Page 12 of The Howling
“And yet, you could be using your singular talents to assist me and be richly rewarded,” Guyzance says quietly.
“I take souls. What would I do with Faerie gold?”
“I don’t mean gold, I mean freedom.”
I snort at his response. Like a Barghest can ever be free.
“What do you want?”
“There is a prisoner in the Night Lands. I want him back.”
“And why me? Why not send one of your…” I wave a clawed hand at his courtiers. “Hangers on?”
Hot head Faerie attempts a growl, despite being shushed by his colleagues.
“The Night Lands are no place for the Faerie, as you well know,” Guyzance says. “And the Brag is unlikely to surrender the prisoner I want.”
“You expect Warden to comply with me? You’re delusional,” I respond.
“I don’t expect you to get his permission, given you don’t bother with anyone else’s,” Lord Guyzance says. “Or”—he gestures to the bars—“you can stay here and enjoy my hospitality.” He looks over his shoulder at his courtiers. “Just how much meat does a Barghest eat?”
One of them pulls out what looks like a gold sheet and studies it.
“Three hogs, two hinds, twenty fowl. And that was this week, my Lord,” he says in a silly high-pitched voice, as if his balls haven’t yet dropped.
“That seems like a lot. I’m sure he can survive on less.”
“You won’t starve me.” I lean against the bars. “I don’t starve. I don’t die unless the Reaper grants it to me.”
Guyzance leans towards me, getting himself perilously close to the iron, which surely has to be as painful as hell.
“I don’t want you to starve. I want you to suffer. I will find your pain point and press, Reavely,” he hisses, before leaning back again. “Or you can make it easy for yourself and simply comply.”
I shove my face up against the bars.
“You can do what you want, Guyzance. I won’t ever work for the Faerie again.”
Behind the gaggle of males, there is a quiet clatter. Her scent hits me and nearly has my knees buckling. It’s beautiful, perfect…and tinged with the bitter whiff of fear.
She does not like the Faerie. I do not blame her.
Guyzance turns slowly in the direction of the noise, and I avert my eyes from where I know she stands.
“You have two days, Reavely, to make your decision.” He looks back at me. “Death might not be an option…for you, butliving might be something you want to forgo if you don’t change your mind.”
I slam my clawed hand on the bars with as much force as I can muster. His lackeys step back, but Guyzance does not. He is a Faerie from the old lands, and there is little I could ever do which would make him quake.
“I will not bend to you.”
“As you wish, Barghest,” he gives me a short, brief bow as his eyes wander in the direction of Wynter. “Two days,” he repeats. “Or you will wish for the Reaper will come for you…or another.”
REAVELY
Ipace. I do not like pacing. I am not an animal. But I dislike very much being caught in this trap. The cage is meaningless, but what Lord Guyzance wants, what he has always wanted from me, is something I refuse to entertain.
I don’t have a fear of the Night Lands. I did my time there like so many, fighting the Reivers, attempting to send as many of them on the long journey to hell as I could. That was my mission from the Reaper, before he brought me back into the Yeavering to take souls, to announce his presence, to do his terrifying work.
Even the Faerie do not argue with death.
