pressed the point into my chest just enough to draw blood.
“Do you feel its bite?” he growled.
“Yes. Fair enough. I am answered.”
He nodded—a rather dangerous gesture when one is sporting antlers—and returned the knife to its sheath. I triggered my healing charm to close up the small wound.
One of Herne’s hunters spoke up suddenly, his voice surprisingly high and nasal and amused. “Ha! What means your hound to sniff thus?” he said. Herne and I turned our heads to discover Oberon with his nose snuffling at the rear end of a bewildered ghost hound.
I sighed. “Oberon, you’re embarrassing me.”
Oberon grunted. He raised his snout and swung his head around to look at me.
Chapter 22
Together we left the Home Park and ran southwest to the proper Windsor Forest, which was only a mile or two long these days. On the northeastern side of it there was an amusement park, which struck me as an odd juxtaposition. To a Druid, the forest was the amusement park.
Herne left us near the edge of a field in the middle of it, far from prying eyes, and told us he and his hunters would leave us for now.
“Again, you are welcome. Call my name if you need me,” he said. “Otherwise, rest or prepare yourselves as you will.”
We thanked him, and he faded out of sight as slowly as he had originally appeared. As soon as they were gone, Oberon flopped onto his back and said,
Granuaile laughed and knelt next to him to oblige. I smiled and took a look around. This wood was a comfortable place. Not sensual comfort of any kind—merely a quiet spot where we could repair and nurture those parts within us that had been damaged or neglected during the run. I approached an old beech tree twined with ivy, plucked a couple of strands, and plonked myselfdown on the ground next to Granuaile and Oberon. My hound twisted his head to see what I had in my hands.
“Arts and crafts,” I replied.
“I guess so.”
He rolled over and pulled himself closer to me without getting up. Using my lap as a pillow for his giant head, he stretched himself out on his side and sighed in contentment.
Granuaile shook her head. “You slept all day.”
She smiled, got to her feet, and then addressed me. “What are we going to do now?”
“Relax while we can. There are a few hours before dawn.”
“Shouldn’t we be preparing to meet two very pissed-off huntresses? Building booby traps or something like that?”
“Probably. But there is some time to be creative—or at least some time that I can steal—and so I’m going to take it. Ever notice how you never have time to do something until you decide that you do?” Granuaile peered at the twisted strands of ivy in my hands and looked doubtful that they could serve as anything beyond compost. “Come on. Sit back down for a sec.” I patted the ground next to me, on the side where Oberon wasn’t stretched out. She sighed and sat in the indicated spot, resting her staff on the ground. I smiled at her. “There. Isn’t this nice?”
She looked at the canopy above, with the moon peeking through the leaves, and listened to the soft whisper of the night from grasses in the nearby field. “I can’t argue the point. It’s lovely.”
“Gaia has left us wonder wherever we go, if we only open our eyes to it.”
“Oh, I agree.”
“Now, I know I am not much of a craftsman,” I said, busily knotting the vines into a circle, “but greatness is in the act of creation and not necessarily in the finished product. Creating is the yin to the yang of our consumption and the doorway to beauty that we all want to walk through. Creating is how I tell the world I love it.” I handed the completed wreath to Granuaile, and she smiled as she took it.
“You’re very sneaky, you know.”
“Am I?”
She placed the ivy wreath on her head. “I thought you were being philosophical, and then you pivoted to mushy.”
“I have +20 verbal dexterity.”
Granuaile leaned in for a kiss, but Oberon interrupted.
We were saved from both yak and further mush by the
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