Vengeance of the Hunter

by Angela Highland

  “Don’t mind me, valannè,” he said kindly at her look of chagrin. “I’ve had my breakfast. But when you get a moment to breathe, say hello to our hosts. These are the people who’re going to help us find your Rook and Hawk.”

  “And we can tell you right now, the Rook’s already in the city,” said a grizzled man on Kirinil’s other side. Faanshi’s heart leaped in her breast, and all at once her hunger was forgotten. “He and Nine-fingered Rab were seen putting on a juggling show, and it gave half a dozen of us a damned start to see him without his patch. But now that we’ve seen you, we can believe what you did to him with that power of yours.”

  “Yes, we told them.” Kirinil was amusing himself with the fire, feeding it tiny bits of kindling, and the wry look he shot her was filled with reflected flame. “It was too good a story not to share. We can use it.”

  Several voices spoke up their agreement, a few of which sounded far too awed for Faanshi’s comfort. She smiled weakly in several directions, but all her attention lay in truth with the man who’d spoken before. “Is it known where he is now, or how he might be found?”

  “Oh, aye. But we may have trouble getting to them, lass. Word has it that the Rook and Rab are on the hunt.”

  “They’re...they’re going to kill someone?” Disquiet shot through her. Julian and Rab had told her from the first that they were assassins, and if the Rook had rejoined his partner, surely that meant they intended to take up their profession once more. Foolish question, she chastised herself.

  “Are their targets known?” Alarrah asked, frowning.

  “No word on a contract, offered or accepted,” the man beside her admitted. “But they were down here asking for help thieving. And aye, their target for that was quite clear. Earl of House Nemea, from the eastern provinces.”

  Faanshi froze at the sound of the name. She’d never heard it before—yet it was familiar, setting off a flurry of half-glimpsed memories her magic had seen in Julian. None of them were as clear as anything she’d shared with Kestar, but all the same, they pulsed across her awareness in dim bursts of old, long-buried pain. Her right wrist suddenly ached. A twinge in her left temple answered it, bringing with it another name, one she’d blurted unthinkingly to Julian the night he’d come to free her. Cleon.

  A boy scooted forward, one hungry eye on the stew, but the other on Kirinil and Faanshi. “I saw a lady come to see ’em.” He eagerly grabbed the bowl he was offered. “I didn’t know what the crest on her carriage was so I asked. She was from House Nemea!”

  More voices traded commentary back and forth, but Faanshi barely heard them. She hadn’t seen a woman in Julian’s memories when she’d healed him the first time at Lomhannor Hall, and she’d been mostly dreaming herself in the deep healing sleep into which they’d both fallen in the abbey. But there was a woman now, or at least a phantom of one, lurking in the part of her that still remembered what it had felt like to make the Rook anew from the inside out. The woman wasn’t as clear in those echoed recollections as Cleon; there was no red, raw agony associated with her, nothing to rouse the force of her magic even across an intervening space of years. But there was a name, and with it, something deep and fierce that Faanshi couldn’t recognize at first.

  “Dulcinea,” she whispered.

  “Faanshi?” Kirinil spoke again at her side, tapping her lightly on the shoulder. “What is it?”

  She looked up at the elf, just enough to let him know she’d heard him, but her gaze went to the flames beneath the pot of stew. “Nemea...they’re the ones who hurt him. The ones that took his hand and his eye.” Just in time, she remembered that Julian didn’t use his true name in Kilmerry Province—that he was sometimes Richard, but usually the Rook. “Dulcinea is in House Nemea. I don’t know who she is, but...”

  Then it became clear. Great Djashtet. He loved her.

  But she couldn’t say that, didn’t even know if she should, and so she finished hoarsely, “She is very important to him.”

  “Assassins have taken contracts over women before,” Alarrah said, which made the man beside Kirinil snort.

  “I can’t speak for you elves, and maybe you’re better at it than we are,” he said. “But men have been killing each other over women, and vice versa, since our kind first discovered the gods made us with different sexes.”

  Laughter broke out around the fire pit at that, but Faanshi couldn’t join in. Nor did any of the others who’d come from Dolmerrath. Semai as always was unreadable, but Alarrah and Kirinil both looked at her now, frowning intently, and Alarrah slipped over to join her. “Do you think he’s going after her?” her sister asked quietly, underneath the merriment. “Or after her?”

  Faanshi had no way of knowing, and for the first time, she found herself wishing she’d made a link with Julian as she’d done with Kestar, so that her terrible weight of uncertainty could ease. “Crone of Night guide me, I wish I could say. But if these people are in the city, and Dulcinea’s with them...” She drew in a long shuddering breath and let it out again, striving to keep her voice steady. “I think he’ll go to her. And if he plans to break the ridahs and spill blood...I think we’re meant to stop him.”

  * * *

  The next thing Faanshi learned of the tunnels of Shalridan was that they were excellent for spying.

  They turned and twisted beneath much of the heart of the city, with access into dozens of the oldest buildings and alleys. In some locales they opened into basements of pubs, and in others, storage cellars of shops or even houses. Sometimes the tunnels opened up into walls far too broad for the space they should have occupied, and which gave an excellent view of many rooms both private and public. With the tunnels at their disposal, the elves told Faanshi and Semai, there was no secret in the city that the tunnel-folk didn’t know or couldn’t soon find out. Why the city watch or the Hawks had never infiltrated the tunnels was as much due to hard work and sharp eyes as fortune, for their people had to constantly change which trapdoors, hidden stairs, and alleys they used to escape into their haven.

  With the thought of assassinations weighing heavily on her mind, Faanshi didn’t dare ask if anyone had ever died rather than reveal the tunnels’ secrets—or had had to put another to death to protect them. But to her relief, none of them were put to that test as they began the search for where the Rook and Nine-fingered Rab had gone.

  No one expected that the assassins would still be at their boardinghouse, yet one of the people Faanshi and Alarrah had healed, the woman who’d been shot, volunteered to scout the place. “You healed me and my granddame both, and it’s well worth our lives to do this for you,” she announced. “I’ll be back by sunset.”

  She was faster than that, bringing back the word that indeed, the gentlemen who’d been renting the flat on the second floor of the boardinghouse had cleared out of the place. Their landlord was satisfied, for he’d been paid in full, though he was terribly sorry that he couldn’t provide any way to find them. The gentlemen had not, after all, left a forwarding address.

  They waited, then, for night to fall.

  More of the tunnel-folk went out first, the better to clear a way for the elves to move as quickly as possible up to the higher slopes that ringed the city, where the wealthy of Shalridan lived—and where wealthy visitors from elsewhere in the realm would find their lodging. The tunnel network didn’t extend up into those heights, and so arrangements had to be made. Faanshi didn’t ask how they managed to acquire a carriage, or a horse to draw it. It was enough that it was there, that it would move them and give them at least some scant protection from watchful eyes.

  Semai was chosen to play the part of a Tantiu warlord, and Faanshi, her distinctive features concealed beneath a hastily improvised korfi, would be his youngest son. Kirinil and Alarrah would be their indentured servants, bought for a tidy sum. The story wouldn’t stand under Hawk scrutiny. But then, none of them intended to run that risk. If it won them through any challenge at all, it would serve. Armed with their cover st
ory and their weapons, with Alarrah atop the carriage to drive and the others within, they set out into the night.

  They were not, however, the only carriage on the streets. A city of Shalridan’s size, Faanshi saw in the furtive glimpses she stole through her carriage window, was active long after sundown. People still moved about their business, on foot, ahorse or in carriages like the one they had appropriated. She saw pale faces and dark ones, the Tantiu korfis and veils and saris bright spots of color against the more understated Adalon garb. Shops remained open—some benign, others less so, or so Semai and Kirinil advised her.

  But only one other carriage provoked Alarrah into rapping a warning on the wall of theirs, while she leaned over and called urgently in through the window, “Be ready. I see amulet light ahead. I’m going to turn us, and hopefully they won’t come within a block of us.”

  “We’re not close enough to trigger amulets,” Kirinil said, scowling. “Not even with three of us at once. They’ve got somebody else.”

  “Gods damn it,” was Alarrah’s equally vehement reply. “Nobody we can do anything for right now, anyway. We’re somewhat occupied at the moment.”

  Something rippled across Faanshi’s mind then, a vague sense that someone was calling her name, though in no voice her ears could hear. It came to her instead as a glimpse of a mountain meadow, one she’d never seen with her physical eyes, but which was as real to her inner ones as her mental hearth.

  “We’ll have to do something about them later,” she said, her heart sinking. “Whoever those Hawks are, they have Kestar.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Shalridan, Kilmerry Province, Jeuchar 3, AC 1876

  “Enough is enough! Five days now we’ve been here, and we’ve still got no contract. Why in the name of the gods didn’t you tell me the Hawks were locking down the damned city?”

  Dulcinea might almost have thanked all the gods she could name for their mercy that Erasmus’s appointment with his Shalridan barrister was late enough in the day that she’d had time to slip out and back again—and that she’d made it back to the house Erasmus was renting for their use without his being the wiser. Efficient to the last, Moirae had arranged it all, even bribing a few of the footmen they’d hired to guard the place so that they wouldn’t betray any knowledge of their illicit departure from the house. It was a mercy indeed that her husband rarely bothered to share her bed, for that had allowed her maid to slip Dulcinea right back into her bedchamber and emerge on cue, properly dressed, to join Erasmus at the expected hour.

  There was no mercy to be found, however, in how her heart pounded the entire time. Or how Julian’s words echoed through her thoughts even as she plastered on the smile of a dutiful wife, waiting and listening while Erasmus launched his ire at the man who managed all their affairs in the western provinces.

  I can free you from him.

  It was a tempting notion, one Dulcinea desperately wished she could embrace. But she’d spent the past twelve years learning all too well what kind of power Erasmus could wield. And even though Julian had somehow miraculously survived to cross her path once more, she could find no faith that he could stand a second time against a brother who’d already nearly destroyed him.

  Nor could she believe that she herself deserved such a second chance.

  In their barrister’s office, as the barrister quailed under Erasmus’s fierce dark stare, she almost pitied the man’s efforts to keep his voice even. “I-it’s only just begun to be a problem today, milord,” he said. “What with the growing rumors of rebellion in the countryside, you know.”

  “Rebellion? What rebellion?”

  Dulcinea started at that herself, and out of a tiny spark of sympathy for the barrister she put in, “We haven’t had much time to read the broadsheets. My husband’s had to spend much of yesterday dealing with thefts of his goods.”

  Erasmus shot her a warning glance. “Quite,” he said, in a frigid tone that promised a reminder later of the folly of drawing too much attention to her presence. “You’ll have to forgive us for being behind on current events.”

  “Well, to be fair, there’s very little in the actual broadsheets, milord. Most of what I know is rumor that’s been spreading around the city—”

  “So out with it, man!”

  The barrister swallowed, nodded and hastily supplied, “There have been armed uprisings all over the province, and it’s said they’re prompted by sermons preaching for the reestablishment of Nirrivy—and tales of an elf girl who stood up to the Anreulag Herself.”

  “Claptrap,” Erasmus said with a sneer.

  “Of course, milord. I place no credence in such fairy tales myself. But I do know this. Someone’s providing arms and ammunition to these would-be rebels. And while none of my colleagues in the legal profession would swear to it officially...”

  He trailed off and visibly flinched as Erasmus slammed the desk between them. “Swear to what?”

  “Why, that one of the noble Houses of this province is the source of the weapons. House Kilmerredes, in fact.”

  With a swiftness that sent disquiet winging through Dulcinea—a volatile shift in her husband’s mood was never a good sign—Erasmus reared back from the desk, his expression changing completely. “Kilmerredes,” he repeated. “The same House Kilmerredes whose duke just died?”

  “Yes, milord.”

  A thoughtful gleam kindled in Erasmus’s eyes. “And in which House the widowed duchess is a woman of Tantiu blood. How intriguing. Could she be trying to restart the war?”

  “I really couldn’t say, milord—”

  “You don’t have to.” Erasmus grinned, throwing back his hands expansively, and beaming at the barrister and Dulcinea alike. “Do you realize what an opportunity now stands before us? I wasn’t old enough to take proper advantage of the last conflict, but now—ha. Perhaps I’ll salvage something of this trip after all. Forget the negotiations on the shipments. If the Hawks are locking down the city, we may not get any goods shipped out for weeks. Is it known why the Hawks are about?”

  “Trying to apprehend persons wanted for the death of the Duke of Shalridan,” the barrister said. “No matter what the tales about her, the elf girl does appear to exist. The broadsheets say two Hawks and Lady Ganniwer Vaarsen of Bremany have been arrested. And two assassins are sought along with the girl. There’s a large reward offered for any information leading to their capture.”

  Dulcinea froze where she sat. “Have the broadsheets issued descriptions of the persons the Church seeks?”

  Her own voice sounded strained beyond recognition to her ears, but she must have sounded casual enough to the men, for neither the barrister nor her husband showed any sign that her behavior was amiss. “The descriptions are sketchy at best,” replied the barrister, “but I did note one announcement saying one of the assassins was said to be missing an eye and a hand.”

  Erasmus’s eyebrows rose almost to his fair hair. “Is that a fact? Well, good citizen that I am, I can hardly fail to do my part to assist the Church. Put forth an announcement that Erasmus Nemeides of House Nemea will match the Church’s own offered reward, won’t you?”

  “I’ll see to it as soon as we’re done here, milord.”

  “Good. And while you’re at it, find out what else you can about the weapons going to these insurgents. This has the smell of profit all over it.”

  Nervousness flashed across the barrister’s face. What he might have said in response to his noble employer, however, and what further orders Erasmus gave him, escaped Dulcinea’s hearing entirely. All her awareness locked in on the word of an assassin with one eye and one hand. Even though Julian had stood before her with two of each, she hadn’t missed the subtle traces of scarring around his left eye, or how he’d favored his left hand both times she’d spoken with him.

  The man she’d known twelve years ago had been right-handed.

  And while she knew next to nothing about elves, any citizen of the realm knew that elves had magic. That was
why the Hawks hunted them. Magic that could, perhaps, even give a man back his lost eye and hand.

  Dear gods, Julian, what have you done? What have you become?

  Hard in the wake of that frantic thought came another that should have shocked her, and which instead filled her with a cold and painful clarity. No matter what the man she’d once loved had made of himself, she could see what would happen next. Erasmus, with the long and powerful reach of the Church to aid him, would find his brother once again. And this time, she was sure, he would make an end of him.

  She couldn’t let that happen. Not even loyal, faithful Moirae could know, not this time. Her maid had certain instructions to carry out in the event of anything befalling her mistress—acts she could take to ensure the safety of Dulcinea’s mother and sisters. Moirae would need to remain blameless, free to carry those instructions out.

  Behind her dutiful wife’s smile, Dulcinea began to plan.

  * * *

  Shalridan, Kilmerry Province, Jeuchar 3, AC 1876

  Compared to Julian and Rab’s penetration of Lomhannor Hall, breaking into the house that Erasmus Nemeides had rented was almost ridiculous in its simplicity. There was no estate to cross, no cadre of guards that they had to elude, no dogs they’d have to disable to keep them from following their trail. They faced instead a wealthy neighborhood strangely devoid of night watch patrols—and neither assassin had to wonder long as to why. In Shalridan’s core, closer to the water, angry crowds began to throng the streets as the sun went down. It was child’s play to avoid them, and an unlooked-for but very welcome gift that scores of watchmen and at least three Hawks were occupied trying to keep order.

  What the gathering people were shouting was harder to ignore, even from afar. On the way up onto the heights that ringed the city, they heard “Nirrivy!” resounding through the streets. That alone shocked the Rook and his partner enough that they frowned at each other, but neither stopped to discuss it. They were on the hunt; anything that didn’t immediately stand in their way would have to wait. Including one group Julian glimpsed who were chanting something else entirely.