And then, before she could give in to the grief-stricken rage welling up inside of her, a sudden trumpeting call rolled across the valley. The sound silenced the brute laughing behind her. The attacker whirled in a crouch to protect himself against an unknown threat.
Too late.
An older, more powerful stallion thundered from the nearby trees, head lowered and dark eyes flashing a killing fury. Before the enemy could do more than gape, he was lifted into the air with a force that would have broken his back even if the horn goring him had missed its mark. The limp body was tossed immediately aside and trampled beneath enraged hooves.
Only when the enemy was kicked viciously into the gorge and both bodies lost to sight did the older stallion’s rage diminish. He whirled away from the canyon edge and hurried to the younger, fallen stallion and the woman kneeling beside him. The woman looked up with streaming eyes, her lovely face ravaged with grief.
Cloud’s head lowered, his wise old eyes dimming with sorrow. He nuzzled the fallen body of his son once in a tender farewell, going down on his knees beside the woman. While they watched in helpless misery, the white coat of Sasha wavered and fell softly into dust, leaving but one trace of his life.
The woman reached out slowly and picked up the only tangible memory she would ever have of her friend, cradling the foot-long golden spiraled horn tenderly in her arms. In a sorrow too terrible for words, she looked at Cloud, seeing the blood staining his own golden horn and matting the flowing white beard.
The living commanded her attention.
Sighing raggedly, she rose to her feet, knowing that Cloud would remain for many days to come at the spot where his son had died. She could not lessen his grief or help him to find his way through this sorrowing time. She could only bring water from the Crystal Pool and wash the blood of his vengeance from Cloud’s golden horn.
Wash away the stain…but never the memory.
Turning away, the woman opened her mouth and let out a piercing call for the herd. She waited for a moment until sunlight glinted off golden horns in the distance, then headed toward her cabin.
They were her friends, she was their protectrix—and she had failed them.
—
He was first to the City, traveling more swiftly, driven by the burning within him. No one looked at him for more than a moment as he passed, each pair of feral eyes skittering away from his mild gaze as if they had seen into the pit of hell. A path was cleared for him through the tumbled City, thieves, murderers, and worse giving way before him as if obeying an ancient instinct.
His ears were sharp; he heard whispers of the news he desired. He listened to the coarse murmurs of the City, and his path altered itself accordingly. Someone knew. Someone had found what he sought. He began searching for the Huntman known as King.
He regretted that it had been necessary to leave his energized weapons at the spaceport orbiting the planet, but it was a vague regret. The single law of this planet, imposed on it by the worlds nearby, was that there would be no further destruction here. The Huntmen could cut one another up as they pleased, but the planet itself had borne enough.
Life had become primitive here.
It did not matter to him. Weapons were only as effective as the man wielding them, after all. And he had no need of weapons. He was strong, well taught, and as wily as the worst of the hellions on this world.
He looked on them with contempt, these dregs of a galaxy. Not because they were killers, thieves, prostitutes in every sense of the word, but because they lacked purpose. They survived from one day to the next, plying their various filthy trades and then spending what they earned.
He had purpose. The years since leaving Rubicon had taught him much, and his determination was now an iron thing. He had three main objectives. And three within the three, for his first objective was a Triad: Age, Strength, Youth. The magical three. The powerful three.
First the Triad.
Then the talisman.
And with those, he would achieve his third objective. He would rule a world.
—
He found the Huntman he sought in a dark and filthy tavern, and spoke softly to him in a low voice that easily penetrated the coarse laughter filling the room. King looked up, frowning, and his face tightened when he saw the man standing over him. But the whisper had promised wealth, so he rose and followed the stranger out into the cool of approaching night.
No words were exchanged until they reached the house King had claimed for his own. And then it was King who spoke, avoiding any glance at that other face.
“You have a job for me?”
“No,” the other said softly. “You have something for me, I believe.”
King laughed harshly. “I sell only my services, stranger.”
Pleasantly, the stranger said, “You will give me the horn of a unicorn which you have in your possession.”
King stiffened, and his face went blank. He wondered at the other’s knowledge but did not question. A small part of the horn he had ground to sell as a prized aphrodisiac, but most of it remained intact. “It’s worth much,” he murmured.
“Where is it?”
“What do you offer?”
The stranger smiled a terrible, twisted smile. “Your life, Huntman. That’s my offer.”
King reached instantly for the knife at his belt, but never grasped it.
—
“Huntman? Somethin’ special, Huntman. Very rare. Drive the ladies wild. On my honor, Huntman—” It was a hiss, pleading, beguiling, cautious, reaching only intended ears.
Hunter Morgan turned an icy stare on the vendor, and the little man seemed to shrink in on himself like a collapsing air bag. He shrunk in size, in personality. The thin, reedy voice hastily apologized for the apparent affront.
“Not that you need it, I’m sure! No offense, Huntman!”
Hunter sighed impatiently, not bothering to explain that the offense had come, not from the vendor’s offer of an aphrodisiac, but from the unsavory appellation of “Huntman.”
They were the refuse of the galaxy, these Huntmen, scorned with distaste by every race save their own kind because they fed off death. They would hunt anything for anyone with a few gold pieces, and rarely did they return with a living trophy. Brutal, cruel men for the most part, they tended to congregate in cities like this one that had been abandoned uncounted centuries before by a more advanced civilization.
Which was why Hunter did not appreciate the vendor’s salutation.
Still, he could hardly complain. This was a Huntmen’s city, known only by that name. Whores stood in doorways wearing little, if anything, and called out lewd suggestions to passersby, suggestions which were often accepted right there on the broken rubble of an ancient sidewalk. Hunter had threaded his way through a minor orgy some blocks back, curtly refusing a drunken invitation to participate.
The strident sound of brawls could be heard from nearly every building, shrieks of rage and pain mingling with shouts of inebriated laughter. The heavy fumes of intoxicants rose from snoring bodies sprawled in the gutter, and many glassy-eyed individuals roamed the streets as if in a dream, their minds the captive of potent brews from diverse civilizations.
There were no controls. There was nothing even remotely resembling law and order in a Huntmen’s city. Base law prevailed: Only the strong survived, and they did so any and every way they could.
Hunter had never, in all his travels, encountered a Huntmen’s city until now. But he was strong. His distaste for his surroundings did not show on his face. And as he paused in the mouth of the littered alleyway where the vendor stood, faint interest stirred to life in the cool, guarded depths of his vivid green eyes. He paid no attention to the small leather pouch which the vendor clasped protectively in both hands, but studied instead the wily, monkeylike face of the little man. Although the vendor looked frail and frightened, Hunter knew that he had to be both strong and smart to survive life in this city, and most likely possessed information
worth a gold coin or two.
Keeping one hand firmly on the hilt of his long knife and the other on the leather purse tied to his belt, Hunter stared coldly down at the vendor. “I’m not interested in your pouch, little man. But perhaps you can help me. I heard rumors of a herd of unicorns somewhere nearby.” His sudden, bitter glance over his shoulder at the squalid city crumbling all around him indicated that he had no expectation of finding the lovely pure white creatures anywhere near this place. “Well?” he prompted harshly.
The vendor started. “Don’t know nothin’ ‘bout that,” he mumbled, panic flashing in his eyes as he realized that the only way out of this blind alley was past Hunter’s formidable bulk.
Hunter allowed the coins in his purse to jingle suggestively. “Think again, little man. And put a price on your tongue.”
The greedy tongue licked dry lips as the vendor eyed the leather pouch tied to the large stranger’s belt. He seemed to hesitate, then held out his own pouch desperately. “The most powerful aphrodisiac in the galaxy,” he promised hoarsely. “On my honor, Huntman!” He hesitated again, adding almost in a whisper, “It’s—from the horn of a unicorn.”
Hunter, who had been about to coldly deny any need for an aphrodisiac, looked sharply at the vendor. “What did you say?” he demanded.
The little man swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously, and took a hasty step back. “The horn of a unicorn,” he whispered constrictedly.
“I thought you didn’t know anything about them,” Hunter told him hardly.
It was not something Huntmen spoke of, but the vendor knew that his only way out of the alley was to talk. “They come in the summer,” he promised, eyes shifting restlessly beyond Hunter to the crowd in the street. “Only in the summer. And only here. And they’re guarded.”
“Here?” Hunter repeated in disbelief.
Wincing beneath harsh skepticism, the vendor pointed hastily up and beyond Hunter’s shoulder. “Up there somewhere. There’s a valley, Huntman. Everybody knows there’s a valley.”
Since his trust of this little man equaled his trust of anyone in the city, Hunter clapped a strong hand on his shoulder to keep him immobile as he half-turned to look up above the shambling remains of once-tall buildings.
He’d seen the mountain on his trip overland from the coast, watched it growing as if with a life of its own as he’d neared it. It brooded above the city like a great sentry guarding whatever lay beyond it, black as hell except for the snow capping its peak. Brother mountains crowded close to its shoulders, spreading out in a line as far as the eye could see and promising with jagged killer ridges and peaks a dangerous passage. If ever man had thought himself master of this world, the mountains stood in mute and mocking denial, gazing derisively down on the butts of a cosmic joke.
“Up there?” Hunter questioned briefly, turning back to the vendor.
The little man, clutching his precious pouch against the tattered remains of his leather tunic, nodded jerkily. “It’s called The Reaper. The mountain. It—it never gives up its dead.” He swallowed hard.
Hunter shook a bony shoulder. “And?” When the vendor only stared at him pleadingly, he produced a gold coin from his purse and dropped it into a grasping hand. “And?” he repeated.
The vendor looked up at him fearfully. “They say…they say that if you dig into the slopes, you’ll find the earth red, stained with the blood of men. They say The Reaper kills for enjoyment.”
“It’s just a mountain,” Hunter snapped, impatient.
“No, Huntman,” the vendor whispered. “More than a mountain. It lives. When the rain comes, it bleeds with the blood of men who’ve died trying to master it. And sometimes in the night, it howls like a soulless devil.”
“The wind,” Hunter scoffed.
The vendor stared up at him with faint despair. “It lives.” Then, as Hunter stirred impatiently, he hurried on. “It guards the valley. Where the unicorns come each summer. It allows no man to pass into the valley.”
“Then how did you get the horn?” Hunter asked flatly.
Squirming beneath the hand holding him, the vendor became abruptly still as the hand promised broken bones. “A Huntman,” he whispered, “brought it to me. The only man The Reaper has allowed to escape its wrath. And not even he escaped untouched. He—lost his tongue. He can never speak of what he saw. And his eyes…are like the broken windows of an empty building.”
Hunter ignored the compelling imagery. “No one else has returned?”
“No one, Huntman. Not unharmed. They try, in twos and threes, to battle The Reaper. Each summer they try, because they know the unicorns are there. They hunger for the priceless golden horns. And they are never seen again, or else are found, broken and bleeding, on The Reaper’s slopes. Or worse, they return as madmen with no voices to cry out their madness.”
Hunter glanced over his shoulder again, looking at the brooding black sentinel. “It’s only a mountain,” he mused softly.
The vendor gulped. “And if you get past it,” he said in a smothered voice, “the woman will destroy you.”
“What woman?” Hunter demanded, turning keen attention back to the vendor.
“The Keeper of the unicorns.” He made an ancient sign meant to ward off devils. “She’s a witch, a sorceress, with eyes as black as The Reaper to drive men mad. They say she has silver hair and a siren’s voice, and that she fights as a warrior fights. She’s protected the unicorns for ten thousand years.”
Hunter laughed shortly, and the vendor looked at him again with despairing eyes. “It’s true, Huntman. Those The Reaper allows into the valley, she drives mad. She steals their minds and voices, so that they can never tell how they found her.”
“What about this Huntman who brought you the horn? You say he lost his tongue. Is he also mad?”
“Not mad. But not whole. He lost more than his tongue in that place. He sits in his house, in the darkness, looking no man in the eye. He was not that way before he went in search of the valley.”
“I want to see this Huntman, talk to him,” Hunter said abruptly.
The vendor all but folded in on himself. “No!” he gasped, clearly terrified. “He’ll kill me! I beg you, Huntman—”
Hunter dropped several gold coins into the vendor’s instinctively grasping hand. “Go to him,” he instructed briefly. “Tell him I have no desire for the unicorns or their horns. Tell him I wish only to prove that they exist. And tell him I’ll pay well for his knowledge of that valley.”
Dazedly, the little man stared down at the gold in his hand. “If—if he refuses to see you?” he whispered.
“Convince him,” Hunter advised coldly.
“But—”
“Convince him. And be back here, at this spot, in three hours. With the answer I desire.” Casually Hunter toyed with the hilt of his knife. “Be warned, little man. If you are not here with the answer I desire, you’ll not see another sunset.”
The vendor stared up at Hunter with terrorized eyes, nodding with a single gulp, then slid out of the alley and into the crowded street, disappearing in an instant.
Barely conscious of the strident sounds all around him, Hunter stood and stared up at The Reaper, feeling the first stirring of his excitement since he’d arrived at this godforsaken place.
He was not interested in the unicorns for the sake of their golden horns, but for the sake of their reality. For years now, he had traveled far to prove the reality of this particular myth—and gain his throne. But he had found no myths at all. On one world, he had discovered a living Pegasus, disappointed to find that the winged creature bore only the vaguest resemblance to a horse. On another he found a wizard, again disappointed to find that sleight of hand formed the basis of his magic.
And unicorns…He had seen goats with a single horn, gazelles, horses altered with man’s aid to fit the myth. He had seen charlatans and fakers and tricksters.
He had not seen a unicorn. The creature had eluded him until he had
all but given up hope of proving its existence. And yet it had been the stories of the creature told to him in boyhood that had kept him from admitting defeat. If unicorns existed, he meant to find them. Ironic, he thought now, if man’s most delicate and beloved myth had chosen to reside in a valley high above the worst examples of the living…high above that breed of man in whom greed for golden horns far outweighed the fascination of dreams.
—
Hunter spent those hours of waiting inside the one relic of this planet’s former civilization. A library. It had astonished him at first sight a day earlier, with its unbroken, polished windows and neatly swept marble steps. And curiosity had led him inside the huge building, where he had discovered a very old woman lounging behind a gleaming desk with her feet up on a stack of books and another on her lap.
Ancient, but far from decrepit, the woman had directed fierce blue eyes in his direction and snapped, “Huntmen aren’t allowed!”
Standing very still and gazing warily at the huge—and illegal—blaster held confidently in the wrinkled old hand, Hunter made haste to disclaim the distinction. “I’m not a Huntman. I’m a visitor in the city.”
“Look like a Huntman to me,” she said, sniffing disdainfully.
“I’m not, I promise you.”
“Come closer,” she directed. “Slowly.”
He did.
Keen eyes studied him for a long moment, and then the old woman relaxed her grip on the blaster and placed it on yet another stack of books at her side. “I don’t get many decent visitors these days.”
Hunter had just met Maggie O’Shea—a relic within a relic, as it were.
She had taken care of the library for most of her long life, “like my mother before me, and hers before her.” Truculent, confident, and unafraid, she kept the Huntmen of the city at bay. And though her prime was years past, she still managed to keep the huge library relatively clean and almost dust-free.
Hunter had spent the day with her, at first fascinated, as always, by the unexpected and then charmed by the old lady’s cheerful wisdom and tolerant attitude.
Seeking her out today as he waited for the appointment with the vendor—and possibly his destiny—Hunter was eager to question Maggie about the valley and the unicorns. Cut off though she was from the city by her own iron will, he had an idea that very little escaped Maggie O’Shea.