After a few turns of the stair, Dart searched below. She sought some reassurance. Though they had left all their blades below, they were not without weapons. Tylar carried his naethryn beast inside him, along with all the Grace in his humours. And Brant still bore his stone, a gift of another god, rich in a Grace that might untwine the roots of seersong from the mind of the Huntress.
And there was one last weapon.
Dart faced forward to spot Pupp dancing among the legs of Marron’s party. They remained unaware of his presence. A splash of her blood and the others would soon learn that they had let something worse than a stray dagger past their guard.
But would it all be enough against the raving might of a full god?
Dart wished Tylar had not abandoned his sword.
She also noted a limp in his gait. It slowly grew worse until he seemed barely able to bend his knee. A hand rubbed, but failed to warm whatever stiffness hobbled him.
Rogger mumbled something beyond Dart’s hearing, but Tylar waved him off.
After a full quarter bell of climbing, the steps finally emptied out upon a wide balcony. Mists wove across the planks and between the railing posts. Below, the flippercraft shone like a second sun, ringed in black smoke, glowing through the mists. Above the face of the sun was no more than a glare. The terrace hovered between the world of sunlight and the death below.
Oddly, the reek of rot seemed richer here, though there were no staked heads. Only a single figure waited, as stiff as any sharpened pole.
Her head swung toward them as they were led forward.
Marron dropped to his knees. His obeisance announced who stood before them better than his words. “I am yours to command, mistress.”
The Huntress stepped farther out of the mists, revealing a dark-skinned woman of stunning features, eyes aglow with Grace. She was dressed in green leathers, cross-strapped in black across her breasts and tied around waist and down her thighs, like some twining vine. Her boots were black also. She seemed as strong as the tree that supported her castillion. It was no wonder she showed no fear in inviting a godslayer into her midst.
Dart studied her.
There was no sign of ravaging in her calm features, no tick of insanity nor waste of condition. Even her ebony hair was meticulously braided into a looping coil at her shoulders.
She came to the edge of her guards and stopped. Her eyes seemed to see only Tylar.
“Godslayer,” she said, as if testing the word.
“Huntress,” Tylar acknowledged, stepping forward, favoring one leg. “What is the meaning of such a greeting? What dark corruption have you wrought here?”
Marron swung toward him, still on his knees, prepared to order his death at such an abrupt affront. Arrows were already nocked to strings. Their poisonous points glinted wetly.
But the Huntress stayed them all with a finger and merely cocked her head. “Of what corruption do you speak, Tylar ser Noche?”
He lifted his arm toward the railing. “The slaughter of your own people.”
She smiled, warm and kindly. “Ah, you mistake my actions. What I have done was only to make Saysh Mal stronger. Dark times are upon us. I have heard it whispered in my ear better than most. All the realms must be prepared, to gird our loins and ready for the great war to come. Saysh Mal will not fail Myrillia.”
“How do murder and cruelty make you stronger?”
“Murder and cruelty?” She raised her palms in confusion. “Does a gardenskeep murder when he trims away the sprouted sapling that taps strength from the main trunk? Is it cruelty to pull the weed so the fruit may grow that much heavier on the neighboring vine?”
Tylar kept his features a calm match to the god’s. “You cull the young and the old.”
“And the weak and infirm.” She agreed. “So all may grow stronger. I’ve readied a great army, and braced them with my own blood.”
“You’ve Grace-burnt them. Stripped their wills.”
She shook her head-not disagreeing, only dismissing. “What is will? It is weakness. I’ve taken away indecision, doubt, hesitation, disloyalty.” Anger threaded her words now. “So as to better serve Myrillia.”
“You’ve forced them. Given them no choice to serve or not.”
“It is my right. Do not other gods allow their Grace to be mixed in alchemies and fed to women freshly taken to seed, so their offspring might be stronger in ways that the natural born are not? How is what I do any different? Is the babe in the womb any less stripped of his choice in such matters, forged into the unnatural? All I burn away is one’s hesitation and doubt. The body is left pure.”
“Pure for what?”
“For the war to come! Have you not heard the drums in the night? Have you not seen the shadows shift on their own?” She stepped back as if to encompass more of the world as she gazed skyward. “Once ready, once stripped of all weakness, Saysh Mal will rise against the darkness. We will not let hesitation and doubt weaken us.”
Her voice keened higher.
“Not like your brethren of the cloth,” she continued. “They were not of Saysh Mal. They sought to stop me, cloaked in the same shadows as those that wait in darkness to claim Myrillia. They were no different than the voices who whispered to me in the night and sought to loosen my resolve with terrors and promises. Whispers out of bone.”
Seersong, Dart realized. Her father’s bones had started this song that ended now in a chorus of slaughter and screams. The Dark Grace had driven the Huntress into some realm of terror where cruelty could be justified in the name of security.
The Huntress spread her arms high. “The ravens had to be silenced before they spread word of my preparations. Ravens in the night…and their wings had to be clipped!”
Dart finally followed her gaze. It had not been directed skyward to encompass the world. The Huntress’s mind was still tangled here, landlocked, and bound in pain.
All their faces turned upward.
Hanging from the branches overhead, half-lost in mists, rested a flock of giant birds, black wings spread wide, batlike and heavy.
Not birds.
Men.
Shadowknights.
The former oath-sworn of Tashijan had been gutted and strung up with their own bowels. Their cloaks and capes extended like wings, soaked with mists and blood.
Aghast with horror, Dart averted her eyes. She gaped at the Huntress.
How could she…?
The Huntress lowered her arms and faced them again. “Your arrival here-he who slew the daemon Chrism-only further supports the righteousness of my actions. You have been flown here to serve me, by destiny and fate, by the sounding of my warhorn. Daemonslayer and godslayer. With you bound beside me, we will free Myrillia.”
Tylar finally stared toward the Huntress. Dart noted the flash in his eye. It was not Grace. It was certainty.
“Never,” he said.
He had climbed here, risked all, hoping to sway her from this path. The Huntress was no servant of the Cabal-in many ways, she was more victim than collaborator. But Tylar knew that neither mattered.
Here was something worse.
Madness given the strength of a god.
“You will drink my blood and join me at my side,” she ordered. “Or all who stand beside you will be flailed of skin and sinew. Their cries-like the whispers out of bone-will sway you to do what must be done.”
“I will need no swaying. I know what must be done.” Tylar stepped aside and used his palm to push Brant forward. “I was also led here not just by fate and destiny-but by the word of one of your own.”
The Huntress finally seemed to note that there were others beside Tylar. She had been so focused on the Godslayer-and all that his arrival portended-that she had ignored those who shadowed him.
Her eyes found Brant, narrowed with momentary confusion, then widened with shocked recognition.
“The banished returned! Another sign! Brant, son of Rylland…hunter and bringer of dark gifts…”
Ho
pe shone from her face.
Marron spoke into her silence. “It is I who bring you gifts now!”
He hurriedly shrugged off Rogger’s satchel and pushed it toward her, almost prostrating himself on the planks, so eager to please, and afraid to have his place usurped in her eyes.
The Huntress backed a step. She must have suspected what lay hidden within the folds of cloth, recognizing a familiar bulge. “It cannot be…”
“Mistress?”
“It had vanished. Surely vanquished.” Her voice began to tremble. “The dark whisper in the night. Then silence. The first sign. I was free to build my army.”
Then her manner sharpened. She leaned forward, eyes narrowing slyly. “Unless…unless you test me, godslayer. To make sure my legion is prepared.”
“You have found me out,” Tylar said, limping forward.
“Take care,” Rogger whispered through his beard, chin lowered. “You play with broken daggers here.”
Tylar nodded, to both Rogger and the Huntress. “Can you face the skull and still hold fast?”
She rose again to a stiff-backed posture, proud and strong. “I have winnowed my realm to its purest.” Then she added with a glare to the south, “Or at least almost…if not for her…”
Tylar glanced to Rogger and Krevan. Both shook their heads, unsure what this newest raving portended.
She faced Tylar, then eyed the satchel, almost with longing. “I would hear it again…so I might resist it this time.”
Tylar nodded, offering both his palms, open and inviting toward the satchel. “So we have come.”
The Huntress sank to her knees, not touching the satchel. She reached out, then away again. A war fought over her features: fear, desire, agony, anguish. Her fingers trembled.
“Perhaps there’s hope for her yet,” Krevan breathed.
Marron seemed to sense his mistress’s weakness and sought to hide it from the strangers here. “Let me, mistress. As always, your servant.”
His words broke her hesitation, but not her resolve. She waved to the satchel. “Show me.”
Marron shuffled gratefully forward on his knees. He fingered loose the strings and reached inside.
“Be ready,” Tylar said to Brant.
Dart tensed. They needed the skull exposed, free of its bile cocoon. She urged Marron not to falter.
He pulled it free as if reading Dart’s thoughts.
Pupp had angled closer, ever curious, perhaps sensing Dart’s attention and focus. None saw him-not even Dart. Not until it was too late.
Marron lowered the wrapped skull to the planks and peeled back the wrap. Brant groaned, falling to his knees, guarded over by Krevan.
“Sing, boy,” Rogger urged. “Speak anything.”
Dart heard Brant whisper through pain-thinned lips, haltingly and agonized. She knew if she touched him now that he would be feverish again.
He sang as he burnt. “‘Come, sweet night…steal the last light…so your moons may glow.’”
The Huntress still knelt before the revealed skull. She slowly lifted her head, like a flower following the sun. “What…?” A hand rose to touch her brow. Her gaze flickered to Brant. “What are you…don’t…”
Lost to his own agony, he continued mumbling his song, gasping out notes as if they pained him. “‘Come, sweet night…hide all our worries…so our dreams will flow.’”
The god’s face squeezed against what she heard. The fingers at her brow turned their nails on her own flesh, dragging gouges. Teeth gritted, a whine escaped, blood flowed, rich in Grace.
“No…stop…”
“Keep going,” Tylar urged.
Marron heard Tylar, then glanced between Brant and the Huntress. Both god and boy were now locked on one another.
The Huntress clenched her face between her two palms, but she did not break her gaze on Brant. Fingers pulled at hair, scratched deeper. “Should not come back…I resisted once…sent you away.”
“What are you doing?” Marron asked, shoving to his feet. “Huntress?”
She ignored him.
Marron stumbled back, unsure, lacking his own will, without guidance. But as the seersong was ripped from his god, the loss also weakened her control over the others. Bows dropped. Hunters stumbled back. Others panicked and swung upon the strangers, arrows nocked and shaking in their direction.
“She’s breaking,” Rogger whispered.
One hunter fell down beside Dart, staring at his hands in disbelief. A wail escaped him, full of heartbreak and horror.
The Huntress echoed his cry, blood flowing like tears down her cheek. “No! I don’t want…it hurts too much…!”
Her eyes glanced to Brant’s clutched fist. She then thrashed back, covering her face, falling on her side.
“What have I done?”
With the skull abandoned by both Marron and the Huntress, another came closer to investigate. With the planks cleared to either side, Dart spotted the fiery glow of his approach, slunk low, glowing with curiosity.
Dart’s heart clenched in her chest. “Pupp…no! Stay back!”
Too late.
He reached forward and nosed the skull. As with all items potent in Grace, the contact pulled Pupp into substance. He bloomed with solidity on the planks of the balcony. His form glowed ruddy and bright, melting and churning, a bronze statue upon a forge.
Marron noted Pupp’s fiery appearance. Though dazed, the hunter finally found something upon which to focus, to vent his confusion. He scrambled to free his bow, arm pointed.
“Daemon!” he screamed. “They bring daemons!”
Pupp lifted his head, drawn by the cry. With the contact broken, his form wisped away, a candle gutted, visible only to Dart now.
Marron searched vainly, stumbling in a wary circle-until returning to what still rested upon the planks.
“The skull!” he screamed. “It is cursed! Births daemons!”
Brant’s efforts to pull the roots of seersong from the Huntress had an unwanted ripple. It also freed Marron to act, to shed his indecisiveness.
The hunter sprang forward. His booted leg held high. He brought his heel crashing down on the crown of the skull, smashing the ancient bones to skittering fragments. One piece struck Dart’s knee.
Next to her, Brant gasped and arched back as if lashed. His feeble song died on his lips.
“Bring oil!” Marron yelled, grinding bone under his heel. “Burn the foul thing to ash!”
The other hunters responded to their leader, needing some guidance to fill the void left by the Huntress’s absence. Krevan attempted to lunge forward, but an arrow sped past his ear, warning him back. They were surrounded again. Lamps and torches appeared, rushed forward by others.
The fragments were doused and set to flame.
Rogger managed to collect the piece near Dart’s knee, scooping it away into a rag, then into a pocket. The rest burnt in pools of oil.
Brant wobbled back to his feet. “The stone-it’s gone cold again.”
The Huntress also pushed from her sprawl. Her face was still bloody, but her wounds were already healing, sealing up with the fire of her own Grace. Her eyes continued to roll as she fought to focus.
“I’ve lost her,” Brant said, stumbling back. “The song still holds firm, rooted deep. I could feel it.”
A malignancy spread again among the hunters. More bowmen and spears poured up from below, drawn by the commotion, silently summoned by the command of the god.
The Huntress sank back into her madness, almost gratefully, with no fight. She gained her feet, too, though not without wobbling. She stared across at the surrounded party. Eyes shone with Grace and malice. Her voice remained whispery and weak.
“Kill…” She pointed at Brant. “Kill the boy.”
Only one heard her, the closest to her side.
Marron had his bow already in hand. He drew a long pull.
“Wait!” Tylar called, billowing out his cloak protectively. But his hobbled knee stumbled him.
Brant suddenly sat down hard upon the planks next to Dart. He stared down at his chest. A feathered bolt protruded from his ribs. Dart saw the poisoned point poking out the back of his shoulder.
The Huntress tottered, but her voice grew firmer.
“He has a stone… the stone. Bring it to me.”
Dart kept her gaze on Brant. She saw the color drain, his face go slack. She reached a hand-but he fell away from her touch, his face lifted toward the ravens in the trees.
Just as dead.
Lorr had known when the seersong weakened its hold on both the Huntress and her hunters. He read it in the sudden bewilderment of their guards: the sway of limb, the lowering of weapons, the squint of confusion.
One of the hunters swung away and suddenly emptied his stomach into a bush. Another ran off, dropping his bow, stepping on his own arrow, and stabbing himself. He ran four steps, then dropped like a felled deer.
Lorr collected the dead hunter’s weapon, even the offending arrow.
The loam-giant smashed a fist into the face of the man who tried to stop him, crushing bone and knocking him flat. Shaking his fist, Malthumalbaen turned back to Lorr.
“Grab our weapons,” Lorr said and pointed. “Especially the regent’s swords.”
The giant obeyed, gathering an armful. “What now?”
“We get lost in the wood.”
Lorr didn’t know how long this respite would last. Even if the others succeeded, it would be easy to get grazed by a panicked arrow in the meantime. Better to be lost. So he led the way. In the chaos, it was not hard to vanish out of the clearing and into the denser forest.
Or usually it wouldn’t be.
The tracker winced at the crashing progress of the giant behind him. For a creature born of loam, the fellow seemed to be pounding at the very soil that had given birth to him. Twigs snapped, branches broke, and tangles of vines ripped with every other step. They were leaving a trail behind that a blind man could track.
He hissed at the giant behind him. “Can you tread a little lighter?”
“As soon as you suck that big nose back into your head,” he countered. “Where are we going, anyway? I won’t leave Master Brant behind.”
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