K T Harding - [Hinterland 02]

by K. T. Harding

  Now they blew their only chance to get the information they needed out of the manager’s hut, and Cassandra was dead. Instead of helping the outcasts, Raleigh and Bishop cost one of them her life. How could they ever explain to Dax that his mother was dead because of their stupidity?

  Raleigh didn’t have to think hard to answer that question. They would never explain it to him. Dax would never know anyone but Mrs. McDermott was his mother. He would probably never know he was a hybrid, or where he came from. He would never suffer the heartbreak in which Cassandra spent the last sixteen years of her life.

  Raleigh couldn’t mourn for Cassandra now. She had to find a way to get out of here, and she couldn’t do that with her ankle broken and Bishop unconscious. She had to wake him up, to get him moving and thinking.

  Her heart quailed. She couldn’t face this without Bishop. She needed his razor-sharp mind. She needed to lean against his solid sturdy bulk for support.

  She didn’t have him right now, though. She had no one to rely on but herself, and Bishop would rely on her, too, to get them out of here. She twisted around until she worked herself into a sitting position, but her ankle made her stomach churn. She almost wretched on the ground from the pain.

  When she looked down on Bishop from above, she wished she was still lying down. Black and blue bruises covered his face and neck and disappeared down his shirt collar. Blood darkened his hair and crusted around his nostrils. He must have taken the brunt of one of those rockets right in the face.

  She almost thanked God she couldn’t use her hands to inspect the rest of him. She hated to think what she might find. If she found him broken to pieces, she would lose hope altogether.

  She studied her surroundings as well as she could in the faint light. Reed thatch walls circled her on all sides with no windows. Sawn boards barricaded the door. She wasn’t getting out through that, and even if she could, she couldn’t run or even walk away.

  Pain and terror overpowered her. She let her forehead fall on Bishop’s shoulder. She whimpered in despair, but she wouldn’t let herself cry. She couldn’t fall apart, no matter how terrible the situation appeared. She had to get out of this alive, and she had to get Bishop out if it was the last thing she ever did.

  He said she saw a slayer, and he believed she could handle anything Hinterland threw at her. She would prove him right. She would come out of this.

  She tugged the bonds around her wrists, but she couldn’t budge them. Whoever put her in this hut took all her weapons away, of course. She had no blade, no crossbow, no nothing. They took the cube, the disc, and even Bishop’s watch.

  While she sat there dwelling on the possibilities, a scuffling noise came from outside. Male voices shouted back and forth, and something banged against the hut. All at once, the door flew back. Half a dozen men rushed in and laid hold of Raleigh. They picked her up and flung her against the wall. A searing blast of pain shot up her leg and blinded her.

  Men shouted at her from all sides. “Sit up!” “Don’t move!” “Get on the ground!” She couldn’t obey them all at once. She could barely understand them when they all talked at the same time. Out of nowhere, a fist slammed into her head. She doubled over on the ground. This time, she didn’t even try to stop herself from crying out loud.

  One voice bellowed above the others. “Wake him up!”

  Boots hit Raleigh from all sides. They kicked her injured leg until she screamed, but they wouldn’t stop. All at once, the men stood back out of the way. One of them threw a bucket of icy water in Bishop’s sleeping face. He started upright, gasping and spluttering for air.

  In an instant, all the guards laid into both their helpless victims. They punched and kicked and whacked them with clubs. Bishop railed and thundered. Raleigh’s screams enraged him, but that only encouraged them to beat the hapless pair harder than ever.

  Just when Raleigh couldn’t bear another moment of this treatment, everything stopped. Dead silence fell over the hut. The guards stood all around their bound and helpless victims. For now, they stood still. Their bludgeons hung limp in their hands. Their fists uncurled into normal human fingers.

  A piercing ball of light shot into the hut, the door swung open, and the farm manager stepped inside. He looked Raleigh and Bishop over with inscrutable eyes. He wrinkled his nose at their sorry state.

  He nodded to the guards, who moved a step farther back. He took a file folder of papers from under his arm and flipped it open in a casual show of reading the contents. “I believe this is what you’re looking for. It’s a record of individual shipments of blue mussels made to the Guild of Martial Arts in Pernrith.”

  He spoke with a short, clipped accent, and his deep black eyes slipped over the papers in his hands. “The Guild of Husbandry sent word some renegades were after this. They alerted us to be on the look-out for any intrusion, and they were right. Now you found what you were looking for, but you will never put it to use. You’ll never leave these mountains.”

  He closed the folder and tucked it under his arm. He gave one last nod to his men and turned away. “Kill them both.”

  In the blink of an eye, the guards descended on Raleigh and Bishop. Raleigh kicked and struggled as best she could, but her ankle hurt too much to mount any effective resistance. Bishop couldn’t be in much better shape.

  The guards heaved them off the ground and lugged them out of the hut. They hauled them down winding paths into the forest, far away from the farm and anyone who might hear their screams.

  Raleigh called out to Bishop. He yelled back to her, but they couldn’t help each other. The guards carried them several miles into the trackless wilderness before dumping them in the dirt.

  The guards formed a ring around the prisoners. Raleigh stole a glance up at their stony faces, but sheer hopeless terror bowed her to the ground. This was it. She would die like a dog out here. At least she would die with Bishop. She wouldn’t have to face a life without him.

  Raleigh remembered what Bishop said when they first entered the forest. He could face anything as long as he was with her, and she felt the same way. They could die together and forget this cruel world.

  The guards stood back to catch their breath before dealing the killing stroke. The manager wandered up the path behind them to oversee their handiwork. He still held the folder under one arm, and a faint smile touched his lips. He was enjoying this.

  He strolled into the circle and peered down at Raleigh and Bishop. “You almost got there, but like so many others, you failed. Now you must pay the price. Rest well. Your troubles are over.”

  He gave Raleigh a hideous smile and straightened up. The guard at his immediate right came forward and raised a long gun. He aimed it at Raleigh’s temple. She couldn’t look. She couldn’t face her own death with her head up. Her chin sank onto her chest, and her lip quivered with buried sobs.

  Bishop’s weight leaned into her from the other side. He was right there with her. She couldn’t look at him, either, but she felt him next to her. One shot to the head, and it would all be over. A second later, Bishop would join her. They would go to sleep together the way they always did.

  A loud thump vibrated the ground under her feet, but she didn’t topple over. Her head shot up just in time to see the manager spin around, throw out his right arm, and hold up his palm toward the guard’s chest. Something black gleamed in the manager’s palm, and a deafening concussion womped out of his hand into the guard’s chest.

  The gun flew out of the guard’s hand, and the impact flung him backward to sprawl on the ground. The manager didn’t hesitate to see the result. He turned one degree around the circle, then another and another. He pointed the black disc in his hand at one guard after another, thump, thump, thump, thump.

  The guards sailed back out of the way like the spokes of a wheel. The manager shot each one in the chest until they lay spread out before him, still as death. Raleigh stared at the slender little man. He surveyed the scene with no
flicker of emotion on his face. Then his arm fell at his side.

  In front of Raleigh’s eyes, the whole façade of his skin, hair, eyes, and features melted off him and changed. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “Cassandra!”

  Cassandra set her face in a hard, brutal mask of deadly determination. She looked down on the six bodies splayed out in a circle around her. The lines cut her face deeper than ever, and her lips tightened to a thin, hard slit.

  Bishop wriggled around onto his knees. “Untie us, Cassandra.”

  Cassandra knelt behind him until Bishop got his hands free. Then she stood impassively while he untied his own ankles and loosened Raleigh’s bonds. She yelped when he touched her ankle, but in a second, she was free, too.

  “Don’t worry,” Bishop told Raleigh. “We’ll get you out of here, and you’ll soon be good as new.” He stood up in front of Cassandra. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you. I thought you were dead.”

  “You will be if you stick around here much longer.” She handed him the folder. “Take this.”

  He took it and cast a glance around at the dead guards. “Where’s the manager?”

  Cassandra jerked her chin over her shoulder. “He’s back there.”

  Bishop didn’t ask any more questions. Wherever the manager was, he wouldn’t bother anybody again. Cassandra must have done something to him to copy him so exactly. “Can you find your way back to the camp?” Bishop asked.

  Cassandra nodded, but she already turned away. She wandered into the trees without a word and the forest swallowed her up. Bishop waited until no sign of Cassandra remained. Then he flipped open the folder, looked over the contents, and folded them into a square. He deposited this in his breast pocket along with his notebook and turned to Raleigh.

  “Now, the question is getting you out of here.”

  “I can’t walk on my ankle. I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. They got the jump on us, but we’re okay now. You don’t have to walk. I’ll carry you the rest of the way.”

  “The rest of the way could be hundreds of miles.”

  “It’s not far.”

  He picked her up and set her on her good leg while she held her broken ankle off the ground. He turned his back and crouched down while she climbed onto his back. “This won’t work,” she protested. “You won’t be able to go on.”

  “Never mind. We’ll be all right. Just be quiet, because I can’t talk while I’m carrying you like this.”

  Raleigh had no choice but to settle down and let him carry her. He tramped through the woods, and she rested her head on his back. He panted and puffed and sweated, but he wouldn’t quit.

  He trekked through the whole day, but when night began to fall, Raleigh wondered where they would camp. They didn’t have any of those mysterious fire squares left. They had not one single weapon between them, nor any food or water.

  He didn’t march right up until dark the way he did before. He set her down while light still blazed over the mountains. Raleigh supported herself against a tree trunk. She started to sink to the ground to rest when Bishop startled her by speaking in a sharp tone. “Don’t get comfortable. We’re not staying here.”

  “Where are we going? There’s nowhere to go but on through these mountains. We could be out here for weeks, even months.”

  He turned on her with a wicked smile. “No, we won’t. We’re almost out of here.”

  He came to her side and hooked his arm around her waist. He held her tight against his body and walked to another tree while she hopped on one foot. “What are you up to?”

  He didn’t answer. He knocked three times on the tree trunk. The bark slid back to reveal a hollow chamber inside. “This is the way out.”

  Raleigh blinked in wonder. “How did you know that was there?”

  He waved his hand over the mountains. “These trees are all over the forest. Do you see that configuration of branches above the main junction in the trunk?”

  He pointed to the spot where the branches sprang out of the trunk’s solid wood. The chamber opening ended in a low ceiling at that point, and the branches tangled together to form an interesting pattern. Raleigh never would have noticed it if Bishop hadn’t pointed it out to her.

  “You see this pattern on certain trees in the forest. There might be one of these trees every square mile or so. If you’re ever lost out here, these trees will take you back to the other part of Hinterland.”

  “What part?”

  “The part adjacent to the market,” he replied. “Come on. I’m hungry. I want to get home.”

  She couldn’t argue. He held her against him one more time. He would have had to hold her even without her broken ankle. The chamber wasn’t big enough for both of them otherwise.

  He stepped into the chamber, and Raleigh jammed her body in tight against him. The moment they got in, the door slid shut and clicked. At the same moment, the floor dropped out from underneath them. Pain shot through Raleigh’s being, but she would have screamed anyway from surprise.

  The wind whipped their hair back, and they plunged into pitch darkness. Raleigh clutched at Bishop, but he only held her tighter. Nothing supported them under their feet. They fell through a vacuum into nothing.

  All at once, some invisible brake slowed their fall. The air eased to a steady breeze until they stopped within inches of the ground. Raleigh’s good foot touched solid Earth. The door hissed open, and Bishop stepped out. He guided Raleigh out of the chamber, and they found themselves in the tunnels underneath his house.

  Chapter 16

  Raleigh recognized the tunnel. She hopped a few paces down the sloping floor to the spot where Bishop turned off into a side passage. He pressed his fingers into a depression in the stone wall, and a door cracked open. Raleigh and Bishop stepped into Niui’s hole, and Bishop shut the door behind him.

  Raleigh sank into the chimney corner with a shuddering breath. “Thank God we made it.”

  “We’re not out of the woods yet.” Bishop rummaged around Niui’s shelves. “I’ll fix you up, and then we better be ready to hit the deck.”

  She frowned up at him. “What are you doing? Niui won’t be happy about you messing with his things.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “How do you know? The door opened when you rang the bell.”

  “He sets it so I can get in if I need to. Look at that.” He pointed to the fireplace. It was dark and cold. No flames danced on the hearth. No kettle whistled on the hook. “He’s not home, but he won’t mind me whipping up a little something to fix your ankle.”

  Raleigh shook her head and turned away. She was too tired and hurt to answer. Bishop must know what he was doing, even if she didn’t. She rested and waited while he worked around the room. He sprinkled this and that into a gourd and shook it up. He listened to the mixture slosh around inside until the sound changed.

  Raleigh didn’t notice what he was doing until he appeared in front of her. He knelt down in front of her chair and held out the gourd.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a medicine to heal your ankle so you can walk the rest of the way home.”

  Raleigh laughed at him. “Did you invent that, too?”

  He didn’t smile. “I didn’t invent it. Niui did, and it’s served me very well for many years. Your ankle might be a little sore for a few hours, but it will be as strong as ever. You’ll be able to use it and walk and even run.”

  “Okay,” she replied. “Do it.”

  He put his head on one side. “I have to warn you. The mixture burns a little.”

  Raleigh’s eyes widened. “A little?”

  He looked away. “Okay. It burns a lot. It hurts like hell, but at least you’ll be able to walk.”

  Raleigh’s heartbeat quickened. If he said it hurt like hell, it must be excruciating. She didn’t want him carrying her all the way home, though. They still had a good section of Hinterland
to cross before they got out of here. If they met anything threatening on the way, she would need to fight. He needed her ready to fight. If he had a medicine to heal her ankle, she couldn’t leave here without trying it.

  She braced herself. “All right. Do it.”

  He popped the cork out of his gourd. “I knew you would say that.”

  Those words bolstered her courage like no others. If he knew she would face this challenge, she had to go through with it, no matter how unpleasant. How bad could it really be? She got injured enough times in her life. She could stand a little burn.

  He bent to his work and didn’t meet her gaze again. He swirled the gourd in circles with one hand and pulled off her boot with the other. That hurt worse than anything, but he no longer paid any attention to her moans and groans. He was going through with this, come hell or high water.

  He drew off her woolen sock and raised her pant leg to expose her twisted ankle. He propped her bare heel on his knee and tipped the gourd over. A sloppy gel poured from the spout. It glooped over her skin and slithered over her ankle.

  It sizzled on her skin the moment it touched her. She jerked in sudden surprise. “Get it off me!”

  Instead of helping her, Bishop seized her leg below the knee and held her down. The longer the gel sat on her skin, the hotter it burned. Raleigh roared through bared teeth. “What are you doing to me? Let me go! Get it off!”

  Bishop locked his jaw and held on. Raleigh kicked her other foot and beat the chimney corner with her fists. “You bastard! Get off me! Let me go! What are you doing to me?”

  Bishop gritted his teeth. “I tried to warn you. Now sit still and take it. It will be over soon.”

  “You son of a bitch!” she shrieked. “You’re torturing me. How can you do this to me? Let me go! Get your hands off me!”

  Bishop no longer tried to talk to her. She worked her hardest to yank her foot away from him, but his fingers dug into her flesh. He held her still and wouldn’t let her get away. She thrashed and screamed and bellowed in pain. Tears smarted in her eyes. She couldn’t form the words to express the betrayal. ‘Hurts like hell’ didn’t even begin to describe this. Smoke and the stench of burning flesh rose from her skin.