Hand of the Hunter con-2

by Mark Sehestedt

CHAPTER TEN

  After Hweilan took her first uwethla, Gleed's teachings filled every moment of every day, but Hweilan reveled in them. True, there were days when the rasping prattle of the old goblin's voice grated on every nerve, like the ceaseless scritch-scratch-scratching of a windblown branch scraping against her bedroom window. But mostly she gorged on the new knowledge.

  Some days they sat huddled near his fire while rain pelted the lake and the wind set the entire tower and its covering bells to tinkling. She learned the names and natures of every tree and plant. She learned to make poultices and mix various herbs to speed the body's healing. And she learned their opposites: which roots, barks, leaves, and buds could be used to make poisons ranging from the deadly to those that would merely numb the senses. She learned which roots and berries could be crushed to make a paste that would mask her scent and even hide her from creatures whose eyes saw heat in the dark. But these were the easy lessons.

  Gleed also taught her rites sacred to Nendawen and Dedunan-though part of Hweilan still thought of the latter as Silvanus. Of the nature of Jagun Ghen, she had seen much in her vision, but Gleed taught her the Lore-how generations of her people had learned to fight him. He taught her the words of power, and how to bind the words themselves with the uwethla. Etched into her skin, they would bind the Lore in her mind. But etched into arrows…

  "They are deadly to the demons of Jagun Ghen."

  Hweilan and Gleed were sitting just inside the woods near the lakeshore. Through the branches she could see the decrepit tower, its myriad bells and trinkets twinkling in the late afternoon sunshine. A small fire burned in its ring of stones between them, and next to it lay a pile of fresh sapling branches, which Gleed was teaching her to shape and harden into arrows.

  "These demons can be killed then?" said Hweilan.

  She remembered the first night she had seen Nendawen. Green light had wreathed the black iron of his spear, and looking back, had there not been symbols etched into the metal and along the shaft? Had the light not leaked from them, like water eking through the first cracks of the summer thaw? Perhaps. Although her mind had been so numbed by terror and exhaustion at the time that she thought her newer knowledge might be coloring her memory. But she remembered one thing for certain.

  Seeing Nendawen and the spear in his hand, the thing-the demon-possessing Kadrigul's dead flesh had done something she had not seen it do even when facing Kunin Gatar. It had feared. It had beheld the Master and the weapon in his hand with abject terror and despair leaking from every pore. It had forsaken its shell and fled. Nendawen had thrown his spear, and here again the details were cloudy, but she thought it had consumed the fell spirit. Eaten it like a choice morsel.

  Gleed pursed his lips as he considered her question. "Killed…? Hm. Well, that depends on what you mean by death. They are spirits, and if by killed you mean 'cease to exist,' then no. That is not possible for any spirit. But they can be…" His brows knit together, making the deep wrinkles of his face deeper still. "Captured. Contained. Rendered powerless." Gleed shrugged. "Words fail here."

  She looked down at the narrow shaft of wood in her lap. The arrow seemed a frail thing, but she had sensed the power in the words of their chant as they made it. A hint of that power leaked from the uwethla she had etched halfway up the shaft. It was almost like a scent, but this one did not hit the nose. It touched on something deeper, some lower part of the brain that was much more awake in beasts than men.

  "This will capture them?" she asked.

  Gleed smiled. "I am glad you asked."

  She waited, and when he said no more, she said, "Well…?"

  "Tomorrow," he said.

  "Tomorrow?"

  "This is something that, to understand, you must see. You must experience for yourself. Tomorrow, we send this demon that hounded you back to the Abyss." He smiled, showing all his sharp, yellow teeth. "Sleep well."

  Hweilan lay in her pallet that night, remembering the horror of the days after she fled Highwatch. There had been that brief moment of elation, seeing her Uncle Soran coming for her when she'd been told all her family was dead. But her first look at his empty eyes, and she had known. It wasn't her uncle. Something that knew only destruction and hunger looked at her through those empty eyes.

  That thing had chased her through the mountains, through the realm of Kunin Gatar, until the queen herself-with a little help from Lendri-had finally destroyed Soran's body. But still the thing had come after her, filling Kadrigul's body. Looking back, she realized that in her heart she had known that at the time, though she hadn't stopped to consider it. When she did, she knew her instincts were true. Even after the body was destroyed, the demon found a new "home" and came after her. If it could do such things, move from dead flesh to dead flesh as if it were nothing more than changing clothes… then the real fight was against the spirit within. She had seen that in her visions and since gained understanding of it from Gleed's teachings.

  But that did not make the thought of facing the demon again any easier. Had not Nendawen dealt with the thing already? Apparently not.

  And here, Hweilan's visions were lacking. These most sacred rites were for the chosen few. The chosen one-the Hand of the Hunter.

  When sleep finally took Hweilan, the last night she'd spent in the Giantspires haunted her dreams.

  Emerald light sparking around barbed black iron.

  A presence of flame and hunger screaming as it fled across the cold water.

  A streak of black and green as the spear arced overhead.

  A maelstrom of darkness and light of a thousand colors.

  A scream that struck beyond hearing, searing itself into her bones.

  After that, the Master, his eyes glowing from the mask, framed by crooked antlers. His right hand dripped blood.

  Hweilan woke with a gasp.

  Gleed was just stirring the fire in the hearth. "You're awake," he said. "Good. Get dressed."

  They walked through the woods most of the morning. Always uphill, the stream that fed the waterfall ever on their right. Gleed said nothing the entire time. It was the quietest he had been in a tenday or more. Standing outside the tower, the morning still only a glow above the jagged horizon, he had said, "Think on all you have learned. Make the Lore fresh in your heart, ready in your mind. For what you are about to learn, you will need every lesson. Stay sharp."

  After that, nothing but the sounds of their breathing and footsteps and the forest around them. Even the forest sounds grew quieter by the mile, as if they were entering a temple where silence reigned and the very air demanded whispers.

  The land grew steeper, the trees thinned, and by midmorning they were climbing stone outcroppings as often as they walked deer trails. Despite his age and apparent frailty, Gleed scaled them, agile as a monkey.

  They stepped onto the height just shy of midday. It was a flat area, completely treeless, the ground mostly windswept grass and lichen-encrusted stone. It was the first time Hweilan had seen so much sky since… how long? Since she'd come to this strange land.

  The few clouds that marred the overhead blue seemed very close. The frayed gray hems of their skirts seemed almost close enough to touch. Beyond the rim of the height, the land fell away in hundreds of miles of forest, broken only by the silver sparkling of rivers and Gleed's lake, far below them.

  Gleed kept walking, his staff thumping the ground in front of him. "Not much time now," he said. "Come. We must hurry."

  Looking past him, Hweilan saw where he was headed. Land and sky, everything around her was the very picture of wilderness. Except for one thing. In the very center of the height, a black shaft, well over twice Hweilan's height, stood up from the ground. Her first glance at it made her heart skip a beat. She recognized it. Nendawen's spear.

  When she had first seen it, the first arc of the moon breaking the horizon, it had seemed a fragment of night. Seeing it there under the light of the late morning sun didn't change her first impression. The smooth wood of the sh
aft and iron of the point, half-buried in the earth, reflected nothing. The small bit of shadow it cast in the short grass seemed more a part of this world than the weapon itself.

  That was where Gleed pointed with his staff. "Inside is all that remains of the demon in this world. We must perform the rite when no darkness remains, when the sacred weapon stands fully in the light, surrounded by not even a hint of shadow. Only then can the spear be cleansed from the evil within. Here."

  He tossed something and she caught it-a bag, slightly larger than her hand, made from the skin of some animal and tied shut with a cord of braided hair.

  "What is it?" she asked, loosening the knot of the cord.

  "Ashes from yesterday's fire," said Gleed. "Rowan ash, sacred to the Master. Scatter it in a circle around the spear. Leave no gaps. And say the Words with me. Bind them in your heart."

  Hweilan did as she was told. The little goblin leaned upon his staff and began to chant in the language of the People.

  "Great Nendawen, Hand of Dedunan, Child of Ao,

  Our Master whom we serve, hear me now."

  Hweilan repeated the words, her mind and tongue comfortable in the ancient tongue.

  "Bless now our circle, bound in the ash of sacred flame.

  Bless now our hands, whose blood flows in your name."

  The last of the ash sifted out of the bag, completing the circle in a tiny mound of gray dust. Even as the last of it fell, Hweilan heard the thick flutter of feathers and looked up. Upon the haft of the spear sat a raven, its feathers as black as the weapon's shaft, but the bright midday sunlight reflected a deep blue off its crown and beak.

  "Once," said Gleed, the cadence of his voice still locked in chant, "in the days of creation, Raven and his clan were all the colors of the rainbow, for of all the beasts who fly, they were the dearest to Dedunan, the Forest Father. But then came Jagun Ghen, the Unending Hunger. Destroyer. The Unslakable Fire. But Raven did not fear his fire, flying through flame and smoke in his hatred of our enemy. Still that hatred burns in them, and as a sign of the smoke through which they have passed, and the dark ones they hunt, their feathers are black, and shall be so until the Last Day."

  Gleed looked up at the sun, then down at the small sliver of shadow that remained at the bottom of the spear. He turned to Hweilan and fixed his one good eye on her.

  "What will you give to hunt Jagun Ghen?" he asked.

  She remembered the words from her vision, from a hundred lifetimes, and she spoke them perfectly.

  "Iskwe gan nin," she said. My life's blood.

  "Kethne kyerhewun," said Gleed. Let it be done.

  Hweilan drew the knife from the sheath at her belt. The knife Lendri had given to her. The knife she'd regained after she'd woken from her vision. She held her left arm straight out, the knife's one sharp edge toward her. With her other hand she grasped the blade and slid her palm outward. The steel made a clean cut from the outer side of her palm to the soft flesh between finger and thumb.

  The raven let out a rattling caw, and she could hear the inhuman words in its cry-iskwe! iskwe! iskwe! Blood! blood! blood!

  "Do as I do," said Gleed, then kneeled and pressed his head onto the ground. Hweilan did the same. Together they sang" O Master of the Hunt, Hand of Dedunan,

  Accept now our offering, in your name.

  Bind that which was broken

  Restore the Balance

  That light might shine in our hearts again."

  Hweilan felt a massive pulse ripple the ground under her, almost as if Nendawen's spear were a nail driven into stone and a giant's hammer had just struck it. She dared to look up.

  The raven atop the spear stood with its wings outstretched to the noonday sun. Beyond him, gathered just outside the ring of ash, were hundreds of wolves. But she could see through them, as if they were made of morning mist. Only their eyes seemed solid and bright.

  And standing in their midst was Scith, dressed in the finery of a Var warrior. Flames still danced in his hair and from his clothing, but they did not consume him. His visage was grim and proud. Just beyond him, wolves milling about her feet like puppies yipping at a mother hound, stood Merah, Hweilan's mother. But she was not wearing the gowns and robes of the Damaran court. She dressed as a Vil Adanrath warrior, and the blood pulsing from the wound at her head only made her look all the more fierce. Hweilan's father stood beside her, dressed in his finest armor, and even though he was insubstantial as the rest, the sunlight glinted off his steel, blinding and pure.

  Hweilan could not look away, could not even force herself to blink.

  "Behold!" Gleed whispered next to her.

  She could not look away from her family, but from the corner of her eye she saw a green light flicker and pulse along the haft of the spear. The ground shook beneath her again, then once more, so strong that she felt her bones rattle, and her deepest senses-the ones beyond sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch-felt something go out of the spear, screaming and clawing as it did so, but helpless against the greater power that thrust it down.

  Gleed leaped to his feet and began to dance and caper around the spear, laughing and cackling as he did so.

  "I won't do it, Hweilan," a rasping voice said from behind her.

  Hweilan forced herself to sit up and turn around. Just outside the circle of ash, swaying in something between a crouch and lurch, was Lendri, just as ghostly as the rest. His chest was an open ruin, and he held his own heart in one hand. The heart was still beating, dripping blood down his arm and onto the ground, where it hit and sizzled to steam.

  "You can call me," said Lendri, "but I will not return. Not even for you. Let my exile end. Please. Let me rest."

  Hweilan squeezed her eyes shut and said, "No. You're dead."

  She turned around again, opening her eyes. Gleed still danced around the spear. Raven and spear were gone. Beyond, the ghost wolves were fading, as was her family. Even as he faded, her father raised his hand and said, "In the midst of life, we are in death. Thin is the veil that separates us, and it can be lifted."

  And then he was gone.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  After they returned to the tower, Gleed watched as Hweilan poulticed and bound the fresh wound in her hand, and they ate a good meal on the lakeshore as the sun set and the bats began to flutter around the lake, feeding on the night bugs.

  Gleed built a small fire as the crickets' song began in full force. The old goblin leaned in close to the fire, stirring it far more than it needed, and Hweilan knew he was gathering his thoughts. The set of his brow and tightness of his jaw was not anger, so she didn't think she'd done anything wrong. But he seemed unusually solemn, even grim.

  He jabbed at the fire, sending orange sparks to sparkle up amongst the silver and blue of the stars, then he said, "You saw something up there."

  The question took Hweilan by surprise. "What?"

  "Upon the height," said Gleed. "You saw the…" He squinted as he searched for the word, then shrugged and said, "The Ebun Nakweth."

  "Witness Cloud?" said Hweilan, then it came to her. "You mean the ghost wolves?"

  Gleed nodded, but his eyes had narrowed, reminding Hweilan very much of a frog in whose sight a tasty fly has just wandered.

  "Yes, I saw them," said Hweilan.

  "That is good. Blessed hunters. Sacred to the Master. That you saw them… you did well today, Hweilan."

  "Thank you."

  "You passed your first test with Kesh Naan, and you have learned much from me. You will still learn from me in the coming days. But soon-very soon-you will meet your next teacher. Lore you have. Making you are learning. Now, you must Hunt."

  "Gleed, I've been a hunter most of my life."

  The goblin reached around the fire and grabbed her arm, hard enough to hurt.

  "Not like this, Hweilan." He looked up at her, eyes most serious. Then he licked his lips, looked around and said, almost in a whisper, "To hunt animals, to hunt men, even to hunt aberrations of dark magic… these are no
thing like hunting the demons of Jagun Ghen. And even if your huntsmen were the hardest men in your land, they are nothing compared to Ashiin."

  "Ashiin?" said Hweilan, trying the name. It meant "fox" in the language of the Vil Adanrath.

  Gleed's eyes widened and he looked out into the dark. "Shht! Quiet, foolish girl."

  Hweilan looked around, seeing nothing but the clear night sky, the bats fluttering over the lake, and the impenetrable dark of the woods beyond.

  "Learn from her," said Gleed. "But do not trust her."

  Hweilan stared at him. "What? I… I don't understand. Don't trust her? Why? If she is to teach me…"

  "That one," Gleed whispered, "serves the Master. But for her own reasons. If she thinks you do not further those reasons…" He shuddered and looked around again, and his voice dropped even further. "Do not trust her. If you value your life, heed me, girl."

  He stood and started to walk away, but she called out to him. "Gleed, I…"

  He stopped and looked over his shoulder. "What?"

  "The Witness Cloud… you saw them?"

  "Yes. I have seen them many times."

  "Did you see… anyone else?"

  His brows crinkled into a deep wrinkle, his one good eye almost disappearing in the folds of skin. "One?" he said.

  "What?"

  "You said anyone else? Not anything. I saw wolves, ravens, owls, bears… hunters. All beasts sacred to the Master. Creatures I honor and respect. But I would not call them 'anyone.' So tell me: who did you see?"

  Hweilan swallowed and looked away, uncomfortable under the intense gaze of that single eye. She didn't know if she could trust him. Growing up in Highwatch, hobgoblins and all their cousins had been nuisances at best-and more often than not a true menace. But Gleed was like no goblin she had heard of. She sensed a hardness in him, belied by his grizzled old frame. And no one would ever accuse him of being charming. But he had a weight of years about him that Hweilan could only find one word for-wisdom. And after all she had seen, she sorely needed counsel.

  "Well?" he said.