(3) Jack continued to stumble down the path with the moaning woman, trying to put as much distance between them and that...thing...as he could. Somewhere along here he'd dropped his pack. They could stop there for a breather. It was dawning on him that he couldn't hear nor sense his constant companion. Where'd that Boggle go to now? He grew more uneasy as they struggled down the road and it still didn't sound in his head and ears with unasked for advice. Damn! He actually missed it!
"Stop moaning, woman and move! I don't know if that thing can follow us, and I don't want to stay and find out!" He shifted his grip on her and she made more of an effort to support her own weight.
Eventually they made it to his pack. His luck was actually holding. No brownies had found it, nor any natural scavenger. Jack let the woman down as gently as he could and sank down beside her. His lungs were working like a smithy's bellows. He could walk for days with little rest, but running through the woods and brush and then lugging a pregnant woman afterwards had left him more tired than he could remember being in a long while. If his luck held, they could rest a few more moments and then start off again at a more sane pace. He dug through his pack, looking for a small bottle that held his traveling whisky. Just as his hand closed on it, his head was flooded with a vision of slavering jaws, dark fur, and red eyes.
"What-?"
Then a familiar voice resounded in his mind. "We're not out of the woods yet, boy! Get up and get moving!" He was jerked up off the ground. The woman stared up at him, mouth open in surprise. He grabbed his pack and shouldered it. Then he grabbed the woman's arm and tried to pull her up.
"Get on your feet, woman! Hurry!"
"What is it? What-is it coming after us?" She looked fearfully down the path they'd traveled.
"No, no, I don't think so. Our danger is more mundane...Gabriel Hounds..." The bloody dogs would hunt them down if they caught their scent. They would need shelter. Somewhere they could shut the things out. But the Hunt...that wouldn't shut out the Hunters...
"Not the Hunt, Jack! Just a few...camp followers if you will...hounds that course the land, not the sky."
"Oh, bloody good! Find us some shelter, you damn Boggle!"
"I'm not a Boggle!" sounded faintly in his ears and head as the Voice did as it was bid and took off looking for someplace to hole up...at least, Jack assumed it left. He started down the path, headed in the direction he'd been traveling in earlier. He stopped when he realized the woman was still standing back at their resting spot. Turning with annoyance, he saw her staring at him as if he'd sprouted another head. Maybe he had. With the way the day had progressed, he wouldn't be surprised.
"Don't just stand there, woman. Move! I'll not have risked my life to help you just to watch all my effort torn apart by Ratchets!"
"R-ratchets?" she faintly echoed.
"Ratchets, Gabriel Hounds...the Wild Hunt's dogs, woman! Didn't they teach you anything in your village? If they catch our scent, they'll follow us until we drop or they outrun us. I've no fancy to be their next meal. We have to get going. Find shelter somewhere where we can shut them out for the night. They'll tire and leave by the next morning...if we're lucky."
She looked over her shoulder as she hurried toward him. Then stopped and grasped her belly as if in pain. A horrid thought came to Jack...her belly was big...maybe big enough that her time was coming soon. Like now. He returned to her side. Taking her arm, he tried to urge her along.
"Come on. Come on. It's not that, is it, not your time. Tell me it isn't!" She straightened slowly.
"I don't think so...it's a bit early..."
Jack got her to walking. "Then maybe it's all this activity. Running about in the woods...what were you thinking to be running about alone like this." He was babbling at her...trying to take her mind off of her pain. Like that would stop the baby from coming into the world if it was a mind to. He silently admonished it to stay put. It was much safer there than here.
Not that things couldn't be worse. They could. As if in answer to his thought, he heard a distant baying. Stifling a groan, he tried to quicken their pace. By Tam Lin's Ghost, let it be someone else's' scent they'd caught.
As time passed, the baying returned, a bit louder this time. Damn! Luck had deserted him and then some. Just as he started to search the woods along the sides for some rowan trees...hoping a branch of that might work against the hounds like it did most fey, he felt a familiar presence. "About time," he muttered.
"What?" panted the woman. She'd struggled by his side all this time, trying to keep up.
"I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to him!" She stared at him, fear in her eyes. No doubt she thought him truly mad. Everyone else did.
"Shut yer mouth, Jack! Yer frightenin' the poor lass! I've found a small hut off the beaten path. More shack than anything. But the door looks solid enough and there's no holes in the roof big enough to let a hound in. Looks like a woodcutter's home...though...I don't know where the woodcutter is..."
"Probably filling the belly of one of the hounds!" snapped Jack, though he was thankful that something had been found. "How far?"
"Oh, just a ways down the road and off it..." which could mean just down the road or miles from here. Sighing, he grasped the woman's elbow and urged her to a faster pace. "There's a woodcutter's home up ahead a ways. We can shelter there."
She looked like she was going to shrug him off and head the other way, but the sound of baying came again, definitely nearer and that decided her. She nearly outpaced him as she took off down the path.