Shadowborn

by Joseph DeVeau

  “Hedy,” Gerald called back, “keep an eye on Rusty; if he tries anything, be sure to let him know the bitch is off limits.”

  “Aye,” came a reply from the small side building.

  “And don’t be slacking on your chores. Them city girls ain’t got no use for a country boy like you.”

  This time, Hedy’s reply was faint and morose. “Aye.”

  The huntsman shook his head. “That boy is going to find himself in a bucket of boiling water if he tries to charm one of them girls. City folk scheme as easy as we breathe. Ain’t that right Raker?” Raker let out a low yip, then immediately put his nose back to the ground and disappeared into the still-dark woods.

  Ten feet in and Gerald rounded on Aeryn. “You trying to wake the dead, girl? Mind where you’re setting your feet.”

  “What does it matter?” Aeryn asked. Five minutes with the bearded huntsman and she already hated hearing his gruff voice. She twisted her upper body and jerked her head at Merek’s estate. “We’re a rock’s throw from the house. What could happen?”

  “This ain’t no city street with soldiers, Shades, Voices, and their invisible God, Nameless, to protect you,” Gerald said, voice dripping with contempt.

  Aeryn turned back and found his face a fingernail’s width from hers. She had not even heard him turn, much less close the distance between them. She took an involuntary step backward. A root caught her foot and sent her sprawling to the forest floor.

  “There ain’t no healers waiting a block away when you do something stupid,” he said, taking a step forward. “No help for when you when you fall.”

  He stepped forward again. Aeryn scooted backward on her hands. She bumped into something solid. Something growling. She swiveled her head to see Raker once more standing atop Jynx.

  “Out here, you’re all alone,” Gerald continued. “Either you’re prey,” his massive knife buried itself into the ground an inch from Aeryn’s head, “or predator.”

  Aeryn’s pushed herself into a sitting position as her eyes traveled up the huntsman’s form, inch by inch, foot by foot, to meet his iron stare.

  “You best figure out which one you are right now, girl.” Gerald pulled the still-quivering knife from the ground, sheathed it in a single fluid motion and walked away. Raker followed, the dog’s bulk sending her back to the ground as it pushed by her. “Because even if you dress a deer in a wolf’s fur and teach it the ways of the pack, its first instinct will always be to run.”

  Rising slowly, brushing herself off as she did, Aeryn’s mind raced. Was she a deer? It was true; she did run from confrontation. She thought back to her times filching from houses and shops with Will, of running from soldiers, sellswords, guards, merchants, and just about everyone else she could recall. The memories of Jins and his gang, still fresh in her mind, were the worst. But was running her first and foremost instinct?

  Jynx shook vigorously to clear his fur of dirt and leaves, pine needles and dead twigs. Rubbing against her leg, he bounded into the trees, trailing after Raker, an apprentice studying from its master.

  Aeryn shook her head. Jynx was right. Her first and foremost instinct was to move forward, whatever risks that entailed. She had grown up on the streets of Maerilin and had faced more in her short years than most would if they lived to be a hundred. She was not prey, but neither was she predator. Not exactly. After all, someone that never backed down from any fight, no matter the odds, died just as surely as someone that always ran when they inevitably found themselves backed into a corner. Nobody, not even a God like Nameless, could win every time. Everybody had to run sometime; else, they could not hope to live and fight another day. Aeryn’s mantra was to do whatever was required of her to survive.

  That’s what she was. A survivor. And that was exactly what she would continue to do. Survive. Sometimes that would mean running and sometimes that would mean standing her ground. No matter what life threw at her, no matter who or what stood in her way, no matter how insurmountable the odds, she would move forward. And survive

  Raising her head and setting her jaw, Aeryn took a step forward.

  “That,” Gerald said, pointing to a fat gray ball of fur scampering up a tree, “is a squirrel.”

  “I know what a squirrel is,” Aeryn said with a sigh. This was not what she had had in mind a moment ago when she decided to follow the huntsman. Perhaps that meant she had to find a different path?

  Gerald continued talking as if he had not heard her. “They are the rats of the forest. You can eat them in a pinch; though stay away from the red ones. Those bastards are mean.”

  Jynx leapt forward as one sprinted across the ground, hot on its trail. With each turn, the critter, more agile than the draven by far, opened up a larger lead.

  Watching the progress, Gerald casually unlimbered his bow and nocked an arrow. A twang followed a whoosh of air. The squirrel flew backwards ten feet, embedded on the arrow, which quivered in the trunk of a soaring leatherleaf tree.

  Jynx caught up to the now-dead squirrel a few seconds later and ripped it and the arrow from the tree. The critter was in his stomach by the time Aeryn and Gerald arrived on the scene. Raker seemed to frown. Used to rat and pigeon, Jynx could not have been happier. The draven practically danced with excitement as they continued into the forest, scarring up more game as they went.

  “Give it a couple days and he’ll decide squirrel meat is too tough,” Gerald said offhandedly. “Instead, he’ll develop a taste for rabbit, pheasant, grouse, and deer. Since I just ran out of venison, that’s what we’ll be doing today: getting some more.” He bent down and gestured to a single file line of prints in the dirt. “Unless you get lucky, you won’t find nice tracks like these. Instead, you’ll need to look for signs of their passage: chewed saplings, ruffled dirt and leaves, scat, broken tinder and the like.

  “Your draven is actually the best tool at your disposal,” Gerald continued, pointing out each of the mentioned items in turn. “Not only can he run faster and jump further than you, has a score of built in weapons that are quite literally extensions of his body, but all his senses are leagues better than yours. He can smell the passage of a single deer a week gone, and after a rainstorm to boot. He can feel a groundhog burrowing through the earth through the pads of his feet. He can taste if a bear has waded into the water a mile upstream. When you hear silence, he hears chipmunks chitterling away in their burrows, mice scampering beneath last fall’s leaves, and a hundred other things you and I could never guess at. Pay close attention to him and he’ll save your live as often as you’ll save his.”

  Perhaps this is the correct path forward, Aeryn mused, hanging onto Gerald’s every word as she followed him, his hound and Jynx through the dense forest.

  11

  Lessons

  Which brings me to my next point,” Merek said. “You can sound out unfamiliar words by working through each of the letters in turn. More often than not, you’ll find you actually knew the word to begin with.” Quill in hand, he began writing.

  It was amazing how effortlessly Merek could fill a page. That, and how neat his script was. It took Aeryn a good five minutes to write more than a few sentences and—she glanced at the candle an inch from burning out—she had been at it for nearly as many hours now. Worse, the letters always ended up looking like a chicken had walked across the table.

  “Try this one,” he said. Finished, he flipped the page end for end.

  Aeryn eyed it, then him. “Why do I need to do this?” She could see how learning to walk silently could come in handy, and possibly even tracking, but reading and writing? Knowing numbers would help a merchant with their ledgers, and letters would help a noble read Nameless’ proclamations handed out by the Voices, but how would it help her? She was not a merchant, a Lady, nor anything in between.

  Merek insisted that books held an impressive array of information on subjects ranging from farming and sailing to history and philosophy. For the former, why read an entire book when you could just
ask a farmer or sailor what you wanted to know? As for the latter, who cared what happened a thousand years ago when Nameless first appeared and what the people thought of it at the time? Aeryn had more pressing concerns. Concerns like staying alive and in one piece.

  “You need to be able to puzzle out a word you don’t recognize,” Merek said.

  “Yeah, but why?”

  “What happens if you get a letter telling you someone is going to try to kill you but you can’t sound out the time and place?”

  “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Aeryn said. As if anyone was going to send her a letter. As if anyone that wanted to kill her, Jins for one, even knew how to write.

  Merek raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What if you intercept a letter from a Voice to a Shade, detailing who you are and where you live?”

  “Well yeah, then it might be helpful, but—“

  “Or you discover a plot between two enemies who are colluding to put you out of the way for good?”

  “Fine,” Aeryn said. “You win.”

  Merek tapped the page in front of her. “Good. Now what does this say?”

  Locked in the room with Merek, Aeryn sighed and started at the beginning. “I a—am. . .g—goi—going. . .t—to—“ She slapped her hand against the table. “This is stupid!”

  “You’re doing great. Keep going. Just sound it out, you had a good start.”

  Aeryn glared at him. “I am going to k—kil. . .“

  Merek had said he would not let her retire to her rooms to sleep until the candle burned out. Though she had less than an hour to go, it felt like an eternity. She almost got up and tried to leave. Almost. She stopped as her eyes flickered over the knife stuck point first into the end of the table. So typical. Men always resorted to force to get their way. On second thought though, at least that was straightforward. Who knew what Lady Mareen wanted from her. Then again, even Nameless himself would not be able to tell her why Merek was teaching her to read and write. He sidestepped the question every time she brought it up.

  Painful as it was to admit it, she would much rather be in the forest cutting her skin on thorns, scraping her hands and knees as she tripped over unseen logs, and bumbled into poisonous snake dens, all while the rough huntsman looked on and calmly explained why she had just injured herself. There she was doing something, as evident by her aching body—walking through the woods was leagues harder than walking through Maerilin’s streets. Here she just had a pounding headache.

  “Signed,” Aeryn emphasized the final word and pushed the page back to Merek. “Now can I go?” The candle was on the verge of fluttering out.

  “You forgot the last part,” Merek said.

  “I did not.” She stabbed a finger at the bottom of the page. “That’s the last word.”

  “No.” Merek moved her finger down an inch, “my signature is.”

  “Even Nameless can’t read that.”

  Merek shrugged. “It’s a signature. You’re not really supposed to be able to read it.”

  “Then why did you want me too?”

  “I wanted you to at least try.”

  Aeryn rolled her eyes and rose from her chair. Merek tossed the page into the fireplace where it joined a few dozen already there waiting to be burned. She could hardly fathom it. He was going to burn them, and all because they had a few words scrawled across them. Back in Maerilin, Aeryn could probably have hawked them for a few copper each.

  Out of Merek’s study and in the hallway, Aeryn headed toward her rooms. That she had rooms was even more foreign than burning paper. From dressing and sleeping to washing, sitting and eating, nobles had a room dedicated to each and every task. It was madness, pure and simple.

  Aeryn barely had the energy to undress before sliding into bed. Morning came quickly.

  Physically and mentally tired, the next day crawled by, followed by the moon flitting across the sky at night. The day after was worse, as was the day after that. Before long, Aeryn was convinced each moment would be her last. Or hoped so at any rate.

  Jynx shared her opinion. Despite Raker’s age, the draven had a tough time keeping up and often crawled back into his kennel at night dead tired. The only consolation was that both she and Jynx managed to put on a few pounds by stuffing themselves to bursting at every opportunity. While Jynx started to fill out with bulky muscle, Aeryn hoped she would not begin to look too much like the bulbous Lady Mareen.

  By the end of the first week, Aeryn could barely crawl into bed and blink before morning came. Thankfully, the second week did not get any worse—not that she could imagine worse—and the third actually became a little easier, even if she lost a bit more sleep when Merek began taking her out at night to practice Drifting. The fourth and fifth were merely grueling. As for the sixth. . . The sixth had started well enough. Three days into the week was when things had taken a sharp turn.

  The morning had started innocently enough. A splash of water from the washbasin to wake up followed by a hardy meal of eggs, venison and freshly baked bread. How any Lords remained slender was beyond her. The only reason she was not as large as a horse was because of her daily romps through the forest behind Gerald, who narrated everything.

  No matter that the majority of it was completely useless. Not in a thousand years would she ever need to know how to make a dozen different kinds of animal traps. The snare traps had an outside chance of being useful to catch rats and pigeons, but a deadfall trap for raccoons or spring spear trap for boars? Compared to this, learning letters might come in handy.

  After a lunch of more roasted venison, shot by Gerald with a single arrow from his longbow, and yet another lecture about wolves and how they hunted in packs, the sun reached its apex and the grizzly huntsman had suddenly become chipper. In hindsight, that should have been a flapping red banner complete with streamers and a trumpeted fanfare. A minute later he stood before a gaping hole in the earth.

  “Ladies first,” Gerald said with a sweep of his arm.

  Aeryn crossed her arms. She must have corrected him a hundred times yet he still insisted on calling her a Lady. “I’m not going in there.”

  “What’s the matter? Is the Lady scared of the dark?” Gerald laughed as if he had just made the greatest joke in the world.

  “I am not scared of the dark.” Wind howled out of the black hole. Its steep downward slope, littered with jagged rocks, made it seem like the earth was alive and this was its maw. Scared? No. Wary and more than a little suspicious? Absolutely.

  “Good. In you go,” Gerald said.

  The words registered an instant after a callused hand forcefully met the center of her back. They fled just as quickly as she pitched forward.

  Wind milling her arms and unable to stop, she hit the slope and careened down, gaining speed with each foot. It took every ounce of concentration and agility to stay on her feet. Hopping from one rock to the next with ever-increasing speed, instinct took over as she danced about to avoid the jagged teeth that reached out to snag her. Only a good helping of luck prevented a foot from sliding out on the loose dirt, sand, and spongy moss that collected anytime two rocks met.

  Just as she thought she was home free, her foot impacted against a large slab. Aeryn’s left knee buckled, throwing her off balance. Right foot rising from the ground and losing traction, it was only a matter of heartbeats until she went down. In an attempt to salvage what bones she could, she tucked into a ball and rolled to the side.

  She bounced off a rock, narrowly avoiding hitting her head. She rolled over a large piece of deadwood and fell into a pile of sand.

  Sand! Aeryn threw her hands and legs out to stop her progress. She dug in hard and ground to a halt.

  Aeryn stood slowly, assessing her condition. Jynx, his ribs no longer visible beneath solid flanks of muscle, landed lightly at her side and licked a cut on her shin that seeped blood. Pain radiated from too many places to count, but she did not think anything was broken. Gerald might give her a few broken bones after she climbed
out and pulled a knife on him though.

  “You bloody goat loving bastard. You could have killed me,” Aeryn hollered. “When I get out of here, I’m going to cut you into pieces and feed you to your dogs.”

  A rumbling laugh filtered down from the crack of diffuse light above. “There just might be a wolf inside you yet.”

  He wanted a wolf? She would give him a wolf. She took a step toward the light. From her new vantage point, the slope did not look all that steep, ominous, or even dangerous. Piled with loose deadwood, dirt, and with sand filling the voids between a small handful of rocks, over which murky green water trickled down, pooling in a tiny basin before running off behind her, she could have simply laid on her back and slid the entire way down with nothing more than a few scrapes. Still, it was the principle of the thing. She took a second step and stopped.

  Against Gerald’s bulk and experience, she would not stand a chance fighting him toe to toe. But if she forced him to come down here. . .Well, she and Jynx could Drift. She was certain Raker could Drift, but she knew for a fact that Gerald could not. Merek had let that slip during one of their nightly practice sessions.

  Waiting would give her a major advantage. Sooner or later, Gerald would have to come down to make sure she was alright. Either that or leave her here alone. Though Gerald preferred the sadistic teaching method of “sink or swim,” Aeryn was confident Merek would be livid if Gerald returned to the estate without her. She still did not know what the Lord had in mind for her, but right here, right now it did not matter. It was time to give the huntsman a lesson or two of her own.

  Aeryn spun and started walking deeper into the cave. “Come on Jynx,” she whispered. “Let’s see if he is afraid of the dark.” Three paces in and she rounded the first turn.

  She slowed, marveling at the darkness. Here, darkness was not a word, idea, or a mere shadow cast by the absence of light, but an actual, tangible force. If she stood still—she did not even have to close her eyes, as she could not see her hand an inch before her face—she could feel the darkness. It pressed in and wrapped about her like a thick blanket, suffusing every pore of her being. With the breath of wind and the faint trickle of water running beside her, the darkness was alive.