Shadowborn

by Joseph DeVeau

  Hands trembling, Aeryn picked a route between a pair of oaks clear of underbrush and prepared to make a run for it. She doubted she would make it very far, but every fiber of her being screamed at her to be gone as fast as she could. Maybe she could climb a tree? Jynx would not be able to follow, but perhaps he could outrun the creature?

  A shape in her periphery caught her eye. She whipped her head about to track its passage. Or tried to. Each step utterly and completely silent, the creature prowled about her and Jynx in a wide arc, periodically vanishing from sight only to appear five or ten feet further on. They were being hunted, that much was clear.

  A series of cascading clunks sounded from her left. Aeryn whirled to the noise just as one sounded at her right.

  Please let that be Merek come to help and not another one of those creatures, she said to herself. She firmly ignored the fact that not too long ago she would have stabbed the Lord as soon as accept his help.

  Two, three, four more clattering thunks echoed through the trees. Aeryn spun her head madly as she tried to track them all.

  The creature seemed equally worried by the sounds. Letting out a final, half-hearted growl, it turned and loped away, feet thumping softly against the ground. Jynx kept up his throaty snarl for a good thirty count after Aeryn lost sight of the creature.

  When Jynx went silent and moved forward once more, the fur on his back laying down, Aeryn let out a deep breath she had not realized she was holding. Staring at where the creature had been, she had no doubt what so ever that without Jynx, she would have been a midnight snack.

  “Wait for me, Jynx,” she said, crashing after the draven.

  Less than ten paces and Aeryn heard steady breathing. She froze. What fearsome predator lurked just out of sight this time? Her mind conjured up images of creatures better suited for nightmares. Yes, she liked the city much better. At least there she knew the dangers and how to face or flee from them.

  Jynx continued walking, unconcerned. Aeryn hesitantly followed, knife held in a white-knuckled grip.

  The forest broke. One minute she was in it, the next she wasn’t. At least in a relative term she wasn’t. Before her spread a wide clearing, easily three hundred paces across. In its center sat the plateaued hill she had seen earlier. Only, it looked odd; like a termite mound riddled with gaping black holes leading to its interior.

  “You made it.”

  Aeryn jumped when she saw Merek standing nearby scratching Jynx’s head.

  “No thanks to you,” she bit back. “I almost got eaten by some creature back there.”

  “That was a wolf. Usually their prey isn’t even aware they are stalking them until they pounce. By then it’s too late.”

  “Oh, that’s a comforting thought,” Aeryn said.

  Merek frowned. “They usually don’t attack humans. They also don’t usually stray far from their pack.” He itched his chin. “I’ll have to have a talk with Gerald, see what he knows.”

  Yeah, and in a city as large as Maerilin, you usually don’t run into the very person you are trying to stay away from, said a voice in Aeryn’s head, thinking of how often she had run into Jins and his bloody gang.

  “Well no sense in standing here,” Merek said. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for a nice hot bath, an even hotter meal, and some wine to wash it down with. Why, if I remember correctly, I have this wonderful cask in the cellar. . .”

  Merek stepped forward and Aeryn watched as he Drifted, his sharp form becoming indistinct. Following suit, Aeryn Drifted too. His form sprung back into clarity. The light faded to midnight darkness lit by a crescent moon that hung high overhead.

  “Ho huntsman, I—“

  Aeryn lost track of Merek’s words and did a double take at the sight laid out before her. Light truly was the enemy. While Drifted, the hill had been but a conglomeration of pitch black splotches. Now that she was no longer Drifted, it was something else entirely. Not a hill, but rather a sprawling estate lit by dozens upon dozens of hanging lanterns, candlelit windows, and rooms bathed in the orange glow of roaring fires that belched smoke from chimneys that dotted the roof.

  “I’ll have the huntsman set up the old kennels for Jynx to bed down in,” Merek said. “A little cleaning, a little hay, and it’ll be comfortable. It’s a bit further away from the house than the other kennels, but the walls are solid enough to muffle the hounds. They are, after all, more used to hunting dravens than sleeping next to them.”

  Perfect. Just perfect, Aeryn thought. After I’m done being drowned in a tub and scrubbed clean by Melanie and her girls—her palms and knees flared up reminding her how pleasant that would be—I’ll get to fall asleep and dream of being stalked by wolves or Jins. Hell, even Jynx will get to get a choice: wolves or hounds.

  Laughing at the absurdity of it all, Aeryn rushed to catch up. Sure enough, as they rounded the side of the main building and aimed towards a smaller one attached to the back, a score of hounds began baying. Jynx’s ears perked, and his fur raised slightly, though nowhere near the height it had been while in the forest.

  “As for you,” Merek said once they had handed Jynx off to Hedy, the huntsman’s apprentice, “I’ll put you up in the guest wing.” Looking back as he entered the house, his lips quirked up. “Unless of course you would rather sleep with Melanie’s girls? Perhaps with Annette? I hear from Melanie that she could do with the influence of someone like you.”

  “No,” Aeryn said hastily, “the guest wing,” the thought that he had an entire wing devoted to guests was crazy, “will be just fine.” From what she recalled of Annette, the girl was as prim as Reeve and twice as proper.

  “Good,” Merek said. “Reeve,” the chamberlain appeared as if out of thin air, “will show you to your rooms and see you cleaned up and dressed.”

  “Wait. Rooms? As in more than one?”

  “Yes. Rooms. The guest wing is large enough to accommodate two Lords, Ladies, and their retinues. Four if they double up,” Reeve answered.

  “I wasn’t asking you,” Aeryn said.

  The chamberlain gave her a scowl. “Then who were you asking? The walls? Or perhaps the floor?”

  “No, I—“ Aeryn realized that Merek was no longer with her. It was just her and Reeve. She sighed as he led her through a small foyer into a bedroom with gilded and coffered high ceilings.

  “How does he afford all this?” she whispered from an unhinged jaw.

  “It’s quite simple. Lord Merek sponsors a number of trade caravans, and invests in a wide variety of goods, from eastern spices and southern wine to north furs. To build this estate, he—“

  “Ok, ok,” Aeryn said, peering into the door set on each wall, “he’s rich, I get it.” One led to a room devoted to bathing, one for dressing, and one set with a desk and stocked bookshelf. A thought hit her. “You are not bathing me.”

  Reeve looked at her as if she had suggested they marry and have children right then and there. “Of course I am not bathing you. The very thought! As if I am some commoner to sully his hands. Melanie and her girls will be in shortly.” He turned and stomped away haughtily. Just before disappearing from sight, he called back over his shoulder, “And don’t touch anything this time.”

  Aeryn put her hands on her hips. She was still standing that way, wondering how she was going to get the upper hand on the chamberlain when Melanie and her girls appeared around the corner. In their hands were buckets of steaming water, bars of soap, scrub brushes, and dozens of odd devices used to paint ones face.

  “. . .ready.”

  “What?” Aeryn asked.

  “Your bath is ready,” repeated one of Melanie’s girls.

  Aeryn began undressing before she had to suffer the indignity of someone doing it for her, all the while thinking that a rod stuck up Reeve’s bottom could not make the man any stiffer. There had to be some way of using that against the man.

  The girl that had called Aeryn to the bath giggled behind her hand.

  Aeryn looked up, no
t realizing she had said her thoughts aloud. Melanie stared at her, arms crossed beneath her ample bosom. Aeryn began to apologize. Just think how insufferable the chamberlain would be once the woman told him what she had just said!

  “Oh, I quite agree,” Melanie said, waving off Aeryn’s apology.

  “Mother,” hissed her straight-backed daughter.

  “Oh shush, Annette,” Melanie said. “You know that crusty old man would replace us all with mindless drones that bowed and scraped every second foot if he could. Now are you,” she met Aeryn’s eyes, “going to get in the tub? Or do we have to carry you to it like the last time?”

  Aeryn scurried over, finding herself warming to the motherly woman as she lowered herself in the steaming water. She was ashamed at how comforting and enjoyable it was. Soaking, having her hair wetted and brushed, listening to Melanie and her girls swap stories, gossip and rumors, time flitted by. Aeryn would not have guessed by looking at Melanie and her girls, but they were every bit as bawdy as anyone on the “wrong” side of the Lord’s Wall back in Maerilin. All except Annette. That girl needed to get out more.

  At least someone people around here are normal, Aeryn thought as she slid into a bed so soft it made her back hurt. Too bad it did not rub off on Merek; no doubt he had some deviously sinister things planned for the morrow.

  Waking with the sun, Aeryn dressed in the simple clothing Merek had given her yesterday. Being gussied up once by Mareen and once had Melanie had been enough for a lifetime. As it turned out, when a serving girl arrived with food to break her fast, she received an oddly appreciative nod at the choice of clothing. Aeryn found out why a few minutes later as the girl escorted her through the cavernous mansion and around to the back.

  “About time you showed up. I’m Gerald, the huntsman,” said a tall, broad shouldered man.

  Aeryn had to work to keep from gaping. She was used to seeing tough men in Maerilin; sailors, soldiers, sellswords, and the like all sported facial hair of varying degrees and expected everyone to move out of their way. The man that stood before her was as different to them as a bear was to a mouse. Carrying himself with the absolute confidence that came with the mastery of one’s craft, he looked like he could wrestle a grizzly with his beard alone.

  He set aside the edged steel bar he was using to dress a deer hide stretched between a frame of stout poles. “At least you had enough sense not to wear those pretty silks you Ladies like so much.”

  “I am not a Lady,” Aeryn said.

  “Let’s see them hands.” Before Aeryn had a chance to react, the huntsman was holding her hands palm up. “They look pretty soft to me. Never would have gotten those scrapes otherwise.”

  “They are not—“ Aeryn cut off as she noticed his hands. Calloused, scarred, and rough as blacksmith’s tools, he could probably pull a coal from a roaring fire without feeling a thing. Clamping her mouth shut, she whipped out her blade and passed it deftly from one hand to the other. Soft? She would show him a thing or two.

  “That your dinner knife?” Gerald slid a blade from the sheath at his belt. Single sided, a food and a half long and a good six inches wide, the thing looked more broadsword than knife.

  Aeryn worked to come up with a retort. Just as she thought of one—that at least her knife was sharp enough not to need his bulk behind its swing—he spoke again.

  “Enough dallying.” Twirling his blade on his palm, he slammed it back into its sheath. Aeryn noticed the sun glint off its edge as he did so. Good thing she had not said her come back; the blade looked sharp enough to cut straight through hers. “We’ve wasted enough light already.” Rising, he picked up a bow a good two feet longer than she was tall, a quiver of arrows, a waterskin and a dozen chunks of meat each as big as a wheel of cheese.

  Wasted enough light? The majority of the clearing around the estate still sat in deep shadows. “The sun hasn’t even cleared the treetops yet,” Aeryn said as she hurried after his ground eating strides.

  “There’s always enough to see by. Ain’t there?” Gerald said, casting a cryptic look over his shoulder.

  At the kennels, he tossed the slabs of red meat to a pack of kenneled hounds. They tore into it ravenously, growling anytime another so much as looked at the meal in front of them.

  “You greedy bastard Rusty, that ain’t yours, it’s Mia’s,” Gerald said. Reaching in between a pair of snarling dogs easily half again the size of Jynx, he gave one streaked in brownish-red a shove. It slid back a pace, then promptly jumped forward again.

  Gerald was ready for it. He grabbed the loose skin of the dog’s neck. He then lowered his head until it was a inches away on level with the hound’s. The hound barred his teeth and locked eyes with the huntsman.

  Aeryn was absolutely convinced Gerald was going to lose his nose, ears and half his bloody cheeks.

  As soon as it had started, it was over. Rusty lowered his gaze, put his tail between his legs, and slunk away.

  “That’s what I thought,” Gerald said. He looked at a hound lying on its paws at the far end of the kennels. “Raker, let’s go.”

  The solid black dog, graying at the muzzle and with patches of fur missing on either flank, slowly pushed itself to its feet. It ambled over casually, not deviating an inch from its arrow-straight path, even if that took it into the side of one hound or had it stepping through the meal of another. Smaller than him, they all moved aside without incidence. Then it got to Rusty.

  Aeryn actually started forward to help the older hound. She did not know what she could do. She only knew she did not want to start the morning off by watching one hound tear out the throat of another.

  She did not make it a step before she realized she did not have too. Rusty averted its gaze and backed up after only the slightest glance at its elder.

  “Good boy,” Gerald said, giving Raker a hefty pat and scratch behind the ears. “Now let’s go show that city mutt how we do it out here.”

  Aeryn squinted at the odd pair as they turned from the kennels and made their way to the other kennel set twenty paces closer to the trees. What were they going to do with a dog so old and decrepit? Surely the only reason Rusty had not ripped it to shreds was because it could not fight back. After all, any boy come into his prime could easily outstrip his father.

  “Animals, least of all hounds, dravens and wolves, don’t respect weakness,” Gerald said. He threw Aeryn a glance. “Why I’ll wager all Merek’s gold against a hair on your head that Raker will show your mutt a thing or two.”

  Aeryn had not realized she had spoken her thoughts about Rusty and Raker aloud. “My mutt?” The man’s beard must have grown into his brain to think Raker could stand toe to toe with Jynx for a second. Jynx may be skinnier than he should be given a chance to eat regular meals, but he was still every bit as large as Raker. Besides, he was a draven.

  Gerald just grinned. Arriving at the far kennel, he flipped the latch to the door and swung it open. Inside, Jynx paced restlessly back and forth. A rusty shovel leaned against the right inner wall, a three foot square pile of fresh hay on the left. Jynx jumped out to Aeryn’s side. She held him there by the skin of his neck, wary of him killing the huntsman’s old dog.

  “Scrawny thing just like his Lady, ain’t he Raker?” Gerald said.

  “Unlike you and your graying mutt,” Aeryn stressed the word, “Jynx and I prefer not to be a fat tub of pig grease.” She would be damned if she let some backcountry huntsman insult her or Jynx all day long and get away with it. Jynx growled, showing his fangs to drive the point home.

  Gerald smiled. It looked more like a sneer. “Young pups never know when they’re biting the tail of a wolf.”

  “And old dogs never know when it’s time to step aside,” Aeryn shot back.

  Gerald dropped his head back and laughed. It sounded like an avalanche. “You’ve got spirit girl, I’ll give you that. But without the skills to back it up, you’re no better than a mocking jay. Raker, settle that mutt down.”

  Raker stepped forwa
rd. If dogs could sigh, Aeryn was certain the graying dog would have. She was wary of letting go of Jynx, now pulling forward in her grip. As the distance closed between the two, she had no choice. She opened her hand.

  Jynx bounded forward.

  Lips barred, Jynx hit Raker midstride, latched on with his jaws and pushed the older dog off balance.

  Raker let the momentum roll him to his back, then stomach, then with a powerful twisting heave, threw the draven clear as he regained his feet. Jynx rolled over once then sprung back up, crouching and coiling his muscles to charge back in.

  Raker was already moving. Gray hairs, age, it did not matter. The hound barreled forward fearlessly, slamming into Jynx. The force of the blow grounded the draven. Raker followed Jynx to the ground into a rolling pile of gnashing teeth and razor-backed fur.

  Ten seconds and it was over, the pair still and silent. Planted on top, Raker held Jynx’s throat firmly between his teeth.

  Aeryn jumped forward without thinking to pull the large dog from Jynx. Raker let go and snapped in the air once. She slid to a halt just in time to keep her hand. The dog closed his teeth back around Jynx’s neck, before he could seize the moment and wiggle free.

  “Stop him,” Aeryn shouted at the huntsman. “He’s going to kill Jynx.”

  “He ain’t going to kill him. He’s just showing him who is in charge,” Gerald said. Legs in the air, Jynx settled down, muscles relaxing visibly. “Raker, that’s enough.”

  The dog released his hold and ambled away. Jynx immediately jumped to his feet and took a step after. One backward look from Raker and Jynx froze, then slunk over to Aeryn’s side.

  “Now that that’s settled, let’s get started.” Gerald strode off toward the woods, Raker in the lead.

  Not knowing what else to do, and doubting very much that the huntsman would take no for an answer based on what she had just seen, Aeryn followed. Jynx stayed glued to her heels.