Chapter 9

The fairy man responded and slid back into the bag. “I agree,” I told him, and tied Coryfe to a branch. “I’ll be back soon,” I told the horse, and began to weave my way through the trees towards the origins of the smoke.

After a few minutes, I could smell the smoke of the fire, and shortly after, I could hear the crackle of the flames. I crept forward with caution, trying not to make any noise that would give me away. I could not hear the rise and fall of voices, or the sounds of a horse shifting beneath its tack. Just the crackle of the fire.

It was too quiet.

I put my back to a tree and peered around its trunk into a small clearing. The leaf matter had been crunched down, flattened by something heavy, I thought. But there were no signs of horses, or mankind. No wagon, no tent. No packs, or bedrolls. Just the flattened area and the large fire, ringed by sizable rocks.

Rivyn and a faun were bound up on the ground next to the fire. I met the mage’s eyes as I peered around the tree. His heavy brows rose as he tried to communicate with me. I rolled my eyes back at him.

I heard it before I saw it, lumbering through the undergrowth. Something big, I thought. It explained the crushed leaf matter. Sure enough, through the scrubby bushes, an ogre appeared. I had never seen one, but nothing else could be so similar to man and yet also so large. He made Rivyn seem dainty by comparison.

He was dragging a large cauldron behind him, sloshing water.

He was preparing to cook himself a meal, I thought, grimly, and Rivyn was on the menu. The mage was entirely too much trouble.

The ogre’s efforts had left sweat in rings beneath the arms of his threadbare, homespun tunic, and beaded on his forehead. Unlike the hearth tales, his skin was not green, nor his pate bald. He had a head of red ringlets that, cleaned and groomed, would not have looked out of place on the head of a village girl going to the fair. His brow was heavy, his jaw under bitten and strong, and his nose was flattened by comparison, the bridge wide.

He began adjusting the fire and placed the cauldron over the coals with a grunt of effort, before turning to his trussed captives, his expression thoughtful. Stewed mage, or stewed faun, I imagined him thinking, or both? I wondered if he intended to cook Rivyn fully dressed, and whether his spell components would add flavour, or detract from it.

What to do, what to do, I thought fretfully. Would an arrow do enough damage to prevent Rivyn’s hot bath? I would need to aim for an eye, I decided, stringing my bow carefully and drawing an arrow. If my shot was true and there was enough power behind the arrow, it might pierce through the skull and kill the ogre. If my shot were not true, I would find myself next to Rivyn in the cauldron.

The little fairy man crawled up to my shoulder and clung to my ear. He began to hum the refrain of a lullaby.

“Sing?” I whispered.

He began to sing it louder, at the top of his little volume, I suspected. Shoot my arrow, or follow the directions of my fairy? The hearth tales would have me do the latter. The fairy man had no reason to mean me ill, and I had rescued him, so perhaps he had reason to aid me.

“I’m going to die,” I murmured under my breath, but obediently began to sing along.

The ogre paused and cocked his head. To my surprise, he did not come crashing through the undergrowth in search of the singer, but instead he yawned widely. I wound my way through the lullaby and began again. He sat down heavily, his eyes growing heavy. I repeated the song, and he began to snore. The fourth time I sang just to be sure, and then crept across the clearing to where Rivyn was tied. He was awake, frowning at me. The faun was asleep but woke when I cut his bindings.

We tiptoed away.

“Where did that come from?” Rivyn asked me once we were clear, and the ogre’s snores were faint in the distance.

“Shh,” I hissed at him. “You’ll wake him.”

“Oh, no, he’ll sleep for hours, between the lullaby and dragging that cauldron around,” he dismissed my concerns. “And wake hungry and grumpy, no doubt.”

The faun caught my hand and pressed it to his lips, speaking rapidly, his unusually boned but handsome face animated. His golden eyes with their rectangular pupils sat oddly in such an almost mankind face. I could not look away, but I also could not understand his words. He presented me with a set of pipes, placing them into my hands, and closing my fingers around them.

“He’s giving you his pipes in gratitude for saving him,” Rivyn supplied.

“Oh, thank you,” I was baffled. “That’s unnecessary.”

Rivyn said something to him. The faun bowed low to him, almost scraping the ground with his horns, and then retreated, disappearing into the trees, leaving me holding the pipes.

“You should keep the pipes,” Rivyn told me. “If you play them, any faun within hearing distance will come to your aid. It might be useful one day.”

“Oh, I feel bad. He didn’t need to give them to me,” I put them into my bag.

“He’ll make another set,” Rivyn was unbothered.

We had reached Coryfe and he untied him before mounting. Rivyn put my quiver and bow over his shoulder before holding his hand out to me. He lifted me easily, putting his arms around me to hold the reins, and urged Coryfe onwards. The fairy man chattered at him from my shoulder.

“I know,” Rivyn replied to him. “But I don’t think she does.”

“What don’t I know?” I asked.

“Never mind,” he said airily. “Well, that was an interesting adventure. Next time, you can go investigate.”

I laughed.

As we made our way through the trees, I considered his question. “I don’t know where that came from,” I told him. “My fairy told me to sing a lullaby, so I did.”

“Do odd things happen when you sing?” he asked.

“I don’t tend to sing,” I was not sure why.

“Hmm,” he murmured. “I wonder why that is.”

“Maybe because I can’t sing,” I replied, frowning. I could not remember who had told me that, but someone had.

“Well, obviously you can,” he pointed out.

“But not well.”

“We should cross the stream, so the ogre loses our scent,” he suggested, changing the subject. “And have a drink. I don’t know about you, but I could use one.”