Brand was left alone on the hilltop. His head turned toward the distant sound of slowly clopping hooves. As he watched, Herla came into being at the bottom of the hill on the opposite side from Hob. He saw with relief that the horse was having difficulty mounting the slope with a shorn-off hoof.
“Old Hob, heed me,” he shouted. “I would parlay with you.”
Old hob was only half-visible in the twilight, having nearly reached the bottom of the mound.
Herla paused in his efforts. He was busy with his horse and his hound. Could it be he painted the shorn hoof with blood from the hound’s bowl? That is how it looked to Brand, and he sickened at the sight of it.
“What is it, river-boy? Thou owes me a debt.”
“I acknowledge this debt, and I wish to arrange repayment,” said Brand. “I would offer you a Jewel to help me defeat Herla,” said Brand.
“That is an interesting proposal,” said Hob. He took several strides back up the mound and became more fully visible. “Thou hast my attention fully.”
“I would, of course, require a boon,” said Brand. Old Hob had spotted Herla now, and they both eyed the dead king warily.
“Ha! As I suspected, of course! Nothing but base trickery. A boon? The debtor requests a boon? Nonsense,” sputtered Hob.
“Well, if you have no interest in the Goblin Folk acquiring a Jewel of power, our discussion is at an end.” Brand made an easy gesture of dismissal.
Hob shuffled two more half strides up the mound toward Brand. He eyed Brand with slitted eyes. “What would be the nature of this boon? And what would be the nature of my repayment?”
“Osang. If I defeat Herla, and you have given me material aid to do so, I will grant you possession of the Huntsman’s horn.”
“The horn Osang?” asked Hob, almost as if he could not believe his ears.
“It would be fitting, don’t you think, for the lord of goblins to possess such a thing? It contains within it the Lavender Jewel of Shadow magic. Is it not the goblin way to have dominion over sight, sound and stealth?”
“What must I do?” asked Hob in a harsh whisper, taking yet another half-stride.
“You must help me defeat Herla. You must stand with me and fight, or help in some other way.”
Hob laughed at this. He did, however, take another few strides up the mound. He was now better than half-way up the slope. “Despite the fact that we have clashed at arms twice, such behavior is not the normal goblin way. We do not stand and fight face-to-face with anyone. We prefer subtler methods.”
“I care not what your methods might be, only that they are effective.”
“Osang should belong to the goblin folk. Long have I said it,” whispered Old Hob, half to himself, “I agree to your terms, Axeman.”
Hob took another stride upslope.
“All right then, if you will not be a comrade at my side, then give me a trick to help me defeat Herla. And hurry, he has finished repairing his horse with blood from his wooden bowl. Surely, you must know some weakness I can exploit.”
The huge goblin shuffled another step closer. Brand felt the axe twitch at the nearness of Hob. It wanted nothing more than to cleave the monster’s head from its grotesque body, and for once Brand agreed with it. But he held it in check nonetheless, for Herla was moving again.
Herla became more distinct, his outline fully formed at the bottom of the mound. He was in the same world as those who stood conspiring on the hilltop. The Huntsman cast aside the wood shaft of his boarspear and drew his sword.
Brand snapped his head back to Hob, who had taken the moment of his distraction to creep another shuffling step closer. Brand looked high, fully expecting to see Hob’s lantern coming down to dash his brains out of his helmet.
But Hob didn’t attack him. Instead, he leaned down, stooping over Brand. His noisome breath washed over Brand as he spoke in a hushed voice.
“One thing I do know.”
“Speak!” Brand commanded.
“I know the true name of the hound that has ridden with Herla for all the long, long years.”
“Tell me.”
And so Hob whispered the true name of the hound in Brand’s ear, and Brand shuddered to hear it. For it was a vile and evil name, a unique name that none other on Earth nor in Twilight had ever shared with it.
“I understand now,” said Brand. “Herla is the one haunted.”
Hob nodded and retreated.
Herla lifted his sword in challenge. “Have you changed your mind, boy?” asked Herla. “As perhaps the only kinsman I recognize in this world, I offer you another chance before I must slay you.”
“I will not yield,” said Brand.
Herla nodded, having expected nothing less. “Know that after you die, I would shed a tear for thy passing, if only my eyes were capable of it.”
Brand held his axe aloft, and knowing that battle was near, it gave him strength. “I will not shed one for you, Herla. You and your hound have drunk the blood of too many. Come, meet the Axeman.”
And so with a ghastly cry of challenge, Herla charged up. The steep slope caused the charge to slow. Osang did not provide him speed or flight in this place, Brand was relieved to see.
Brand managed to sidestep the charge, but it was a close thing.
They came to blows. The fight was terribly uneven. Brand knew himself to be little more than an untrained farm boy. It was one thing to chop at rhinogs that were little more than hairy beasts. It was quite another to face a true lord of battle, who had fought for nearly a millennium from horseback, and who had slain thousands of men before Brand.
The only thing that kept Brand alive at all was the flashing axe and the guidance and strength of arm it gave him. And so he managed to meet the blade that licked out in silver flashes from Herla’s arm.
The stag antlers of Herla’s headpiece blackened out the stars from his vision. The Lavender Jewel Osang didn’t flash or blind him, but it did pulse with each stroke of Herla’s sword.
Brand backed away, panting, beating down the other’s faster, lighter blade. He tried to circle in front of the horse to get a low cut where Herla could not parry. But his opponent would have none of that and kept circling the horse to match him. Brand caught the other’s attacks, but just barely. Any lesser weapon would have failed him miserably. An axe was not meant for this sort of thing. Any axe is a weapon designed to bash down the enemy weapon, to knock it aside. One could not stand and parry and thrust with an axe. An axeman had to be on the attack, his only defense was to weave an attack such that any enemy coming close would be cloven in two.
But Herla knew of such tactics. He knew when to give ground and when to advance. And he controlled his horse with such precision that it was as if he had four legs himself. He knew how to get around an axeman’s guard, the moment to step in, when the axe had made its cut and was on a downward path. Before Brand could turn it and cut a new arc in the reverse direction, his sword would lash out, forcing Brand to stumble back or catch the sword with the haft of his weapon.
Judging he was close enough, Brand called to the dog. He did call it by its true name.
The dog reacted, lifting its evil head to eye Brand curiously. Herla and his horse cantered back a step, surprised.
The bloodhound met Brand’s eye, and Brand knew then that the thing was something more than a dog. It was something else entirely.
“You call my pet?” asked Herla, chuckling. “Do you perhaps think she will turn on her master? Maybe bite my hand?”
Herla stepped close to attack again, and such was the ferocity of the attack that Brand knew then he was lost. Before, the huntsman must have been holding back, testing him. But now he came on with a violence that no mortal could withstand. The blade flickered faster than the eye could follow. Brand wove his axe in a defensive pattern, but the tip of the sword slipped past and pierced his mail at the shoulder. His left arm hung limp and bleeding.
Brand called the dog’s name again.
The horse re
acted as if stricken and threw its head. Herla struggled to turn it back to press his advantage. He lifted Osang to his lips and blew a single clear note. At the bottom of the mound, dark figures on horseback began to slowly appear out of the mist. Herla had summoned his coursers.
Brand raised the axe, willing it to flash its most brilliant. Ambros did as he bid, and a blazing light shone forth that would have burned away the flesh and eyes of any normal man. Even Herla was affected. He cursed and threw a black-gloved fist over his face. Then he recovered and moved forward, holding his sword out for a killing thrust.
“Sange!” cried Brand, speaking the dog’s true name a third time. Hearing it, the dog did alight, hopping from Herla’s saddle for the first time after nine centuries of riding.
Chapter Seventeen
Osang
The bloodhound landed on the ground between them. It looked from one to the other, and it lifted its lips from its sharp fangs and grinned at them. Brand saw something in its eyes. He saw the red glimmer of ruby light. Then it ran away down the slope.
“Blood magic,” said Brand, staring at it. He understood then, seeing the thing run from them, that it had long been Herla’s master, not the other way around.
Herla stared with him after the retreating bloodhound. He let his sword arm drop to his side. The coursers, who had been advancing up the slope, held their ground in a great circle around them.
“You have not defeated me, Axeman,” said Herla.
“No.”
“You have, however, freed me at long last.”
“So I had hoped,” Brand said.
“You are truly of the Clan Rabing, Axeman. I, as your King, wish to return you a favor for having freed me of the bloodhound.”
“Speak.”
“I grant you title to these lands, to these kingdoms of the Dead. I will tell you that if you drive out the evil that sleeps here, these lands can flourish again and times can be good for our people. There is a power here that has turned this place foul. A power like the bloodhound that was my master for all these long years, even as I dreamed that I was its master.”
Herla’s dead eyes looked down at the ground, and he pondered the earth which had awaited him patiently for centuries. Finally, the earth would feel the touch of his feet. “Do you know from whence came this mound?” he asked Brand.
Brand shook his head.
“It is a burial spot for our people. Here are buried all the kings that built these castles. To this place all our kings eventually come to rest,” Herla said. He lifted Osang then and winded it for a final time. The coursers moved uneasily in their saddles. Their steeds stamped, but blew no pluming breath. Each of them raised a weapon in salute of their king.
“Know thee all that Brand is now the lord of this land. The last living lord. The hound has jumped from my horse and our curse is finally lifted. We can step down from our mounts and rest our weary bones. I command you all to do so.”
After he finished speaking, Herla and all the Wild Hunt stepped down from their horses. The horses stepped lightly, feeling no burden for the first time in their memories. The horses melted first, then their riders. Herla still stood, however, after the others had faded to dust and black smoke.
“You are free, but your bones will still dissolve?” asked Brand.
“This is as it must be,” Herla said, nodding. “We have lived on in death for far too long. I thank you, Axeman.”
He raised his sword in one hand and held it high. In the other hand he held high Osang, the horn of Shadow magic, and he sank down into the mound. After a moment, only the horn and the sword remained lying at Brand’s feet.
Brand put his axe away on his back again.
He shed a single tear, not for Herla, but for the passing of the last king of humanity. He had been a force of evil, but even the Faerie had feared him, and it was hard not to be prideful of that fact. Possibly, for many centuries, Herla had been the only human they had not dared to mock or scorn.
Then Brand heard a raspy throat being cleared. He didn’t need to turn to know that Old Hob crept closer up the slope out of the shadows.
“Excuse me, lord Axeman,” said Old Hob. The huge goblin’s eyes were fixated upon the bejeweled horn which now lay upon the grass before Brand.
Brand nodded. With his gauntleted hand, he pointed at the horn. “I give you Osang, goblin, as was our bargain. But know this: the axe is a greater power than the horn, and the humans will ever defeat the goblins should you choose to wield it against us.”
Old Hob took several half-strides closer, knobby hands working together. A single long string of liquid dripped from beneath his cowl.
When towering goblin had dared come close, Brand brandished the axe and let it glow in Old Hob’s face.
“Treachery!” wailed Hob.
“No,” said Brand. “A clarification only. This is the boon I ask: You must marshal your goblins and their rhinog offspring and quit the field. You must withdraw and allow your goblins to make no more rhinog offspring with human women.”
“As thou wishes,” said Hob.
Brand nodded and stepped back.
A vastly long arm with a twisted hand and six long fingers stretched forward. With wickedly-curved nails at the end of each finger, the hand snatched the horn from where it rested on the grass.
Brand allowed it. He had no desire to touch Osang. He had already dealt with two of the Jewels at once. The very idea of placing his hand upon a third Jewel was unthinkable. He was certain that the burden of it would break his mind completely.
Hob took a huge breath and slowly let it out. He clutched Osang tightly to his chest. “Ah, the power of it,” said Hob. “It throbs and trembles against my breast, as warm as a fresh-caught maiden. Your debt is forgotten, Axeman. My wisps are freed, but I no longer hold you accountable for their loss. I will marshal my goblins and their children and march them from this place.”
Shuddering from the power of Osang and salivating with the joy of holding it in his lumpy green hands, Hob hurried downhill. He vanished when he reached the misty bottom of the mound.
Brand sighed, finding himself all alone in the silvery lands of the Faerie. “I suppose I must circle this mound nine times more to get back to my land,” he said aloud to no one.
A flittering golden ball of light came up to him then, and he recognized the wisp whom he had released for a second time this night. He smiled at her exquisite beauty and she lit up his face with her yellow glow. She blushed and curtsied in the air.
“I will lead thee,” she said, her tiny voice squeaking in his ear.
He startled to hear her, and she flittered backward in concern. “You can speak?” he asked.
She nodded. “My voice is too faint for a human ear in thy lands.”
Brand nodded in return. He followed the floating golden mote that was the wisp down the slope.
* * *
While Brand walked the Twilight Lands, Telyn again found herself feeling restless. The battle was over, her young man was gone to places unknown and the combination was too much to be borne. She helped with the wounded for a full day, every few minutes gazing out toward the mound where Brand had vanished. Was he alive or dead? Did he lie in silver grasses, wondering if he would ever see her again?
Telyn took to heading out to the mound at odd hours, usually at dawn and twilight. He was most likely to return then. Sometimes, wisps appeared and twittered at her. She ignored them, not impressed by their ethereal beauty. Somehow, when one was truly worried and heartsick, the wisps were less enchanting to gaze upon.
On the second night of waiting and checking for Brand, she heard a strumming lute. She stiffened, but kept walking. The chords were lovely, and the sound filled the night air with a warmth that was unnatural for this time of year. Her head filled with the scents of lilac and honeysuckle. She knew of these tricks, however, and did not falter in her step. She turned away from the mound and headed back toward the ruined castle with an even stride. She promised herse
lf she would not stop walking, nor would she deviate from the path until she reached safety.
The lute and presumably the player followed her. She did not look around over her shoulder, although she burned to do so. Every dozen steps she reached up and touched her ward—making sure she had not somehow lost it. The grasses beneath her feet took on the silvery quality of the Twilight Lands, and she looked up to see the moon was riding high and was no long obscured by clouds.
The player came to walk with her across the lonely field.
“Lovely night, is it not, darling?” asked Puck.
“It is cold and the air smells like stumpwater,” she replied. She was lying, but she did not want to give him the pleasure of knowing his enchantments were working.
The elf chuckled. She still did not look at him, but she could see out of the corner of her eye that he was living up to the name of the Shining Folk. He glimmered brightly in the moonlight as if filled with soft radiance.
“You are a stubborn one!” he said.
“If you must talk, tell me something useful,” she answered. “Tell me of Brand.”
“Must we discuss a boring river-boy?”
“You could leave me in peace instead.”
“Ah, but I sense you came here for love! If Brand does not return, will you not dance with me? I could make you forget him.”
Telyn broke her vow to keep walking. She stopped and drew her knife. She raised it to the elf, and he backed away, throwing himself down upon his knees.
“Oh please!” Puck said mockingly. “Put away your blade! Do not sever my head from my shoulders. I will make amends.”
Telyn huffed and began walking again. Suddenly, the elf was at her other side, whispering in her ear. “I can tell you about Brand, if you will tell me something first.”
She stopped again and looked at him. He was lovely to look upon. The very opposite of crude, craggy-faced river-boys. He was refined and sculpted and—almost perfect.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
Haven 3 Shadow Magic (Haven Series 3) Page 15