny opened the bag on the seat next to her and rifled inside.
“Told you so, misses,” Spokes grunted, urging the horses into a run. “They’ll come in from up high to avoid the iron dust from the road.”
Verity threw herself to the floorboards as the lunatic wasp zeroed in on her, missed, and somehow hovered in place despite their furious pace. The strangest looking bee she had ever seen. It was fat, and black with purple stripes, like a defective bumblebee, but the size of her fist.
There, however, the resemblance to the comical insect ended, for this creature was less bee-like and more soldier-like, its body armor plated instead of fuzzy.
Instead of normal bee legs, its front two appendages were arms which ended in pincers and seemed to be gesturing rudely. And instead of a bee face, it was glaring at her with a head that might be more at home on a dwarven beserker: large, bearded, and covered in wild black hair.
The wings holding it aloft were moving so fast as to be invisible, except for the puffs of purple glitter that followed it like a comet’s tail. It flashed a mouthful of tiny, sharp teeth before it dove again, pointing a wicked black stinger at least an inch long right at her face.
“Nanny!” she screamed, dropping the railroad tie in her fright, covering her face with hands that smelled of rust. She waited for the blow, which never came, and peeked just in time to see Nanny launch the lunatic wasp into the forest with the business end of her crowbar.
“Up, girl, and protect yourself. Are you nothing but a shrinking violet?”
What did I just do? I am no shrinking violet! Disgusted by her poor showing, Verity pushed up from the floor to her knees, bringing the spike with her, but Nanny pulled it away.
“Try this.”
“Oh, brilliant!” Verity hefted the tennis racket that Nanny shoved into her arms. It was a sturdy wooden thing and had a net made with threads of metal instead of the usual sheep-gut. She looked around for the telltale purple comet tail, determined to prove her worth.
“Ten o’clock!” Spokes yelled. And then, “Hold tight!” as the road veered sharply to the right.
She grabbed the seat in front of her as she lurched sideways, but never took her eyes off the purple glitter fast approaching. She got her balance and raised the tennis racket, only to be thrown backwards into Nanny’s lap as the carriage straightened out.
“Hold steady, Spokes!” She pushed upwards and swatted the lunatic wasp with a solid overhand as it arrived. There was a cracking spark as metal met faery, and a guttural cry of pain.
Take that!
Satisfaction filled her as she watched the ousted faery tumble end over end through the air, glitter trail and smoke spiraling after it. The stink of burned hair singed her nostrils.
“Strong form,” Nanny’s voice held grim approval.
The carriage twisted left and then right as Spokes struggled to keep the horses in the middle of the road. Verity clutched the seat again to keep from being launched into the air after the wasp. “Isn’t it gone? Why aren’t we slowing down?”
Nanny had pulled another tennis racket from her bag, perching on her seat as though going for a sedate trot through the country. “Lunatic wasps come in swarms.”
A stark white signpost on the side of the road appeared.
ALMOST THERE!, it pronounced in jagged black letters as they clattered past.
“Incoming! Six o’clock!”
Verity looked behind them and gasped. One lunatic wasp had turned into a cloud. Hundreds of purple glitter tails converged above them, coming in hot.
“Lay the steam on, Spokes! Verity, take this.” Nanny slapped a small stoppered bottle into her hand. “Overhand thrust to five o’clock, on my mark.”
“What is it?”
“Faery repellent. Now!”
Verity mimicked Nanny’s motions as the governess stood, tossed her bottle up, and slammed it with a wicked overhand, aiming at seven o’clock.
The bottles burst, releasing a golden powder that filled the air behind them, engulfing the lunatic wasps who couldn’t dodge fast enough and rendering them flightless. Over half the swarm dropped. The ones in the back rose in a choreographed motion and swirled to the left and right before arrowing in front of the cloud to advance again.
“They’re still coming!” Verity turned. Another sign post flashed by.
KEEP GOING!
And another.
DON’T STOP NOW!
Spokes urged the poor horses to record speeds. They seemed to recognize the danger and stretched their necks out.
Up ahead, the forest thinned and broke, the trees and bushes wilting back as if in disgust from a sturdy, picketed, wrought-iron fence easily as tall as two men. It barred the road, creating a hard stop to the journey if the gates didn’t open soon.
Verity glanced back, calculating the speed of the wasps against that of the carriage and the distance to the iron fence. “They’re coming in too fast! We’ll never make it!”
“We’ll make it!” Nanny pulled one last thing from her bag and pointed upwards. With a sharp pop, a bright pink flare flew into air above them and exploded in a spray of sparks.
“What good will that-,” A whining siren drowned out Verity’s words. It rose in volume and pitch from inside the fence.
Behind them, the swarm erupted into chaos again.
“Stop! Spokes! The gates are closed!” Verity grabbed the barnmaster’s shirt, but he shrugged her off.
“Sit tight, miss. I knows what I’m about!” He leaned forward and shook the reins.
Verity wondered wildly if he was in league with the faeries, set to smash them into pulp, when the gates screeched open just wide enough to admit the lathered horses and their burden. She flinched, expecting the wrought iron spires to rip into them, but then they were through.
The gates slammed shut behind them, cutting off the swarm. The blaring siren stopped, the sudden silence broken only by the staccato zaps of the frying wasps unable to pull up in time that hit the fence.
Spokes laid off the horses, who dropped into a relieved trot, then a walk, blowing heavily, their lathered flanks heaving.
“We’re alive!” Verity looked back, breathing almost as heavily as the horses.
She let go of the seat, grinning and grabbing Spokes’ shoulder as she rose to take her place beside him. “Sir, that was brilliant driving!”
Spokes ducked his head, his face reddening above his beard. “Thank you, miss.”
Before them, the road turned into a tidy cobblestone drive leading up to a rustic two-story stone cottage covered in vines.
Nanny huffed, swiping one hand down the front of her jacket while the other patted her disheveled bun back into place. “There were two of us looking out for you back there, miss,” she said drily, then stood as they arrived in front of the wide covered porch and the horses came to a willing halt. “Welcome to Centerpoint Inn.”