No life, the Hunter had told them.
There were five bodies in the bedroom, strewn about like damaged and discarded toys. One lay on its back across a window seat, and Damien could just make out the look of tortured horror on the young man’s face. That, and the reek of urine and fecal matter which filled the small room, told Damien that death had been neither slow nor secretive in this place.
He looked at them a moment longer, but couldn’t determine the cause of death. Let Tarrant discover that with his Knowing. He backed out of the small room and shut the door gently, feeling his gut unknot just a little as the powerful stench was closed away. Flies buzzed past his face as he forced himself to breathe deeply. Once. Twice. Again.
He looked about for Hesseth. He didn’t see her in the sitting room, but there was another door open at its far end. As he made his way toward it he heard her hiss softly; the sound was more anguished than hostile.
He found her in a back room, kneeling in a narrow doorway. Looking beyond her Damien saw the fixtures of a primitive bathroom, the walls and floor awash with blood.
“What happened?” he whispered.
She pointed to where a pile of bodies lay in the far corner, huddled together like a pile of broken dolls. Four children, all pale and lifeless. By their feet lay another body, that of an older woman.
He squeezed his way into the small room, casting his lantern light on the bodies. There was a dark gash visible on the neck of one of the children, and he pushed the small head gently to one side in order to get a better look. The cut was deep and long and there was no question about its being the cause of death. Another child was positioned so that its neck was also visible; he studied that also, nodding to himself as the grisly pattern made itself clear. Then he stopped by the woman’s body long enough to see the two deep cuts that grooved her wrists, the blood-covered knife in her hand. And he ushered Hesseth out.
“She killed them,” he said quietly. “Most likely they were her own children, and she killed them to save them from ... that.” He nodded back toward the room he had inspected, not willing to put the horror into words. Not just yet. “A cut to the carotid artery is a quick and almost painless death. She knew what she was doing.”
“What happened here?” the rakh-woman whispered.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Hesseth. But it didn’t happen quickly, that’s for sure.”
The relatively clean air of the streets was a welcome relief after the poisoned closeness of the house’s interior; he breathed deeply when they exited, trying to clear his lungs.
Then he looked up at Tarrant, a question in his eyes. The Neocount said nothing, but nodded toward a building across the street from them. Meeting Hall, the sign over the door said. “In there,” he directed them. His tone communicated nothing.
Filled with more than a little misgiving, Damien and Hesseth moved toward the building. The smell was stronger there, sick and forbidding. His stomach was tight with dread as he turned the worn brass handle and pushed it open, as he stepped forward to look inside—
Oh, my God.
He was back out on the street again, reeling as though something had struck him in the face. The afterimage of the meeting hall’s contents was burned into his vision, shadows and highlights of utter horror sculpted by the lantern’s light. Bodies that were nailed to the wooden floor and gutted. Intestines wound about a desk leg, their owner still attached. More brutal, malevolent destruction than he had ever seen in one place before. And on every face, in every staring eye, a look of such utter horror that there was no question in Damien’s mind that these people had been alive while they were eviscerated. Perhaps being tortured in a careful progression so that future victims could see their coming fate, writhing terrified in their bonds as body after body was vivisected....
It was too much. Too much. He leaned over and vomited in the street, bitter fluids surging from his gut in violent revulsion. Again and again, until his stomach was more than empty. Still it spasmed, and his mouth burned with the fluids of his revulsion.
He didn’t look at Tarrant. He didn’t want to see those eyes—so cool, so utterly inhuman—fixed on his helplessness. He didn’t want to acknowledge what he knew deep inside, which was that even a horror such as this would fail to move the Hunter. Had Gerald Tarrant not done a similar thing to his own wife and children? Would he not gladly do worse in the future, if he felt that survival demanded it?
Instead Damien looked for Hesseth. She was nowhere to be found. He was just about to start worrying when she staggered out of the meeting hall doorway, one hand clenched shut about something. Under the angry red patches of her perpetual sunburn her face was drained of all living color, and her mouth hung slack as if she lacked the strength to shape whatever words she needed.
She walked to him. Slowly. Like him, she refused to meet Tarrant’s eyes. When she was no more than two feet away her hand uncurled, slowly. Flakes of blackened blood clung to her palm, making it hard to see what she held. A thin, curving object with shreds of flesh still adhering to its wider end. As if it had been torn from some living thing so violently that the flesh itself had given way.
It was a claw.
She gave him a moment to study it, flexing her own claws so that he might compare. The curve was the same, the composition, the proportion—everything but the size, which was slightly larger. There was no question what manner of creature it had come from.
“My people did this,” she whispered hoarsely. “Rakh.” Her hand started to tremble so violently that she had to close it again, rather than drop the grisly thing. “Why?” she whispered. “Why?”
He drew her to him because she seemed to need it, and carefully, delicately, folded his arms around her. For a moment he was afraid that she might respond badly, that her natural aversion to humankind might overpower her need for comfort. But she buried herself against his chest and shivered violently, so he held her tightly. No tears came from those amber eyes; the rakhene anatomy did not allow for it. But she trembled with a grief that was every bit as genuine and as passionate as that which a human woman might know, and he did his best to comfort her.
“Let’s get out of here,” he whispered.
Tarrant stirred. “Let’s collect some weapons and then get out of here.”
Damien looked up at him. The pale eyes contained neither disdain nor impatience, but something that in another life might have been called sympathy. “It may be our only chance,” the Hunter pointed out.
After a minute Damien nodded. He disentangled Hesseth from his embrace, gently. “Come on,” he said softly. “We need supplies. Let’s find them and then we can get out of here.”
“What if they come back?”
He looked up at Tarrant, then back toward the meeting hall. “I don’t think they will,” he said quietly. “There’s nothing here for them. Not anymore.”
And because she could shed no tears, he did so. A few drops squeezed from the corners of his eyes, a monument to her grief. He hated himself for showing such weakness in front of Tarrant—and hated Tarrant for not doing so himself, for being so far removed from the sphere of human emotions that not even this outrageous slaughter could move him.
“Come on,” he muttered. Forcing himself to move again. Forcing himself to function. “Let’s get on with it.”
Hours later. How many? Time and distance were a featureless blur, each minute blending into the one that followed, each step shrouded in a fog of mourning. Perhaps yards. Perhaps miles. Perhaps half a night. Who could say?
At last they dismounted. The chill light of dawn was just stirring in the eastern sky; not enough to make Tarrant take cover yet, but enough to give him warning. They made their camp mechanically, pitching the tent that Hesseth had pieced together from their extra blankets. Not using the camping supplies that they had picked up in the village. Not ready for that yet.
When the small fire was burning and the horses had been tended to and water had been gathered from a nearby strea
m, then the words came. Slowly. With effort.
“Why?” Hesseth whispered.
“Your people are known for a fierce hatred of humankind,” Tarrant offered. It was the first time he had spoken since they’d left the village. “Is it so incredible that their hatred has found an outlet here?”
She glared at him. “My people aren’t like that.”
Tarrant said nothing.
She turned away. Her furred hands clenched. “My people would happily kill all humans. Just like they wanted to kill you, when you came into our territory. But that’s different. That’s ...”
“Better?” the Hunter asked dryly. “Cleaner?”
She turned on him; her amber eyes were blazing. “Animals kill for food, or defense. Or to rid themselves of something undesirable. They don’t torture other creatures for the sheer pleasure of seeing them suffer. That’s a human thing.”
“Maybe your people have become more human than they know.”
“Stop it,” Damien snapped. At Tarrant. “Stop it now.”
For a moment there was silence. The crackling of the fire. The soft breathing of the horses.
“We knew we were fighting something with the ability to corrupt men’s souls,” the priest said. “Didn’t we see that in Mercia? Men and women who meant well, who had devoted their lives to a beneficent God ... yet who would murder their fellow humans without a moment of remorse, and consign helpless children to a ritual of torture.” God, it hurt to remember all that. He fought to keep his voice steady. “I think what we’ve seen tonight is that he—or she, or it—has done the same to your people.” He watched as Hesseth lowered her head, trying to make his voice as gentle as it could become. “He did have something to start with, after all. How much work would it be to twist a rakhene soul, so that the desire to kill one’s enemy became the desire to torture him to death?”
“It isn’t a rakh thing,” she hissed softly. “It isn’t the way we work.”
He waited a moment before he answered. “That may have changed,” he said gently. “I’m sorry, Hesseth. But it’s the truth. God alone knows how long he’s had to operate, but it’s clear that he’s had enough time to influence your people. To influence both our peoples,” he added quickly. “God alone knows why....”
“Yes,” Tarrant agreed. “That’s a good question, isn’t it? A demon might feed on that kind of hatred, or on the pain it engendered, or on any other emotion that was a consequence of the system ... but only with humans, not the rakh. Why corrupt a native species? No demon could gain strength from that.”
“Are you sure?” Damien asked.
“Absolutely. The faeborn draw their strength from man because he creates them; they rely on him for sustenance. What good is a rakhene soul to them? Its nature is as alien to demonkind as we are to Erna. They can’t digest it.”
“So the purpose is something else.”
Tarrant nodded. “And you forget something else.”
Hesseth stiffened. Damien looked up sharply at him.
“The rakh who came to this continent must have done so over ten thousand years ago, when the land bridge in the north was still intact. Nothing else can explain their appearance on both continents. And it’s clear that when the fae began to alter them, making them more like humanity, both groups were affected. Why not? This planet is a unified whole; the same currents course over all of it. But the hatred?” He shook his head, his expression grim. “That wasn’t a physical change, but a social response to the Crusades, a western phenomenon. Why would the rakh who lived here—who had not even come in contact with humankind at that point—share such feelings? Why should the masters of their own continent hate a species they had never even seen? It makes no sense.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“That the rakh here were taught to hate. It’s all part of some greater plan, designed to corrupt those who live here. Human and rakh alike.”
“Why?” Hesseth demanded, her voice shaking slightly.
Tarrant shook his head in frustration. “I wish I knew. Tonight’s discovery raises so many questions ... and I don’t know where to begin answering them. I’m sorry.”
He stood. The sky was light enough now that it illuminated him from above, casting a shadowy halo about his hair. “What we do know is that the enemy’s cause is more complicated than we at first suspected ... and likewise his tools are more varied than we anticipated. We should be very wary.” He looked at the graying sky with regret. “I hate to leave you now—”
“We understand,” Damien said.
“Keep careful guard. I don’t think anyone will bother to come back to the village ... but it’s dangerous to anticipate our enemy when we don’t understand the game he’s playing. I wish now that we had obliterated our tracks,” he murmured, “at least through the town. But it’s too late for that now.”
Damien turned to Hesseth. “Can you—”
She shook her head. “Not from this distance. I’m sorry.”
“We need clear currents,” Tarrant said. “I need to get farther south, so I can Know him with nothing standing between us. Without understanding his motives....” He shook his head. “Our only hope lies in comprehending what he wants, what he’s done here.”
“And what he is,” Damien supplied.
“Yes,” the Hunter agreed. Stepping back so that he might transform himself without the power of his coldfire Working hurting his companions. “What he is. That, most of all.”
The dawn sky was gray now, with a hint of pale blue at the lower edge. Tarrant looked at it once as if gauging the sun’s progress, then studied the earth-fae at his feet for any warning of imminent seismic activity. Evidently there was none. The Hunter stood up straight, bracing himself for the painful effort of transformation.
And then the coldfire flared, and the broad wings rose into the sky. And there were only the two of them left, and the dawn, and the silence.
Seventeen
“Protector Iseldas?”
The creature who wore that form looked up, noted the arrival of one of his own kind, and nodded. “Come in. Close the door. Carefully,” he added, indicating with a glance the hallway outside.
The other looked carefully up and down the corridor, testing its privacy with more-than-human senses. At last he grunted in satisfaction and entered the firelit chamber. The heavy double doors swung shut with a soft thud and the lock dropped noisily into place
“Did you find her?” the mock-Iseldas demanded.
“Not yet.”
“Well, then? What?” His nerves were on edge from dealing with the Iseldas clan all day. Petty human underlings, with petty human concerns. Someday they would all be gone. Someday this region would be wiped clean of them forever, so that a more worthy species might take their place. “I told you to stay out until you find her.”
“We found something.” He hesitated before stepping forward, as if unsure of the protocol. He had been far more comfortable in Kierstaad’s domain, where all the house staff had been replaced; here, with only a few of them amidst two dozen true humans, the constant strain of his disguise was wearing his patience thin. “We thought you should see it.”
He handed the imposter—call him Iseldas, he chided himself, learn to do it—the paper in his hand. All folded and dirty and covered with blood, as befit a drawing from the village.
Ah, the village. He savored the memory with glee. So much of their life was spent pretending to be human, pretending to be civilized, that it was good to let one’s animal soul rear its head at last. The Prince would not understand, perhaps, nor condone such wholesale slaughter—on grounds of efficiency, of course, rather than compassion—but these creatures here who made the rules, these men of his own race who lived and breathed the lives of humans, they understood. They knew that the price of such a grand subterfuge was an occasional indulgence.
Leave no witnesses, Kierstaad had said. They hadn’t.
He watched while Iseldas—the new Iseldas—unfolded the trave
l-worn paper. Watched while he scrutinized the crude ink drawings on its surface. His brow furrowed in concentration, but he said nothing. At last he held up the paper. “What are these?”
“Tracks, we believe.” He pointed to the first drawing—a precise reproduction of the street outside the Meeting Hall—and then the sketches below, which divided up the cryptic shapes into something resembling hoofmarks. “Three animals, all similar. Very large.”
The first set was crescent-shaped, sharp-edged, deeply incised into the earth. The second had been made by feet with three-clawed toes, the center digit slightly larger than the other two. The third might have been of their offspring, with a half-moon shape flanked by two deep scratches. Figures indicated how far apart the marks were.
“What are they?” Iseldas demanded.
“We don’t know. But they were accompanied by human footsteps.”
Iseldas looked up sharply. “You said all the villagers were dead.”
“All of them were. These must have come from elsewhere. You see that their animals are foreign—”
“And large,” he hissed. The reaction was not one of human reason, but of animal uncertainty; the thought of the foreign beast’s size and bulk was as unnerving as a hostile odor. “Any other signs?”
He shook his head.
“You’re sure the human footsteps came after?”
There was no need to ask him after what? They both understood what he meant. “I can’t swear they weren’t there when we cleansed the town. Why stop to check a dirt road for mere footsteps? There must have been thousands. But these flanked the animal tracks exactly, and I’m fairly sure those weren’t there before. They’re odd enough that we would have noticed.”
And threatening enough, Iseldas thought. An animal which left tracks like that could weigh over a ton. That was rare in these parts, and decidedly dangerous. The hooves looked deadly, too, large enough and solid enough to crush bone. All in all, the thought of such a beast free in the woods—his woods—made him feel like his fur was standing on end.