He threw his head back and laughed. Might’ve been my imagination, but the blue of his eyes looked a little darker than usual. Alleryn drew even with us on his other side, a fiercely intent expression on his face. Suddenly uneasy, I checked on the others.
Nick and Deputy Martin weren’t clowning around anymore. Schumacher had straightened, and held the reins of his horse in one hand, the other resting on the butt of his gun. They, and the other two elves, wore identical predatory expressions. Only Logan looked normal, and like me, he was watching the others.
One of the ghost dogs howled. I snatched up the reins after a glance at Thorandryll, checking Talia’s headlong rush. The prince wasn’t himself. Something else had settled on, or rather, over him. Something I couldn’t see clearly, but whatever it was, it had a rack of horns that would do a buck proud.
Nearly everyone swept past as I slowed the mare more, and I caught flashes of shadows lying just above their skin. Logan had slowed his horse, and it matched Talia’s canter. Leglin looked up from beside us. “Mistress?”
“What’s happening to them?”
“The Hunt.” Logan dragged a hand through his hair. “The Hunt’s a thing in and of Itself, and It’s in control of them now.”
“I have a really bad feeling about this.” They were moving faster.
“Whatever the Hunt is after, It almost always catches. We’d better keep up with them, Discord.”
I nodded and touched my heels to Talia’s sides. She snorted and shot forward, stretching out. Logan’s horse kept pace, and I realized one of the hounds raced along its other side, as Leglin was doing. A hound ran next to every horse in the group as well.
Within moments, we’d cleared the edge of the city and taken places at the back of the hunting party. Thorandryll had said no one could see us, yet even someone as clueless about magic as me had figured out something was going on. I couldn’t help but think that surely Dalsarin would be aware of something like the Hunt coming after him.
And wonder why the Hunt affected everyone but Logan and me.
Time to wonder ran short as the ghost dogs howled and began to run downward. We’d crossed over the Palisades as we left the city, and I spotted both the gulley and the now-blocked entrance to the cavern where we’d fought the demons.
I nearly fell off my horse when all of the men except Logan screamed out what sounded like battle cries as their horses began descending. We followed them to the ground and the Hunt continued. None of them looked right, with the shadows floating on them, and they didn’t seem to care if we kept up or not.
Discord. Logan’s mental voice broke my attempt to bring the shadows into focus. Don’t move too far away from them as long as they’re mounted, and don’t get off your horse. The Hunt might keep them from recognizing us.
He didn’t have to explain why that would be bad, since they were still screaming at intervals, and I could almost see the blood lust spreading from them. Made it pretty easy to figure out why the Hunt was usually successful. They were focused on accomplishing one thing: the death of Its prey.
They would remove anything or anyone that got in their way, and that included us because we hadn’t fallen under the same spell.
Of course, as long as Logan stayed close enough for me to touch him, I could teleport us to safety if he proved to be wrong about staying on the horses being enough to keep them from turning on us.
I knew why Jo and the others couldn’t come. No way would their familiars allow them to fall under the Hunt’s spell. They’d have been at risk the same way we were, and it was more than a little scary the familiars apparently hadn’t felt they’d be able to protect their witches.
Thorandryll threw back his head and bugled, the shadow attached to him definitely fitting the action. It was the head of a buck, with massive antlers.
It’s Cernunnos, Lord of the Hunt, Logan said. He’s riding the elf like we’re riding these horses.
I know that name. Celtic, right? He nodded, and I remembered exactly who Cernunnos was: The Horned God. Oh, crap. How do we make him go away?
Logan flashed a grin. We don’t. He’s a god.
Right, because all we needed was another god hanging around. Yet if Dalsarin’s god showed up, maybe having Cernunnos there would help. Unless they turned out to be buddies or something.
That would be the worst that could happen. I decided to pretend I hadn’t thought of it, because the idea scared the bejesus out of me. A more entertaining one was why a god with the head of a buck decided to become Lord of the Hunt. People, even other animals, hunted deer for food.
Leglin bayed, and was gone when I looked down. All of the hounds had disappeared from the group. They reappeared in a bunch behind the ghost dogs, and were out of sight a breath later. I realized there was a depression or something ahead.
Wrong, it proved to be a small ravine and the only reason I didn’t scream when Talia went over the edge was because I was too busy holding onto the saddle. Silly of me, since she basically floated to the ground, turned and kept galloping without missing a step.
Heat had furrowed cracks across the ravine floor and rocks, but the cracks didn’t faze any of the horses. Not one stumbled or fell even when rocks rolled under their hooves, or they placed one in a deep crack. At least I didn’t have to worry about being thrown and breaking my neck.
I heard the baying of the hounds and howling of the ghost dogs. Little as I knew about this kind of hunting, something in their voices said they’d found Dalsarin.
***
They’d found a cave, and the hounds milled around the small entrance instead of diving inside. Smart dogs. The entrance, little more than a crack in the ravine wall, wasn’t tall enough to walk into. We’d have to crouch and duck walk, or crawl through it.
Gathered behind the hounds, the Hunt-spelled men silently conferred. Logan and I brought our horses to a halt a few feet away from them and kept quiet. I’d never heard much about the area being riddled with caves, or for that matter, that we had many gullies or ravines beyond the one the city had been built in and around. Probably another example of the real estate changes the Melding brought.
“You.”
I looked away from the cave entrance to find the buck-headed Thorandryll pointing at me. “What?”
“Go forth into yon den and issue my challenge to he who hides within.”
Shaking my head, I said, “I don’t think so. Dude stuck an arrow in me last time we crossed paths.”
“I’ll go, Lord Cernunnos.” Logan slipped off his horse, leaving the reins looped over the saddle horn.
“You, a tiger who walks in the shape of a man? No. She will obey me.” His deer lips drew back into a sneer, revealing long canines. I gulped and Logan dropped to his knees, bowing his head.
He tried to talk a little sense into Horned Lord. “She’s injured, my lord.”
I pointed at my sling. “Yeah, I’m injured. Not in shape to be crawling around a cave.”
Not that I wanted Logan going in there, at least not alone. None of which apparently mattered one whit to Thorandryll/Cernunnos, because he slashed a hand in my direction, unleashing a blast of green-tinged white light.
It hit my injured shoulder, and knocked me off Talia. While I lay on the rocky ground, trying to drag air back into my lungs, the residual ache in my shoulder faded away. He’d healed it. How nice of him.
“Discord.” Logan scrambled over to my side and helped me sit up. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Fumbling at the sling, I glared past him. “You hungry? I’m in the mood for roast deer.”
My threat earned a deep belly laugh from Thorandryll/Cernunnos. “Go, and do as I’ve commanded.”
Logan helped me to my feet. I dusted myself off, squinting at the cave entrance. What lay beyond could be like the Barrows: a pocket realm full of monsters. “I’ve never issued a challenge, and I’m not going in there alone, Bucky.”
“Mortals, always afraid of dying. Very well, you may take your servant.”
Bucky Boy snorted, waving at the entrance. “Now go.”
About to ask who he meant, I stopped when Logan touched my arm. He means me.
I considered arguing the matter, since the shifter wasn’t my servant, but another glance at Cernunnos changed my mind. Nothing of Thorandryll showed any longer, and the god’s eyes flickered with crimson light. “Okay, fine, we’re going.”
We chose to crawl through the crack, which meant I had a view of Logan’s rear the whole way through. Probably would’ve appreciated it more if I hadn’t been worried about our immediate future. At roughly twenty feet, the low tunnel the crack made opened to an actual cave. One with four different openings. “Great, now what?”
“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe?” Logan sniffed the air. “Or we could take the one on the very left. It’s the one the dark elf used.”
“You’re a useful guy, Mr. Sayer.”
He smiled. “Thank you for noticing, Miss Jones.”
We walked over and looked. I shivered. “It’s dark.”
“Want me to go back and ask for a light?”
“Ha, ha. He might decide you’d make a good torch.” I squared my shoulders and intoned, “I’ve been commanded by a god. Nowhere to go but forward.”
“I’ll go first.” His eyes changed from dark to pale green, and he held out a hand. “I can keep you from running into walls.”
“Cool.” I took hold, and we walked into the dark.
THIRTY-ONE
I could make out Logan’s figure after a turn in the tunnel. “I can see. Sort of.”
“There’s another turn coming up, and it looks a little brighter.” We continued forward, and eventually, after walking for what felt like a mile, stopped to stare at the tunnel’s end. Sunlight spilled through it.
“Maybe I’m wrong, but haven’t we been walking downhill the whole way?” My legs said I wasn’t wrong.
“We have.”
“So how can the sun be out there?”
Logan frowned. “My best guess is that maybe we’re trespassing.”
Cernunnos had used the word “den” and I remembered my brief trips beyond Thorandryll’s home, which had been just like going outside. “Like, he has his own fairy mound?”
“They’re actually called ‘sithren’, but yeah.”
“I learn something new every day. Sometimes, it’s even good. Or at least not out to get me.” Neither of us moved. “We should go find him or Bucky will get mad.”
Logan chuckled. “Yeah, but if it is the dark elf’s sithren, there may be traps.”
I snorted. “This whole situation’s a trap, dude. We either find him and get him out there, or we’re going to be in trouble with Bucky Boy. Who has three hostages. Well, three I’m worried about.” The elves could deal with Cernunnos, since they hadn’t bothered to warn us about him and the Hunt. Plus, Dalsarin wouldn’t have picked Santo Trueno if it hadn’t been where Thorandryll lived. “We’ll be careful. Really careful.”
With a nod, he moved forward. Since we were still holding hands, I went with him. Nothing moved directly outside, but we halted again. While Logan scanned the ground and checked the air, I took in the view.
Dark elf or not, Dalsarin had a talent for exterior decorating. A lush green meadow dotted with bright flowers and surrounded by mature trees lay outside the tunnel’s exit. The only breaks in the ring of trees were from the path of a small stream sparkling under the sun that ran through the middle of the meadow. The sun looked brighter than the one I lived under. “I’m thirsty.”
Logan kept me from walking out. “Wouldn’t advise drinking from there. It smells wrong.”
“Dang it.” I took a closer look at the grass, which began growing a few feet away. The edges glistened. A glance at the sky said it wasn’t morning, so the moisture probably wasn’t dew. “Is it poisoned?”
“Probably.” He pointed at a clump of bright red flowers. “Don’t touch those either.”
While we watched, the flowers trembled, and a few blooms snapped at a bug flying close. I blinked. “They have teeth.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s just wrong.” I fidgeted, torn between wanting to teleport us the hell out of there and the whole “return empty-handed to a god” thing. The second probably wouldn’t go over too well with Cernunnos, and as I’d reminded Logan, he had hostages: Nick, Schumacher, and Deputy Martin. “We can’t keep standing here.”
“I know. Try not to touch anything with bare skin.” With that, Logan released my hand and stepped out. Nothing happened to him, and he waved me out. We began walking across the meadow, dodging each bunch of flowers we met. The creepy things turned their blossoms to track us, and I thought I saw an eye inside one.
Shuddering, I set my gaze on the stream as we approached it. That turned out to be a bad idea. There were things swimming below the surface, long sinuous shapes I felt certain were snakes of some sort. “I’ll teleport us to the other side because I am not wading through there.”
“Okay.” Logan offered his hand, and I suited action to words, moving us across. We dodged more of the creepy flowers while trudging through the ankle-high grass on the other side. I sent my mom a silent “thank you” for packing a pair of mid-calf, slip-on boots instead of sandals or running shoes. Logan wore his brown mechanic’s boots, but the cuffs of his jeans were dark with whatever oozed from the grass.
It wasn’t until we reached the trees that I realize the only noise came from us. No breeze rustled the grass or leaves, the few flying insects didn’t buzz, and even the little stream ran silently. Our breathing and the shush-shush of our feet through the grass were the only sounds.
That magnified the creepy factor by about a thousand.
We’d stopped again, surveying the trees. Logan jerked his chin toward two whose uppermost branches entwined. “He went between them.”
I really didn’t want to walk in there, but we didn’t have any other choice. Hoping to offset the gloom as we walked through the natural archway, I began humming “If I Only Had a Brain”. Logan’s face scrunched a bit, and he raised an eyebrow. “The Wizard of Oz?”
“You’ve seen it?”
He grinned. “Yeah. Come on, Scarecrow.”
Barely a dozen feet into the trees, he held up a hand and then put a forefinger to his lips. I froze, wondering whether he’d heard or smelled something. Logan’s head slowly turned from side to side as he scanned our surroundings. I felt my body tensing and tried to relax.
The distinct, unmistakable feeling of eyes on us didn’t make it easy. When the fine hairs on my arms rose to attention, I slowly turned my head to look over my shoulder. I immediately wished I hadn’t, because something that looked like a mad scientist’s attempt to cross animals that shouldn’t be mashed together stared back at me.
It had the body and head of a housecat, no tail, spider legs, and a mess of faceted eyes between its cute fuzzy ears and kitty nose. “Oh, gross.”
Logan’s turn to freeze. “What is it?”
“Spidercat.” I saw another one descending from a tree behind it. “Make that plural. What do we do?”
“Keep walking. Slowly. Maybe they won’t attack.” He suited action to words. I forced my feet to move, unable to take my eyes off the spidercats.
“What if they do?”
“I’m going to go with ‘run like hell’,” he said. “If we do, we need to stay together, Discord.”
“Right.” Yeah, no way I wanted to be alone in Dalsarin’s nightmare. Poison grass, silence, and spidercats probably weren’t the only things around. “Um, there’s more coming down from the trees.”
“I know.” I bumped into him when he stopped. “They’re ahead of us too.”
“Crap. Guess that takes away the run like hell option.” I took a deep breath to combat the panic beginning to flood my brain. “Keep walking. If any attack, I’ll swat ’em with my telekinesis.”
“Okay.”
The spidercats didn’t attack, but they did scurry around, blocking the way b
etween different trees. Logan growled. “We’re being herded.”
“That’s better than being dinner.”
“Unless they’re taking us to the kitchen.”
I smacked his shoulder. “Don’t say stuff like that.”
“Sorry.” He turned sideways to edge between two tree trunks, careful not to touch them with his hands. “Maybe they’re putting on a dance performance and need an audience.”
My laughter sounded a teensy bit hysterical. I choked it off while slipping between the tree trunks. “All I know is that we need to hurry because Bucky didn’t strike me as the patient type.”
Logan stepped up the pace to a quick walk in response. “All good hunters are patient, and Cernunnos is the Lord of the Hunt.”
“Can I ask a personal question?”
“Sure.”
“Do shifters pick personal gods too? You were kind of worshippy to him.” I ducked a tree branch and stepped over a fallen log, trying to step exactly where Logan did.
“He’s not my god, but it never hurts to be courteous when possible. I think I see a break in the trees ahead.”
I leaned to look around him. “I see it. Yay?”
“Maybe yay. I’m reserving judgment.”
The spidercats kept us moving toward the break in the trees we’d spotted, but when we reached it, they didn’t follow us out into the open. I put my hands on my hips, surveying the revealed landscape and castle perched on the crest of a hill. “Does he shop at Villains R Us?”
Pure bravado, because inwardly I quailed at the sight. A dirt path ran between rows of rusty cages hanging from posts. Each cage held the remains of what looked like people. Most were nothing more than skeletons with a few tatters of clothing dangling from whitened bones. Dotted among them were a few still busily decomposing. I jumped at a popping sound, and fought the urge to gag when something oozed out between bars on a cage nearby. “Ugh.”
“Stay in the middle of the path.” Logan pointed ahead, to a cage that looked weird. I squinted at it, and shuddered upon realizing the occupant’s bony arms were wrapped around another skeleton, pinning it to the cage.
Something to Curse About (Discord Jones) Page 21