The city of Bogwood soon gave way to its namesake until its soggy moss-ridden road became hard and moist. The carriages drove faster as they moved by the marshes and then the swamps. The hanging trees concealed their path, throwing the party into deep shadow even from the moon, which peeked at them through pockets. Then its light faded completely, and all was dark. Angus' hooves clopped against the moist ground twice as fast as before, and his breathing became labored, heavy with trepidation. Within the carriages the silence was cutting, so sharp that every breath was a whisper. No one dared look out the window save Merida. She wrung her hands as the dark trees moved past her, the vines strangling their branches swaying softly with the chill wind passing through, that strange wind that Merida had felt in DunBroch on the night of their departure. Merida's breath billowed up in front of her and she shivered. It was so cold.
As Merida stared into the night a strange thing happened to her carriage window. First was the crisp sound of splintering, then a drop of temperature. But when fracturing tendrils took shape on the surface of the glass, climbing up its pane in the form of delicate ice ferns, their leaves branched in a spiral. At its center lay two hovering yellow lights, visible from behind the farthest trees of the distant swamp. Constantly their forms followed the carriage, blinking and bobbing up and down like eyes. As Merida watched them she tugged the hem of Juri's dress, making her cousin look out the window as well. There was the sound of sucking breathe, then exhale. Juri blinked and glanced again. The yellow lights had multiplied and grown, attached to the faces of galloping beasts which ran along with the carriage. The moon reappeared from between the boughs of the trees and cast its glow against the backs of the creatures, smooth black as shadows. Their manes flowed behind their backs like wisps of smoke, and their skin shimmered like bits of sand. Horses.
"We are followed," breathed Merida. But as she spoke the ice tendrils disappeared and the horses receded into the dry forests ahead of the swamp path. Still the carriages moved on. Juri wrung her fingers in the hem of her dress as time passed, her eyes moving back and forth as she calculated within her mind. Her mother lay asleep on the other end of the carriage, stirring with a nightmare. Juri kicked her foot to wake her, but the woman only blinked before laying her head against the side of the car to sleep again. Merida bit her nails. For thirty minutes more the carriages moved on, faster than before. As the ride became bumpier Juri's mother woke again and stayed awake. No one spoke. And then the carriage line came to a halt, and voices rung through the air.
Lurching forward and opening the carriage door, Merida swung her legs over the ladder steps attached to its side and evaded Fergus' guards. Juri followed shortly after. But both girls halted as they peered at the road ahead, which forked on the right towards a large campground, set in the center of a small, circular space absent of trees. Walls of evergreens barred its sides like battlements and Merida peered into them as she stepped forward. It was as if they moved. Then the rumbling voice of her father caught her ear and transported her again.
He stood before the fire, the center of the campground still replete with tents, cooking tools, and weapons. A large thread of rope split into fifteen cords for the parking of horses, empty, encircled the trunk of a massive tree bordering the grounds. The air was sweet with the smell of meat, and the remnants of this meal lay sprawled near the logs used as seats surrounding the fireplace. With clenched fists Fergus lumbered towards them with his men, who inspected the ground through darting eyes. When Merida stepped after him a sharp hiss entered her ear, and when she turned she noticed her mother peering from behind the door of the first carriage. Her eyes pointed back to the end of the vehicle line, commanding Merida to step no further. Scowling, Merida obeyed and trudged back to her carriage. But when she stepped inside her brows furrowed. Juri was gone.
"Baroness?" whispered Merida to Juri's sleeping mother. There was the sound of stumbling feet outside, and then groaning. In the sky, the blue clouds that covered the stars were conquered, and the moon was made visible once more, this time at its highest. Its light bent over the campground road and illuminated a great shadow, which lurched from the first carriage and lolloped into the woods to the left. Then there was a gurgled moan, a calling from a great beast. A bear.
Merida flew from the inside of the second carriage and charged towards the first, calling out for her mother in a high-pitched voice. But the inside of the vehicle was empty. Merida's chest tightened as her brows furrowed in confusion. Perhaps she was imagining the sounds. The moon cast strange light against this forest, and the shadows shimmered around the trees like animals. "Juri!" called Merida in desperation. A flash of red hair bobbed through the trees on the forest's left and was gone. Merida stepped towards it with chattering teeth.
"Sir!" a soldier cried, capturing Fergus' attention at the campground. The men shivered from cold and fear. Then the shouting guard pointed towards the fire pit with a somber expression. The guards stepped back save for the one. But Fergus drew towards the ashen pit and the young man indicated it again. With pursed lips Fergus set his fingers amongst the coal and gasped.
"Still warm," murmured the count in a low growl. Then his teeth clenched. "But wet."
Fergus' soldier opened his mouth to speak. But instead of calling words, a low gurgle escaped his throat. Then, swaying back and forth, the man lurched forward and tumbled into the fireplace. The tick of thin snapping wood sliced the air as his throat fell against the ashes, and at the nape of his neck protruded a sharp bump, just underneath the skin. When Fergus knelt near the boy and pressed against the mark, the skin fell away and revealed iron. And it was then that Fergus remembered his long sword.
With a lunge the count fired towards the first carriage and reaching out his arm, calling for his sword. But as the echo of Fergus' roar drew through the valley, so did the cries of a great cacophony of men, dark warriors who materialized from the trees surrounding the campsite like colorless fiends. As they slithered up from the forest bed they brandished swords dark and mangled, curved and beaten by hands of iron hammer, the hardened remains of fallen men's weapons. Without diction they hissed in garbled tongue and flew straight for the carriages, a hundred at most but seventy at least. Then arrow rounds began to fly from the back of the charging line.
Merida watched in horror as their glimmering points reached up to the moon before bowing back down, sailing into the heads of several of the carriage guards, who tumbled to the ground like clay. From the third carriage there was a scream, and a terrified Maudie burst forward and towards the forest, followed by three bobbing dark shadows. The shadows whined and tugged on the woman's dress, biting it, and Maudie batted at them with the palm of her hand. In the fourth carriage the heads of the servants peeked from the windows. The sixth was no doubt the same.
"Maudie!" screamed Merida, running as fast as she could. The hem of her long dress snagged on a long vine grown into the road and slowed her. But when she heaved the dress back and heard the searing rip of its long hem Merida used her momentum to barrel forward, reaching her arm out for the manic nursemaid, her image of blaring clarity in the moon's light. Maudie's flailing arms glowed pearl blue in the night air, and her face was pasty and white bar the dark mass that grew up behind her. Slowly its long black arm slid forward and braced itself around her jowls, and in horror Merida watched as the nursemaid was thrust backwards until she tripped on her feet and fell down, dragged into the mass of forest men amidst anguished screams. Then the beast that threw her turned his head and met eyes with Merida. With lumbering steps he trudged towards her, unsheathing the great black sword at his belt and grinning as its edge shimmered grey. Gulping, Merida stepped away from him and glanced around her, towards the forest and then to the fifth carriage trunk that held her long bow. Slowly she stepped towards it.
"You are the daughter," growled the man from beneath a mass of brown beard. With a whistle he called for others, who lumbered towards him as Merida tread for the fifth carriage. Her eyes kept trained on the concealed brow of the man as she stepped back. "I am the baroness's daughter," Merida stalled, feeling the soft leather of the carriage trunk against her outreached arm. Slowly she slid her fingers inside its flap and searched for the familiar quiver and wood. A freezing wind whipped between she and the beast man, blowing his long hair to the side and thwarting his path forward. But he stepped through it. "I think you are lying."
"Maybe," hissed Merida in response. Tough cast leather brushed past her fingers and fell aside to reveal the warm thin wood of arrows, and then a bent, leather bound pole attached with reverse twisted hemp string. But as she closed her fingers around and tugged, it would not budge. "Store these safely," echoed Juri's words in her mind. With chattering teeth Merida glanced past the enclosing men towards the woods on the left side of the road.
In a single breath the chill wind that had followed the party to this point whipped up stronger than ever, ripping the leaves from the swaying evergreens and pulling their teardrop forms in a spiral around the men encircling Merida. Soon a sea of green air barred the assailants from the girl with hair of fire, and she fell to her knees and slipped beneath the wheels of the carriages, darting towards the woods in fear. When she looked back she gasped. Like an invisible hand the wind opened the carriage trunk and untied her bow and arrow from its keep. Then, on a cloud of air the weapons floated to Merida and threw themselves in her arms. Catching the familiar quiver and bow and holding them to her chest, Merida gritted her teeth and tried lunging back into the battle in the valley. But the green leaf wind blew itself towards her and obstructed her path, forcing her with a mad howl back into the woods.
"Let me go!" cried Merida in a shrill voice, forcing her way through the barrier of leaved wind so that its petioles scratched the skin of her face. Thrashing her arms about, Merida tried fighting her way forward, grabbing an arrow from her quiver and stringing it through her bow. But the wind was so strong it bent the wood in half, snapping the arrow at its center. Cursing, Merida threw the bow over her back and lunged forward, tripping and falling against the ground. With a final roar the wind picked her up by the foot and flew her through the forest, between the trees and towards the swamps at the back of the woods. As she rode on the wind's back Merida's ears caught the braying of horses, and suddenly the carrying air stopped and let her fall to the ground. "Ow!" she hissed, but the wind shushed her in a human voice. Fearful, Merida shut her mouth and huddled close to the ground.
In the distance, the beating of hooves rang out through the woods, and the howl of horses shivered the trees. Then the bobbing yellow eyes of the night mares blinked into view in the distance, traveling ever closer to Merida's hidden form. The wind disappeared and the night grew warm again. But before the mares drew too close, a break in the clouds revealed a long line of moonlight, which searched through the trees in a clear bright line. When its form traveled over the swamp the surface began to bubble and whine, until little blue balls of flames popped from beneath its waves and hovered over the water. They inched their way towards the woods and drifted along in a line towards the mares. Then, when the blinking yellow eyes of the horses spotted the wisps, they widened and burned in fright. With a loud cry the beasts reared on their hind legs and peeled in the opposite direction, disappearing into the far side of the forest. Then, the wisps and moon disappeared, leaving Merida in complete darkness. Though her fear paralyzed her she fidgeted and pursed her lips to keep from crying out, while the moist cooling wind lulled her to sleep.