Witch-hunting was not as exciting as Colm had expected.

When Sir Ardál had told Colm that he was going to accompany the knight on this quest, Colm had been over the moon with excitement. All the other squires his age were often out of the castle with their knights, fighting bandits and outlaws, or even just accompanying dignitaries and emissaries as they traveled to different provinces within the kingdom. But Sir Ardál was one of King Odhran's closest advisers and never went too far from the castle. And that meant that Colm, as his squire, never got to travel that far either.

The gray-haired knight hadn't made the trip sound all that exciting. "Nothing important, just going to a village to collect a package," he'd told Colm.

"You never go anywhere," Colm had said as he loaded their bags on the horses two days ago. "And now King Odhran is sending you out for a package? What is it?"

Sir Ardál had grunted noncommittally. "It's a package, boy. You ask too many questions."

"You never give me enough answers. The other knights teach their squires loads."

"Do they, then?" Sir Ardál adjusted the saddle on his chestnut mare and patted the horse's neck fondly.

The knight's tone was short and clipped; Colm knew he was pushing too far, but the excitement of the day overrode his usual caution around the knight. "They do. And they tell them all the stories of their knightly adventures, too. Fighting in battles, protecting the kingdom from the evil fae hordes, those kinds of things."

Colm swung his arm as though he was brandishing a sword, imagining himself as the great hero of the Fae Battles that had come to an end almost fifteen years ago, when he was not yet a year old.

In a flash, Ardál's hand grabbed the squire's wrist, stopping the imaginary sword in its tracks. Colm gulped as the grip tightened around his wrist, the gray-haired knight towering above him.

"You want to know what the knights will say we're doing, boy? You want to hear what songs the bards would sing ?" Ardál hissed, his words a threat more than a question. Colm's jaw clenched as Ardál leaned down, their noses almost touching. His wrist throbbed, his stomach tightened into a knot. "They'd say we're going witch-hunting."

Colm had mounted up onto the back of his gray cob pony in a daze. Witch-hunting. But there haven't been witches in the kingdom since the Fae Battles, the Witch Queen Riane... Have the fae returned? Is someone trying to mount a resistance at the borders? Or is this one that's been hiding out since the war, and we're going to track them down?

His head spun with excitement for an hour after they passed through the castle gates and into the town. He, Colm the Squire, was going on a witch-hunting expedition with the hero of the Fae Battles, Sir Ardál the Knight. Witch-hunting.

The other squires always shared stories that their knights told, or tales from the adventures that they accompanied their knights on. Niall, who was two whole years younger than Colm, had told all the boys about the time he had gone with Sir Cian to capture thieves out on the southern borders of the kingdom so many times that Colm could repeat the story word for word. Well, he could have repeated it word-for-word until Niall started embellishing the story, adding to the number of enemies to the point where it was Niall and Sir Cian facing down twenty bandits armed to the teeth with axes and swords.

There were benefits, though, to being the squire of a man who never taught him anything. "I don't care what you do, boy," the knight had once told him, "so long as you don't bother me with it. If you get in trouble, you'll be left to get out of it all on your own."

And while Colm reveled in his freedom working under the least-demanding knight in the entire kingdom, his stomach still twisted with jealousy every time another squire came back with another adventure to tell.

Now, he would finally have his own stories to regale the others with, and the other squires would not be able to tease and call him "stableboy" behind his back any longer.

Colm held tight to that belief, even as the houses and shops of the town thinned out into unfamiliar farmland and cottages.

They followed the main road that led east to the Redwoods for the morning, but in the early afternoon the knight turned his horse down a less-worn path that headed towards the north. Colm wasn't sure what villages or settlements were even in this direction; the land in the north rose quickly upwards into the Shrouds, the mountain range where the fae used to live. It was a cursed place; not even knights ventured into the area, for no one lived there. The land was barren and it was forever shrouded in mist and clouds.

The kind of place where witches would live, he realized.

Ardál still said nothing. When they broke for camp, he only barked out instructions. "Light a fire." "Help me with my armor." "Put the fire out." And Colm knew that no further questions would be answered today.

His hope that the knight would be in a better mood the following day was crushed. They rode in silence as the road turned to the east again, keeping the Shrouds thankfully a few miles off to the north. Colm could make out a peak here and there amongst the clouds that covered them, but there was little to see other than a wall of white clouds above the hills.

When they stopped to let the horses drink from a stream that crossed the road, Colm decided to chance a question. "Are we going any further north?"

Ardál had laughed at him. "Why, boy? I thought you were looking forward to going witch-hunting. Have a little story for all your friends."

Colm gulped and lowered his eyes to the ground, focusing on his little gray cob's mouth as she sucked down the cool water of the mountain stream. It was better not to answer Ardál when he was in this sort of mood.

"We're going east. You wouldn't think I'd take a squire on his first job into the Shrouds, would you?" The knight chuckled, and the weight in Colm's stomach lessened slightly. Ardál might not be happy with him, but the man was not a liar and certainly not an idiot.

Of course we're not going into the Shrouds. He wouldn't trust me for anything that dangerous. Not yet, not on the first time he takes me out.

Beyond the gentle rolling hills to the left of the road, the Shrouds still loomed in the distance, keeping a watchful eye on the pair as their horses trudged onward.

At the end of the second day, they made camp and Ardál spoke again.

"Colm."

That startled Colm, for Ardál rarely used his name. It was "you" or "boy" most of the time; not that Colm minded, for he always sensed there was more affection behind the words than Ardál had let on. Being called by his name meant that it was something serious.

He finished hobbling his pony's front legs and straightened up. "Yes, Sir Ardál?"

The knight sighed, rubbing his hand across his forehead. Perhaps it was just the setting sun, but he looked older than Colm remembered. "I shouldn't have frightened you like that. We're not going witch-hunting. We're just going to collect someone and bring them to the castle."

Then why did you say we were going witch-hunting? What's so scary about the person we're going to collect? Colm bit back the questions. Sir Ardál never explained himself except when it was to teach some kind of lesson. "I understand," Colm replied. It was better to lie, he thought, than to look an idiot, especially if the questions weren't even going to be answered.

The knight sighed again. "It's been a long time since I've been sent out, and I suppose you could say it's bringing out the worst in me. Pay an old man no heed."

Colm smiled. "You're not old, Sir Ardál." The knight was gray, but he was still a good head taller than Colm and as broad and strong as any of the other knights. His strength in the Fae Battles was legend; some even said Ardál was the one who had slain the Witch Queen, though the knight never spoke about those times to Colm.

"Aren't I? I do feel it some days," Ardál replied, so quietly that Colm had to strain to listen to him. "Some days more than others."

He placed his hands on his knees and stood up, laying one rough hand on Colm's shoulder. "I'll gather the wood for the fire. Just set out the bedrolls. You've had a long day."

Colm did as he was told, his stomach gradually unknotting itself from the mess it had become over the last two days. There was still something wrong. Sir Ardál wasn't a liar; Colm had never heard him even so much as bend the truth. But there was something wrong. Colm wouldn't have been brought along for no reason. He curled up in his bedroll and, despite his best efforts, drifted off to sleep before Ardál returned.

--

They awoke at dawn the next day and rode away from camp before the dew disappeared from the grass. The Shrouds, forever visible to their left, still left Colm with a sense of unease, but the dread he'd felt over the last few days was no longer twisted in the pit of his stomach. Even the return of Sir Ardál's silence or the occasional rain shower couldn't dampen the sense of relief he felt; the knight was never talkative, and the rain never lasted for more than a few minutes before the sun broke through the clouds again.

Is that a good sign or a bad one? Colm wondered. It was bad luck to start a journey on a rainy day, but one could hardly tie up horses and make camp every time a few drops fell. As if reading his thoughts, his little cob shook her head, flinging a few drops of rain from her mane. Colm smiled. Surely it was fine.

They were riding through a sunshower when they came upon an apple orchard, blooming with pale pink blossoms. Colm smiled, all the while wishing they had come in the fall when there would be ripe apples to pick and eat along the journey. Surely no farmer would begrudge the famous Sir Ardál and his significantly less famous squire an apple. They would even pick a few for the horses.

Colm leaned forward in the saddle and patted his little gray cob on the neck. He had never given her a name, but she was a good little horse. Sir Ardál had bought the pony and Colm from the horse trader in the same transaction, and their lives had been all the better since. Colm wasn't sure why Sir Ardál had needed a squire, really; in fact, the squire had a sneaking suspicion that his services had been purchased from the horse trader just because the knight wanted someone to keep his chestnut mare ridden and exercised.

So lost in thought was the squire that he didn't see the small thatched cottage on the far side of the apple orchard until Sir Ardál turned the chestnut mare off the path and towards the cottage. There was no path to the door, only a stretch of meadow grass and wildflowers that bloomed in the spring sunshine.

"We're here," Ardál announced brusquely, dismounting and gesturing for Colm to do the same. Colm pulled on the reins, bringing his pony to a stop.

"Is this where the person lives?" Colm asked. His feet were happy to be back on the ground. Before he became Sir Ardál's squire five years ago, he could have ridden for weeks on end, but he was out of practice now and the thought of a good, long rest before the return journey was a tempting one.

Ardál scoffed at him, giving his mare a quick pat on the neck before dropping the reins; she dipped her head towards the ground and nibbled at the grass. "Hold the horses, boy."

Colm dismounted and pulled his cob alongside Ardál's horse, his hands gripping the reins tightly. His breath caught in his throat. Is this where the witch is? No, it's not a witch. We're not catching a witch, it's just a person.

Try as he might, all the reassurances in the world couldn't help him forget the rage in Ardál's eyes the morning they had left the castle. "We're going on a witch hunt." There was still something not quite right. "Is... Is this it?"

The knight said nothing. He raised a hand to the door and knocked three times.

They waited in silence, the only sound being the gentle crunch of the horses nibbling on tufts of grass and the tweets here and there of small songbirds. It felt like minutes passed. A cold sweat broke out over Colm's forehead.

This could be it. The story he would tell all the other squires when he returned to the safety of the castle walls. Niall had helped Sir Cian slay three bandits? Well, he had been there when Sir Ardál had brought back someone important. And Colm knew it had to be someone important. No one important enough to bring to the castle would live this far in the middle of nowhere, within sight of the Shrouds, if they weren't hiding from something.

The door creaked open, and in the gap stood a girl who looked only a few years younger than Colm himself. She was dressed in a simple brown shift that matched the brown waves of her hair; no different from a hundred other girls that Colm would've played with growing up. She had bare feet, and as she stepped forward, a cat ran between her legs to the freedom of the outdoors.

"Who are you?" Her voice was strong and unwavering.

Colm was just far enough forward that he could see the expression on Sir Ardál's face. The knight pressed his lips together; even in the sunshine, his face was pale. "We're from the castle. Is... Is your mother...?"

The girl nodded. "You wanna talk with her?"

Colm's gaze darted back and forth between the girl and the knight. She looked entirely unfazed by the process; a bit skeptical, perhaps, of strangers showing up on her doorstep, but she was neither frightened nor shy of the man she had never met. He, on the other hand, had an expression Colm couldn't read. Was it... fear? No, he said we weren't meeting anyone dangerous. He wouldn't lie.

"Please. Tell her it's an old friend. From the redwoods."

The girl nodded and turned to go back into the house, whistling a single, high note. At the sound, the tabby cat came bolting out of the bushes and scampered back into the house, winding itself around the girl's legs.

Standing amongst the flowers in the soft spring sunshine, Colm shivered as he waited for what would happen next.