Day of the Hunt (The Faun Quartet Book 2)

by Chris J Edwards

The buzzards above laughed too. And all the faces melted into the sand.

  38

  Dawn

  Orvan’s Landing was a small port. It lacked the grandeur of Safon, its stateliness. It was more a town than anything else, with a modest harbour situated at the mouth of the River Teev. The ship was landing further east – much further east. But the captain stopped at Orvan’s Landing to take on goods, so we took the opportunity to disembark.

  The sun was already going down by the time we rode into town. Vindaya’s banner hung from a stone customs house; five spires above a winding blue cord on a pale background. Herace was already grumbling comically about the Vindayan elvish.

  “Vindayans, I’m telling you; the proudest city to have ever stood. And I don’t mean it in a good way. I mean it in a maddening way. I’m surprised they don’t sell jars of air taken from the capital. Really, I mean it!” he raved on, trying to make us laugh.

  “Didn’t you ride with a few Vindayans? I thought you liked them,” Ortham said.

  Herace rolled his eyes.

  “Don’t even get me started. Sure, they were great – at least, some of them were. Ortham, did I ever tell you what happened to Rickitt Tyr?”

  “Mm, no. Not really.”

  “Well. Remember when we first met? Up in the Bitter Frosts, and one of my ‘companions’ shot me in the back? Well, that same Errant Nameless decided to show up right when Dawn and I had Rickitt Tyr cornered. And guess what? He shot Rickitt Tyr, too. I can’t even remember the elf’s name… but so much for justice. We never even got to take Rickitt Tyr back to be tried for treason.”

  Herace continued his tirade until we rode by the customs house. Then he made the wise decision to quit talking.

  Now that there were only three of us we made the decision to all sleep at an inn. We needed to stay as close together as possible just in case. Money certainly wasn’t an issue.

  We found an inn and got two rooms; a private room for me, and a common room for Herace and Ortham. Herace insisted it be that way – he said it wasn’t in good taste to share one all together, not in a town like this. One never knows who could be watching. And that night I didn’t mind. It was actually to my benefit; I had business to do.

  We all said goodnight. I went to my room and lay down on the small bed, but kept the window open and the curtains drawn.

  I looked at my hands, holding them up to the soft ambient light. Last night had been so strange – using magick like that. It actually scared me. Not in a way that made me shy away – in a way that exhilarated me. All that power, that strength, pouring out of my hands; I could have caught fire to a whole fleet. Blasted it right out of the water. It was so strong that it had sent me off my hooves; it had blinded me, deafened me.

  I balled my hands into fists.

  The scariest part was that the only limit to the spell was that it had frightened me enough to stop.

  How much longer could I have cast those sheets of white lightning, arcing into the sky? How many more pulsating tendrils of energy could I have shot forth?

  I hoped I would never know. It was too much – far too much. And I couldn’t control it. Not yet, at least. If I practiced for months, maybe I could. But right now it was too dangerous to try.

  That, and Ortham was right – it did hurt. I had been far from reaching my limit, but it still made my soul ache. Even my hands had hurt after.

  I lay in bed for at least an hour, until I deemed it was safe. Then, still fully dressed, I went into my things and pulled out a small stone. I held it up to the window. It was just a small thing, smooth and oblong and swirling with purple layers. It was the stone that the bug-legged faerie had given to me in Glenn Mereillon.

  I placed the stone on the floor. I was pretty sure all I had to do was break it – she said that when I did, the Wizened Eye would come. They would guide me to the Blighted Tree.

  But I hesitated. I stared down at the little pebble. Majira really didn’t like this plan. But Lyrèlie did…

  I sat down on the edge of the bed. Break the stone, find the tree, then find the being who watches from the cleft in the rock. Find the being who watches from the cleft in the rock, learn… something. I wasn’t even too sure. I would have to ask Lyrèlie why it was so important. I guess I could learn anything from that being; that was the impression she gave me.

  But Majira wanted me to learn from Magus Bram… but I didn’t even know where he was. In fact, I don’t even think he knew where he was. And he said he would meet me on the way to wherever I was headed.

  So what did I have to lose?

  I stood over the stone, placed my hoof on it – and pushed down. The pebble broke.

  I lifted my hoof and looked down. The stone had shattered into a fine dust that was now, before my very eyes, dissipating into a thick, purple smoke. It spread over the floor and disappeared without a sound.

  I waited. Nothing happened.

  After a while I sat back down on my bed. Did it not work? I flopped down into my pillow. It smelled musty.

  Maybe I had done it wrong… the instructions had been so vague!

  I stayed awake for as long as I could, but I was still exhausted from staying up so late with Ortham the night before. I couldn’t help but close my eyes as I lay back on the bed…

  ***

  An image flashed into my sleep-drunk mind, rousing me abruptly. A dark, bloated oak tree, covered in fungal tumours, its trunk swollen beyond any sane proportions – a ring of oozing mushrooms and coiling blackberry vines surrounding it, and all beneath the shade of mossy, pillared rock to blot out the sun.

  I woke with a start.

  “So you’ve seen your destination…” purred a feminine voice.

  I rubbed my bleary eyes and looked around. Upon the windowsill was silhouetted the curious form of the insectoid faerie. She had her long, reed-pipe stave in her hand and smiled knowingly down upon me.

  “Was that… was that the Blighted Tree?” I asked, sitting up.

  The faerie leapt down from the windowsill and onto the empty bedside table, using her graceful, frilled wings to slow her descent.

  “What else could it possibly be?” she said with a mischievous grin. “Grand Master Bildurog looks forward to hearing from such an… esteemed guest as yourself, Princess Dawn…”

  I watched her as she paced the table in the moonlight. She was incredibly beautiful, almost enchantingly so; from her feline face to her alabaster skin to the intricate wings that opened and closed dolefully upon her back. But every time I glanced down at her chitinous legs, that wonderment was broken.

  “How far away are we?” I asked.

  “Oh, not far at all, now…” she said. “A day’s ride north. Into the thickets, where wild brambles twist in the shady vales… an ancient river once carved deep into slabbed rock, now rich with fecund soil; it was there that the oak grew, and there that Bildurog sank his fortress into its hidden caverns…”

  Her words were intoxicating. I felt my eyelids grow heavy, but I resisted the gentle tug of sleep.

  “…and far below, in honeycomb tunnels, he writes the veiled Book in the Dark, collecting the whispers and half-dreamt unrealities of unwitting folk; feeding his wondrous sorceries from the secrets his fae servants collect… the Wizened Eye sees all, my dear princess… for untold ages we have flittered through benighted places, slunk through forgotten landscapes touched only by the moons’ glow…”

  I felt my head nod forward. Her purring voice was soothing as a harp string, as soft as eiderdown. My eyes were so tired; I just needed to rest them for a moment…

  “… and through these obscured vistas I will guide you, daughter of the woods… a dream, which you partake, will haunt you when you rest to close your eyes… each solemn blink reveals another step toward the Blighted Tree, toward the eldritch wisdom held by the coveted Book in the Dark…”

  * * *

  I blinked.

  The brightening sky filtered throug
h the open window. I was lying on my bed, still fully dressed. My mind was muddled; I struggled to recall where I was.

  I looked up to the windowsill. It was empty now, but last night it had a visitor.

  The Wizened Eye…

  I got up and threw my cloak on. The familiar feeling of a half-remembered dream hung over me; I knew exactly where to go. I knew exactly what direction to take – and it was unsettling.

  I woke Ortham and Herace in the next room. They both leapt awake and immediately started getting ready.

  Herace scrambled around to find his other boot. He always seemed to lose a boot.

  “So, how do you know which way to go?” Ortham asked. “Yesterday you said you had no idea.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I replied, trying to limit how much I engaged with them.

  Every word I spoke in the waking world seemed to dullen the dream-sense that was showing me the way. I closed my eyes, trying to recall; another vision sharpened into focus before fading once again like a half-conjured memory.

  “Seriously, has anyone seen my other boot?” Herace asked, peering under the bed.

  Ortham smiled at me and pulled a boot out from under his bed covers. Herace was still groping under the bed, muttering about how he hadn’t even been drunk enough to lose his boot.

  “We don’t have time to goof around,” I said, trying not to laugh.

  Herace looked up and saw Ortham holding his boot. A quick wrestling match ensued, resulting in Herace finally pulling his other boot on.

  We hurried down the stairs and saddled our horses. We didn’t have time to eat; I was too eager to get to the Blighted Tree. Almost obsessed.

  As the sun was rising we rode out of Orvan’s Landing, the sea to our backs.

  “Which way are we headed?” Herace asked as we trotted forward. “We should try to stick to main roads…”

  “No,” I replied. “I was shown the way to go. There are no roads there. Just follow me.”

  As if by intuition I led us through farm fields along the River Teer. Eventually the river veered away, but we did not. We continued straight, riding through untamed woodland and tangled meadows. The going was slow as there was no trail, but I saw where we were headed; into a range of abrupt, dome-shaped hills. They were overgrown with twisting vines and stunted trees.

  I closed my eyes as we neared. Another hazy image of the Blighted Tree skittered across my mind’s eye.

  “This way,” I whispered. “This way…”

  39

  Daz

  Every day we were getting nearer to the mark, but no closer to completion.

  I was frustrated. I hated using the Soul Slab; it was so unclear, so difficult to use. Half the time I couldn’t even get the haziest of images from it. And all I could tell was that the sylfolk princess was moving east; I knew she was on a ship. But I didn’t know what her destination was – only that we were nearing, ever closer. And eventually our paths would meet.

  And I knew that she was now practically alone. Why, I did not know; I had to thank the Maker for that providence. She was travelling with two retainers, and that was all.

  The Slave and I had walked for days along the coast. And I did ultimately learn what a ‘fenbeast’ was; as we travelled west, we found two horses with their bellies torn out, innards covered in flies and blood coagulating in the dirt. A little further along there was a large group of elves hacking away at the dead body of an immense, fur-covered beast; it was three times the size of a horse, with four long limbs and a neckless head. It had small, black eyes and an upturned snout and was altogether unpleasant to look at. Its shoulders were bristling with the shafts of javelins and its flanks were covered in arrows.

  The Slave was fascinated by the beast; so was I. But the elves were giving us odd looks so we kept moving, leaving them to dismember the huge creature with axes and glaives. They piled the meat into mule-carts.

  The only other thing to occur, aside from a few blisters, was that we passed through another market and I bought a razor and washbowl. I felt better knowing I could actually partake in the sunrise ritual. It kept me grounded, giving me something familiar to do. Everything was just so strange here, beyond the Bulwarks, deep in Vindayan territory. And it was surprisingly wild; at least along the coast, and away from the river banks. This was certainly not a land where silver goblets could be hung by Imperial wells.

  Every now and then we passed by a crumbling settlement, weeds growing through the rubble, abandoned but for wild pigs rooting through the grass. It was all evidence of the ogritic and trollish incursions years ago, or so I guessed. It gave the countryside a lonely feeling.

  We stopped to eat on a hillside overlooking one such ruined village. Grass grew thick on disheveled wooden battlements; loosestrife and hogweed grew in between sharpened pickets, long forgotten.

  “Ogres and Trolls. The Maker’s curse upon all civilization,” The Slave murmured as he bit into a piece of dried bread.

  His words were uncharacteristic. They sounded like holy words, recited scripture. I just wished I knew the east-uyrk word for ‘scripture;’ I would have asked.

  The Slave got up and fed the mule some clover. It was a warm day, the air balmy. I breathed in deeply to smell the fragrance of summer greenery. It was so different from the arid plains, from the rugged highland slopes beneath the Bulwarks.

  We continued on through the afternoon. Cicadas cried from the broad-leafed trees. Past the ruined settlement we came to an elevated cliff side; stone bluffs loomed overhead. There was a junction in the road, and one path lead south toward a huge stone outcropping. The outcropping towered above us, and atop that was a stone-walled fort. Its position was formidable; a prominent glacis stuck out from the rocks. I marvelled at the impressive fortification, the many years it must have taken to construct. I wondered, too, if it had held out against the savage incursions from across the Southern Sea. Looking back at the ruined town below, I was not so sure.

  That night we camped near a derelict windmill. It was situated at the crest of a low rise amid a grove of ancient olive trees. I heard the creak of the windmill’s limbs during the windless night, watched as the great green moon rose up behind, silhouetting its tattered sails.

  I was glad the sound awoke me. In my fatigue I had completely forgotten to use the Soul Slab. I cursed my own stupidity; I needed to know where the princess was headed.

  With some effort I shifted the Soul Slab out of the shade of a gnarled olive tree. It was important I see the smooth, obsidian surface as clearly as possible. I drew my knife from my belt and prepared for the chore of the blood magick ritual.

  “Why do you do this, Daz?” resonated a deep voice from the darkness.

  I looked around. I saw the murky shape of The Slave sitting up from the ground. He was watching me passively.

  “I forgot today. Must do every day. To find the mark,” I explained as best I could.

  “I know what it does,” he replied slowly. “I am asking, why. Why use such foul magick?”

  I looked at him quizzically; I was taken aback. ‘Foul magick?’ Surely he misunderstood – perhaps he did not fully comprehend the desperation of our times, the sanctification of these methods. Without blood magick, the Empire of Un would fall to the Witches, to the enemies that surrounded her; the Void would never cleanse the world.

  “Not foul. Necessary,” I replied simply, limited somewhat by my poor east-uyrk. “To finish this job. Must finish this job.”

  He was silent for a while, but I could feel he was still watching. I had my knife in my hand, ready to cut into my fingertip. I had already overdone it with my thumb and tonight I planned to use a different finger.

  “But it is not necessary, Daz. Why must you finish this job?”

  I frowned and looked down at the knife, at the blood siphon.

  Why did I have to finish this job? Because. I had to. I was a chosen slave of the Empress; I was one of the finest soul-seekers in t
he Empire. I was the greatest sword-master of Ashrahaz. I had a duty to uphold. I was a huntress.

  “Because. I must. No other choice,” I said and touched the knife to my middle finger, ready to cut in. But something was holding me back – some small, unrefined kernel of doubt that kept me from swallowing.

  “You do not have to be a slave,” he said.

  I put the knife down.

  Did he have no concept of what I was? He might be able to simply tear a ring from his ear and be free – but I could not. My whole life was my myrmidon – my whole life was in the bowels of the Hallowed Mount of Ashrahaz. And I couldn’t just tear off the tattoo on the back of my head and call myself free.

  “Yes. I do,” I replied firmly. “I am a slave. I will always be a slave.”

  “Even here, so far away?” he asked.

  Even here… I was unsure. I was a long way from the Empire. And I was alone, so terribly, blissfully alone. There was no looming threat of Gol-Gorom’s tyranny, not out here; not beneath the placid gaze of this derelict windmill, amidst the curling roots of olive trees.

  I looked down to the Soul Slab.

  Yet Gol-Gorom’s reach was long. They could always find me; they could always rein in a stray sheep, should they so choose. The Disciples of the Void were omniscient and relentless.

  But would they really bother coming to look for me? For any of us? For all they knew, for all anyone knew, I was drowned in the sea with all the rest…

  I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the polished stone. My mother, beautiful and full of life, stared back. I pulled the woolen cap off my head. My hair was growing back, longer now than it had been since they took me away all those years ago…

  “No…” I whispered.

  Then I looked to the knife. I held it loosely in my hand. Who was I? I was a slave. I could never be anything but a slave. And it was better never to think otherwise.

  I took the knife and cut deep into my finger. The Slave looked away. But I caught a glimpse of his face as he lay back down to sleep; the moonlight shone upon his disappointed features. I grit my teeth and returned my gaze to the Soul Slab.