Bound

5. Prologue: The Slow March North

Prologue: The Slow March North

Luckily, the winter came on hard.

Godric inched his way north, learning the limits of the Undying’s tether. The tether that had been placed on him by Wulfram, damn him. Placed on him when Godric had gone back to him after meeting Thomas, the wilding Fey Traveller.

Not the best choice, it turned out, although Godric still wasn’t sure how much of a choice it really had been. At any rate, he discovered the lengths to which Wulfram was willing to go to implement his plan of changing history. Wulfram had Bound Godric to him, using the Undying, and sent him on a mission to bring Thomas back.

As he headed towards Lindisfarne, where Thomas was holed up, Godric found small ways to recover himself. To rebel. The music helped. Playing was one way he could escape, at least for a time. And the uplift of power at dawn and dusk was another small retreat from the influence of the Undying. But the dark shadow that accompanied his days always returned, always drove him on.

And it wasn’t just the Undying. Wulfram’s obsession mingled with the Undying’s dark shadow. At times he felt the other Traveller’s interest in him sharpen. Times when he knew the other Fey was thinking of him—wondering where he was, what he was doing. Sometimes it was the damned birds that tipped him off, with their black beady eyes glittering with an eerie intelligence as he passed under a tree in which one was roosted. Sometimes it was just a whisper of a feeling.

It became a bit of a game to him, this slow march north. Godric delayed at each holding as long as he could before the compulsion to get going became too much, or the dreams became too vivid, and he would have to leave.

But the snows came early, and travel became more difficult. There were stretches of times, sometimes lasting weeks, when he sensed that Wulfram was preoccupied, dealing with some other part of his cockamamie plan that needed his attention.

Godric knew these delays couldn’t last forever, no matter how much he wished otherwise. Wulfram’s whip always returned, driving him on. But he used the delays to make the journey last as long as he dared.

He encountered one of Oswine of Deira’s important thegns on the road and happily accepted an invitation to his holding. The thegn was impressed by his music and kept him on for the Christmas feasting.

He heard the summons to Raegenold’s Gathering on the Solstice, but he didn’t attend. It was south of where he was, for one thing. And Wulfram did not want him to go, for another.

Godric was a Full Blood Fey, and Wulfram had used an Undying to Bind him, had allowed the creature to make him the other Traveller’s puppet. Raegenold and his Court would have something to say about that. Wulfram couldn’t stand against them all, Undying or no.

A grim smile twisted Godric’s lips at the thought. Payback. He longed for the day.

A storm just after Christmas cut Godric off from the rest of the world, and he gleefully hunkered down at the thegn’s holding. But after a week, the weather lightened, and he was able to travel. He set out again—northward, ever northward.

He got sick at the next holding he stopped at. Bad meat, he suspected, as several others also shared his malaise. He was forced to linger there (not that he minded, apart from the puking) until he felt better, and then the siren Call of the Undying prodded him afoot again.

In this manner he made his way by fits and starts towards Lindisfarne, dallying where he could but never free from the compulsion entirely.

Sometime in February Godric woke up from a deep sleep with a gasp, the sound of a horn’s eerie blast fading from his mind.

He blinked, looking around the dark hall where he had collapsed after a night of performing at a small holding. None of the other men had twitched, and the dogs were quiet. It must have been a dream, then.

Suddenly a vision filled his mind: dark shapes bounding over the heath, their howls filling the night. And driving them on, the horned figure on a horse the colour of ashes, lifting the horn to his lips.

With a gasp, Godric covered his ears, shuddering as the wail burst through his mind. The Alder King. Christ almighty. He sucked in a breath as the scene faded. One part lingered: the figure on horseback whom the Huntsman had been chasing, bent low over his horse, his Fey power bright in the night. Thomas?

But no surge of panic accompanied the thought, as surely it would if Wulfram’s prize wilding was in danger of being captured by the Huntsman. Unless Wulfram had sent the Alder King after him? But why would he risk it?

Godric puzzled over it for a moment. It hadn’t been a vision meant for him, he decided. More like a leak-over from Wulfram, via the Undying.

He laid down on his blankets with a mental shrug. All would be revealed, if he was meant to know. He grimaced. No point trying to get to sleep. Perhaps it was time for a visit with the young woman who had flirted with him earlier.

FOOL!

The word was a white-hot spear, thrust into his dreams with brutal violence. Godric sat up, gasping. His heart hammered double-time. Had the Huntsman come for him, now?

Beside him, the young woman he had Charmed into sharing his bed woke with a cry of dismay as Godric lurched upright, clutching his head.

She scrambled off the pile of furs in the barn, clutching the blanket to cover herself. “What’s it? What’s wrong?”

Godric barely heard her. He couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t think of anything but the pain that blossomed in his skull, building behind his eyes.

He started to keen, desperate for the agony to stop. The pressure built, the pain spreading in widening circles, tearing through him like a herd of horses.

The girl gave a muffled exclamation and sprang towards the door on bare feet, pulling it open and escaping into the night.

Godric took no notice. The pain was all, a force that comprised his whole world. He had to stop it…

And then suddenly it was gone, and he fell to his knees in relief. It was then he realized that his fingers were digging into his eyes, that in a few seconds more he would have gouged his own eyes out, and he dropped his hands with a cry of revulsion.

Did you truly think you could hide from me forever?

Godric cringed. It was suddenly clear what this was all about. It was not the Alder King, come to claim him. Wulfram, and the Undying, had finally caught up with him.

Answer me!

The words carved into his brain like a razor. Godric could hardly think about what they meant, let alone form a reply. But some reply was needed, nevertheless. “My lord, please,” he managed to gasp. “Winter came early, and I was stuck. I have tried—” Another spear point of agony cut off his words, curling him into a ball in the hay. Then it was gone, just as suddenly as it had come.

Shakily he pushed himself upright, but he couldn’t stand, not yet. Panic paralyzed his thoughts. All his attempts to delay seemed foolish and insignificant now. How had he imagined they would actually make a difference?

A surge of power rippled over him, and he shrank from the dark shadow that stepped away from the wall, the outline of it shaking and shimmering. It coalesced into the tall, thin man-like creature he had faced at Wulfram’s dwelling. The Undying.

Godric couldn’t stop the small mewling sound that escaped from his lips at the sight.

Beside the Undying, another shadow formed. He watched in resigned horror, wondering with detached curiosity what it would be like with two of them taking up residence in his skull.

But the blurry shape sharpened into the ghostly form of Wulfram.

Harper. The other Traveller Spoke into his mind. Wulfram’s ghostly face was grim, his eyes blazing dark shadows. You are a fool. His mouth moved with the words in Godric’s head.

“Maybe,” he admitted. “But it worked, didn’t it?”

Your resistance has cost us. You should be on the way to me with the wilding. But your delay has allowed him to meet up with his father.

Another burst of white-hot agony laid him flat. It vanished, and he wanted to weep in relief.

The father is a Traveller, too. Bring him as well, if you must. But if he resists, deal with him. He is a powerful Fey, but no match for us both. The wilding is the key. I will have him.

The Undying added its voice to Wulfram’s, the deep malevolent words thrumming through his mind.

Godric couldn’t help it; he raised his eyes and whimpered again, this time in pleasure as he met the dark gaze of the Undying.

His faint, foolish defiance melted. He could do this. He could bring Thomas to Wulfram. The Undying wanted him to do it. He would be richly rewarded. He got to his feet, willing his shaky legs to hold. “Yes, yes,” he stammered. “I will bring him.”

A shout from outside interrupted his thoughts. The stupid girl had run to her parents. The father would come for him, to be sure.

The figure of the Undying wavered, melting into the shadows, followed by the Wulfram-ghost. Another muffled voice from outside prodded him into action. He slipped out the door, seeing the dark figures in the moonless night as mere shadows coming towards the barn. A sudden panic seized him. There was no escape. They would see him, and he would be detained. He couldn’t let that happen.

But Wulfram and the Undying both had leashed his power, making it hard for him to raise it without their help or permission. His fingers curled into fists. Fight, then. Kill them, if he must.

All at once the hairs on his arms lifted and a white flash burned into his eyes. He cried out and shielded his face as a huge boom of thunder cracked the air all around him.

He staggered from the barn and fell to his knees, the smell of ozone acrid in his nostrils.

Get up. They will not follow.

Godric shook his head, trying to make his thoughts work properly. The girl, Wulfram, the Undying, Thomas—it was all jumbled up in his head.

Get up. Go.

He pushed himself to his feet in blind obedience, a bright orange light catching the corner of his eyes. Startled cries from the humans filled the night. He turned.

The barn was on fire. The lightning had scored a direct hit.

Ah. His mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Cool, man!” he muttered. “Bullseye!” He turned around, looking for the Undying, but the creature had vanished, along with Wulfram’s ghostly form.

It didn’t matter. Godric squared his shoulders, took a deep breath. He didn’t have to see them. He knew they were with him. That was what mattered.

He slipped into the night, heading for the beacon that drew him on. Thomas’ face rose in his mind, and he smiled, light at heart. “Ready or not, here I come!”

He laughed out loud. Everything was going to be all right. He just knew it.