She stumbled down into the valley, her muscles burning with exhaustion. Every step was an effort. Her knees trembled, and she had to focus all her attention on forcing one foot in front of the other.
She came to the bottom, wove through the ice-slick rocks that lined the bank, then fell, her hands striking the frozen river. A pulse seemed to radiate outward, just beyond her hearing.
Hweilan pushed herself up, crossed the river, then collapsed on the other side. Dark pines, ages old, leaned over, covering her in their shadow.
"Safe," she said. Lendri had said so. Once you cross the river you should be safe.
She rolled over on the bank and looked back. Evening was giving way to night. The brightest stars were out, but shadows clung thick among the rocks of the far side. Amid those dark shadows, something pale moved.
Kadrigul.
Hweilan watched, her ragged breathing calming, but her heart beating faster than ever.
The pale warrior stopped on the opposite bank and looked down. She heard him snarl.
Safe, she thought. I'm safe.
A small laugh-no more than a cough of air-escaped her, and the Kadrigul-thing looked up, its red eyes blazing in the growing dark.
He stepped onto the river. His snarl choked off, as if he were in pain, and his gait slowed, as if he were wading through onrushing water. But he kept coming, step by lurching step, dragging his broken leg behind him.
"No," said Hweilan, and it came out half a whimper.
She didn't have the strength to get to her feet, but she crawled backward as best as she could. She made it perhaps a dozen feet before the bank became too steep, and she slid back down a ways until her foot caught on the exposed root of one of the old pines.
Kadrigul stepped onto the bank.
Her heart was beating so hard that it drowned out all other sounds. She couldn't even hear his footfall as he came toward her, his hands reaching out.
A snarling shadow bowled into him, and they both hit the ground.
Wide-eyed, Hweilan watched. It was Lendri, back in elf form, though the growls coming from him were all wolf.
The Kadrigul-thing screamed-more in fury than pain, Hweilan knew-and stood, Lendri's jaws locked around his throat. Kadrigul grabbed his hair with one hand and lower jaw with the other, then wrenched the elf off. With one hand around Lendri's throat, he held the elf at arm's length. Lendri screamed, clawing at Kadrigul's torso with his feet, his fingers-now tipped with claws-raking at his face and eyes.
Kadrigul smiled, even as Lendri tore his eyes away, leaving only the red fire behind.
"I know your stink," said Kadrigul. He breathed in deep through his nose. "I remember now. I killed your mother. Ate her heart."
Lendri managed one last shriek of defiance, then Kadrigul struck with his other hand, punching through Lendri's gut, up and into his chest cavity, breaking through muscle and bone. He yanked and pulled out the dark, dripping mass of Lendri's heart. Lendri's arms and legs went limp, a final shudder passed through him, and then Kadrigul dropped his lifeless body.
Tears froze on Hweilan's cheeks.
Kadrigul dropped the heart into the snow. Those red eyes turned to her. "Now, to the main course."
A curtain of light, pale and cold, washed over them, and a ripple of something passed through the ground and air.
When Hweilan was a little girl, she had once sneaked into her parents' bedchamber very early one morning, coming forward on tiptoes over the thick rug. Her father lay nearest, eyes closed, breathing deep and steady. She had said, "Father?" His eyes remained closed, but something had changed. Between one breath and the next, some indefinable something told Hweilan that her father was awake.
That same feeling filled her now. Something had woken.
She turned to see where the light was coming from and saw the first pale rim of the moon climbing over the black horizon. Full and fat. With so much snow on the ground, once the moon rose high, it would be almost bright as day even at midnight. The Hunter's Moon.
Howling filled the air. But like no howling Hweilan had ever heard. This was a call of thunders.
The red light in the Kadrigul-thing's eyes flickered and dimmed.
"No." He gasped and lurched backward. But then his gaze fixed on Hweilan, and the fire blazed again. "No!"
He came at her, arms outstretched, and a storm of ravens struck him, wings flapping as they pecked and tore at him. He stumbled, righted himself, then fell as a black wolf ran in and sank its jaws into his good leg.
A shriek cut through the night air, and Hweilan knew it did not come from the animated corpse before her, but from the dark will inside it.
The Kadrigul-thing fought its way to its feet. Orange flames had broken out along the surface of the pale skin. It caught in the feathers of the ravens, setting them alight. The wolf shrieked in pain and fled.
Dead ravens, still smoldering, fell to the snow. Hweilan could not look away. Torn flesh hung off bones. The remaining clothes had burned away, and still the flames grew. He took one step toward Hweilan.
And something landed between them. A huge figure, taller than any man Hweilan had ever seen. Moonlight glinted off pale scars that ribboned his muscled frame. His left hand dripped blood. In his right he gripped a long spear, its black head barbed and cruel. Antlers sprouted from his skull.
It was the shape that had haunted her dreams.
Nendawen had come.
A green eldritch light sparked around the barbed point of Nendawen's spear.
The thing of flame shrieked. Defiance, agony, and futility. The spirit fled the remains of Kadrigul's body and shot across the river, like flames borne by storm winds. Nendawen took one step forward and threw his spear. The light crackled around the shaft as it flew. It struck the heart of the flames, and in the resulting maelstrom of darkness and light, Hweilan knew-knew in the deepest well of her heart-that something wild and hungry ate the fiery spirit. Swallowed it whole.
The fire went out.
Nendawen turned. A mask of bone hid his face, but behind the empty sockets glowed the same green light that bathed his spear.
Why have you come? It was a growl in her mind, but she understood the meaning.
She looked into those eyes and saw that what Menduarthis had told her was true. There was no malice there. Nothing so petty. But something far stronger. Far older. Primal. There was no word for it, for it had been born long before there were such things as words in the tongues of men.
"I come to hunt," she said.
Good. And who are you?
"Uh…" She searched for the words. Could Lendri have been wrong? Worse, could Menduarthis have been right in telling her not to trust him?" I was told-"
Who are you?
He took a step toward her, and the green light began to glow around his hands. They curled into sharp claws. "H-Hweilan," she said. "My name is Hweilan." Do you know the covenant, Hweilan?
"Uh… I…"
To come without sacrifice means death.
Lendri had told her much the same thing, had he not? Just earlier that day. To come without sacrifice, without blood… it is death. Lendri…
She looked down at his lifeless, ravaged body. Her gorge rose. But looking down on him, it stoked her anger again.
"There." She pointed. "There is my sacrifice."
Ukhnar Kurhan slew that one.
"He was my friend. He died protecting me."
Nendawen looked down. He stared at her a long time, as if considering. Finally he said, Then the sacrifice was his. Not yours. To come without sacrifice means death.
Hweilan's breath caught. She felt her chest constrict. After all she'd lost… to have come so far…
Death.
A small part of her wondered, Why fight it? After all she'd lost, after all she'd ever wanted had been taken from her… why fight? Would death really be that bad? But that was the little girl in her talking. Wanting the simple way out. Wanting her way or nothing. And the little girl was almost gone.
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The larger part of her, louder, was just plain angry. Furious in fact. She might die, yes, but not without a fight.
"My family," she said. "My father. My mother. Their fathers and mothers. All dead! Everyone I loved. Everyone who loved me. They died that I might come here. To you. If that isn't enough… then to the hells with you! I have nothing more to give."
Nendawen's eyes blazed, and a thousand howls filled the night. A storm of raucous cries rained down from the boughs overhead.
Hweilan looked up.
Hundreds of ravens looked down on her, their black eyes reflecting the moonlight. Yellow wolves' eyes watched her from the shadows under the trees.
Nothing more to give? said Nendawen. You are wrong. There is you. You are mine, Hweilan. You were always mine.
He took off his mask.
Hweilan screamed.
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The fall of Highwatch con-1 Page 31