Faerie Lord

Fifty-Three

It wasn’t that Lorquin travelled particularly fast, it was just that he never slowed down. Henry, with his bad leg and reluctant attitude, was hard put to keep up. There was no way he wanted to follow the vaettir, no way he wanted to find out what a draugr was, but he knew all too well that if he lost sight of Little Boy Blue, his chances of survival were zero. It was a mortifying admission.

The vaettir was slightly smaller than Henry remembered it, but no less frightening. It moved with an easy grace and, like Lorquin, never slowed. Insofar as he could judge, it was heading into the deep desert. Although, as Lorquin predicted, it had been the soul of caution when it first emerged from its tomb, they were downwind of it now and it travelled without looking back. All the same, Lorquin made sure to keep a respectable distance behind, something that suited Henry very nicely.

The sun set and in its afterglow, stars began to appear. Soon they were travelling in deepening darkness and still Lorquin did not slow. He seemed to have better night vision than Henry and Henry struggled to keep up. Ahead of them, the vaettir was a moving blob, but thanks to the white colouring it did not disappear altogether.

They had been moving steadily for close on an hour, as near as Henry could judge, when he noticed a flicker of light on the horizon. Fifteen minutes later it resolved itself into the flame of a large campfire. Lorquin dropped back and placed a warning hand on Henry’s arm. ‘The vaettir has done its job,’ he whispered. ‘But now we must be careful.’

‘I thought we were being careful,’ Henry hissed. He had a horrible feeling his situation was about to go from bad to worse.

Lorquin said, ‘Now we separate, En Ri, you and I.’

‘No, I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Henry quickly.

But Lorquin ignored him. ‘You go that way -’ He pointed. ‘Circle so you come to their meeting place from the north.’

‘Meeting place?’

‘Conceal yourself well or they may try to eat your flesh -’

‘They?’ Somehow Henry felt Lorquin didn’t just mean the vaettir they’d been following and the mysterious draugr.

‘You must wait until I am ready, En Ri, my Companion,’ Lorquin said. ‘Listen for the sound of the night-went.’ He made a soft cooing sound deep in his throat that carried eerily across the night air. ‘This will be my signal.’

‘Signal?’ Henry echoed in rising panic. He knew, he just knew, what was coming had to be straight out of a nightmare.

‘On my signal,’ Lorquin went on calmly, ‘you must show yourself -’

Henry stopped. Show himself to whatever was congregating around the campfire? It was a horror beyond contemplation. Why should he show himself? Why should he even go any nearer to the campfire?

‘Wave and shout if need be to attract their attention, although they will probably know you are there since you will be upwind of them in the north.’

Henry closed his eyes. ‘Why,’ he asked carefully, ‘would I want to attract their attention?’ His mouth was so dry he could scarcely speak, nothing at all to do with the desert heat.

‘So they can chase you,’ Lorquin told him cheerfully.

‘They being…?’

‘The vaettirs, En Ri,’ said Lorquin patiently.

That was vaettirs plural, Henry noted, although he couldn’t pretend it came as a surprise. ‘Why should I want the vaettirs to chase me?’

‘So I may kill the draugr,’ Lorquin explained happily. ‘They guard the draugr, but if they chase you…’ He trailed off, smiling.

‘Suppose they catch me!’ Henry protested, heart thumping.

Lorquin shook his head. ‘They never catch the Companion in our songs.’ He waited, looking at Henry expectantly.

And there it was, Henry thought: his future all laid out in front of him. What in God’s creation had led him here? He should be at home now, worrying about his exams, not lost in a desert with a small blue lunatic who wanted him to lure away a bunch of really scary creatures so he could somehow kill another scary creature that Henry didn’t even know about.

It was as mad as it gets, but something deep inside Henry knew he was going to do exactly what Lorquin had just, asked him. He was more frightened than he had ever been in his life, but he was still going to do it. Not because he was heroic. Not because he was brave. But because he couldn’t think of a single way not to.

‘En Ri?’ Lorquin said.

‘Yes, Lorquin?’

‘The dangerous time is when they smell you. So circle around downwind of them as long as possible. When you hear my signal, cut quickly northwards upwind; then make sure they see you and run quickly. But you know all this already.’

‘Yes,’ Henry said. Especially the bit about running quickly.

‘En Ri?’

‘Yes, Lorquin?’

‘Thank you, my Companion. For helping me become a man.’