The Sacred Hunt Duology

by Michelle West

  He was silent at her words.

  “But if you would, I would have you remain as one of the Chosen of Terafin. You know well how difficult it will be; you know the distrust that you will suffer, probably better than I.”

  She watched him, seeing his answer clearly in the stiffening lines of his face: That he would, as always, bear any difficulty in her name, and for her House. As he stood, he grimaced, unfolding his legs as if they had locked in position; they probably had. It had been a long day, and a cool, damp one.

  His sword lay in the grass where it had fallen; he walked over to it, bent, and then looked up at Jewel. His words, The Terafin could not hear, but she could see the embarrassed nod that Jewel gave. It was only a nod; Torvan had already turned to The Terafin. He walked to the foot of the shrine, and she met him there; she opened her hands, and he placed the blade, by the flat, into her palms.

  But he stumbled slightly; the edge of the blade cut her hand, and blood welled there.

  The Terafin met his horrified stare with a wry smile. She carried the sword as if it were a burden. It was. But as much as he would have liked, he could not take the blade back until she had given him leave, and she did not, but the cut did not deepen or worsen.

  “Pride is such a necessary thing in power, and such a dangerous one,” she said softly, although it was almost to herself that she spoke. “What you have offered, I accept.”

  “Your hand,” he said softly.

  “I know.” Very carefully, she returned the sword to its wielder. “It is . . . Terafin. Reminding me.”

  The question was in his eyes, although he would not speak it. Very quietly, she answered anyway. “I bleed. I don’t need to be more than I am; I only need to be all that I can.

  “Now go back to your post, but attire yourself appropriately first. I would speak with Jewel a moment in privacy; tell the Chosen.”

  He bowed very low as he accepted the sword—and what it signified—in silence. This woman, this Terafin, was not one he had seen before; and neither knew if, after this evening had passed, he would see her again.

  But he was her Chosen; he stepped away from the shrine, saluted sharply—or as sharply as stiff arms and a broken rib would allow—and then followed her order, leaving the shrine, and the two women, behind.

  • • •

  “His name was Jonnas,” The Terafin said, when only the sound of swaying branches remained in the wake of Torvan’s passing. “He was, of all things, a cook, and at that not the cook to The Terafin himself, but rather a cook to those who tended the affairs of the House in this manor. Common wisdom dictates that cooks are either too large or too thin, but he defied common wisdom in many ways; he had lived his early years in the free townships, and retained many of their mannerisms. I’m not sure why he elected to serve at a big House.

  “He kept the kitchen staff together as if it were a family, and he an uncle distant enough to be allowed to dispense wisdom without the resentment that it usually brings. Dispensing wisdom was one of the things that he did.

  “I met him on my eighth day in Terafin, and I liked him. We had little in common—I, noble-born and bred, and he a commoner with no ties, until Terafin, to the nobility, and little enough respect for it. I asked him once why he served a noble House—one of The Ten, no less. His answer was this: It’s The Ten that’re most uppity; they don’t know how to get anything practical done. They need me. And a man’s got to be needed, he’s got to be useful.” She shook her head ruefully. “I wasn’t,” she said softly, “The Terafin then. And not destined to become The Terafin in his lifetime either.” She turned to face the shrine, with its bare altar, the darkness of night beyond it now complete.

  “I discovered the shrine on my own, when difficulties in Handernesse—the family of my birth—arose. And Jonnas would come to me here, to speak with me and offer me advice on the responsibility of both the House and its Leader. Of family one is born to and family one chooses. Of the ties to either. He was known for his common wisdom, and it comforted me to hear it, because I respected the old man, even if I never told him so in so many words.

  “When he died, I was already struggling with the three other possible heirs to the title; there was politics, and in one case, a very messy death. Assassination was not the way that I wished to take Terafin, and I would not use it; I was not involved in it, yet it still left me one less rival.

  “But the divisions in the House caused by the death of the man in question—and his young son—were terrible; the manner of death could not be kept from the Crowns should it occur again, and the other Houses were beginning to crowd like vultures at our step.

  “And I came to the shrine, as I did when troubled, for it seemed to me that I was going to lose my bid for the House—and possibly my life—to the man who was most ruthless in his quest for power.

  “And as I prayed, Jonnas came to me as he always had, and sat, just there, cross-legged and at ease, waiting for what I had to say. And I said, ‘But you’re dead.’” She walked to the shrine, beckoning Jewel forward. The steps she took one by one, until at last they stood in front of the altar; there, she placed her reddened hand firmly down. “He said, very gravely, ‘No, but I will be, if Hellas becomes The Terafin.’ Ah, I’m sorry. Hellas ATerafin was the man considered most likely to draw victory out of bloodshed. And most likely to cause bloodshed. We do not speak these names to outsiders.

  “I realized then that he wasn’t Jonnas, that he had never been Jonnas, and I understood at last what Jonnas—what this one—had said about Terafin, about the spirit of Terafin. I was his Chosen, and I was to rule Terafin . . . with honor.” She bowed her head softly to the stone, and then raised it; turning, she caught Jewel’s gaze and held it.

  “Do you understand?”

  Jewel nodded. “Do you still speak to him?”

  “No,” The Terafin replied, her eyes dark. “I have not seen him in many years. But if Terafin needs his guidance, and no one else can fulfill this role, he comes. Tonight, he called you.”

  Jewel was silent for a very long time, and when she spoke, it was only partly to The Terafin. “I’m already ATerafin, aren’t I?”

  “Not yet,” was the quiet reply. “For I am The Terafin; the living rule here, and not the dead. Come. It is dark, and we have missed the early dinner hour. Dine with me, if you will.”

  • • •

  The fifteenth of Corvil.

  The day upon which Stephen of Elseth had planned his departure, in haste, to the King’s City. The day by which their safe, if hurried, arrival could be guaranteed, and upon which the fate of Elseth—Maribelle, Gilliam, and Elsabet—rested.

  But no passage had been booked or arranged, no horses bought, or wagon for the dogs. And they would not be, Leof thought, as she stood beneath the face of the watching sun. They would not be.

  It was not the Hunter’s green that either Morganson or Faergif knew. It was neater, warmer; the grass was older and thicker. No spring mud weakened it, no heavy rain, no melting snows. The altar that stood in its center was a flat, stone tablet laid out atop two plain pillars; it had no history, no family of women who came, before and after the Hunter’s short season, to pray, to mourn, or to offer silent thanks.

  But it was a quiet, private place, and the words that they spoke here, or murmured, the press of warm forehead to cool stone, would hallow it and make of it a space where the Hunter’s people might go.

  Gilliam of Elseth stood at the periphery of the circle. His dogs were nowhere in sight, and it pained Leof greatly to see their absence. The Hunter’s daughter was likewise absent, but she felt she understood that: She was kin to the one who had taken Stephen of Elseth. What Hunter could bear that knowledge, and not resent the fact?

  Lady Morganson crossed the green first, carrying the kneeling mats in her arms although they were largely symbolic. Leof hesitated. Gilliam, Lord Elseth was hooded; he wor
e black, although where he’d found it, and when, she didn’t ask. She couldn’t see his face, and wasn’t certain that she wanted to.

  Because she knew what it looked like.

  Turning, she saw Helene kneel and touch the altar. The shadows lengthened as the woman who had once ruled Morganson paid her respects to the dead. Gilliam did not move; he stood erect, his hands locked behind his back, his legs planted firmly against the ground. Bearing witness, Leof thought. For Stephen.

  It occurred to her, as she crossed the green in her turn, that he was angered by the lack of villagers, the lack of family, that followed the Sacred Hunt. That these two women, each offering a woman’s respect and the depth of a private grief, could not compensate for the ceremony that Stephen, dying upon foreign soil, had been denied.

  She acknowledged, not for the first time, as she knelt and pressed her head firmly against the stone, that there was a reason Hunter Lords accompanied the dead on their final journey from the King’s City; that they formed an honor guard and watch against carrion eaters; that they came, by Hunter’s Law, from the surrounding demesnes, with their entire families, to pay their final respects. Their grief was a commonality and a binding for the Hunter Lord, or the huntbrother, left behind.

  And as she lifted her face, turning it a moment at just the right angle, Leof met the eyes of Lord Elseth. She looked away at once, but not before the image of his face had burned itself into a memory that had never failed her.

  She let her forehead sink into the comfort of stone again, and she wept, as she had promised herself she would not do. Because Gilliam of Elseth needed to see tears cried for his brother, and he would not—could not—cry them himself.

  But she heard, in the distance, the howl of the hounds, and she knew that they, too, offered a voice to their Hunter.

  15th Corvil, 410 A.A.

  Vexusa

  The screams of the dying were constant.

  In the darkness, they did not falter and they did not fade; the kin were adepts at the art of pain, and they kept their victims awake and aware for far longer than any mortal torturer might have. Nor did they dabble in the merely physical, for pain was their vocation, and the causing of it no base thing.

  The coliseum of the cathedral was lined with the bodies of the dead—and the bodies of the living, made spectator to the work below. Men whimpered, and women; the children were silent in the face of a terror so large they could not give voice to it. But they knew, for they had seen the truth of it, that their parents would provide no protection at all from the reaving.

  The demon that had passed as Lord Cordufar for far too long breathed in the scent of fear-laden darkness, content—or more than content. For these souls, these unstained little bits of divinity, had not chosen their final place of rest—but they would not go free; they would know no peace. The Lord of the Hells was close enough to the world that he needed the sustenance of their spirits to continue his journey.

  These souls were trapped in Allasakar for eternity.

  Sor na Shannen was licking her wounds in the undercity; she was his promised victim when the Gate finally opened fully and the Lord of the Hells walked the earth as freely as his servitors.

  “You take your time.”

  The demon lord turned his head slightly, and then frowned. “Isladar. I would think your work here done.”

  Isladar came, shrouded in human frailty; only the glint of eyes in the darkness were truly powerful. “Oh? Why?”

  “There is nothing the humans can do now. We’ve sealed off the city. The Lord will come; he cannot be prevented.”

  “I see.”

  Cordufar hated that tone of voice; Isladar commanded nothing in the Hells; no demesne was his. And yet the Lord valued him highly, and he was not without his power. Power always ruled. Power that did not was incomprehensible. And what you did not understand was always dangerous.

  “We were careful before because we needed to take these sacrifices in secret. Now, we have what we need.”

  “You underestimate, Karathis, and you always have.”

  “Mortal months, and each passing day our Lord grows stronger. Listen well to the upper world; their mages and their Priests cannot pierce the barrier that our Lord has built.”

  “That barrier delays the Gate’s final opening.”

  “What of it? I tell you, it cannot be breached!”

  Isladar was silent a long time, and when he spoke, his voice was a whisper that the screaming almost drowned out. “Remember the Shining City,” he said softly. “Remember Moorelas.”

  Snarling, the demon spat.

  “Mortal legend says that he will return to ride again against the dark host when the need is greatest.”

  “And only you would spend the time necessary to learn what mortal legend says. He is dead,” Karathis replied coldly. “Mandaros has long since sent him on his way. And such a one,” again a snarl, “is long beyond the confines of this world.”

  “Ah. Then remember, Karathis, the Oathbreakers.”

  Distant screaming, the warmth of it suddenly vanished.

  “Why have you come?”

  “To see that your arrogance does not doom us all,” was the smooth reply.

  “It is clear to me, Isladar, that you do not rule.”

  “No. Nor do you; we both serve Allasakar.”

  They stared at each other a moment, Karathis very close to the edge of a challenge that could spend his precious power. But it was Isladar; his game and his purpose were unknowable.

  “Bredan could still pierce the barrier,” the lone demon said, staring into the roiling darkness of the gate.

  Karathis nodded, but grudgingly. “The Oathtaker was called once by his followers, and he did nothing. If he did not assail us when we were weaker, he will not assail us now—and if he does, he will not succeed. Not without warning. These last few days, our Lord has grown strong in his hold here.” He listened a moment, gaining a measure of peace from the proceedings below before he spoke again. “The servants of the Oathtaker will find no passage here. Sor na Shannen failed us,” he added, with quiet pleasure, “but it matters not; the Spear of the Hunter was meant to kill the Oathtaker’s form. It will avail our enemies nothing against the Lord.”

  Isladar nodded quietly. “But they are working against us,” he told Karathis softly. “Let us distract them, brother.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  18th Corvil, 410 A.A.

  Averalaan, Cordufar

  MIRIALYN ACORMARIS RARELY TRAVELED. The Halls of the Righteous Rule were her home, and even when the courts removed to Evereve for their brief Summer sojourn, she remained behind, watching halls that had been hallowed by history, and seeing to their safety.

  Outside of those halls, she almost felt she had no identity; the world, even Averalaan Aramarelas, was a place where the lives of others unfolded—others who did not require her protection, her guidance, or her ability to assume responsibility. Or so it had been.

  The dirt was loose and lightly packed in piles about the roadway; the cobbled stones had been removed either by soldiers’ hands or dubious magic, and lay scattered about as well, across the broken landscape. The gate of the manse protected the site from idle curiosity—it was the ideal place to begin excavations of a magical, and dangerous, nature. Especially since it seemed that it was in Cordufar that the threat to the lands originated.

  Three shattered bodies lay beneath a heavy shroud in the early morning sun; they were newly discovered this day, and no one could say with certainty that they would be the last. All other bodies had already been interred by the cooperative power of the Priests of the triumvirate. Such a slaughter as had happened here had never been seen in living memory; even the stories of the grim rule before the Advent were not so terrible in fancy as the dead here had been in fact.

  Allasakar. It had almost become a name to frighten s
mall children with; a threat to keep them well behaved, while youthful fancy conjured demons hideous beyond imagining. And now, they were all as children before the threat of the God’s return; they bore a fear that was palpable, those who worked these grounds, a fear that was hard to reason with.

  Mirialyn was ACormaris. But she still felt the edges of that irrational fear tug at her as she surveyed the grounds. Meralonne worked diligently with members of the Order in the bowels of the house; Devon and his small staff sifted through the artifacts that the mages declared “safe.” They were trying to reconstruct the events that had led up to the destruction of the House and the slaughter of the family.

  But, privately, Mirialyn had been told that three of the mages trained in delving into such events with the use of magic and an understanding of time that bordered on gibberish had already retreated to the farthest edge of the investigation that the Order would allow.

  “Miri!”

  The sound of that alto voice was familiar; turning, the ACormaris saw the broad shoulders and tilted, strong chin of a woman known widely throughout the kingdom. “Bardmaster.” Mirialyn bowed elegantly.

  Sioban Glassen smiled, but it was the smile one offers when in pain, a tightness around the lips and eyes that passes into nothing before it’s finished. “We didn’t expect to see you,” the older woman said quietly.

  “Nor I you,” was the equally quiet reply.

  “I’ve brought the bard-born,” Sioban said. “Kallandras was here yestereve.” She paused. “He said that they—we—were needed. If you want him, he’s with Devon.”

  “Devon? Interesting.” Miri stared into the harsh clarity of the cloudless sky. “When will it start again?”

  “There isn’t a set time,” the older woman replied, unconsciously wringing her hands. “It just—starts.”

  “You’re certain it’s human?”

  “Well,” Sioban said tightly, “screaming is not a discipline we teach at Senniel, so there might be some small chance that I’m wrong.” Pause. “Apologies, ACormaris, it’s—”