Matthew Sturges - Midwinter

After a minute of riding in silence, the human Satterly rode up beside him, standing poorly in his stirrups but, to his credit, not complaining about what must have been a very uncomfortable seat.

"Satterly," said Mauritane, in his best approximation of the human name.

"I'm just curious," said Satterly, trying to adjust his posture. "What can you tell me about these Contested Lands? All I know is that it's some kind of demilitarized zone between the Seelie and Unseelie kingdoms."

Mauritane nodded. "True, but it's more than that. Some jokingly refer to them as the UnContested Lands. If the Queen wanted them, the Contested Lands could be hers in a fortnight. Mab and the Unseelie could no doubt achieve the same goal, although neither would attempt it." Mauritane reached into his sabretache for a pipe and filled it methodically.

"Why not? What's so undesirable about them?"

Mauritane lit the pipe, and they both watched the smoke from it leap and catch in a gust of briny air. "There are shifting places there, for one," he said.

"Shifting places."

"Yes. They're areas that have come sort of unfastened from the world. Time and distance don't work properly there. It's easy to ride into one and never ride out again."

"How do we navigate around them?" asked Satterly, concerned.

"They're difficult to detect, although I believe with Silverdun's Insight and Elements we can avoid most of them."

"So that's why no one goes there-these shifting places."

"That's part of it." Mauritane dragged on his pipe. "You see, because the Seelie Court does not enforce its rule in the Contested Lands, those criminal elements and monstrous creatures who can't abide Fairy law tend to congregate there. We're sure to encounter some of them, though it's hard to say exactly who or what we'll run into."

Satterly screwed up his face. "Wow, I'm sorry I asked."

They rode another moment in silence, then Satterly said, "Mauritane?"

"Hm."

"How do you know the rest of us won't make a break for it as soon as you turn your back on us in Hawthorne?"

Mauritane blew out a thin stream of smoke. "Are you planning it?"

Satterly flushed. "No! No, I'm just curious."

Mauritane waved at the others. "Honeywell, Silverdun, and Raieve are Fae. Whatever their faults, their honor remains intact. And if honor proves insufficient, I have the fastest horse and the quickest blade."

"What about me?" said Satterly. "You don't think I have honor?"

"I don't know," Mauritane said coolly. "Do you?"

After an hour the sun rose, bringing light but no warmth. Satterly's hindquarters were already beginning to feel sore from the steady trot they maintained down the increasing slope of the Hawthorne road. Mauritane called a stop for breakfast and they dismounted by a bridge over a sluggish stream that was nearly icebound. On the seaward side of the road, the steam tumbled over the bluff and vanished in a spray of mist.

Satterly walked gingerly back and forth near the road, stretching his legs. Noticing his discomfort, Raieve joined him, handing him a cold sausage wrapped in greasy paper. "You must remember to move your hips in the saddle when you're sitting a trot," she said. "It's hell on the thighs but if you keep bouncing up and down like that you're going to hurt the horse's back." She cracked a thin smile. "It also doesn't hurt your ass as much."

Satterly made a halfhearted attempt to smile back. "I'll keep that in mind," he said.

"So," said Silverdun, leading his horse back from the stream, Honeywell at his side. "Your first time in the Contested Lands, eh, human?"

"That's right," said Satterly.

"Lots to be wary of in that forsaken place," Silverdun said.

"Aye," Honeywell agreed. "The shifting places, for one."

"True," said Silverdun. "Bugganes as well. Unseelie raids are always a fear. And of course," he paused, looking at Satterly with a frown, "there's the Thule Man."

"What's the Thule Man?" Satterly asked, skeptical.

"He's forty feet high," Honeywell said, "with eyes of flame. Fists like boulders, capable of crushing a man's head." Honeywell slowly closed his own fist around an imaginary victim."

Satterly felt his stomach sink. "But that's just a superstition, right?"

Honeywell and Silverdun looked at each other, then back at Satterly. "No," said Silverdun, looking confused. "Why would you say that?"

"Because it sounds like something out of a fairy tale or something. A big monster with eyes of flame. Come on."

"Perhaps in your world," said Silverdun. "But in ours, such creatures are quite common. Remnants of the Great Reshaping."

"Aye," said Honeywell. "I once had a teacher who claimed that it was beasts such as that who gave rise to the fairy stories in the human world, so closely joined were the two worlds in the past."

"Jesus Christ," said Satterly, running his hands through his hair. Why had he agreed to this? This world was insane; there was no telling what they might encounter on this trip. He didn't know anything about violence! He'd never killed anything more threatening than a cockroach.

Honeywell's serious expression began to melt, then he burst out laughing. "I'm sorry, Silverdun. I can't help myselfl"

Silverdun caught Honeywell's eye, then he too began to laugh. He doubled over, clutching his stomach.

"What's so funny?" said Satterly, feeling his face and ears grow hot despite the cold.

"Oh, you poor bastard," Honeywell managed through his chuckles.

Silverdun tried to contain himself. "Did you see the look on his face?" he cackled. "I thought he was going to piss himself!"

"There's no such thing as the Thule Man," said Satterly. "You guys are assholes."

Honeywell slapped Satterly on the back. "The Thule Man's just an old tale that mothers tell their misbehaving children. A fairy tale, as you put it."

Silverdun's laughter ceased and his smile began to fade. "Yes," he said. Then he shrugged. "Probably."

"That's enough, you two," said Mauritane, mounting Streak. "You're clearly finished eating, so let's be on our way."

Raieve, who'd remained silent during the conversation, muttered, "I hate this world," and went to fetch her own horse.

The fishing port of Hawthorne nestled around a natural harbor, surrounded on three sides by rock formations jutting from the foot of the Olive Mountains. Perhaps the oldest city east of the Ebe, Hawthorne sported the white stucco walls and blue tiled roofs of the antebellum east, from an era before the southern architecture of rounded spires and granite walls rendered such places quaint. The Hawthorne Road cut a gently curved path between the hills and into the city, ending at the docks themselves.

From above Hawthorne, Mauritane watched the fishing boats coming in from their morning runs, blowing their horns. He could just make out the shouts of the fishermen calling out their catches to the vendors on the docks, their cries mixed in with those of the gulls and the crash of the waves from beyond the harbor. There was something enviable about that life, Mauritane thought. He'd been told by the guards at Crete Sulace that the Channel Sea was a harsh mistress, but she couldn't be any harsher than Regina Titania, nor half as cold.

"What's the matter?" said Silverdun, coming up next to him on the bluff. "You've stopped."

Mauritane looked around. The others were waiting for him on the road, their horses shifting back and forth on eager legs.

"Sorry," he said. "The only faces I've seen in years are those of my jailers and my fellow inmates. It's not an easy thing."

"No more easy for any of us," Silverdun whispered, leaning in. "But you're their leader. You can't let them see that it bothers you."

Mauritane smiled. "You're right. It's unseemly of me. I suppose I'm out of practice in a few things."