Who knew? Perhaps one day a way might even be found to free them of their dra’aj oaths, so that they could once again go home, perhaps even serve the Guardian—
Sunset stayed bent over until the terrible stabbing pain in his head eased. His lips were pulled back from his teeth when he straightened, though the smile had no humor in it. If even thinking of following the…person in question brought on such a reaction, how likely was it he and his fellows could be helped?
“Headache?”
It was all Sunset could do to stifle the startled jump he had almost given. When he turned around to see the Hound standing behind him—what was her name again?—he judged from the smirk on her face that she knew anyway.
“Pack Leader wants to see you,” she said.
Sunset glanced at the angle of the light, hoping she couldn’t hear his heart rate increase. “It’s early.”
“Yeah, well. I just got sent with the message, like.”
Sunset shrugged. Now that he was over being startled, his stomach settled back down. He’d seen all he needed to see of what the Hounds were like before the Basilisk Prince fell. Not very quick, mentally speaking. Nothing to worry about for someone like him.
“Where?”
“At the den.”
“I can Move us there.” As Sunset expected, the Hound shook her head. The Hounds had made it clear they did not want Riders to Move them, though Sunset had yet to find out why. Still, the Hunt was swift, and he anticipated no trouble in keeping his appointment with Nighthawk. The Sunward Rider had been part of his father’s fara’ip, and as such had to be given his father’s last words.
Memories of his father—however had he become fara’ip with a Sunward in the first place?—occupied Sunset on the way back to Fox’s den. Just as well, he thought, as he followed his guide inside through the boarding and then up the massive staircase—torn open along one side—of the building. There would not have been any point in making conversation with the Hound. Even though they mostly kept to a Rider form now, and mimicked the ways of real Riders, they were still little better than animals.
So when he was knocked to his knees and held, facedown in the grime and dust of the human-made rock floor, Sunset was too surprised at first to even speak.
“Who’d you meet with?”
Sunset shut his eyes, concentrating, before he realized that the clamps that held his hands, elbows and ankles were not rope, but hands—misshapen but strong. If he Moved, his captors would Move with him. Another hand grasped him by the hair and pulled his face around until he could see Fox, squatting on his heels, and looking down at him. The Pack Leader was smiling, his forearms propped on his knees. Sunset said nothing.
“Really? That’s the way you’re going to play it? You think we can’t tell you were talking to Riders, and one of their scent-free stooges? You think we can’t smell them on you?”
“I would have told you, given the chance.”
“Have I already said ‘Really?’ ’Cause if I haven’t, right now I’d be saying ‘Really?’” Fox glanced at the female Hound who’d come in with Sunset, and she shook her head.
“Heading entirely the other way,” she said, with a toothy grin of her own.
“So, not on your way to tell me what you talked about.” Fox pressed his face closer to Sunset’s. “Not that I really need to be told, do I?”
Sunset fought not to shut his eyes. Fox’s breath was cold, and smelled of meat just beginning to go off. Say nothing, he told himself. Say nothing.
“Tried to make a deal with the High Prince’s Riders, didn’t you? What did they say?” Fox blinked at him. “Cat got your tongue? Would this loosen it any?”
When Fox moved out of his field of vision, Sunset could see what the Pack Leader had been blocking. There, sitting in a row, trussed with living bonds exactly like his own, were three of his men. Three of the seven who’d come through the Portal with him. And the others?
“Same deal.” Even as the words left his mouth, Sunset inwardly cursed. He should have kept silent. “To leave us the Shadowlands. Same thing you asked for. Show them we are allies.” He had to force the words out. Was it worth trying? He was certain Fox would kill them anyway.
“You asked for the same deal? To prove to them that we’re allies?”
Sunset nodded his head as best he could.
“Tell you what. Let’s make sure we really are allies.” Fox got to his feet and made a gesture Sunset could not make out from his position. Then the Hounds holding his men dragged them forward, and the Hounds holding him shifted their grips—not enough to help him, he very quickly discovered.
“Don’t knock him out!” Fox said. “I want him awake for this.”
Hands, cold hands, hands with long claws, and scratchy scales, loosened his clothing. Other paws pushed the hands of his men flat against Sunset’s bare skin. They felt warm, callused. He smelled jasmine, spring water, and diamonds.
He heard Fox’s voice. The Pack Leader was Singing, but Sunset could not make out the words he used. As the Song continued, the hands pressed to his skin grew colder—no, Sunset realized it was the patches of his skin that grew cold. Very cold. Fox Sang, and the coldness spread, and the hands that had been struggling to pull away no longer struggled, and the coldness spread, and the shhhhhhhh of noise in his head did not disguise the growls and the howls that arose around him and the last thing he heard before the coldness claimed him was the clear notes of three new howls.
Nighthawk waited at the bar in Hair of the Dog until the sun was well and truly down. Fara’ip with his father or not, it was clear that Sunset on Water was not coming. Hawk finished his glass of beer, tipped the young man behind the bar, and walked out into the street. The shell of Maple Leaf Gardens sat across the street. Sunset had said something about the Hunt having a den nearby, was that it? Had something occurred to make the other Rider think the pub was not, in fact, a safe place to meet? Where might he have gone instead? Hawk checked the angle of the sun, and Moved.
Fox pressed his face against the doorjamb and inhaled. Here in the hallway there were plenty of smells. The stuff they used to clean the carpets and walls, plus traces of the cleaners themselves. Behind everything, coming from inside the door, was Wolf’s scent, unmistakable, even though his brother wasn’t here, and hadn’t been for some time.
And out here in the hall, here Fox could smell Sunset on Water, and the old Rider, Graycloud, along with another Rider he didn’t know, and the weird absence of smell that was one of the scentless humans, just like River and Badger said.
Not that he hadn’t believed them—the proof was in the den. One Faded Rider, and three new Hounds. He’d told River and Badger to bring humans in for them. They were too new to be trusted in the streets by themselves.
He turned back again to the door, got a good grip on the handle, and twisted. That had broken every lock he’d found so far in the Shadowlands. The handle broke off with a satisfying snap, but the door didn’t open. Fox peered at the edge of the door. He fitted the (flicker) tips of his claws into the gap between door and jamb and heaved.
Nothing. (flicker) He breathed fire, scorching the wood, but still the door wouldn’t let him past.
“Lost your key?”
Fox whirled around, the fires still burning hot within him. Something had to be broken. Something had to pay.
“You are not Stormwolf.” The Sunward Rider’s eyes narrowed.
This was a Rider. A Rider surprised to see him—and with a gra’if blade in his hand. And the smell of dra’aj, thick, luscious, and heady. Rage ignited in his belly. (flicker) Fox let his smile stretch out, displaying teeth that could not fit in his original mouth, and leaped, but the gra’if blade swung, faster than fast, and he barely managed to dodge it in time. His tail lashed. (flicker) “Did you come for him, the traitor?” he asked. “You’re too late. He’s paid his price.” The Rider’s scent burned him further, churning the air in his lungs. Nighthawk, this was Nighthawk.
The bright
point of the killing blade hung in the air between them. “Traitor to whom? Who would ally with such as you?”
“I’m Foxblood, Leader of the Hunt, I’m your death, Sunward one.” Fox flickered, lunging for the Rider’s legs, but it was a feint only, and he regained his position by the door. “Are you one of the ones holding Wolf’s leash? Are you? Are you ordering him around? Using my brother like your hunting dog?”
“Your brother?”
“My brother. You might have him tricked and docile now, but I’ll get him back. You wait and see.” Fox could not stop his voice from rising until he was almost shouting. This time he flickered in mid lunge, diving under the blade and pinning the other against the wall.
The Sunward shrugged him off with a great heave of his shoulders, and the blade flashed. Fox stifled a shudder at the shimmering of gra’if. It could follow him, the only metal that could, through any change, so the wound wouldn’t flicker away. (flicker) He restored his Rider form and Moved behind the prey, putting it between him and the impassable door. As the Rider spun to face him once more, Fox debated whether he should simply Move away from here. But the scorched door still laughed at him, taunting him. And the smell of dra’aj still pulled at him. (flicker) Fox’s shoulders took on heft and his hands and feet became clawed. His neck elongated and darted in for a bite at the Rider’s unprotected flank. The prey moved, but not quite fast enough to strike back before Fox withdrew.
He couldn’t Move in this form, any more than he could talk. (flicker) Smaller, winged, he took to the air to dodge another thrust from the blade, this time landing a blow of his own with a (flicker) heavy tail the Rider did not expect. The other was quick, very quick. (flicker) Hooves struck face and shoulders, blood spattered. Whose was it? Fox thought he was okay, it wasn’t his blood. (flicker) Coils of scaly hide thrown around legs but not quite knocking the other down before a (flicker) change to rear back from the deadly glimmering blade.
Closer. Dodge. He could taste the other’s dra’aj. Closer. Duck. He flickered through three more changes, and still the gra’if was there, always, always in front of him. He threw back his head and howled.
Three of his Pack appeared, one behind Fox and the other two behind the Rider. As soon as they saw the trouble, they lost the Rider forms that had let them Move and closed in for the kill. One—who was it?—drew back immediately, the stump of a severed leg dripping blood on the carpeting. The other dove for the Rider’s legs, and Fox rushed in, shouldering him up against the door that would not open, casting the barbed whip of his tail around his arm and binding the blade still. And looked the prey in the eyes.
At that moment Fox would’ve liked to talk, oh, how he would’ve liked to, to tell this Rider how wonderful his dra’aj smelled, and how exquisite it tasted. But to speak he’d have to become a Rider again, and the prey might escape. Slowly, as slowly as he could, Fox squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed. Until the gra’if blade fell to the floor.
Humming, Fox sank his razor teeth into the Rider’s chest and inhaled, groaning as a wash of light passed through him, lifting him on a radiance of color, of warmth, of utter contentment and joy.
All too quickly the body in his upper limbs was a body, indeed. Fox hooked the wristband from the limp arm and let the body drop to the floor, watched it as it Faded completely, and the deadly blade with it, until not even the blood was left on the carpet.
The others of his Pack, Badger was one, were Riders again, helping the injured one, who still bled from its severed arm.
“Pack Leader?” Badger knew what had to be done, but she also knew enough to ask for permission. He nodded, and the other two fell on the injured one.
Fox turned his head to focus one of his eyes on the item caught in his claws. He knew just where this could be left. Let the other Riders know there’d be no separate bargains. That treaties would be made only with him. Only with the Hunt. Fox shifted, his (flicker) form growing larger and then smaller as he thought. He couldn’t take the form of a dog; he would lose the wristband. He must regain his own form. It was the only other way to avoid notice. The dra’aj of a human would fix him.
Fox wondered if the other doors in this building would prove to be as hard to open as this one.
Once again the rush of adrenaline settled my stomach and cleared my head. If only I could tell who, or what, had spoken, and from where, my happiness would have been complete.
“I am Stormwolf,” Wolf said, speaking slowly and distinctly. I was impressed that his voice didn’t shake. It was all I could do to draw in a steady breath. It was hard to tell where the inquiry had come from. “My mother was Rain at Sunset, and the Chimera guides me. My companion is a human from the Shadowlands, a Truthreader, and friend to the High Prince.”
“Did Truthsheart send you?”
Wolf hesitated, catching my eye before answering. “We are on a task she has set, which has brought us here.”
There was slow movement in front of us, as if the ground itself was heaving. What kind of beast is this going to be? I thought, trying to keep an open mind. Ugly doesn’t mean evil. A rasping sound, a flare of brightness, and I blinked at the sudden light.
It wasn’t a beast holding the torch, however, but a man. Sort of. He wasn’t in the sandstorm’s league, but when he finished standing up, he was fully tall enough to play basketball anywhere in the world, though it was unlikely any professional team would have taken him, seeing that he was almost as wide as he was tall. No matter where you looked—hands, shoulders, face, nose—the word “massive” kept coming to mind. His hair was long enough to touch his shoulders, iron gray, and bound around his forehead with a black ring that shone like metal in the light of the torch. His beard was short, as if he hadn’t been growing it for very long. Rather than trousers, he was wearing what in the human world would have been called a kilt, though it wasn’t pleated, and had no tartan pattern to speak of.
“And your task is to me, Younger Brother?”
Wolf dipped his head in what was very close to a bow. “Elder Brother, I look for Ice Tor, where the old Songs tell that the Horn of the Hunt was once made.”
His laugh was loud enough to make the Cloud Horses snort. “I am the dwarf Ice Tor,” he said. “A ‘who’ and not a ‘where,’ Young One, so your task is indeed to me.”
“You’re a dwarf?” I swallowed hard when they both turned to look at me. “It’s just that dwarf means small where I come from.”
He laughed again, but this time I was prepared for it. “I must go there sometime, and see if I can change their minds. But what is it you require of me, Younger Brother?”
“The Horn of the Hunt.”
“The Hunting Horn?” He sat down on a nearby rock and I saw how it was we hadn’t seen him in the first place. Without the torch in his hand, he could easily be mistaken for one of the many boulders that surrounded us. “There was one made, nine Cycles ago, or more. I cannot make another, if that one still exists.”
“We believe that it does not,” Wolf said. “The Basilisk Prince was wearing it around his neck when he was killed on Ma’at, the Stone of Virtue.”
“Not very virtuous, then, was he?” The huge Solitary laughed again, but more quietly this time. My head thanked him. “But come, I will have to check what you say. It is convenient that you brought a Truthreader with you.”
He turned and led us away into the dark. I never realized before that a torch is not a very efficient lighting tool. You can’t aim it, and you can’t focus it. This one was large enough to illuminate quite a piece of ground around us, but that’s all it illuminated, we were walking in a circle of light that moved with us, gaining ground to the front, while losing it in the rear. Finally, we seemed to be walking down a passage that may have seemed narrow to Ice Tor, but was nice and wide for Wolf and me, even with the horses. The rock walls grew higher and higher, but it wasn’t for quite some time that they roofed us overhead. Ice Tor doused the torch, though I didn’t see how, and walked on, using it now as if it were a
walking stick.
I could still see, as the walls around us seemed to be covered with a kind of velvet moss that gave off a warm green glow. The light was restful, and my headache faded a bit. I was wondering what I was going to do when we got to where we were going and Ice Tor expected me to get down off the Cloud Horse. My thighs and lower back would have been quite happy to feel the ground under them, but I remembered how awful I’d felt the last time I tried it.
At last we arrived at what looked like a workshop for giants, or maybe the god Hephaestus’ foundry, take your pick. There was a half-finished statue of what might have been a Water Nymph, and a huge wooden wheel with the rim off and a spoke missing—and that was just what I could recognize as we swept past. He took us through doors at the far end into a room that was smaller only by comparison, and furnished, oddly, like a reading room in a library. Though the shelves seemed to be stocked with toys, not books.
“Bring your horses this way, Younger Brother, they will be happier waiting here, I think.” We followed him through yet another archway to the right of the entrance we’d come in by and found ourselves standing outside in a meadow in the early morning under an April sky. The air smelled pleasantly of a recent rain, and the Cloud Horses signaled their delight with head shaking, and pawing at the ground with their hooves.
I eyed the same ground with trepidation. Wolf explained my situation to our host. “Being on the Cloud Horse calms her condition.”
“Come, Young One.” The dwarf stood next to my Cloud Horse and held out his arms. “I will carry you back inside.”
“I’ll read you,” I said. “When you touch me.” I wasn’t sure who I was warning.
“I care not for that. We Dwarves are not frightened by the idea of truth.”
I swallowed, nodded, and reached out for him. He guided my arm around his neck and lifted me from the horse’s back. For a moment I was a small child again, in my father’s arms. Images swept over me, but slowly, as if I were being lowered into a warm bath.
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