Barb Hendee - Rebel Fay

"Let's put some distance between ourselves and that loudmouth."

Chap searched for any recollection of this strange being but found nothing among his memories. The deer's continued noise unnerved him, and he agreed it was best to get away from it. He started into a trot but immediately slowed so Wynn could take hold of him. He pushed the pace as fast as the little sage could manage.

Daylight was nearly gone. Somewhere behind them, the deer bellowed again-and again. No matter how far or fast Chapwent, the next tone was no farther behind them. The deer was following.

A flash of steel gray darted through a teal-leafed bush ahead.

Chap dug his forepaws into mossy earth, and Wynn stumbled as he jerked to a halt.

The movement vanished in the deepening dusk behind a cluster of pale pines.

Not the deer, for it was too quick andlow, and the ground did not tremble beneath large hooves. Chap heard claws cutting the earth as it flashed by.

He sidestepped, herding Wynn to the nearest tree. He settled himself, ready to charge anything that might rush from hiding.

Undergrowth rustled, and his head snapped to the left. Another movement flickered in the right corner of his vision, then another ahead. This time he caught a glimpse of fur, four legs, and glittering eyes. A scent drifted to his nose, but too thin as yet to recognize.A canine?

Chap slowly turned, watching darting forms circling around, out in the forest.

Across the way, Leesil half-crouched and blindly aimed the crossbow out into the trees. He jerked it quickly to the right. Magiere stood behind him with her falchion drawn.

"Light the damn crystal!" he snapped. "Now, Wynn!"

A head peeked out from behind a fir tree.

Chap growled before he could stop himself. He sniffed the air as Wynn's crystal lit up the narrow clearing. Something pushed its way through the teal-leafed bush into clear view.

Chap's tension melted in shock as he heard Magiere exhale.

"majay-hi!" Wynn whispered.

Crystalline irises like sky-tinted gems stared at Chap from a long face covered in silver-blue fur. Its ears rose up to match his own, and Chap's breath caught.

At least five more circled in the forest around the intruders, weaving in and out of the vegetation. Likehimself, they were long-legged, long-faced, and tall as hounds. Two were a darker shade of steel-gray, nearly as alike as twins. And one more was darker still.

His dark color, like ink brushed into his thick coat, made his eyes float in the dusk-shadowed space beneath a fir tree. He loped an arc to another overhang of branches, and the crystal's light caught the gray peppering in his muzzle.

The one peeking out from the teal-leafed bush dipped his nose, head cocked in puzzlement. He looked from Leesil to Wynn and wrinkled his jowls to expose teeth.

Chap answered with a low rumble and exposed his own fangs.

Leesil backed toward Magiere, crossbow still raised. "Chap?"

He had no answer, even if he could have given one. He had no idea whatthese majay-hi wanted or why they closed in. A glimmer of white darted from around the tree where the black-furred elder stood watching.

The female's coat was so pale it looked cream-white in the crystal's glow. A hint of yellow sparked in her irises. She was delicate and narrow-boned, and stepped so lightly that Chap wondered if her paws even left prints in the loam.

"Look," Wynn murmured, and the sight of the white majay-hi seemed to blot away her panic. "Like a water lily… I never thought others would vary so much from Chap."

"Don't get any ideas," Magiere warned. "They're not Chap… and I don't think they want us here."

Chap knew they were not like him, and not only in the way Magiere meant. They were only majay-hi-distant descendants of born-Fay from long ago and guardians of this wild land. They were like his mother and his siblings of childhood.

"Their faces…" Wynn said, the edge in her voice returning, "theway they move. I do not think any are inhabited by a Fay. But can they still understand us at all?"

Chap took two steps toward the silver-blue before him. It backed into the brush, sniffing the air. A growl pulled Chap's attention to the dark elder beneath the fir tree.

A steel-gray and the white female circled him. As they passed each other, they touched or rubbed heads, one to the next. Chap reached out, trying to snatch any surfacing memory passing through their thoughts.

Jumbled images assaulted him, one after the other. Some repeated and the order disjointed further. He fought to grasp and sort them, but there were so many coming so fast. He caught only pieces…

The strange massivedeer, and its urgent voice.

Racing toward its distant bellow.

A glimpse of an anmaglahk in forest-gray attire.

Himself…

In the last flash that Chap grasped before it was buried in another cascade of sights, sounds, and scents, he saw himself through their eyes.

And these pieces of memory echoed from one among the touching trio to another.

Chap watched the majay-hl brush heads as the white and gray circled about the black elder.

Memories passed each time they touched. Not the random, scant surfac-ings of humans, but images passed willfully, one to the other.

Chap withdrew his awareness, shutting out the kaleidoscope that filled him with vertigo. It was too much to take in. But one image lingered as the silver-gray in the bush stepped forward.

An anmaglahk in forest gray.

Chap backed away, looking again to the trio beneath the tree.

His eyes locked with the whitefemale's. There were indeed flecks of gold within her chill-blue irises.

Chap's inaction left Leesil dumbfounded. He didn't know how much threat these dogs posed, and he expected some kind of lead from Chap.

All the majay-hi froze under another thrumming bellow in the forest.

Far out in the trees Leesil spotted the dim shape of the large silver deer. It stood posed upon a deep green hillock.

The majay-hi circled away into the forest like smoke thinning into the dark.

Chap stood rigid, ears pricked forward.

"Why are they are leaving?" Wynn asked.

Leesil had no answer. "We need to get out of here… find a place to camp."

Magiere's gaze remained on the trees where the majay-hi had vanished.

"What about food?" Wynn added.

Leesil had no idea where or how to findfood, let alone what might be edible. This forest played with his wits, and even in daylight he had to concentrate just to see which way he had come.

"Camp first," Magiere said. "Then maybe Chap can come up with something."

Leesil sidestepped toward Chap, still watching the trees, and laid a hand on the dog's back. Chap was trembling.

"Can you find us another clearing?" Leesil asked.

Chap shook himself. He glanced about, circled around for Wynn to take hold, and padded off away from the sound of the deer.

A long arrow pierced the earth in front of Chap.

Leesil grabbed Wynn and jerked her back.

"Find cover!" he yelled.

With Wynn tucked behind him, he backed toward a moss-covered old log to his right. He heard a knock as something struck wood.

Wynn gasped."Leesil!"

Another long arrow shuddered where it stood, embedded in the log. The shining metal head was familiar enough, like the bright-bladed stilettos his mother had once given him.

"Smother the crystal," he whispered.

Wynn closed the crystal in her fist, stuffed it into her coat pocket, and its light vanished.

Leesil couldn't see anything up in the branches, but he didn't wish to give their attackers the advantage of light. He heard something strike the earth to his rear, and then Magiere's voice.

"Damn it!"

Leesil didn't need to look for the arrow that had cut her off. "Get up against that tree, and don't move until we see them. We're open targets down here."