Strangely, the hunting pack slowed as they approached. Through the ranks strode a huge black horse with red eyes, a hooded figure astride it. The space within the hood was so dark that the rider appeared headless, until they pushed the hood back to reveal a woman's face.

It wasn't clear if this was better or not. The woman's skin was stretched tight to her skull, her pale eyes dark-ringed and sunken. In addition, as though the hood led to a separate dimension, a huge pair of antlers sprouted from her head, coated in soft velvet, but flat with spindly tines like giant, distorted hands. Her long, fine hair was as white as the snow on the ground around them.

The Oak King was long gone. She looked from Sou Yuet to the necromancer and back again, smiling gently.

“Who are you children? A pretty child who can speak with plants? And a baby with similar powers to mine? You're not one of many many half-siblings, are you?”

The members of the hunt, pale-eyed and dark robed, tittered and whispered amongst themselves like a breeze through dead trees. The necromancer's eyes flickered over the tense Sou Yuet and he spoke politely, if gruffly. “Not that I know, lady.”

“Oh, a child of Iriu. I do love the lilt of your people. Speak to me in Adhmaid, young cousin.”

“I'd rather not. My... friend here doesn't understand it.”

“From the east, are you?” The woman was suddenly in front of Sou Yuet, who blinked but did not flinch. “I've never heard the voice of an easterner before. Won't you speak to me, pretty child?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Oh, what an interesting voice. These inflections, the cadence-”

“Am I going to force it out of you?”

“Ah Yuet? Hey, calm down.”

“You're playing with people's lives... Even if you were a god, what gives you the right-”

The leader of the Hunt smirked. “Why not? Cousin, what's with your friend? Are they new around here?”

“Don't provoke them,” the necromancer advised wearily, rubbing his forehead.

“Why are you conversing with them so casually?” Sou Yuet asked coldly, rounding on the necromancer now. “Do you think I'm a child? Should I run along and play while the adults are talking?” The monk's voice had risen to a shout that the necromancer could feel rattling his rib-cage. Green fire flickered in Sou Yuet's eyes, but amongst the jade brightness lurked flashes of white. There was something off about the colour, harsh and sterile.

“Ah Yuet-” The reassuring hand that the necromancer extended was retracted sharply. A hail of sticks zipped through the empty space and buried themselves in the ground, seething with green and white light.

The leader howled with amusement, but had to throw herself off her horse to avoid being pinned by a qi-infused stick that shot in her direction.

Sou Yuet retrieved the wooden hairpin and it burst into full form, the wooden staff glowing with the same white and green aura as their eyes. It shook in the monk's grasp as though resisting them.

Although he thought that perhaps he should stop Sou Yuet, the necromancer stood motionless, staring at the glowing monk, their silver-gold hair loose, teeth bared.

The black hounds lunged forwards, screaming.

Sou Yuet slammed a foot to the snowy ground, and thick blackberry brambles sprung up, wrapping around the dogs, thorns tearing at their skin as they tried to escape. A volley of yew arrows zipped towards the monk, who dismissed them with a flick of a hand.

In a heartbeat, Sou Yuet had leapt amongst the mounted riders, swinging the staff. Striking a blow to the rear of one horse and the knee of another, the monk leapt lightly upwards into the trees as the animals panicked.

The riders abandoned their panicking steeds and leapt free. Several of their number transformed; three crows, trailing black smoke, rose into the air after Sou Yuet, diving for the monk's face. They swung their staff and the birds disintegrated into black smoke before reforming. Sou Yuet swung again – as the birds turned formless, the monk made a strange gesture with their hand, following with a wordless shout.

A huge gust of wind roared through the canopy, startling the horses even more so that they plunged up and down, frightening the dogs that had managed to wriggle free of the vines. Sunny pounced on them immediately. The wind swept up the crows and blew them away into the distance.

The leader of the Hunt laughed again, producing a shimmering blade almost as tall as herself. As she made to raise it, a scarred hand blocked her own.

“Can ye not?”

“Baby cousin, I'm having so much fun! That child's head will look wonderful over my hearth, don't stop me.”

She dodged so fast that she almost left an after-image, the necromancer's fist passing harmlessly by her head. His hand opened and seized the sharp blade.

“What are you doing, you silly child?”

The necromancer flicked his hand, blood drops spraying across the members of the Hunt.

“Ná bog.”

The hunters froze in place, some partway into preparing their weapons to engage with Sou Yuet. The necromancer rounded on the monk.

“I can't hold them long. Run!”

“No.”

Sou Yuet dropped from the tree, their staff aimed at the head of the Hunt leader. Simultaneously, blackberry brambles began to snake over her boots.

With a strange flexibility, she lopped away the brambles with the point of her long sword, turning in time to easily meet the foot of Sou Yuet's staff with the flat of the blade.

At a click of her tongue, the members of the Hunt began to writhe, fighting against the hold that the necromancer had over their forms. He seized Sou Yuet's shoulder, pulling the monk back before they clashed with the Hunt leader, only to have to duck hastily as Sou Yuet swung the staff in his direction.

“Yuet! What the feck are ye doing, ye stupid monk? Ye can't fight them! They're already dead!”

The Hunt leader drove her long sword towards Sou Yuet's back, but the necromancer punched the flat of the blade, sending it off course, then kicked at her stomach. The Hunt leader decorporealised, reforming behind the monk. Sou Yuet sent another gust of wind howling in her direction, but she reformed in time to avoid being blown away and lunged towards Sou Yuet's face.

The members of the Hunt had broken free of the necromancer's sway and surged forwards to engage in battle. In the space of a few breaths, the monk the necromancer and the shi zi were fighting on all sides, including, in Sou Yuet's case, against the necromancer too. Every time he tried to grab the monk and shake some sense into them, Sou Yuet's staff swung viciously towards him.

It wasn't long before they were all exhausted, panting and bleeding. Sunny desperately bit again and again at the arms and legs that came near her, but her jaws passed through smoke and cold air until she was shivering and nauseated.

Sou Yuet leapt lightly up between the trees, sending pine and fir needles whistling towards the Hunt members. If they tried to decorporealise, a strong wind would whip through them, scattering their spirits.

The necromancer retreated with Sunny behind him to avoid being surrounded. She was limping badly. They dodged between the trees, using the trunks as shields against the blades and arrows of the Hunters.

He glanced at the open forest behind them, in the direction the Oak King had fled. They could run, split up to try and shake off the hunt, distract them with any unaffiliated dead spirits...

But that blasted monk...

“Sunny, get away.”

She whined reluctantly, but the necromancer lifted her bodily, throwing her as far as he could over blackthorn scrub. To cover her retreat, he called up a wolf spirit, from the bones of the animal lying over a kilometre away. Battered and grizzled, it slunk to his side, howling defiance at the pack of yelping dogs, then threw itself into them. They forgot Sunny in an instant, ghost dogs tearing at a ghost wolf. The necromancer gritted his teeth against the yelps and whines, trying to follow Sunny's fleeing form through the eyes of a dead robin in an old nest. As she disappeared out of view, he kicked dogs out of the way, retrieving the wolf. He let it go back to rest with a silent thanks, ignoring the hounds' teeth at his shins.

He could use it.

With their blood on his teeth, he called them under his command, turning them against their own hunters. In the ensuing temporary chaos, he rushed across the battlefield to where Sou Yuet swung staff and wind against the leader of the Hunt.

The monk's face was cut in several places where they had narrowly dodged the long blade. The Hunt leader made a face.

“This is getting boring, child. If you're done, I'll have your head now.”

The necromancer rammed into her back, making her pitch forwards into the snow. He seized Sou Yuet.

Before the monk could snap at him, he shook them back and forth. “Stop! Enough! Are ye trying to kill us? Are ye trying to get us hurt? Because ye've done it! Sunny's running for her life somewhere out there with a sprained paw because of yer stupidity. Will ye get yerself together?”

The long blade passed through him, and the point scraping Sou Yuet's throat. The necromancer let go of the monk with a snarl of pain, gripping the blade that was passing through his chest.

“Come now, little cousin. This wouldn't be enough to kill you.”

“Feck! It's cold!” The blood on his hands was dark and thick. With an almighty heave, he pulled the sword blade forwards, the Hunt leader stumbling, surprised, into his back.

“Ná bog!”

The words came out a little breathlessly, but the Hunt leader halted immediately. The necromancer tried fruitlessly to reach the handle of the sword, but his hand couldn't grasp it.

A set of fingers brushed his, and Sou Yuet removed the sword.

“Shite... Ah, feck, feck... That hurts... We've got to... Get away...”

The Hunt leader was already shaking off the necromancer's command. Sou Yuet summoned the ginseng leaf silently, holding the necromancer as they sped rapidly away. They found Sunny a little further along, so exhausted and in pain that she was barely moving, stumbling against trees, and pulled her up too.

With the weight of the passengers, and the toll of the fight, they flew on for another hour before Sou Yuet finally lost control of the leaf, and it hit the crest of a hill, spilling them all down the snow and rock-strewn slope on the other side. They eventually all came to a stop, Sou Yuet near the top, the necromancer a little further along and face down, and Sunny finally coming to a rest at the bottom of the hill on her side.

The monk pulled themselves up, dizzily, half-walking, half-falling towards the necromancer, turning him over and automatically checking for breathing. Sou Yuet tremblingly lifted the witch, draping one of his arms over their shoulder and dragging them down to where Sunny lay.

As the monk began to pull herbs and salves from their pack, a small child, clad only in a small white dress, poked her head out from behind a tree. Sou Yuet could only stare at her.

Her bare feet and fingers were pink as though with cold, but she didn't seem to be concerned as she skipped over to examine the sorry-looking trio. She touched Sou Yuet's hair, examined their hands, then offered a smile of sharp teeth. At her call, a sound like some ancient bird, a small group of children, equally as pale and pink and lightly dressed, swarmed around them, lifting Sunny and the necromancer with surprising strength and dragging Sou Yuet. The monk stumbled, leaning unintentionally on one of them, and found the child to be sturdy as a rock.

They hurried through the woods, not leaving any footprints behind, until they reached another hillside. This one had a large door installed in the side of it, of a wood that Sou Yuet didn't recognise, but whispered in a gentle tongue when the monk placed their hand on it.

The children led them inside, the space opening up into a warm cavern filled with light and music.

Sou Yuet stood dazed and blinking, unable to comprehend what they were seeing. The pale children grinned at him. They all had grass-green eyes.

“Welcome to the home of the Tylwyth Teg, mortal.”