by T. A. Miles
Merran looked at Ceth, and wanted to smile for him, but could not manage it.
The elder lowered his hand from Merran’s shoulder to his heart, tapping his chest lightly. “Aim here more often, my dear boy.”
Ceth mustered another smile, behind which lay a tremendous amount of stress, and then departed from the room as well.
In the quiet that followed, Merran looked over the library, toward the opposite stair and the walkway and shelving above, where Korsten had frequented during study. He reached back for his coat, slipping it from the railing where he had draped it for his conference with the Superiors, then carried himself to the door and out into the passages of the Vassenleigh Citadel. He put the garment on while he walked.
He found Erschal in his place at the stables and wasted no time preparing him to leave, except for the helpless moment of pause that came when he discovered a lock of familiar red hair wrapped around a ring of the bridle. Merran fingered it lightly, aware in that moment that he had used his altered hand, and that he had felt the softness of the curl the same as if he had run his previously undamaged fingers through Korsten’s hair while he lay asleep beside him. He decided the leave the lock where it was for the moment, readying Erschal with a renewed sense of optimism, one that was still affecting him by the time he brought the steed outside and swung up into the saddle, urging him toward a Reach portal. He would begin where he and Korsten had begun, in Haddowyn.
Twenty-one
SNOW, LIKE A THOUSAND crystal teardrops, slipped through the night’s moonlight veil. The sky wept silently, secretly yearning in the absence of warmer days, as an aging mother longs for her younger years and the needful children she once knew.
Korsten hated to intrude upon such solitude, but his options were few. None at all, really. He’d spent more time than he felt comfortable with circumnavigating the minor road he had been following into the mountains, made impassable by a sudden storm. Winter had come early to the region and Korsten, in his sudden eagerness to be done with his task, had failed to anticipate it. He should have known better than to trust a clear sky so far north of Vassenleigh.
He felt disgruntled and impatient after hours of travel, feeling that his intuition might have abandoned him. There had been no strong pulls in any direction, nor any further hints passed from Zerxa’s pendant. His mother’s voice had gone strangely quiet in his mind, or out of it. He began to wonder if he had been led astray by his own overly emotional response to matters that would have calmed themselves, given time.
Or perhaps, he was simply tired.
Onyx snorted as the thought was forming, and Korsten patted the steed’s neck reassuringly. “Don’t worry, Onyx. I haven’t—”
Onyx reared back without warning, as if startled by something, but Korsten was hard-pressed to see what, while struggling to rein the animal in. He heard hooves pound across the snow, but when he was finally able to look, he could see no other riders in the sparsely wooded area. It didn’t matter what he could not see, however, because he could feel the presence of another. He could sense in which direction the individual had gone, and he followed.
Snow burst up from the ground beneath the fall of Onyx’s hooves. Tiny shards of ice scraped at Korsten’s face during the pursuit. He ignored the discomfort and looked where he was going, watching as the forest grew thicker around him again, like the dark pillars of a ruined city rising out of the snow. He was forced to slow down as the crowding boles infringed upon his visibility. The snow began to fall heavier, and finally, Korsten stopped altogether.
Onyx wanted to keep going, but Korsten kept the animal steady and let his eyes scan the area.
Where are you? He asked the question in silence.
He could hear the soft rush of snow as it piled downward from the canopy of clouds hanging low overhead.
The voice, when it came, struck with a force not unlike a stone pitched through a glass window. “Did you come alone?”
Korsten lifted his face, up to the high branch the question had been delivered from. His hair was damp and going limp in the weather. He pushed it back, away from his eyes, and was able to focus on a man, quite pale and wearing all white. The two of them might have been a match, they were each so pale in their complexion as well as their attire, except that Korsten’s hair happened to be a deep shade of red. He supposed it made him an easy target in his current environment. But even if that were so, it didn’t seem that the individual he’d discovered was interested in making him a target. Despite the fact that the man was armed with a hunting bow, which was strung and drawn with a feathered bolt, he didn’t shoot.
In response to the stranger’s question, Korsten said, “I am alone, yes. And you?”
“That’s none of your business,” the other replied steadily. “What were you after? Are you hunting?”
“Yes,” Korsten answered. He refrained from mentioning what he might have been hunting for, certainly not a wild beast for meal or trophy.
The man studied Korsten for several unnerving moments, and then he lowered his weapon. Laughter overpowered the whisper of the snowfall this time, followed by another question. “Are you mad?”
Korsten’s answer came with a slight shrug. He was not as amused. “Perhaps not as I should be.”
Again, the man laughed. And then he abandoned his perch, moving deftly down the length of the ancient tree, until he could make a soft landing at the base of it. Korsten decided the stranger was not an immediate threat and paid him the courtesy of dismounting. He patted Onyx’s neck while the other man approached, moving through the unrelenting snow as if through a curtain beaded with shimmering pearls.
The man’s movement was graceful, confident, and something Korsten caught himself rather carefully observing. It might have been better to look elsewhere, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off a potential enemy. So, he was forced to watch, and forced to notice that the man walking toward him was astoundingly handsome in spite of his pallor. The whiteness of him, from skin to hair and even eyes, made him appear as if he’d been formed of ice.
The stranger drew to a halt a little more than an arm’s length away from him. Beautiful, yes, but there was something else about him, something that nagged at Korsten’s senses. Was it the too steady rhythm of his heart, which Korsten could feel across the frigid air between them? Or was it the storm behind his clear eyes, something that would require a greater talent for empathy than what Korsten possessed to decipher?
“You’re a priest, then,” the stranger said. “Is that right?”
Korsten nodded once. “It is.”
“And you hunt the Vadryn; devourers of the soul, a plague upon all natural life and upon nature itself?”
“Demons, for one less poetic,” Korsten replied, though he wasn’t necessarily seeking any of the Vadryn just now, none that he expected to find in this place, at any rate.
The man studied him for a moment longer, then turned away, headed back through the falling snow. “I won’t disturb you, then.”
“And what are you hunting?” Korsten decided to ask him, but the white stranger gave no answer. He felt that an altercation should have occurred, but perhaps this Morennish individual was in no way associated with Morenne’s war. Or perhaps he was not of Morennish origin.
Korsten slipped his hand into his pocket, his fingers brushing over Zerxa’s pendant. It felt cold and impotent.
Korsten rode until he found a village. The name of it was uncertain, for it was not posted. He wondered if he should go around it. Snow and darkness gave the settlement odd dimensions; lit windows peering out of shadowed mounds, pathways discernible only where hoof or foot had packed it down. Korsten began to guide Onyx around in a better direction, but was halted by a familiar pull, that of a demon.
He hovered between options in the darkness.
It required very little conscious thought for him to adjust Onyx’s path back in the direction of the village. He went to a building where there was abundant lighting, with two full stor
ies standing above the level of the snow. Encouraged by the light, as well as by the noise and even the warmth emanating from it, he dismounted as he approached the establishment and surrendered Onyx to a chilled and somewhat irritable young stable hand along the way. He slipped the lad a coin in advance for a guarantee that the animal would be well cared for. Once indoors, he found a corner to sit in and didn’t worry about the distance from the hearth. It wasn’t warmth he had come seeking.
Observing the crowd, listening to the low drone of several voices at once, along with the melodic lull of a minstrel’s tale, Korsten found his surroundings to be rather peaceful. No unnatural worries seemed to be looming over this lot, in spite of what he had detected outside.
Korsten closed his eyes, and observed the tavern and its patrons again.
Fear jolted his senses first; the fear of multiple strangers, whose quickened hearts clashed against the rhythm the minstrel had established with his lyrical telling. A current of cold depression ran beneath that fear, like a mountain stream in winter, snaking through the frozen earth beneath a crust of ice. It gave Korsten a chill. He opened his eyes and matched his gaze unintentionally to that of the storyteller; a slender young man with an exotic aspect about him, who smiled a bit when he noticed the added attention of a newcomer.
Korsten acknowledged the expression with the vaguest of nods, then saw himself to a seat among a group of people who seemed unconcerned with having a stranger in their midst. Unconcerned, or afraid to notice overly? He certainly had reason to stay for the moment. At least, if he would accomplish nothing in the way of alleviating his fears or satisfying his need for answers regarding Song, he will have ended the feeding of at least one more demon. Since he had no intention of leaving this village without having uncovered and ousted the creature plaguing it.
Korsten eventually took a room for the night. He had barely gotten situated when there came a gentle rap at the door.
Still dressed, Korsten went to answer. He opened the door to darkness and somehow wasn’t surprised. The warmth in the common room below beckoned him. He walked through the shadows of the upstairs passageway, until he could see its flickering glow. It was late enough that most of the tavern’s patrons were off to their beds, or to someone else’s. That left very little obstruction between Korsten and the young man waiting for him.
“Good evening,” the bard said with a grin on his dark lips that reminded Korsten unhappily of another young man he had known. “I’m glad you decided to join me.”
“You knocked,” Korsten said, stepping closer, keeping his eyes on the bard, who likewise didn’t take his gaze off of Korsten.
“At the back of your mind,” the youth replied. “You assumed it was the door?”
“I assumed it was you, actually.” Korsten came to a vacated table and sat down, facing the bard. “But you’re not who I’m looking for.”
The young man shook his head. “I’m not a demon, no.”
“You’re not a priest, either.”
Another smile crossed the youth’s lips. “Not anything so formally trained as you.” He plucked a few light notes on his lute. “Some people have called what I carry in my blood wild magic. It is in the blood, isn’t it?”
Korsten nodded, determining by the manner in which this child spoke, that he was decently traveled. That seemed entirely too dangerous for one as young as he appeared.
Korsten waited a moment, listening to the fire in its waning, accompanied by lazy hints of a melody as the young minstrel continued to pick his fingers across the strings of his instrument. “Why did you beckon me down here?” he finally asked.
The boy glanced up, smiling again. “To tell you a story. The story of a hart that comes around these woods in winter.” He drew a pause of one low note, then added, “To eat the flesh of men.”
Korsten’s eyes narrowed as he contemplated what was being implied by the boy, and the possibility that the boy was asking him for assistance, albeit in a very strange manner. “I didn’t know that there was such a hart,” he said for sake of their conversation, so that he might further study this lad and his tale. Simultaneously, his thoughts trailed back to the stag he had encountered in Haddowyn. “I’ve always taken them to be less savage creatures.”
The bard nodded, strumming gently. “Naturally, they are. But this is not a beast of nature. The gods have cursed this one, I’m afraid.”
“Are you afraid?” Korsten asked him then. “I can sense the fear in the others, but not in you.”
“I don’t venture that deep into the woods,” the youth replied. “And it does not roam into the village. Hunters and travelers suffer the most risk. I’m surprised you did not meet it.”
Korsten thought about what he’d heard and felt in the woods that day, as if a fantastic presence had charged by him. And then he thought of the hunter, who, like the young bard, had no fear in him. Had the man been in pursuit of this hart the bard spoke of? Was the young man’s story the answer to the village’s detectable suffering? It didn’t happen often, as they preferred a human soul, but if one of the Vadryn had possessed such a beast, it would surely become tainted and dangerous. It would foul the very air around it and set a cloud of depression and fear down upon all who resided in its woods, just as a human host would do to the village.
The bard stopped strumming finally, drawing attention to the silence, and to the voices of men carrying from outside the inn. Korsten heard horses as well, and the sound of equipment being strapped into place.
The young bard formed the quietest of smiles on his lips. “Sounds like a hunt is about to begin.”
Korsten returned to his room for his jacket, and then went out to the stables to collect his horse. The others had already gone, but it wouldn’t be hard to find them. Even if there weren’t tracks to follow in the snow, Korsten could track their fear well enough. The demon would be able to as well. And perhaps that was why the hunter in the woods had been so cautious about letting onto his own fear. Perhaps he knew enough about the Vadryn to know that such would only make their appetite greater.
And that was why he opted to join the night’s hunt. Better that he found the suspect hart than the village men.
Once out among the woods again, it didn’t take long to find the villagers; they were evidently not on a mission of stealth. Their lanterns were visible against the darkness and their voices carried, well and clear.
“Should have waited ‘til morning,” one of them said.
“No,” another replied. “We’ve waited long enough. We’ll find it tonight. And we’ll kill the cursed thing.”
“Besides,” came a new voice. “He said it’d be weaker now. We’ve been keeping indoors and in the village for long enough. It ought to be practically starving by now, unless it snatched some wanderer.”
“You saw that stranger come into Eldan’s earlier. I didn’t hear him complaining about any strange beasts.”
Korsten kept a distance from them, wondering who had given them their information concerning the demon. The individual hadn’t been entirely truthful with them. Keeping to their village and indoors might have denied the beast, but if it had no source from which to feed at all, it would not have stayed.
And now it had what it wanted.
In the moment the thought was forming, one of the men cried out, startled by something. A commotion ensued and Korsten had no choice but to ride to them.
When he arrived, three of the men were off their horses. One of them attempted to arm a crossbow, but the beast was coming at him too fast. It was a hart, immense in size with a great rack of white horns. It lowered its head and charged over the man. He made a shocked noise as it caught him in its antlers and dragged him several paces before shaking him loose. There was blood in the air. Korsten could sense it. That would send the demon into a frenzy.
Korsten rode into the skirmish, drawing out his sword.
The hart was backing away from the victim, shaking its great head. Another man went at it with his sword dr
awn, but Korsten urged him back vocally and made himself the focus of the beast’s attention.
“Steady,” he whispered to Onyx, freeing his hand from the reins so that he could gesture the spell that would separate the demon from the animal.
The beast seemed to know what Korsten’s gesturing was about, and it bolted, running down another man as it made for the deeper blackness beyond the lanterns. Korsten cast his spell after it anyway. The magic was invisible, but the arrow fired by one of the panicked village men could be plainly seen. It shot into the darkness after the hart. Korsten watched the creature stumble as something struck it—spell or arrow, or both—then pursued.
He cast a Lantern over himself and Onyx, enabling him to see the snow that had begun to slip from the forest’s black cover. He found the hart first, as was expected, and approached cautiously, keeping his senses alert to the demon’s presence. It was nowhere near. That meant the spell of release had worked, but also that the demon was free to seek a new body to inhabit.
Korsten’s instincts were to return to the men behind him, but as he neared the fallen white form in front of him, he came to realize that it wasn’t the hart.
Recognizing the white-haired hunter, Korsten dismounted and returned his blade to his hand. “Did you see it?” he asked as he approached, fearing that the man had been trampled over, or gored. “Are you injured?”
The man’s movement was slow and seemed painful so Korsten knelt to assist. His hand touched a telltale warmth at the man’s side. He drew back his hand and looked at it beneath the Lantern glow just overhead, casting a blue-white curtain down upon the two of them. Touching the blood let him feel the magic in it, a fantastic amount of it.
“The hart,” Korsten began. “It’s...”