Vengeance of the Hunter

by Angela Highland

  “The Voice of the Gods is silenced! Hail the light of the saint who stands against Her!”

  Even from a distance he spotted the effigy they carried, a straw figure wrapped in a Tantiu sari, with a veil before its face and a gilt crown upon her head. It was no likeness at all, and it was impossible that the people of Shalridan should have the first concept of who Faanshi was—yet it was there all the same.

  Damn it all to nine hells, I left her in Dolmerrath.

  But not even that pulled him from their purpose. Later, if he and Rab survived the night, he’d have to pay closer attention to what was inflaming the people of the city and driving them into the streets.

  For now, he focused on their target.

  The alley behind the house was empty, and the garden gate, as before, was locked. Julian made faster work of the lock than he’d done the first time, and at Rab’s broad, wicked grin, he allowed himself a wry little smirk. On swift, silent feet they darted through the garden’s shadows.

  But near the house itself, they found the first sign something was wrong.

  Erasmus wasn’t neglecting the security of his rented domicile; there was a footman with a cudgel stationed at the servants’ entrance. But the man was sleeping deeply, and showed no sign of rousing when Julian crouched beside him to check that he was indeed alive. Nor did he stir when the Rook coaxed the cudgel from his slack fingers, or the ring of keys from his belt. The keys got them through the door, and the two assassins, on high alert, stole into the house itself.

  A second footman lay in a limp heap on the floor of the kitchen, and a third near the half-open door of the narrow back stairs—access to the servants’ quarters, as Rab confirmed when he scouted ahead up the steps and came back down again to whisper the report of what he found. No one was dead, but two more servants, including Dulcinea’s maid Moirae, were deeply asleep in their beds—and their mouths, along with those of the footmen sprawled around the lower floor, smelled of laudanum.

  On the house’s second floor, in the suite on the western side of the building, they found no one at all. Not even under the bed, for Julian hadn’t forgotten the lessons of Lomhannor Hall, where a guard hidden beneath a bed might well have finished him off if he’d been less alert. But a fourth footman was slumped at the door of the east-facing suite—an ostentatious precaution, perhaps, for a man who’d suffered recent thefts of his goods, and nothing from the house itself. Julian remembered the workings of his brother’s mind all too well, and a fourth guard made sense.

  Just behind the footman, the door to the suite was ajar. Within, they found Dulcinea at last.

  She stood looming over the bed where, like everyone else in the house, Erasmus Nemeides lay sprawled in an ungainly heap. Dulcinea looked much as she had when she’d come to see them in the boardinghouse, clad in a becoming gown, her hair still neatly arranged despite the lateness of the hour. Neither Julian nor Rab, though, missed the knife she held in one shaking hand, loose and lax at her side. No blood stained the blade, and in the moonlight that filtered through the curtains from outside, her face was almost the same cold, pale hue as the steel.

  She began to turn as she heard them enter, but the assassins were faster. Julian sprang to Dulcinea and sheathed the blade he’d drawn as he went, so both hands would be free to commandeer weapon and woman alike. As soon as his face came into the light, ash-darkened though it was, she gasped—but kept struggling in his grasp.

  “Don’t fight me,” he urged her. “We’ve come to help you.”

  Her cornflower eyes, darker and wilder than they should have been, never left the knife. “Then give me that back, Julian,” she replied, in a tone of eerie calm. “Go away. I’m not your problem anymore.”

  “Everyone in the house is unconscious—damn it, don’t fight me! Did you drug them all?”

  A too-broad smile unfurled across Dulcinea’s face, and along with her wild eyes, it shaped an expression Julian knew intimately. It wasn’t the vacancy of madness, but rather, a sharp and lucid desperation. “I couldn’t very well let them hear or see me coming in here, now, could I?”

  While Rab circled slowly around them, getting into a position where he could take down either Dulcinea or her clearly intended target, Julian held fast to her. “You don’t have to kill him, Dulcie,” he murmured into her ear. “You can let me do it for you. But you have to set me to it. You have to give me the contract.”

  That startled her, enough that she stopped her struggles and turned her wild gaze directly up to him. The beginnings of comprehension flickered into her face, another look he recognized; it was the same look he’d seen on a dozen different sets of features whenever they realized what he did to earn his gold. One deep part of him stirred with a pang of sadness to see her reacting to him that way now. But that, like the fleeting glimpse of the effigy he’d seen in the city streets, he had to set aside.

  Then Rab lunged, calling a warning, as the figure on the bed stirred—and Erasmus shot Nine-fingered Rab with the pistol he’d hidden beneath his pillow. It took much to make Rab scream, but he screamed now, spinning where he stood and clapping a hand to his middle before he collapsed to the floor.

  If the bullet had struck anything vital, Julian couldn’t tell from where he stood. Nor could he let Dulcinea go, not while she was still writhing hard in his arms, no matter how desperate the prayer to Tykhe that blazed across his mind. Not while his brother still held the pistol, one of the sleekest guns he’d ever seen. Only two others like it had ever crossed his path, brand-new weapons from gunsmiths in Dareli.

  They’d each fired multiple bullets.

  “And here I thought I was dreaming,” Erasmus said. His voice held just the slightest trace of a slur, so little that it made no difference whether it came from sleep or any laudanum he might have consumed. “But gods, no. There are intruders in my room, and my beloved wife does indeed appear to be trying to kill me. Julian, is that actually you?”

  “Hello, Erasmus.” Julian twisted, moving Dulcinea behind him as best he could, while Erasmus chuckled at them both.

  “Well now,” he purred, “the two of you wrestling like that looks oddly familiar. Though I seem to recall a rather different location the first time. Father’s old study, wasn’t it?”

  Dulcinea went rigid against Julian, letting out a snarling little gasp of fury, but over her Julian barked, “About that. The lady would have me believe that my actions weren’t my own that night, because she impaired me. Would you care to counter her story?”

  “Oh, I’m quite content with the one we reported at the time,” Erasmus said blithely. “It certainly worked for Cleon. You are, I trust, aware he’s passed on?”

  A red haze surged in the edges of Julian’s sight, and it took everything in his power to keep from hurling Dulcinea sideways and throwing the blade he’d taken from her. But Erasmus had downed Rab—he’d always been an excellent shot. And the knife Dulcinea had chosen was a heavy, unwieldy thing, a simple kitchen blade meant for hacking through meat to bone. And in the direct line of fire of a gun was no place to test his new hand’s aim with an unfamiliar knife.

  “It came to my attention,” he said through clenched teeth. “Heart failure, or so the broadsheets had it. Leaving the House and his wife open to you.”

  “Well, I could hardly leave either unmanaged. And now I’m dreadfully curious—why aren’t you dead too? For that matter, aren’t you a little more physically whole than the last time I saw you?”

  “I owe it all to prayer and clean living.”

  Erasmus tilted his head and then abruptly beamed, a wicked, ear-to-ear grin that Julian flatly refused to think of as resembling his own. “Don’t tell me. You’ve been visiting the elves, haven’t you? Oh, that’s droll. Especially coming from a man I just heard trying to convince our lovely Dulcinea here to let you take my life. Heresy and attempted murder. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Why haven’t you killed me already?”

  “If you don’t, I will,” Dulcinea cut in. “Give
me back the knife. I don’t want his blood on your hands!”

  “And I don’t want it on yours!” Julian shouted back at her, all his control fraying now, before he hurled a glare back to the bed. “And as long as you’re asking, I’m an assassin, not a murderer.”

  “Dear gods, I can’t believe what I’m hearing.” Erasmus sputtered with laughter and then blinked at him, wide-eyed, without a single tremor to his grip upon the gun. “You should split that hair a little finer, brother, I don’t think you got it all. I can’t wait for you to tell me the difference.”

  “The difference is, I don’t kill you without a contract, no matter how much you deserve to bleed, burn and die, or how much I want the very last thing in the world you see to be me cutting your fucking throat.” Julian began to lean surreptitiously forward onto the balls of his feet, calculating which way he could spring most safely. “I break that code, I don’t get contracts. Ethics. Do you remember them?”

  “And I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Dulcinea seethed. “You want to use me as your excuse? I suppose you expect me to pay you too? Gods take you, Julian! I had this in hand! Kill him or don’t kill him, but don’t insult me with such so-called help!”

  In that moment, broadsided by the invective of the woman he’d once loved, Julian hesitated and glanced back at her—and that single moment was all the opportunity his brother needed. He fired a second round, jerking Julian’s attention back, but his new hand was still a fraction too slow with Dulcinea’s pilfered kitchen blade. He missed. Erasmus did not.

  A tiny burst of heat and pain slashed along Julian’s right arm, cutting a furrow through his flesh, throwing his balance and all his senses askew. He staggered backward, losing his grip on Dulcinea. Consciousness never quite left him, but the room began to tilt around him and his knees felt alarmingly insubstantial.

  Damn it to Tykhe I’m bleeding—

  But then again, so was Rab. Rab had been downed first, and he had to reach his partner. Yet no matter what commands he hurled to his limbs, he couldn’t seem to keep himself from dropping heavily to his knees, his left hand clamping around the wound on the opposite arm. Beneath his haze, panic began to stir—but no, he still had the hand. He could still move the fingers Faanshi had given him.

  With a throaty, mewling moan, Dulcinea moved—but not to him. She leaped at the bed, snatching at the knife he’d thrown, even as Erasmus fired a third time. Julian couldn’t see where she was struck, but he saw her driving the knife into his brother, again and again, in a burst of frenzied strength. Erasmus screamed, low and harsh and raw, and lost his hold upon his pistol.

  The need to make it to Rab warred in Julian with a fogged suspicion that he should intervene in the conflict at the bed, and as the latter took shape, he hauled himself painfully back upright again. Before he could take two steps or draw any of his own blades with either hand, Dulcinea flashed him one last sorrowful smile. Then she snatched up the gun and fired one more round into his brother’s head, before she toppled over hard onto the floor.

  Julian stared, and couldn’t stop staring, even when the doors of the suite flew open and several people rushed into the room. One of them was Dulcinea’s maid, who shrieked and rushed to her mistress’s side. With her came two of the footmen, last seen insensible down on the first floor of the house, and Julian could only assume someone had roused them. Another was a big strangely familiar-seeming man in Tantiu dress, who he couldn’t place just then. But two more were elves—Kirinil and Alarrah.

  Last of all, her head swathed by a korfi that had fallen loose to show her face, was Faanshi.

  “Blessed Lady of Time! Oh Julian, I thought we were going to be too late!”

  She flung her arms around him, and he couldn’t keep back a cry of pain. Her magic, however, promptly smothered it. Julian’s world spun and narrowed to nothing but the golden light, until the ache faded from his arm and he was able to embrace Faanshi in return. His eyes closed. He pressed his cheek against her head, and all at once lost the argument with himself as to why he’d abandoned her in the first place. The relief that swamped him at holding her was simply too great.

  “What the nine hells are you doing here, girl?”

  “We had to come and find you.” Faanshi pulled back to look up at him, acute uncertainty crinkling her features. Julian had just enough time to realize her hands were still glowing before she lifted one, drew down his head and brushed the shyest kiss he’d ever received across his lips. “I had to come find you.”

  “Enorrè!” Alarrah called from beside the bed. “I have the woman, but Nine-fingered Rab needs you now. I can’t heal them both.”

  Rab. Julian would have pushed Faanshi over to him, but she was already scrambling to his partner’s side, reaching for him with her shining hands. He paused, torn, and then stepped up behind Alarrah and Moirae. The she-elf’s hands were glowing too, though they were muted little shimmers next to Faanshi’s. In a scant few breaths, their light died entirely.

  Julian didn’t have to ask what that meant. Dulcinea’s eyes staring blankly at the ceiling was explanation enough. Adrenaline still surged through him too strongly for him to feel much beyond numbness at the sight of her motionless form—but somewhere beneath his detachment, he sensed an eighteen-year-old boy beginning to mourn.

  “She shot him,” Moirae croaked, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Blessed Mother, blessed Daughter, I saw it. You’d all better go. The watch will come. They can’t find you here.”

  “Are you sure?” Kirinil said. “There’s unrest all over the city tonight. The watch may be delayed, if they come at all.”

  One of the footmen said grimly, “Then we’ll take care of it till they do. Go on with the lot of you.”

  “Rab can move now,” Faanshi said, her magic settling down again with far less finality than Alarrah’s. That her power hadn’t triggered nearly so brightly as it had done for Kestar—or for that matter, for him—might have done much to reassure Julian. But that was almost irrelevant next to the simple comfort of seeing Rab getting to his feet beside her, his gaze shocked but clear.

  “I’ll do,” he affirmed. “By all means, let’s get out of here.”

  Kirinil backed out the way they’d come, while Semai hefted Rab to his feet. Julian offered Alarrah a hand up, for the healer’s features were drawn; she looked as tired as he felt. But his attention was on Moirae even as Faanshi came back to him, slipping her hand into his, tugging him with unspoken insistence toward the door. He could think of no apology to offer her, and so he didn’t try—but the maid’s sad face was the last thing in the room he saw before they hurried out into the night, and Dulcinea’s last words to him seared.

  Chapter Twenty

  It would have been safer to return to the carriage with the others as they fled the house on the heights. But Julian and Rab had brought their horses, and Faanshi followed the Rook entirely on instinct. Alarrah and Kirinil both shot her startled looks as they ran, but neither one gainsaid her. Including Julian himself, to Faanshi’s relief—for now that she’d found him again, she couldn’t bear the thought of letting him out of her sight. “Follow the carriage!” was all that her sister called as they ran.

  They didn’t have to go far. Tornach and Morrigh were tied only a short dash down the alleyway behind the house they’d infiltrated, and as soon as they reached the beasts, Julian hefted her into Morrigh’s saddle, more swiftly than she’d ever seen him move. Then he leaped on before her, and Faanshi promptly looped her arms around his waist. In moments they were away, the two stallions flanking the carriage on either side as they galloped down off the heights and back to the heart of the city.

  “How did you find us?” Julian demanded over his shoulder as they rode. “Why did you find us?”

  Conversation wasn’t easy at the speed at which they moved, when most of Faanshi’s attention had to go to keeping her seat in the saddle. “It was my okinya Ulima,” she said, as loudly as she could manage over the tattoo of Morrigh’s hoove
s. “She sent the akreshi Semai before she died to tell us of a vision. Julian, she said we’d all die too if we didn’t stay together.”

  What expression crossed his face at that Faanshi couldn’t tell, but she felt Julian tense before he had to shift to accommodate the downward slope of the long road they followed. He didn’t argue the idea of Ulima having visions, and that was a blessing, but his voice was still harsh nonetheless. “And this vision required you to come to the city? Do you have any concept of how dangerous it is for you to be here?”

  “I didn’t think you’d believe the news unless I told you. And there’s more. Kestar is here. The Hawks have him.”

  On the last few words her voice rose, only to cut off with a yelp as Morrigh sprang across a wide swath of muddy water in the road. His landing rattled her from her teeth to her toes, just as Julian snapped, “He’s in trouble again? What do you expect me to do about it?”

  Stung, Faanshi cried, “He needs our help!”

  “Gods damn it, girl, I almost died helping your good man the first time!”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Her voice cracked, yet she shouted anyway, for the memory of her magic fighting to drive away the death that had threatened him was still too raw and real. “I felt it happening, and my heart would have broken in half if I hadn’t stopped it!”

  That too sent a jolt of reaction through him. Julian pulled up hard on Morrigh’s reins, and then twisted before her, enough that Faanshi thought he might turn to look at her. But then she saw that the carriage, too, had clattered to a halt and that Rab was wheeling Tornach back around. The younger assassin was waving vigorously back at them with one hand, and pointing ahead with the other.

  “This,” Alarrah shouted down from atop the carriage, “is going to be a problem.”

  “We’re going to have to continue this discussion later,” Julian said. And over his shoulder, Faanshi saw what had pulled everyone else up short.