Elite: A Hunter novel

by Mercedes Lackey

  “You’re sure about that?” demanded the armorer as my mouth went dry. “You’re sure he was a civilized Folk Mage?”

  Steel made a tiny little motion of his head that could have been a nod. “Mind, none of us have seen many Folk Mages, but this one would have stood out in any crowd.”

  “Is this important?” Jessie demanded sharply.

  “Yes,” Kent told her, so she backed off.

  “All purples and lavenders, hair most women would kill to have, fancy robes, pretty face…You’d think he was going to a party, or out of some fantasy vid, not walking around on a battlefield.”

  Kent thought about that. “That’s…Something about that is familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  Kent shook his head. “Never mind. Go on, Steel.”

  Steel managed to crack his eyes a very little; I could see the glitter of them between his swollen lids. “Anyway, I figured he was going to monologue for a few minutes, then finish me off. But he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t say a damn thing. He just stood over me, but the fact that he was there kept all the other monsters off me.”

  There was a murmur of astonishment at that, and who could blame us? I was the only one that I’d ever heard of who’d had a nonfatal encounter with a Folk Mage.

  “I tried saying something to him,” Steel continued, “but he didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to think, and my head had been beaten on enough that I wasn’t all that good at thinking anyway.”

  “And that’s all he did?” Kent prodded.

  Steel nodded again. “Eventually I just passed out, with him still standing over me, and when I woke up again, he was gone, the fighting was over, it was about noon, and it was all quiet. My Hounds were standing guard on me at that point.”

  “That would be after PsiCorps showed up and we beat them back,” Kent told him. “I wouldn’t call it ‘winning,’ but we’re all right for now. Joy’s got us something I’ll explain when you’re feeling better.”

  “I could barely think when I came to. My Perscom was trashed, my comm set was gone the second Ace hit me, and if it hadn’t been for my Hounds, I never would have gotten the attention of the folks looking for survivors or human bodies. That’s it. Now, Jess promised me the good drugs.”

  “And you’ll get ’em, Mistuh Steel, now we got yer brain swellin’ down.” Jessie made shooing motions, and we moved away as she went and got one of the docs and towed him back to Steel’s bed.

  But I was thinking about that description; there was no way there could have been two identical Folk Mages like that on the battlefield. What Steel had been describing was my Mage. All right, so that Folk Mage had been, for whatever weird Folk reasons, trying to give me warnings. That was bizarre enough. But now there was this! Why had he protected Steel? Why had he helped both of us? Who in the history of the world since the Diseray had ever heard of one of the Folk helping us? I had more questions, and no answers at all.

  But my questions had to be put aside for the moment. We needed to tell the rest about our new power sources—and, as it turned out, Kent wanted me to be the one to tell them.

  Kent sent out orders for the Hunters all to gather in the only room big enough to hold them all at once: the chopper hangar. I hadn’t even known HQ had a hangar, although it should have been obvious that we did, in retrospect. Our pilots weren’t army, and neither were our helichoppers, and they had to be kept somewhere near HQ when they weren’t in use.

  “Why me?” I asked, extremely uncomfortable with being put in this position. “I’m not—”

  “You’re Elite,” Kent replied, giving me a stern look. “If Elite were allowed to trend, you’d still be trending and in the top spot. You’re Elite Joyeaux, with the pack of eleven. Half the younger set have you as wallpaper on their vid-screens.”

  Wait—what? I wanted to say.

  But…

  I already knew people idolized me. And if any of the other Hunters had thought I was getting a swelled head, that idea got killed dead when I went for Elite, because if I’d been a glory-hound like Ace, that was the last thing I would have done.

  Right now they’d listen to me. And since I had done things with Hounds no one else had, they’d believe me, which was the important part. Archer had said it: what was important in magic was not so much what you thought, but what you believed.

  “And you have the Elite to organize,” I said, more thinking aloud than anything else.

  “Not just the Elite. I’m going to have to go pretend-humble to PsiCorps as our rep. That’s going to take a lot of time, about three times more than I want it to, and about six times more than I can stomach.” His mouth twisted up in distaste, and I could scarcely blame him. “So what are you going to tell the Hunters?”

  “I’m going to tell them something true that they desperately want and need to hear—that Hunters are going to be able to stop the Othersiders, and I know how,” I said. “Then have them bring their alphas over and ask them. That’ll clinch it.”

  He nodded. “Good. And the next time you need to tell them something, they’ll listen to you because you were correct now.” Once again, he gave me that look that reminded me of the Masters when they told me it was time to try something new and harder. “Like it or not, you’re about to become a leader. You lead a pack of eleven, and they listen to you. This is the next step. No argument. Go.”

  And he literally pushed me out the door of the armory. Bya followed. When I looked down at my Hound, he was…grinning. Grinning like this was something he’d expected all along.

  “Shut up, you,” I said. Because I hate attention, and I hate fuss, and all this leader business was nothing but attention and fuss. But if Kent was right, and he rarely was wrong, at least I was the right person to stand up in front of the ranking Hunters right now and give them some good news after all the bad. I’d worry about the rest of it—Kent trying to make me into some sort of permanent leader—later.

  The hangar was empty—they’d moved all the choppers outside. It was a big, plain room with huge metal doors at one end, a ’crete floor, and ’crete walls, all painted a sort of beige. There were bulletin boards and posters and suchlike on the walls, and equipment and tool racks shoved out of the way. Sounds echoed off the ’crete floor and walls. The Hunters—like the Elite, all of them more or less injured—milled in a group, some looking hopeful, most looking desperate. The air of doom hung over everything, and I got the feeling that they had all expected this meeting was because someone was going to tell them that the next time the Othersiders showed up, we needed to have an evacuation plan in place because we were going to need it. Before I could say anything, Dazzle (oh, how relieved I was to see her!) spotted me.

  “Joy!” she squealed, which got everyone looking in my direction. I cleared my throat, and just as I did that, a cam-drone zoomed over to me, and suddenly the sound of me clearing my throat came at me from speakers all over the hangar. I winced a little, then straightened my spine, telling myself that I didn’t matter, but what I had to say did.

  “I’m Hunter Elite Joyeaux,” I said formally. “Senior Elite Armorer Kent gathered you here because I’ve got some important stuff to tell you.” I paused. “But the most important thing you need to know is this: Something happened out there, which is what I am going to tell you about. And because of that, now we know how to win.”

  It went a lot faster this time; not only was there no initial skepticism, but Kent had been right. Just because of what I was, and my reputation, deserved or not, the rankers were willing to believe me from the get-go. Then, as Hunter after Hunter called up alphas and got confirmation, things got positively euphoric.

  “Don’t get cocky!” I shouted, forgetting that the cam-drone was taking my voice and amplifying it. “DON’T GET COCKY!” boomed out of all the speakers, and we all covered our ears in reaction. But at least it put a damper on things a bit. “We’re not out of the woods yet,” I warned. “We can only win this if we figh
t smart. Senior Elite Kent and a team are putting together strategy. The good news is that as far as anyone can tell, the Othersiders use exactly zero strategy. Anyway, the first op is for everybody to get as rested and healed as you can, and the second, if we’re given that long before the next attack, is for all of you to practice your spellcasting and get it accurate. I don’t need to tell you what a cluster things are going to turn into if your spells are both overclocked and inaccurate.”

  I got nods for that. Good. “Right, then. Get fed and rested, and practice, and anything new in the way of orders will come in on your Perscoms,” I said. “Good Hunting.”

  Since I couldn’t think of anything more to say, and I didn’t want to get buttonholed for zillions of questions when my stomach was telling me that meal-drinks were not going to cut it, I got out of there and headed for food.

  Eat, Bya ordered. Everything else can wait.

  I got food out of that little kitchen the Elite used because the mess hall was mobbed. So was the kitchen but not so badly that I couldn’t just grab a tray, fill it with stuff grabbed randomly, and take it to my room. Bya sprawled next to me on the bed. While I gulped down food without really tasting it, I was scrolling through all the permanent cams on all the pylons of the Prime Barrier. I didn’t think the Othersiders would try for the same pylon twice, though I was fairly certain that they would try what they’d failed at the last time. It was just too logical; to get into Apex proper, they had to attempt to take down a pylon, and with it, a section of the Barrier. Given all the stepped-up patrols I saw as I paged through cam-screens, I was by far and away not the only person who had thought of that either. Which was comforting because it meant there were lots of people putting their brains to work on this, and I not only didn’t have to try and think of everything, I’d probably already done my share.

  I was too restless to sleep, even though I still felt as if I could sleep for a week, so when I finished eating, Bya and I went to the one place in the entire building that I was pretty certain no one else would go to. I wanted to get away from everyone else, what with most of HQ looking like an anthill someone had just stuck a stick into. The quietest spot would likely be the atrium garden and the koi pond.

  My head felt…not achy, but overfull. Too much had happened in too short a time. I just needed to go somewhere that wasn’t my room, where I could pace or sit or whatever and not have people around me, because I didn’t want to rehash everything I’d told people a million more times. It’s human nature to ask the same questions over and over; we’re wired to repeat things so we get them right. But since that cam had been there while I told people everything we had figured out, I knew for a fact every muscle twitch and word had been recorded. That meant if people really wanted to listen to what I said over and over again, they could refer to the recording and not keep barraging me with questions.

  But when Bya and I got to the garden, I discovered I had been mistaken about finding it empty. There was someone there already. And as I entered, the tall, white-clad figure straightened.

  “Oh—” I said uncertainly. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, Mark.”

  “You didn’t,” Knight replied, standing up. “I figured you’d be here sooner or later. I’ve been waiting on you.” He looked down at my alpha. “Hello, Bya. Glad you’re keeping an eye on Joy.”

  “You’ve been waiting for me?” I shifted my weight from my right to my left foot, taken off guard. “Uh—I—” What on earth did he want? Surely he knew better than to ask me to rehash everything…unless, maybe he wanted Bya to interpret for his Hounds?

  “I just wanted to tell you, I’d made up my mind about leaving,” he said, standing over me. “Looming” was what I would have said, except it wasn’t intimidating. Just…he was awfully tall.

  “This is—” This isn’t exactly a good time, I was thinking, and was planning on saying. Why now? Was he here to tell me he wanted me to put that word in with the Masters? Unless he wanted to get himself and Jessie out before the next attack. I could see that. The Mountain would be a lot safer than here, and she was probably babbling with terror at this point.

  “I’m not,” he continued, interrupting me and short-circuiting my thoughts and what I was about to reply. “Leaving, that is. It’s pretty obvious this is the worst possible time even to consider it, but even if that wasn’t the case, well…” He paused, and then said, “Jess, you might’s well come out and say your own piece.”

  From the back of the garden, Jessie came out of the shadows; I hadn’t seen her because she was wearing a dark tunic and pants. “You go first, hon,” she said, sidling up to him and taking his arm, with a little bit of a defiant glance, maybe a touch of jealousy in it still. Or maybe it was just warning that she wasn’t going to stand around and let some heathen hussy grab her man. Okay, I could live with that.

  Mark shrugged. “I’m a Hunter, and that’s a risky job and it isn’t gonna change. Jessie needs to understand that, needs to get her head wrapped around the fact that I am always going to be in danger, one way or another.”

  Jessie shivered a little, but nodded. “It’s…I cain’t say I like it here. There ain’t anyone to talk to like I do back home, an’ till I got talkin’ with that Mistuh Severn, an’ he found out that while Mark was gone I turned into Doc Bellow’s assistant, I didn’t have anythin’ t’do. At least now I got somethin’ other than bein’ Pa’s girl or Mark’s wife.”

  Mark chuckled. “She won’t brag on herself, but I will. They tell me she’s a crackerjack nurse, and if she’s willing, they’ll put her in field-medic training.”

  She shivered again. But she didn’t say no. Huh. Hope for her yet.

  Mark half turned toward her. “Now look here, Jess. You got to figure out that just because I have a friend that’s a gal, it doesn’t mean that friend is anything more than a friend.”

  Jessie nodded dubiously.

  I decided to ham things up a little. “Sorry, Mark. You’re a nice guy but—forgive me. Yuck. I’d rather date Bya.”

  That surprised a snort and choking laughter out of Mark. Jessie looked at both of us as if we were crazy. “Bya’s her alpha Hound,” Mark explained. And then she just looked at me as if I was crazy, which was an improvement from looking at me as if I was the enemy.

  There was an awful lot more I could have said and, actually, wanted to say, but it would have been insulting to their religion. It sounded like he’d already come to the conclusion that some of his peoples’ religious customs were things that needed changing all by himself, anyway, and he could very likely bring Jessie around to his way of thinking.

  I dug up a smile from somewhere. “Mark, I’m glad to hear that you aren’t leaving. But, Jessie…the Mountain might be safer for you, and I sure wouldn’t blame anyone who wanted to get out of Apex right now—”

  “That may be so,” she said stoutly. “But my place’s here, now.”

  “I am not going to argue with a decision that gets us another nurse,” I replied. “Just…Jessie, the option’s open. You can always come back when it’s safer.”

  “Not unless Mark goes too,” she replied.

  Mark didn’t exactly beam, but he looked a lot happier than he had the last time we talked about this. “I reckon that’s all that needs be said. Now I’m gonna get some shut-eye, while I still can. I got the feeling the Othersiders aren’t gonna let us get much breathing room.”

  “I get the feeling you’re right,” I replied. He and Jessie edged past me, and he patted my shoulder in passing. “’Night, Mark.”

  “’Night, Joy,” he replied, and disappeared into the hallway. For a big guy, he sure could move quietly. All I heard were Jessie’s footsteps.

  I got some food for the fish and fed them, listening to the trickle of the water, slowly breathing in the damp air full of the scent of earth and green things. The soft dark was as soothing to my eyes as the gentle sound of the water was to my ears.

  For a moment, I totally sympathized with Jessie. People I knew w
ere dead, and while that wasn’t a new thing for me, it never eased the hit when it happened. I let that part hit me and had a bit of a cry for Retro. I longed for the option to just run away from all this, run far, back home, back to the Monastery. Because, sure, we’d just come up with a way to even the odds against us in what had gone from simple defense to a repeat of the Diseray, but that didn’t mean we’d win. It didn’t mean we’d come out slightly ahead or even achieve a draw. And even if we did win this time…there would be a next time. How many more “next times” would there be?

  Kent was right. Something had changed.

  Now we were at war.

  “THAT’S…ODD.” I LOOKED UP at the sound of Kent’s voice, to see what he was looking at. I was in the armory, which, for the past three days, was where I always was if I wasn’t eating or sleeping. Practicing, mostly—not with the Hounds but just to make sure that my targeting was at the peak of perfection and I could get off my spells without needing to think, automatically and without hesitation. Every tiny bit of magical energy we used had to count, so I was practicing everything I knew to make sure it was going to hit what I needed it to hit and do what I needed it to do. The only break had been when we’d hung the pictures on the wall of the bar and toasted the dead and I’d gone to my room to have another, longer, more heartfelt cry. Seeing Retro’s grinning face in that picture had hit me in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

  The others had their own way of dealing with the waiting; I felt better if I was practicing. For me, doing something was better than pretending everything was fine or trying to lose myself in a vid or a game, or…well, whatever else people were doing in the privacy of their rooms. No one got drunk, though, or left HQ, because we all knew that when the call came, we couldn’t afford to waste minutes getting to the attack site. Whatever else we were, we were still Hunters. I heard that the army had dug up a couple of their Healing Mages to work on Steel, which was a good thing, if true. They could compress a couple weeks of healing into a couple days.