The Hunter's Kind: Book II of The Hollow Gods

by Rebecca Levene

  ‘I believe so,’ Olufemi said hesitantly. She’d never feared him before, for all that she knew what he was, but she felt a little fear now. There was no warmth and no give in him, only determination.

  ‘Then send the messenger owls,’ Krish told Janiinna. ‘Tell them that I’m in Mirror Town. I won’t run any more: I’ll make my stand here. Let them come for me. We’ll be waiting.’

  37

  Eric had thought of most things. He’d thought of being found, and of fleeing down the long dark tunnels, and of travelling over the wild sea, but the one thing he’d never thought of was the child coming early. In all his plans, he’d never imagined Drut would have her baby before he could tell her what it truly was.

  He was walking one of the narrow alleyways with her when it happened. She’d been chattering away, quite happy for once, when she leaned her arm against the smooth granite of the nearest building and gasped.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, supporting her as she bent forward.

  Her cheeks paled from golden to a sort of sickly lemon-yellow. ‘I don’t know. My stomach’s been hurting. I thought it would get better, but it’s getting worse.’

  And then he saw the pool of liquid, spreading across the flagstones between her legs. ‘It’s happening,’ he told her. ‘The babe is coming out.’

  ‘It can’t be – it’s not time.’ But she had to gasp for breath before each word and he knew that he was right. If he could have taken his hands and shoved the babe back in, he would have, but there was never yet a person who could be kept from the world once he’d decided to join it.

  ‘It hurts,’ Drut said, sounding startled. She hadn’t known much pain in her life, and he ran his hand tenderly through her hair. It mustn’t happen here, out in the cold dark street. Her home was only a few hundred paces away and he put his arm round her waist to guide her. He didn’t think much about what would happen beyond that. He couldn’t. He just set one foot before another and rubbed soothing circles against Drut’s back as they approached the grey rock building.

  She stumbled over the doorstep and let him guide her down to the bedding. ‘I’m not ready,’ she said, looking up at him with a face as innocent as any babe’s.

  He wasn’t ready either, but he didn’t think it was wise to tell her that. ‘It might not be just yet. Sometimes the pain comes a day or more before the child. There ain’t no need to go panicking.’

  ‘You’ve helped at a birth before?’ she asked with desperate hope and he nodded. The truth was he’d stood outside the door while Fat Pushpinder screamed inside and sometimes ran for water when Madam Aeronwenn shouted for it.

  Water! He rushed to get it, relieved to have thought of something, and set a pot boiling over the fire. Then he brought more blankets, and some of her spare robes to wipe her. He knew there’d been a lot of blood and shit too. He might not have been in the room while Pushpinder delivered her unwanted little gift, but he’d seen the place after. They’d had to stop using it for clients. The stains in the floor and bed just wouldn’t come out.

  ‘Eric, I’m afraid.’ Drut reached out her hand and he clasped it between both of his and brought it to his lips. He was afraid too, but excited as well. He was about to be a father – Drut was labouring to bring his child into the world.

  He kissed her hand again, letting his lips linger over the knuckles. ‘I’ll take care of you. Here, let’s get you out of these clothes.’

  She tried to assist him as he eased the robes down her arms, but she kept having to stop and cry out as waves of pain washed over her. That wasn’t right, was it? The pain shouldn’t be coming on this quick.

  ‘Am I dying?’ Drut’s face was even paler now, almost the same colour as his, and there was a sheen of sweat all over it. Her hand when he took it again was slick and hot.

  ‘You’re not dying,’ he said. But she groaned and convulsed, and he knew he needed to see what was happening. He swallowed and said, ‘Open your legs.’

  She hadn’t the strength to resist as he pushed her legs apart; she only cried out again. He put a folded blanket under her back, which seemed to ease her a little, and then bent down to look at her cunny.

  For a terrified moment he saw the ball of matted wet hair between her parted lips and thought that something had gone horribly wrong. Her bowels had loosened too, the stink of it spreading out. And then she cried out again, her stomach clenched and the hair came out a little more, until he could see that it was the soft round crown of a head. ‘It’s happening!’ he yelled. ‘He’s coming!’

  ‘He?’ she gasped, but the question turned into a scream and the head came out a little further. There was blood too. She must have torn herself with it all going so quickly. Eric shied away from touching the hair that was sticky with blood and other fluids, but then Drut pushed again and suddenly his child was coming, he was slithering all the way out.

  Eric gasped and grabbed him, holding the delicate neck and cradling his slimy body. A yellow cord stretched out from his belly towards the mother he’d finally left. Eric’s hand shook as he cut it, severing the last link between Drut and her child.

  ‘Is it … is it over?’ she asked, sounding dazed.

  But Eric couldn’t reply. All his attention was on the newborn, on the wonder of it, that here was a whole life he’d helped to make. He wiped a smear of fluid away from the dark grey lips and the babe cried out and blinked open eyes that were as silver as the moon. He wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t a monster at all. He was a baby, and Eric’s son. Eric clutched him against his chest, which felt like it was growing, stretching to make room for this little thing inside it. It felt like falling in love, but so much purer and more perfect.

  ‘Eric …’ Drut said weakly, and he shuffled over until he could sit beside her, cradling the babe in one arm and her in the other. This wasn’t just his son, he was hers too. He was theirs.

  ‘Look,’ Eric said. ‘Look how perfect he is.’ He rested his finger beneath the baby’s hand and the tiny fingers clasped round it. It caused a feeling so strong it seemed to suck all the air out of him. The nails glinted like silver.

  And then Drut screamed, more weakly than when she’d been birthing their son but with more horror, and Eric remembered what he should have thought all along: that he’d never found the moment to tell her what their child would be.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Look. He’s fine – he’s healthy. It’s only that he’s a boy.’

  ‘He’s … what is he?’ She reached out for the child, her fingers shaking, and ran them carefully along the soft roundness of those grey cheeks.

  ‘He’s our son,’ Eric said.

  ‘Oh, Mizhara, what have I done?’

  ‘You did great, Drut – I ain’t ever heard of a birth going so easy.’

  ‘The birth of a – a monster. Eric, this is an abomination!’

  Her fingers, which had been so gentle, curved into claws and Eric snatched the babe away. Drut tried to come after him but she was weak, falling forward on to her hands so that she had to peer up at him through the tangled fall of her sweaty gold hair.

  ‘You’re not thinking straight,’ he said. ‘You don’t really mean it. He’s your son.’ But he kept backing away, until there were several paces separating them.

  ‘It’s evil, Eric. We have to kill it.’

  ‘Kill him?’

  ‘I should never have done it. I should never have lain with you outside the oroboros. I should never have let you save me from the long walk. It’s my fault, Eric. It’s all my fault but we can put it right. Kill it, Eric, and no one ever has to know.’

  ‘Don’t talk crazy, Drut. He’s a baby.’

  ‘He’s a monster! Please, if you love me. Please, Eric.’

  He did love her. It hurt him to see her so distressed, her perfect face streaked with tears and snot and such a desperate look on it. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t kill him. But you can come with me. We can be a family together.’

  ‘Come where, Eric? Where
are you going?’

  He stepped back, until the arch of the door was right behind him. ‘I have to leave Salvation, Drut. I want to go home.’

  ‘You told me I was your home. Don’t leave me, Eric.’

  Maybe she’d change her mind, given some time and a chance to hold their son, but he couldn’t risk waiting. ‘I’m going, Drut,’ he said. ‘I want you to come with me. But I’m going to leave either way. I won’t let no one hurt our son.’

  ‘That … that thing isn’t ours. It’s the moon’s!’ Her chest heaved as she sobbed and a thin trickle of liquid leaked from her nipples: not milk-white but red, like blood.

  ‘Then I’ll take him to the moon,’ Eric said as he turned his back on her and fled the room.

  Outside he hesitated only a moment. He could take the long dark route that led away from Salvation. But the Hunter knew it already; he felt in his gut that she’d be waiting for him there. It was the portion of the day when the Servants slept and they never stirred until it ended. Only the other husbands might be wandering the halls at this hour and he could deal with them. He’d fight them if he must. It was a terrible risk, but when a boy had only bad options he took the least awful of them.

  The walk back to the staircase seemed to take for ever, the walk up it even longer. His son was warm where Eric clutched him against his chest, but he was wriggling and beginning to whimper. He should have suckled at his mother’s tit but – no, Eric wouldn’t think of that. He pressed that small, ash-coloured face against his bosom and whispered, ‘Soon. I’ll feed you when we’re free.’

  They passed the great machine, whirling vastly in the centre of the city, and Eric knew the booming noise of it would drown out any sound he or his son might make. When they were above it and into the upper levels of Salvation, his son cried louder and Eric whispered, ‘Hush, please, hush now,’ and broke into a run. His footsteps splashed in the meltwater that seemed to be everywhere these days.

  Those thin cries echoed down the icy corridors and Eric’s heart beat a swift march, but no one came. He cradled his son and hurried on, until finally the entrance was in front of him and he gasped out a great relieved breath and sprinted towards it.

  The Hunter was waiting for him outside. The sun, low on the horizon, outlined her body in a red glow as she leaned on her spear and watched him. He skidded to a halt in the snow, clutching his precious bundle tighter against him. The swaddling clothes hid the baby, but his cries grew loud and shrill, as if he sensed the danger he was in.

  ‘Your child?’ the Hunter asked.

  Eric nodded jerkily. Behind the Hunter, in the blood-red sky, the dark shape of Rii winged towards him. It didn’t mean hope, not really, with her bound to the Hunter’s service, but it was the only stick he had to cling to as he drowned.

  ‘Your son,’ the Hunter said quietly, and Eric backed away, but she was too fast for him. She flipped back the swaddling clothes to reveal the purse-mouthed, ash-grey face below.

  ‘He’s only a baby,’ Eric said.

  ‘A Servant of the moon.’

  ‘He ain’t serving no one. All he cares about is putting milk in his belly.’

  ‘And it is to the moon you mean to take him.’

  ‘I have to. Where else can we go?’

  ‘I cannot permit you to leave.’

  ‘You ain’t stopping me without killing me.’ Eric’s voice shook so hard the words almost shivered into pieces, but he meant them. He’d give his life for his son.

  ‘I do not wish to kill you,’ she said. ‘And I will not have to.’

  She probably wouldn’t. She could probably just grab hold of him with one finger and take his son without Eric being able to stop her. ‘But you’ll kill my boy,’ he said.

  For the first time, she looked a little unsure of herself. ‘I would never kill a child.’

  ‘But they’ll kill him. So you giving us over to them is as good as you killing him yourself. You know it’s true.’

  She hesitated, and perhaps she would have stood aside after all, but in that moment of hesitation Rii came. The great sweep of her wings blew snow over them both. Eric clutched his baby against his chest and closed his eyes until the storm was over and only the smell of mouldy cinnamon remained, and Rii’s shadow over them all.

  ‘Creature.’ The Hunter stood tall and determined once again. ‘This is none of your concern.’

  Rii hissed, as if steam were boiling through her black lips. ‘I have made it my concern, Bachur.’ She leaned forward, until her fanged head was between Eric and the Hunter.

  ‘Stand aside. I command you.’

  ‘Dost thou command me?’

  ‘By the rune I carved into your flesh, I do.’

  Rii hissed again, an angrier sound, like scalding metal doused with water. ‘And what if I were to use my claws on thee, Bachur? To carve more scars into thy face.’

  Eric backed away, as he’d always done when two bruisers were working themselves up into a fight. But the Hunter didn’t respond with anger or violence as he’d expected. Her face twisted into an expression almost of fear and she took a pace back.

  ‘So many years past,’ Rii said, ‘thou toldst this tale to the cursed Servants, knowing that I would never hear it. Thou hidst thy face from me, deep in the Moon Forest, knowing that I would never see thy scars. I put those marks upon thy face, that no common wound could sully? I who could not overcome thy power? I who was bound by thee? Thou and I both know this for a lie.’

  ‘I never claimed as much,’ the Hunter said.

  ‘Liar,’ Rii said. ‘My hearing is far better than thou knowest – I heard the words Mizhara’s Servant spoke to thee and then I knew what a fool thou hadst been. To summon me to thy stronghold in my master’s forest, to show me thy house where thy mistress’s light cannot touch and yet my brethren cannot come from beneath the ground? Whose body lies there, that poisons the land against my kin? Whose nails scored those tracks upon thy face? Whence came the power thou useth to enslave me?’

  The Hunter clutched her hand so tightly on her spear that Eric saw her fingers whiten. ‘This is nonsense, beast. I command you to silence.’

  Rii laughed, a wild, discordant sound. ‘Such a command does not lie within thy power. And who might I speak to, that thou wouldst silence me? And what might I say? Release me from thy binding, Bachur, or I will spill thy secret to thine own.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Eric said. ‘Rii, what don’t she want you to say?’

  ‘I did it for your sake,’ the Hunter said to Rii. ‘For you and all your kind. I did it to spare the world more bloodshed and the utter annihilation of your master’s people.’

  ‘Did what?’ Eric asked. He could see that everything had changed: the power had somehow flowed from the Hunter to Rii. His son squirmed in his arms and he held him tight, hoping.

  ‘Thou art a murderer and a traitor,’ Rii said, ‘thou who stood in judgement over me. Deny it if thou canst, Bachur, and free me if thou canst not. Mercy wast thy aim when thou didst kill her who should have been most dear to thee? Then free me and I will fly this babe from the reach of those who would kill him. Revoke thy binding upon me, Bachur!’

  Eric still didn’t think he understood, except that whatever Rii was claiming must be true. Its truth was written in every agonised line of the Hunter’s face. It twisted, as if she was in pain, and then she said, ‘Go then, beast. Be free – I unbind you!’ And afterwards a word in a language Eric didn’t know, which seemed to hum with the same deep power as the machine beneath Salvation.

  Rii shrieked in triumph and Eric ran towards her, to mount and finally escape, but she didn’t wait for him. She flung herself into the air, still shrieking, and turned towards the white towers of Salvation.

  ‘No!’ the Hunter shouted, but there was no stopping Rii. She fell on the nearest tower and ripped into it with her claws, tearing it down before moving on to another. Showers of ice fell on Eric and he backed away, wanting to turn and run but unable to look away from the savage
destruction.

  When she’d toppled two more towers, Rii turned her claws on one of the great white domes that lay beneath. With terrifying speed she ripped it away and continued burrowing, into the heart of Salvation. There were screams coming from inside the buildings now and Eric saw the golden forms of Servants running in disarray. He saw splashes of red too and knew that Rii’s claws must have found flesh.

  Eric had always known what she was. He’d trusted her because he had no other hope. But she was a monster, and now she was free she was doing what monsters did. He lost sight of her as she burrowed deep into Salvation and the screams grew louder.

  The noise disturbed his son and the baby screamed too.

  ‘Take him,’ the Hunter said. ‘Take him and flee, before the beast destroys him too.’

  She didn’t wait to see if he obeyed. She hefted her spear and ran towards Salvation, dodging the jagged lumps of ice tumbling from the ruined structure. Eric watched her, frozen with indecision. Where could he run to? And how could he outrun Rii? But in the end terror won and he bent his head and sprinted through the snow heading nowhere but away.

  He almost thought he’d make it. The screams were lost to distance and his breath was gasping out of his mouth in white clouds when he heard the leathery flap of wings above him and sank to his knees in despair. He curled himself round the baby. It was all he could do as Rii landed in front of him and thrust her great, ugly head towards him, her fangs dripping red onto the white of the snow.

  ‘Where goest thou, morsel?’

  ‘Please. Don’t kill him. He’s one of yours, ain’t he?’

  ‘Indeed, and so art thou. My vengeance here is done. My master’s stolen machine is broken and all its magic denied the cursed Servants. Mount, morsel, before our enemies rally and pursue us. The moon awaits our coming.’

  38

  There were nine bronze fire javelins. Every scrap of metal King Nayan had provided had gone into making them and Cwen wondered if they’d be enough. She watched her hawks as they clustered in small groups around each weapon, miming the motions required to work them: loading them with canisters of small iron balls and the bags of black powder, using a flint to strike the spark that would ignite it and running back, away from the possibility of an explosion – and then doing it all over again.