Hunter's Night

by Melinda Kucsera

  “I don’t know.” But Strella was lying and doing a poor job of it. Robin could hear the false notes in her voice.

  “How can I know for certain who sent them? I can’t exactly ask them.” If only there was a way she could. Robin had a feeling they'd tell her, but animal mind speech was a staple in the tales bards told, not in reality.

  “Don’t you have one of the Huntress’—um—threads?”

  “I have two of them, but I can’t make them do anything. I’ve tried.” Robin let go of the necklace and touched her wrist where three white strands glowed against her coat sleeve. They stubbornly refused to do anything else.

  “How do you know they’re not doing something right now? Those wolves haven’t attacked you yet. They’re just growling at you.”

  “And drooling for my blood, don’t forget that part.” Robin twisted her lips in disgust.

  She felt farther from Rosalie when she should feel nearer. She’d finally reached Mount Eredren. All Robin had to do was get rid of these wolves and go inside to find the help she needed to save her daughter. These wolves and their collars might hold the key to finding Rosalie, but only if the Huntress had sent them. How could she know for sure if that bitch had?

  The answer, when it came surprised her, but Robin darted forward before she could think better of it and threw her arms around the closest wolf—the alpha. She locked her arms around his neck and touched her wrist, and the strings glowing around it, to his collar. A shock traveled up her arm, and she almost let go as he exploded into movement.

  The alpha bucked and thrashed as he tried to break her grip. But Robin refused to let go. She tightened her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around him. He was very large, larger than her in fact, but she clung on until he calmed, and one of the white threads winked out.

  Before Robin could figure out which thread it was—she hoped it wasn't the one from the Queen of All Trees—he finally threw her off. Robin landed on the gravel a few feet away and braced herself for a fight. When it didn’t come, she sat up and met his green eyes.

  Robin saw the Huntress in them, confirming her guess. So it was that baby-stealing bitch's thread that had winked out. Her hunch had been right, but it was a hollow victory.

  “The Wild Hunt did send them. Thank you.” Robin reached out to ruffle his sable fur then thought better of it and let her hand drop into her lap. He was an alpha, not a pet.

  The alpha nodded and whined in pain as a flash parted his collar. It fell off and vanished before it hit the ground leaving a green glowing thread behind. He backed away from it and growled at Robin when that thread crawled toward her.

  She crab-walked away from it, but it launched itself and wrapped around her ankle, adding to her collection of glowing things. Robin tensed and waited for something to happen, but nothing did. There wasn’t even a tug from the leash it had been part of. Damn it.

  That leash was gone, and so was her only clue to the whereabouts of the Wild Hunt. That new thread just glowed around her ankle. Robin dropped her head into her hands. She'd been so close to finding the answer she'd sought.

  “Damn. I really hope that doesn’t bite us in the ass one day.” Strella stalked over and offered Robin a hand up. She accepted. Maybe she could get a direction off the other wolves' collars.

  “Where’d those wolves go?” Robin glanced around for them, but they were gone. And she hadn’t gotten a direction off them either. Double damn. Robin rushed to the edge of the cliff and peered out.

  “There they are.” Strella pointed to six gray smudges running all out for the henge at the edge of the meadow and the enchanted forest beyond.

  Robin fumbled for her compass, but it wasn’t in her pocket anymore. “Where’s my compass?”

  “I don't know. Where did you have it last?”

  Robin shook her head and cast about until she found her compass in the gravel. She dusted it off and rushed back to take a reading then she sat down on a boulder and stared at the compass in her hand in shock.

  “This can’t be right.” Robin tapped her index finger on the compass, but its heading didn't change.

  “What can’t be?” Strella glanced over her shoulder at the compass. “Oh.”

  ‘Oh,' was right. The compass pointed due north back to the mountain they’d left early this morning or late last night. Robin wasn’t sure which it was. She pocketed her compass and stared off the cliff. All this time she’d wasted for nothing.

  “How will I ever get her back when at every turn, I made the wrong decision?”

  “You don’t know that. They might turn when they hit the forest. Stop beating yourself up. You made the only decision you could with the situation at hand. You’re not infallible. No one is.”

  “But I must save my daughter.”

  “You will. Now, dry your eyes and come with me. Let’s finish what we started.”

  Strella held out her gloved hand. Robin brushed the tears from her eyes then took it, accepting so much more than a hand up. Strella had offered friendship too. She pulled Robin to her feet, and they turned toward the golden glow of Mount Eredren. Its twin doors stood open, and the two wardens stepped aside without a word and gestured for them to enter.

  Neither one wanted to mess with them, and that was a relief because Robin didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now. She was wrung out and grateful they’d decided not to give her a hard time. For the first time that day, something had gone right. Maybe that rightness would follow them inside and change her luck for the better because her quest was only beginning.

  Chapter 21

  Robin paused on the threshold, remembering the alpha. She’d seen only six shadows slipping silently across the meadow. Where had he gone? She turned to ask Strella, but Strella shook her head.

  “I was just wondering the same thing,” Strella said.

  “Do you think we’ll see him again?”

  “Oh yes, while his pack is beholden to the Huntress, another clash is inevitable. The only question is what side will he take? Hers or yours.”

  Robin shrugged, but that 'yours’ reference had stung. It was a sharp reminder that they weren't a team anymore. Robin was on her own again at a time when she needed companions more than ever. Everything she'd been through today had only reinforced that she needed help to get her daughter back.

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  “You will, but my part in this ends here.”

  Robin tried not to show her disappointment or how much that hurt, but it probably showed anyway. She’d always been easy to read.

  “Aww, don’t look at me like that. You knew this was coming.”

  Strella kept walking into the gloom. Her lumir crystal pendant lit her way to the sled where Cat still lay. No one had collected her. No one had even fetched a healer. Robin frowned at that lapse in duty. Standards were slipping, and that didn't bode well for her since she needed the Rangers’ help. But so far, they'd been less than helpful.

  “Where’s that Ranger we asked for directions? Please don’t tell me one of those wolves ate him when I was—” Bound by someone else's magic? What was a good way to end that loaded question? Robin went with “indisposed,” because it was the most accurate description of her situation then.

  “Nope. Mr. Bad Attitude is alive and well. He went on ahead and brought Cat inside. I thought he’d go whole hog and take her to the infirmary. Mount Eredren ought to have one. But I must have mistaken him for a caring human being when he’s so obviously not.”

  “Clearly.” Robin clucked her tongue then froze when she heard echoes of the same words that had been banging around inside her heart since last night.

  “Took my baby,” a woman said, her voice breaking along with Robin's heart. The word ‘baby’ echoed through the tunnel, and Robin flinched.

  Strella caught her eye and raised a questioning eyebrow. She’d heard those echoes too. It was impossible to miss since everything echoed in the tunnel, including their footsteps, which would complicate her
search for that distraught woman. But that was one argument she needed to be a part of especially if the same creatures had also kidnapped that woman’s child.

  “You think the same people are responsible,” Strella said in an undertone as she dropped back to walk beside Robin, who nodded.

  “Yes, I do. It’s too much of a coincidence to be otherwise.”

  Strella nodded thoughtfully as she too turned over that ugly fact and came to a startling conclusion. One Robin had been avoiding because it raised the kind of questions she’d been avoiding since the birth of her daughter. But she couldn’t avoid them for much longer. Not if the look in Strella’s eyes was any indication.

  “Then it wasn’t by chance. Those creatures took your daughter for a reason.” Strella stopped in the middle of the tunnel, and her dark eyes probed Robin for answers she didn't have.

  “Maybe,” Robin tried to pass Strella, but Strella thrust out a hand to stop her.

  “There’s no maybe about it. They targeted you specifically, and that woman I hear too.”

  “We don’t know that.” Robin tugged her arm free and had to pick her gloves up off the floor. They’d fallen when Strella had grabbed her arm. But that was one question Robin intended to get answers for.

  “I think you know more than you’re saying. But it’s not my place to interrogate you.” So saying, Strella lifted both hands up in defeat. “You’ll do what you must, and so will I.” Strella’s troubled gaze swung to the sled, and she picked up the rope attached to it.

  There was nothing more Robin could do for Cat except to let her go. She retrieved her things from the sled then stayed a moment by Cat’s side to say a silent thank you before backing away, rucksack and bow case in hand. She'd belted a full quiver around her waist and was ready for anything now. At least she hoped she was.

  “You’ll look after her?”

  “Of course, we’re partners. We’re also unemployed at the moment, but I'm sure we'll find another gig when Cat’s well enough to work again. In the meantime, we’ll be here.”

  Strella didn't say it, but her tone implied that she wouldn’t mind if Robin called upon them in the future, and that unspoken invitation eased some of her doubts and fears. Robin was only temporarily alone on this quest. And that explained the guilt squatting in Strella’s eyes. She wanted another dance with the Wild Hunt.

  Yeah, well, so did Robin. She squeezed her fists so tight her knuckles cracked, and she wished it was that Huntress’ neck, not her sodden gloves she was strangling. Then she shifted her grip and wrung them out properly. She’d need them again and soon by the sound of things.

  But Robin couldn’t leave things like this with Strella. It had been nice traveling with two women warriors, and she hadn’t wanted that association to end. Maybe it didn’t have to. Cat would be laid up here for a while. Maybe even long enough for her to find her daughter and hook up with them again on the trail. Maybe. Strella had certainly left the door open for that.

  “So, this is goodbye?”

  “For now. Hopefully, our paths will cross again.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Robin twisted the gloves in her hands. It was time to part ways, but she wanted to prolong this for as long as she could, so she didn't have to confront her uncertain future. But she couldn’t find the words, and it wasn't fair to Cat to keep them standing here in this cold tunnel when Strella could be getting Cat the care she’d earned.

  “So do I, and I think Cat will too when I tell her what she missed.” Strella slipped the rope harness over her head and threaded her arms through the loops. “You don't happen to know where the infirmary is, do you?”

  And that was it. A short goodbye, then tears and a journey, like in the old tales. Oh God, she was turning into one of those heroines who wished she didn’t have to part with every friend she made. Ironically, that thought made Robin chuckle, but she suppressed it as she turned to face Strella. After what they’d been through, she owed the tall warrior woman more than this.

  “Thank you for everything. Give Cat my thanks too. I wish her a speedy recovery. And if our paths don't cross again, I wish you both a safe and prosperous journey to wherever you decide to go after this.” Robin extended her hand.

  “And I wish you good luck and Godspeed on your journey as well.” Strella clasped her forearm, and Robin did likewise. “Perhaps you’ll find us here when you return. The three of us could make a formidable team if you’re interested.”

  If there was an afterward, but it was gratifying to know she had a place if she wanted it with those two women. But Robin couldn’t think about that right now, not while the task before her loomed so large it blocked out all else. Who knew if there would be an afterward?

  “Thank you.” Robin gave the forearm she clasped a shake then let go.

  But Strella held on for a moment more, her dark eyes searching Robin’s for something. Whatever it was, she didn’t find it before she too let go. A look of concern passed over her dark face then she turned.

  “I hope I see you around. May God speed you on your quest.”

  Strella rounded the bend without a backward glance and the sled grated as it followed her. Strella had better upgrade that to a cart or a proper stretcher. Mount Eredren’s tunnels swallowed Cat too and after another moment’s pause, Robin listened for the echoes of that grieving mother’s voice and turned toward it, hoping she wasn't making a mistake.

  Strella was right about one thing. This was all a little too convenient, and Robin couldn't shake the feeling something was very wrong with all of this. She braced herself and turned the bend, uncertain what to expect and on guard for anything except what she found.

  Chapter 22

  Sarn started to open his eyes then stopped when Shade hissed something in his ear about keeping them closed. A gloved hand settled over his eyes just in case he hadn’t heard that urgent request. It was Shade’s, of course. Something soft covered them, screening them from view—cloaks maybe? It took Sarn a moment to remember why they were hiding.

  “You can remove your hand now. I’ll keep my eyes closed so as not to give us away.” That had to be why Shade’s hand was covering his eyes.

  “Shh, we’re not alone.” But Shade did as he’d asked.

  “Who’s in here?”

  “Aside from the seven of us? A Ranger, a Guard, and a woman. They just walked in.”

  “What are they arguing about?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. But it sounds like the woman is accusing a third party of kidnapping.”

  “A baby?”

  “She hasn’t said. But that’s my guess.”

  “I have to talk to her.” Sarn started to rise, but Shade pulled him back down.

  “No, wait a bit. Let’s see what we can learn from listening first.”

  Sarn didn’t like that plan, but he was still weak and lightheaded from his recent blackout. He wasn’t in any condition to fight Shade on that, yet. But in a few minutes when he’d regained his equilibrium, all bets were off, and Shade knew it.

  “Please do this my way for now.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.” The answer shot out of Sarn’s mouth before he could think about it. “Of course, I do. You’re my friend.”

  But those damned doubts crept in again, and so did more than few questions. There was a hole in Sarn’s memory. It was a small one, but he didn’t remember anything after setting foot in here. How could he ask what had happened and not giveaway his memory loss?

  Sarn bit his lip. Not every blackout caused him to lose time, but the ones that did worried him because they left him with no memory of what he was doing right before they’d happened. There was no good way to ask this, so Sarn just came out with it.

  “Shade, what was I doing when I blacked out? I know I was using magic, but why? What was I doing with it?”

  “You didn’t say.” Shade found his hand and squeezed it.

  Damn, well now he’d
never know. But that didn’t feel right, Sarn just couldn’t let that go. “Did I say anything at all?” He must have even if it was cryptic.

  “No, you didn’t, and I did ask. Since you avoid talking about your magic, I didn’t pry. Maybe I should have.” Shade sounded regretful and Sarn wished he could see his friend’s face, but he couldn’t even if he disobeyed Shade and opened his eyes because there was a veil in the way.

  Double damn. With no clues to go on, Sarn crossed his arms over the mountains his knees made and rested his head on them. He didn’t know what to do now. Should he continue with his mad plan to go after his son with Shade? What if he blacked out again and lost control of his magic? He could hurt everyone who was with him. The thought of him harming Shade or anyone even accidentally scared Sarn.

  The Rangers were right about him. He was damaged goods. Maybe his son would be better off without him.

  “How long was I out?” Sarn asked, dreading the answer, but he needed to know how much time he’d lost. His internal clock felt out of sync with the world, and he needed to reset it. But he couldn’t see the sun from inside this cave. He just knew it was still shining.

  “Only a few minutes why? I didn’t count them. Should I have?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sarn could only hear parts of the argument because he’d lost half of his hearing in one ear. Between that and the echoes bouncing around this room, he could only catch a few words, and they made no sense out of context, so he went back to fretting about his situation. But he needn’t have worried because Fate was about to decide for him.

  All he needed to do was sit there and be ready to act when the moment called for it. And it would call for it soon. Destiny was headed his way, and she was wearing a red coat.

  When she stepped into the room, a woman screamed, “She kidnapped my baby.”

  Chapter 23

  Hyntra reined in by the gold sparkle she could sense more than see. There was something off about that last child they'd collected, the mage's son. He was not quite a year old, but he was big for his age, and he had an aura unlike any Hyntra had seen before. It wrapped that child in green light so pale, it was almost white.