Hinterland Book 3: The Wolf's Hunt (Hinterland Series)

by K. T. Harding

  She crossed to the window to take one last look at the rose. The window latch sat in place. It never opened in the first place. Bishop never walked through that door. He would never walk through it again.

  Why did she keep torturing herself by coming back here? She ought to throw the rose away and let this room go back to being another spare guest room nobody used. Then maybe Bishop’s ghost would stop haunting her.

  She cast one more glance at the rose and then stared out into the night. Bishop wasn’t here, but her conversation with Dax came back to her.

  Could the cabal have hired Bishop to locate the twen, just to protect themselves against Soto’s manipulations? If they did—if there was even the remotest possibility they did—she couldn’t turn the twen over to them.

  She had to find out for certain who hired Bishop. They used an agent to open the contract anonymously. She couldn’t just find the agent and hand over the twen. She had to find out who the client was.

  That in itself was hard enough, but at least the confidentiality binding Bishop didn’t apply to her. She never signed any contract. No one told her what to do. This wasn’t even her contract. She could dump the twen back into the ocean and no one could say a word about it.

  She wouldn’t do that. The cabal wanted to create the Elixir of Life to take over the world. She had the twen, so she held the key to their success in her hand. She had to make sure the cabal never got hold of the twen.

  Just then, the grandfather clock in the foyer chimed four o’clock. She slept a lot longer than she thought, and this investigation wouldn’t ripen for standing on the shelf. She stole down the hall to the kitchen and lifted her crossbow off its nail. She slung it across her shoulder and hung her blade at her belt. She buckled her ammunition wallet to her hip and tiptoed to the servant’s quarters.

  She eased back the door at the farthest end and slipped inside on silent feet. She bent over the bed and took hold of Dax’s shoulder. “Wake up, Dax,” she whispered.

  He started out of a sound sleep. “Huh?”

  “Wake up, Dax. Get your weapons and come on. We’re going.”

  He didn’t question. He swung his legs out of bed and launched to his feet. He took his own weapons from behind the door and followed Raleigh out into the dark. In a few seconds, they entered the kitchen, where he buckled on his gun belts.

  Raleigh opened the kitchen door. A straight rain poured down outside. She took her oilskin raincoat from the hook by the door and climbed into it before handing Dax his own coat. He shrugged into the sleeves and put out his hat.

  In past times, Raleigh and Bishop wouldn’t need raincoats. They would get Dax to drive them where they wanted to go. That wouldn’t work now. Dax and Raleigh couldn’t leave the coach sitting unattended for who knows how long. They would just have to walk it.

  Dax didn’t complain. He waited for Raleigh’s nod, and when she stepped into the downpour, he stayed at her side. They walked three hours out of town until she caught sight of the old stone bridge in the rising grey dawn.

  She jumped down into spongy mud next to the stream. Dax jumped down next to her, and they both looked around. Dax spoke for the first time. “Where are we going?”

  Raleigh unslung her crossbow and fitted a bolt to the string. She took another three out of her wallet and slotted them between the fingers of her left hand. “There’s an entrance to Hinterland over here, but we might have to fight our way in. Be ready for anything.”

  She didn’t have to say anything else. He took the cube weapon out of his pocket and checked it. He pushed his raincoat behind his pistol holsters to be ready for a quick draw. He would be ready for anything.

  Raleigh set off down the familiar path toward the underground tunnel. Her eye flickered back and forth around the woods on either side. She had to be ready to fight the wolf-hybrids who menaced the entrance. If they caught her, heaven only knew what they would do.

  She marched down the stream, but her vigilance never slackened when she spotted the curtain of vines covering the hole. She braced her crossbow to her shoulder and swept it back and forth over the empty woods. Her spine prickled. They were out there. She couldn’t see them, but she sensed their presence as sure as if she did see them.

  Her mind whirled through all the possible strategies she could use to defeat them. She didn’t have Bishop’s transforming potion. She wouldn’t use that again even if she did have it, but she could understand why he wanted it. She would give anything for an advantage in this fight against overwhelming forces.

  She didn’t give herself a chance to stop walking. She strode up to the curtain and pulled it aside. She jerked her chin sideways to signal Dax inside, but the moment he moved to obey her, a blinding flash of movement rocketed out of the forest. It hit Raleigh hard—a lot harder than she expected.

  That streak of flashing fury didn’t come over the bank like last time. It came from all sides at once. It knocked her crossbow out of her hands and sent her bowling back across the ground.

  Dax reacted faster. He pulled his pistols and got off one shot before dozens of wolves descended on him, too. Teeth snapped in Raleigh’s face, and powerful limbs pinned her to the ground.

  She fought back with everything she had, but they were too strong for her. She knew this would happen, and Bishop’s warning came back to her. She had to prevent them taking her alive.

  She dropped her remaining bolts and snatched up her blade. She cut it in a wide arc across her chest and severed an arm from a body. One wolf out of dozens dropped away, but another took its place. She couldn’t stand against these odds.

  She kicked them off, but they rushed back to sit on her legs. She slashed every which way, but she started to lose heart. What was the point of fighting when she couldn’t win? Just then, she heard a sizzling crack and turned her head to look. Dax still stood on his own two feet.

  He held his cube extended before him and zapped wolves faster than they could run at him. He barely paused to take aim. He cut them down all over the clearing until he leveled an empty space around himself. He took one step after another until he fought his way to the spot where Raleigh lay.

  She tried to reach her own cube, but she couldn’t get her hand to her pocket with so many wolves sitting on top of her.

  In front of her eyes, an enormous wolf thundered out of the trees. Raleigh recognized it, but it couldn’t be the giant Rekworth she killed when she first came to work for Bishop. It must be one of his Alpha relatives, and the dawn light glistened off its silvery wet fur.

  It cast a glance over the battle scene and ran right past Raleigh. It charged on Dax with a vicious roar. It lunged into the air. Dax swung around and aimed his cube at it.

  At the same moment, another huge wolf sprang over the bank behind the tunnel. It must have been there all along. It must have been watching and waiting for the right moment to attack. It didn’t growl or thunder, but soared silent and deadly through the rain. It narrowed its flinty eyes at Dax, and its reddish fur bristled along its back.

  Dax didn’t see the second wolf. He let loose a wild barrage of lightning from his cube. It splatted through the air and hit the silver wolf in the chest. The creature checked its flight and hit the ground. It screeched and writhed over on its back before it rolled up onto its feet.

  It never got the chance to launch another attack before the red wolf pounced on Dax from behind. It landed feet first on his shoulders. One clawed foot slithered down his arm and stripped the cube out of his hand. It rolled down the grass to within inches away from Raleigh.

  She tossed her blade to her left hand. She had to get that cube if it was the last thing she did. With Dax disarmed, they were defenseless against these wolves. She had to get it and cut them down so she could take Dax into the tunnel where they would be safe.

  She made a dive for the cube, but it was still too far away. She swung her left arm and cut the nearest wolf’s chest. He rounded on her where he sat on her chest. He
lowered his head and bellowed into her face, but he didn’t scare her. He wouldn’t kill her, not if he wanted to take her alive.

  She waited until his jaws came within inches of her face before she summoned all her strength. She hauled back her arm and punched her blade up as hard as she could into the side of his head. The blade’s curved tip punctured his skull and stuck there, but the force of her blow knocked him off her.

  She kept pushing, and the corpse toppled to the ground at her side. In the fraction of an instant before the other wolves realized what happened, she wriggled her torso around and made another desperate lunge for the cube.

  The wolves saw what she was doing and caught her by the legs. They dragged her back. She kicked out and caved in somebody’s snout. She got herself free and scrambled through the mud until her fingers closed around the cube.

  She flipped over on her back and threw her blade away. She plunged her left hand into her pocket and came up with both cubes ready to fire.

  Across the clearing, Dax still struggled with the red wolf perched on his head. The creature gnawed his head between its jaws. Its saliva stained his hair, and its fangs pierced his skin until blood ran down his forehead.

  He batted at it, but he couldn’t get it off. He pulled his other pistol and aimed it over his head, but when he pulled the trigger, the wolf dodged and the bullet zinged wide.

  Raleigh staggered to her feet. She fired her two cubes every way at once. She spun around to shoot the red wolf off Dax’s head. She brought up both cubes and took aim, but at that moment, a blinding flash of light burst out of somewhere. It looked like it came from behind Dax.

  He spread his arms out to both sides. The bright sphere widened until Raleigh realized it came from inside him. The ball of burning energy thumped against her. It prickled her skin and passed through to hit the wolves throughout the whole clearing. It bowled them off their feet, and the silver wolf slammed back against a tree trunk.

  The red wolf on Dax’s head flew off. Its limbs sailed forward from the impact. The wavering ball of light contracted back into Dax. He looked around in wild desperation, but not one wolf remained standing anywhere.

  In a flash, the silver wolf recovered. It launched to its feet, took half a dozen running strides, and lunged for Dax in a gibbering rage. It got halfway through the air on a collision course with Dax’s face when he exploded out of himself one more time. His arms flung out to both sides, his head snapped back, and the explosive star pulsed out of him again.

  The gleaming fringe of its leading edge puffed in Raleigh’s face before it passed through her and disappeared. An onrushing wave of sparkling energy caught the silver wolf. It lifted the creature out of the air and held him suspended above the ground.

  Dax remained crucified at the center of that blazing sun while the energy surging out of him tossed the wolf in the air. The wolf tumbled and writhed ten feet above Dax’s head. The light pricked and crackled all around him, and he howled in agony.

  After the first pulse erupted out of Dax, the red wolf crashed back into the bank and lay inert. Raleigh cast a baleful glance around the clearing, but all the other wolves either lay unconscious where they fell or cringed in terror before Dax’s transformation. They posed no danger to anyone anymore.

  Dax didn’t open his eyes. The shining ball carried him off the ground, too, while pulse after pulse hit the silver wolf in the air. The wolf stopped howling. Its arms and legs flopped with the sphere’s every beat. Its eyes rolled in its sockets, and blood spattered from its sagging lips.

  The two beings hung suspended there, not four paces apart, neither aware of the other. Dax couldn’t know what that energy was doing to the silver wolf. The burning light orb caught him in its power the same way it caught the wolf. It operated somewhere far beyond the Dax Raleigh knew.

  She stuck her cubes in her pockets and darted forward. She caught Dax by the ankles and hauled him down to the ground. Her hands went right through the sphere. It didn’t harm her in any way. She took him by the shoulders and shook him hard. “Dax! Dax! You’ve got to stop this.”

  His eyes fluttered open. The sphere retreated into him. It gave a few more gentle pulses before it collapsed to a bright halo all around him. It let out one more weak thump. Dax convulsed with it. His eyes closed, his body tensed, and he let out a muffled grunt before he came back to look at her. “Raleigh! What is it? What’s happening to me?”

  She stared at him, but she couldn’t recognize him anymore. He crossed some invisible barrier in his development. He lived his whole childhood and adolescence as a human boy. Now all that was gone. He’d been to Hinterland, fought the forces there, and come back to fight again.

  He would never be a human boy again. He grew into that mysterious entity Bishop rescued from the Guild of Husbandry. Whatever he was, whatever they made him, he grew into it and became it now.

  Raleigh’s shoulders slumped. What could she tell him? How could she explain to him what was happening to him and how to use the powers lying dormant inside him when she didn’t understand them herself?

  She took his hand, and the light receded into him one last time. He stopped glowing. He let out a shaky breath and became once more the young man she knew and loved. She could only hope he would always be that, whatever he turned into.

  A growl attracted their attention back toward the tunnel. Raleigh looked around to see the red wolf rising to its feet. It dropped its head between its shoulders, and its russet fur stuck up along its back. Its black lips peeled off its fangs, and it stalked toward them. Raleigh’s hand flew to her pocket where she stashed her cube weapon.

  The wolf glanced back and forth between her and Dax. A rumbly voice boiled out of its chest. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  More growls came from behind Raleigh. One glance showed her the smitten wolves getting to their feet and closing in on the two hapless humans. Raleigh yanked out her cube and aimed it at the red wolf. “Stop where you are before I fry you. Tell your people to back off before you get more of the same.”

  Dax whispered in her ear. “Don’t tell them that. I don’t think I could do the same thing if I tried.”

  “I asked you a question,” the red wolf grumbled. “Who are you, and what are you doing in our territory? You’re trespassing.”

  Raleigh sized up the situation in the blink of an eye. Whatever trick Dax pulled, he was right about one thing. He didn’t understand how to use his power well enough to repeat it. If they got into another fight with these wolves, she couldn’t count on him to defeat the wolves a second time.

  She put the other phase of her plan into action. She drew herself up and confronted the red wolf. “I’m Raleigh Douglas. I’m Knox Bishop’s apprentice, and we’re going down the tunnel to Hinterland to complete one of his contracts.”

  There. She said it. Now they would kill her. The red wolf reacted instantly. “Knox Bishop! You’re Bishop’s apprentice?” The wolf glanced around. “Where is he? He killed my brother Rexworth. I have a score to settle with him.”

  Raleigh started. “Your brother? Then you must be Horeck. You must be the new Alpha.”

  “Horeck!” The red wolf chuckled a hideous laugh that disfigured its whole face. “That thing over there is Horeck.” It wagged its head toward the silver wolf lying motionless where he fell.

  Raleigh blinked. “Then…who are you?”

  The red wolf stretched its legs, and the fur lay down along its spine. “I am Rianne. I am Rekworth’s sister, and I am Alpha. Now you will answer my question. Where is Bishop? I have…an old connection with him, and I wish to speak to him about Rekworth’s death.”

  Raleigh cast her eyes to the ground. “I’m sorry. Bishop’s dead.”

  “Dead!” Rianne snapped.

  Raleigh nodded. “He died in a battle with the Guild of Martial Arts, and this young man and I are completing his last contract.”

  Rianne paced back and forth. She shook her head from side t
o side. “Impossible!”

  “I’m afraid it’s true. We were there and saw the whole thing.”

  Rianne’s head whipped around, and she fixed Raleigh with her piercing eyes. “You two better come back to our lair. We have business.”

  Raleigh’s hand tightened around her cube. She couldn’t let these wolves take her and Dax. “I don’t think so.”

  Rianne glared and slathered her dribbling lips. “I have something to tell you. Bishop killed my brother. If you want to complete his contract, you better come back to our lair.”

  “Bishop didn’t kill Rekworth,” Raleigh replied. “I did. If you want revenge on someone, you better take it out on me, but you won’t take us back to your lair. Bishop warned me about you. He told me never to let you take me alive, and I won’t go anywhere with you—not for all the tea in China.”

  Rianne froze in her tracks. Her eyes bored into Raleigh’s soul. Raleigh braced herself for another deadly showdown when Rianne sat down on the ground, threw back her head, and let out the closest thing to a blood-curdling laugh Raleigh ever heard in her life. She stared at this misshapen creature, half human, half monster.

  Rianne turned her laughing visage on Raleigh. “You killed Rekworth? You!”

  Raleigh pursed her lips. “I shot him in the head to save Bishop’s life.”

  Rianne stalked toward her. She cast a sidelong glance at Dax. “And who is this?”

  “This is my friend and partner. He’s helping me complete Bishop’s job, and we have to go down to the market. If it’s a fight you want, you’ll get it.”

  Rianne sat down in front of Raleigh, but she didn’t snarl or menace now. “I don’t want to fight you. I thought Bishop killed Rekworth. I was going to congratulate him by trying to renew our friendship, but I see that’s not possible. I owe you a debt for getting rid of Rekworth for me. Come to our lair, and you have my word of honor you will be perfectly safe.”

  Raleigh narrowed her eyes at the she-wolf. “You better not be trying to trick me. I’ll wipe out your whole pack if you mess with me.”