Page 12
Story: Ties of Bargains
Chapter Twelve
A fter the time he’d spent in the Fae Realm, Harm shouldn’t be shocked as he and Val stepped from the lush green moss shaded by towering trees into crisp air and fields with waving cornstalks ready for harvest, a stark contract marking the boundary of the courts.
“Do you ever get used to that?” Harm halted, gaping at the fields bursting with ripe vegetables in a variety of strange colors and shapes. “The abrupt changes between the Courts?”
Val’s mouth pressed into a tight line, her face especially hard. “No.”
After the moment around the fire sharing cheese and cassis, Val had woken in a foul mood, going all prickly once again.
It was getting rather frustrating.
Perhaps she was right. He shouldn’t be trying so hard and should just see her as his captor and enemy as much as the one who held his bargain .
Daisy bounded off to sniff around the fields and each of the ripe vegetables.
Harm reached for one of the vegetables that was cerulean and shaped like an eggplant. “These are really strange.”
“Don’t pick anything.” Val halted and glared. “Don’t even touch them. We’re not a part of the Harvest Court, so we don’t have permission to pick anything. We’ll bring down the wrath of the nuckelavee if we do.”
“What are the nuckelavee? You’ve mentioned them before.” Harm fell into step with Val as they followed what seemed to be a meandering path between the plants. Unlike the farm fields back home, which were planted in straight lines, these fields were all higgledy-piggledy with no set rows and plants growing in various clumps. Haphazard seemed to be the organizational style of choice here in the Fae Realm.
“Monstrous creatures that are part nightmare horse that eats meat and part a headless rider perched on its back. Except that horse and rider are one, and both bodies are formed of rotting flesh.” Val didn’t even break her stride as she described the horrible thing. “They’re monsters, technically, but monsters of this court rather than monsters belonging to the Realm of Monsters. The nuckelavee guard these fields, especially at night.”
“Charming.” Harm gave a vegetable growing into the path a wide berth. He didn’t want to accidentally call the nuckelavee down on them. “Are you sure cutting through the Harvest Court is safer than the Court of Sand? ”
“Yes.” Val’s jaw worked. “That court has sand dragons—those are animal dragons that spit venom—thunderbirds, and giant snakes. That’s not even counting the shifting sands where the barrier between the realms is so thin you could stumble into the Realm of Monsters without even meaning to do so. Monsters stumble out just as easily. Oh, and it’s abominably hot.”
“Right. Yes, the Harvest Court is better.” Harm rested his hand on the hilt of his new sword.
Val just sent him another sour look and kept walking.
Apparently she wasn’t in a talkative mood.
They walked in silence for several miles, the fields around them never seeming to change all that much. Occasionally Harm caught a glimpse of small fee?n with gray-brown skin. They trundled between the fields, pushing wheelbarrows laden with vegetables. Brownies, Val called them.
The path took them into a field of dry and rustling stalks of corn, stretching for as far as Harm could see. The tassels of the cornstalks were level with his head, even with his height, while every stalk held several plump ears of orange-colored corn.
Val halted so abruptly that Harm nearly ran into her. She reached behind her and gripped his arm painfully tight.
“What is it?” Harm kept his voice low, even as he scanned the area. All he could see was corn and a single scarecrow on a pole. It wasn’t dressed in clothes but was formed of bundles of straw tied together with twine, a round orange vegetable for a head .
Val crouched so that the corn fully hid her, dragging Harm down next to her. When she spoke, her lips barely moved with her whisper. “Scarecrow.”
“Scarecrow?” Harm dropped his voice to a whisper as well and reached for his sword. “I’m assuming you mean something different here in the Fae Realm than what we have in the Human Realm.”
“Here, scarecrows are very, very protective of their fields. They move about under their own power and are relentless in their attack. The only way to kill them is to burn them.” Val eased her knife from her sheath. “If that one spots us, it will be very angry to see strangers in its field.”
Harm would have drawn his sword, but it was an awkward movement to do while crouching, and he didn’t want to accidentally set the corn to rustling. Instead, he followed Val, both of them bent over. He tried to set his boots down carefully so his footfalls wouldn’t crunch on the fallen leaves scattered on the ground.
With a crashing bound, Daisy burst through the nearby cornstalks, growling and barking in the direction of the scarecrow.
“Daisy!” Val hissed, reaching for the dog.
All three heads in appearance, Daisy danced out of Val’s reach, still barking, her fur raised all along her back. Her hunting instincts had taken over, and there was no calling her back now.
Harm tensed, his hand tightening on his sword’s hilt.
Val straightened and peeked between the stalks. Then she grabbed Harm’s arm again. “Run! ”
Harm caught a glimpse of the bundle of straw detaching first one arm, then the other from the pole before he was yanked forward. He broke into a sprint before he could be pulled off his feet. While he couldn’t draw his sword while running, his fingers itched for a weapon. Anything that made Val run instead of fight must be dangerous.
There was an even more uproarious rustling sound behind them, and Daisy’s barking intensified until it was shrill.
Harm glanced over his shoulder, then nearly tripped over his own feet.
The scarecrow ran after them with a lumbering but surprisingly swift gait for something made entirely of straw. Its straight legs covered yards with each lurching step while its vegetable head swayed back and forth on its body. Even though it lacked a throat or a mouth, it made a horrible screeching noise, like a wind shredding through a field of dead stalks.
Daisy leapt, sank her teeth into one of the scarecrow’s arms, and ripped the whole arm right off the body. The dog landed and shook the arm, tearing and shredding the straw.
The scarecrow gave its roar again and lifted its other arm to take aim at Daisy.
Val glanced over her shoulder, then muttered something under her breath. She halted, spun on a heel out of Harm’s way as he struggled to slow, and dug into her pocket. She withdrew a spear, cocked her arm back, and threw.
The spear took the scarecrow through the vegetable head, the shaft sticking out of the creature’s forehead like a horn.
The scarecrow halted its swing at Daisy, and instead turned its head toward them. It didn’t have expressions, yet Harm felt a wave of pure malice wash over him. He drew his sword and braced himself.
The scarecrow charged them, raising its remaining arm, the spear still impaling its head.
Val drew a sword as well before she gave a yell and leapt for the creature. She sliced off its head. The vegetable made a hollow thunk when it hit the ground. But the scarecrow kept coming.
Harm chopped his sword at the creature’s arm. The sword bit partway through, and he hacked until the arm came off.
Val sliced sideways, chopping at the creature’s legs. She got one leg off just as Daisy pounced on the creature again, knocking it to the ground and tearing it apart.
Harm relaxed, lowering his sword as he caught his breath.
Yet even as he watched, some of the straw began moving along the ground toward the body. The head rolled back into place while the arms and legs re-formed.
With a whistle for Daisy, Val spun and broke into a run again. Harm adjusted his grip on his sword and ran to catch up before he could be yanked forward by the tether.
“So…” Harm gasped between breaths. “Burn it?”
“That’s a last resort.” Val didn’t sound nearly as out of breath as he was. She glanced over her shoulder, her jaw tightening, before she faced forward and kept sprinting. “We might set this whole field on fire if we did, and that would bring the nuckelavee down on us for sure. The scarecrow won’t chase us past the boundary of its assigned field.”
“And how far is that?” Harm’s glance showed that the scarecrow was trundling after them again.
“Don’t know.” Val sprinted as easily as walking, hefting her sword as she ran as if she wasn’t afraid of impaling herself if she tripped.
Or maybe that was just Harm’s worry. He had, after all, sliced himself once on this journey already.
With a louder growl, Daisy streaked along the path and leapt on the scarecrow again, the force of her blow knocking the scarecrow all the way to the ground. Two of her heads grabbed arms and ripped them off while the middle head and her paws attacked the vegetable head.
Val slowed and spun once again. “That dog is going to be the death of me.”
As she raced toward Daisy and the scarecrow, Harm followed in her footsteps, and not just because the tether wouldn’t let him get farther than ten feet away from her. He was rather fond of the dog too.
Val hacked at the scarecrow, chopping the straw into tiny bits. Harm joined her, the two of them—three of them, counting Daisy—reducing the scarecrow to chaff. Val even went so far as to slice the vegetable head into pieces. As she retrieved her spear and slid it back into her pocket, she patted her side. “ Come on, Daisy. Let’s go. That should buy us some time.”
This time Harm sheathed his sword, the better to run. He set off at Val’s side, and all three of them sprinted through the cornfield, following the meandering paths. Harm could only hope they were headed for a border of the field and not just running in circles, lost in the giant field.
They’d put the scarecrow well out of sight when the scratching roar echoed through the field once again.
Val’s jaw worked, and she put on a burst of speed. Harm had no choice but to match her pace. Next to them, Daisy ran with her mouth shut and her ears pressed to her skull.
“There!” Val changed direction, swerving up a smaller path barely wide enough for Harm’s shoulders.
He dove after her, his pounding heart lifting as he spotted the bright line where the corn gave way to another field.
A crash came behind him, and he risked a glance over his shoulder.
The scarecrow plunged after them down the narrow row. Its head remained only half put together while orange pieces bounced over the ground behind it.
Harm pushed himself even faster, stretching his long legs and pumping his arms. Even Val huffed gulping breaths as she raced just ahead of him.
As Val crossed the line into the next field, Daisy halted and started to turn, preparing to attack the creature once again.
Harm slowed and hefted the dog into his arms, a squirming mass of solid muscle. The top of her head smashed into his chin as she scrambled to get free.
“Harm!” Val’s shout snapped his head up.
The scarecrow was only feet away, a hole still gaping in its vegetable head like a gruesome mouth and that same dry shriek shaking the cornstalks around them.
Harm’s feet were rooted to the spot, and it was all he could do to keep his grip on the dog flailing in his arms.
Just as the scarecrow swung at him, something jerked him by the wrist. Hard.
Harm tumbled out of the cornfield, landing on his back on a bed of vines and tilled earth. Daisy’s weight fell on his stomach and chest, knocking the breath out of him.
Before Daisy could scramble free of his loosened grip, Val dropped her two-handed grip on the cord, darted forward, and grabbed Daisy by the scruff of the neck of her middle head. “It’s all right, Daisy. You held it off.”
The scarecrow tottered to a halt at the very edge of the field, screeching and waving its arms, but coming no farther.
Harm sucked in a shaky breath and didn’t try to get up. He was never going near a scarecrow ever again.