"Then," the Hunter growled, clenching his fist, "I will do what I have always done. I will kill her, as I should have long ago."
Chapter Thirty-Two
Kiara rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. "Men! Always treating violence as the first and only resort."
The Hunter cocked an eyebrow. "You have a better idea?"
"Than you going and trying to kill Sir Danna right now?" Her tone grew sardonic. "I’d honestly say I can think of few worse ideas."
"I'm listening, then." The Hunter folded his arms.
"I’m going to do something you would never think of," Kiara said in a mocking voice. "I will speak to her."
He snorted. "And you think that will work? That your words will sway her from this mission of vengeance? A mission that has led her halfway across Einan, over deserts, wastelands, and mountains?"
Kiara shrugged. "What harm is there in trying? It can't make her hate you any more."
"If you want to waste your breath, so be it." The Hunter gave a dismissive wave. "Though I fail to see how you could convince her to do anything."
"Because I'm a woman?" A dangerous look flashed in Kiara's eyes. "Because I'm not a mighty warrior like you?"
The Hunter shook his head. "No, because as you said, she believes she is doing the right thing in hunting me down. If she truly thinks she is on a holy mission, nothing will stop her."
During the days he'd spent traveling with Sir Danna and Visibos, he’d seen the fervency and zeal of the knight's beliefs. She was devout, staunch in her faith, and driven by what she believed to be the will of the Beggar God. It didn't matter that the Beggar God didn't really exist; Sir Danna believed he did, so that was all she needed.
Kiara's jaw took on a stubborn set. "But once I tell her who you really are, what you did in Voramis—"
"She will shrug it off as the act of a demonspawn acting according to his true nature." The Hunter shook his head. "You said it yourself, she is blinded by her rage and grief."
"Still, it won’t hurt to try," Kiara insisted. "I may not be her equal in the priestly hierarchy, but she and I have come to…understand each other."
The Hunter's eyebrows rose. "And what could you possibly have in common with a knight of the Cambionari? Other than your supreme stubbornness, of course."
Kiara scowled. "Sir Danna and I are far more alike than you might realize."
The Hunter snorted.
"We’re both driven by the desire for retribution," Kiara said in a whisper so quiet the Hunter could barely hear it. "For justice. Her, for her apprentice. Me, for what was done to me and to Voramis by the demon."
The Hunter had no words to reply.
Kiara continued in the same barely audible tone. "When you left me in those tunnels, I thought my life was over. Everyone I knew, everything I had, gone. There was nothing left for me in Voramis, so I left. I traveled without destination, my steps leading first to Praamis, then to the north."
North. The same direction he'd gone after fleeing Voramis.
"I ended up in Malandria with a single copper bit to my name and no hope for a future. All I had was the burden of guilt over what had happened in Voramis."
"You couldn't have stopped it," the Hunter said. "The demon—"
"That makes no difference." Kiara shook her head, and a tremor ran through her hands. "I stood by and watched the other Fingers of the Bloody Hand ravage Voramis. I let it happen. Frozen hell, I even did some of those things myself. Terrible things, things that wake me up at night. No matter how I try, I cannot erase them from my mind."
The Hunter knew those things all too well. The guilt of his actions haunted him, too.
"I stopped eating, stopped drinking. I had nothing left to live for. I lay in the gutters praying for death to take me to the Long Keeper’s arms and erase my shame." Once again, remorse twisted Kiara's expression. "But one day Sir Danna found me, and she refused to let me succumb to my self-loathing. She brought me to the House of Need, and had her priests care for me. When I told her my story, of what had happened in Voramis, she did the last thing I expected. Instead of having me executed for my crimes, she invited me to join her on a crusade of righteous vengeance. She offered me what I truly craved: atonement."
The Hunter's eyes narrowed. "Hunting me."
Kiara shrugged. "I didn't know it was you. All she told me was that a demonspawn had killed her apprentice, her mentor, and the other priests. She had returned to the city too late to save them, but she intended to hunt down the one responsible. The moment she said the word 'demon', I knew I had found my true purpose in life. I would atone for what I'd done working for the First by helping Sir Danna eradicate every one of the demons around Einan. Starting with you."
The Hunter tensed, but Kiara made no move for the iron dagger at her belt.
"Until I saw you yesterday, I had no idea who we were really hunting."
The Hunter shook his head. "I never told her who I really was." No one knew that truth. Not even Hailen.
"But when I saw you on the bridge, the way you moved, that dagger…" She trailed off with a shudder. "I knew it was you. Somehow, despite the impossible odds, something had led me across your path once more. I didn't know precisely why until just now."
"And why did we cross paths again?" the Hunter asked.
"So I could repay the debt I owe you." Kiara gave him a little smile. "You saved my life. It's my turn to save yours so you can save the world."
The words left the Hunter stunned. He could do nothing but stare, shocked. It seemed so implausible that one simple action back in Voramis could have such an effect all these long months later. He'd made an impulsive decision to leave her alive, believing he'd never see her again. Yet here she was, standing before him.
He opened his mouth to speak. "I—"
A confused shout cut him off. "Hey! What happened to all the food?"
The Hunter's blood ran cold. The call had come from just outside the tent, where the food had lain in a pile before he threw it off the cliff. The sound of booted feet drew closer, accompanied by the voices of two Warrior Priests.
The Hunter had a single instant to act. His eyes flashed toward Kiara and the knife in her hand.
"Go!" Kiara hissed, thrusting a finger toward the rear of the tent, which had an opening like the front. "Out the back."
Without hesitation, he rushed toward the opening and ducked through the flaps with little more noise than the wind racing past. He kept to the shadows of the tents as he crept along less than a hand's breadth from the edge of the cliff. The shouts of alarm grew louder behind him as the Warrior Priests discovered their missing supplies. The Hunter cursed himself for leaving the pack of food behind—he could have deprived them of all their rations and forced them to retreat. Now they could pursue him, though they'd do it on near-empty stomachs.
An idea struck him—a desperate, suicidal, doubtless insane one. Yet he acted on it before giving it a second thought.
He leapt out of the shadows of the tent and drew his sword. "Hey, goat-fuckers, here I am!"
Two Warrior Priests and the Cambionari stood beside Kiara's tent, staring down at the empty patch of ground where their supplies had been. At his shouted taunt, they whirled and gawked at him.
The Hunter swept a lavish bow, then turned and sprinted up the trail.
A shout echoed behind him. "Stop the bastard!" Steel whispered on leather as the three men drew swords, followed a moment later by the stink of iron.
But the Hunter didn't slow. Only one man stood between him and freedom. The cries brought the Warrior Priest spinning around, and his eyes went wide at the sight of the Hunter charging toward him. Despite his shock, he reflexively dropped his hand to his sword hilt and ripped it free.
A snarl twisted the Hunter's lips as he brought his sword whipping across in a powerful one-handed blow. The attack caught the Warrior Priest's blade with such force the weapon spun from the man's grasp, and he cried out at the pain of his shattered wrist. Before h
e could draw the iron dagger with his left hand, the Hunter drove his shoulder into the man's abdomen. He lifted the Warrior Priest from his feet, took two long steps, and hurled him off the edge of the cliff. The man disappeared into the darkness with a faint scream.
"Demon!" A strong, angry voice cried out behind him.
The Hunter spun to face Sir Danna. The knight had emerged from her tent wearing her arming doublet. Once again, he was struck by how little resemblance she bore to the warrior he'd met on the road to Malandria. Her matted braids and the gauntness of her cheeks added to her haggard state, and a storm of hate and bitterness brewed within her eyes.
"Face me, if you dare!” Sir Danna lifted her greatsword—Ildaris, the iron blade Lord Knight Moradiss had wielded in the House of Need. “Let us put an end to this here and now."
A wry grin twisted the Hunter's lips. "Nah." With a mocking salute of his sword, he turned and sprinted into the night.
"After him!" Sir Danna cried.
The Hunter pounded up the darkened trail, relying on his reflexes to keep him from stumbling. The faint light of the stars provided just enough illumination for him to pick his path along the winding trail.
Less than a minute after he fled the camp, the sound of pounding hooves echoed behind him. A savage grin split the Hunter's lips as he forced himself to keep running.
Any second now. When the shouts of fury turned to cries of fear and pain, he knew his plan had worked. He'd needed them to react without pause. No one could have predicted what he'd done to their equipment. If only someone hold told them to check their tack before trying to gallop.
He had to hope at least some of his pursuers had fallen off the cliff. The fewer that lived, the fewer he'd have to face in the final inevitable confrontation that awaited him. He'd have to deal with Sir Danna before he reached Enarium.
The words from his memories, Her words, echoed in his mind. "Should the Cambionari find you here, with me, they will do to you what they did to the rest of our kind. Look out there, and tell me you would not share the same fate."
His wife had sent him away for fear of what the Beggar Priests would do to them both, to their child. He couldn't return to Her with the Cambionari hot in pursuit. Unless Kiara somehow managed to convince Sir Danna to leave him in peace—and he had little hope she would succeed—he'd have to make a stand and deal with the knight and her company once and for all.
If he didn't, Hailen and the woman he'd traveled all this way to find would be in danger.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Hunter raced up the trail, his heart thundering and his breath burning in his lungs. He'd left the shouts of the Cambionari and Warrior Priests behind him more than an hour earlier, but he had little doubt Sir Danna would regroup and resume her pursuit. With little to no food and water for her men, she'd feel the pressure to eliminate him and get back to Vothmot—or reach Enarium—before they starved to death.
He was running out of time. The thought raced through his mind over and over, and try as he might, he could not push it away.
If Kiara's information proved correct, he was getting closer to the Lost City. He had to reach it ahead of Sir Danna if he was to have any hope of evading capture—or being forced to fight the Cambionari and Warrior Priests. Surely the Serenii city had places where he could hide, perhaps even a way to conceal Soulhunger's presence from her. It was all he had to go on.
He could feel Her presence waiting for him far ahead like a lighthouse across a dark and empty ocean, a beacon in the back of his mind, drawing closer with every step he took up the path. She was so close. He would find Her after all these months. He would finally look Her in the eye, take Her in his arms, feel Her warmth against his skin. He'd dreamed of it for decades. Though he'd only truly remembered Her clearly since Voramis, he knew She had been with him all those years, the memory that drove him onward.
The first rays of dawn began to appear over the eastern horizon as the Hunter pounded into their makeshift camp.
"Rassek, Darillon, Evren!" he shouted. "We need to move, now!"
Darillon and Rassek stumbled from their tent. "What's the fuss?" the younger man asked, rubbing bleary eyes.
"We need to move." Even as he spoke, the Hunter set about saddling Ash and Elivast. "Our pursuers will be coming for us hard at any second. We need to get as far ahead of them as we can."
"What did you do?" Darillon's fatigue didn't diminish the force of his scowl.
"Slowed them down as best I could." The Hunter waved away the question. "But I doubt I did little more than set them back an hour or two." He turned to the two men, urgency flaring within him. "Hours we could spend riding, if you'd stop dragging your feet."
Before either man could protest, the Hunter scrambled into his tent and shook Hailen awake as gently as he could manage. The boy woke slowly, but a smile wreathed his face at sight of the Hunter.
"Hailen, we need to go now," the Hunter said. "Can you get dressed quickly? I've already got Ash saddled and ready for you."
Worry crossed the boy's face. "Are the bad men coming for us?"
The Hunter nodded. "But if we move quickly, maybe we can ride faster than they can. All that heavy armor will slow them down."
The lines smoothed out as Hailen's expression relaxed. "Oh, good. I like it when Ash runs fast. The wind plays funny tricks with my clothes, and it feels like I'm flying." The boy kept up a steady stream of conversation as he pulled on his tunic, jacket, and the little baldric the Hunter had fashioned for him.
The Hunter's eyes dropped to Soulhunger. He could feel the dagger's presence in the back of his mind, faint and distant, but no less insistent. The presence within the gemstone hadn't been as affected by whatever changed the demon in his mind, but its demands had grown stronger. The Hunter dreaded what would happen if he got too far from Hailen.
Being near the boy kept the voice at bay, and kept Hailen's Irrsinnon from overtaking his mind. But he couldn't fight Sir Danna with Hailen beside him. Would the dagger's voice overwhelm him as it had that night in the House of Need in Malandria? Would he once again wake up in a pool of blood, lifeless bodies sprawled at his feet? In the red haze that had come over him, he could hurt Hailen, Kiara, Evren, or the mountaineers without realizing what he was doing.
Yet he had no choice. If, as he feared, Sir Danna caught up to him, he'd need Soulhunger for the inevitable fight. He'd have only the barest hope of defeating more than a dozen highly trained warriors wielding iron weapons. Soulhunger would give him a chance of survival, which meant a chance he could reach Enarium with Hailen, stop the Sage, and save Einan. He'd endure the voices in his mind for their sakes.
"Hailen, I need to carry Soulhunger for a little while." His gut clenched as he said the words.
"Okay," the boy said with a bright smile. "I think it wants to be with you anyway."
The Hunter's eyes went wide. "You…you can hear it? Does it talk to you?"
"Hear it?" Hailen's brow furrowed. "It's just a dagger, it doesn't talk, silly."
The tension drained from the Hunter's shoulders. "So why did you say it wants to be with me?"
"Whenever you're around, it feels like it's pulling me toward you." Hailen said it in a matter-of-fact tone, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and gave a little giggle. "It's a funny feeling."
The Hunter hesitated a moment before removing Soulhunger's sheath from the baldric around Hailen's shoulders. He could sense the dagger's eagerness to be drawn and wielded, but he had no idea the boy could as well. Was it one more side effect of the Serenii blood running through his veins?
He pushed the question from his mind and buckled Soulhunger to his belt. He'd have time to answer it and all his other questions when he reached Enarium. First, he had to survive Sir Danna and the Stone Guardians and reach the Lost City.
The Stone Guardians. He reflected on the conversation he'd had with Evren last night. He'd given it a few minutes of thought as he crept toward Sir Danna's camp, but his encoun
ter with Kiara—Celicia, as he'd known her in Voramis—had driven it from his mind.
He ran over the passages from The Singer and His Muse as he finished packing their meager belongings into his satchel. Though he had no idea how talk of the bard’s manhood could help him, he felt more confident about his guess that blood attracted the Stone Guardians. They'd only shown up after he'd killed the Warrior Priests, and they hadn't returned since.
If Sir Danna caught up, he'd have no choice but to fight, and the blood he'd be forced to spill would attract more Stone Guardians. Could he use that to his advantage?
He worked at the thought, examining it from all angles, until the beginnings of a plan formed in his mind. As he emerged from the tent, he found Evren awake and helping the mountaineers tear down the camp.
"Evren," he said as he hurried toward the boy. "You read that bit about the king’s guardians, right?"
Evren turned to regard him with a curious expression. "Yeah."
"And you think it could be blood that the book's talking about? That attracts the Stone Guardians?"
Evren's expression grew pensive. "It seems like the most logical answer, but I ain’t never really sure with Taivoro."
The Hunter nodded. "Good." He turned to Rassek and Darillon. "Listen, I've come up with a plan, just in case things go sideways."
Darillon's eyes narrowed. "What sort of plan? One that's going to get us all killed?"
"Maybe." The Hunter shrugged. "But if it works, it'll be the only thing that gets us out of this alive. And, it could very well help us get rid of our pursuers once and for all."
"What d’ye have in mind?" Rassek asked, gripping Darillon's forearm before the older mountaineer could growl a retort.
The Hunter told them.
"I don't like it." Darillon folded his arms over his chest.
Darkblade Slayer Page 24