The Winged Hunter

by F. T. McKinstry

  Tansel had walked a short distance when something big moved through the brush a short distance away. Hoof beats. She first thought of the rider Freil had seen by the portal. After looking around quickly, she leapt behind a tree to hide. She got down into the ferns and pulled them around her. The rider drew closer and stopped. The woods fell silent except for the sounds of his horse. Quiet as a mouse, Tansel knelt there, breathing softly.

  From a distance, a voice rang out in the woods: Freil, calling her name. Tansel hesitated, and then lost her wits. She jumped up and cried out his name at the top of her lungs. No reply. She inhaled deeply for another try—then something big and dark crashed in her direction. Her foot caught on a root and she went down on all fours, slamming her knee into something hard. A sharp pain knifed up her leg and into the sioros slash on her thigh.

  She got up, then stumbled again as a horse pounded the earth next to her. The rider jumped down, grabbed her roughly and clamped his hand over her mouth. He smelled bad, like sweat, rotting earth and cobwebs. She struggled like a cat, clawing and biting whatever she could get to.

  “Be still,” her father growled, “or I’ll knock you senseless.”

  Tansel grew still only long enough to make him think she was doing so, then broke from his grip and bolted again. He came upon her quickly and knocked her to the ground.

  “Son of a bitch,” she choked, rolling over. “Eag—”

  Her cry for help went unheard as something came down and hit her face with a shocking force that sent the moon spiraling off in a blur that quickly faded to black.

  *

  Eaglin stood up slowly as Lorth’s mind-voice faded from his thoughts. Then nothing. Eaglin focused for a moment on the room, where Caelfar and his granddaughter lay, near death, unknown to each other. Then he released his mind into the bright panorama of a familiar interior landscape.

  Darkness.

  He had just learned that Freil and Tansel had gone out into the forest in the direction of the portal. Given the circumstances, it would not be unlike Freil to close his mind to interference. But now Gabran was out there somewhere and probably had Tansel, if the scream Lorth heard was any indication.

  She hadn’t called to Eaglin for help. What had made her scream? Perhaps Freil’s mind was dark because he had been struck down—possible, after the blow he took from Caelfar. And if that had happened, Tansel might be unconscious at her father’s hands.

  Eaglin swore a curse and started to pace. With Caelfar down, someone had to watch over the hall. Using the Waeltower, Eaglin had managed to cast a watch-web; it glimmered in his mind like a spider’s web and strained his heart like a drawn longbow. But a wizard could only do so many things at once, and he still lacked the strength to shapeshift or project anywhere.

  Caelfar lay beneath the quilts, alive but deeply wounded in spirit. After so many years, his secret had finally broken him by splitting his power off into an apparition. To do such a thing intentionally would have been an impressive feat for any Master of the Eye. Eaglin had sent Geira with complex instructions for tea that had caused her to gulp and nod hesitantly. The healer would do fine with it. But whether it would have any effect on Caelfar remained to be seen.

  Eaglin’s dream of Tansel, the sea and the sioros still haunted him. Earlier, when Lorth had entered his mind, he had asked the hunter if he knew of a plant that matched the one Tansel had held in the dream. Amazingly, Lorth had known of it; apparently, the time the hunter spent with Eaglin’s mother in the greenhouses of Eusiron had not been all about the play of lovers. Falistrom. Considered poisonous, the structures of falistrom were connected to the heart sphere. It wouldn’t harm the innocent, but if one took it with a broken heart, it would either kill or heal, depending on the choice one made under its influence.

  The power to heal is the power to destroy. Brilliant. Eaglin had asked Geira to look for the plant in her herbal cabinet. But he doubted she would find any.

  He stopped pacing as the energy in the room changed.

  Light spread out from his heart and up into his head like a warm, troubled wave. He cleared his mind and opened his interior sea as Freil’s energy rushed into him. Eaglin. The young wizard’s usual sun-bright waters were muddy with emotion.

  Where are you? Eaglin said.

  I’m at the portal. I was with Tansel and we saw a rider. I left her hidden and went into the forest to circle around him and see what he was about.

  It’s Gabran, Eaglin informed him, and he’s about nothing good, I fear. He escaped.

  After a bleak pause, Freil continued. I suspected as much. I got near him, but I couldn’t tell what he was doing. I would’ve expected him to ride from the forest with more haste, if he were trying to escape. I think he may have followed us when we came out. He was trying to be quiet.

  Did you lose track of him?

  Well, he replied anxiously, I was shapeshifted and right on his tail. He was looking for something. I was about to make my move when Tansel screamed. He went after her. A pause. Anyone would have.

  Aye, but there’s something you don’t know about this. Eaglin withdrew his mind for a moment, relieved that he hadn’t told Freil about Gabran’s plans for Tansel. The boy would certainly have done something foolish had he known that. He was a wizard, and a strong one—but he was no warrior of Gabran’s seasoning, not by half. Did you go after him?

  Aye. I tried to call Tansel, and heard her once, from far away. But I can’t find her. She is dark.

  You won’t find her, Eaglin said. She’s still under my protection.

  Can’t you find her then?

  Eaglin touched his forehead. Not unless she calls me. What of Gabran?

  When I swept the forest for him, he was moving towards the portal, so I returned here. But the woods are empty, now. I can’t see him anymore.

  Eaglin took this in with a clenched jaw. Lorth also heard her. He’s out there now, tracking them. He can sweep a very large area, greater than you can. I need you here.

  What? I’m not going to leave—

  He stopped as Eaglin went dark inside. Can you do something I ask of you, for once? If Tansel were in danger, she would have called me. Lorth will find her.

  You don’t know that Gabran even has her. She could be out here lost or hurt.

  Again, she would call me, if she were. Lorth will find her, Eaglin repeated. This is what he does, Freil. He’s a hunter. He’s not going to let anything happen to that girl and if her father does have her, you’ll not want to be there when Lorth does find them—trust me.

  I don’t think Gabran is the only thing out here, the young wizard said sullenly. Then he withdrew from Eaglin’s mind, leaving him to wonder what he meant—and if he were actually going to return, in light of it.

  *

  Tansel regained consciousness to a rough, rhythmic jostle and blurred surroundings. She was gagged, her hands were bound, and her father had a cruel grip on something strapped around her waist. She could hardly see from one eye, for the swelling there. Her head hurt so badly she could think of little else.

  The ground rushed by under a hard riding pace. If she tried anything, she would fall and end up hurt worse than she was already, being bound. For now, her best course was not to let him know she was awake.

  “Awake, eh?” he rumbled.

  So much for stealth, she thought sourly. She noticed a strap on his thigh holding a knife. She imagined grabbing it and thrusting it in a general upward direction. Even if she hadn’t been tied, he would beat her to it.

  She couldn’t believe this was happening.

  “I’m taking you away from here,” he said near her ear, tightening his grip. “With your mother and aunt gone, you’ve no need to stay.”

  Ironically, she had entertained the same thought, earlier. She hadn’t considered this as one of her options, however.

  What had happened to Freil? Surely, he would have told Eaglin and Lorth about this—unless he didn’t know. He was far away, when she had heard him. Once again,
she chafed under her own foolishness. Why had she run? There were times when it was best to keep well in the garden, and this was one of them.

  Freil may not have known the rider was her father. She broke into a cold sweat. Caelfar hadn’t been able to “see” her under Eaglin’s protection. If the Raven still sheltered her, then the other wizards would not be able to find her, either—including Eaglin. She couldn’t call him with a gag in her mouth. She could think of him all night, wish for him to hear her, but she didn’t have the ability to reach a wizard’s mind that way.

  Gabran’s horse raged through the forest like the warrior’s own madness. Tansel swung between confusion and hatred, weakness and strength, apathy and rage. She thought of the crowharrow, Eaglin’s love, Freil’s smile, the scary glint of Lorth’s eyes beneath the shadow of his hood, and the firelight catching in the tear on her great grandfather’s cheek. Wizards! No wonder she had come to such trouble, consorting with them.

  She had failed to save her aunt through the Midsummer Portal. The poor old woman would probably die, now. Maybe she would have anyway.

  The air had cooled and mist hovered along the ground in low places. The shadows were uncanny, and Tansel moved too fast to make out anything clearly amid them. When a fleeting, silvery light moved in the trees to her right, she didn’t think much about it.

  When it happened again, her blood ran cold.

  The next time the light appeared, winged and watery, she recognized it. She made a sound in her throat. Her father drew in the reins, and then leaned down and said, “I don’t know what they taught you, but if you try anything to call them here, I’ll kill you. I can make it look like an accident.”

  Tansel regarded him through her swollen eye. I am your daughter, she thought. But she hadn’t responded to him when he had said the same thing to her, so why should this be any different? She was just something that happened when he had bedded her mother. Unhappy thought! She envisioned Freil’s moonlit smile as he sat on the edge of the pool. Maybe your heart is too strong for it. She wondered if her father had ever said anything like that.

  The warrior wrapped his fist in the strap around her waist and kicked his horse into a trot.

  Probably, he had. Men said things. Men that didn’t keep well said even nicer things.

  She jerked forward with a gag as the horse stopped abruptly, as if to avoid a log or a gulley it didn’t want to jump. Something white fled over the space in front of them; the shape of a wing vanished in the mist.

  “What is that?” her father growled. He reached down and roughly pulled the gag from Tansel’s mouth, stretching her lip hard enough to split it. “Speak!”

  “Crowharrow,” she rasped, though she knew otherwise. “I am marked. He’ll kill you if you get in the way.”

  Her father shoved the gag back into her mouth with a grunt. The horse skittered sidelong as he tried to get it under control. It snorted and made an uneasy sound; crowharrow or not, the animal knew it faced something that belonged in the Otherworld.

  It whinnied and reared up as the apparition appeared again, this time directly before it, hand raised, wings lifted and spread.

  “That’s not a crowharrow!” her father shouted.

  As the horse bolted, Tansel fell in a tangle with him to the ground. She struggled to get away from him. He slammed her down and pulled something from his belt that looked like rope. For a moment, she thought he was going to put it around her neck and hang her from a tree, until he grabbed her ankles and began lashing it around them.

  “You’ll wait here while I fetch the horse,” he panted. “If I return and you’re taken by a winged hunter, then that will be that.”

  Don’t count on it, you bastard, Tansel thought.

  Why had he not killed her? Certainly, he would assume the apparition was something conjured up by a more powerful wizard. Must have been a bluff. So where was he taking her? She had no place in his world, of that she was sure. Why would he bother with this?

  She readied herself for some kind of lame escape—to hide, if nothing else—in hopes that the specter would get him as he went after the horse. As the warrior rose and turned, however, another thing met him.

  A man emerged from the mist, cloaked and silent as a breath. Even in the dark, Tansel recognized him. Her heart leapt with hope—then jumped into her throat as her father dropped and rolled over, grabbed her and went for the knife on his thigh.

  Lorth strode forward and flung out his hand with a weird sound. The sailor put up his arms with a shout as if sand had been thrown in his face. Tansel tried to roll out of his reach, but Lorth stepped over her. He grabbed Gabran by the throat, hauled him up, spun him around and slammed his fist into his stomach. Gabran choked and doubled over, then fell to his knees.

  Lorth came to Tansel’s side in an instant. He pulled a knife and swiftly cut her free, then removed the gag from her mouth. “Get into the shadows,” he said, uncharacteristically. Not of a mind to question it, Tansel scrambled into the trees. As she looked back, Lorth dropped his cloak and drew a long sword that shone cruelly in the moonlight. It was covered with strange marks, and made a whispering sound as he spun it around.

  “You are out of your authority here, Master,” Gabran said in a gravelly voice.

  “In that, you are mistaken,” Lorth replied.

  Gabran stood up, moved his arms in a powerful spiral and cried out a command that caused a ferocious gale to rip from the sky. Lorth clutched his blade with both hands and thrust it upwards. As he whirled it around, the wind ceased.

  Gracefully, the blade deflected the dagger that came at him. With a chime, the knife flashed end to end through the air, landing some paces away. Lorth whirled and hit Gabran with a kick to the face that spun him around. He went on all fours, and then rolled to the side, sword drawn.

  “There’s nothing for Tansel here,” Gabran spat, climbing to his feet. “You’ve no right to hold either one of us.”

  Lorth released a startling laugh. “Don’t I, now.” As he moved in, Gabran thrust his sword in a deft maneuver. Lorth parried it, ducked to evade another blow and then returned a staggering punch with the hilt of his sword.

  They circled each other, blades drawn and ready to strike. Lorth said, “Perhaps you would like to tell Tansel what kind of life you have planned for her.”

  “As I told you,” Gabran returned roughly, “that’s a lie.”

  “Considering you had to bind and gag her, I’m thinking she doesn’t want to go anywhere with you.”

  “I’m her father. She doesn’t have a say in it.”

  He cried out something arcane. Mist billowed up between them. It smelled tangy, like the air before an Eastcold storm. Blades clanged together, and then Lorth backed out of the mist and waved his hand. The mist dissipated. “I am afraid she does,” he said. He lashed out with a blinding series of thrusts. The last of Gabran’s parries fell short, and Lorth’s blade cut into the shoulder of his sword arm. He quickly moved the blade to his other hand, crouched, and circled around.

  Calm and untouchable, Lorth didn’t appear challenged by his opponent. Why was he doing this? He could have ended it quickly. He seemed to be engaging Gabran for some other purpose.

  “You’re confused about the nature of your authority,” Lorth said. Casually, he held up his blade to parry the furious thrust that came at his face. “Tansel hasn’t exactly known the benefit of your fatherly care in her life.”

  Gabran let out a roar that caused the ground to shake. Tansel couldn’t read Lorth’s expression in the dim light, but his stance caused her to stiffen in anticipation. His sword caught the moon in two swift slashes, one of which caused Gabran to shout and stagger back.

  Lorth continued, “Your absence wouldn’t be so disastrous were you not expecting her to obey you now. Why would she do that?”

  Gabran looked up from a bleeding wound in his middle, his hair wild, teeth bared. “Pah! Keep her, then.”

  Lorth stood with his blade balanced on his arm. “And d
eprive your men of what you promised them?”

  The blood left Tansel’s face as she began to gather what this was about. She had heard these stories in the village. Women pleasing sailors.

  “Oh she’d have been happy enough after the crowharrow got done with her. As it is, the little tart wouldn’t last a night.” As Lorth lifted his blade and stepped forward, Gabran added, “Best stay your hand, Raptor. I’m wanted alive.”

  Lorth’s teeth flashed. “Those aren’t my orders.”

  “You’d kill me in front of her?” the sailor panted. “My own daughter?”

  Lorth glanced in Tansel’s direction. In that moment, Gabran moved. His body tumbled over itself as Lorth stepped out of the way. “She doesn’t have to watch,” the wizard said as if the interruption hadn’t occurred.

  On his knees, Gabran started to mutter something that caused the trees to move with unnatural wind. As it rose into a crescendo, Lorth dragged the sailor up and held his sword under his throat, pointing skyward. The muttering ceased. In a voice as hollow as a grave, Lorth said, “Whatever you’ve learned in your murky travels, my friend, it’s nothing compared to the things I know. Stand down and die honorably—or face the Destroyer, who will be far less accommodating. Choose.”

  Tansel’s heart thumped rapidly as she watched her father’s face tremble with wicked desperation on the point of the Raven’s sword. He rolled his head in her direction.

  “Let my daughter choose,” he said loudly.

  “Tansel,” Lorth said over his shoulder. She could tell by his tone that it didn’t matter to him if she rose to this or not.

  She stood up, brushed aside the boughs of a tree and stepped into the moonlight. Her anger fell away; her strength remained. She stood on the rocky shore of an ocean she had never seen, holding a loerfalos in her hands. Her father’s ship rocked in the distance, straining against the wind. Had she released the serpent in ignorance?

  Perhaps not.

  “Master Lorth,” she said. “I will honor the Wizard’s Code. By your position on the Aenlisarfon, the decision is yours.”