He sighed. “Understood.” Forehead lifting, he made a point of showing her how he tucked it into the leather pouch he kept around his waist. “See, safe.” He tucked the flap down.
Blue eyes narrowing into thin slits, she nodded. Somewhere along the way their interactions had devolved into childish antics. He wasn’t sure why, then again he was known to be somewhat of a heartless bastard within his closest circles. There was that.
“Any other gems of advice to toss my way?”
“Aye. You will rue the day you dared to mock me and in order to find her you must learn to first be mad yourself.” Then with an emphatic humph she vanished.
It’s not that he tried to be a bastard, it’s just that it came naturally to him. Snorting, because he doubted telling her that would mollify her in the slightest, he grabbed a burlap sack and stuffed it with food, camping supplies, and a change of clothes—enough to last him a week, anything longer than that and it wouldn’t matter anyway because he’d stop the search. But if it were true that she was leaving a trail of death in her wake, he doubted he’d need more than a day or two at most to find her.
Closing his eyes, he called the sands of time to him. His body, his clothes, even the pack on his back began to tremble as his body reformed itself into a million grains of sand, leaving nothing behind as he went in search of his prey.
*
The sky was a panoramic wash of faint pinks and oranges. Purple-limbed trees quivered from the stiff breeze. The haunting melody of wind song whistled through weathered leaves.
Shedding the sand like a dog shaking its wet body, the Huntsman stood just outside the demarcation of the natural and unnatural. Wonderland stood inches before him, swirling with fog and ringing with the maniacal laughter of madness. He hated the insanity of this place. It was the one area of Kingdom he tried his damndest to avoid if he could.
“Bloody damn tears,” he muttered, rolling his shoulders twice before, with a determined breath, he took the first step inside.
Already the suns powerful rays were weakening. And it was hard to gage whether it was because the sun was actually setting, or the woods were simply too dense to allow its penetration.
Just then a trail of scuttlebugs scuttling on big clopping feet moved to the right of him. Growling, he stomped the head of one that dared to crawl up his boot. The bugs were known to strip the flesh off a sleeping man in less than two hours. They might appear benign and cartoonish, but the branch shaped creatures were opportunistic vultures through and through.
It was said that only the most brave or most mad walked through Wonderland, it was easy to understand why.
An hour or so later, he was greeted by a fork in the road. Literally. A long-handled, silver fork was wedged into the soil, and two roads diverged from it. To the right the soil was smooth and worn. Beds of softly snoring flowers lined the walkway. To the left the path was overgrown with weeds as tall as a man in some spots; fallen polka dotted tree limbs, and curled bramble gardens full of thorny barbs.
The hunter in him knew that in Wonderland what was good was bad and what was bad was good. Meaning, the cleared path likely led to trap. A fifty-foot frog with a taste for human flesh, trees that excreted gas from their flanks—so toxic to humans that it would cause them to lay down and sleep, never to stir again. Or some such other buffoonery as that.
Whatever foul thing the mind could conjure Wonderland could replicate to exacting detail. This was a place sprung from the twisted and demented mind of the Mad Hatter himself. Who was said to be not quite so mad anymore.
Not that it mattered, because his forest remained, and every year it grew more and more volatile and dangerous to the unwary. Retrieving his long handled machete from his pack he made to the left.
Thirty minutes later, he’d barely cleared his way through fifty feet. Hacking and chopping along the way. Wondering absently at the lack of animal chatter.
Pausing to wipe at the sweat on his brow, he gazed up at the sky. There wasn’t even a bird in the air.
“Chrysalis, where are you?” He spoke forcefully, not afraid to make himself known. “I’ve been sent.” Hack. Hack. “To find you.” Hack. “You do not have to be afraid.”
For another hour, he slogged his way through while talking to her. And he knew she was around. The stench of death was in the air.
It was why there were no birds, no animals—only insects, or creatures too stupid to care what happened to them.
By this point he’d managed to work his way inside a clearing, where he realized it wasn’t even close to night. More like late afternoon. Panting from exertion, he tossed his hood back, before undoing the clasp around his neck. Kneeling, he opened his sack, rolled his cape up and shoved it down the opening. Sweat poured off him in rivulets. Mouth dry, he looked at the ground.