Hunter

by Mercedes Lackey

  He fired back three fire bolts, and sure enough, the third one had a grinding spell attached, which I unraveled.

  He still hadn’t noticed the little saboteur. I guess he thought I didn’t know how to piggyback. Noted. Don’t get cocky.

  He’d barely gotten back his balance from firing his three fire bolts when I hit back. But not with a direct barrage.

  I couldn’t get through the Shield yet, but I could make things uncomfortable for him in there.

  Obviously, Shields are not completely impervious; if they were, you would never be able to see out, because light wouldn’t get through, and you wouldn’t be able to breathe, because air wouldn’t get through.

  I recognized what the faux turf was: real grass woven like a carpet and dyed. We used that stuff ourselves sometimes, when we got shipments of scraps no one in the cities wanted to bother with. It made good paths on the snow and over mud. It was nicely flammable and I set fire to it in a ring right up against his Shield, and fed the fire with more energy bound into the spell so the flames roared up all around, licking at the Shield. It was hot, scary, and put out a lot of smoke.

  He put it out almost immediately—that’s not hard if you know anything about fire—but there was still a lot of smoke inside the Shield with him, and he was coughing and red-eyed and even angrier. He countered with cold; intense cold that made my breath smoke and instantly coated all the turf around me and inside my Shield with frost.

  Cold? Really? That’s all you have?

  Do NOT get cocky! I ordered myself. Overconfidence could kill me too.

  But I needed to keep fueling his anger, because anger means a loss of control, and that was a weapon in my hand. I wanted to goad him some more, so I wrinkled my nose with contempt and let him have a stink bomb. That’s right, pure skunk essence, manifested in that burned ring around him. Just to show that if this wasn’t “just a Trial,” I could have planted something lethal around him. And while he was coughing, wiping his watering eyes, and choking and running away from the spot, I was taking my time in unraveling his cold spell.

  Oh, and at least half the Elites were sniggering.

  I hoped he hadn’t been too careful about where he stepped, because that was real skunk spray I created—and if any of it transferred to those pretty boots of his, it would still be oh, so very much with him.

  A moment after he moved, though, the stink stopped. I guess one of the Elites or the referee did something about it.

  A little disappointing, but of course, I couldn’t blame them. Pretty much everyone was going to be getting the “benefit” of it if they’d just let it be.

  We circled for a while; I was concentrating hard on keeping my focus. He still hadn’t noticed my brittle spell working, so I reckoned I would give him something else to think about. His turn to feel the cold.

  I encased him in ice.

  Ice is a spell we use a lot on the Mountain. Othersiders just cannot handle the cold, and if you have about half a minute, you can significantly slow down their reflexes by ice-casing them. Again, this is only good when you are going one-on-one and you have some distance on them, because it does take about thirty seconds for the process, start to finish. But if you catch them unaware, plenty of times you’ll have them stopped dead. And then literally dead, because once they are slowed, no matter what they are, or how good their Shields are, the cold disrupts their ability to keep the Shield up, and bullets take them out just fine.

  And I caught him by surprise. I almost got him completely closed in, and if I’d had a chance to thicken the ice wall around him to the point he couldn’t break it, I’d have won the Trial painlessly—

  But, alas, no. He figured out what I was doing at about the point where the ice wall was closing in the top of his Shield, and he figured out the right response.

  He flexed his Shield outward, shattering the ice wall. With nothing to work on, the spell unraveled by itself.

  That broke his temper as well, and for the next while, it was an exchange of direct attacks—levin bolts of pure electrical energy, like lightning; fire bolts, ice bolts—that battered at our Shields. His were sheer, brute force, trying to bring my Shield down. Mine were all underpowered—testing his Shield, waiting for it to have gotten brittle enough to smash, although I did vary what he was forced to deal with by attacking the ground right where his Shield met it, chewing away at the turf and dirt underneath it, and forcing him to move when I threatened to dig under the edge of the Shield.

  All of this was exhausting and I was just hemorrhaging energy. Gnawing hunger nagged at me, and if it hadn’t been for the reserves I had built up for this, I’d have been in trouble. I caught a good look at his face, and it sent a chill down my back and finally silenced that nagging little voice.

  He wanted me dead. My insides just went to water. And then, as we maneuvered around the circle a little more, my insides froze, because that murderous glare turned to a murderous grin of pure triumph.

  There was just a split second of warning, a tiny wink of light up in what should have been empty stands, just over Ace’s shoulder.

  I flung up my hands to shield my eyes in pure instinct, otherwise I would have been blinded by the flash that hit my face. Someone had used a purely mechanical, powerful light source and shone it right into my eyes!

  And something dark, big, and fur-covered hit me and knocked me to the ground.

  It was off me in a second—falling away from me with a heart-rending yelp of pain. A Hound!

  But it wasn’t one of my Hounds. It was one of Ace’s.

  And I hadn’t been the one that hurt it.

  It writhed on the ground in agony, and I looked up to see Ace standing there, his mouth dropping open in shock, with something held in his outstretched hand, something he could have hidden easily in his sleeve. I hadn’t been inspected and neither had he. So much for the honor system.

  I knew what it was immediately, and why he was using it instead of a gun.

  A laser. Because I’d hardened my Shield against solid objects, but light would go right through a Shield….

  He had tried to kill me by cheating, and it had been his Hound who saved me, bamphing across my Shield and intercepting the lethal laser beam that Ace had fired at me at the moment I was blinded.

  I snapped.

  A monumental rage erupted inside me, and I had just enough control and sense left to grab the reins of that horse and ride it because I could not have stopped myself, even if there had been a helpless child between me and that miserable bastard.

  I hit his Shield with everything I had, a powerful physical blow like the one I had used on the Gazer’s Shield, and it shattered as he stood there with a stunned look on his face.

  Then I ran straight for him.

  Launched myself into the air at the last minute in a flying side kick.

  Felt my foot hit his chin with the most satisfying thwack I have ever felt in my life. It was a moment in breathless slow motion, my foot hitting his face, his feet coming up off the ground as mine came down in a “ready” stance.

  Ace went flying backward, already unconscious before he hit the turf.

  But I wasn’t going to stand there and gloat. Not while there was a wonderful, self-sacrificing Hound I could still save.

  I whirled and ran back to where the Hound was still keening in pain, a smoking wound in its shoulder. It had not, thank whatever gods you choose, taken what would have been a lethal shot to me in any part of it that would kill it immediately. But it was in desperate bad shape. I dropped to my knees beside it and began pouring every bit of healing I could into it.

  There was a lot of shouting and carrying on behind me, but I was concentrating, eyes closed, because there wasn’t a lot in me left, and I needed all of it to get into that Hound.

  I felt the big Shield go down, and then I felt my pack surround me, and more energy poured from them into me, and then into Ace’s Hound.

  The Hound’s keening turned to a whimper, from a whimper to a whi
ne, and then, at last, into a long sigh of relief and release from the pain. And I opened my eyes as he struggled to his feet.

  My pack parted as he staggered a few steps forward. I saw that two of the Elites had hauled Ace, finally coming around, to his feet, while the rest of them and their Hounds were swarming up to that spot in the stands where the flash of light had come from that had nearly blinded me.

  Ace’s other Hound, mane bristling with anger, stalked toward its master, while the wounded Hound did the same. I had no idea what was going on with them, and clearly, neither did the Elites. Were the Hounds about to attack the two men that held their master prisoner?

  But my Hounds were all calm—and so were the Hounds packed up behind the two Elites.

  Ace’s Hounds reached him, and closed their mouths around his hands.

  Ace—screamed. Screamed as if someone had just gut-stabbed him. His entire body arced backward, and the two Elites could barely hold him.

  Then the Hounds dropped his hands, and he went limp in their grasp.

  We all just stopped for a moment, and my eyes went straight to Ace’s hands.

  The backs were blank. No scars. No tattoos.

  Ace was no longer a Hunter, because he no longer had any Hounds.

  The two Hounds turned and stared at Bya. Bya stared back at them.

  A moment later, the wounded one transferred his gaze from Bya to me, and I heard a brand-new voice in my head.

  By your leave, honest Hunter, we would join your pack. Your alpha has given consent, and we will follow him.

  I felt my mouth fall open.

  But what could I say but yes? I mean, Bya had already agreed—heckfire, I would never hear the end of it from him if I said no.

  I nodded, and Bya left my side to help the other support the wounded one over to me, where I was still kneeling on the turf. Like Karly’s Hounds, they each took one of my hands in their mouths, and I felt that red-hot burning that meant two more Glyphs had been added to my Mandalas.

  I was going to have to get a lot of tattooing done now. I still hadn’t gotten Hold and Strike’s scars overwritten.

  When the burning stopped, they let go of my hands and looked into my eyes.

  Their eyes were silver, and they looked like two enormous, dark-silver gargoyles. Their heads were kind of a cross between a wolf and a big cat, with blunt muzzles and huge fangs.

  Well, at least I wouldn’t have any trouble telling them from Karly’s Hounds, or mine.

  I am Myrrdhin, said the wounded one.

  I am Gwalchmai, said the other.

  “Myrrdhin,” I nodded, speaking aloud into a very strange and uncanny silence. “Gwalchmai. You are welcome to my pack.”

  The silence stretched on for what seemed like forever. Then, finally, there was a strange-sounding cough from the loudspeakers. And the referee spoke, almost apologetically.

  “Fourth and final Trial is concluded. Hunter Joyeaux passes. Hunter Joyeaux Charmand and pack, welcome as the fifteenth member of Apex Hunter Elite.”

  YOU WOULD THINK that would be the end of the drama.

  Oh no. There was still one more surprise.

  Before the Elites could come down out of the grandstand empty-handed, before the two who held Ace prisoner could cart him away, we were literally descended on by—

  —an Army helichopper. A big one, one of the troop carriers.

  A group of soldiers in black uniforms of a sort I had never seen before, with an officer with more gold on him than I had ever seen in my life, descended on the two Elite Hunters and their prisoner.

  There followed a lot of shouting and arguing, as I sat, largely ignored, on the turf, surrounded by my pack and slowly trickling more manna into Myrrdhin. My head was pounding, I was famished and dry-mouthed and, frankly, a bit light-headed as I tried to make sense of what they were carrying on about. I had thought the confrontation with the Folk Magician had taken a lot out of me. That was nothing compared to how I felt now. The longer I sat there, the worse my head got. I couldn’t get my brain wrapped around how insane Ace had been, trying to kill me with a weapon. With magic, he might have pulled it off as a regrettable accident in the Trials, but like this? This was nuts. It just didn’t add up.

  The Elite Hunters, of course, were shouting at the tops of their lungs, and making no doubt that they were adamant that Ace was going to be taken off, investigated, questioned, and then put on trial for trying to murder me. Which seemed entirely sensible to me, obviously.…Except—Ace hadn’t been working alone. Someone up in the stands had set me up for him to kill me. And whoever was behind him had used him and was unlikely to leave him alive. He was more likely to survive to be questioned if the army had him now. Ace was an Elite-level Mage, and without his Hounds that meant he was army property. As far as they were concerned, that he was a criminal was all the better. Criminals have no rights. They could do whatever they wanted to with him, with little or no consequences. They wouldn’t have to coax him or reward him. He’d do what they wanted, or find himself tossed into a deep, dark hole. Heck, they might even stick him in that dark hole and only let him out to do what they wanted.

  Along with the shouting, there was a lot of frantic calling on Perscoms, requests streaking up the chain of command on both sides, until at last an answer came back that silenced the Hunter Elites, direct from Premier Rayne’s office and countersigned by my uncle.

  They hauled Ace off in restraints, and it was pretty clear as far as they were concerned, that he was tried and convicted and they had him by the short hairs. He was not going to have an easy time of it, much less the sort of life he had become accustomed to.

  You might think I would be angry, but I wasn’t. I was just tired, worried, and once again had way more questions than answers. The only answer I had was that there definitely had been someone out to kill me.

  But mostly I was tired, and my head was pounding as if someone was using it for a fancy-dance drum. So when the rest of the Elite descended on me to take me back off to headquarters—I didn’t fight it. I was just relieved that they all understood that right now, I didn’t need or want some sort of initiation or celebration or anything else.

  All I wanted was a big meal, my bed, and Bya.

  And that was what I got.

  The next day I woke up to a message from Uncle. Directly from him, too, and not through Josh. The message light was flashing when I woke, and when I brought up the lights, the message started playing on my vid-screen.

  “Congratulations, Niece,” said Uncle—not “Prefect Charmand.” I could tell he was being Uncle by the broad, relieved smile he was wearing. “I never doubted you’d make Elite, but I am astonished and pleased you did so in so short a time. I’ll be sending a pod for you at eleven thirty for lunch.”

  And that was all.

  When the pod came around, I was wearing an outfit I hadn’t yet worn, something I hoped would be fancy enough to go to luncheon with the prefect, but not so fancy that I’d feel foolishly overdressed. This was one of those asymmetrical outfits that the people around here seemed to like so much, although it didn’t go so far as having only one sleeve and one short leg and one long. It was a tunic with a slanty hem, half charcoal and half silver-gray; charcoal leggings; a black, corsetlike belt; and black boots. I’d done some business Karly had shown me how to do—pulling the ponytail under my right ear and stringing beads on three strands of hair behind my left ear—but my makeup was minimal.

  The pod rolled up right on the dot, and I was already outside waiting for it. But to my surprise, when the door opened, Uncle was waiting in it.

  It had a driver of course, who probably doubled as a bodyguard. Now that I knew Uncle had deadly enemies, plus there were rebels, that just made sense. I got in, very formal and all, but as soon as the door dropped, the decorum got thrown out, as Uncle grabbed me and hugged me as hard as can be! I hugged back, of course.

  “I am so incredibly proud of you!” Uncle said, holding me at arm’s length and beaming at me.
Which told me that this pod must have been taken apart piece by piece and gone over for listening bugs. “Joy, I want you to know I never, ever thought that anyone would cause you serious harm when I brought you here. I will admit I did so with the intention of seeing who might try to use you. I never thought things would go this far.”

  “Well, now we know they’re ruthless and they’re stupid,” I replied as bravely as I could. “Ruthless, that’s obvious. And stupid because they clearly didn’t bother studying either of us.”

  “I wish I had warned you more explicitly and I had done it while you were still back home,” he said.

  Well, I’ve said before that one of the things I’ve studied at the Monastery is The Art of War and The Book of Five Rings. Not a lot, but I’ve studied them. So, I wasn’t like all how could you! I just shrugged. “‘Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.’” I quoted. He smiled so broadly I thought his face might split in two.

  “You sound just like my brother, and I see you have gotten an excellent education.” He hesitated a moment. “There is a great deal going on that—”

  “You can’t tell me about,” I finished for him. “You’re the general, Uncle. I’m just the soldier.” I figured I would leave it at that. And that seemed to satisfy him.

  “We won’t be as much strangers now,” he said, changing the subject—or maybe not. “There can be no question in anyone’s mind about favoritism now that you’ve earned Elite.” And that made me almost giggle I was so happy.

  He picked a place to eat at random and didn’t have to explain to me why: it would be impossible for anyone to have set up spy-ears that way. We made a big stir among the patrons when we came in, but no one was daring or bad-mannered enough to try to come up to us. We got a little private alcove, and I couldn’t tell you what we ate, because I was just too busy finally being with my uncle, and not the Prefect Charmand. Finally I had family, all of my own.