With a cry part curse and part fear, he pulled himself out from behind her eyes.
Not since his very first Hunt, with his father to supervise and guide his steps, had he felt so disoriented and out of control. He staggered as she knocked against him, butting him in the center of his chest. Righting himself, he reached down to place a hand on her shoulder; he missed—it was unnaturally high. Her lips parted; this close he could smell her stale breath and hear the low growl in her throat. She wore clothing, but it was poorly made, an ill fit, more remarkable for the fact that it covered her at all, it was so torn and frayed. He couldn’t say what the color of the shift had originally been, but hoped it wasn’t white. She looked at him, as if asking for guidance. No, not as if. She was.
Stand left side. Be ready. The thought was automatic, but he shook slightly as she snapped to attention, just as Ashfel would have done, and turned her face to the shadows. Her lips drew up over her teeth; her eyes narrowed.
The shadows burst out of the alley’s mouth.
• • •
Greysprint’s mouth was flecked with foam; his eyes were wide and whitened. He stepped stiffly, his hooves so heavy against the ground Stephen thought they might take root in the cobbled stone and dirt. Still, he coaxed and gentled the horse as he tried to move forward. He knew, now, that the fear of the beast this eve was a natural and understandable fear, and he almost regretted his haste in cursing both the stable hands and Lady Maubreche’s choice of riding beasts. For if Stephen, both rider and a huntbrother used to facing death, was terrified of the darkness in the lower city, could more be expected of a mount?
Greysprint didn’t throw him and didn’t flee in panic, but his breathing grew more labored and his sides began to heave. Stephen knew that more time would be lost trying to ride forward—he’d be faster if he dismounted and walked. But then he’d have feet in the shadows and no sense of motion and life beneath him.
What choice did he have? He felt Gilliam’s trance, like a delicate pulse, unseen but still a light in the shadows. Gripping the saddle, he relinquished the bridle and slid down the left side of the horse. The buildings, with their second and third stories overhanging the street, closed in like a poorly made roof; he felt them keenly although he was now closer to the ground.
Greysprint nickered softly, and Stephen gripped the reins once more. He led the horse in a half-circle, and then gave him a forceful slap on the rear. “Home,” he said softly, although the word wasn’t necessary.
The moon, where it breached the top of densely packed buildings, cut a path in the darkness. Alone in the twilight world of sleeping dens and hidden bars, Stephen of Elseth began his search. He moved slowly at first, but whatever power rode him became less kind and more demanding. Without realizing it, he began to stretch his stride into a near-silent run.
• • •
Three men came out of the shadows. They were in clothing that was dark—near-black—in color, but light of weight. No dress jackets or odd robes impeded their progress. They wore masks that darkened their faces and left only their eyes visible. They carried long, slim knives, but no swords, no obvious scabbards. And they ran, in step, like a single man.
The wind blew at their backs, a soft huff of night’s breath. It carried a scent back to Gilliam and his companion—one unlike any he had ever encountered. It was faint, pungent, and repulsive. He was reminded, although he couldn’t say why, of the perfumes and heavy oils that were applied to a corpse to hide the stench of death. They were never completely successful.
He felt the heat of her anger flare up and mingle with anxiety. He felt, rather than saw, her gaze turn to his profile. Not now.
The three stopped in a web of shadows as they saw Gilliam Lord Elseth, and the woman who stood a foot behind and to his left. In silence, they gazed at one another, but the mouths beneath their taut cloth masks didn’t move.
Kovaschaii. Who else could speak without speaking; which others could move so precisely and so perfectly? He knew a moment of fear, then; against even one of the Kovaschaii, he would have had difficulty. But the breeze blew their scent to his nose, stronger and less cloying, in denial of his fear. These were not Kovaschaii.
The Kovaschaii were human.
Fear—what fear a Hunter Lord allowed himself to know—gave the shadows form and substance; they roiled up, thicker than mist in the season before the snows came, and lapped at the knees of Gilliam’s newfound enemies. He blinked his eyes and saw that the darkness had moved, did move. Four enemies then, and he wasn’t sure which was most dangerous.
Until the man in the middle lunged forward, knife held flat and to the side in his left hand. Gilliam brought his sword up to deflect the long knife’s passage. He missed, or rather, the knife stayed on its unaimed course. But the man’s right hand, black as the shirt he wore, shot out, fingers forming a v. The edge of Gilliam’s blade met the fold of skin between the second and third fingers—and the sound of metal against metal rang out. The man twisted his hand, and Gilliam’s grip faltered. The sword spun out into shadow, and all sight of it was lost, although Gilliam could hear it skitter to stillness against the uneven stone. The man had worn no mailed glove—in fact, no glove at all; his skin was ebony.
Gilliam didn’t pause to wonder or gape; instead he spun low, into a roll that carried him away from both knife and attacker. He felt the whistle of air as something cut into the ground a fraction of an inch from his back. They were fast, these creatures.
By the time he gained his feet, he had his dagger in hand. He could see two of the enemy and their shadow; the third was beyond him. Without thinking, he slid behind the girl’s eyes, and saw what she saw; an arm, disappearing into shadow near the ground, biceps and shoulder blades taut. She was close; too close for the details of the cloth-covered face to be made clear. He felt, through their connection, the rough, hard skin between her teeth—and heard, with his own ears, the low, pained grunt that his attacker made. If there was blood, he tasted none. Which was probably for the better; he needed his wits about him, and even that would have been a distraction.
The moon suddenly disappeared; he leaped to the side, and something brushed against his ribs. Sharp, cold pain cut along the nape of his shirt, exposing the side of a rib. He pushed the trance, prayed for speed, dodged again; this time, only the shirt was abraded. He faced two, and he had no idea how the girl fared.
• • •
Stephen knew the shadows now. Even though there was no burning temple and no dying Priests surrounding him, he knew what they presaged. The dreams had returned, and they were his only reality. Blackness and death came under the cover it chose. What chance had he? The lower city held no sacred chamber, no hidden retreat—and none of the regalia of the Hunter God. But it held Gilliam; perhaps that would be enough.
He rounded the corner, and found that it was the final one. In the moonlit street, with shadows as carpets and flooring, he found Gilliam, Lord Elseth, as his Hunter struggled for his life.
He didn’t recognize the two who attacked him. They were enemies; that was enough. His dagger slid out of his sheath, and he crouched into the nearest wall, trying to keep even with the shadow, and at the same time trying to stay out of its reach. His breath came heavily; his throat felt raw.
One of the men dressed in black turned suddenly. In the moonlight, his dark fingers were gloved by a red, liquid sheen. He moved so quickly, Stephen thought of the Hunter in trance, and involuntarily, his gaze found Gilliam. Lord Elseth was injured; the night couldn’t disguise it.
He had never wondered, in all the years since the wyrding, why he ran in those dreams; he didn’t wonder now. The assassin—what else could he call it?—leaped through the air, both hands extended. He carried no weapon, and took no time to dance the intricacy of mage-spell through the air. Just the same, his presence was death. Stephen used the wall to push himself into the ground. The hands of his attacker splin
tered wood above his head as they drove themselves into the exterior of a building.
They were stuck there for seconds; long enough for Stephen to raise the dagger and slash out at the man’s neck. Steel grated as if being sharpened; the dagger hilt shook in his hand as he drew the edge against stone, or perhaps something harder. The only damage his single, free strike had done was to cut away the lower edge of the mask.
Black cloth rolled up, revealing another layer of darkness—ebony and a glint of white that overhung obsidian lips.
Gilliam didn’t know the exact instant that he became aware of Stephen; certainly his huntbrother shouted no greeting or warning. But he felt a sudden surge of fear that was neither his own nor his strange new companion’s. And where two had attacked him, one stood alone.
The knot in his chest tightened. He fumbled for his dagger, but without any hope; the hand that had twisted his sword from his grasp was not likely to be affected by the smaller, thinner blade. The attacker lunged low; Gilliam jumped high, and dragged the blade across his back. He heard again the scraping of metal against stone, and felt it rumble up his arm. The black cotton shirt was split from collar to waist. There was no skin beneath it.
Yet there had to be some way of injuring these assassins; the girl had done it. The taste of cold, hard arm, alien to him, lingered in his mouth. His mouth. She’d bitten down.
It meant something, he was certain—but he had no time to think what; he was moving, at the farthest reach of his trance, while the creature kept up its attack. He felt pain along his back, and his skin split as easily as the black shirt had done along his enemy’s.
• • •
They were not going to survive this. From the moment wood splinters had cleared his head, he knew it for fact. He didn’t have Gilliam’s speed or skill; there was no Hunter’s trance to draw on for protection. The dagger, dragged across an exposed throat, had done no damage. Were it not for the fact that the assassin’s hands were caught in the wood for a few seconds longer, Stephen wouldn’t have been able to avoid its next strike. He just moved too damned slowly.
He had to run; he knew it.
But he couldn’t leave Gilliam behind.
Frantic, he began to race across the street, out into view of the silent moon and the cold, pale stars. The shadows roiled at his feet, growing more substantial as they tried to impede his progress. His heart wouldn’t still; it filled his ears with its beating, although he needed to listen for any sign of his pursuer.
The cold, full laughter that suddenly broke the silence told him more than he wanted to know. Like a rabbit, he froze and looked over his shoulder. The assassin had not bothered to follow in his steps; he had waited, timing the perfect, deadly leap that would carry him to his quarry.
Stephen’s knees unlocked. He tried to throw himself to the side, but too late, and far too slowly. The assassin fell like a perfectly aimed sword strike.
And the lightning that suddenly flared in the street answered his attack, an equally perfect shield.
Laughter was dwarfed by sudden screams, the sickly smell of death replaced by the scent of charred and charring flesh. The impact of the strike sent the creature flying in a direction, and with a speed, that mirrored its attack. The shadows reached up, caught it, and appeared to consume it; the screams halted suddenly.
The remaining two assassins stopped and drew back; the one that had attacked Gilliam without cease now threw up its arms and spat out syllables that no one could understand. Together they sprinted out of sight, back the way they’d come. The shadows seemed to pull in around them.
“No!” Gilliam shouted, and a small, dirty girl skidded to a stop. Her lips were black, as were her teeth, and the growl in her throat was feral, inhuman. “Stephen?”
Stephen rolled to his feet. His forearm was bruised, but he’d managed to keep hold of his weapon; it glinted with a light that had proved too pale to pierce the darkness. “Gil.” His voice was shaky. “Who?”
“I don’t know. I found her. Maybe she found me.” He drew closer to his huntbrother; close enough to give Stephen a full view of the various bleeding gashes he’d suffered. Stephen reached out automatically, but instead of pulling back, placed one hand on his Hunter’s shoulder. They took two seconds to gain their breath as the smoke slowly cleared in the breeze.
“Hunter’s power?” Gilliam asked quietly, as much awe in his voice as there had ever been.
“I don’t know.”
“No.”
Two heads turned at the voice; only the girl seemed intent on her enemies to the exclusion of any interruption. Another shadow stood in the darkness.
And Stephen of Elseth recognized her voice.
“Well met, Lord Elseth. Well met, Stephen. You must follow me now. We have no time for explanations. The demon-kin will be back in minutes—and I do not have the power to strike again. Not from here. I am late, and the spell was . . . costly.”
“Where?”
“Back,” was the soft answer. Stephen squinted into the night, but the figure stayed out of moon’s reach. He saw the hood pulled low, and the sleeves, long and flowing, that entirely covered her hands. “To Maubreche.”
A cold, shrill cry rode on wind.
“Not yet!” Her words, soft and urgent, were not spoken to Gilliam or Stephen. “They return too soon.” She gestured, and white hands broke free, for a moment, of concealing cloth. A light flared in her palms; it was a pale orange, beaded like fine mist as it trailed to the ground. “Follow the path the light reveals. Do not stray from it, or the lower city will not let you escape.”
Gilliam turned to the girl, met her eyes, and gestured. Without further question, he stepped upon the path this stranger had created.
Stephen hesitated at the last moment, caught perhaps by strands of dream, or perhaps by the great weariness in a voice that still held power and decisiveness. “What of you?”
“I will join you if I am able. Now go!” So saying, she turned to face the darkness, shoulders slightly stooped, hands shaking but infinitely strong, as those she had named demon-kin burst once more from the night, wielding shadow that was edged in bright lines of shining blue.
Stephen ran. He followed Gilliam’s lead, aware of the fact that Gil slowed his pace in order not to leave him behind.
Chapter Sixteen
BLOOD MINGLED WITH MIST as it made a wet, slick trail down Gilliam’s exposed flesh, but acknowledgment of the injuries would wait; the path, faintly luminescent as it cut a trail beneath their feet, wavered and flickered like a lamp run low of oil. It was safety. It would not remain so. All around it—and it was not wide—shadows reared up like small garden hedges. Even the buildings that had seemed so tightly packed to Stephen’s eyes now seemed a river away; they no longer blocked the moon’s vision, but they offered no sense of comfort or familiarity.
The streets were still empty—or almost.
Stephen thought he saw people at the shadow’s edge, but before he could give warning, they screamed with their young, terrified voices and melted away. It stopped him by stopping his breath; he turned as if to reach out, and faltered.
Gilliam caught him firmly; Gilliam, unperturbed by the shouts and the awful silence that followed. Like any Hunter Lord, his concern was first for his huntbrother and his pack, second for the people in his demesne and preserve. For street urchins and thieves, as these must have been, he might have spared either pity or contempt had he time—but he did not. Tonight, he, Stephen, and the odd, dirty girl were being hunted. No matter that the methods of the hunt were foreign and heretofore unknown—it was still a hunt, and he had no intention of falling prey to demon-kin.
Demon-kin.
He pulled Stephen more squarely onto the path. The lower city circle was almost breaking; he could see the perimeter of the merchant’s circle—and beyond that, Maubreche lay nestled in the highest circle in the land.
Stephen’s shoulder trembled. He was still fit and trim, used to the rigors of accompanying Gilliam while the Hunter’s trance was deep, so the shiver had nothing to do with exhaustion.
“You’re injured,” he said.
Gilliam nodded. There wasn’t much else to do. “We’re almost there.”
“Great. What are we supposed to do when we get there? We can’t lead those—those—into the ball; they’ll kill everything in sight!”
As if talking to a testy child, Gilliam replied. “Lord Maubreche has his pack on the grounds.”
“His pack?” Stephen laughed hysterically. “Gil, our daggers couldn’t touch the God-cursed things at all—what the Hells good will a bunch of hounds do?”
Their situation was too urgent to allow Gilliam the luxury of bridling; he did anyway. “Maybe teeth have more of an effect—she bit them!”
It was difficult enough to argue and run, but they’d made a practice of it, and become near-experts. Throwing a third person into the process put Stephen off his stride, and for the second time that evening, he looked at the dirty girl. He also chided himself, very briefly, for being so unkind in his appellation. Except that she was dirty; filthy. She smelled rank and stale, even though the breeze and the pace pushed her scent away from, not toward, him. She looked at him with only a faint trace of interest in her eyes, and those eyes were all of a single color; either black or a very dark brown.
If they ever reached safety and light again, he would have to look more closely.
“Who in the Hells is she?”
Gilliam shrugged, and Stephen felt him turn and shy away from the question. It wasn’t like Gilliam; he was usually direct to the point of rudeness.
Not the time for arguments: not yet. Stephen swallowed, and asked a different question. “Why is she with us?”
“They,” Gilliam said, motioning with his head toward the darkness behind, “were hunting her. She found me.”
The Sacred Hunt Duology Page 30