The Hunter's Rede

by F. T. McKinstry

  “You knew him?”

  “Aye. Eusiron loved him greatly, and taught him much.”

  Lorth remembered the strange, black-haired blademaster who had trained him on the blade. No one could best Efar; he fought like a god by bending the time-space matrix.

  Just then, the door creaked open, and Icaros’s cat slipped into the room. She trotted across the floor and jumped into Lorth’s lap, dragging her tail over his face as she proceeded to inspect his plate. He drew her back with his arm around her. “That isn’t polite.” She began to purr. “This is not the cat I remember. I wonder what he named her.”

  “Scrat, I think.”

  “That was the last one’s name.”

  “Aye, and the one before that. They had the same father, and looked just alike. I gave him the kitten. I believe you were training here, at the time.”

  “That explains the seeming immortality of Scrat. I thought that cat had to be at least thirty-five years old.” Her laughter filled the room. A nice sound.

  Silence passed. “You knew Icaros?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I trained him in the ways of the Old One when he was younger.”

  “He never told me that.”

  The priestess looked at him thoughtfully, and said nothing. Again, silence fell, but now it had a shadow. You must take great care when stirring the waters of Maern, for you may not understand the consequences. Trained by a priestess of Maern. Not just words, then. The old wizard had known things about it.

  The Mistress pushed herself from her chair. “Come. I would like to bring you somewhere before I hand you over to the wolves.” She breathed an unsettling laugh.

  Lorth rose and walked to the bed. He picked up his knife and moved his fingers gently over the girlish curves, and then sheathed it into his boot.

  “That appears to have great value to you,” the Mistress observed.

  He envisioned Leaf’s body draped in blood on the floor where he had left her. “I stole it.” He picked up his sword, slung the strap over his shoulder and cinched down the scabbard with a deft skill he had acquired from years of practice.

  They left the room and entered a corridor containing narrow tapestries of trees. He fell in step beside her and said, “I had a bow.”

  She arched her brow. “We assumed you stole that too.”

  “Not that one. Another, a gift from Icaros. The Keepers in Os confiscated it.”

  “Ah, that one. It had an advanced homing spell on it—and Icaros’s pattern.”

  Lorth hadn’t known of such a pattern. The Keepers in Os must have seen that and connected him to Icaros. If they had sent word to Eaglin ahead of him, the Raven probably knew about his fight with the Osprey, too. Lorth chided himself for being such a fool. Wizards! They could send messages by air, apparition and mindspeak. What had made him think anything he did was hidden from them? And what they didn’t know, Tarthians or Faerins would have filled in.

  The Mistress turned to him as if he had just crept out from under a stone. “I fear your exploits in Os have preceded you.” She paused. “The othruthian poison was a nice touch.”

  “You speak that word as if you were born to the tongue.”

  She smiled. “My mother is Tarthian.”

  Lorth absorbed this uneasily as he realized what had seemed familiar about her. It also explained her skill with medicines. They descended a long stairwell with iron torch sconces in the shapes of twining branches. As they reached the bottom, she said, “Pull your hood.”

  Lorth did so.

  After a long silence disturbed only by their footsteps, he said, “I wonder that your High Guard aren’t accompanying us.”

  “Whatever else you are, you are a Web,” she said. “You could no more harm me than you could Maern.”

  She swept into a hall and down a wider flight of stairs. The halls brightened, and they passed by large rooms with beautiful tapestries, fountains and waterfalls splashing from corners or ravines cut into the sides of the walls. Fed by the Starfilon beneath, water ran everywhere through the palace, some of it heated and some of it not, depending on where it flowed. People moved about carrying blankets, baskets of grain or vegetables, armfuls of wood and buckets of water. Cats, hounds, geese, goats and wildlife also moved freely about the place, as if the forest lived and teemed here amid domestic life.

  The Mistress leaned down and picked up two apples from a basket, tossed one to Lorth. He bit into it. It was crisp and tasted faintly of strawberries.

  Wherever he looked, archers, blades, stablehands, squires and captains moved with marked urgency. Everyone else, priests, farmers, cooks, nobles, mothers and children appeared in a hurry to get out of the halls. They all looked at their Mistress with hope in their eyes.

  Lorth drew close to her said, “If I didn’t know better I’d say Eusiron is preparing for war.”

  She glanced at him sidelong. “That will be so, if I don’t come up with a convincing reason why I haven’t bound your powers and slapped you in chains.”

  She turned into a large hall with rafters arched above and hung with blazing cressets. Stables stretched out on either side, horses stood cross-tied in the aisle and people ran about carrying saddles and bags, bundles of weapons and the like. The Mistress stopped to have a word with a tall, armed warrior with wavy chestnut hair and beautiful tattoos of ivy on her forearms. Lorth moved further down the aisle, where he sidled up to a gelding the color of butterscotch. He fed the horse his apple core, feeling the velvety whiskers move over his hand as the beast took the treat. Lorth fondly inhaled the rich smell of hay, leather and manure. As he stroked the horse’s neck, he wondered where the guardsmen had put Freya and Oak.

  The Mistress returned to his side. He accompanied her to the far end of the stable and into a series of narrow stone corridors. She grabbed a torch and entered an unlit passage heavy with cold. They walked up shallow stairs to a landing with an arched door on the left and a square window at the end that looked out over an outdoor training yard. Young men circled each other on the dirty, flattened snow, sparring with wooden blades and spears. Others watched from the perimeter, their cloaks pulled close against the wind.

  The Mistress opened the door and led Lorth into a small room furnished with a stripped bed, a chest with iron fittings, a stool, a narrow table and a small fireplace that looked as if it hadn’t been used in decades. The wall contained stone hooks for hanging weapons, and the dusty head of an antlered deer. A barred window above the bed, half-covered by a tattered red cloth, overlooked the stable corridor. Lorth smelled horses, and heard the shouts of men below in the yard.

  “This room was your father’s,” the Mistress said. “It’s yours now, if you want it.”

  Lorth placed his hand on the wall. “Did you know him?”

  “I knew of him. Before he hired out to the City Guard, he lived here. Lone wolf, Fin was. It was rumored he was a hunter, but no one really knew what he did. He’d disappear for weeks or months, and return without note.”

  “Icaros told me he died on the Archer Falls.”

  “They say the wind took him. He never missed a step, or a shot, and getting one at him”—she smiled—“easier to hit the wind.” She drew a deep breath and looked around the room. “I’ll have Morfaen send a lad round to bring you wood, blankets, weapons, anything else you need.”

  “I would like to see my horse.”

  “The Faerin mare?”

  He tilted his head into an acquiescing nod. “She came to me.”

  “Why would she do that? Faerins don’t treat women well, but they love their horses.”

  “I merged with her, during a fight. She saw through my shields and followed me. I didn’t call or coerce her.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “Webs do have a way with animals. Come. We are expected.”

  They returned to the main corridor in the Hall of Thorns. She led him through a series of unfamiliar passages until they reached the intersection of a long hallway. There, she stopped.

  “You
have nothing to hide in here,” she said in a low voice. “But for the sake of Maern, don’t try to pull an energy shield or cast your mind into anything unless you want this to get right ugly. Eaglin reserves the authority to bring you before the Masters of the Eye. They may not be able to bind your powers, but they can still keep you from using them.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?” Lorth asked.

  She strode down the hall without answering. A tall arched door stood at the end; two heavily armed warriors guarded it. The door contained an ornate silver engraving of a tree with a star-shaped crystal in the center. As the Mistress approached, the men bowed their heads and put their fists on their chests. She spoke a word, placed both of her hands on the door and pushed it open.

  She ushered Lorth into a circular chamber with an enormous tree growing in the center. Its boughs, now barren, lifted to a high ceiling made of glass set into intricate panes in the shapes of flying birds. Roots covered the earthen floor in stunningly symmetrical plaits, forming a smooth surface. Branches whispered in the chamber, and grayish leaves drifted over the floor. Lorth wondered how the tree got rainwater. Another of Eusiron’s mysteries.

  The Mistress approached the tree and placed her hands upon it. “Hai love,” she said softly. A bough rustled, lowered down and brushed against the small of her back like a caress. Lorth had once heard about this, though he had disregarded it as a tale warriors tell over fire and drink in the wee hours. They called it the Om Tree. Seeded by the stars, the tree rooted deeply into the iomor beneath the palace. It was said the tree knew things, could tell truth from lies, and saw through its bark and limbs to the very heart of the Old One herself. And it loved the Mistress of Eusiron.

  The Mistress spoke, snapping Lorth out of his trance with a cold-water jolt. He let his gaze move over the branches filling the heights of the chamber as he moved to the live-wood chair that grew on one side of the trunk. As he sat down and drew back his hood, the tree shivered and sighed around him. He drew deep, smooth breaths to calm his mind.

  The Mistress left him there and moved to a crescent row of formal chairs set against the wall. Eaglin sat in the middle, directly across from Lorth, cloaked in black and wearing the expression of a netherworld god. The Mistress sat in the chair on his right. Next to her sat Regin, the captain of the High Guard. To Eaglin’s left sat Morfaen and a man in a blood-red cloak of the Order of Raptor. Lorth froze as he recognized the Osprey he had left wounded in the weapons shed in the Hunter’s Sanctuary. Sodding hell. The wizard gazed at him with the frosty confidence of an owl, his long-fingered hands folded in his lap. Lorth wouldn’t have been surprised to see the Tarthian lord here as well, or the Eagle at the city gates; but this Osprey would know everything they had to tell, and then some.

  This was either an informal affair, or a secret one. No men-at-arms stood at the ready, though in the presence of this lot, that would hardly be necessary. For that matter—he glanced up at the mighty tangle of boughs above him—this monster of a tree could end his life in a dozen different ways, were it so inclined.

  Eaglin’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Though you have met,” he said dryly, “I’ll start by introducing you to Barenus, Order of Osprey, Raptor of the First Rank.”

  Raptor of the First Rank. The warriors of Eyrie organized themselves into rank according to skill. This man was not only a Raptor, but a master of Raptors. He could have carved Lorth up like a hare, but had chosen to warn him, instead. Lorth gazed into the warrior’s eyes with grudging respect.

  Barenus leaned against his chair arm, as if to take the weight off his ribs. “What did you do with my Darkstar cloak?”

  Lorth lowered his gaze. He had almost forgotten about that. Almost. “I buried Icaros in it,” he said quietly.

  The Keeper stared at him in open astonishment.

  Regin barked a laugh. “No one would find it on you then, would they?”

  Lorth threw the captain a tired look, but saw no point in responding to the obvious.

  Eaglin said, “As it stands, you must answer for assaulting a Master of the Eye, stealing his cloak and possibly murdering two Ravens—”

  “You still think I murdered Icaros?” As Lorth rose to his feet, the tree around him swayed as if pulled by a strong wind. He looked up in alarm to make sure a branch wasn’t coming to strike him down for insolence. Then he returned his angry stare at the assembly, all of whom gazed up at the tree with varying expressions of nervousness and amazement. Eaglin revealed nothing. The Mistress lifted her brow in casual acknowledgment, and seemed to hide a smile. But as her tawny gaze touched Lorth’s, it held pale shelter. Her son had authority, here.

  “Sit down,” Eaglin said. As Lorth lowered himself onto his tree-seat, burning with anger and confusion, the wizard resumed: “What I’ve learned of your abilities and the manner in which you wield them stands in great contrast to your childhood with Icaros. Love can blind a man to his duty. The Eye trains wizards in balance, with respect to the interconnectedness of all things. Learning wizardry outside of those boundaries is dangerous, and has been known to make wizards of a darker kind.”

  “You are mad,” Lorth said. He threw a wild look at the Mistress, hoping for her defense, but got none.

  The tangle of branches above him moved around in agitation.

  “I have two things,” Eaglin continued, ignoring the outburst. “One, a lingering energy pattern in Icaros’s house that was unmistakably Tarthian; and two, the manner of his death.” He leaned forward intently, his mood darkening to twilight. “It’s not easy to kill a high wizard, Lorth. One does not simply walk into the house of a Raven and loose a spider on him—and yet I saw, in the space where Icaros died, just that. What’s more, I couldn’t see who did it, because it was in Void.”

  “Everything in existence, every event, is a pattern, a structure that is visible to consciousness,” the Mistress explained, though for what reason, Lorth couldn’t begin to guess. He studied the roots on the floor and wondered if this tree actually perceived his anger. “We can dip into these patterns and see things such as specific events, if there is a connection, a way in. This is what Eaglin attempted to do, to see what happened to Icaros. There are spaces in the minds of gods, however, that cannot be seen. Blank places. Portals through which the Old One moves and breathes; the Mystery, the Void, the component in everything by which it lives, dies and transforms. Sometimes, when looking at a pattern, all we see is silence, an emptiness we cannot penetrate.”

  Eaglin said, “What’s more, when I probed the space where Roarin died, I saw the Void just as I did in Icaros’s house. I believe the same person did it.” Lorth looked up at this. “It’s unlikely enough to find two men in Ostarin who’ve been bitten by Tarthian spider. But finding two dead Ravens with Void cloaking them is impossible. In both cases, you are the common denominator.”

  “Was Roarin also bitten?” Lorth asked.

  “Poisoned,” the Mistress said with all the warmth of a boa constrictor.

  “You were bitten,” Morfaen said. “We’d be interested to know how you survived that.”

  “A Tarthian woman helped me.” He paused. “You lot think I have the power to hide something in Void?”

  Barenus leaned forward. “I witnessed it. You became the Destroyer and defeated me. You wouldn’t have, otherwise.”

  Brilliant. Lorth breathed deeply as the sinews of the trunk shivered around him. A rastric scar, some othruthian tipped arrows and a foolish decision to invoke the Destroyer against a Keeper of the Eye had effectively undone any alibis he might come up with, here. They had all the proof they needed.

  He leveled a hunter’s gaze on Barenus. “I could’ve killed you.”

  “That’s not the point,” Eaglin said.

  The branches of the Om Tree swayed and clacked above. Lorth decided the tree didn’t find his attitude acceptable.

  “Why didn’t you kill him?” the Mistress asked Lorth simply. “If you had invoked the Destroyer, that would have been your only goal.
”

  Lorth stirred with surprise. He was certain the Old One had commanded him not to take Barenus’s life. If he had become the Destroyer, as he had thought, would he have killed him?

  Barenus said, “Perhaps, Mistress, he didn’t want to implicate himself further.”

  She leaned forward and stared at him. “One does not invoke Maern and then decide how far she can go. Only she knows. Lorth wouldn’t have been able to invoke her at all, had she not already cast the course of things.” She sat back in her chair with a beautiful lift of her chin. “I’d say you were warned.”

  Barenus said nothing. Two red splotches colored the tops of his cheeks.

  “Be that as it may,” Morfaen said to Lorth, “We have more reasons to implicate you than not. Three days ago, Forloc’s First Commander marched a hundred men up to our gates to claim your head.”

  “How do you know it’s me they’re looking for?” Lorth asked with a hint of sarcasm.

  “They described you as tall and lean, with brown braided hair, eyes like a wolf, elusive, swift and very dangerous.” He glanced at Barenus. “They say you’re an assassin. Considering the extent of your abilities, and what you accomplished in Os on your way out, that is unquestionable—especially considering the purse we found on you. No man of your stature comes by that much Tarthian royal coin without a great deal of blood on his hands.”

  Barenus shifted positions in his seat. “I conferred with a Tarthian noble on this matter. He claims to’ve known of a hunter in their employment, whom he called kav’tib. He never saw you. But I think it unlikely that two hired assassins with your particular abilities have been wandering around Tarth.”

  No death is mine. “Since when did your business extend to Tarth?” Lorth asked Eaglin.

  “It didn’t, until you arrived.”

  Lorth had sensed the same Tarthian imprint in Icaros’s house that Eaglin had. That and a rastric spider made one thing clear: they were dealing with a Tarthian assassin with some right dark abilities. He had to admit that was unlikely; someone had put great effort into framing him. Under the cloak of collusion, any of his enemies—Tarth, Faerin, even the Keepers—could have done it in the short time they had, each for their own reasons.