As he raced away, the Hunter risked a glance behind him. The enormous stone creature stood in the middle of the stone bridge, its writhing tail lashing out at one Warrior Priest while its claw punched straight through the splinted mail, padding, muscle, and bone of another’s chest. A swing of its massive arm sent a Warrior Priest flying off the bridge to plummet into the gorge, her tattooed head a pulped mess of bone and gore. One of the Cambionari screamed as the monster whirled, sending its spines raking across his chest and tearing through his armor like a pruning knife through rose petals.
Sir Danna's eyes followed him. "Coward!" Before she could hurl more insults, she had to throw herself to the ground to avoid a swipe of the Stone Guardian’s claws.
The Hunter bent low over Elivast's mane as the horse thundered up the trail. As he raced through the cliffs and away from the scene of carnage behind him, he scanned the path ahead for any sign of Hailen and the others.
The demon in his mind shrieked in protest at his flight, filling his head with images of battle, death, and blood. It wanted him to cut down the Cambionari, Warrior Priests, and Stone Guardians in one glorious wave of carnage.
The Hunter clenched his jaw at the wave of pain in his skull. The demon and Soulhunger should have fallen silent after a kill, but they clamored for more. The curse placed on these mountains had corrupted his inner voices, and they were growing worse every step.
His gut lurched when a shadow passed high over his head. Another Stone Guardian sped toward the battle, and a moment later the screams from behind him grew louder. A loud crack echoed around him, followed by a rumble of collapsing stone. The Hunter felt a grim satisfaction at the thought of Sir Danna and all her Warrior Priests dragged down with the bridge. The Stone Guardians would take care of any survivors.
His mind raced. The first monstrous creature had stared right at him, but it hadn't bothered to pursue him when he fled. The second Stone Guardian had also passed right over him without seeming to notice. So how had they known where to find him and the others? Without knowing how they hunted, he had no idea how to avoid or evade them.
One more Keeper-damned problem to deal with! Every time he took a step closer to reaching his goal, two obstacles cropped up. He'd found the way to reach Enarium, and now he had to worry about both Sir Danna and the Stone Guardians.
Worry nagged in the back of his mind as he rode. The rest of his small company had ridden off less than five minutes before he followed. He ought to have caught up by now. Yet he could see no sign of them on the trail ahead. The mountains were as empty as their name.
He galloped around a horseshoe bend in the trail, and he felt a momentary relief at the sight of a dark hole alongside the path. If Rassek and Darillon had seen the Stone Guardians, they would doubtless seek shelter in the cave.
He pulled Elivast to a halt in front of the cave. "Rassek? Darillon?"
Silence. His heart lurched. Had he passed them? Had the Stone Guardians attacked them? He hadn't seen blood on the path, but perhaps the—
"Hardwell?" came Hailen's voice.
The Hunter let out a long, relieved breath as he dismounted and led Elivast into the cave. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. When he could finally see, he found himself confronted by two short swords.
The anger is fine.
"Really?" He raised an eyebrow at Rassek and Darillon. He pushed the blades aside. "Now isn't the time for—"
Darillon whipped his sword around, pointing the tip at the Hunter's chest. "Time you tell us what the bloody hell is going on," he growled, his face as hard as the stone around him.
The Hunter glanced at Rassek. The younger man's expression revealed less of the suspicion that sparkled in Darillon's eyes, but no less determination.
"Look," the Hunter said, "I promised you an explanation, but we can't wait around here while those things are out there. What if this is their home, or they come looking for us? The smart thing would be to put as much ground between us and them as possible."
"Not until we get some real answers." Darillon's eyes narrowed. "Tell us why the knight and the bloody Warrior Priests are after us."
"They're not after us." The Hunter spoke in a low voice. "They're hunting me."
From the corner of his eye, he caught the look of relief that crossed Evren's face. The young thief relaxed and lowered his dagger.
"Why?" Darillon demanded.
"Because the knight, Sir Danna, wants vengeance for the death of two of her comrades," the Hunter said simply. "I killed them in self-defense, but she won't accept that." He had no reason to conceal this part of the story. Everyone had a checkered past.
Darillon's eyes narrowed. "And you think that's enough of an answer to make us trust a Keeper-damned word out of your mouth?"
The Hunter shrugged. "It's the truth, and it's all you're going to get right now. Once I'm sure we're well ahead of the knight and those monsters, I can answer more questions." He slapped the short sword away from his chest and moved toward Hailen. "If you don't want to trust me, that's not my problem. I don't expect you to trust me. All that matters is that we get where we need to go. Right now, that's away from here."
Rassek gripped Darillon's hand before the older man could retort. "He's right, he is." His eyes flashed toward the Hunter. "About needin’ to be gettin’ out of here, at least."
"Even if it means those Warrior Priests and knights are going to keep hounding us?" Darillon snapped.
"If it makes you feel better," the Hunter interjected, "they were pretty busy fighting two Stone Guardians. Something tells me they'll have their hands full for a while." Hopefully, full enough they don't live to worry about me.
Hailen smiled as the Hunter crouched beside him. "Did you kill the bad men?"
The Hunter's heart twisted. The innocent child he'd met in the House of Need would never have asked such a question. Hailen had seen too much over the last few months. He'd watched Father Pietus murdered, been hauled off by raiders, seen the Hunter slay scores of bandits, and been held prisoner by a demon. He had grown too accustomed to death for one so young.
"No." The Hunter shook his head. "I just talked to them, then they let me go."
Hailen's little forehead furrowed. "Why do they want to hurt you, Hardwell?"
"Do you remember Father Pietus, Lord Knight Moradiss, and Garanis?" The Hunter wiggled his fingers in front of his face the way Hailen had back in the House of Need. "Nasty Face?"
Hailen nodded, and his smile brightened. "Oh, yes. I liked Father Pietus, and Shiny Man was always kind to me." Shiny Man was the name he’d given to the Lord Knight.
"Well, those people are mad at me for what I did to them."
"Because you killed them?"
The Hunter nodded and swallowed the ache in his gut. "Yes. I had to, to protect you from Nasty Face."
Hailen crinkled his nose. "I didn't like him."
"He was a very bad man," the Hunter said. "But they don't know that. They want to punish me for that."
"But you were protecting me, right?"
"That's right." The Hunter sighed. "And I will keep protecting you, I promise."
"Even from the monsters?" Hailen whispered, and his eyes went wide.
"Yes." The Hunter gripped the boy's little hand tight. "Even from the monsters. Nothing is going to happen to you."
"Okay!" Hailen gave a cheery nod and climbed to his feet. "Can we go riding now? I think Ash is getting bored."
The Hunter glanced over at the small, grey desert horse. Ash shifted from foot to foot, visibly nervous, as were Elivast and the other three horses. Horses had keen instincts that warned them of the presence of predators; their senses had to be shrieking at them to flee the massive Stone Guardians.
"You're probably right." The Hunter picked Hailen up, carried him over to Ash, and deposited him in the saddle. "So I think it's time we keep riding."
"Can I lead?" Excitement pitched Hailen's voice higher.
The Hunter pretended to think for a
moment, then gave a little nod. "What if we both lead? We can ride together."
"Oh, yes!" Hailen grinned. "Ash and Elivast are good friends, and they like traveling together. The other day, when we were camping in the desert…"
The Hunter couldn't help smiling at the boy's rambling. It felt good to hear Hailen's high-pitched warbling as he talked incessantly about whatever came to his mind. The boy hadn't looked this good for months, not since the change that had come over him in the Advanat Desert. The day the Hunter discovered his heritage as not just an Elivasti, but a Melechha.
He turned to Rassek, Darillon, and Evren. "If you don't want to come, I won’t hold it against you. The knight will not harm you. She has come for me and no one else." He didn't mention that the Cambionari had been sent to bring Hailen back to the House of Need.
Darillon nodded. "So be it. We will—"
"Be comin’ with ye, we will," Rassek interrupted.
Darillon's eyebrows rose, and he fixed Rassek with an incredulous gaze. "Really? We're going to keep trusting him even now?"
Rassek shrugged. "I don’t see why not." He raised an eyebrow at the Hunter. "Are ye goin’ to be murderin’ either of us in our sleep?"
The Hunter shook his head. "No."
"Do ye intend to be hurtin’ the young man or the boy?"
The Hunter's jaw clenched. "No."
Rassek turned to Darillon. "Good enough fer me, says I."
"You can't be that naïve to think—"
Rassek cut him off with a slash of his hand. "It’s not naiveté, Darillon. All of us be havin’ secrets, we are. All of us be havin’ things we are tryin’ to ferget, things we are ashamed of." He gave the older mountaineer a hard look.
Darillon's face hardened. "Really? You bring that up now? You compare that to killing a priest?"
Rassek shrugged. "Would a hardened murderer be riskin’ his own life to save ye from fallin’ to yer death?"
Darillon's mouth froze halfway open, and his retort died unspoken.
Rassek turned to the Hunter. "We be owin’ ye fer Darillon's life, we are. Both of us. Fer that reason alone, we will be continuin’ on with ye."
"And the treasures of Enarium have nothing to do with it?" The Hunter grinned.
The younger mountaineer's face showed no sign of mirth. "If I was believin’ ye a danger to either of us, I would give up all the gold in Aegeos in a heartbeat. Ye may have killed those men, see, but I am not believin’ ye intend on harmin’ us." His gesture encompassed the three of them. "Any of us, says I."
The Hunter placed a hand over his heart. "You have my word, on the Watcher in the Dark, that you have nothing to fear from me. My only desire is to reach Enarium."
Rassek fixed him with a long, hard gaze. After a moment, he nodded. "I believe ye." He spoke to Darillon. "Let's go. We need to be puttin’ as much distance between us and those things as possible."
"Wait." Darillon grabbed Elivast's reins before the Hunter could set the horse into motion. "The knight called you demonspawn. Why?"
The Hunter gave him a mocking grin. "It seems she's not particularly creative with insults. Or, in her mind, that is the worst thing she could think to call me." A simple explanation, one far easier to accept than the fact that he truly was the spawn of demons. "If we ever meet again, I promise to educate her on proper slander."
Darillon scowled, but released Elivast's reins.
The Hunter forced his expression to remain neutral, but the tension in his shoulders relaxed. As he rode out of the cavern, he let out a long, slow breath. Nothing would have stopped him from reaching his goal. Yet, he was surprised to find himself relieved that he didn't have to kill the mountaineers.
They'll never know how close they came to death.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A tense silence gripped their small group as they continued up the trail. Every time the Hunter glanced over his should to check for any sign of Sir Danna or the Warrior Priests, he found Darillon's eyes burning into his back. Rassek's expression revealed nothing, and Evren seemed fully occupied with staying in his saddle on the winding trail.
Hailen chattered happily beside the Hunter, but not even his high-pitched voice could drown out the Hunter's worry about the Stone Guardians. He had no idea what had drawn them in the first place. Had it been the presence of humans? The opening of the cliffs? The demonic blood within him? Could the massive creatures see, hear, smell, or feel them as they rode? He knew nothing about them, and that left him uneasy.
The path continued ever-upward, the ground turning rocky as the incline grew strenuous. Thankfully, the horses could manage most of the way, though more than once they had to dismount to walk over the more rugged sections. The grey limestone crumbled beneath their boots, and the stony shards littering the ground made for hard going.
The tension hadn't diminished by the time the sun began to set. The Hunter wasn't certain if he should feel relieved that they hadn't seen any sign of Sir Danna, or if they should fear the darkness concealing a horde of Stone Guardians creeping up on them. His nerves were raw, his senses on full alert as they set up camp in a small grotto carved into the cliff walls.
Rassek chivvied Darillon until the older mountaineer relented and made a small fire, barely enough to provide faint illumination for their small campsite. They ate a cold meal of dried beef and nuts washed down with water gone tepid after a day in the sun. Hailen chattered on as if at a grand feast for a king, accompanying every bite with a steady stream of random observations, pointless questions, and stories he made up on the spot. What the Hunter had once found so annoying now came as a welcome change from the silent, empty-eyed boy of the last two days.
Darillon sat with his back against the stone, his eyes fixed on the Hunter. His hand never strayed far from his belt dagger, and he'd kept the short sword at his hip since leaving the cave. Rassek's facial expression revealed far less nervousness, but a hint of fear shone in his sidelong glances every time the Hunter moved or spoke.
Evren simply sat in silence, his face unreadable. He’d given the Hunter a wide berth all day long. Though he hadn't shown any sign of fear at the revelation of the Hunter’s past, his demeanor had changed since their conversation the previous night. He simply treated the Hunter with the same wariness with which he treated anyone—the side effects of his years spent as a thief and the abuse at the hands of the Lecterns.
The thought filled the Hunter with rage at the Master's priests. The demon sought to fan those flames by filling his head with images that made him sick to his stomach. The Hunter clenched his fists to banish the shrieking voice, but his efforts proved fruitless.
The curse placed on the Empty Mountains didn't just affect the Abiarazi, it seemed. Whatever had pushed back Hailen's madness also amplified the Hunter's demonic half. If he didn't find Enarium soon, he feared he'd lose his mind.
He dug into his pack and pulled out the Taivoro. He flipped to the passage that had revealed the secrets of the path to Enarium, then kept reading to see if he could find any answers on what to expect now.
“The way is open
My love’s most treasured secret parts
Bared before me
Yet no peace will we have
Love denied us
By guardians of the king.”
The Hunter’s brow furrowed as he read the story. The Journeyman bard’s passionate encounter with Princess Hylada of Ghandia was cut short by the arrival of the guards set in place by her father, King Draqua. The chapter ended with the singer thinking about his amorous encounter with the Hylada, saying:
“The lost jewel of my princess
Danger beyond comprehension
The heart of a muse
All who enter her chambers
Face death and danger
When the power they use.”
The story proved as frustratingly cryptic as ever. Could the “guardians of the king” have something to do with the Stone Guardians? If so, how did a detailed description of Enmor’s m
anhood help him survive or defeat the massive monsters?
He looked up at Evren and found the youth staring at him. When he raised an eyebrow, the thief quickly dropped his eyes.
"Evren, can you see if you can find anything else in here that could show us where to go?" The Hunter held out the book.
Evren's brow furrowed as he reached for the volume. "I can try, but I ain’t rememberin’ anythin’ else odd."
"Try reading the bit about the king’s guardians and see if that gives you any clues." The Hunter shrugged. "Perhaps it's referring to the Stone Guardians. You know, ‘love denied us by guardians of the King'."
Evren nodded slowly. "Right." He opened to the page the Hunter had mentioned, tilted the book toward the fire, and began to read.
The tense silence descended once more, broken only by the crackling of the fire. The absence of Hailen's voice caused the Hunter to turn. The boy had fallen asleep where he sat, a strip of dried beef still clutched in his hands. The excitement of the day must have worn him out.
The Hunter scooped Hailen up and carried him into the tent. The boy seemed so frail and small in his arms, it almost scared him to think back on how much Hailen had endured since the House of Need. A lump rose in his throat as he settled Hailen gently onto his bedroll and smoothed the hair back from Hailen's forehead.
"So you don't have a problem with it?"
The Hunter's sensitive ears picked up Darillon's whisper through the canvas of the tent.
"We're not fer makin’ friends with him, Darillon," Rassek rejoined, his voice equally low. No doubt they thought they spoke quietly enough to avoid being overheard, but they hadn't counted on his inhumanly keen hearing.
The Hunter listened to the two men speaking.
"Listen, I know ye’re suspicious of him," Rassek was saying. "But even if he did kill that knight's friends, that don’t mean he's goin’ to be harmin’ us. Even mild-mannered men can be pushed to extremes, they can."
"Mild-mannered?" Darillon snorted. "You saw his sword and dagger, the way he brushed aside our swords like they were elm switches. That's a man who's seen more than his fair share of death. Probably caused it, too."
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