by Aldrea Alien
“No, thank you.” He brushed the leaves and dirt from his skirts and stood. “I don’t think I’ll be doing much sleeping for a while anyway.” How could he when Tracker could easily double back and kill the others? He was not about to risk their lives for something as trite as sleep. “In fact, why don’t I take first watch tonight?”
Her gaze flicked over her shoulder in the direction of their camp, then back to him. She clambered to her feet, carefully holding the torch away from the foliage dangling above them. “All right. I’ll inform Marin that—”
“I’ll take her watch, too. And the others.” He rather doubted he’d get any sleep tonight. He certainly couldn’t bring himself to share the tent with Tracker.
Katarina frowned, twisting the scar running across her face. “Spellster or not, you need to sleep just as much as the rest of us.” She jerked her head, indicating the way back to camp before taking the lead.
Dylan picked his way through the undergrowth, trying to keep on her heels. When he’d first marched out here, he hadn’t been concentrating on the ground. Now, everything seemed ready to trip him. “I’ll take a nap whilst everyone’s eating.” He could get perhaps a half-hour overall each day. Not enough to get by on long-term, granted. But for a few days? “It’ll be fine.”
The hedgewitch halted to face him. “So you’ll forsake nourishment instead? There’s barely enough of you now.” In the torchlight, her hazel eyes took on a soft amber hue.
He squirmed under her piercing stare. “I’ll eat on the road. It’s the better part of a week to Wintervale by foot. Once we reach there… Well, it won’t matter anymore, will it?” Nothing would. He’d be back to being a weapon. A death sentence. The hound spoke the truth there. But if he ran now, he’d be hunted. Dragged back or slain.
Her frown deepened. Katarina opened her mouth.
“Dylan!” Marin screamed. “Kat! Help!”
Katarina locked eyes with him. “You don’t think…?”
His feet took over before he could think. Dylan raced ahead of the hedgewitch. If anything had happened to them in his absence, he’d never forgive himself.
Further yelling came from the camp, little more than snippets of arguing caught in-between the crashing of their bodies through the undergrowth.
“…was mine…” That sounded like Authril, the words strained. Pained.
“Ha!” No mistaking Tracker’s voice or the venom in it. “…just a toy…”
Dylan exploded into the clearing with Katarina close behind.
Authril lay on the ground. Tracker straddled her chest, one hand at her throat. The hound had the purple alchemist’s dagger bared and seemed to have every intention of using it on her. The only thing stopping him was the hunter’s grip on his upraised arm.
Marin glanced their way, relief and tendrils of hair plastered across her face. “A little help here?”
Tracker’s head snapped up, murder still gleaming in his eyes. That gaze settled on Dylan. Shock and terror slackened his features. He leapt to his feet, almost knocking Marin to the ground and sheathed the dagger. “It is not what it looks like.” The man bit his lip, clearly aware of how foolish that claim was.
“Are you sure about that?” Dylan shot back. “Because it looks like you were trying to kill her.”
The hound held up a placating hand. “I can ex—”
“Flaming lunatic,” Authril croaked, rubbing at her throat. “Do all hounds lose it when their toys don’t want to play with them anymore or is it just you?”
Snarling, Tracker lunged for the woman, his attack halted only by Marin’s swift intervention. “If you do not watch that pretty mouth of yours, my dear warrior, it will have you winding up in a ditch. You have already done enough damage.”
“She has done enough damage?” Dylan echoed.
Authril scrambled across the ground, gaining her feet and dashing to Dylan’s side.
“Oh yes,” the hound sneered, groping at one of the many sheaths holding his knives. “Go right ahead and play the innocent party, my dear woman. You will not be able to use him as a shield once we reach Wintervale.”
Dylan gently pushed the warrior further behind him. “I think now would be the best time to disarm yourself, Track. Before you do something you’ll regret.”
The man’s cold glare settled on him, melting the longer they stood there until Dylan was certain the hound was close to crying. “That has already happened,” Tracker rasped. “But as you like.” Slowly, the hound removed his weapons, dumping them at his feet. When the last knife fell, he shrugged off Marin’s restraining hand and marched into his tent.
Dylan hung his head. He’d hoped that Tracker’s deceit had only been about his affections for Dylan and the wilful omission of his fellow hounds being behind the slaughter in the tower. That, even as much as knowing he’d been lied to stung, Tracker was still the same man. But this? Never would he have expected the hound to attack Authril because Dylan had discovered his lie.
As much as pained him to admit it, he didn’t know the real Tracker at all.
Rain poured through the trees. Dylan edged around the camp perimeter, scurrying from one dripping bough to another in an effort to remain dry. No matter how hard he tried to find shelter, the water still managed to trickle through the leaves and land on him. The night had to be less than half over and, already, he was soaked through to his undertunic.
It had started pouring down not long after they had finished their evening meal, which had been the tensest one to date. Tracker spent much of the time sitting in the entrance to his tent, glaring at Authril whilst he ate as if he could stop her heart with such a look.
Shivering, Dylan gave up on the hope of finding a place to get dry beneath the trees and crouched near the barely-glowing remains of the campfire. He rubbed his arms. Even with the latent healing magic tingling through his body, he was starting to lose feeling in his extremities.
His gaze slid to the tent where the hound was tucked up, all warm and dry. Dylan’s chest tightened at the thought of lying by the man’s side, snuggled in Tracker’s arms. He’d felt so at peace there. Safe. Wanted.
The crown had trained her hounds well in their craft.
He turned his back on the tent, silently chiding his fool heart, and chucked a few branches onto the embers. Smoke curled around the wood but no more. It had to be the cold making him so weak. He’d be warmer if he dried his clothes, and he could in a matter of minutes, but such an effort would be wasted with the rain still pelting down. Perhaps if he built a big enough fire, the heat could take the edge off.
It took a little more effort than he would’ve liked to ignite the sodden branches. Flames licked the air, hissing in the rain. The heat the fire put out was negligible, but he still tossed on another few bits of wood. He’d need more before the night was done, especially if they were to have a hot breakfast. His gaze lifted to the forest. In the firelight, the trees were little more than dark impressions in the gloom.
The wet slap of canvas reached his ears. Dylan continued staring out at the trees, studiously ignoring the familiar tread of Tracker’s boots and silently disgusted that he knew the man’s steps so intimately. Would it be too much to ask that the hound was merely up to relieve himself?
“Have you been out here all night?” Tracker asked.
“Yes.” What was the alternative? Share a tent with a man he couldn’t trust?
The hound squatted next to him. “You are soaking.” The concern in the words was thick. Dylan couldn’t help wondering how much of it was genuine. “I thought you were able to stop the rain falling on you?”
He was capable of such a feat, but having a shield that dense drained too much of his energy. And he needed to conserve all he could if he was going to forsake a decent night’s sleep.
“You should go inside.” The hound indicated the empty tent with a twitch of his head. “Get out of the rain before you catch your death. I can help you dry off and—”
“I am not sleeping w
ith you,” Dylan mumbled. “In any sense of the word.”
Tracker frowned. “I did not suggest that we—”
“You tried to kill Authril.”
The hound remained silent for a brief moment. Was he busy trying to concoct a believable lie? He had to know Dylan wouldn’t trust a word from his mouth. “You were not there to hear what she said about—”
“Does that justify it?” Dylan glared at the fire. Was that all it took to set the man off? A few bad words his way? He rather doubted she’d threatened anyone’s life, and whatever the woman had said, it couldn’t have been worse than what Dylan had flung at the hound. Yet Tracker had stayed his hand. Even when Dylan goaded him.
“No,” Tracker replied, sighing. “It certainly does not. I was not thinking straight and, although I am certain she was aware of that and chose a retort that would elicit her desired reaction, I should not have let her attempts to provoke me affect me as deeply as it did.”
Dylan shook his head, barely hearing what the man had said. “I was so close,” he whispered. “You almost had me seriously considering leaving Demarn and that’s not even the worst part.” He stared unwaveringly into the shadows that cloaked the forest. “I actually believed you cared…”
Tracker hesitantly placed a hand on Dylan’s knee. The man’s warmth seeped through the robes as his thumb brushed across Dylan’s kneecap. “I do.”
A brief, self-derisive laugh burst through his lips. He shook his head. “This is just a job to you. Your duty as a hound. You said it yourself. Find the spellster, keep him safe until you can force him on another.”
“That…” The gentle sweeping motion of the man’s thumb stopped. “That is not—”
“Well, you can be sure you won’t get any trouble from me.” Whilst he couldn’t guarantee the hound wouldn’t do away with him, the brief time escorting him would hopefully be enough to give his friends a decent head start. “Do your duty. Take me to Wintervale, that’s what you were doing anyway.”
“I would vastly prefer not to,” Tracker whispered. “I have no desire to lead you to your death.”
“Oh really?” Dylan scoffed, finally finding the courage to face the man. “We’re a few days from Wintervale, if you weren’t taking me there, then—”
“This has never been about getting you there.”
He jerked back, not quite sure he’d heard correctly. “And who else could you possibly be taking there but me?”
Tracker’s gaze drifted towards the tent where the women slept. “The only one who truly desires to return to the army and has always insisted on us moving onwards. Things would have been far easier had she chosen to not come with us.”
“Authril?” The name fell flatly between his lips. “Why would you be so concerned about her reaching Wintervale?”
“Because if I do not take her there myself, then I know she would tell them about you.”
“That is the stupidest excuse I have—”
“Do you not listen to what she says? Or see how she treats you? In her eyes, spellsters deserve only to be leashed or dead. I do not wish for either fate to befall you.”
Shaking his head, Dylan stared into the shadows beneath the trees. By the gods, the man’s explanations were getting worse.
“I could have left her on the roadside,” Tracker continued. “Unconscious, but alive. However, there was no guarantee that she would not find some way to pay for a messenger pigeon before I could get you out of Demarn.”
“You honestly expect me to believe that was your plan since we met?” He knew that couldn’t be true. Why would he bother travelling east to Whitemeadow if leaving Demarn was his goal? Veering around the base of the western mountain range would’ve landed them in Dvärghem far sooner.
“Not as far back as then, no. But since Whitemeadow. Since I learnt the truth from Fetch.”
Dylan thought back to the past few weeks, of how persistent Tracker had become of speaking about other places, of travelling away from their destination. It had begun at Whitemeadow. Perhaps the man spoke the truth in not wanting to lead Dylan to his death.
He risked a peek at Tracker. The hound’s head was bowed, weary. The man watched the fire snap and pop in the rain, seemingly unaware of Dylan’s scrutiny.
Finally, Tracker sighed. “Not only would not having our dear warrior around made things far easier for us, there has been quite a number of times where it could have been a simple matter of letting her fall to one of the bandits, but I knew you would not let that stand. You would have tried to heal her.” He grasped Dylan’s sleeve. “Still, I need you to trust I mean you no harm. If we leave before the others wake, I can—”
Dylan turned his head before those beseeching eyes got the best of him. “What makes you think I could possibly trust you now?” The words escaped his lips far softer than he thought himself capable of.
Out the corner of his eye, Dylan caught the elf opening his mouth. He waited for the man to speak and gave a disgusted grunt when all Tracker did was hang his head.
“You know what the guardians would tell us whenever we asked about leaving the tower?” Dylan whispered. “That we were safe there. It was the one place where we’d never have to be afraid of anything. Especially not hounds.” And he had believed them. All his life, he’d believed Tricia’s claim that nothing would ever dare to breach their defences.
Still, the hound remained silent.
“I never should have left.” If he hadn’t tried so hard to be considered worthy of a position in the army, he would’ve been at the tower for the attack. “I could’ve helped. I could’ve—”
“Died,” Tracker finished. “I know you.”
Dylan snorted his amusement. “No, you don’t,” he snapped, his gut twisting at what he knew to be a lie. He’d been far too eager to open himself up to the hound. On a great many levels. That thought alone was enough to make him sick. Tracker might have been gentle back at the tower, caring too, but it had all be an act.
“Dylan,” the hound purred. “You are a fiercely protective man.” The man’s fingers loosened their grip on Dylan’s sleeve to travel up his arm. “And that means you would have raged through the Talfaltaner mercenaries in a terrifying blaze of power the very minute you sensed danger. And so, you would have died.”
To hounds. And he wouldn’t have even known why his magic failed him. He might’ve figured it out, but it would’ve been too late. “I could’ve saved more people than they did.” So what if his life was taken? If his death meant others lived, even two lives to his one, it would’ve been worth the sacrifice.
“You have no way to determine if that is what would have happened. Others may have lived, true. Or your sacrifice could have been in vain, but you would be dead and we—” His mouth shut with a click.
We never would’ve met. Did the hound consider the thought as a blessing or a curse? Dylan wasn’t quite sure of that himself.
Tracker rubbed his neck. “I have been trying to figure out why the hounds would attack. It makes no sense for them to be involved in this sort of thing. It is not what they train us for, unless…” He hung his head. “I have not been to Wintervale for a very long time. You recall I said our orders come from the king’s sister, yes? She was ill the last I heard. Deathly so. Fetcher mentioned something about a master, that could only mean our mistress’ son. If he has taken over, he… Well, suffice to say he holds no love for your kind. He must have given the order. Without his uncle’s knowledge, I would think.”
“Did you know about the order?” If Fetcher had managed to get a letter commanding all the hounds to attack the tower, then why not Tracker? “Before it happened?”
Tracker slowly shook his head. “I travel far too much to get more than the occasional missive sending me to this village or that. Even then, if they sought to send a letter to Toptower… You saw the chaos around it, yes? It would not be the first time a message has gotten lost along the way.”
“And if it had reached you? You would’ve obeyed
it?” Dylan stared at the forest, bracing himself for the answer, not entirely certain what that might be.
“Our duty is to bring unleashed spellsters to the tower. Killing is a last resort, used only when they prove unstable or have already committed a crime punishable by death.” On the edge of his vision, Dylan spied Tracker turning his face to the fire. “In truth, part of why I did not tell you was because I was unwilling to believe that… that my kin were responsible for such mindless slaughter.”
“The order, Track,” Dylan pressed. “Would you have refused to follow it?”
Silence greeted him. He pulled his gaze from the forest to find Tracker staring at him, uncertainty and defiance warring in those honey-coloured eyes. A far cry from the deadly and confident hound he’d first encountered.
“I…” The man audibly swallowed. “I do not know.”
Dylan stood, water pouring from his robe. The reply was about what he should’ve expected. Why he had thought there’d be any other sort of answer was beyond him. “I think that, until you can formulate a proper answer to the question, we should have as little to do with each other as possible for the rest of the journey.”
Agony swept across Tracker’s face. “No.” He clutched Dylan’s skirts. “I would never—”
He jerked the fabric free of the man’s grasp. “Goodnight, hound. I believe the watch is yours.”
~~~
Dylan woke alone. The tent was cold and empty of the hound’s things, the only exception being the blankets still cocooning Dylan. The vacant sight should’ve gladdened him, but it meant the man had ventured close whilst Dylan slept. He was probably more fortunate to not wake finding he’d had his throat slit. Or rather, not waking at all.
He tilted his head, listening for some sign of what waited beyond the canvas. Not much penetrated the patter of rain, leading him to forsake his usual routine and vacate the tent to discover just how many of his companions were also awake.
Marin stepped back as he exited the tent, lowering her hand from the edge of the entrance. “Good morning,” she said, the words forcibly sweet. “As you can see, the rain has decided not to let up for our convenience. I doubt there’s enough dry wood to make a fire, we’re probably best eating as we walk anyway.”