The Iron Knight (The Iron Fey 4)

I already knew that, but the way Grimalkin said it sounded ominous, and it irritated me that the cait sith knew more then he was letting on.

Ignoring the cat, I turned away, staring into the trees. A stray sod emerged from the darkness, a tiny green faery with a clump of weeds growing from its back. It blinked at me, bobbed its mushroom hat, and quickly slipped back into the undergrowth.

“This seer,” I asked Grimalkin, careful y marking the place the sod had vanished so as to not tread on it when we left. “Where is it located?”

But Grimalkin had disappeared.

Time has no meaning in the wyldwood. Day and night don't really exist here, just light and darkness, and they can be just as fickle and moody as everything else. A “night” can pass in the space of a blink, or go on forever. Light and darkness will chase each other through the sky, play hide-and-seek or tag or catch-me-if-you-can. Sometimes, one or the other will become offended over an imagined slight and refuse to come out for an indefinite amount of time. Once, light became so angry, a hundred years passed in the mortal realm before it deigned to come out again. And though the sun continued to rise and set in the human world, it was a rather turbulent period for the world of men, as all the creatures who lurked in darkness and shadow got to roam freely under the lightless Nevernever skies.

So it was stil ful dark when Puck and I started out again, fol owing the cait sith into the endless tangle of the wyldwood. Grimalkin slipped through the trees like mist f lowing over the ground, gray and nearly invisible in the colorless landscape around him. He moved swiftly and silently, not looking back, and it took all my hunter's skil s to keep up with him, to not lose him in the tangled undergrowth. I suspected he was testing us, or perhaps playing some annoying feline game, subtly trying to lose us without completely going invisible. But, with Puck hurrying after me, I kept pace with the elusive cait sith and didn't lose him once as we ventured deeper into the wyldwood.

The light had finally decided to make an appearance when, without warning, Grimalkin stopped. Leaping onto an overhanging branch, he stood motionless for a moment, ears pricked to the wind and whiskers trembling. Around us, huge gnarled trees blocked out the sky, gray trunks and branches seeming to hem us in, like an enormous net or cage. I realized I didn't recognize this part of the wyldwood, though that wasn't unusual. The wyldwood was huge, eternal and constantly changing. There were many places I'd never seen, never set foot in, even in the long years of hunting beneath its canopy.

“Hey, we're stopping,” Puck said, coming up behind me. Peering over my shoulder, he snorted under his breath. “What's the matter, cat? Did you finally get lost?”

“Be quiet, Goodfel ow.” Grimalkin f lattened his ears but didn't look back. “Something is out there,” he stated, twitching his tail. “The trees are angry. Something does not belong.” His eyes narrowed, and he crouched to leap off the branch.

Right before he vanished.

I glanced at Puck and frowned. “I guess we'd better find out what's going on.”

Goodfel ow snickered. “Wouldn't be any fun if we didn't run into some sort of catastrophe.” Pul ing his dagger, he waved me on. “After you, your highness.”

We proceeded cautiously through the trees, scanning the undergrowth for anything suspicious. At my silent gesture, Puck stepped away and slid into the trees to the right of me. If something was lying in ambush, it would be better if we weren't together when it pounced.

It wasn't long before we started seeing evidence that something was decidedly out of place here. Plants were brown and dying, trees had spots where they had been burned, and the air began to smel of rust and copper, tickling my throat and making me want to gag. I was suddenly reminded of my dream, the nightmare world of the Iron fey, and gripped my sword hilt even tighter.

“You think there's an Iron faery here?” Puck muttered, poking a burned, dead leaf with the point of his knife. It disintegrated at his touch.

“If there is,” I muttered, “it won't be here much longer.”

Puck shot me a glance, looking faintly unsure. “I don't know, ice-boy.

We're supposed to be at peace now. What would Meghan say if we kill ed one of her subjects?”

“Meghan is a queen.” I stepped beneath a rotting branch, pushing it away with my sword. “She understands the rules, just like everyone else. By law, no Iron fey can set foot in the wyldwood without permission from Summer or Winter. It would be a breach of the treaty if the courts found out, and at worst it would be seen as an act of war.” I raised my sword and hacked through a cluster of yel owed, dying vines that smel ed of rot. “If there is an Iron faery here, better we find it than scouts of Summer or Winter.”

“Yeah? And what happens then? We politely ask it to go home? What if it doesn't listen to us?”

I gave him a blank stare.

He winced. “Right.” He sighed. “Forgot who I was talking to. well then, lead on, ice-boy.”

We pushed deeper into the forest, fol owing the trail of dying plants, until the trees thinned and the ground abruptly dropped away into a rocky gorge.

The trees in this area were blackened and dead, and the air smel ed poisonous and foul. After a moment, I realized why.

Sitting against a tree, his armor glinting in the sun, was an Iron knight.

I paused, my fingers tightening around the hilt of my sword. I had to remind myself that the knights were not our enemies anymore, that they served the Iron Queen and followed the same peace treaty as the rest of the courts. Besides, this one was clearly no threat to us. His breastplate had been staved in, and dark, oily blood pooled beneath him. His chin rested limply on his chest, but as we got closer, he opened his eyes and looked up.

Blood trickled from one corner of his mouth.

“Prince…Ash?” He blinked several times, as if doubting his own eyes.

“What…what are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same.” I didn't approach the fal en warrior, standing several feet away with my sword at my side. “It's forbidden for your kind to be here. Why aren't you in the Iron Realm protecting the queen?”

“The queen.” The knight's eyes widened, and he held a hand out.

“You…you have to warn the queen—”

I took two long steps forward and faced the knight, looming over him.

“What's happened to Meghan?” I demanded. “Warn her of what?”

“There was…an attempt on her life,” the knight whispered, and my heart went cold in fear and rage. “Assassins…snuck into the castle…tried to get to the queen. We managed to drive them off and followed them here, but there were more than…we first thought. kill ed the rest of my squad…” He paused for breath, gasping. It was clear he wouldn't last much longer, and I knelt to hear him better, ignoring the nausea that came from being this close to an Iron faery. “You have to…warn her…” he pleaded again.

“Where are they now?” I asked in a low voice.

The knight made a gesture over the rise, back into the forest. “Their camp…on the edge of a lake,” he whispered. “Near a tower…”

“I know that spot,” Puck said, standing several feet back from the Iron knight. “A woman with crazy long hair used to live on the top f loor, but it's empty now.”

“Please…” The knight raised dying eyes to me, fighting to get his last words out. “Go to our queen. Tel her…we… failed….” Then his eyes rol ed up in his skul , and he slumped forward.

I stood, taking a step back from the dead Iron knight. Puck sheathed his dagger as he stepped up beside me, giving the Iron faery a dubious look.

“What now, prince? Should we head to the Iron Court?”

“I can't.” Frustration battled cold rage, and I gripped my sword hard enough to feel the edges bite into my palm. “I'm forbidden to set foot in the Iron Realm. That's why we're here, remember? Or did you forget?”

“Don't freak out, ice-boy.” Puck crossed his arms with a smirk. “Al is not lost. I can turn into a raven and f ly back to warn—”

“Do not be foolish, Goodfel ow,” Grimalkin interrupted, coming out of nowhere, hopping onto a stone. “You have no amulet and no protection from the corruption of the realm. You would perish long before you reached the Iron Queen.”

Puck snorted. “Give me some credit, Furbal . It's me. Did you forget who you were talking to?”

“If only I could.”

“Enough!” I stared coldly at both of them. Grimalkin yawned, but at least Puck looked faintly guilty. Frustration and anger boiled; I hated that I couldn't be with Meghan, that I was forced to keep my distance.

But I would not sit back and do nothing. “Meghan is stil in danger,” I continued, gazing up the hil . “And the assassins are close. If I can't go back to warn her, then I'll take care of the threat right here.”

Puck blinked, but he didn't seem terribly surprised. “Yeah, I thought you might say that.” He sighed. “And I can't let you have all the fun, of course.

But, uh, you do know they took out a whole squad of Iron knights, right, ice-boy?” He glanced at the dead faery and wrinkled his nose.

“I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, of course, but what if we're charging into an army?”

I gave him a brittle smile. “Then there will be a lot of fal en soldiers before the day is done,” I said quietly, and walked out of the gorge.

On the banks of a lake, the slim, crooked tower with its mossy gargoyles and faded blue roof stood tal and proud, easily visible through the trees. At the base, sheltered among broken rocks and crumbling stones, several sidhe knights mil ed around a smoldering campfire, unaware of Puck and me, crouched in the shadows at the edge of the trees. The knights wore suits of familiar black armor, long spines bristling from the shoulders like giant thorns. Though once sharp and proud, the faces beneath the helmets were now ravaged as though dis-eased; charred, melted f lesh, open sores and nak*d bone gleamed in the f lickering campfire. Some of their noses had fal en off, others had only one good eye. The breeze shifted, and the stench of burned, rotting f lesh assaulted our senses, washing over us. Puck stif led a cough.

“Thornguards,” he muttered, putting a hand to his nose. “What the heck are they doing here? I thought they were all kill ed in the last war.”

“Apparently, we missed a few.” I gazed over the camp dispassionately.

The Thornguards once belonged to my brother Rowan, his elite personal guard. When Rowan joined the Iron fey, the Thornguards followed him, believing his claims that they could become immune to iron. They thought the Iron fey would destroy the Nevernever, and the only way to survive was to become like them. To prove their loyalty, they wore a ring of iron beneath their gauntlets, enduring the agony and the destruction it wreaked on their bodies, believing if they could survive the pain, they would be reborn.

The Thornguards had been misled, deceived, but they had stil chosen to side with the Iron fey and Rowan in the recent war, which made them traitors to the courts of Faery. These few had gone even further, threatening Meghan and attempting to end her life. That made them my personal enemies, a very dangerous position, indeed.