"Uh...we're actually a democracy..."
"I do not care," said Bloodbyrn. "It goes without saying that the Dark Prince will do his best to murder you. However," said Bloodbyrn, evidently in response to Freetrick's desolate expression, "I would not worry overmuch on that score, my lord, for I can attest from personal experience that the Prince's martial skill far outpaces his…shall we say, 'political acumen.' With my father and his Dark Lordship Wrothred Necropilor behind my lord, my lord should face no significant difficulties trapping and executing his last remaining close kin."
"Oh," said Freetrick. "Good."
"Now," said Bloodbyrn, "as I was saying, we can expect Prince Feerix to attempt to surprise us with an attack of no more than two thirteens of goblins, and perhaps as much as a single thirteen of light ogre, which my father and his backers are prepared to counter with a full five thirteens of lizard-men and our own thirteen of elite heavy ogre. In other words, we plan to overwhelm him with numbers, but if my lord judges we should hide the full extent of our arsenal until a later time, I shall inform my father."
She paused, possibly waiting for a response, but Freetrick could think of none. He barely knew that ogres weren't just from the crueler kind of bedtime story.
"A necromantic duel, one to one, would of course be the most preferable," Bloodbyrn continued, "perhaps on the day of the un-wedding. After the blood cauldrons but before the ritual sacrifice? What is my lord's opinion? My lord, is any sort of response forthcoming?"
"Huh?"
She signed, "Really. I must confess, my lord, to some disappointment."
"I'm sorry if I'm not everything you expected," said Freetrick, bitterly.
"Oh, that's all right, my lord," said Bloodbyrn, "we shall simply have to change you."
***
"Bloodbyrn."
The sun had sunk behind them. Freetrick's head ached and his bladder demanded attention. "Bloodbyrn, can we stop?"
The evil princess turned away from the window carved into the carriage door, "For what reason, my lord?" Then her eyes traveled over his strained expression, his legs pinched together under the embrace of the Futon, and she smiled. "Hmm. I
see
. He needs to be taken for a walk." White teeth flashed. "Well," she glanced outside. "The sun is reduced in its cursed illumination. I could do with a constitutional. And we must not forget to feed the carriage. Very well." She nodded. "Mr. Skree, command the carriage to slow." She smiled at him. "And fetch me my leash."
"I don't need a leash," Freetrick said, "I need to go into the woods to pee, Bloodbyrn."
She stared at him. "And I
shall
turn my back, my lord. Do not mistake my persona for one that relishes
that
sort of thing. However," she leaned forward and ran a hand over the Futon, which quivered and slid back, "before we reach Castle Clouds-Gather, my lord must not think for one instant that I would
ever
let him out of my sight."
Minutes later, Freetrick was staring at the trunk of a pine tree and trying to forget that Bloodbyrn was holding a leash attached to his neck. He supposed it could have been worse.
But Bloodbyrn was not making the job easier. "I cannot say that this is how I predicted I would be spending the ride home with the Soon-to-be-Ultimate Fiend. Still, we cannot have you staining the upholstery, can we, my lord. You might give the Futon a rash."
Freetrick tried to focus on relaxing his bladder.
"Not that this forest might not be a suitably gloomy place for a romantic interlude," Bloodbyrn continued. "The growing shadows, the wild animals stalking between the grim trunks of the sentinel trees. Not to mention the monsters I am sure have escaped from the other side of the mountains and now roam these forests, confused and no doubt hungry."
Freetrick gritted his teeth.
"And you and I can slaughter one or two," she said, "quench our hungers on their life energies and vital fluids, respectively, and enjoy ourselves a little."
There was a pause.
"Oh, or,
we
could be the hunters. You know, Mr. Skree had a very agreeable time pursuing and killing a peasant on our way down the mountains. If you and I were to happen onto an innocent boy, or, if my lord prefers, an innocent girl on her way to her grandmother's house. We could lash her to
that
stone over there. And I have some
delightful
knives---"
"Bloodbyrn," said Freetrick. "
Stop
talking."
She sighed. "Very well, my lord."
By the time Freetrick was done urinating, he was shivering with cold. As he worked his increasingly numb fingers over the bandage-like cloth strips that Skreans apparently used for underwear, he heard Bloodbyrn speak, as if to herself. "It would be a good forest for rabbits."
"What?"
There was a rustle and a thump, as if she had jumped. "Nothing my lord!"
"Did I scare you?" Freetrick turned around.
"Not at all, my lord." Bloodbyrn pushed her black curls out of her face and looked up at him. Standing up, she was actually more than a head shorter than Freetrick---almost dainty. Until she started speaking. "I was merely considering this forest…" her orange eyes snapped down, "Tempest above, what has my lord done to his nether wrappings? Here, I shall---"
"Don't you---burning
libraries
!"
Bloodbyrn tugged something on his lower back and the straps around his crotch snapped shut. Freetrick leaned forward into the tree and tried to blink the tears out of his eyes.
"I did not appreciate my lord's petulance earlier," said Bloodbyrn. "I hope my displeasure is noted. Now," she continued as Freetrick tried to un-wedge his genitals, "we must return to the carriage, for time is not a commodity even the Soon-to-be-Ultimate Fiend can afford to waste."
"What was it you said about rabbits?" Freetrick asked as he followed her, wincing at the rub of his mummy-wrappings. The ground, he noticed, was blackened in patches where Freetrick's cursed feet had touched.
"I did not---that is to say," Bloodbyrn paused, "I was merely considering that we may find food ready to hand, with which we might feed the carriage. Yes," she said in a firmer voice. "I have heard that rabbits---that is what the Do-Gooders call the animals, is it not?---are common in the woods on the western side of the Bulwarks. We have none on the eastern side, of course. Perhaps one would do for the carriage. That is what I was ruminating upon when my lord interrupted me."
"I'm sorry, you need to feed the
carriage?
" They passed out of the woods, and Freetrick could see the dark bulk of the thing at the top of the raised ground of the road, bracketed like a parenthetical insult between the flashing red globes of the Proctors' transport spheres.
"Of course," said Bloodbyrn, climbing the embankment, "all monsters need to be fed."
"The carriage is a monster?" Freetrick squinted. Yes, those darker patches in the larger blur of the carriage might indeed be legs. "Is that why it keeps…screaming?"
"Of course," Bloodbyrn said again, "
it is not given to monsters to be in the presence of the Ultimate Fiend without suffering. Now…my lord wondered about rabbits. Yes, and he may have noticed the rabbit in a box with holes cut in the top in the luggage compartment of our very conveyance."
"Like…screaming in agony?"
They had gotten close enough now that he could see something
moving beneath the boxy body of the carriage's passenger compartment.
"Yes. Obviously." Bloodbyrn spoke rapidly. "Now, the animal was intended for food. That is why it was there, and for no other purpose. So I shall just have…Mr. Skree feed her to the carriage now. Mr. Skree!"
Freetrick ignored her, leaning forward to stare at an immense limb stretching up and out from under the rear corner of the carriage. It was twice as thick as Freetrick's own, but so long it seemed spindly. It stuck up at an angle from the rear corner of the carriage, then bent back down at an odd, knobbled joint. The feet were broad and flat, with splayed toes, long and thin as fingers, clutching the road surface. Another limb moved into view on the other side the carriage, and when Freetrick looked, he could see two more at the vehicle's front two corners.
A thin, high keen rose up from the ground as the limbs stiffened. The carriage rocked, then lifted off the ground. And between those rear limbs, with their flat, long-toed feet so much like hands, he saw the monster's head.
"
Eek
!"
Freetrick rocked backwards, unable to close his eyes against the grotesque vision. Staring in horror and fascination at the tiny, wrinkled,
human
face that shrieked at him from the shadow under the carriage frame.
Lay a man flat on his back, with his elbows and knees bent and his feet and palms on the floor. Now watch as he tries to walk. Freetrick had played the game himself as a child. So that explained the backward cant to the carriage and its rocking crab-like motion. And the screaming, of course. The monster must hit his head on the ground with every step he took.
"
Eeh…eek!
"
"Oh do be quiet," Bloodbyrn said. "He knows it is dinner time."
The little head stretched out from between what Freetrick now recognized as shoulders, its mouth open, sharp teeth waiting to bite.
"And it eats rabbits?" Freetrick said.
"No," said Bloodbyrn, "for as I just finished explaining, my lord, Mr. Skree possessed the foresight to kill a peasant on our way down the mountain, and has caused one of the helpful Do-Gooders to fetch the body. So we do not have to part with my…the rabbit."
"Eek
!"
One of the Proctors from their escort emerged from the embankment at the other side of the road, dragging the corpse. Freetrick stared at it.
It was a boy, a Betweener by the pointy nose, wearing the rough wool and leather clothing of the uphill villages. Wool and leather died a deep rust-color down the front, where blood from his slashed throat had flowed over them.
"Mr. Skree did this?" Freetrick asked, horrified, as the Proctor threw the boy's body down at his feet.
"No," said the Proctor, voice flat, "you did."
Before Freetrick could respond, the carriage ogre saw the body, waddled forward, and reached out with an enormous limb to seize the corpse.
Freetrick turned away, and found himself looking up into the Proctor's scowl.
"Who," he said, and winced at the snap of a cracking bone, "who was it?"
"A boy from a village on the border." The Proctor's voice was cold.
"What was he doing…on the road?" As terrible as the sight of the carriage monster was, Freetrick watched it. He could not bring himself to look up. To meet the eyes of the Proctor.
"Trying to get away from your monsters," said the Proctor. "Looks like he didn't make it."
"Oh."
"Get out of here." The Proctor's voice shivered under its load of anger and disgust. "Get out of our nation."
Freetrick opened his mouth to say that he wasn't the Ultimate Fiend. Then he closed it.
"Yes," Bloodbyrn said, "I would not linger here, myself." She gestured at the door to the carriage, swaying back and forth slightly as the monster under it twisted and screamed.
Freetrick looked around desperately for an idea, something he could use to escape. But there was nothing but the woods, the road, the carriage. And the Proctors. Let's not forget the Proctors. But their anti-personnel runes and transport spheres would stop working if they got much farther up the mountains. Or if Freetrick reached out and touched them with his evil-sweating hands. His pulse sped up.
Freetrick's eyes narrowed as his mind raced. Maybe if he said he had forgotten something in the woods---
The leash around his neck tugged.
"You will not escape," Bloodbyrn's voice rose from behind him. It was not a question, or even a warning.
"Oh," said Freetrick, "really?" He turned on her, and saw Bloodbyrn looking up at him with a bored expression. "And how exactly are you going to stop me?" He reached up to the leash around his neck and jerked it out of her hands.
Bloodbyrn's expression did not change. "I shall call out to the Do-Gooders my lord can see both before and behind us. And these men will shoot my lord. Now," she continued as Freetrick let the leash fall out of his fingers. "My lord will enter the carriage, that we may be gone."
There was nothing he could do but obey.
The transport spheres did indeed fail quickly as they moved further up the mountains into Between. Through the screen, Freetrick saw the lead one peel off, flickering and stuttering at the edge of its range, and pass them in the opposite direction. The other would no doubt follow. Their Proctor escort was going home, and now would be a great time to escape, if the Futon wasn't clamped back around his waist.
Freetrick squinted out the window, trying to think. His next best chance to escape, maybe his
only
chance to escape, would come soon. As they moved deeper into Between and word-magic failed, Naobel's blessing would take over. That was a magic specifically made to stop monsters. If they passed a road-side wheel-stone or a local with an amulet, Freetrick could call out the name of the god, and the Blessing would take out Mr. Skree, the carriage, and the Futon---kill the monsters or at least cause enough pain and confusion that Freetrick could escape.