by Lizzy Ford
She had never thought him possible of anything more than what he displayed. If she were learning one thing about people, it was that there was more to them than she could possibly know.
The messenger left the head of the column to return to the village. After a moment of discussion, Diving Eagle turned his mule and walked down the line towards her. Rocky edged out around her horse to hear.
“We know where he is,” he reported.
“Shortest hunt ever,” Rocky said with a smile. “What’s next?”
Diving Eagle shook his head, and his gaze grew distant for a moment. “It will be complicated.”
“A large raid? Or do you need my assassin services for more discretion?”
“Neither. We are allied with the tribe who has him,” Diving Eagle said. “You and I are going.” This he directed to Tiana.
“Not alone,” Rocky said instantly.
“If you insist.” Diving Eagle addressed her still.
“I do,” she said quietly.
“Then the three of us will go.” He spun his horse and started off once more, this time not followed by the group of other Natives.
Tiana glanced at Rocky. He gave no indication he thought this was a bad idea. She squeezed her mule with her legs and followed Diving Eagle.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Arthur sat up straight before he was fully awake. His mind clung to the lucid dream that woke him, and the muscles of his body were tense enough to ache. He opened his eyes and blinked rapidly to ground himself from the vision.
He lay on one of the beds in the small medical clinic belonging to the Natives who reluctantly agreed to help him and Marshall. In the bed beside his was the skinwalker, who appeared to be swaddled from head to foot in linen bandages. Marshall lay sleeping in the row of beds across from him, while the she-wolf had stretched out on the floor between Arthur and the skinwalker.
Grainy, pre-dawn light filtered through the windows of the clinic. Arthur wiped his face, alarmed as much by the vision as by his heavy sleep.
“How long have I slept?” he asked the Native tending the skinwalker.
“A day and a half.”
Arthur sighed. “Too long!”
“You were talking in your sleep. Nightmare?” the Native healer asked.
“I wish.” Arthur shivered and twisted away to hide his face. He spotted the basket at the end of his bed and threw off the blankets carefully to avoid disturbing the pups sleeping within.
A nightmare would have been better than the vision lingering in his thoughts. Arthur had witnessed the city collapsing in on itself and being swallowed by the earth. In the middle of it all, standing on the edge of the abyss, watching it happen, was his father, who had left the city to find his children.
No Hanover had ever left the city once he became the leader. If this dream were the reason why, then Arthur would never again question this custom. He did not understand fully why this was the case, or why Lost Vegas had appeared to collapse the moment his father stepped outside.
The skinwalker had told Arthur the day before that the visions were exactly what they appeared to be. Unlike most of Arthur’s visions, which appeared to have some room for interpretation, this vision did not. There was no second-guessing what he had seen.
Edwin Hanover had always said there were secrets to leading, and to the family history, he would pass down only upon his deathbed to his heir. Arthur had to believe the history of their deformities was one of these secrets but could not fathom what else his father hid. A secret powerful enough to destroy the city?
His mind worked fast, and he recalled the strange rumors the Natives believed about his father. He had always dismissed the strange talk of an unnatural army raised from the dead, or in some cases, an army of shadows that prevented any force from taking the city. He had viewed this talk as nonsense, the kind of tales told to children by their parents to scare them into behaving.
Until a few weeks ago, the skinwalker had been one of these tales.
“Are you hungry?” the healer asked.
Arthur shook his head and stood. “I have to leave.”
“Your friend is not well enough to go with you,” the Native said.
“That man is no friend of mine,” Arthur said with a glance at the skinwalker.
“Not him.” The healer pointed to one of the private rooms at one end of the small medical bay.
Not certain who he meant, Arthur nonetheless approached the door and pushed it open.
His breath caught in his throat, and his heart flipped over in his breast. “Warner!” he exclaimed and hurried forward. He dropped to his knees beside the low bed of his lover and friend and scoured Warner’s features.
The dark-haired man was paler than usual, his skin clammy. He was unconscious. Warner’s upper body was exposed, and a white bandage spotted with black wrapped around his body.
Arthur gripped Warner’s calloused hand, thrilled to find his friend after weeks of wondering if he had survived the skinwalker attack. “I cannot believe you outsmarted that thing,” he whispered proudly. “If anyone could defeat a skinwalker, it is you.”
Warner was unresponsive to his voice, and Arthur’s happiness shifted. He glanced again at the wound, frowning when he saw more black spots soak through the bandage. He touched one and lifted his hand, able to make out the combination of blood and black.
The skinwalker claimed it was a magic wound. The coloring was indeed unnatural.
“No salve or medicines will stop his bleeding,” the healer said quietly. “It was always said that a wound inflicted by the skinwalker does not heal. I never believed it, until now.”
Concern spun through Arthur. He had been hoping the skinwalker was lying about being the only person who could help Warner.
“He has been in this state since bringing his sister here.”
“His … ahh.” Arthur recalled Tiana’s tale of pretending to be Warner’s sister so no one knew she was a Hanover.
Arthur sat in silence, studying Warner’s face. The sense of urgency, left over from his vision, fueled his blood with adrenaline, but he was having a hard time leaving Warner’s side despite knowing the storm headed their way.
“I will waken your friend and bring you both breakfast,” the healer said.
“No,” Arthur said quickly. “I am leaving. Marshall will not like that, but he and Warner must remain here. Actually, all three of them must stay.”
“You may wish to speak to Chases Deer before she leaves on her hunt. She was undecided what to do with all of you, the last time we spoke.”
It took Arthur a moment to place the name of the Newe chief’s daughter and heiress, a warrior said to possess the agility of an antelope. “Very well. May I have some clothing?” Arthur asked. “I do not wish to disrespect her dressed like this.” He glanced down at the smelly, torn rags he had been wearing in a cage for several days.
The Native nodded and left the doorway.
“Hang in there, love,” Arthur whispered to Warner. He leaned forward and kissed his lover’s forehead. “I will return with a way to heal you.”
He left the room, fidgeting and distressed to see his friend lying motionless in bed. The Native was out of sight in one of the rooms on the other end of the bay, and Arthur crossed to the wolf.
“Hey, wolf friend,” he said and crouched beside her.
She cracked an eye open and wagged her tail. Her fur was a patchwork of black and white this morning.
“I need to leave. It is urgent,” he said. “The others must stay here, but I am uncertain what their circumstances will become after I leave. Can you safeguard them? For a short time at least?”
She lifted her head, glanced towards the mangled body of the sleeping skinwalker, and snorted, as if to remind him she could go nowhere so long as her companion was hurt.
“We always end up with me in your debt,” he observed. “One day, I will repay you for everything.”
She dropped her head back to the wooden floo
r. Arthur lifted her basket of pups off the bed and placed them beside her then stood, gazing down at the skinwalker.
The only reason the Native was alive was because of the wolf. The tangled relationship among the three of them left Arthur frustrated and upset when he allowed himself to acknowledge how much damage was left in the skinwalker’s wake – to include Warner’s unhealing wound.
Why did the wolf choose to accompany the creature? From what Arthur had experienced, the wolf had compassion and an understanding of how to relate with humans, unlike the skinwalker she safeguarded. What benefit was there to her in their friendship? Why was a good spirit staying with a rotten one?
Worry about Warner, Marshall, and Tiana caused Arthur to fidget and then pace. The healer returned with clothing and an apple and handed them to Arthur.
“Thank you,” he accepted the clothes and stripped off the rags he wore. Arthur’s thoughts moved too fast for him to catch, and his hands fumbled with the clothing. He drew a deep breath, aware both the wolf and healer were watching him, and then tried again to tug on his clothing.
“You should wait to leave until the doves come,” the healer said.
“Doves?” Arthur echoed, his voice muffled by the shirt he pulled on.
“Every day, your father sends out a hundred doves carrying his demands.”
Arthur cursed his father silently. Too mad to understand how many ways he had placed his children in danger, Edwin had long since destroyed the respect any Native in the vicinity of the city would otherwise have for the leader of the city. Arthur finished dressing.
“Where are these messages?” he asked.
“Chases Deer.”
“Very well. I will stop to pay my respects and read my father’s demands before I leave.” Arthur smiled. “Thank you for tending to us despite my father.”
The Native returned the smile. “You always bring us meat during the annual hunts. We do not do this for your father,” he said.
Arthur nodded, suspecting as much. “I will bring you more than meat when I return,” he promised. He did not need directions. He had come to this very village more than once over the years since he began leading the annual Winter Hunt.
Arthur stepped out into the cool morning and strode through the village, past the oldest tree in the forest, bedecked in lights, and into the permanent part of the village. During late winter, when hunting parties returned to this area to hunt, the village swelled to three times its size. The semi-permanent tents along two sides of the village marked the presence of the hunting parties, while the more permanent family homes were tucked deeper into the forest.
The chief’s ambassador to the village during the hunt was a trim woman Arthur had met on two occasions. One of the rare female warriors, she was revered for her agility and ferocity in battle.
Arthur navigated the quiet village, eyes roving each home he passed for the familiar mark of the chief: a hawk carrying a feather. He found the pennant pinned outside the home he sought and knocked at the door.
Chases Deer opened the door fully dressed, down to her boots, and carrying a warrior’s weapons: a rifle and knives. She was his height with dark hair and eyes and a birthmark on one cheek.
“I apologize for disturbing you so early,” Arthur said.
“You do not disturb me,” she replied. “We are riding out early today to search for elephants.”
“Really?” His eyebrows lifted. “What is the occasion?” Elephants, rare in this part of the country, were prized by the Natives of some tribes and viewed as signs of stature and luck.
“My father believes he has married me off,” she replied somewhat tartly.
“Ah.” Arthur smiled. “I know that pain. My father has tried on more than one occasion to marry me off as well. It is the curse of the firstborn, is it not?”
“A great curse,” she agreed. “Come, Hanover.” She pushed the door open wider and stepped back.
“I wanted to thank you for your hospitality before I left,” he said and walked into her lodging. “And ask another favor.”
“Have I not done enough for you?” she challenged.
“More than enough. But this will benefit us both, I believe.”
“Go on.”
“Keep my companions here until I return.”
“If the Cruise heir is as rich as he claims, then I am happy to ransom him to you,” she said with the cunning Arthur remembered.
“He is, and I am happy to pay the ransom for him and my injured companion, Warner. Just please do not put them in a cage,” Arthur replied wryly. “We have had enough of cages for a lifetime.”
“We do not share our neighbors’ fervor with interrogation and torture. The Diné have developed a reputation for their conduct in battle. The promise of coin and goods are all I require,” she said and crossed to collect two canteens and a satchel. “I thought you would ask for assistance ransoming your sister back from your enemies.”
Arthur was quiet for a moment. If not for his vision, he would jump at the chance to work with Chases Deer to help his sister. As it was shaping up to be, Tiana was safer outside the city, in the hands of their traditional enemies, than she would ever be within reach of their father. “Perhaps when I return,” he said slowly. “Does everyone know of the state of Hanover affairs?”
“That your father blames the Natives for kidnapping his children and is threatening war with every tribe between the city and ocean?”
“Is that what he claims?” Arthur could not account for his father’s increasingly erratic behavior. While true, Chases Deer’s father was a longtime ally, Edwin Hanover was recklessly risking losing the cooperation of the very tribes with whom the city shared a symbiotic relationship. The city was not an island, as much as Edwin tried to make it one. The citizens of inner and outer cities depended upon the trading partnerships between city and Natives for basic staples.
Arthur was beginning to find it more difficult to overlook, or ignore, his father’s negative impact on the world around them.
“I have no explanation for you,” he said pensively. “I don’t understand my father’s motivations anymore.”
Chases Deer studied him for a long moment. “You are not like the other Hanover’s.”
“I should hope not.” Arthur opened his mouth to point out how his grandfather and great grandfather had been different but stopped himself.
No ruling Hanover had ever possessed his right mind, not according to what Arthur knew of his predecessors.
“But you cower in your father’s shadow,” Chases Deer pointed out.
“Do we all not do the same?” he challenged softly.
She rolled her eyes at him in irritation. “My father asked me to explain how you were permitted not only to live, but to escape the Diné.”
Arthur forced a laugh. “I cannot explain it myself,” he admitted. “Diving Eagle wanted me dead, but his father intervened.”
“It is not like Elk Hunter to pardon his blood enemy, and definitely not characteristic for Diving Eagle to spare anyone who displeases him.”
“I understood that about him, too,” Arthur said and touched his bruised eye.
“Yet you lived.”
“We did.”
She waited for more.
He shrugged. “I am not hiding anything from you, Chases Deer,” he said. “I am not in a position to defy you when the lives of my friends are in your hands. I cannot explain why I was spared any more than I can explain my father’s actions of late.”
Her hard features softened. “You are lost.”
“I am.”
She glanced towards the door, as if concerned someone would interfere, then moved closer to him and lowered her voice. “My own father wants to free you as well, against my wishes.”
“I am grateful to you and your father,” Arthur said with eloquence that would impress even Marshall.
She snorted.
“I understand what the Hanover heir is worth,” he added. “I have nothing of value to b
arter with you, and no weapons to fight you. All I can do is give you my word I will do all I can to spare your people the wrath of my father.”
Chases Deer was quiet for a moment. “I do not know what tales to believe about your father, or why every Native chief fears him. Is he not a man like you?”
Not exactly, Arthur answered silently. Sensing there was no safe response, he waited for her decision.
“Your father’s messages are over there. You may view them, if you do not already know what lies he tells, and then you will leave before any other tribe finds out you are here.” She pointed to a trunk. “I will even give you my fastest horse to ensure you make it to the city. I cannot promise you that my people will not track you and capture you for ransom, but you are fortunate that I chose today of all days for my elephant hunt.”
“The alliances are shifting,” Arthur observed and went to the small wooden trunk. “Are we still allies at all?”
“We were never allies,” she returned.
“Then why did my father favor your people?”
“Favor!” she snapped. “Threatening us every time the wind changes is not favoring us!”
“You never hesitated to trade with us.”
“We had no choice,” she allowed. “Lost Vegas is known even among the Natives for its metal workers and luxury goods, the benefit of controlling all trade on this side of the country. Your father’s focus has always been on the city. He charges his allies a tenth the price it costs for him to import many of the rarer goods your city is known for. Spices from afar, silk, ore. His threats towards us have been hollow, and he never followed through with any of them as long as we respected the treaties. You being here has turned his focus to us, and no one is pleased, least of all my father, whose fears run too deep for me to believe they are without merit. The Hanover chief has already broken two trade agreements in the past week.”
How did his father come to this point? How could anyone in their right mind believe angering the Natives surrounding the city was a good idea? Arthur hated that he could not explain his father’s decisions, but he hated even more that he agreed with the Natives for being angry.