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

by K. T. Harding

  She started to wish she was back at her father’s farm, cooking her breakfast porridge and scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees. The mundane chores of every day would be better than this constant danger and fighting for survival.

  No wonder Bishop gave Dax to the McDermotts. He probably hoped the little boy would grow up to be an ordinary person who never faced insurmountable forces trying to kill him.

  Those days were all over—for Raleigh, for Dax, and even for Angela. Raleigh noticed a sad nostalgia in Angela’s eyes on the journey. She wanted to retire after a long career as a slayer and assassin for Soto and the Guild of Martial Arts.

  She wanted the comforts of home. Instead, here she was, fighting the Guild of Husbandry and trekking into the mountains and enduring untold hardships. She was hunting for some way to free Bishop from Solaris without getting her own head blown off into the bargain.

  Hours passed before Raleigh got her first good look at Kaldkirk, but even then, the place made no sense to her. The grey-blue towers blended seamlessly into the ocean all around. Flatlands carried water through the streets. Boats and strange creatures glided between the buildings.

  Hundreds of walkways carried people back and forth through the city, but anybody could see the waterborne held the advantage here. Enormous sea monsters dabbled in the canals. They dove their long necks underwater and came up holding thrashing dolphins and squid in their jaws. They tossed them down their throats and went back for more.

  Sea birds flocked all over the place. They came to rest on ponds between the buildings and flew up squawking past the windows.

  A market of floating rafts tied up outside the city. Every species bartered, bought and sold, gossiped, and came and went at will under shade sails erected against the city walls.

  Angela sighed. “This is the stronghold of the Guild of Medicine.”

  “Will they come after you for trespassing on their territory?” Raleigh asked.

  “They’re not so strict about that. They harbor all sorts of slippers. The friend I’m taking you to see is a slipper from the Guild of Martial Arts. When someone turns away from their Guild, they often wind up here.”

  The zeppelin landed on the roof of another building, and the party got out. Angela squinted into the sun. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”

  She passed through a door into one of the blue-stone buildings and immediately exited the other side onto one of the board catwalks. Raleigh had to pay attention to where she was going so she wouldn’t step off into nothing. Dozens of strange sights caught her eye, but Angela already moved away with that easy nonchalance that made her at home anywhere.

  She put her foot down on the creaking planks in absolute confidence. She stepped around every hole and splinter like she knew them of old. She climbed down a rope ladder to another catwalk dangling inches above the water.

  She turned a corner, and Raleigh started back when she saw five monstrous reptiles locked in mortal combat. They thrashed in a large open area of water between three buildings. They whipped their heads back and screeched to raise the rafters. They snapped their jaws and lashed each other back and forth.

  “What’s happening?” Raleigh gasped.

  Angela waved her hand. “That’s the city council meeting. They’re arguing over the Guild’s latest application to host the Healing Competition. They hold it every year in a different city. Kaldkirk hosted last year, and since this is the Guild headquarters, they want the city council to agree to let them host it here every year, to make it an annual event. They’re discussing the pros and cons.”

  The creatures struggled so hard they sent salty spray slashing all over the party. Raleigh shrank back, but Angela hurried on her way. “Come on. We better get there if we want to catch my friend in his office.”

  Raleigh had no choice but to follow. On every side, water creatures, migratory birds, and every other brand of monster imaginable fought, talked, chirped, hurried, and lounged in windows, doors, ponds, canals, and perches.

  Raleigh couldn’t imagine anything closer to sheer chaos, but everywhere she looked, all these different creatures seemed to be living in peace and harmony. Nothing could be more different than the sterile halls of Hallbreck, where all these creatures and beings would be tortured, imprisoned, and degraded.

  “What’s this Guild of Medicine all about?” she asked Angela.

  “Just what it sounds like. They train all the doctors and nurses and healers in Hinterland here. They do medical research, and people come here from all over for healing and medicine. You’re gonna find a lot of Bishop’s friends here.”

  “What’s the Competition you just mentioned?”

  Angela grinned over her shoulder. “One thing you have to learn about the Guild of Medicine. They’re so much more straightforward than the other Guilds. They don’t call something a competition if it isn’t one. They transport all the most serious cases here from all over Hinterland, and the doctors try to cure them. The one who cures the most patients with the most dangerous and untreatable conditions is the winner.”

  “I’d like to see that.”

  “Maybe you will,” Angela replied. “The competition isn’t far off. Thousands of people come from all over to see that.” She turned into one of the buildings. “Here we are.”

  Raleigh paused on the threshold with Dax at her side. “Who is this friend of yours?”

  Angela turned around. She opened her mouth to answer, but at that instant, a bright explosion stunned Raleigh. Black and gold sunbursts flashed in front of her eyes. She blinked, and her vision cleared.

  She looked around her. Dax still stood next to her, and he looked around in stunned surprise, too, but they weren’t in Kaldkirk anymore.

  A clear blue sky hung over their heads, but it was a softer, more mystical blue than the harsh crisp sky over the ocean. Misty clouds drifted all around them, and clouds of fog rolled over their feet.

  Instead of buildings towering on all sides, great thunderheads billowed into the firmament. A gentle breeze ruffled the clouds, and soft music drifted from somewhere out of sight.

  Raleigh gasped. “What the…?”

  “Where are we?” Dax asked.

  Raleigh cast a critical look around the clouds and sky on all sides. “This must be Solaris.”

  “How did we get here?” Dax asked.

  Raleigh rounded on him. “You must have transported us here.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” he cried. “I was just…”

  Raleigh waited for him to say something else. “You what? You were just what?”

  He glanced around. “I was just following you and Angela into the building, and I was thinking how I hoped this guy would help us find Bishop so we could get him out of…” He trailed off.

  Raleigh sighed. “You were thinking about Solaris, and you were thinking about being here, and now we are. At least you didn’t bring Angela with you.”

  “But…but…she’ll be left behind in Kaldkirk,” he pointed out. “What will she do there?”

  “I guess she’ll talk to her friend. Maybe by the time we see her again, she’ll have some useful information for us.”

  Dax stole another furtive glance around. “Well, what do you want to do while we’re here?”

  “Look for Bishop, of course.” Raleigh turned away. “The question is where to start. We don’t know anything about this place, but Angela said anybody who cared to come was free to explore, so I guess that’s what we’ll do. Come on.”

  She set off through the clouds. Her feet struck something solid at every step, but cloud obscured the ground—or whatever it was underfoot. It couldn’t be the ground. Every so often, Raleigh glanced down to see the clouds parted around her boots. She caught glimpses of mountains and fields and green Earth on the ground miles below.

  A few of the larger cloud banks appeared more solid than the others. At least, they didn’t disintegrate and float away after a few minutes, but stayed
where they were. They must be the closest thing this crazy city had to buildings, but Raleigh couldn’t imagine anybody living in them.

  She headed for the largest cluster of them, and the music got louder. Raleigh strained her ears, but she couldn’t hear anything like voices. That was weird. What kind of city had no voices in it?

  She approached the largest cloud bank. It roiled and rumbled all over itself like a regular ball of cloud in the sky. It rested in the clear blue with nothing holding it up. It didn’t have any flat bottom like it might be sitting on something solid. It just hovered there in space.

  Raleigh paused to look around her. Everywhere she looked, clouds formed and came apart and reformed in different shapes. The ethereal sight gave her a queer feeling. She didn’t like this city in the air. She much preferred keeping her feet on solid ground. Even Kaldkirk, with its waterways and ancient wooden plank walks was better than this.

  She was just in the middle of deciding what to do next when the grey body of the nearest cloud parted, and a tiny kitten no larger than a melon strutted out of it on dainty paws. It twitched its whiskers at Dax and Raleigh and inclined its head to one side to inspect them.

  Raleigh stared at the little animal and blinked in wonder. She couldn’t for the life of her place this tiny Earth creature in the middle of a cloud high in the air.

  The kitten spoke in a clear voice, a mellow, adult voice. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  Raleigh’s heart went out to it. “Yes, we are, and we don’t know where to go to get into the city. Is…is that the entrance where you just came out?”

  “That? That’s the entrance to the Guild Hospital. I was just visiting Guildsman Abinel. He’s an Eochehxea, you know.”

  Raleigh blushed. “No, I didn’t know. I don’t know anything about them, and I don’t know anything about the Guild, either.”

  The kitten sat down on nothing and licked its paw. “I suppose that’s why you’re here, to learn about the Guild.”

  Raleigh looked away. “Something like that.”

  “Well, you couldn’t do any better than meeting Guildsman Abinel. He’s one of the great seniors of the Guild, but he’s too sick to entertain visitors at the moment. I could only visit him for a few minutes before the doctors made me leave. He’s very weak.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s old. Not even the purest thoughts in the Guild can stop someone from getting old. We all do our best, but everybody’s got to die someday.”

  “I guess so,” Raleigh mused.

  The kitten cocked its head at Dax. “What is that?”

  “What?”

  The kitten pierced Dax with its shiny eyes. “That. I’ve never seen one before.”

  Raleigh looked all around before she realized what the kitten was talking about. She laid her hand on Dax’s shoulder. “This is my friend Dax. He’s a hybrid between a Xaehm and an Auhlulhu. The Guild of Husbandry bred him in one of their experiments.”

  The kitten half-closed its eyes and looked away. “Oh. That explains it. Well, you won’t have any trouble here. I can assure you of that.”

  “We might not have any trouble, but we still don’t know where we’re going or what to do. We’re…we’re actually looking for information.”

  “About what?”

  “About a human man who was brought here by the Guild of Martial Arts. We heard he was being held here after he attacked their Guild building in Pernrith. Maybe you heard about it.”

  The kitten’s eyes snapped open. “Oh, yes. I heard about it. It was all over the city.”

  “Do you happen to know where he’s being held?”

  “I know where he’s being held, and I know where he is right now.”

  Raleigh gasped. “You do? Where?”

  The kitten turned away. “I’ll show you. Follow me.”

  Raleigh hurried after the tiny creature. Dax kept a safe distance. “My name’s Raleigh Douglas. Thank you very much for helping us.”

  The kitten’s shoulders swayed back and forth as it walked. “My name is Teif. I’m Master of the Elementary School.”

  Raleigh stared at it. “Are you?”

  The kitten studied her. “Why does that surprise you?”

  She blushed. “I didn’t think you were old enough. Where I come from, creatures like you are juveniles, but I suppose it’s different here.”

  The kitten drew itself up. “I’ll have you know I’m seventy-five years old. I’ve been married ten times to many beautiful wives, and I have over fifty cubs, many of whom have become Guildsmen themselves.”

  “Wow,” Raleigh breathed. “I had no idea.”

  “You don’t know much about the Eol’i, do you?” he asked.

  “I never even heard of them.”

  “Well, you’ll see lots of them in here. Come this way, and I’ll show you.”

  Chapter 17

  The kitten—or whatever it was—slipped into another cloud. Before Raleigh could stop him, he disappeared. Dax and Raleigh exchanged glances. Then Raleigh moved through the white curtain.

  The thick mist closed over their heads and blocked out the incessant music outside. Raleigh waded through the dense fog, and a sound like distant surf crashing on a beach rose somewhere in front of her. She moved toward the sound, and it got louder with every step until she couldn’t stand the noise.

  Dax drew closer behind her, and she hung near his presence. He might not know how to use his powers, but they seemed to break out when he needed to defend himself. Whatever happened in this place, she still had him.

  The clouds drifted apart and finally split to reveal an opening like the one they just left. Blue sky rose into the heights above with thick banks of cloud all around. Unlike the first place they appeared in Solaris, though, this place was crowded on all sides with hundreds upon thousands of cats.

  Raleigh stumbled over three small tabbies perched on a pillow of cloud at her feet. All around her, every shade of housecat sat and lolled and squirmed and washed. They darkened the cloud surface on all sides. They clustered so thick she couldn’t see the white underneath them.

  They formed a curved bowl like an amphitheater around an open ring in the center, but as nothing was happening down in that hole, they paid no attention to it. They played and frisked and scratched and licked each other in every direction.

  Teif appeared out of the crowd. “There you are. Follow me. We have to find seats before the show begins, and we want somewhere down in front where you can see.”

  He picked his way between the other cats, down to the bottom of the amphitheater. None of the other cats paid them the slightest attention. They yowled and purred and miaowed back and forth, and their combined voices created that din Raleigh mistook for crashing surf.

  Teif found a place he liked and sat down. Raleigh had to push seven other cats out of the way to make room for herself and Dax to sit down, too. The cloud under them formed to fit their bodies. It created the shape of comfortable chairs, even though it still swirled and undulated all around them and she could see nothing solid anywhere.

  Raleigh looked around her. “Are all these…?”

  “They’re all Eol’i,” Teif replied. “Isn’t it grand? Did you ever see so many Eol’i in one place at one time?”

  “Are they all members of the Guild?”

  “Not all, but some. The Eol’i seem to be particularly suited to all things Epistemological. We’re such a thoughtful, logical people, don’t you think?”

  Raleigh had to smile at the little cat. She didn’t know anything about the Eol’i, but if they were anything like the cats she knew, she could believe they would take to the airy world of thought and dreams like few other animals.

  “Most of the senior Guild positions are occupied by Eochehxea,” Teif went on. “They’re by far the most Epistemological of all creatures, so they rise in the hierarchy to dominate the Guild. That’s as it should be, don’t you think?”


  “What are the Eochehxea?” Raleigh asked.

  Teif glared at her. “You mean you don’t know? Well, you won’t last long in this city without finding out. I’m sure you’ll find out as soon as you leave here.”

  “Are they here?” Raleigh asked. “Maybe you could point them out to me.”

  “Here? No, the Eochehxea never come here. This is purely an Eol’i event. They don’t go in for things of this nature. They’re much too occupied with their thoughts and their research.”

  “So what are you all doing here? Do you just come here to socialize?”

  Before Teif could answer, a wave of sound swept over the crowd. The cats screeched and howled louder than ever. The noise stood Raleigh’s hair on end, and Dax scooted closer to her. A tumult broke out across the amphitheater.

  At first, Raleigh couldn’t make out anything but confusion. Feline bodies pounced and tumbled all over each other. The noise got louder over there until bunches of cats congregated in one small space.

  The tumult inched through the crowd on its way to the center of the ring. At the border where the cats ended and open sky dropped all the way to the ground below, the crowd parted. The mob spat a single body into the ring, but it wasn’t a cat body. It was a man, and Raleigh froze when she recognized Bishop.

  His beard and mustache and hair grew in the last seven months, and from the look of him, he hadn’t had much chance to trim or comb them. He wore exactly the same clothes he wore when they attacked the Guild of Martial Arts in Pernrith—all except his weapons—and his frock coat was gone. Blood stained his shirt, and she could see his skin through big rips in his pants.

  The crowd screeched and caterwauled louder than ever. Bishop tumbled into the ring and rolled up onto his feet. He crouched to spring, and he tensed both hands to grab anything that came near him. His staring eyes darted around the crowd, and he panted for breath through his bared teeth.

  Bruises darkened his eyes and ears and neck, and he limped on one ankle. His hair dangled in his face, and he turned right and left while he backed into the center of the ring.

  Teif chuckled under his breath. “There he is. They bring him down here every afternoon at this time to entertain the crowd.”