“It’s good to see you. I’m surprised you escaped Gregory at all if that’s your best attempt at hiding,” the unicorn said with an accompanying bob of his head.
“She’s not hiding, you twit,” said another mind voice that was familiar with its liberal dose of disdain. “She’s playing decoy to Gregory’s hunter.”
A black pony emerged from the shadows. He looked directly at Gregory and said. “At least that’s a better attempt at hiding.”
Lillian stood up, her expression losing its earlier joy. “I’m glad you weren’t captured by the siren, but what became of my grandmother?”
It was the pooka who answered. “Gran is safe. She stayed behind so we could reach you faster.”
The tension in Lillian’s shoulders and wings visibly eased.
Gregory emerged from the shadows and joined Lillian. “It’s good to see you’re both free of the siren. Maybe now we can do something to teach her to be choosier about whose territory she invades. Usurpers can find themselves lacking in trustworthy friends.”
The pooka suddenly froze in place, his eye showing white for a few seconds in surprise, but then he stretched forward to nose at Gregory’s neck. “Ah. It seems you have escaped the siren’s power merely to be caught by an even more powerful third party.” The pony tilted an ear forward and back in question. “How did such a thing come to pass?”
Gregory remained silent, not in the mood to give answers to the pooka’s surly tone.
Lillian stood, brushing off bits of grass “I was foolish enough to trust my parents.”
“Ah. They showed their true colors. How disappointing. I rather liked them.”
That caught Gregory’s attention enough to draw him in. “We never did find the time to have that particular conversation as I recall.”
“Yes, I was there when Gran first stumbled upon them in Lillian’s grove while you both were still deep in your healing sleep. That time I only witnessed them aiding both of you by sharing their power. They seemed genuinely concerned.” The pooka gave a mild shake of his head, his equivalent of a shrug. “I suppose the concern could be real but they still might serve the Lady of Battles.”
Gregory hadn’t expected the pooka’s words to be reassuring, and they weren’t. However, he had hoped for something more substantial.
Eyes narrowing, he accepted that he’d just have to hunt down what he needed to know himself.
“We have some hunting to do,” Gregory said, including the other three. His instincts cried for him to find some safe place to hide Lillian until he ascertained the nature of the threat, but the brand on his neck would not allow that, so she came with him.
He dropped to all fours and raised his nose to the breeze, seeking the trail her parents had taken.
Lillian dropped down next to him and gently bumped his shoulder. “We hunt.”
“We hunt,” both the unicorn and pooka echoed.
Gregory snorted. It hadn’t been what he’d meant but the Wild Hunt would ride this night after all. What remained to be seen was if Lillian’s parents would join the Hunt or become its prey. Whatever the outcome, Gregory would make certain this Hunt left many victims in its wake.
Tethys, too, would have that same choice, and then the Riven would feel the cold, passionless wrath of the Wild Hunt.
Gregory bolted into motion, Lillian at his side, with the pooka and unicorn two strides behind them. This Hunt lacked the starting dance, the howl of the dire wolves, the call of hunting horns, and the baying of the Fae hounds, but in its oldest form, the Wild Hunt did not need those things. It only needed blood and sacrifice at its final destination.
Chapter Thirty-One
They ran through the night-shadowed forest, twisting, leaping over, or darting around anything in their path. Sometimes the pooka or unicorn would pull ahead. Gregory seemed content to allow them the honor for a short time before he would surge ahead once more.
Lillian stayed with him, determined to be as his shadow. Even if the brand around their throats hadn’t forced them to stay close, she would have anyway.
As the night grew longer and the scent of their prey steadily stronger, she noticed something else of interest.
She’d already run far this night and should have been tired, but each step came as easily as the first, some unseen power buoying her up.
And she wasn’t alone. Both Gregory and the two equines seemed to feel it as well. Magic swirled around them at the edge of her vision, sparks and whorls like tiny incandescent snowflakes formed in the air, only to break away and drift behind.
Lillian chanced a glance back, curious to see what became of the magic they summoned from the Magic Realm even without the aid of the great circle dances. It was as she thought. Wherever the tiny sparks landed, they nourished and renewed the land.
Even while in gargoyle form, her dryad blood sensed the land and trees growing stronger. With a smile, she bound a stride ahead and stole the lead from Gregory for a whole ten seconds.
She was just easing back to run alongside him again when three shadows began to pace them. Turning her head, she studied the massive wolves as they communicated silently with Gregory.
She’d never forgotten the dire wolves she’d seen in her first Hunt, but she hadn’t seen any since she woke from her hamadryad’s healing. Gran had said they were in mourning, and once that was over they would start the selection of new leaders.
Lillian wondered if their arrival meant the dire wolves had new alphas. She and Gregory could sorely use the help in the coming fight.
“The dire wolf packs are still far to the north,” Gregory explained, crushing that small hope, “but these three and others along the way were sent to howl back the news of what they learned. Apparently, other Clan members sent word of our awakening to the packs, and later a second message about our preparations to fight the Lady of Battles.”
A nod to each was the extent of her greeting, for even as those three aligned their magic to the Hunt’s, more of the Clan joined them. These were the ones who had no reason to be near enough to the spa to hear Tethys’s song and so had avoided capture. Two blazing white elks, a male with a massive rack and a yearling female, galloped at the tips of the dire wolves’ tails.
She flashed to another time when a similar white buck had attempted to carry her to safety only to be brought down by the attacking Riven, his beautiful coat awash in crimson blood. Yes, the Riven had much to answer for, and she planned to make them pay it in their own blood.
A family of foxes burst from a thicket and flanked Gregory on his other side. Farther along the path a bull moose awaited them. Perched upon his back, like she was born there, sat the banshee.
Lillian flicked a questioning ear at the banshee, for last she’d seen that Fae had been earlier in the day while they finished details for the masquerade. She’d just assumed the banshee was captured along with the rest of the Fae helping at the spa.
The banshee guided her moose closer to Lillian, and then smiled down at her from her higher perch. “Be at ease, young gargoyle. A siren, no matter how powerful, isn’t able to outsing a banshee’s keening. When I saw how many she was able to enslave, I fled into the forest and joined with the other free-ranging Clan. We will fight at your side. First the Riven, then the siren, and finally even the humans if they leave us no choice.”
Lillian nodded her head in thanks, not daring to get into an argument about the humans again.
Other Clan joined the Hunt, sliding out of the deeper shadows of the forest. Several sidhe joined them, riding either deer, elk, or moose. By a quick count, Lillian estimated that there were close to two dozen hunting hounds running silent at their hooves. Next to them, three massive bear-like creatures loped along, their giant strides easily keeping the pace. There was even a black hunting cat ghosting at the edges of the Hunt.
The Wild Hunt, which started four strong, had grown to over sixty in number by the time they reached the location where close to twenty-five Riven battled two gargoyles and one dryad. As the H
unt swept down upon the rear most Riven, Lillian realized they had to leap over many already killed.
With a small part of her mind not already engaged in battle, she noted how deadly her family was. Even her baby brother was lethal, she admitted as he dispatched a Riven with a decapitating stab of his tail to his opponent’s neck. Her father moved with a brutal efficiency, but Lillian spotted wounds. None of them were without injury, mostly claw and bite marks.
Gregory surged ahead, making for the left flank of the Riven horde. Lillian followed with the rest of the Hunt howling at her heels.
It wasn’t like the movies, no glorious clash of steel on steel. There was only the nauseating sounds of tearing flesh, popping cartilage and the dull thump of dead meat hitting the ground. The Riven did not use conventional weapons. They themselves were the weapons. Their fangs and claws venomous with evil corruption, their blood a burning poison.
But worst of all was the smell, she’d never forget the charnel house smell of a Riven body torn open. The stench threatened to steal the breath from her lungs.
She fought as they did, with tooth and claw and blade tipped tail. One Riven she tore nearly in two, baring it’s spine to the moonlight. Her powerful jaws promptly gifted a second Riven with a severed neck.
Spitting tainted blood, she scrubbed at her mouth and briefly worried how harmful it might be to her gargoyle body. The Riven didn’t give her long to worry as two more attacked at once. Gregory, gripping his own opponents in each hand, tail-speared one of hers before she was forced to fight two at a time.
All around was death and the wails of the wounded. The Riven only hissed and snarled in rage as they died. She knew the monsters still must feel some pain for injuries did slow them down.
She hated the monsters’ otherwise stoic silence, for it meant each of the grunts, yelps, and cut off screams belonged to one of her people.
And there were many sounds of anguish filling the air.
For every cry, she sought to pull down another Riven as payment in kind. She didn’t know how long the battle raged. Seconds? Minutes? But between one ragged breath and the next, the battle was over, the last Riven dying upon Gregory’s talons.
With a snarl of disgust, he shoved the corpse away and glanced over at her where his gaze quickly scanned her for injury. An assortment of slashes and bite marks decorated her upper body and lower arms. Blood seeped from them, but she did nothing to stop the minor bleeding, deciding it was the best way to cleanse the wounds for now.
Lillian’s mother was examining a nasty open wound on Darkness’s belly. It looked like he’d almost been eviscerated by one of the Riven.
She would have been more concerned, but her father was still alert, studying his surroundings as if prepared to continue the fight should more enemies put in an appearance.
A soft whine drew her gaze to her brother. He struggled to his feet and stumbled toward her location. Her eyes narrowing, she looked him over and didn’t see a wound deep enough to cause his distress.
He tugged at something along his side, just under where his last rib ended.
She saw it then, the hilt of a demon blade.
Luck had been with her. She’d taken a couple cuts from one of those blades, but hadn’t allowed the Riven who wielded it to land a stabbing thrust. Her brother hadn’t been so lucky.
Taking a step forward and opening her senses once more, she felt it too, the slow deadly suction that could drain all magic from its unfortunate victim. Intent on offering him aid, she started forward only to be warned off by a low growl as Gregory put himself in her path.
“Let me by,” Lillian said, surprised her voice sounded anywhere near normal.
“No.” Gregory didn’t turn his attention from her family when he answered her.
Frustrated, but also respecting his reason for distrust, she didn’t challenge him about being overprotective this time. He had reason. But she was also certain that her baby brother was innocent. “Gregory, he’s got one of those cursed blades buried in his side. You know how much those hurt, and what it will do to him if we don’t get it out quickly.”
She could already see the ring of stone forming around the blade where his body tried to protect and heal itself.
Lillian’s parents looked up, just noticing the youngster’s distress. Shadowlight had been doing a good job of not broadcasting his pain, but now that he was closer, she could smell it even over the stench of battle.
“Shadowlight?” River called. Then the truth dawned upon her features and her eyes grew large. “Shadowlight!” She ran, sprinting over bodies and the gore-slicked ground to reach his side. She sank to her knees and brushed his hands away to better see the damage.
Darkness was at their side a moment later.
“I have no magic left that will touch this,” her mother whispered in horror, glancing between her son and her mate. It was easy to see her grief.
Darkness moved one hand from where it was braced against his own wound and raised it to the demon blade. As his fist engulfed the hilt, his muscles went taunt, his wings trembled at the strain.
Lillian’s stomach dropped in sudden understanding. Her father was too weak to heal both himself and his son.
She glanced at Gregory, silently pleading for his help.
“Fine,” Gregory rumbled, fingering the tattoo around his neck. “If they came to achieve some mischief, they’ve already done their worst.”
He stalked forward, his tail twitching in agitation, his body language stating how profoundly unhappy he was at the situation.
Lillian trailed him. He glanced over his shoulder long enough to glare at her for not staying where he’d left her, but he didn’t reprimand her aloud.
Bodily pushing Darkness out of his way, he did a quick examination of Shadowlight’s side, then look back at Lillian.
“I can’t access my magic without your order,” he said without a hint of emotion. “Make it a command that I heal all our allies, all who serve the light.”
Lillian sucked in a breath, surprised to find the Hunt had encircled them while she and Gregory had talked. Many had wounds as grievous as her brother’s or father’s. “Do you have strength for all that?” she asked in a low voice, more for a respectful tone than an attempt to hide her questions. The Fae around them could clearly hear every word of their exchange.
“No.” Gregory gave a little shrug to Lillian’s question and then turned to address all the rest of the Hunt. “But it will not be my will that will allow the healing, I shall summon magic from the Spirit Realm and all healing will be by the Divine Ones’ grace. Stay and be judged by them, or go into the darkness.”
Gregory turned back to the wounded young gargoyle without further comment.
There was some uneasy shifting among the Wild Hunt, but none fled that Lillian spotted.
Her father bowed his head and closed his eyes, preparing.
Lillian didn’t know whom her parents served, but she wanted the chance to know more about them before….before what might happen next.
Gregory speared her with a look. “This is your choice to make; you must make it soon. There are many more Riven to be hunted this night.”
More Riven? Of course, aren’t there always, she thought with bitter resentment.
“Heal them,” she ordered. “Heal everyone here who serves the light. Let it be the will of the Divine Ones.”
She rested her fingers lightly upon the brand circling her neck. By Gregory’s earlier words, it sounded like anyone whom the Divine Ones judged to be tainted weren’t likely to see the dawn.
Was that Gregory’s plan all along? To end them both before they could become the Battle Goddess’s play things?
“So ordered, so shall it be.” Gregory’s somber tone matched the ritual words.
He mantled his wings and they flared outward like two great sails. His eyes drifted closed as his voice rose in a melodic chant.
Lillian wanted to take the coward’s way out and squeeze her own eyes tigh
tly shut, but if she’d just ordered their doom, well, by the God and Goddess, she’d watch it come with her eyes wide and her mind free of fear.
Gregory held his hands out before him, palms facing each other like he held a globe-shaped object between them.
Cold air flowed downward from some unknown spot above her head. A breeze picked up, growing stronger by the second until it was kicking up debris in a circle around them. Cross currents continued to build as silvery blue fog rose from the ground. Lillian’s lungs burned and she released the breath she’d been holding.
Between Gregory’s outstretched hands, a spinning vortex of pure, cold magic formed. Brighter flares of magic twisted up through the opposing currents of air and a small twister began to swirl down from a denser, cloud-like mass of power over head.
A tornado?
That was to be the mechanism of Divine justice?
Poetic justice, too, perhaps, for Gregory had been like a tornado coming into her life: powerful, awe-inspiring, possessing a deadly beauty, and fully willing and capable of disrupting an orderly life.
If this was to be her end, she wanted to say one more thing.
“I’m sorry,” she shouted above the noise of the wind. “So sorry I made such a muddle of things. I only ever wanted to be worthy.”
Gregory’s eyes slid open and his expression was serene.
“I know,” he whispered into her mind, “And you were always worthy, my beautiful dryad, my fierce gargoyle huntress.”
He dropped the glowing ball of power he’d held between his hands, it fell slowly as if gravity’s hand had no effect upon it. When it finally hit the ground, it shattered, exploding outward in all directions.
A powerful force knocked her from her feet and rolled her a few times until she collided with a tree. The force flowed onward, feeling more like an ocean wave, one with a powerful accompanying undertow than it resembled storm tossed air currents.
Lillian gasped and shuddered before she managed to roll herself back into an upright position. All fours was the best she could manage. She’d try for two later.
A tingling sensation raced along her nerve endings, similar to the pins and needles of restored circulation. Though, this was probably something far less harmless. The magic sank beneath her skin, seeped into her bloodstream, and then deeper yet, through muscle and into bone, until its cold tingle settled deep in the marrow. It paused then, and Lillian took a courage-strengthening breath. Nothing more happened for several heartbeats. She was just glancing up to see how the magic was affecting the others when a wave of pain welled up from within her bones.
Sorceress Rising (A Gargoyle and Sorceress Tale Book 2) Page 22