Hunter's Night

by Melinda Kucsera

Strella glanced at her. There was no more time for regrets. “Are you ready?”

  “Let’s go.”

  First one howl then another disturbed the quiet, making them both turn in opposite directions, scanning the area. Robin’s gaze passed over the stubby peak to the trailhead where they stood. The wind whipped through the rock cut behind Robin and slammed into them. But they both braced themselves until it passed.

  “What was that we just heard? Are there wolves around here?” Robin cursed herself for not knowing. She hadn’t thought to ask before heading this way.

  “That’s what it sounds like, but I don’t see any.”

  “They’re probably down in the valley.”

  “If we don’t bother them, they won’t bother us.” Strella squinted down the mountain and nodded as she picked a place to launch their bad idea.

  “How do you know that?” Robin followed her gaze but couldn’t figure out where Strella intended to set their harebrained scheme into motion.

  “Cat and I came across a wolf’s den once. We backed away real quick when we realized what we’d done.”

  “Did the pack chase you?”

  “Right out of their territory, yes, but they didn't pursue us beyond that. Wolves don’t eat people, not unless there’s something wrong with them.” Strella pointed to a patch of snow. “Let’s launch it from there.”

  “Okay, it looks like a reasonably straight shot from there.”

  “And no trees, but once we hit the bottom, we’ll have to bail out and pull hard on these to stop the sled before it hits any of the enchanted trees down there.” Strella indicated the ropes they’d been using to drag the sled with a wave of her hand.

  “That’s not going to be fun.”

  “There’s no way around it. I don’t want to break any of their rules. The enchanted forest gets violent if you do.” Strella moved to the opposite side of the sled near its head and fell into a runner’s crouch.

  “True.” Another howl interrupted Robin followed by three more. “They sound closer than before. Let’s just go.”

  Robin grabbed a branch sticking out of her creation near the rear by Cat’s covered feet. Would there be enough room for the three of them on there? It was too late now to second guess their plan.

  “On three, push and jump on. Got that?”

  “Yes, one,” Robin said with false bravado. She was either about to save a lot of time or get very dead very fast. Hang on, Rosalie. I’m so glad you can’t see the crazy things I do to save you.

  “Smart aleck.”

  “Two.” Robin rolled her eyes. This must be what it was like to have a sister.

  “Three.”

  A green light flashed in the distance. “Wait!” Robin shouted as she strained to see what had made that light. It appeared to be due south of them.

  “Go,” Strella said as she pushed up from her crouch, gave the sled a good shove and jumped aboard, narrowly missing Cat's head.

  But Robin reacted a fraction of a second too late, and the sled shot forward without her.

  “Oh crap.” Robin looked down at the rope looped around her torso. It tethered her to the sled hurtling down the mountain. When the rope reached its fullest extension, it yanked her off her feet. Robin landed on her belly and received a face full of snow as the sled dragged her in its wake.

  “Robin!”

  Robin spat out a mouthful of snow. “I’m okay, but I mistimed the jump.” At least the snow was deeper here. It cushioned her as she slid down the mountain behind the sled.

  “Hold on. I’ll pull you up,” Strella said, but Robin couldn’t see her through the snow kicked up by their passage.

  “You steer. I can reel myself in. It’s just like climbing a rope.” Except Robin's hands kept slipping off the snow-coated rope, undoing her progress, and her shoulders ached from pulling the sled. Only a dozen feet separated her from the sled.

  “Yeah right, you just keep telling yourself that.” Strella did something to anchor the rope, and Robin inched closer to the sled.

  She caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. Robin turned her head and had to squint to keep the snow out of her eyes. A four-legged shadow paced her. No, not a shadow, it was a wolf.

  “A wolf, look, Strella!” There was something around its neck. Robin caught a flash of luminous green, a band maybe, just below the scruff of its neck, but she must have imagined that. Who would collar a wild animal?

  “I see them. Give me your hand. I think I can reach you now.”

  Robin turned her head as much as she was able and extended her hand above her head. She felt a gloved hand slide past hers and clasp her forearm. Robin closed her fingers around Strella’s in return.

  “Got you. Now, get up here and help me, you laggard. No more lying down on the job.”

  “As if I’d ever do that.”

  “Well, you kind of just did.” Strella hauled Robin up until she could get a foothold on the sled, then Strella let go, and Robin tumbled onto Cat, landing chest-to-chest with the unconscious swordswoman.

  Cat opened her eyes, but they didn’t focus properly. “Sorry, love, you’re not my type,” she murmured then her eyes rolled up in her head again, and she stilled.

  “I’m so sorry.” Robin scrambled off her, and the sudden shift in weight distribution shoved the sled hard to the right.

  “What did you do?” Strella glanced over her shoulder. She was crouched at the head of the sled and holding tight to one of the longer branches that gave this sled its length. Its tip now had a permanent bend in it from Strella’s powerful hands.

  “I moved.”

  “Do whatever you just did again when I tell you to.”

  “Why?”

  “I have a plan.”

  “Will it help us outrun those wolves? There’s six of them, and they’re gaining on us.”

  “They’re not our problem. I told you. Wolves don’t attack people unless provoked, and we’re not going to provoke them.”’

  “Then why are they chasing us?”

  “They’re probably playing with us. Dogs do that. I'll bet their wilder cousins do too.”

  Were they playing with them? Robin crouched and held fast to the ropes they’d crisscrossed over Cat and their belongings, so she wasn’t flung off when she turned to give the wolves running behind them a dubious look. Robin kept catching flashes of that same luminous green, but she couldn’t bring it into focus. It seemed to slip away from her sight as fast as the ground slid away under them.

  The sled bounced, and Robin clung on, thankful she’d brought so much rope along. It was a lifesaver. Too bad she couldn’t use it to scare off those wolves. Their too-intense eyes sent a shiver through her.

  “Lean to the right, now.”

  Robin did as she was told, and they sailed between two massive trees whose crowns blotted out the lightening sky above.

  “Jump, Robin, and pull as hard as you can on that rope tied to you. We have to stop this thing before it crashes into another tree.”

  “On it.” Robin threw herself over the side. She hit the snow and was dragged a few feet before she could brace her feet against a tree and pull. The ground had leveled out here, bleeding off enough of their momentum that two determined women could stop the sled in a matter of moments.

  “It stopped.” Robin lay in the snow for a moment, exhausted and sore in both mind and body, but she had to move. “Get up,” she told herself as a shadow lumbered toward her. It was Strella, of course. The sun might be dawning outside the forest, but in here, it was still as dark as midnight.

  “Having some trouble?” Strella extended a hand, and Robin took it. She pulled Robin up to a sitting position then Robin waved her off.

  “Nothing I can’t walk off.”

  “Same here. I’ll check on Cat. You watch for our furry friends.”

  “Deal.”

  Strella froze. A listening look creased her face as her hand crept toward a hidden sheath. Robin scanned the deep shadows. There it was
again that same low growl.

  “You said wolves don’t eat people.”

  “They don’t. This is something different.” Strella signaled for silence, but the creature already knew they were there.

  Robin gathered herself to rise. Before she could, a furry bundle of arms and legs slammed into her chest and knocked her flat on her back in the snow again. She froze, fully expecting the enchanted tree towering over her to erupt into violence because one of their precious rules had been broken. But they didn’t twitch so much as a branch in that creature’s direction.

  “That’s not a wolf,” Strella said as three more creatures converged on them. They encircled Strella and nipped at her heels when she tried to reach Robin. Where were the other two?

  “I think they want you to stay back.”

  “Are you okay?”

  No, Robin wasn't okay. A supernatural creature that looked like an oversized wolf was sitting on her chest and staring at her. She was nose-to-muzzle with it and couldn’t look away from its green, green eyes, not even to glance at the flickering band of the same green around its neck.

  Those eerie eyes were like a human’s. They had pupils, green irises that were starting to glow, and a sclera that peeked out of its furry lids. Drawn against her will into those bottomless eyes, Robin stared, and the forest seemed to spin as the events of the last night careened past her mind’s eye.

  When the procession of memories ended, the wolfish creature blinked, killing the glow of its eyes. The world blackened, and it pulled Robin down into its hungry maw.

  Chapter 8

  “They’re probably riding horses. They’re unfamiliar to you because you haven’t spent much time around horses.” Nolo relaxed as he slotted the newcomers into a recognizable scenario.

  “No, they’re not travelers. There’s something strange about them.” Sarn watched the riders’ icons change from deer to people and back again while their mounts changed from people to something like a deer but with differently shaped antlers. He was at a loss to explain it.

  Icons just didn’t change on his map. Once his mind or his magic—whichever controlled his map—assigned an icon to something, it was always the same one. Why was it changing this time? What were the creatures riding toward them? Sarn would find out soon enough.

  “They must be in an awful hurry to travel through the storm to reach here.” Nolo gazed into the shadow-shrouded forest. It began about twenty paces from the outer ring of standing stones enclosing the meadow where he stood. But there wasn’t much to see there except a lot of exceptionally large trees whose bare branches intertwined high above them and blotted out the clouded sky, which was finally beginning to lighten. The sun had, at last, started to rise.

  “It’s not that.” Neither could Sarn explain what was bugging him about those incoming creatures.

  A green beam lanced through the shadows between two forest giants and struck one of the standing stones in front of them. It ricocheted back to whence it came, doubling the beam as Sarn watched uncertain what to make of it. That green beam was also on his map, and it pointed directly at him. The beam, if his map was right, and he had little doubt it wasn’t, had somehow originated with those strange riders.

  “What is that?” Sarn asked aloud, but he’d meant to put that question to his magic, which had gone still and watchful inside him. He felt it peering out of his eyes and had to blink to clear his vision each time it doubled.

  Sarn minimized his mental map with a flick of his will so it didn’t take up so much of his field of view as he jogged toward that beam of light. It was as wide as his pinky and unable to pass through the first ring of menhirs. There were two rings of snow-covered menhirs—one circumscribed the other.

  Why did the outer ring stop that beam while it let the glow of his eyes pass beyond it? They were both green lights. He generated one. What generated the other?

  “Stop,” Nolo said, and the oaths Sarn had sworn stopped him mid-step as the muscles in his body locked up just twenty stupid paces from the inner ring of standing stones. Damn it.

  There was a gap of about ten feet between the outer and inner rings, putting the object of his interest about thirty feet away. Only good balance kept Sarn upright. He couldn’t move until Nolo released him nor speak because speaking required movement. He could just give his master an imploring look.

  “At ease but stay here and talk to me. Tell me what you see.” Nolo gave him an apologetic look, and his shadow seemed to loom over Sarn but not in a menacing way. It was Nolo’s other persona, Death’s Marksman, having a look-see, but that dark presence felt more protective than threatening

  “There’s a light beyond those rings of standing stones. It’s the same color as my eyes.” Sarn pointed to that green beam. Was it sympathetic to his magic? He could find out if Nolo would release him.

  Anyone foolish enough to hike through a blizzard would have a lumir crystal in hand to light their way, and Sarn had an affinity for those stones. He could sense them from miles away when he chose, but what he sensed from those six riders was confusing. They had the usual types of lumir stones for light, a mix of white, off-white and pale yellow, and at least two other kinds he couldn’t identify, not from this distance.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  Nolo shaded his eyes to shield them from the blowing snow, but he kept a firm grip on Sarn’s shoulder. Sarn might be whip-thin, but he was already taller than most of the Rangers, including Nolo. But Nolo could stop him with a word.

  “What do you see? Sarn, answer me. You’ve been silent for too long,” Nolo’s tone brooked no argument.

  “I see a thin green beam of light, but you don’t.” Sarn tried to keep the resignation out of his voice. He’d hoped Nolo would be different than the other Rangers. Sarn had wanted one person to see what he saw. His disappointment was a hard pill to swallow, but the world never was what he’d wanted it to be. Why should that change now?

  “I don’t see anything except snow, snow, and more snow between us and those standing stones. Are you sure that’s what you see?”

  That was what Nolo said, but under it, Sarn heard what he really meant, ‘are you sure you’re not imagining it?’ That was a constant worry among the Rangers who were responsible for him.

  “The light is outside the rings of standing stones. It’s shining out of the enchanted forest and striking that stone there.” Sarn pointed as he tried to keep his rising frustration out of his voice. A magical thing must be generating that light, since only magic and fire emitted light, and fire was a kind of magic.

  Nolo stopped him with a word before Sarn could even try to move. “Halt.”

  “Why?”

  “If there’s a magical item out there, you shouldn’t get anywhere near it.”

  “But—” Sarn stopped and glared at his snow-covered boots.

  What good would arguing do? Nothing except ruin the good impression he was trying to make. But part of Sarn raged against that unfair restriction. He was the mage, not Nolo. Shouldn’t he get to decide what he should and shouldn’t check out?

  But no, the Rangers didn’t trust him to make rational decisions about anything. Why should magic be any different?

  Sarn had only been using it for as long as he could remember. He folded his arms over his chest and waited for Nolo to relent or those riders to arrive. They weren’t more than a mile away now according to his mental map, but he didn’t tell Nolo that.

  “You should put this on before those riders get here.” Nolo pressed something into Sarn’s gloved hand. It was a strip of black cloth—a blindfold to cover his eyes and hide their glow.

  Since that was a request, not an order, Sarn ignored it. He stuffed the blindfold into his pocket. The blowing snow should make it hard for anyone to get a good look at him, and his gut warned him to keep his eyes uncovered. They were still pumping out the light they were both seeing by.

  “How close are those riders?”

  “Less than a half mile away and clo
sing fast. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  “Are they armed?”

  “I don’t know, but two of the lumir crystals they’re carrying aren’t like any other,” Sarn said before he could stop himself.

  “How so?”

  “They do more than give off light.”

  Considering the sheer amount of lumir crystals Sarn had worked with over the years, he should be able to identify those stones. The fact that he couldn’t troubled him.

  “Are you saying there might be a spell of unknown power crammed in them?” Nolo stared at him.

  Was that what he was saying? Sarn wasn't sure at all. He’d only encountered a few stones that had powerful spells worked into them, but he’d never had a chance to examine any of them closely. Nolo gave him a look that confirmed he wouldn’t get that chance tonight either.

  “I don’t know.” Sarn hugged himself as the wind cut through his garments and stole some of his body heat. He wasn’t working enough magic to warm him, nor did he want to, not when his efforts wouldn’t be appreciated.

  Nolo scowled at the enchanted forest. Maybe he was trying to see what Sarn saw. “Why don’t I hear them? How close are they now?”

  “They’re behind that giant tree over there. I think they’re watching us.” Sarn pointed to a tree fifty paces away and wondered what they intended. That enchanted oak tree was wider than ten men packed together, and its branches arced over the first ring of standing stones then bent upward to curve around an invisible dome. They couldn't pass beyond the inner ring of standing stones either. Sarn hadn’t noticed that before.

  Against its dark bark, a woman wearing a white cloak appeared, and she beckoned to Sarn. When she spoke, her voice flirted with the fractured memories of a winter three years past. “Come to me,” she said.

  Her command wrapped around Sarn and pulled him toward the inner ring of standing stones and the enchanted forest beyond them. How could she have such power over him?

  Chapter 9

  “Robin? You must wake up now. We have to go, and you have to find your daughter.” Strella slapped Robin again, but her skin was numb from the cold, so Robin barely felt it.