Vengeance of the Hunter

by Angela Highland

  “We don’t know yet, Your Highness,” the second guard reported. “We were ordered to fetch you and your daughter.”

  A second tremor shook the room, sending all four of them careening into the walls, and Margaine had to twist to make sure she took the impact on her side to protect the baby. “This isn’t an earthquake,” she cried. “That felt like something hitting the palace!”

  “From underneath us?” blurted the first guard, while his companion starred herself.

  A third tremor sent masonry crumbling down from the ceiling onto their heads, and Margaine froze for a moment in dread—but she could see no other option before her. Thrusting the squalling Padraiga into the nurse’s arms, she ordered the young woman and the second guard, “Both of you, get my daughter to safety. Protect her with your lives.” Then she whirled on the first guard. “Come with me. We have to check on the Bhandreid.”

  Part of her rebelled, the part of her that had been living in suspicion ever since her husband’s death—what was she doing, when her first duty was to her baby and no one else? Why did she care if her sovereign lived, when she had more than a little fear that Ealasaid had brought about her own grandson’s murder?

  She nearly faltered beneath her own questions as she ran toward the Bhandreid’s suite, the guard right behind her, both of them dodging falling fragments of stone and plaster and fine sculptures tipping from their bases. No answer presented itself—none that contented her at any rate—only a reflexive, ingrained duty to her queen, and an even vaguer hope in her heart that despite all her suspicions, despite all her fears, she might still be wrong.

  The damage was worse in the hall that led to the Bhandreid’s rooms, and two of the royal guards lay sprawled and bloodied in Margaine’s path. She had no time, though, to stop and check either fallen man. Beyond them, the thick oaken doors into Ealasaid’s private rooms hung open on their hinges, one of them cracked and crooked, threatening to fall. Just past those lay a third guard, stirring feebly where she lay, while blood pooled on the floor around her head.

  In the main room itself, as she scrambled through the broken doors, Margaine spotted the Bhandreid crumpled by the glass mosaic along one wall. Ealasaid’s face was chalk-white and bathed in sweat, and she clutched at her breast with a trembling right hand. Someone else, though, had reached her side first.

  The High Priest Deglis Elirrides was crouched beside her, trying to coax her to her feet. He looked up sharply as Margaine and her guard hastened in, and to the princess’s surprise, he bellowed at her, “Damn you, girl, why are you here? You were told to defend your daughter!”

  Margaine stopped dead. His shout was innocuous enough—it could easily have been mistaken for the directives of the guards who’d come to fetch her. But there was a terrible kind of awareness in the man’s eyes and, all at once, she was certain she was looking at the source of the letters that had mysteriously appeared in her chambers.

  But she had no proof, and now was not the time for accusations. Instead she dashed forward, beckoning her guard to follow her, and snapped, “I wasn’t leaving without making sure Her Majesty lived. What’s wrong with her?”

  “Heart,” Ealasaid whispered, in a tiny, rattling gasp that Margaine could barely hear. “Run, you foolish girl. Run while you still can.”

  Then the greatest tremor yet shook the chamber. The High Priest roared an order, and before Margaine could react, her guardsman was hefting the Bhandreid’s limp form into his arms and running out the door. Deglis Elirrides should have followed; Margaine herself spun to do so. But with an iron grip, Elirrides clamped down upon her arm and forced her to turn with him to face the far corner of the room.

  “Father and Mother, Son and Daughter, forgive me,” he whispered. “Your Highness, I don’t want to do this. I wanted to save you and your daughter. I tried to warn you.”

  “You left the notes?” Margaine could barely shout the words, for all her strength went to struggling to break free. “Did Her Majesty kill Padraig?”

  “No,” the High Priest said sadly. “She has always given the orders, but I am her eyes to see and her sword to strike. And I’m afraid, Highness, that you’re going to have to join the prince. I can’t let Her destroy us all.”

  She shrieked her fury, but had no time to demand who he meant, much less to fight the man. Before she could draw the knife beneath her dressing robe, half the room seemed to explode as lightning erupted around them.

  The High Priest pulled forth an amulet from beneath his own robe and began to chant, holding the amulet high, until it became a dazzling star between his fingers.

  Answering light, cold, pure and pale, swelled through the room. The source of that light materialized in its center, and all Margaine’s thoughts went blank at the sight.

  She was tall, taller than Margaine, and seemed to tower all the more for the extreme gauntness of Her frame. Hair as white as bone fell in disarray all about Her face, and through the snaking, roping strands, fathomless eyes of no color the princess could name blazed with primal hatred. For a fraction of an instant She paused—and then raised a thin hand to hurl lightning directly at the priest.

  His amulet flared, scattering the fire in all directions, and all the while he kept chanting. Over his litany the being who had invaded the chamber screamed in a voice like steel scraping along stone, no voice that Margaine could recognize as human. It took her a shocked, breathless moment to realize that the words weren’t human, either.

  They were Elvish.

  “Ràe elari enno sul ve carya! Enno Amathilàen korthiali ràe!”

  “By this living flesh I command You, back into Your depths, witch!” Elirrides thundered.

  He dropped his amulet—and whipped out a knife and drove it straight into Margaine’s side. Pain drove her to her knees, and for a few more blinding moments, it drove all else from her consciousness. Then her sight cleared, just enough to see the pale figure begin to smile through Her wild hair.

  “She is not of the blood of the line that binds me, priest,” she said, this time in Adalonic so heavily accented that Margaine could barely make out the reverberant words. “I am your plaything no longer.”

  “You are the Voice of the Gods! Prince Padraig’s blood still powers the binding!”

  Horror rolled through the princess. This intruder, this wraith, was the Blessed Anreulag.

  And Padraig had died to contain Her—at the High Priest’s hand. And at the Bhandreid’s urging.

  Contain Her from what?

  Her uplifted hands bring lightning to the unjust.

  Those were her only clear thoughts as she finally drew her own knife and shoved it dazedly upward. Where she struck she could not tell, but Elirrides howled in pain and lost his grip on her. Margaine crawled away from him as fast as she could, even as the Anreulag raised both hands and blasted his crumpled form with vengeful fire. The stench of burning flesh filled the room, and Margaine didn’t dare look—that reek and the abrupt cessation of his amulet’s light were all the signals she needed that Deglis Elirrides had just sacrificed his life.

  The Anreulag turned to her.

  “He shed your blood to bind me,” She intoned. “You shed his blood to stop him. Do you seek to bind me, human girl?”

  Pressure erupted somewhere within Margaine’s skull, making the words echo through her hearing, until she had scarcely any room in her mind for anything besides awareness of elemental, ancient wrath. “N-no, Blessed One,” she coughed. “Mercy, Anreulag!”

  “That. Is. Not. My. Name.”

  Each syllable struck her consciousness like a new lightning bolt, but no lightning seared her flesh, not yet. In desperation she forced her eyes open and her head up, trying to look upon the form that loomed over her now. “I didn’t know! What should I call You?”

  The Blessed One paused, and to Margaine’s hazed astonishment, indecision flickered momentarily across Her ashen face. The only answer She gave was the same demand as before, fiercer now, and the pressure in the princ
ess’s thoughts slashed her from within as though with a thousand shards of glass and iron.

  “Do you seek to bind me, human girl?”

  She couldn’t answer; she could barely breathe, much less think or give voice to words. She had to shake her head in painful desperation, over and over again, until she could finally pant, “My beloved died to bind you. I only want you to be free.”

  A mirthless grin spread behind the curtain of tangled hair, and one last time, the voice of steel and stone spoke.

  “So be it.”

  The last sight Margaine saw was a flare of lightning as the being she’d known only as the Voice of the Gods vanished—the last sound she heard, a boom like cannonfire directly over her head.

  Then all her world fell away into darkness.

  * * *

  That Margaine regained consciousness at all was an unlooked-for comfort, and that the first sound she heard was a baby’s wailing, more so. Padraiga. Her daughter yet lived.

  Remembering what she’d witnessed, she came fully awake, with a gasping, agonized start.

  She found herself in a familiar room—one of the private chambers of the royal infirmary, where members of the Bhandreid’s family received the attention of physicians and surgeons if they could not be attended in the privacy of their own chambers. It was a well-appointed chamber, clean and comfortable, and the first thing she spotted was her maid. The young woman carried the baby, pacing slowly around the room, and sang to her as she rocked her gently back and forth.

  The second thing she noticed was that she lay upon a hastily improvised cot, rather than in the chamber’s original bed. Which meant that the bed was already occupied.

  Shakily, she rose from her cot and saw, without surprise, that Ealasaid lay there in the bed. The Bhandreid’s eyes were closed, her face still pale, but the slight rise and fall of her chest told Margaine that she, too, still lived.

  And the feeble, thready voice that wafted up from her warned that she was awake.

  “Young lady,” Ealasaid ordered the maid, “leave us. I wish to speak to the princess alone.”

  “Don’t go far,” Margaine added. “I want to see my baby.”

  “Yes, Majesty. Yes, Highness.”

  The maid slipped out, taking Padraiga with her, and the old woman turned her head toward her and opened her eyes. Her gaze was as bleak and barren as the princess had ever seen it in her life.

  “They tell me Deglis is dead,” she croaked.

  Politeness demanded a courteous response. I’m so sorry or perhaps The realm is weaker for his loss—but all Margaine’s courtesy was gone. It was all she could do to manage an acknowledgement. “He is, my lady.”

  “They tell me the Anreulag has been seen in Dareli’s streets. They tell me the Hawks are fighting Her. Do you know anything about this, girl? Speak!”

  Margaine blinked, and then couldn’t help the bitter laughter that welled up from deep within her. “Know anything? My lady, I know what you did. I know Padraig is dead because of him, and because of you. The High Priest tried to kill me too.”

  “Then you should have died!” Ealasaid sat up, far too quickly, for what little color she had drained out of her face. “What did you do?”

  “I stabbed him, my lady—and then the Blessed One Herself finished him off.”

  Had she been younger, had she been stronger, Ealasaid might perhaps have launched herself at Margaine. But as it happened she could only feebly lunge, enough that the princess was easily able to catch her and force her back down into the bed. That didn’t stop the Bhandreid, however, from spitting at her in withering contempt, “Do you have any conception of what that means? Do you know what you’ve done?”

  “I know I’ve freed one who’s been bound by bloodshed and murder! Her hands bring lightning to the unjust—His Holiness said it himself.”

  Ealasaid was too weak to fight her, but not to deliver a stinging slap across her face.

  “Get out of my sight before I have you executed,” she hissed. “And I still may, if it’s not too late. Idiot girl! You’ve doomed us all!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Shalridan, Jeuchar 6, AC 1876

  Even with a promised place among the elves awaiting her back in Dolmerrath, Faanshi was strangely reluctant to leave the city. But they didn’t have a choice; Alarrah had promised Gerren they’d return within a week. Nor was it safe for any of them to be on Shalridan’s streets after what had happened at St. Telran’s. The tunnels beneath the streets likewise were no refuge, not when they were nine extra mouths to feed. And not when all their faces, many of their names and the elven blood that called the amulets of the Hawks ensured they’d be hunted and hounded without respite.

  Thus they left the tunnels behind, once more hiring the schooner that had brought her and Kirinil and Alarrah down the coast. If the captain was startled to take on five more passengers than she’d done on the previous trip, she gave no sign of it—certainly not after their group presented her with payment consisting not only of the rest of Kirinil’s banknotes, but the signet ring Ganniwer was wearing and a substantial bribe from Julian as well. Leaving didn’t absolve them from danger, for the Hawks coming dangerously close to Dolmerrath had already proven that. Yet it did make it slightly less likely that any of them would be shot on sight at any moment.

  All the same, their leaving troubled Faanshi’s heart.

  With more of them to ferry this time, along with other cargo the captain and her crew were taking out again, there wasn’t as much room to hide in the schooner’s hold. And so Faanshi lingered on deck as long as she could, out of the way of the crew, where she could sit with her back to a railing and her eyes to the moon and stars. Half an hour after they sailed out of the city, Alarrah found her there.

  “Everyone’s settled in,” her sister reported, her voice a quiet murmur beneath the creaking of the ship, the rush of the waves, and the bustle of the crew. “Most of the others have settled down to sleep while they can. Why haven’t you?”

  “I can’t sleep,” Faanshi said, just as softly. “I think perhaps the Crone of Night is trying to speak to me. But I can’t tell if I’m supposed to be awake or not to hear Her. My okinya always said you could hear Her best in dreams.”

  “Well, enorrè, I have no wisdom on the ways of your Djashtet.” Alarrah sat down beside her and offered her a small one-sided smile. “And you could argue that I don’t have much wisdom yet in the ways of your heart, either, since you and I have known each other for less than a month. But I think I can hazard a guess or two.”

  Halfheartedly Faanshi smiled back at her. “It wouldn’t be very hard. I don’t think I’m very good at not looking sad or frightened. It was easier when I still wore my veil.”

  “Which is it, then? Sad or frightened?”

  At that the young healer almost giggled, though it seemed odd to her to want to do so, as full and strained as her spirit felt within her. “Both. The people in the city, the ones who wanted me to heal them in the streets...they won’t be the only ones who’ll be sick or hurt or dying after the fire.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “And if there’ll be fighting—if the people want this land to be Nirrivy again instead of Adalonia—then there’ll be more death.”

  “Yes,” Alarrah murmured.

  It was just a single syllable, yet to Faanshi’s ears, it conveyed much. With a sigh she turned her gaze from the sliver of moon high over the waves and considered the other healer instead. “But now the Hawks are angry. Because the duke is dead, and the city was burned, and we took Kestar away from them. And they’re not going to stop looking for Dolmerrath, are they?”

  “No. The Hawks aren’t foolish. They may not know where Dolmerrath itself is, but they’ve come too close to the Wards too often lately not to have a general idea. Sooner or later, especially if there is to be war, they may bring the Bhandreid’s army with them. Kirinil is powerful. But not even his Wards can stand forever if they burn down the forest, or if the Bh
andreid sends her navy to fire its guns into our cliffs.”

  The sheer thought of either possibility fell hard into Faanshi’s belly, as if she’d swallowed an ingot of iron. “I know Dolmerrath needs us just as much as Shalridan does, and I don’t think I could have healed everyone in the streets or the ones down in the tunnel without your help. I know I need to learn more. But...it doesn’t seem fair that I can’t help everyone. Is that foolish of me?”

  “No.” Her sister smiled, just a little. “It just means you have a healer’s heart.”

  “Enorrè...” It was growing easier for Faanshi to say the Elvish word for sister, particularly when Alarrah’s smile grew at the sound of her attempt. “Right now I just wish I had a little bit more of my okinya’s wisdom. Ulima thought I’m supposed to shake two nations. So does the akreshi Semai, now. But all I know is that people are going to fight, and they’re going to be hurt, and they’re going to die.” Her gaze dropped to her hands, and she curled her fingers in and out, pensively. “Djashtet gave me the power to hold back death. All I can think is that She must mean for me to use it.”

  “Are you saying your Lady of Time wishes us to be in Shalridan, then?”

  At that Faanshi did laugh, though it was a tiny, shaky sound, barely a giggle at all. “If I knew that, perhaps I’d be one of the Djashtethi, like Ulima. But I’m not. I’m only Faanshi, and I feel lost and small.”

  “If it comforts you at all, not a one of us thinks you’re ‘only’ Faanshi.” Alarrah slipped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed them. “And I mean aside from your magic, which, while formidable, is not the beginning and end of you. I expect your Rook and Hawk believe that. I hope you do too.”

  It was still wondrous and strange to Faanshi that anyone would want to hug her, but this was her father’s daughter, and so she readily returned that offered embrace. “That sounds as if I should be saying yes to it, but to lie does go against the ridahs. I barely know what I am aside from my magic.”