Page 17 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire

Peg gyda’r dannedd haearn

(PEG WITH THE IRON TEETH)

The palace gates slam firmly shut behind me. The message is clear: Return a champion, or don’t return at all.

I’m only a few feet into the woods when Neirin reveals himself, stepping out from behind a tree with a tentative smile on his lips.

“How did it go?” he asks.

I raise both thumbs. Neirin laughs, then returns the gesture just as quickly as I drop it.

“As you said, the king needs a champion. He’ll take anyone. The consort, Delyth, says my sister came and went two days ago, and she should be close to Y Lle Tywyll. We mustn’t tarry.”

Neirin’s eyes narrow as he tilts his head. “The king told you all that?”

“He was rather talkative, actually.”

The wind whistles around us, carrying the distant scent of civilization mingling with the mossy, green smell of the forest.

Neirin considers me, brows knitted together in thought. “Really? That’s unlike him.”

“I put on a show,” I tell him. “Played the basher.”

“Basher?”

“I pretended to be far more confident and arrogant than I am.”

Neirin laughs, throwing his head back. “I daresay you were barely pretending.”

One corner of my mouth pulls up, though I try to stop it. “We should go.”

Neirin sweeps an arm toward the depths of the forest. “By all means. It should be a few hours’ walk to Peg.”

“Peg?” I ask.

Neirin nods. “To get you a weapon, a necessary detour for a would-be champion, surely?”

A weapon, of course. He had mentioned it before the palace, but you must forgive me forgetting something like that after being torn across Eu gwlad on a magic horse and having an audience with the king.

“All right, but who is Peg?”

Neirin laughs, tilting his head. “Peg Ironteeth, the only teg who can handle sharp things. Have we finally found one of our legends that you haven’t heard of?”

I bristle at his teasing. I think about telling him that if tales of this famed Peg haven’t reached humans, then she can’t be very interesting at all, not really, but that merely opens me up for further bickering.

“Must we walk there? Can’t you… summon a carriage for us?” I say instead.

“Easily.” Neirin takes a jaunty step further into the woods, beaming over his shoulder. “But we are far too close to the palace. The king will feel my magic, will recognize that it’s me.” He falters mid-stride, slows. “Did he ask if you had… company?”

Shadows limn his face as he watches me, an apprehensive light in his eyes. Though I know he must be telling the truth about his magic, I wonder about his motivations. I know hardly anything about Neirin, so he doesn’t get to know the truth, either.

“No,” I lie. “Why do you hate each other so?”

The uncertainty slips from his features to be replaced by his usual showman’s smile, but I saw it, clear as daylight.

“Let’s simply agree that you have your reasons for this journey, and I have mine,” he says.

I chew the inside of my lip. He knows my purpose, while I know nothing of his. The ghostly hand of unease brushes over my skin, but I nod. We do not need to understand each other to survive. Perhaps it’s better this way.

“Lead on,” I tell him.

The next stretch of our trek is uneventful, but my answers to his silly questions grow longer and have less bite. Neirin shares his court’s gossip. I tell him about the cost of bread and milk in the shop where I no longer work.

“You’ll not go back there, will you?” he asks.

“They wouldn’t have me.” I shrug. “The scandal of my vanishing will ruin my prospects—well, finish them off, really.”

“Tell me more about your village.”

I’m not used to being asked so many questions, nor being listened to. He collects all the answers I give as if they’re rare books he’s hungry to read. It’s strange but not unpleasant.

“All we have is a few shops, a pub and a mine, really.”

“A mine?” His voice piques with recognition, but of what, I don’t know.

“An underground tunnel system of sorts, where they dig up coal.”

“Those are vile places, are they not?”

I consider his question for a little too long, and when I answer, my face twitches. “They’re not pleasant, but we need them. Near enough every man in my valley worked down the mine. My dad started when he was a boy.”

Neirin hums low in his throat. “How sad.”

“People don’t work hard jobs here?”

“I—” His brows shoot up, then fall low, furrowing in thought. “I assume they don’t. We have magic; things don’t need to be as hard as all that. Well, some of us have magic, anyway.”

“There were servants in the palace whose work seemed no different from what I’ve seen at home.”

“They’re well paid.”

Maybe he thinks the teg are more evolved than humans—that their world is better—but it’s clear that there are still people at the top and people at the bottom. Neirin, though under the thumb of the king, is clearly closer to the top. I wouldn’t expect him to understand.

After a few hours, the forest grows darker, denser.

The deeper we go, the higher the trees become, until any light disappears, and the weather turns angry, like the further we get from the palace, the less controlled the land becomes.

Rain soaks through my coat and into my hair, but that’s nothing until the wind picks up.

Roots stick up at jagged angles, ready to trip and break limbs.

My newly sighted eyes search the forest for movement, for any sign of the teg.

A yowl pierces the quiet, but all I catch is a glimpse of three white, feline tails attached to one body, disappearing behind a tree.

It’s far larger than a house cat, and the tree’s too thin to hide it properly, but the creature vanishes entirely. It never rounds the other side.

Light finally appears on the horizon, beckoning us forward until we emerge from the forest into a small clearing.

A cottage sits alone in the patch of dry, dying grass.

The building is made of slate, with a thatched roof, a chimney billowing smoke and curtains drawn over every window.

A large wooden door dominates the front of the building, bearing a heavy brass knocker shaped like an eagle’s claw.

The claw holds a glass eye. Or, at least, I think it’s glass—until the eye swivels to gaze upon me with a green iris that looks a little too like my own to be an accident. It’s gooey. Wet.

I flinch, but Neirin reaches for it without a second thought and drops the great brass weight like a stone.

The eye blinks. Barbed silence blankets the clearing. Even birds cease their singing. Then a long, dragging creak pierces the quiet, and the door opens by itself.

I start, and Neirin laughs. I let out a sharp breath and shove the door open further, even though that’s the very last thing I want to do. Neirin doesn’t get to see me scared. I take a firm step over the threshold and sweep my arm to welcome him inside, as if it’s my own house.

Neirin bows, playing along, and follows me.

The cottage is a maze of tight corridors, sharp turns and walls that sit ill at ease with the uneven, groaning floors and ceilings.

Shelves border every path, laden with trinkets and oddities: rabbits’ feet and fennel, stones and statues and parting glasses.

Threadbare rugs from worlds away muffle our steps, and spices and herbs brew in the air, shaken loose from the bushels of dried plants that brush our heads.

The very walls, it feels, are listening to us, and waiting.

“Peg?” Neirin calls.

The house shifts, adjusting to our presence, until a door creaks open at the end of the winding corridor.

I almost lurch toward Neirin but manage to hold back, clenching my fists at my side instead.

The scent of rancid, cooking meat leaks out, and my nose wrinkles.

Neirin hisses, then rubs his hands together as if the skin is irritated.

“What’s that smell?” I ask through gritted teeth.

“A sharp thing.” Neirin’s face is stone.

“Don’t dawdle, boy,” a voice croaks from an inner room. “You know I hate dawdlers.”

He grimaces and, with a sharp jerk of his head, beckons me to follow.

We enter a windowless room. The only light comes from a large fire beneath a bubbling pot. The walls and floor are an oily black stone that shimmers unpleasantly in the flames, like a snake shifting its coils.

Peg Ironteeth perches on a stool. She’s leaning heavily on a gnarled cane, her fingers so knotted they could be part of the wood, and cobwebs and dust gather in the gray snarls of her hair.

Her cloak covers her like the night. I squint at the weave: a mottled mess of feathers, animal fur, moss and moldy fabrics, layered high until her body is completely obscured.

There are stones and gems caught in the mess just begging to be plucked loose.

“It’s been a while, boy,” Peg says. “Why do you and your mayfly friend call on me?”

Her thin-lipped grin explains her name. Her teeth have been ripped out and replaced by iron shards, each one a different size.

Some are blunt, and others have been filed to piercing points.

But it’s her gums that disgust me the most. They are blackened with infection, inflamed and bleeding.

Years’ worth of blood crusts between the gaps in her teeth and dyes her tongue.

I rack the shelves of old stories in my head, but no matter how many pages I tear through, I can recall no mention of Peg.

I twitch, and Peg’s milky eyes track to me. Her smile only broadens, revealing even more metal tearing into the flesh of her mouth.

“This is my champion,” Neirin says. “She needs a weapon.”

“Then purchase her one. You should know the rules by now.”

Whatever their history is, her words make Neirin stiffen. I shoot him a curious glance that he doesn’t return. He stares hard at Peg, his jaw tight.

“A special weapon, Peg.” Neirin steps forward.

Peg eyes him, a mantis before her prey. “She already bears iron. I could smell it through the forest. A sharp thing I made for another.”

“Her sister,” Neirin admits.