Day of the Hunt (The Faun Quartet Book 2)

by Chris J Edwards

  I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.

  “Once you’re ready, just walk. Head towards what you want to find. Your spirit will find it.”

  I took a few steps forward into the blackness. There was nothing there. I took a few more steps.

  Then, as a cloud of ink, something trembled, bubbled.

  I approached slowly.

  Out of the ink appeared a shape. A throne of twisting wood and silver and flecks of amber.

  “Good, good!” exclaimed Majira. “That took you no time at all, hm? Things which we know very well are easiest to find. But they need not only be places or things. Try looking for a folk.”

  I concentrated, willing the darkness to take form. I ran forward, more confident now.

  Before me materialized two figures, lying apart in the grass. It was Ortham and Herace, boots off and cloaks beneath their heads like pillows. It looked like they were laughing and Herace was waving his hands in animated storytelling – but I couldn’t hear a thing.

  “Why can’t I hear them?”

  “Do you care what they’re saying?”

  “Not really…”

  “Then you won’t hear them. Sound from the waking world does not travel in the dreamscape.”

  I watched them laughing and couldn’t keep a smile from forming on my lips. At least they were enjoying themselves as they waited.

  “Dawn, it’s time to go searching.”

  I turned away from the summery scene and towards Majira. I noticed now that the Holy Oak had dissipated, along with the throne.

  “Alright. How?”

  “Recall your nightmares. Bring them back. That will give us a clue. Those nightmares are visions, not random conjurations of fright. And if I may judge, those who were watching you must still be there, waiting on the edges for your sleeping spirit to return.”

  I didn’t really understand what she was saying. Most of what she said made very little sense. But I sort of knew what she meant, or at least, what she wanted me to do.

  I closed my eyes and thought back to my nightmares. My most recent one.

  A dark and dreary plain. Great, gaping holes in the earth from which slunk mephitic vapors.

  Majira gasped.

  There was a rising drone, a deep and guttural noise that vibrated in the dead air. It throbbed in great, long waves of sound. I opened my eyes.

  Before me was the dark and dreary plain. It stretched out in every direction – a slippery mist cloaked the ashen ground. Far, far beyond rose low, stunted mountains, rounded like the molars of an old horse.

  I stepped forward. Majira grabbed me by the arm.

  “Dawn, don’t move,” she commanded firmly.

  I heard her, but I couldn’t help myself. There was a tugging sensation, somewhere deep, deep inside me. I felt compelled to walk forward.

  I pulled away from her. She grabbed me again.

  “Dawn, stop!” she said, voice rising.

  The swelling drone filled my ears. I could feel it everywhere, even inside me, in my blood.

  The sickly vapors cleared, swirling away. Not more than two paces ahead gaped an abyssal void, a pit with no bottom and no reason. I gazed into the blackness.

  There was nothing.

  Perfect, maddening, complete nothing.

  I felt Majira’s hands grip me by the hips and wrench me away from the bottomless maw. I tumbled backward and we both fell into a jumbled heap.

  Still a mess on the ground, Majira took my face in her hands.

  “Dawn, do you know where we are? Do you even know what this place is?” she demanded, her voice as close to frantic as she could be.

  “It’s my dream,” I stammered. “You told me to think back on it, to find it.”

  I stood up. She followed.

  “I told you to search for it, not to go jump into… into there,” she said, pointing a finger at the huge, yawning hole.

  We took a few cautious steps back from the hole. I noticed that the thrum had faded to an ethereal groan.

  Majira looked off into the distance, narrowing her eyes.

  “Those mountains… I’ve seen them before…”

  Something stirred from the mist.

  Majira reacted quickly; with a broad, arcing motion she covered us in a gauzy film.

  “Stay very still,” she whispered.

  “What’s going on? What is it?”

  “The seekers. They’ve sensed you. They can’t see us so long as we’re hidden. But in order to identify them, we will have to drop our guard.”

  I tried to peer through the translucent veil, to see just exactly what was stirring out there in the mist. I hated this place – the slinking fog, the dreary plain, the foreboding chasms. A sense of dread hung over me. I wanted to leave, but first I had to see who was watching me.

  I was nervous to ask Majira to drop the veil. Who knew what awful terror lay beyond, skulking in the mist? Yet be it folk or beast, I had to know.

  “Drop the veil,” I whispered.

  “Are you ready?”

  I nodded.

  Majira let her arm fall. The gauzy covering flaked away like ash from a fireplace.

  A being stood on the opposite edge of the yawning abyss. His eyes were pale. His head was bare. It was an unman.

  He looked up, staring me dead in the eye. My heart jumped.

  Another figure rose from the swirling vapors, not but twenty paces away. Then another. And another.

  None approached at first – they stood almost stock still, staring at me. All unmen in dark robes.

  “Dawn, we need to leave. We need to leave now,” Majira said, voice almost quivering.

  “Who are they?” I whispered.

  We slowly began backing away. The grey-robed beings followed, eyes never leaving mine.

  Then, further afield, a plume of greasy smoke burst up from the ground. Everything seemed to slow, like we were underwater. I watched as another form materialized out on that dark and dreary plain. The unmen looked on in wide-eyed surprise.

  A tall, spindly figure stepped out of the black smoke, towering twice my height. Its flesh was taut. Scraps of cloth clung to its unnatural frame. An ornate, cylindrical headdress adorned its brow and in one hand it gripped a strange device, a quivering thing covered in vials and spines and pulsating flesh.

  The unmen turned their attention away from me. They ran.

  Majira pulled me away and I stumbled.

  Where I should have fallen to the ground, there was once again nothing.

  I fell, and I fell, and fell, and fell.

  We fell for a long time, tumbling and spinning.

  ***

  I opened my eyes and gasped. I was back in the glowing chamber beneath the Holy Oak. Lyrèlie had Majira in her lap, head against her chest. Her eyes fluttered open. We both glistened with sweat in the pulsating orange light.

  I jumped up, standing over them both.

  “What in all creation was that?” I demanded. “That…thing! And who were the others? Why are they looking for me?”

  Majira sat up unsteadily. She looked woozy. Her face was pallid.

  “The Witches… that thing we saw. It was a Witch…” she mumbled, rubbing her temples. “The unmen were Disciples of the Void. They are a militant arm of the Priesthood in the Empire of Un… they seek to harvest souls for their infernal devices. It seems you have both sides of the war looking for you, Dawn.”

  My heart sank. I didn’t understand this war. I didn’t understand any of it. All I knew is I wanted no part in it. My skin crawled as I thought back on the creature that crawled out of the smoke.

  “I… I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to go home. I want to go back to Naraya,” I suddenly blurted.

  “Dawn, my dear…” Majira said weakly, shaking her head. “Home cannot protect you now. It would only be a matter of time…”

  “No. No,” I said, plugging my ears and screwing my eyes shut.
>
  The image of that horrid spectre remained, spindly and dripping with death. No wonder the unmen wanted to destroy the whole world, with things like that inhabiting it. I felt sick to my stomach.

  “Princess, it’s okay to be afraid,” said Lyrèlie.

  She put her small hand on mine. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself.

  Now more than ever I wanted to hide away from the world. I wanted to go build a cabin of fallen trees somewhere far away and live out the rest of my life, undisturbed and unafraid. My throat tightened and I tried not to cry. Why was this happening to me? I only ever wanted to be left alone…

  I sat back down slowly.

  “There is a way, my darling,” said Majira.

  She sidled up next to me and wiped a tear from my cheek. Lyrèlie leaned against my other side.

  “This isn’t hopeless. Not by any means. The same power that they seek to take from you can be used to protect yourself. You’ll see, Dawn,” she whispered. “But you’ll need to be trained by a seer greater than I…”

  17

  Daz

  The wind moaned in the waste, out of sight, somewhere in the dark.

  In daylight the arid hinterland held no terror; nothing but scrub and loose soil, tumbled boulders here and there, gullies and washes, the odd folds and curves of the wind-torn earth. But at night it changed; I could imagine strange creatures prowling in the umber, just out of sight of our small fire. I couldn’t discern the howl of the wind from the yowls of hidden beasts. All was dark. And beyond our fire not even the moons showed their faces that night; the stars blinked coldly.

  Vash-turel sat across from me. She stared into the fire. The others slept. Her narrow eyes reflected the wavering firelight.

  I could tell she resented me. More so than usual; she hated that Gol-Gorom had spoken to me privately about our task. We all knew what we were sent to do – capture some royal wench from an insignificant backwater far in the west. But I’m sure she thought I knew more, and I didn’t mind that; it meant I had a little power over her, over the others. Holding some mysterious knowledge that in reality I did not have.

  The strangest part about our task was the immense distance we were expected to go. There were many who we captured in port cities, all along the coast; some along the frontiers of the north. Others we merely bought from slave markets.

  It made me think that this target was of particular value. And with increased value came increased difficulty – so it was no wonder Gol-Gorom decided to level veiled threats at me, to motivate me and my myrmidon.

  I had no doubt what he told me was true; no doubt that I was at risk of being sent into a harem by official order. It was just oddly convenient. I wasn’t a schemer, though, and so the mind of a schemer was alien to me.

  Either way. I had not failed yet, and I would not fail now, regardless of what was at stake.

  A gust of wind blew through our camp. The small fire sputtered.

  “I’m going to sleep,” said Vash-turel, standing up.

  Our shift must have been over. I got up too, but not without effort. We had been riding for almost a week. I expected we would reach Argru’un the next day, and with any luck, find a merchant ship heading west within another day or two. We had the gold for it, should it be a foreign ship, and if it was an Imperial craft, our tattoos would be more than sufficient to buy passage.

  I woke up the next sentry and went to sleep.

  My rest was far from restful. I was not unused to sleeping on hard ground, to sleeping outside, but my hips were sore and the wind blew in fits and starts. It was enough to give me random bouts of shivering despite the otherwise warm night. I was grateful to finally open my eyes to a soft, dim light. Someone was already at the horses.

  We ate silently by the ashes of the fire. Hard, dry bread. We hadn’t shaved our heads since the morning we left from Ashrahaz, so swift was our travel. Today would be more of the same.

  We mounted up and continued south and west toward Argru’un.

  The land sloped downward, downward to the coast. We could see the water hours before we reached it; it sparkled in the breaking dawn, shining slick like mercury, stretching off into the hazy distance. Rounding a stony bluff the port city of Argru’un came into view, with its oblong stone harbour like arms outstretched into the glistening sea.

  Not far outside of Argru’un we halted at a crossroads to rest the horses. The customary chalice hung above a shallow well, tied down by a silken rope. It was a beautiful vessel; expertly carved and inset with lustrous stones whose names I did not know. At every crossroads with a well, all across the Empire of Un, there was a precious cup from which to drink. None would dare steal here; the Empress saw all, and her Priesthood enforced her vision. It was a testament to their power.

  Dipping the chalice into the well I felt proud to play my part in the great plan, even if sometimes I resented the necessity. It was not easy. But at least I was good at my role.

  Avna’a came up to me as I readjusted my saddle.

  “Hey, Daz. Finally at the coast,” she said, helping me tighten a saddle strap.

  I could tell she wanted to pry. I didn’t mind Avna’a; she meant no harm. She was an ally.

  “Almost. A bit of rest, then a week sail along the coast,” I said, repeating the rough itinerary we all knew by heart.

  “Yeah. Looking forward to that…” she said, voice trailing off.

  I finished adjusting the saddle. Avna’a just stood there, hands behind her back. I looked down at her.

  “Yeah… I guess we’re going after a sylfolk queen, huh?” she finally said.

  There it was. The prying. Natural curiosity.

  “Yes, I suppose so. Some kind of royalty, at least. Big soul, bigger reservoir. Should be a good conduit for the Priests.”

  “I bet. I’ve never seen a sylfolk. Have you?”

  “No… no, I guess I haven’t. I don’t really know what they look like, either. I think they have horns?”

  “And some are actually horses. And goats, and deer. But some are basically elves with antlers. At least, that’s what I heard.”

  I had never heard any of that. I thought they all had horns. I was probably conflating them with stories I had heard of the lands across the Southern Sea. Apparently that’s where the horned elvish came from, and other folk with chromatic skin, but you could never be too certain with those sorts of tales.

  “We sure are going pretty far, too,” Avna’a continued. “Looks like we’ll be really deep in foreign territory. We’ll be way past the Ur colonies. Even further west than the river elves!”

  “Yup. We’ll have to be careful. We’ll be a long way from home.”

  “Yeah. Could take months! I think this’ll be the longest hunt we’ve ever had.”

  I walked to the well and dipped the chalice in. The other girls were sitting in the grass nearby, hiding in the shade of old trees. Avna’a followed me. I took a long drink of the cool water. It had a slightly sour taste. The water from these wells was always a bit unpleasant.

  “Why do you think they sent us?” she asked.

  “Because we’re the best,” I said without hesitation, placing the chalice back down firmly.

  “Yeah, we are…” Avna’a laughed, but not very genuinely.

  She really wasn’t letting up. I decided to just come clean with her.

  “Look, Avna’a,” I said, squaring up to her. “I know you think I know something more than you all. But the truth is, I don’t.”

  “I didn’t think that,” she lied.

  I gave her a bemused look. She shrugged comically. We both knew that she did.

  I double checked that the rest of the myrmidon was out of earshot.

  “I’m serious, Avna’a. I know exactly as much as you. Gol-Gorom didn’t tell me any extra details. I swear it,” I said, raising my hand in mock oath.

  “Okay, I believe you. You know I believe you,” she said.

  I w
as glad to put her curiosity to rest. We made a little more small talk before our break was over and we were back on the road.

  We rode down the gradual slope toward the coast and the dully shining sea. There the road was dusty and well-trod. We passed merchants on our way; most stepped aside, led their dromedaries and mules off the roadway to let us by. By the time we reached the stone gates of Argru’un we were covered in a fine layer of whitish dust.

  We pulled back our head coverings to reveal our shorn hair and dark tattoos to the awaiting guards. One of the girls even revealed her Void Stone, dark and lustrous and hanging from a leather thong. There was no doubting that we were on important business. The guards didn’t hesitate in allowing us through.

  Even once inside, we did not stop. We did not stop for rest, we did not stop for provisions; we rode straight to the docks and immediately set about the task of seeking westward passage. To our collective relief it didn’t take long. A young captain offered to take us even beyond the Great Cape aboard his trading galley, loaded down with luxury goods. Like a good Imperial citizen he would even take us aboard for free. The only downside was that we would have to leave our horses behind and help pay for extra provisions. Some of the girls took the horses up to the local temple and turned them over to the state in exchange for a bursary of gold, which was an ordeal in itself; for we had some very important equipment to carry, and without horses, the burden would be immense. It took three of us to carefully unload the Soul Slab, a wide tablet of polished black stone. It was a vital tool in our hunts, allowing us to find the souls of our quarry like lanterns in the night. Unfortunately for me, I had a gnawing suspicion that in lieu of horses, the onerous task of shouldering this awkward weight would fall to me.

  That was one of the worst drawbacks to being almost two hands taller than the next girl. But carrying the Soul Slab was a problem I could deal with in the morning.

  With all that business concluded, we had the night to ourselves. We were to leave the next day.

  It wasn’t very often that we stayed a night in a big town like Argru’un. Usually we would camp out along the roadway for an early start. Luckily the girls who had exchanged our horses for gold at the temple said that the local Disciples would allow us to stay there for the night. I think we were all glad. In the meantime, we broke up into groups to go get whatever provisions we might need. I went off by myself.