Meralonne, however, shook his head; what his own expression now exposed, he could not clearly see. He had known that the word would draw the bard’s attention when no other word could. But he had spoken the single word as if it encompassed his own longing, his own loss.
One could hide from the bard-born, with practice. One could even lie. But it took effort, the deliberate placement of syllables and their nuances. Meralonne had not even tried.
“Kallandras! Call the wind back. Call it, or you will do the work of the kin.”
Kallandras’ eyes widened, losing their glow, their wind-infused power. He glanced at his hand, at the ring that now burned flesh. Wincing, he curled that hand into a fist, and he lifted it.
And I am spent, Meralonne thought. But he, too, bent will toward the leashing of the wild air.
Chapter Twenty-three
EMBATTLED BY WIND AND DEATH, Lord Elseth lowered his spear.
Devon watched as he could. Lord Elseth had come to this dark, shadowed remnant of an ancient city with a single purpose: vengeance. Not for something as simple as wind and the ferocity of a maddened god would he abandon the fight; nor was he abandoning it now.
No, this sudden stillness was some part of his purpose. The Hunter’s hand dropped to his side, and when it rose again, it carried a horn. He planted his feet firmly apart, lifted the horn to his lips and blew three notes.
The wind did not carry them away; it didn’t disturb them at all; they were clearer than speech or screaming would have been.
Reaching out, Meralonne gripped the ringless hand of the bard. He had not intended to touch him at all.
“Its voice—” Kallandras said, his own broken, as if he’d sung at full power for hours.
“I know,” Meralonne said, his voice both loud and soft. “Hold tight, little brother. Hold long. The wind is about to realize it is angry.”
“Meralonne, I don’t know how to let it go. I don’t want to lose it—”
“I know. But we are fated to have and to lose, you and I. Walk the path bravely.”
Together, they began to call back the gale.
There was a cost, a price to be paid. It could be paid in life’s blood, and so often it was. The mage and the bard, locked by Meralonne’s grip, began to spin in the air, like the outer spokes of a broken wheel. They fought the movement, and they lived through their sudden descent, forcing the air to bear them in an arc that did not end in broken stone or their own broken flesh.
Meralonne snarled in fury, meeting the wind’s rage with his own. Kallandras offered the wind his loss, his pain, and his guilt. Of the two, it was the bard the wind now attacked, because it sensed certain weakness there. And it was there. Meralonne could not speak, could not divide the focus of his will; he could not argue with the bard or demand that he rise above his own pain.
He could see that the ring now glowed so brightly it was painful to look upon. What Myrddion had made so many centuries ago was now being pressed to its utmost limits; it had never been tested until now. If it did not hold, the wind would destroy them all.
But Kallandras lifted his face; his hair, wild and unkempt, now trailed blood—but from what wound, it was not clear. He opened his cracked lips, and he began—again—to sing.
The storm stopped abruptly at the force of his voice. But the wind was not yet finished; it switched tactics, and Meralonne heard its voice raised, for the first time, in harmony with the bard’s. His eyes stung, not from sand or dirt or shards of bitter rock but from something else he did not care to name, for the wind sang of freedom.
It sang of companionship, kinship, unity.
It offered these as gifts to a merely mortal man, and that man smiled bitterly, painfully, blood adorning his phrasing like punctuation. He wanted to lose himself to the wind’s voice and be done; Meralonne, bound to him for moments longer, knew this as certainly as if it were his own desire.
But more than that, he wanted the safety of what was lost to him forever. He sang the wind home, and the wind, crying, came.
Silence.
It was broken by the roar of a wild god. That roar was no different in effect than the roar of the angered element; where it was heard, it froze the unwary, and they met their deaths.
The Kings’ standards, by some grace of magic and determination, stood; they were still now, but the embroidery of their emblems could be seen in the darkness. Even had there been no light, they would have shone; the magi had labored over them. The Kings’ forces still stood, and they made their way toward those banners; but they moved slowly, awkwardly, as if the sudden silence had deafened them. They did not look to the Kings. Indeed, they did not look to the standards, except by instinct. The whole of their battered attention now rested upon one man’s shoulders: Lord Gilliam of Elseth.
And his whole attention was absorbed by the Lord of the Covenant, whose pale coat was now darkened by blood. They watched each other so intently they might have been statues carved by an Artisan to commemorate this moment.
The Exalted were busy; the children of the Mother had already begun the work that would not wait: They attempted to save the fallen whose spirits had not passed across the bridge in the beyond that led to the Halls of Mandaros. They fought death here, as if they were life’s soldiers.
The air was still. No wind came to lift the banners; no breeze came to cool the foreheads of men who now lay aground. There was no sun, no movement of cloud, no glimpse of true light—nor would there be here. Only those who made the ascent to the city above would see it, and many who had made the journey into the darkness would not.
But the horn had been sounded. The Sacred Hunt of the Western Kingdom of Breodanir had finally been called. The raging, bestial god turned as the last note died into utter stillness, all other prey forgotten. He rose on hind legs, and he roared; the ground shook with it. What had they called him? The Hunter’s Death. The Hunter’s inevitable death.
Sigurne, who had studied some of the notes and papers that had come out of Breodanir via the Order of which she was head, knew some of the customs of the Breodani. Once a year, during the Sacred Hunt, the god hunted his people. One noble, or his Huntbrother, would die. Always. That death, like the seasons, could not be prevented.
The man who faced him was mortal. He held a spear that had been crafted for this Hunt, but he stood alone, and in the shadow of a god’s glory, he looked too small and too frail to withstand the onslaught of his god. Yet upon his shoulders, their lives now rested.
“Matteos,” Sigurne said, still watching, “retrieve those who can be retrieved. Stay as far from the god as you did when the Lord of the Hells was upon the field.”
Meralonne carried Kallandras as the wind guttered and the stillness took hold. He carried Kallandras through the roar of a god, and he spared only a glimpse for the solitary figure who faced the beast. Once, in bygone years, he had carried the fallen with just such grace, and he had been gentle with them, he who was known only for his ferocity.
The bard reached up to tug at the edge of his robes, for he wore robes now that the battle was over. Meralonne, witness to the destruction of part of the Terafin manse, knew better than the Exalted or the magi what must follow the fall of the Hunter Lord.
“What is it?” he asked softly. He spoke an old tongue; the bard did not appear to notice the difference in the language at all.
But Kallandras attempted to stand, to leave the haven of the only support he was offered. Meralonne ceased all motion, but he did not release the bard to the earth, upon which the dead lay scattered like interlocking sculptures.
Instead, he held him upright, and he watched as the bard’s lips began to move. He could not hear what the bard said, but given his expression, he did not expect to; nor did he offer the necessary warning about the use of talent-born power. Kallandras had passed his limits and hovered on the brink of mage fevers so strong they might consume him.
He knew it; he must know it. But if he did not care, Meralonne would not. He granted the ba
rd choice, and the dignity of the cost of that choice; and he waited while the bard’s cracked lips moved, with effort, over thirteen words.
Only when he was done did the bard sag, as if all strings had been cut, into the comfort and strength of a stranger’s arms. He wept there, and he did not care who bore witness.
Meralonne APhaniel did, but he was the only person who was allowed to do so, for he used his own magic, as unwisely as Kallandras had just done, to shield him from the view of all others.
Silence.
Hunter God and Hunter now existed in a forest of broken stone and natural shadow. Only the Hunter God’s light illuminated them at all, and it was not a conscious choice on his part.
Lord Gilliam of Elseth lowered the horn. He raised the spear in both hands, as if in salute. He was pale in the light the god shed, but there was no fear in him. The god began to move, and the Hunter Lord smiled.
He was a foreigner, in a foreign city; he had seen demons and he had seen gods and he had seen the death of his closest friend, in the span of weeks. The only thing that moved him to black rage had been the treatment of the dogs that had died in the battle at the Terafin manse, for he had expected—demanded—that they be accorded the funeral rites of heroes.
Devon, better than any man present, knew the truth of these things, especially the last. And so, to Devon, the young Hunter Lord looked isolated, standing alone, and it seemed wrong to him. But he was Astari, and he had his orders: to stand by the Kings now. To wait.
There should be trumpets, he thought, as the spear was slowly lowered. There should be heralds; there should be hushed praise. Anything but this silence, this held breath, this empty waiting.
Devon followed the gods, but he seldom prayed, and this close to the Exalted, there wasn’t much point; if the gods couldn’t hear the prayers of the Exalted, they would hear no one’s. Surrounded by death, and only death, the Hunter Lord squared his shoulders, lowered his spear, and froze.
The silence was broken by the baying of hounds.
They came against his orders and against his command; they came against the wishes of the slightly frightened priests who had been given their care. They came through the unlit caverns and the unlit, broken streets, and they came in silence until they had all but reached their Hunter’s side: three dogs, their colors almost indistinguishable in the muted light.
He did not turn; he did not otherwise acknowledge their presence.
But Devon smiled. It was a slight smile, and it acknowledged pain and the possibility of fresh loss, but it was also right: They were his, and they existed for the hunt. Even this one.
The lone Hunter from the Kingdom of Breodanir straightened. He watched, the dogs ready at his side, as the god began, at last, to move.
He lumbered, too bulky to seem swift, too powerful to be anything else. The Hunter Lord seemed as enspelled as the rest of the witnesses, and he moved slowly, and late; the god’s claws tore through his cloak and his tunic in one easy motion. Blood welled across Breodani thigh, dark against green, seen by the god’s moving, internal light.
Lord Gilliam of Elseth turned, leaped, rolled; the cloak fell away from his shoulders, its clasp snapped. He was on his feet before the god had reached the spot where he had fallen, and he was away, once again in control.
The dogs harried the god’s flank, snapping and leaping clear, even as their Hunter had. The spear was not a light or quick weapon, and although its head was edged, it was meant for point, not slash. Lord Gilliam made no attempt to do the latter. He kept the point between himself and the god as he navigated broken stone and pillars as if they were the geography of an ancient forest.
As Meralonne, burdened, approached the gathering of the Kings’ men, he saw that they were already in motion as the Hunter and the god faced each other. He was weary, but not so much so that he could not spare an idle thought for the folly and vanity of men. It soured a mood that was already melancholy; he longed for his pipe and the comfort of his personal clutter and spells.
“Stand your ground,” he told them curtly, raising his voice only slightly to be heard.
A Kings’ Sword the magi recognized as Verrus Sivari—oft decorated and well thought of by the Kings—turned. “It is not our way to stand idle while our allies face death.”
“And it is your way, of course, to commit to death your own people. Stand your ground.” There was no pipe, no office, no confined—and empty—space, and his arms ached with the weight of the bard—a weight that at one time would have been insignificant. Nor did the Kings’ men rush now to his side to offer the fallen the respect that was his due, and this, too, irked the mage. He had not the time to argue with idiots while Kallandras bled in silence.
But he took the time, cursing it.
“The Kings’ Swords,” was the even reply, “take their orders from the Kings.”
It was cumbersome to bow. Meralonne first knelt, setting aside the bard. When he rose, he offered a gesture of respect that was so perfect it was leavened with sarcasm. Which fell flat.
“Member APhaniel.” It was King Reymalyn who now spoke. “What would you have of us?”
“I would have you save the lives of your servitors. They are gathering to intervene in the struggle.” It took effort not to curse them as idiots, but he made the effort, wondering at the same time, why. “There is only one weapon in the city that can affect the creature you see before us. That man wields it, as he is oathsworn to do. Neither he nor the creature would benefit from the aid that you seek to offer—but neither he, nor the creature, would be injured by it either. Your men will break like a single wave against the seawall.” He spoke mildly as if stating simple fact; he was.
Nor did the King question him.
The Lord of the Compact, however, turned to the King. “My Lord, heed him.”
King Reymalyn took the magi’s measure with his piercing, golden gaze, and then he lifted his hand and gave the order.
They had seen gods fight; they had seen a god fall, and they knew there was only one possible outcome. They had not raised a hand against the Lord of the Hells and could not now raise hand against the Lord of the Hunt. Lord Gilliam of Elseth was no god, to fight upon even ground. No god, to survive the wrath and the fury of gods.
But he dared what they did not dare, bound in some way to a god the magi had once sworn could not be genuine. The god turned, briefly, to lunge at one of the darker of the dogs; his great paw clipped the dog’s legs, and the smaller creature flew. He was low enough to ground to skid, claws scrabbling against marble that had not been broken or cracked.
Here and there the stone did shine; the wind had removed both debris and corpses. The dog gained traction and wheeled, arrowing again toward the fight.
But the dogs had harried the beast enough; it roared. Because of its shape and its size, it was possible to see it as a creature, no more. It was not. It knew who commanded the dogs, and it knew—who better?—that to kill Lord Gilliam was to destroy all resistance.
It turned toward the Hunter Lord, who now waited, spear shaft in both hands, legs slightly bent as he braced himself for the god’s approach.
And as they watched, hands on swords, breath held, the world shifted, and where columns stood, trees formed in their stead, wide trunked and thick branched. The scattered stone shards, the sharp new edges of broken marble, were caught in the same transformation, becoming, in light that was already scant, the undergrowth that might grace such trees.
It was dark in the forest.
The beast did not charge, although its movements, sleek and fast, implied one. The dogs harried it from the left and the right, but they stayed well clear of the jaws of the beast, and they ranged the reach of his neck. They could not, however, outrange the beast’s paws, and when their small jaws grazed flesh, it turned and batted them away, as if they were small vermin.
Devon, aware of what the dogs meant to Lord Gilliam, held his breath, but the dogs were stunned for only a few seconds on landing; the blows had
not been fatal.
The Hunter Lord looked up to meet the eyes of the approaching god, and he froze, staring at something that no one else could see, and everyone watching could comprehend: divinity made, for a moment, flesh.
It almost cost him his life.
The god leaped, all the while holding fast to Lord Gilliam’s gaze. It was a heavy, cumbersome leap, and it fell just short; jaws that should have removed the arm that held the spear tore cloth and skin in a loud snap. Lord Gilliam grunted and shook off the pain as his dogs snarled in fury and sprang, harrying the god at a distance that was entirely unsafe. They did not try to annoy or tire now; they tried to protect. They drew blood, and if their teeth and their jaws were in no way the equal of a god’s, they angered the beast enough that Lord Gilliam could pull back and steady himself.
The god’s claws raked the side of one dog, exposing ribs. But the dog, like its master, did not fall. Lord Gilliam shifted his grip on the spear, and as the god turned to snap again at the hounds that attempted to stay just beyond the reach of his jaws, the Hunter Lord drove the spear he wielded into the beast’s flesh, just below and to one side of the line of its jaw.
The god roared, and if dragons had ever truly existed, their legendary voices were an echo of his rage and his pain. His voice was the only voice in the coliseum, and the ghostly trees shuddered with its force, as if it were a gale. Not so the men and women who bore witness; they froze or flinched, forcing themselves to hold steady as the Hunter Lord was lifted off his feet.
He held fast to the spear the god attempted to dislodge by thrashing. He held fast when the god snapped his head, side to side, and he was born aloft in a wide arc, his feet kicking air. His weight drove the tip further home.
The beast’s jaws could not reach the Hunter Lord; nor could his claws, although he did try to dislodge the Hunter with the force of their blows. It seemed impossible to Devon that the god would retain this form, that he would anchor himself to the structure and shape of a beast, no matter how bizarre or otherworldly. It was not, now, to his advantage, and if he shed shape—as gods were said to be able to do—he might escape the deepening wound the spear caused.
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