Footsteps approaching. He heard them before he could identify their source; the mist had thickened so much that it was hard to see more than ten feet past the prison gate. The glassy black statue was lost in the distance, swallowed up by the gray veil of fog.
Would Tarrant come tonight? he wondered. Or was the Hunter gone for good? Much as he didn’t like the thought of that, it was certainly possible. At any rate they were on their own until nightfall, and that was hours away.
A delegation of eight diminutive warriors approached the makeshift prison. Damien noted that these were all somewhat older, as Terata standards went, and armed with long spears that would permit them to threaten Damien and Hesseth without getting within hand-to-hand combat distance. A bad sign, he decided; it meant they anticipated trouble.
The bolts that supported the heavy grate were pulled back, and then the two tallest boys removed the grate itself. They had painted their faces, Damien noted, in a parody of the masks they had worn off the island; another bad sign. The whole day was looking downright ominous.
“It’s time,” one of the painted warriors announced. A girl. A boy’s voice ordered, “Get out.”
Damien looked at Hesseth, and at the girl. At last, though he was less than happy about the order, he began to move. The minute he cleared the cavern entrance four spears were lowered and pressed against his chest; not only couldn’t he run away, but if he moved too quickly in any direction he would skewer himself in an instant.
His hands were tied behind his back once more, and a nooselike rope was slipped over his head to serve as a leash. When they had him thus trussed up, they signaled for Hesseth to come out, and she was subjected to similar preparations. Testing his bonds, Damien noted that they were tighter than the last time. Yet another bad omen.
Two of the adolescent warriors had to go in after Jenseny. Since Damien had seen her run to the grate to plead with them at one point, he was surprised to see the utter terror that suffused her face when the Terata actually approached her. Maybe it had been enough for her then that the grate had been there, protecting her from close contact. Maybe. More likely it was that she feared the Terata, but had feared Damien even more. Enough to send her running to the children who so clearly terrified her, who even now grabbed hold of her with bruising strength and dragged her, struggling, from the prison.
They were led like leashed animals along the muddy path, toward the clearing where Calesta’s statue stood. The noose about their necks would tighten at the slightest provocation, and once when Damien stumbled it nearly choked him. But the child who was leading him reached into the hemp collar and loosened it for him. He had to stand on tiptoe to do it—no, he should have had to stand on tiptoe, but in fact he didn’t. How odd. The touch of his fingers was cold, and ... something odd. Something Damien couldn’t put a name to, but when the flesh made contact with his own he couldn’t help but shiver. For an instant the boy’s face seemed to fade, to be forming into something else ... and then the moment was gone, and everything was as it should be.
Or as it seemed to be, Damien thought.
The clearing surrounding Calesta’s statue was already filled with children, and though Damien couldn’t count them he guessed there were at least three or four dozen. The Terata came in all ages and sizes, from lanky preteenagers to children so small that they could hardly walk. But no one older than that, he noted. No one who had gone through puberty. What happened to them when they aged?
Their leashes were tied to a squat tree that sat at one edge of the clearing. At first he thought that the children would leave them together, but that was too good to be true. A young girl scrambled up amidst the twisting branches and affixed their leashes to opposite ends of the tree; the rope was taut enough that if they tried to move they would probably hang themselves. Great. Jenseny was released nearby, and she darted for the cover of the great trunk behind them. Out of the corner of his eye Damien could see her huddled beneath a tangle of twisted branches, staring with wide eyes toward the clearing.
From where she sat she could see his hands, and Hesseth’s; would she betray them if they tried to free themselves? He didn’t think so. He began to flex his hands, testing the knots that bound him for strength. There was a little slack, and he struggled to get it around to where it would do him the most good. Hard to do all that without moving his body, but the noose about his neck gave him no choice. He just hoped the children wouldn’t notice.
But their minds were on other things now. They were heaping small items about the base of the statue. Food, spears, bits of shining metal ... offerings, Damien decided. One child brought forth a handful of glittering gems and broken bits of jewelry and dropped it on the pile. Another offered up a torn silk shirt. He heard Hesseth gasp as several of their own possessions were added to the pile. Either these children had captured other travelers or they raided the villages themselves, he thought; there were too many valuable items here for any other explanation.
When the pile was at last complete, the children gathered around the statue. Some stood utterly silent, waiting. Others began to sway impatiently, fidgeting with the restlessness of youth. He could feel their expectation filling the clearing with volatile force, and he worked all the harder at getting himself free. Whatever happened here, he didn’t think he was going to like it.
At last one of the boys stepped forward, and the small crowd hushed. His face was fierce behind the war paint, and his skinny chest had been bared to the wind. He faced the statue and raised up his weapon—a bow—and then announced:
“My name is Piter. Five days ago I led a band down to the southern cities. We found a girl chained up by the Holies, and we set her free. We had to kill five men to do it. I want to thank you for helping us sneak up on them, because they were much bigger than we were and I don’t think we could have killed them without your help.” He reached out to the crowd, toward one small girl in particular. She was wearing a cotton shift, now torn and muddied, and her face was streaked with tears. “This is the girl,” he announced, as she made her way to the statue. “Her name is Bethie.” When she came up beside him, he indicated that she should lay her hands upon the statue. It was hard for her to reach, given the pile of stolen goods that surrounded it, but at last she did so. When he nodded that she could let go, she did so, and regained her balance.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“His name is Calesta.”
“Thank you, Calesta.”
The two of them returned to the circle. Another girl stepped out. She was tall and slender and carried a long spear, which she flourished as she spoke.
“My name is Merri. I went into the Protectorates, and found a baby being exposed. I know there were guards in those woods, but none of them saw me, and I took the baby. I want to thank you for your protection, and also for helping me find the baby. She can’t thank you yet, so I guess I have to do it for both of us.” She reached out and touched the black statue, slender fingers splayed across its icy flesh. It seemed to Damien that she trembled for an instant as contact was made, but he couldn’t be sure. He was too busy struggling with his bonds to concentrate on such tiny details.
Four other children followed. They, too, had tales to tell, but the endings were not nearly as triumphant. Two had discovered exposed infants too late to save them. One had gone to free a child chained by the Holies, but there were too many men guarding the girl for even a surprise attack; he had retreated. One brave girl had even ventured as far as the northern cities, but when the forest gave way to farmlands she had lost her nerve and come home again. All of them thanked Calesta for keeping them safe from their enemies. All of them touched the black statue as well, and it seemed to Damien that more than one of them flinched as they did so. What did they expect might happen?
Religious sacrifices. Adepts left to die. No wonder there’s power here. No wonder it’s so chaotic. A tribe of rejected children, dedicated to rescuing other children from the abuses of eastern society. It made sense in a
way. But why did it seem so unwholesome? Why did some of the children seem so ... well, so odd, as they approached the base of the great statue? Why was it that Damien couldn’t seem to focus on some of them?
He worked a loop of rope over one hand and paused to draw a deep breath. Once you had that much slack it was only a matter of time. He wanted to be free so badly he could taste it.
The children had begun to move now. All but one began to circle about the statue, beating their feet upon the earth. Some closed their eyes as they moved, lost in the rhythm of it. Some began to chant tunelessly, their voices rising and falling with the stamping of feet.
One boy faced the statue. He raised up his hands and addressed the black figure, one hand clasped about a crude stone ax. “You gave us safety,” he told it. His voice, though loud enough, barely carried over the noise that surrounded him. “We thank you with sacrifice. Tell us who you want. Tell us what to do.” Then he, too, joined the circling crowd. The children were moving faster and faster, gradually working themselves up to a frenzy. The chanting had become shouting, and children thrust at the air with their spears and knives.
Then one small child broke free of the ring and ran toward the statue. He was small enough that he had to scramble up on the offerings in order to reach the feet of the figure. Bits of gold and jewelry cascaded to the ground as he placed his hands on the statue’s feet. “My name’s Keven,” he told it. He kept his hands in place for perhaps a minute, then let go of the statue and slid back down to the ground. “Keven!” he screamed. He ran back to the others, repeating his name over and over again like some sacred mantra. It seemed to Damien that there was joy in his eyes, and something else also. Relief?
He turned his head to look at Jenseny. But she had turned away, hiding her eyes from the spectacle before them. He could see her shaking.
One more loop, now. The rope about his hands was loosening, almost enough that he could slip one hand out. Almost....
One by one the children did as Keven had done. Some approached the statue quietly and reverently; others shrieked and laughed and danced their way to its base, scattering the offerings in their utter abandon as they reached up to clasp the feet of the statue. The whole inner circle was littered with bits of food and pillaged treasure, and the air inside the fogbound clearing was stiflingly hot, and rang with the frenzied screams of the children as they danced in faster and faster circles.
And then, just as Damien managed to get his hands free, the children stopped. Not all at once, but in a wave, as if each took the cue from his neighbor. Within a minute the screaming circle was silent, and all eyes were fixed on the child in its center.
It was a girl. Screaming. She must have just had her hands on the statue, for even now they gripped the edge of its base. “No!” she screamed. “Not me! Not me!” A strange rippling seemed to course though her flesh, something Damien felt more than saw; her outline became fuzzy, difficult to focus upon. “Not me!” she begged, as she tumbled to a heap amidst the scattered offerings. “Please, no!”
She was beginning to change. It was hard to make out the details as she thrashed about in her terror, but Damien thought that her body was growing longer. Bending. The spine hunched up behind her shoulder blades, and twisted in its lower portion so that her hips were wildly canted. Her arms and legs grew longer and then thinned, the flesh drawing tight about her bones until she looked like a living skeleton. Her eyes had sunk deep into her skull, and the screaming mouth was no more than a gash in a creased-parchment face, her white skin mottled by brown spots that ranged from the size of freckles to the livid swell of a fertile tumor just beneath her jaw. Another tumor just beneath it had broken open, and dark fluid glistened in its surface.
And then the children moved. Yelling and screaming they fell upon her, their weapons raised. He could no longer hear her cries at all, nor see her, but as the weapons were thrust downward one after the other he could imagine her pain. Her terror. For a moment he was frozen, as the full horror of the situation struck him like a blow to the face; then, more desperate than ever, he slipped himself free of the restraining rope. Spear after spear was thrust down into that trembling, magicked flesh as he freed himself from the noose about his neck; he tried not to think about her, but it was impossible. What had Calesta done? Aged her? His brain felt numb as he ran to where Hesseth stood, and slipped the noose up over her head. Too much horror. Too many questions. He had to get them both free before the children turned on them. He had seen killing frenzies before, knew just how dangerous such a mob could be. Even children, he thought, as he worked loose the knots that bound her hands. No; especially children.
Then at last they were both free to move, and just in time. The tallest of the children had broken free of the group, and as he scanned his tribe his eyes fell upon the visitors. A shout brought several of the other children around, though most were far too involved with their grisly slaughter to acknowledge any stimulus outside their own circle. The gray fog drew in close, like a cocoon, as face after bloody face turned toward Damien and Hesseth. Spears were lowered; knives were flourished. For a split second Damien wondered if it might not be better to stay and fight than to run—which was their only other option as he saw it—but he never had time to make a decision. Even as the children began to move, a cold wind swept down on them. The mist itself seemed to darken over their heads, like a stormcloud about to deluge the earth with rain. Bloodthirsty children looked up from their kill, small eyes wide with fear, faces streaked with blood.
And then it came. Not a fae-wraith, though at first it seemed to be. Broad white wings beat back the mist, fanning it into fevered twisters about the border of the clearing. Diamondine claws reached for the statue’s shoulder, then shut closed about it; obsidian crumbled like ash at the contact. It was an immense creature, and though it wore a bird’s form it was clearly much more than a bird. Its white feathers smoked as it sat on the statue, their tips turning black and then crumbling to ash as it fanned the gray mist with its wings. At times Damien thought he could see the faint spark of golden flames between the snow-white layers.
And maybe that was what gave it away. Maybe it was the image of burning, so deeply rooted in his memory, that awakened him to who and what the great bird was.
“Tarrant,” he whispered. Gazing at him in awe. He couldn’t even imagine what kind of courage it must take for the Hunter to leave his shelter while the sun was still high in the sky. The mist might help, but it was only temporary; a few gusts of wind from the right direction and the Neocount would be totally exposed.
As if in answer to his thoughts the great bird screeched out its challenge, and more of Calesta’s statue crumbled beneath his grip. Coldfire began to pour down the black surface, spurts of unflame that fell from its shoulders like tears. The children began to draw back, and Damien could just make out the form of their prey on the ground. A shapeless mass of flesh, now, with half a dozen spears embedded in it. The coldfire reached the corpse, sizzling as it consumed both flesh and blood. A few of the children started to move away. One of them turned to run. Damien himself took a step back, and saw that Hesseth moved with him. Whatever power Tarrant was conjuring here, it was nothing he wanted to mess with.
—And then the silver-blue power shot out like a tongue of flame, licking at the face of one of the children. Whatever scream the girl might have voiced was frozen in her throat as she went down, and she died in eerie silence. The unflames licked at another, then another, and bodies began to fall about the circle. Some children screamed. Some turned to run. Damien wanted to turn his eyes and look away, but his conscience wouldn’t permit him to do it. You brought this man here, he told himself harshly. Forcing himself to watch. Never forget what he is. Never forget what he can and will do. As all about them children screamed, children ran, children tripped over piles of bodies and struggled for balance as the silver-blue flames licked out at them, consuming the very heat of their lives in an instant. All about lay the dead, the fallen, their lips
a cold blue, their eyes frozen and empty.
Then the last of the living children had fled, and the circle was lifeless. With a vast stroke of its wings the great bird came down to land. No sooner had it touched down than the coldfire flared up and consumed it, but the power was far from pure; looking closely, Damien could see the sparkle of golden flames—true fire—polluting its substance. Damn. That must hurt. When the Hunter was human once more, he quickly drew a fold of his cloak over his head like a hood, but not before Damien caught a glimpse of what the filtered sunlight had done to him.
“You know where the horses are?” Tarrant demanded. Scanning the clearing as he approached them. Studying the dead.
It was Hesseth who answered him. “No.”
He was still for a moment, then he pointed. The finger that poked out from under the cloak was sun-reddened and peeling; it seemed to Damien that its condition worsened even as the motion was completed. “That way. Get them and then keep going, to the end of the island. I’ll meet you there.”
Then it seemed from his posture that his eyes fell on something behind them. Damien whirled about, only to find that the girl from their prison was still with them. Too frozen with fear to move, she was cowering behind the inadequate shelter of a tree trunk, her dark eyes wide with terror. Even without Working the fae Damien could sense her slipping under, giving way at last to a barrage of fear too terrible for a mere child to resist.
It was Hesseth who moved first, covering the ground between them even as Tarrant began to react. “No!” she cried. She pulled the child to her and wrapped her arms about her. “Not this one! Not like that.”
For a moment it seemed that the Hunter would move against her anyway, with or without Hesseth in the way. But at last he turned back to Damien, and in a hoarse voice whispered, “I haven’t the strength to argue now. Take the horses. Meet me where I said. I’ll be there as soon as I’ve finished things.”
He turned to go. Damien grabbed his arm through the cloak. “It’s finished. Let them go. They’re just children, Hunter. They won‘t—”