“I want you out after this,” he commanded. “Find out where these tracks lead, what’s making them—”
“What about the girl?”
He hissed as he breathed in. What about the girl? Kierstaad said she would have gone north, but he frankly doubted it. Most likely the local carnivores had gotten to her, and all that was left for them was to locate her bones. If they hadn’t been buried somewhere for a winter snack.
But duty was duty. The Undying Prince had taught them that.
“Keep searching for her,” he growled. “But get at least two or three on this trail, too.” He looked down at the paper in his hands, at the odd shapes that could not be—but clearly were—some animal’s tracks. “I’ll send this on to the Matrias. See what they make of it. Do we still have birds?”
“For Mercia and Penitencia.”
“Mercia. That’s where the last letter came from. Maybe this has something to do with the westerners.” A sudden spark of excitement stirred within him. What if these tracks were connected to the outsiders, somehow? What if the western-born fugitives hadn’t gone by sea after all, but by land, and he was able to capture them? There’d be reward aplenty for that move, once the northern lands were taken. He growled softly in anticipation, considering it. “Send the question to Mercia.”
“Right away.”
“And also ... do we have a bird for Kierstaad?”
“Why not send a messenger? It’s right across the—”
“I don’t want to waste the people or the time. Do we have a bird?”
He blinked. “I think so. Why?”
“Send word that we need more support. Send word that I want enough people to replace Iseldas’ staff. Totally. This business of having to be on guard against eavesdroppers, of the constant pretense ... it wears. It wears badly. I want the support to establish myself here properly, before the Protector’s wife comes home.” And he muttered, “That’ll be challenge enough.”
“You going to mate with her?” he hissed softly. There was an undercurrent of challenge in his voice.
Iseldas’ fur began to rise. Or rather, it would have risen had he still possessed any true fur. But all he had now was a sparse covering of human hair, useless for protection or display. How did the humans stand it?
“Watch yourself,” he warned. Making his voice as much a growl as the human speech apparatus would permit. “I’m in charge here. You want to fight, let’s get on with it. Otherwise watch your tongue.”
The other male growled low in his throat, and for a minute Iseldas thought he might indeed make a move toward him. All his masculine instincts were afire, but despite his best effort he could manage no physical display. The fur wasn’t there to stand erect. The claws weren’t there to be bared. Even his teeth had been transformed, so that his snarl was shorn of its visual display.
How he hated this transformation! They might as well cut his balls off as make him wear human flesh. The result was much the same.
But the other male was likewise handicapped, and Iseldas could see him struggling with his uncooperative body. Though he might have continued the challenge in his native form, he was clearly not comfortable with doing so on human terms. At last he stepped back ever so slightly, and delicately inclined his head. The gesture was awkward, but it communicated.
“Now get to work,” Iseldas snapped. “And spare me your insults in the future.”
The other male growled softly, but he did leave as ordered. Iseldas was glad of it. He had no doubt that an out-and-out battle for dominance would have revealed their nature to the true humans, no matter what story they made up to cover it. Humans might be stupid, but they weren’t blind.
You’ll have to face him someday. Either that, or let him form a pack of his own. He’s too strong willed to play the second male forever.
He smiled slightly, remembering his own rise through the ranks. The fever of ambition that had burned within him like a fire, consuming all reason. The heady sense of invulnerability that accompanied each new combat. He had dominated most of the males in the Kierstaad domain—usually by intimidating them, sometimes by actual combat—and he might have taken on Kierstaad himself, if not for this new assignment. Little wonder that the mock-Protector had chosen him for this role. He hoped that when his time came he could make a similarly wise decision.
It’s never easy being the prime male, he consoled himself. As he sipped from the wine in the goblet at hand, and dreamed that it was human blood.
Eigfiteen
They divided up their new supplies the following evening. It was hard for Damien to handle the village items without feeling somehow that he was also grasping their tragedy. It was hard not to remember those twisted, tormented bodies as he sorted through the items that had once belonged to their owners.
You would approve of our mission, he promised them silently. With these weapons we can perhaps destroy the evil that brought you down. With these we can keep it from killing others.
Dried food in quantity, and grain for the horses. Knives for hunting, skinning, and killing. Several small handguns and their ammunition. Three versions of a larger, more primitive weapon that was unlike anything Damien had seen before. He hefted one to his shoulder, noting that its stock was not unlike that of a springbolt, his projectile weapon of choice. But instead of a smooth, barreled head it had a construction resembling a bow in miniature, set perpendicular to the line of fire. An awkward construction, Damien noted, but it seemed to work; the few practice shots he and Hesseth took with it launched the smooth, metal-tipped bolts across a clearing and inches deep into the bark of a tree. Not bad. It didn’t have the balance of a springbolt, of course, and one could eviscerate oneself trying to use the butt as an impact weapon, but it was immeasurably better than what they’d had. They checked all the working parts twice, divided up five boxes of bolts, and felt considerably safer than they had the night before.
Then there were the guns. Tarrant had brought them, along with the ammunition and priming agents they required. Damien would just as soon have left them there. Only three houses in the village had had them, which indicated to him that the firearms were rare outside the great cities. For good reason. He watched as Tarrant cleaned the fine metal parts with the hooks and wire brushes he had also gathered, until he seemed satisfied. It was the kind of care a normal man might give such a weapon: not only to make sure it worked, but to make sure the user knew that it would work. On a world where doubt too easily became disaster, anything less would be suicide.
“Can’t you just Work it into efficiency?” He demanded of Tarrant. Anxious to be moving again, to put the devastation of last night’s discovery even farther behind them.
“I could Work the metal parts,” the Hunter assured him. “—and indeed, I am doing that. But as for the rest....” He blew at a touch-hole softly, spraying fine black powder across the stock. “I think you forget my limitations. I have no power over fire, or anything that manipulates fire—and this falls into that category.”
“You mean you can’t stop it from misfiring?” Hesseth asked.
What an incredible concept! That this man who could move mountains, who could and did shift whole weather systems in an instant—who had redefined the very parameters of death, at least as they related to his own person—could not assure that a simple mechanical instrument would function as it should, any more than your average man in the street.
“I can’t,” he agreed, confirming the incredible. “But nor will I cause it to misfire, as the doubts of so many might do.” He brushed off the last of the guns and laid it down beside the others. They gleamed golden on the dark grass, reflecting the Corelight. “They’re not my weapon of choice—as you well know—but if our enemy is armed with guns, then we should at least have the option of meeting him on similar ground.” He looked at Damien. “Have you ever used one of these?”
“Once.” He still remembered the kick of the carved wooden grip in his hand, the dread feeling—just for an instant—th
at something he had sparked off was too fast and too secretive for him to control. His master had tsk tsked, and announced with solemn finality, “Some men are born to handle firearms. You, Vryce, are clearly not one of them. But with practice and knowledge I have every confidence that you can bring this weapon under control, so that it’s deadly only to your enemies.”
Practice and knowledge. Only there were so many other things to see and learn and do at the same time, and besides, he liked the sword. It was a pleasing sensation to launch an attack at an enemy and feel the heavy swing carry through like an extension of his arm, the sharp steel resonating with triumph as it cut through living flesh, blood dripping along its edge ... or so he imagined. The truth was that he’d been just fifteen at the time, and the most he’d done was batter a jousting block with hardwood blades, and once—just once—helped dispatch a low-order ghoul that was cruising the visitor’s dormitory. Which he’d done with a knife, not with a sword, but the theory was much the same. The point was, steel he understood. Steel he trusted. Black powder was more like ... well, like magic.
“They’re all yours,” he assured Tarrant, and he thought he saw the Hunter smile.
There was a slight tremor then, but the Hunter declared it to be of no consequence. Harmonic tremors, he explained, which felt like small-scale earthquakes but didn’t disturb the earth-fae nearly so drastically. Damien did note that there had been five distinct tremors since they’d started traveling south, and doubtless many more too subtle to them to detect. Neither he nor Tarrant had said it in so many words, but the truth was clear to both of them: this wasn’t a safe region to Work in. Tarrant was taking a chance with his transformations, but at least that was after careful study of the currents. They’d better be careful in the heat of battle, though, lest the energies unleashed by a shifting planet burn one of them—or both—to a crisp. Damien had already seen the fae sear through a woman’s brain in the rakhlands, and he had no desire to experience it any more directly.
They loaded the horses and began to ride. Damien and Hesseth had allowed enough time for resting that both felt somewhat refreshed, though nightmares had made sleep a touch-and-go affair. They were lucky that Tarrant was with them, Damien reflected; otherwise the powers at large might well manifest their fear and their horror right back at them. But the Hunter’s presence seemed to discourage fear-ghouls from forming, and most of the region’s extant terrors preferred to stay a good distance away.
They continued south. The horses were stronger now, and the terrain more obliging than it had been; considering the near-darkness that Tarrant’s schedule resigned them to, they made good time. Once they neared a village—its presence was proclaimed not only by its lights and its sounds but by the dozens of silent wraiths who flitted about its gates, hunger curling from them like tendrils of black mist—and they remained in the vicinity just long enough to read the currents that flowed through it, to see that no horror had just taken place or was just about to. But the village was peaceful, its people contentedly sequestered for the night, and Damien had to fight back his urge to warn them. In truth, what could a stranger say to them that they would believe? And what would he warn them about? They didn’t really know what happened, did they?
Once soon after, when the moonlight flashed down upon them, he gazed upon the Hunter’s profile. He knows what happened, the priest thought. He Saw. And it made a cold shiver course up his spine, to think that one of them had actually witnessed the slaughter.
I wouldn’t share that Knowing for anything.
The next village was directly in their path; they had to circle to the east to avoid it. That course led them down a rocky slope to a river, perhaps an extension of the stream they had followed so long ago. Had the night been dark they might have waited until morning before crossing, but Casca was full overhead by that time and Prima’s crescent added its share of light from the east; they waded their horses through what looked like the calmest stretch of water, and outside of riding calf-deep in the ice cold mountain runoff made the crossing without mishap.
They stopped at the first likely site they found and toweled themselves and their mounts dry. The night breeze was cool but not unpleasant, at least not when one was dry. As he wrung out his boots, Damien noticed Tarrant studying the land before them.
“What is it?”
“The currents,” he murmured. “They’re ... odd.”
His tone was enough to make Damien tense up; he saw Hesseth’s ears prick forward. “Odd how?”
The Hunter held up a hand to silence him. Damien could see his pale eyes focusing on some point just beyond them, perhaps where the earth-fae surged over some promontory and became particularly Workable. After a moment he stiffened. A soft hiss escaped his lips.
“We’re being followed,” he said quietly.
He heard Hesseth curse in her rakhene tongue. For himself, he muttered angrily that it had all seemed too good to be true. The Hunter waved them silent again, his eyes fixed on fae-wrought pictures that only he could see. His companions waited.
“They found the tracks. They’re following them. They’re not sure who we are, or what we’re mounted on ... damn,” he hissed. “They have information. Real information. And they’re organized.”
“Villagers?” Damien dared. Feeling a cold churning in his gut as he asked. He knew what the answer would be.
“We should be so lucky.” The Hunter’s expression was grim. “Not villagers, no. And I think ... maybe not human.”
For a moment the words hung between them, impaled upon the stillness of the air.
“You’re not sure?”
He shook his head, frustrated. “They’re north of us, which means I have to fight the current to read anything. In addition there’s some extra unclarity, perhaps an Obscuring of some kind, perhaps....” He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “They don’t seem to have Workers with them. Yet I sense power. Something quiescent ... maybe a Warding? Hard to say.”
“Which means what?” Hesseth demanded. That the fine points of human sorcery meant nothing to her was clear from her tone.
“It means we move.” Soft hair glimmered in the double moonlight as he turned to face her; his eyes were shadowed, unreadable. “We move fast. It means we think about some way to Obscure our presence, even though they already know where we are—which makes such a Working very difficult,” he added. “It means we think about the obviousness of our route, and finding a defensible shelter, and the possibility of ambush—” He let the last sentence hang in the air unfinished, with all its threat intact.
“It means the good times are over,” Damien said dryly.
“Assst!” Hesseth’s eyes sparkled darkly. “Is that what they were?”
“Perhaps we should consider crossing the mountains,” Tarrant told them. “Precisely because it is a more difficult route.”
“They’re behind us,” Damien responded. “They haven’t got horses or any near equivalent, so if we make good time—”
“You’re not listening,” the Hunter said softly. The threat in his voice was all the more powerful for being so delicately voiced. “I said they have information. That means they got it from somewhere. That means that some kind of network is operating.”
It took him a minute for the implications of that to sink in. “Shit,” he muttered. “Shit.”
“We know this coast is lined with Protectorates, whose only purpose is to seek out and destroy enemy forces. If they’ve truly been alerted, do you think we can outrun them? Every border we pass means a new army poised in waiting. I don’t like it,” he told them. “Even with all of us together it’s too dangerous, and with the nights as short as they are....” There was no need for him to continue. The thought of facing the Protectorates’ legions was bad enough; the thought of facing them in the daylight hours, without Tarrant’s power beside them, was truly daunting.
“What do you suggest?” Hesseth asked.
He gestured toward the south. “For now, continue as we?
??ve been doing. We won’t have another option for a while. Between your skills and mine we can probably Obscure our trail, but it wouldn’t hurt to stick to rocky ground. It’s always hard to Obscure something once it’s been noticed.”
“And then?”
“The map indicates a pass some forty miles to the south of here. That could be anything from a true break in the mountains to a single ridge which is slightly less daunting than its neighbors. I suggest we take it. It would be easier for me to leave signs that we had continued south than it would be to simply make our tracks disappear. By the time they catch on and backtrack we’ll be out of the Protectorates and truly Obscured. Of course, if we decided to kill whatever was following us—or even just take a look at it—such a region would be ideal for entrapment.”
“That works both ways,” Hesseth reminded him. “What if they anticipate us?”
“Unlikely,” the Hunter responded. “Think about it. They can’t be sure that we know about their pursuit, and the route just west of the mountains—which we’ve been taking—is quick and easy. Why would we change? Also....” He glanced at Damien. “There are the Terata. What small party of humans wouldn’t prefer the threat of a simple pursuit to a land filled with bloodthirsty demons?”
“That’s a very good point,” Damien noted.
A faint expression—it might have been a smile—flashed ever so briefly across the Hunter’s face. “I’m far more comfortable with the concept of demons than with an armed pursuit. Demons at least are unlikely to attack in the daylight.”
“So you’re comfortable with demons,” Damien snapped. “What about us?”
The pale eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “Do you see a viable alternative?”
He bit his lip, considering. At last he muttered, “No, dammit. But I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”
“He’s right, though.” Hesseth’s voice was low. “He can handle demons. And most of them won’t care about me. Besides—”