Reaper (The Dreadhunt Trilogy Book 2)

by Ross Turner

  She had missed him dearly.

  But then, in almost the same breath, she scolded him for deceiving his family, for she couldn’t bear the thought of the repercussions he might suffer upon his return to Newmarket.

  But then, did he have to go back?

  Why should he?

  Surely there was no need?

  He was Marcii’s dearest friend in the whole world, except perhaps for Reaper, though their bond was altogether different.

  She simply could not bear the thought of Kaylm leaving her again.

  He promised her he would come back, and in turn she begged of him not to go.

  Of course though, as ever, he had only her in his thoughts and in his heart. He insisted that he must return to Newmarket, save them sending out a search party to find him. Undoubtedly his absence would have been noted most keenly by his family and yet more tales of conspiracy would be circulating.

  The young Evans could not bear the thought of endangering his Marcii: any risk he might take, no matter how great, was better than that.

  He told her of how awful things had become in Newmarket and how Tyran’s hold over the people was nothing if not absolute.

  They spoke again of Alexander Freeman and how the priest, like many others, had suffered so terribly at the hands of Tyran.

  Kaylm explained how his wife had found out about his affair. Marcii nodded with agreement, admitting to Kaylm that she had known too, only days before she’d fled.

  Naturally, as is often the way with a woman’s scorn, especially when she has been betrayed so, she proceeded immediately to consult with her Lord Tyran.

  Whether she actually suspected that her husband had helped Marcii escape or not, it mattered not. Her words stung with the same venom and had the desired effect.

  Somewhat guiltily, and with something of a bitter irony, Marcii admitted to Kaylm that in fact Alexander had indeed helped her to escape.

  But as he undoubtedly always would, forever at her side, Kaylm assured her that none of this was her doing.

  Had Alexander not had his affair, he would surely still be alive to this day, whether he’d helped her or not.

  Then Kaylm spoke of Marcii’s family, though his words were clearly filled with apprehension, for he had no idea whether she’d seen what had happened, either with her own eyes or in a vision.

  She told him of all that she’d seen as she’d desperately fled Newmarket. He nodded solemnly as she told him her story, though he barely spoke at all, knowing not the words that were needed.

  The day wore on and afternoon was swift to encroach upon them.

  Somehow, in the space of just a single night, Marcii had switched completely back into the rhythm of wakeful days and sleep filled nights that she had known for her entire life, up to the point of meeting Reaper.

  She hadn’t realised quite how much she could miss something as simple as daylight, regardless of how dimly the winter sunshine matched up to that of warm summer afternoons.

  The air was bitterly cold and Marcii pulled her thick sheepskin around the both of them as they sat down behind a low wall. The stone was cold but it kept them out of the wind. Marcii regaled Kaylm all the while with tales of how Reaper had saved her and cared for her.

  The harsh, lashing winds cut through Ravenhead particularly fiercely for the rest of that day and soon enough they all retreated back inside, into a building that still had a roof, to ride out the worst of the storm that was undoubtedly on the horizon.

  But little did they know the severity of what was to come, for all that had happened up to that point, all the good and all the bad, was merely the dawn of something else entirely.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Another night passed and for yet another darkness Marcii slept in Kaylm’s arms, across on the opposite side of the fire from which Reaper sat.

  The enormous creature gazed down upon the pair of them for many hours as the night shifted slowly by, his eyes cutting through the orange and red and yellow flames that divided them.

  All things considered, Reaper had not known Marcii a very long time, but that mattered not. Even in that short period, having spent virtually every moment with her, Reaper had never seen her as happy as she’d been that past day.

  When morning eventually rolled laboriously around the sun peeked its head curiously over the horizon far to the east and all the remaining darkness seemed startled by the fresh light.

  Motionless even still, Reaper had not budged all night.

  When Marcii and Kaylm stirred finally into wakefulness, awoken by the sunlight streaming across their exposed faces, their eyes laid sight first of all upon Reaper. His gaze rested solidly upon the pair of them even still, just as it had done all night long.

  The enormous creature lifted his hands up from where they lay in his empty lap and formed his first words of the day, greeting them both a good morning.

  “Good morning Reaper.” Kaylm replied first. “Happy Dew.” He added then, smiling crookedly.

  There was a merry, yet slightly mournful tone to his voice and Marcii looked on at him incredulously.

  “Is it really that time!?” She exclaimed, shocked at just how long she had been absent from Newmarket.

  She hadn’t realised she had been gone for that amount of time and couldn’t quite believe it.

  Poor Reaper had not the faintest idea what they were talking about. He twisted his hands into yet another shape: one that he’d never made before. Though, of course, Marcii and Kaylm understood him in an instant.

  “Dew.” Marcii confirmed, nodding her head as Reaper gestured to them. “Winter’s Dew.”

  “It’s a celebration.” Kaylm explained. “They say it comes from a time when there were no markets and people only worked the fields. One winter, when the morning dew that covered the fields froze solid for a full week, the people could not work.” He went on. Marcii intervened to continue the story.

  “They could only rest for the week.” She told Reaper. “It happened like clockwork at the same time every year. It was so regular that by the time a year eventually came where it didn’t happen, the people took the week for grace anyway. They’d gotten so used to it that it had become tradition, and it still is to this day.”

  “Well…” Kaylm cut in, his voice dropping somewhat. “It was…”

  “What do you mean!?” Marcii demanded disbelievingly, shocked at the thought that there would be no Dew.

  “Tyran announced last week that while the hunt for you is still on there is no time to rest. He insisted that the danger of still having a murderous witch running free is too great.”

  Marcii’s lip practically curled under with hatred and anger.

  Somehow, without her even being there, he had made Marcii responsible.

  “He’s a monster.” She breathed menacingly.

  “He convinced everyone that if we were to stop the hunt, even for a day, you would seize the chance to strike us down.” Kaylm went on.

  Marcii cursed foully, throwing her hands up in frustration. Kaylm did the best he could to calm her and quell her surging fury.

  “I know, I know.” He assured her. “I know it’s nonsense. But that’s why I have to go back.”

  Marcii looked at Kaylm through stricken eyes.

  He had insisted the same thing only the day before.

  “They’ll only keep hunting you.” He explained again. “They might even be out searching for me, though I doubt it…” He admitted. “If I go back, I can tell them you captured me, but that I escaped, and then I’ll send them all searching in the wrong direction. I’ll lead them on a wild goose chase.”

  Marcii’s heart jumped at the thought, for Kaylm’s plan was fraught with peril.

  They might not believe him.

  They might torture him.

  They might kill him.

  He knew all this of course.

  But it wasn’t himself he was concerned for; Reaper could see that quite evidently.

  There was silence for a
few minutes as Kaylm’s words sunk in and hung heavily all around them.

  Eventually, though his words did not break the quiet, Reaper spoke, and his hands danced with the sound of forced merriment.

  He wished the young Dougherty and Evans both a happy Winter’s Dew. Then, without any hint of an explanation, he rose slowly to his feet, towering over the both of them.

  Assuring them that he would be back, Reaper vanished from sight.

  He bounded from the house and from the abandoned town even, without giving either of them a chance to speak.

  “What…?” Marcii started, rising to her feet to follow him. But, of course, there was no hope that she would catch him. “Where…?”

  Kaylm followed Marcii to the doorway, but Reaper was long gone and there was not a sight nor sound of him to be found.

  “Oh Reaper…” Marcii whispered under her breath, sighing, hoping with all her might that he would return.

  She breathed deeply and heavily again, feeling the weight of the poor demon’s sorrow even in his absence.

  “My poor Reaper…I wish you would tell me what’s wrong…”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The pair of them paced through the empty streets yet again, side by side, hand in hand, just as any couple should.

  Still Reaper had not yet returned. Kaylm did not want to leave until the enormous, protective demon was back with Marcii. He feared for her safety without Reaper to protect her.

  They continued to talk as they waited and revelled in having so much time alone together. They had never known such a thing.

  Marcii silently suspected that was at least part of the reason for Reaper’s seemingly distant nature over the past couple of days.

  He was nothing if not caring and respectful. She knew he would have picked up on how she felt about Kaylm, even though she was only just beginning to realise it herself.

  Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Marcii caught sight of something amidst the grey stone of the buildings.

  “What was that?” She asked Kaylm, looking over her shoulder for the movement that had drawn her attention.

  “I didn’t see anything.” Kaylm admitted. “What was it?”

  “I don’t know…” Marcii breathed, keeping her voice low, though she had no idea really why. “Come on.” She urged, striding forwards between the empty buildings. “Let’s go see.”

  Marcii led the way and Kaylm followed, for truly he had not caught a glimpse of anything.

  Marcii seemed absolutely convinced that she had however.

  She turned and swerved this way and that, looking, searching, but finding no answers.

  Then, once again out of the corner of her eye, Marcii caught sight of the same flicker of movement. Her gaze shot over her shoulder and this time swept upwards as it went.

  It was barely a second before the movement was gone, but that mere moment was enough.

  As Marcii trained her eyes up towards Raven’s Keep the figure of a person vanished from sight, disappearing from one of the glassless windows.

  “There!” She hissed, pointing up towards the abandoned tower.

  “The Keep?” Kaylm questioned, swallowing heavily. “Really?”

  “Let’s find out.” Marcii insisted, dashing from where she stood.

  Kaylm didn’t need to be asked twice, for his own inquisitions were bubbling. They both surged forward, making directly for the vast tower that stood overlooking the town.

  It seemed strange, Marcii thought as they ran, that she hadn’t yet been up to the top of the tower.

  Raven’s Keep was the one place they had both always wanted to come and yet for some reason visiting it had simply not crossed either of their minds.

  No matter now though, Marcii thought, as they entered the long, square, stone building at its base. They began ascending the narrow, spiral staircase that wove its way up inside the enormous stone column at the far end of the building.

  Marcii’s heart raced.

  After all these years, the time had finally come. Perhaps it had waited this long for them for a reason.

  The pair of them practically burst from the staircase and into the room at the very top of Raven’s Keep.

  The sight that met them took their breath away.

  From the evenly spaced square windows, set every three feet or so in the stone walls, all the way around the huge, circular room, they could see for miles and miles in every direction.

  Ravenhead stretched out from the base of the tower in orderly rows of unused houses and mineshafts. The town formed a huge, near perfect circle that seemed to keep close to the tower, afraid to leave.

  The town was surrounded on all sides by the greenery of rolling hills and the emptiness of vast plains and the protection of great forests, for as far as the eye could see.

  Marcii couldn’t believe she was finally here, as she leaned halfway through one of the empty windows and gazed down towards the floor. A hundred and more feet below them the sight was dizzying as she poured her luminous yellow eyes over all that she could see.

  Without thinking, for there was simply no need, Kaylm wrapped his arms around Marcii and squeezed her tightly, putting his chin on her shoulder and resting his cheek against hers.

  For so long, this was all they had both wanted.

  Finally, at long last, they were here.

  But, in that wondrous moment, blissfully unaware, they’d both completely forgotten the reason they’d come up here in the first place.

  The ghostly figure of a woman with sleek, long, jet black hair, streaked here and there with floods of grey, stood close behind them. She watched the couple curiously with her bright violet eyes, set so deeply into her heavily lined face.

  Making not a sound as she moved the woman paced slowed across the wide, circular room and then back again. It was something she had spent many years doing. Her body moved in slow motion without even the tiniest trace of a thought required, for all her attention was set upon Marcii and Kaylm.

  The last time she had seen such creatures in her home, her children had been stolen from her.

  A strange mixture of emotions swirled inside the ghost of a woman, for she supposed she should really have hated Marcii, but at the same time, she had every reason not to.

  It was a bizarre dilemma, to say the least.

  Feeling eyes upon her all of a sudden, eyes that had not been there before, only moments ago, Marcii unwound herself nervously from Kaylm’s embrace.

  He could feel the anxiety in her fingertips and his eyes pooled with worry.

  “What is it?” He whispered.

  Marcii answered his question only by turning around. She settled her eyes across the other side of the huge room and met Raven’s steady gaze with her own.

  But still Kaylm did not understand. His eyes swept over to the other side of the perfectly circular stone room and searched the empty abyss laid out before him. After a moment his gaze moved on and glanced all around it again, seeing nothing.

  “I don’t understand…” He admitted quietly, seeing Marcii’s still, focused gaze.

  He continued to skim over all that he could see with his own eyes, though clearly he was missing something.

  Whether he realised it or not, it didn’t matter how hard Kaylm looked, he would not see.

  He was just not cut from the same cloth.

  The answers they sought would only continue to evade him.

  Perhaps that was for the better though.

  The answers evaded Marcii too, but they sought at least to give her a mere hint of truth, though without revealing anything significant at all.

  “Reaper!” Kaylm suddenly exclaimed, glancing down into the streets below and seeing their enormous demonic friend.

  Breaking her concentration for but a mere moment, Marcii stole a glimpse out of the window.

  Indeed, it was Reaper. And, strangely, he had a horse.

  As he walked the animal trotted contentedly at his side. It had no reigns and he made no attempt t
o restrain it or stop it from running away. Nevertheless, not once did it part from him, walking close by his thick arm.

  Snapping her eyes back across to the other side of the room, to where Raven had just stood, Marcii’s stomach sank.

  She was gone.

  Looking all around, though she knew it would be of no use, Marcii found nothing. She knew that, for now a least, the mysterious ghost of a woman was gone.

  Marcii and Kaylm greeted Reaper gladly and he did the same.

  “Why have you got a horse?” Marcii asked almost immediately. There was a hint of regret to her voice though, for she thought she could already guess the answer.

  Reaper’s hands danced his reply.

  He told them that the horse was for Kaylm.

  “For me?” The young Evans questioned.

  Their enormous friend explained that it would get him back to Newmarket faster, and would make his story of having escaped more believable. They had all seen how big he was; surely they would never have believed Kaylm if he’d told them he’d outrun the demon on foot.

  “Could the horse outrun you then?” Kaylm asked, though perhaps that wasn’t the most pertinent question.

  Reaper answered it nonetheless.

  With his hands he replied, telling the boy that indeed the horse could not outrun him, but Tyran didn’t need to know that. Kaylm nodded his agreement and actually felt a little foolish for asking.

  His next question, though it took him another moment or two to pose, was indeed more relevant.

  “Why does the horse follow you?” He asked. “Why hasn’t it run away?”

  But Marcii thought she knew the answer to that query too. Reaper saw her thoughts spark and allowed her to answer for him.

  “Reaper has a connection to the world…” Marcii tried to explain. “He feels the ground, and the earth…” She attempted.

  Kaylm looked slightly confused, but he listened on, driven, as the best of us are, by curiosity.

  “He can feel the world. He can feel nature. It talks to him. It guides him.”

  Reaper nodded encouragingly.

  “And, I suppose, it’s not just that…” Marcii continued. “It’s more…It’s the animals as well…”