Vengeance of the Hunter

by Angela Highland

  They’d left the loftiest stretch of the heights, but much of the city was still stretched out before them, a sea of tiny glimmers of light that stood out against the darkness—or would have, had they not been dwarfed by the flames rising up from somewhere close to the water. Even from their distance, Faanshi could see smoke billowing skyward, blotting out the stars closest to the horizon, along with the new-risen moon. They were too far away for her power to sense any injury, great or small, but she had a sudden cold certainty that such wouldn’t be the case for long. “We have to go there, don’t we?” she called up to Alarrah.

  “I’m afraid so. That way lies all the passages back down into the tunnels.”

  “We can’t go back down there yet! We have to find Kestar!”

  Alarrah leaned over from atop the carriage. “We will,” she said. That was no reassurance, for she thumped on the roof of the carriage and then beckoned to the Rook. “Julian, get her into the carriage. We can’t risk her.”

  Faanshi shrilled a protest, but Morrigh was already moving, sidestepping toward the carriage under the nudging of Julian’s knees. Semai threw open the carriage door and beckoned her, urging, “In Djashtet’s name, child, get in as quickly as you can.”

  She wanted to argue; she wanted to resist as Julian scrambled off the horse and turned to help her down. But that seemed foolish and childish, and before the company from Dolmerrath and before Julian most of all, these were the last things she wanted to appear. And so she clambered down from the stallion—but she paused before she climbed into the carriage, turning to Julian and embracing him swiftly.

  “We heard the akresha’s last words to you,” she said. “I know you didn’t spill your brother’s blood. You’re a good man too.”

  Julian blinked down at her, and then gave her the faintest trace of a smile. “Later,” he said gruffly, returning the embrace before he pushed her up into the carriage. It wasn’t much, and she wasn’t sure at all that he believed her.

  Yet as she settled in with Kirinil and Semai and the carriage shot into motion once more, it gave her a surge of hope.

  * * *

  The streets grew crowded again as they headed down into the city, with people on foot and on horseback alike fleeing in every direction but the one they were trying to go. Faanshi glimpsed men and women of many ages, often carrying children or helping the aged hurry along with them. Many of the faces she glimpsed were smudged with soot, like Julian’s and Rab’s—a sign that the two assassins had intended to deal death that night. The house they’d gone to had seen death, even if not by their hands, and in steadily growing dismay she wondered what additional deaths the people of Shalridan might already have seen this night. And what death was likely to come.

  As they made it down from the heights, the smell reached them first, a reek of ash and char and burning wood, wafting in their direction on every gust of the breeze. Even in the carriage Faanshi could smell it, and she saw Kirinil grimace at the stench himself, breathing out deeply through his nose, before his face went stoic and set. Not long after that she began to taste smoke on the air, and the night grew warmer as they pressed farther into the city.

  Their progress slowed, enough that Julian and Rab had to pull ahead on their horses to both clear a path and scout their way. Shouts and wails began to rise up around the carriage, as the people they passed called to one another in fright, in reassurance and in invocation of half a dozen different gods. More than once Faanshi heard crying, from terrified babies, or from the frantic men or women who carried them.

  Nothing caused them trouble, though, until someone tried to steal Rab’s horse.

  Faanshi didn’t see what happened, not directly. All she saw was Tornach trying to rear, and Rab swinging a fist at someone to his right even as he fought to keep his seat on his horse’s back. Both he and Julian shouted, their voices pealing above the din of the people around them. Alarrah’s voice sounded too, calling out for the crowd to let them pass.

  Semai warned them, glowering out the carriage window, “This grows very bad. Akreshi Kirinil, we need to aid our companions.”

  “I agree.” Kirinil shot Faanshi a stern glance. “Stay here, valannè, you’ll be safer.”

  You can’t help if there’s fighting, Faanshi reminded herself. Some of her muscles half-remembered how combat felt, from her link to Kestar, and Julian had begun to augment that, teaching her the beginnings of how to defend herself. But in a crowd as large as the one outside the carriage, she didn’t trust herself to know what to do. Not when her magic was already beginning to stir, growling in response to blows it could sense being given and received, somewhere very near. “Please hurry,” she said. “I can guard the carriage. Help them!” Help Julian!

  Semai threw open the carriage door, and that drew the crowd’s attention to them.

  “You have to help us!”

  “Please, my mother’s sick, let us in, help us get out of here!”

  “The gods-damned city is burning down! Let us in!”

  Semai plowed out into the throng, bodily shoving two people aside so that Kirinil could emerge behind him. With the door opened, though, Faanshi’s power surged. Someone nearby was indeed ill, and though she swallowed and strove to invoke her inner hearth in her mind’s eye, her hands lit like lanterns in response. Before Kirinil could close the door, the glow spilled out to the nearest faces, and three of the people closest to the carriage went wide-eyed. Semai and Kirinil froze in astonishment at what the crowd began to shout now, and Faanshi herself, her shining hands on the door as she’d tried to help Kirinil from the inside, stared out at everyone before her in shock.

  “It’s her. Dear gods, it’s her.”

  “It’s the Tantiu girl.”

  “She is a healer! Oh gods, healer, I beg you, help my mother!”

  A disheveled man with ash adding extra gray to his dark hair pushed his way to the carriage, supporting a pale, gaunt woman who seemed to have barely enough strength to cling to his arm. She was coughing violently, and all Faanshi had to see was the traces of blood around her lips before she realized she had no other option before her.

  “Of course, akreshi,” she murmured, and moved her hands from the door to the woman, letting the light have its way.

  It didn’t take long. The woman gave one last startled cough and then cried out in a weak but clear voice, “What just happened?”

  Her son embraced her, shouting in joy—and the next thing Faanshi knew, the crowd erupted in desperation, trying to reach her. How she got out of the carriage she was never afterward sure, but her magic rendered that irrelevant. She found herself surrounded on all sides, touching people who’d scoured their lungs breathing hot, smoky air, people who’d taken injuries and people who’d taken ill. From dozens of throats the word “healer” roared around her, redoubling when Alarrah sprang down from the top of the carriage and began to help her. Panic and fury from a dozen different minds flooded her thoughts, and there was far too much of it, with too much formless strength, for her to glean anything more definite than that. By the time she’d healed six people, she was crying.

  She felt the panic begin to shift, as more and more of the people she touched began to spread the word of what she’d done. Someone shouted her name—Julian, she thought, as she spotted him on Morrigh determinedly pressing his way back to her through the throng—and the crowd took up shouting it too, a steady, rhythmic chant that soon filled the entire street.

  “Saint Faanshi! Saint Faanshi! Saint Faanshi!”

  Overwhelmed, Faanshi blinked and stared at them all. Almighty Djashtet, what am I supposed to do?

  Someone called, “Is it true, Faanshi? Is it true you drove away the Anreulag?”

  All she could manage in reply was a shaky nod, but that was enough. The outcry around her grew deafening, and only when Julian made it off his horse and pushed his way to her could she figure out what to do next. She flung herself into his arms, while he bellowed over her head, “Give her some space, for pity’s
sake! I don’t care what you think she is, she’s wearing herself out for you all!”

  Her face pressed against his chest, Faanshi drew in the scent of him, a bulwark against the pervasive odor of smoke in the air, and then straightened up again to face the crowd. “Please,” she began, too softly to be heard, and so she had to lift her voice and try again. “Please! Everyone! I don’t know how you all know of it, or even how or why I was able to do what I did.” As the crowd began to fall quiet, that gave her confidence—though Julian’s hands on her shoulders helped more. “But it’s true. It happened. This man here was with me, and so were these two elves.”

  “Those of you who are friends to my people know what it means when the Anreulag comes before us,” Alarrah spoke up. “We’re alive to stand before you now because of my enorrè and her power.”

  “See this? This girl gave it back to me.” Julian lifted his right hand high, turning it with fingers spread for all to see. “This too.” He pointed at his eye. “And now you’ve seen for yourselves what she can do.”

  More cries began to rise from the people, but Faanshi waved them to silence, praying to the Lady of Time in the back of her mind that she could find the words that needed to be said now. “No, please. Please! Almighty Djashtet gave me power. That’s true. But all I want to do with it is help people, like my friends here with me, and all of you. And now another of my friends is in trouble and we’ve got to get to him. I beg you all, will you let us through now so we can reach him?”

  “Who is this friend, lass?” called the first woman she’d healed. She was still nearby, still gaunt but now with color returning to her face, and with a looser grasp now on the sturdy arm of her son.

  “His name is Kestar Vaarsen, akresha, and he was with me and my friends when the Anreulag came to us. The Hawks have him now. We have to find him before it’s too late.”

  The mention of the Hawks was the greatest goad yet to the crowd. “Stand aside! Let them through!” shouted the son of the woman Faanshi had healed, and the people nearest the carriage began to back away, encouraged by Semai and the elves. And to Faanshi herself, the man added, “If the Hawks have your friend, miss, they’ll have taken him to St. Telran’s. That’s where they take anyone they arrest in the Church’s name. But good luck getting anywhere near the place tonight.”

  “We’ve been there,” Alarrah said, in a tone that might have been conversational if not for the ominous look that came into her eyes.

  “And we’ll find a way to make it there,” Kirinil said.

  Julian for his part ignored everyone else and frowned down at Faanshi. “Now will you get back in there, and stay there?” he grumbled, nodding toward the carriage’s open door.

  She bobbed her head, turning back to climb into the carriage—but she couldn’t, she realized, without saying one last thing to the people around them all. “Thank you,” she called. “Eshallavan. Djashtet and all the rest of the gods keep you safe tonight.”

  That won her a roar of approval, and that, more than anything, left her drained as she clambered back into the carriage’s shelter. So many of them. She’d already seen more people in the past two days than she’d ever seen in her life, and that they raised their voices for her now might have been a blessing of the Lady of Time. In that moment, though, it filled her with far more trepidation than joy. I don’t know how much more of this I can do.

  Kirinil and Semai climbed in after her. Her teacher clasped her shoulder, and the old Tantiu guardsman inclined his head to her in deep respect, yet there was only so much comfort to be found from them. She’d seen the grim looks in the elves’ eyes, and she didn’t miss that Semai’s hand never strayed far from the curved sword he wore at his side.

  Their night had already seen bloodshed, and it was only just beginning.

  * * *

  The crowd that had stopped them was as good as their word, and for the next several streets, the carriage and the horses that accompanied it were mostly unimpeded. People still streamed past them, following those that had come before; Faanshi glimpsed more than one person calling out to those behind them, gesturing at the carriage, urging them to make way. What they said to one another, she didn’t quite dare to heed too closely. It was all she could do to keep her awareness grounded in her hearth and her magic at rest, and whisper prayers of gratitude to Djashtet that no one else in pain came close enough to them to rouse her power again.

  Soon, however, the air grew hotter and the reek of smoke grew stronger. Faanshi began to cough, only to have Semai lean over and pull her borrowed korfi up over her face, protecting her nose and mouth as his own were protected by his. “Keep this up,” he advised her.

  And soon enough, they had to abandon the carriage entirely. Their borrowed horse began to panic, balking at pulling them any closer to the conflagration ahead. Morrigh and Tornach were made of sterner stuff, but even they rebelled at the directions of their riders. As Semai and Kirinil pulled her out of the carriage, Faanshi spied embers on the breeze, drifting all too close to them.

  Here, there were fewer people on the street. But what people Faanshi spotted were running for their lives, all save two men who she abruptly recognized as ones she’d seen in the tunnels below the city. Kirinil stopped them both. “Get this horse back to safety,” he urged them. “We need to make it to St. Telran’s, are the streets clear? Can we go around?”

  “The fire brigades are out with the watch,” the first man reported. “They’re pushing the flames back toward the docks. Fire ain’t got to the cathedral yet.”

  “But you’re mad if you’re heading there,” said his companion. “Damn place’s crawling with Hawks tonight—and three—or fourscore angry people with swords and guns ready to tear its walls down.”

  “Fighting?” Faanshi blurted, aghast. Only after that cry escaped her did she realize the others were exchanging dubious looks, and then turning them to her.

  Kirinil asked her, “Valannè, are you sure you’re up to this?”

  She wasn’t sure, not in the slightest, but that was no answer to give now. “I have to be if Kestar is there. I have to try, at least.”

  “Then we’ll do this. Alarrah? Semai?”

  Semai said simply, “I have already pledged my aid, akreshi.”

  “I came this far,” Alarrah agreed, “and I’m certainly not backing down now.”

  Tugging his restless Tornach forward by the reins, Rab joined them and grudgingly announced, “You may count me in too.” He slanted a glance toward Faanshi without quite directly looking at her, and added, “Because if nothing else, I believe I owe you both an apology and a thank-you. I trust this will suffice for both.”

  That left Julian, and Faanshi, her heart in her throat, turned to him. He had no magic, yet his eyes blazed almost as bright as the elves’, sharp and blue in his smudged face. She couldn’t think of a word to utter, for he’d been right—he’d almost died helping her seek Kestar once. She couldn’t bear the notion of his risking himself again.

  Then one corner of his mouth curled up in the small grin she’d come to know, and her heart soared.

  “It’d take me longer to get to anywhere not currently on fire than it would to go with you,” he said, “and I’d just drive myself mad with restlessness if I did. Lead on, girl. Let’s go find your Hawk.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  St. Telran’s Cathedral, Shalridan, Jeuchar 4, AC 1876

  Kestar never made it back to sleep after the Duchess Khamsin left him. To his profound disquiet he heard a distant clamor somewhere out beyond the cathedral grounds, a tumult that made him wonder if the riot they’d ridden through on the way into St. Telran’s had escalated. Worse, the night breeze that blew in through his cell’s narrow windows carried a distinct bite of smoke. He couldn’t see much in the direction those windows faced, but the far-off noise and the slowly building smell of fire kept him pacing the length and breadth of his prison. He could do little else, besides checking the windows repeatedly for any sign of activity o
ut in the night or striving again to reach for Faanshi’s mind, for all that his aching head made such efforts feel as fruitless as shouting for Celoren or his mother.

  Possibilities chased themselves through his thoughts as he paced, and he couldn’t decide which was more likely—that whatever unrest had swept through Shalridan tonight would delay action against them, or that Captain Amarsaed would stand by the Order’s first duty and convene a tribunal as soon as he could.

  It was no consolation that the latter, as the Duchess Khamsin had warned, proved true.

  Two priests with the disheveled look of men who’d been rousted from their beds came for him, not long after the duchess took her leave. Neither were Hawks; they had no amulets, and moreover, they didn’t have the frames or bearings of men who’d gone through the Academy’s training. But they were priests, and that was enough to put him on his guard.

  Priests, after all, were the ones who carried out the Cleansings.

  “Come along quietly,” the first one told him as they unlocked his cell. “It’s time.”

  No one else was in sight in the corridor, and so Kestar had no way of knowing whether others had already come for Celoren and his mother. “What’s going on out in the streets?” he asked, in as polite a tone as he could manage. “I smelled smoke.”

  “I don’t think that’s any concern of yours,” the second priest said, pushing him to move him along. “Unless you’re involved, and we’ll be discussing that soon enough.”

  Too soon for my liking, Kestar thought, but he knew better than to say that aloud. Neither of his escorts offered further commentary. None was needed, for their stern faces and the stout clubs they both carried were all the statements they needed.

  They led him down out of the tower to St. Telran’s great central nave, a vast and ornate chamber said to seat over two thousand souls in its pews. At this hour of the night the place was almost empty. Lamps spaced at wide intervals all along the walls lighted it nonetheless, along with an array of candles placed all around the altar, like orbiting stars. To the left of the altar stood statues of the Father and the Son, and to the right, the Mother and the Daughter. Behind it was a towering organ, which Kestar had heard played only once in his lifetime. It was silent now.