Angela brushed an invisible speck of dust from her knee. “If you knew anything about me, you would know sitting on the ground is the least I’m capable of. I wouldn’t be here now if I cared about getting my suit dirty.” She laughed again, and her laugh rang through the camp.
Raleigh stared at her. Then she turned away with a shake of her head.
“What’s the matter?” Angela asked. “Are you disappointed that I’m not keeping my suit clean?”
Raleigh shot her a glance, but when she saw Angela grinning, she wilted. “Of course not. I guess I’m just not sure how to get to know you. I’d like to, but somehow I don’t think I’m someone you would want to get close to. I’m nothing like you.”
“My dear Raleigh,” Angela sighed. “You’re very like me. You’re so much like me it scares me sometimes. I see myself in you, but in a much finer and more advanced form than I could ever hope to achieve. You might be surprised to find out I admire you very much.”
“You do?” Raleigh asked. “Why would you admire me? I’m nothing but a dirty old slayer.”
Angela cocked her head. “Dirty? You’re not dirty. You’re just different. We’re both slayers. We’re just different kinds of slayers. I suppose that’s what Bishop loves about you. He prefers your brand of slayer to mine.”
Raleigh didn’t reply for a moment. She listened to the night noises, and to what Angela wasn’t saying. “Is that why you don’t want to go to Solaris? You don’t want Bishop to see you helping me rescue him? I think I understand. It must be hard for you to be around him after the way your engagement broke up.”
Angela’s eyes glistened in the dark. “You don’t understand anything about it.”
“I don’t understand, and I don’t want to understand,” Raleigh replied. “I’m not jealous of the connection you had with Bishop. I hope you’re not jealous because he loves me now and it’s all over between you two.”
Angela sighed. “Dear, dear Raleigh. I can see you’ll go on misunderstanding if I don’t tell you the whole story.”
“What whole story could that be?” Raleigh asked. “You were engaged to be married, and you broke it off. You must have had a compelling reason to do that.”
Angela closed her eyes and leaned her head against the hut. “I think you better know something about me before you say anything more. My mother was an unwed laundry girl from Perdue. She got pregnant during a late-night rendezvous in the back alley behind her boarding house. That’s how she wound up with child.”
Raleigh closed her eyes, too. “I’m sorry.”
Angela laughed again. “Don’t be. When I was eleven years old, I bumped into a well-dressed gentleman in the street. For some reason I couldn’t understand, he took an interest in me. He spent more and more time with me. I was nothing but a filthy street urchin, but he gave me attention when no one else bothered to. He taught me to read, and eventually, he got me into the Guild of Martial Arts.”
Raleigh’s eyes popped open. “He what?”
Angela nodded. “His name was Anselm Bishop. He was Knox Bishop’s father. He owned a big trading house in Perdue, right around the corner from my mother’s rented room, so I saw him almost every day. After a few years of him coaching me, he paid my mother a fixed sum and took me to Pernrith. The rest is history.”
“Is that how you met Bishop—I mean, Knox?”
“I met him when we were children, and we were always close. We studied together in the Guild. We always loved each other, and Mr. Bishop seemed happy over our friendship. I was just as devastated as Bishop when his father died, but Bishop became obsessed with it. He became convinced his father was murdered when all signs pointed to it being an innocent accident.”
“Is that what drove you apart?” Raleigh asked.
Angela held up her hand. “Just let me finish the story. Then you’ll understand everything. I stood by Bishop for years. I even helped him to investigate his father’s death, but it was no use. He could never find any evidence of murder, so he had to give it up. After a while, he proposed marriage, and I accepted. We planned the whole ceremony. Everything went well until I visited my mother in her old home to deliver the wedding invitation.”
Raleigh’s eyes bugged out of her head. “What happened?”
“She sat down and read the invitation. Then she told me I couldn’t possibly marry Knox Bishop. She told me the man she got pregnant from was Anselm Bishop, Knox’s father. He never acknowledged paternity, but he took care of me in his own way. My mother gave me her own name to protect him from their dalliance.”
Raleigh could barely breathe. “Are you telling me you and Bishop are…”
Angela nodded. “We’re brother and sister. I never told Bishop the real reason I broke it off. He admired his father. I didn’t want to spoil that, and what difference did it make anyway? We couldn’t get married. I loved him just as much. I never stopped loving him, and I never stopped wanting to marry him, but I couldn’t. Now you understand.”
Raleigh couldn’t take her eyes off Angela’s profile. Brother and sister! All these years, Bishop pined for a woman he could never marry, and he never knew the real reason why.
Now Raleigh understood them both so much better, but sitting there in the dark, she realized the awful truth. She could never tell Bishop Angela’s secret. If Angela didn’t tell Bishop the reason she broke off their engagement, what right did Raleigh have to do it for her?
Angela let out another contented sigh. “I could see Bishop felt differently about you than he ever felt about me. I saw that the very first day you and Bishop came to visit me. Do you remember? You were so nervous. He fell into his old habit of trying to change my mind, but I already saw the change in him. He no longer wanted my brand of slayer, now that he knew you.”
Raleigh swallowed to make her throat work. “If that’s true, why don’t you want to go to Solaris? Why don’t you want to help us get Bishop out?”
Angela’s eyes shot to Raleigh’s face. “You can’t go to Solaris. Do you hear me? You can’t.”
“Why not?” Raleigh asked. “What’s so bad about it?”
“It’s too dangerous. If the Guild of Martial Arts has Bishop imprisoned there, they must have a reason for it.”
“I’m sure they have a reason for it,” Raleigh returned. “They’re trying to stop him getting hold of the twen. They probably want him to get it for them and hand it over to the cabal.”
“That makes no sense,” Angela countered. “If you’re right and the cabal did hire him, they would be letting him go. They would want him to get the twen for them and fulfill the contract. No, they have some other reason to keep him prisoner there—especially there.”
“What do you mean?”
“If they wanted Knox Bishop out of action, they would imprison him somewhere else—Kaldkirk or somewhere like that. They wouldn’t take him to Solaris.”
“What’s so important about Solaris? What does the Guild of Epistemology have that’s so much more dangerous than the Guild of Martial Arts or the Guild of Musicology or any other Guild?”
Angela shook her head and turned away. “You can’t imagine.”
“I can’t imagine if you don’t tell me. Whatever they have, I’m sure Dax can defeat them.”
“Don’t count on him. He has no control over his powers. He’s as likely to get killed as anything.”
Raleigh cringed. “I won’t argue with you there.”
“If you don’t believe a word I say about anything else,” Angela went on, “believe this. The Guild of Epistemology is deadly. They’re just as deadly as any other Guild, even if they do live in the air. They spend their lives in an airy world of pure thought and never set foot on solid ground, but they’re just as capable of killing you as anybody else—if not more so. If I went there, I would be dead within minutes. I can tell you that.”
“But why?” Raleigh asked. “What did you do to make enemies of them?”
Angela’s shou
lders slumped. “I’m helping you. That’s why. Bishop is a prisoner of the Guild of Martial Arts, and I’m a member of that Guild. They would kill me if I tried to free him.”
“But you’re helping us now,” Raleigh pointed out. “They aren’t coming after you now.”
Angela shook her head again. “You can never be too sure.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Raleigh asked.
Angela wouldn’t say any more. She entered the hut, lay down on the floor across from Dax, and went to sleep.
Chapter 13
A gasp woke Raleigh from her slumber. She jumped awake and looked around to see Dax propped on his elbow across the hut. He held his breath and searched the hut with wild eyes. “What’s wrong, Dax? What happened?”
Dax’s nostrils flared. His hair hung in his eyes, and his lips curled back from his teeth. “Ybak. He was here.”
“Ybak!” Raleigh exclaimed. “Are you sure?”
Dax nodded. “I just saw him.”
“What did he look like?”
Dax’s eyes swept around the hut seeing nothing, but his whole being stretched to the breaking point. “He….he….I don’t know. I can’t describe it.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He said….he said….”
Raleigh sat the rest of the way up. She pulled herself together with an effort and took his hand. “Did he tell you he’s your father?”
Dax collapsed back on the floor. He pressed his lips together to stop them trembling, and he shut his eyes. “He showed me things….I can’t describe it. I was there, and I don’t even understand half of what he showed me.”
Raleigh relaxed, too. “Maybe you’ll understand later.”
She couldn’t sit around staring at him in pieces. She left the hut and washed her face and hands in the stream. She rinsed her mouth out with water and tied back her hair. Today was another day.
If Ybak was Dax’s father, he could show Dax everything he needed to know about being Auhlulhu. Yback would give Dax whatever training he needed to grow into ….whatever he was growing into.
Raleigh turned back to the camp. Angela appeared between the trees beyond, just as serene and immaculately clean as ever. No one would guess she slept on the ground in rough places for almost a week.
Dax stepped out of the hut and squinted into the sun. What a fine specimen of a man he was turning into. Across the camp, Cassandra appeared in her doorway. She went about her business without meeting anyone’s gaze. She retreated into the solitary reserve where she spent the last seventeen years. One encounter with her lost son couldn’t snap her out of that.
Raleigh started forward. Whatever this day held, she had to face it head on. She would discuss the possibilities with Dax and Angela. Maybe Ybak showed Dax a way to transport them to Solaris.
At that moment, a searing jet of blue light shot out of the high cloud overhead. It struck Cassandra’s hut and vaporized it to smoke and steam before Raleigh’s eyes. No trace remained of her or a single rush straw of the walls.
Another fizzling crackle of blue fire jetted out of the sky. It danced through the camp, leaving mayhem and death in its wake. Women and children scattered screaming for the woods. Men shouted and gathered what crude weapons they could lay their hands on.
Raleigh darted forward. Dax ran to Angela’s side, yelled something into her ear, and pointed back to where Raleigh went down to the stream. When he saw her, he bolted back the other way.
He raced to Raleigh’s side. “Are you okay? Come on. We have to seek shelter.”
The blue fire jetted all around them. One hut after another detonated in a shower of soil and smoke. It burned a smoldering path over the ground and shot people into the air right and left.
Dax and Raleigh ran together through the camp to rejoin Angela. They passed Petunia going the other way. “What is it? What’s going on?”
“It’s the Guild!” she shrieked. “The Guild is after us.”
Petunia raced on and vanished somewhere out of sight. Raleigh shaded her eyes to look up at the clouds. At that moment, the sky opened up, and ten black shapes appeared against the steel backdrop.
Raleigh got used to the white oblong zeppelins in which she and her friends traveled around Hinterland. These contraptions sailed through the air like the zeppelins but looked nothing like them. Spiky fins protruded from their black sides. Long spiked noses stuck out of their front ends, and long wings tilted and swiveled to steer the things closer.
In front of Raleigh’s eyes, ten airships banked and dove toward the camp. Long guns lined up along their wings shot these blue forked rockets down to the ground. Where they struck, bodies sailed in every direction.
Dax laid hold of Raleigh’s shirt sleeve. “Come on! Run for it.”
Raleigh hesitated. “What are they doing here?”
“They’re attacking!” Angela shouted back. “Don’t you see? They’re gunning down the hybrids.”
“What are they doing that for?”
“They always do it,” Angela replied. “The Guild of Husbandry always makes these raids whenever they find a bunch of these escaped hybrids. That’s why they live a nomadic life. I guess they stayed in one place too long. They got found.”
Dax hauled Raleigh forward, but a blistering barrage of rocket fire cut off their escape. Angela dodged. “This way! Quick!”
“Where are you going?” Raleigh shrieked.
“There’s an elevator tree over here,” Angela called. “I saw it before when I was out walking.”
The black ships swooped low over the camp. They followed each other one after another, and every gun went off at the same time. The thunderous noise blocked all further conversation, and the three friends ran into the trees.
Dozens of hybrids fled all around them. They ran in every direction with no rhyme or reason. Unattended children cowered next to trees and covered their ears. Women ran around in circles screaming their children’s names. Men fired arrows and threw spears at the ships, even though they must have known they couldn’t defend themselves.
Angela’s arm shot out. “There! There’s the tree.”
Raleigh caught sight of the distinctive fork in a tree trunk up ahead. Bishop showed her these trees that could whisk a person to a different part of Hinterland in no time.
Just then, the lead ship turned to come back the other way. Its guns rattled around to take aim, and in one withering blast, it shot the tree to smithereens. Splintering wood and twisted branches struck Angela in the face and chest. She hurtled back and hit the ground.
Dax planted his legs over her head and pulled out his cube. He peppered the ship with his fire, but the lightning didn’t make a dent on its skin. Raleigh rushed to his side and grabbed his arm. “Stop, Dax.”
He didn’t look at her. “Have to. Got to drive them back.”
Raleigh took hold of his shoulders and spun him around to face her. She lowered her voice so no one but he could hear her. “Fight them, Dax. Fight them with your power. Thump them the way you thumped those wolves in the forest. You can blow them out of the sky just by thinking about it.”
His eyes shot to her face. “What….I can’t.”
She nodded. “You can do it. Think about what you did in the forest and do it here. Concentrate, and fight them. You’re the only one who can defeat them. You’re the only one who can save these people.”
Dax cast a sidelong glance at the ships looming closer, and the hand holding the cube dropped to his side. He looked one more time at Raleigh. She smiled and nodded encouragement, and he narrowed his eyes at the ships.
He stood still in focused concentration so long Raleigh thought for sure he would pull something out of his hat any second. The ships circled the camp. They finished off the survivors with calculated shots here and there.
Raleigh cringed at every explosion. They would hit her and her friends any second, but she didn’t want to disturb Dax by hurrying him. The deaf
ening ruckus shattered her nerves. Dax stiffened and went slack. He hung his head. “I can’t do it. I don’t seem to be able to do anything if I try. It only happens by itself. I’m…I’m sorry.”
Raleigh grabbed him. “Come on. We can’t stand out here in the open anymore.”
He hesitated one more second to scoop up Angela in his arms before he bolted for the trees. They dodged rocket fire every which way and took refuge under the canopy. Raleigh cast a glance over her shoulder. The black ships formed up in a long line and soared over the treetops after them.
She almost tripped over her feet that kept running while she paused to look back. “This can’t be.”
Dax turned around. “What’s wrong?”
She ran after him. “They’re following us. They’re not chasing the other hybrids. They’re chasing us.”
He didn’t turn around. “That’s impossible. How could they know we’re here? They don’t know anything about us.”
Raleigh didn’t answer. She dared not voice aloud the thought running through her mind. Those ships belonged to the Guild of Husbandry, and they weren’t after the hybrids in that camp. They were after Dax. They must have some way to detect him, and they would follow him wherever he went.
She kept running, but the ships got closer every second. They blasted trees out of the way to clear a path. They did such a good job opening the forest for their fire Dax and Raleigh didn’t have to duck around trees or through brambles anymore.
Dax lagged under Angela’s weight. Raleigh did her best to help him, but the farther they ran, the more obvious it became they couldn’t keep this up.
The ships hovered directly overhead now. They circled the fleeing party and chose their moment to strike. One ship descended over Raleigh’s head, and a round hole opened in its side. An invisible force tensed in the air, and a whirling cylinder of grass, leaves, twigs, and small animals sucked up into the hole.
Raleigh shoved Dax aside. “They’re after you. They’re not trying to kill you. They’re here to capture you. They want to get you back.”
Hinterland Book 3: The Wolf's Hunt (Hinterland Series) Page 9