He set the glow-tube down and pulled a handful of dark pellets from his pocket. Frowning, he took each one between thumb and forefinger and twisted. Small, dry clicks accompanied the rotation; he counted them carefully. When each pellet was timed and armed, Gyll took two of the seedlike objects and dropped them carefully near the entrance to the ippicator’s cave. “Rest forever, Old One,” he whispered. Then he left, going back the way he’d come. As he neared the Hoorka caverns he placed more of the pellets, then—stealthily—set them around the Hoorka lair itself. He used the old apprentice backtrails to move toward the kitchens. There, in the greenish illumination of the glow-fungi, he saw Felling, the Hoorka’s cook, sitting in his room off the kitchen, reading.
“Felling,” he called softly.
The man looked up, his mouth agape in a rotund face.
His pudgy fingers dropped the reading wand. “Ulthane?” Felling stuttered with nervous laughter. He wiped his hands on his pants, his mouth undecided between smile and frown. “Gods, you startled me. I thought one of the little apprentice bastards . . . Well, you’re certainly a surprise. Thane Valdisa’s out on a contract tonight, if you wanted her . . .”
Gyll leaned against the wall. He smiled. “I know,” he said. “She’s hunting me. I’m the victim.”
Felling started to smile, changed his mind. His gaze skittered about the room, nervous. “But . . .” he began, then shook his head. “You pick a funny place to hide.”
Gyll laughed softly. “I’m not here to hide, old friend. I need you to do something for me.”
“Ulthane, if you’re being hunted—”
Gyll waved him silent. He moved away from the wall, taking a step toward Felling, who backed away. “Get everyone out of the caverns. You have about ten minutes. The kin are to leave everything and run. Anyone left here will be food for Hag Death.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“Oh, but I do.” He still smiled. “Underasgard will be filled with rock in ten minutes, buried and gone. Unless you want the kin to be part of it, get moving.” Then, more softly: “I’m sorry, Felling. I truly am. Tell Valdisa this for me—tell her that from here on it will be the hunt of knives. I leave my fate to the Dame.” He gestured harshly. “Now move, man!”
As Felling fled one way, Gyll went the other, out from the caverns, sowing his pellets and lastly putting one beside the dawnrock. Then he moved away from Underasgard at a run, angling deeper into the folded landscape of hills and forest.
Minutes later, he felt more than heard the explosions. The rumbling added speed to his feet, and he prayed that Felling had gotten all the kin outside.
• • •
Gyll knew that they followed.
He could feel it in his stomach, twisting with worry—he’d seen the flitter from a vantage point on a ridge near Underasgard, seen the noisy apparition wheel across the sky with its flickering riding lights, sliding behind the trees below him near the wreckage of Underasgard. The flitter’s presence meant that someone in the caverns had the presence of mind to contact Valdisa before his explosives had brought down the rock. Which meant, also, that they would know he was near, that the detector would point toward him like a deadly finger. Gyll rubbed his hands; ill luck, that. Had the Dame been mindful of him, Valdisa might never have known of Underasgard’s destruction until the dawnrock failed to chime at the sunstar’s arrival. With luck, they’d have been scouring the land around Sterka for him. With luck.
But perhaps the myriad gods of Neweden had wanted to see the excitement of a close chase, the furious, frightened scurrying of the hunted quarry. Perhaps the Dame still intended for him to live.
Gyll was moving through a stand of trees newly shed of their leaves, moving diagonally up a steep slope. His boots were muddy to mid-calf, and he pulled himself up, gripping at branches and the trunks of young trees. The night was fairly bright. Both Sleipnir and Gulltopp were up now, and the woods shimmered in their double glow. Gyll struggled to the top of the rise, panting. Worn out in truth this time, old man, and Valdisa and her companion will be fresh and anger-driven. Better find your reserves soon. He crouched, head down, his breath loud and visible in the chill air. Sweat made his spine cold beneath his clothing; the dampness had gotten into his boots, numbing his feet.
Crack!
The sound was sharp in the stillness. It made Gyll draw in and hold his breath, brought his head up sharply, narrowed his eyes. Luck, his luck this time; across the valley he’d just left, two figures in nightcloaks moved. They’d been on the far side of their ridge when he’d made his climb. If he moved quietly now, the noise of his passage would be masked as he moved down into the next valley. The Hoorka—too distant to see who they were—moved slowly, obviously casting about for signs of Gyll’s passage. He was within the near limits of the tracer; they knew he was close, knew basically which way he was moving. But the luck was still holding. They were moving at a slight angle to him, away from the obvious tracks he’d made getting down from that last ridge. It had rained recently, and the earth was soaked. Except under the carpet of dead leaves (and sometimes even there), his trail was painfully visible; if they found it, they would not need the tracer any longer. Gyll looked to the moons—it was around three, as near as he could tell. Dawn at Underasgard would be just after six—three hours. Even if they found his trail, he had a chance. His breath had returned. Gyll thought that he could keep the distance between them. To stay close, where their detector would be useless, gave too much to chance; a misstep, a sound, or a moment when he was not hidden, and they would be on him.
Crouching, he slipped over the top of the ridge and started down the far side.
There was a creek at the bottom, thin ice at the edges of noisy water. He stepped carefully across it, hoping that none of the rocks in its course would tilt and shout alarm to his hunters. The next hill was bare except for dry meadow grass; Gyll decided to move down the creekbed toward another stand of trees. The wind picked up a bit, blowing in his face—bad; it would carry sound behind him, but there was nothing he could do about the wind. He was almost to the trees. He glanced back over his shoulder. What he saw froze him for an instant. Against the night sky, a figure stood on the hilltop. It pointed at him. Another figure came up beside it. Together, they half-ran, half-slid down the slope.
A shiver ran the length of Gyll’s spine. For a second, he could not move. Then, with a curse for the vagaries of his luck, he turned and fled into the trees, seeking height and shelter. As he ran, he put himself in his pursuers’ place, trying to decide what they would do. One would be certain to follow his trail, but the other . . . that one might take the easier route through the tall grass, figuring that Gyll would make for the top of the ridge—a pincer trap, with the quarry between. Gyll pulled his vibro from its sheath but did not yet activate it. He retraced his steps a few meters, trying to stay in his tracks, then swung himself up onto an overhanging branch. Crouching against the bole of the tree, he waited. Don’t let it be Valdisa. Please don’t make it be Valdisa. And keep me hidden.
The Hoorka was a man, alone. Gyll thought he recognized the face, much younger in his memory, as a surly apprentice named Meka Joh. The Hoorka made his way through the stand of trees, his head—despite Hoorka training—down and intent on the trail Gyll had left. Boy, you should have learned your lessons better. Use all of your vision—keep the trail low in your sight and your head up. Gyll waited until Meka was underneath him. His muscles tensed for the leap.
He hit Meka just behind the head, flicking his vibro on at the same time. Gyll fell heavier than expected, twisting to face the Hoorka. Meka was slow, stunned, but his weapon—a Khaelian dagger—was out in a defensive position, instinctively. Gyll moved with a grunt of effort, his vibro moving past the dazed man’s guard easily, warding off a slash of the dagger. The foil slid easily into Meka’s midriff. With a low moan, the Hoorka doubled over. His head up, he stared at Gyll with wide, pain-stabbed eyes. His mouth worked but no words came out.
&
nbsp; He fell.
Blood steamed in the cold; from Meka, from the gore covering Gyll’s foil.
He felt very little: no guilt, no remorse, just a cold satisfaction that he was still alive, that he’d taken out his enemy. Would it be the same if Meka were Valdisa, if she were the one I’d given to the Hag? He shook the thought from his head—he must move. Gyll slipped the vibro back into its sheath, took the Khaelian dagger from Meka’s unresisting hand, slipped the homing device for the dagger from the body’s waist. Then, grimacing, he stripped Meka of the Hoorka nightcloak. He put the cloak on, feeling the once-familiar weight of the heavy cloth, the old clasps, the fullness of the hood behind his neck. It fit him well. He shrugged the nightcloak into place around his shoulders and made the sign of the star over Meka’s body. “Rest well, Meka Joh,” he whispered. “May the Dame snatch you back from the Hag soon.” He strode away in the direction he’d come, pulling the hood over his head.
Once outside the trees’ shelter, he looked for Valdisa. She stood at the top of the ridge, watching him. Against the sky, her hands moved.
? she signed.
Not there, Gyll answered with the hand-code, hoping that the nightcloak and darkness would allow his deception to work. Valdisa was perhaps forty meters away, but her face was hidden in the shadow of her hood. Go around, Gyll told her, waving her toward the far side of the stand of trees. Circle. Surround.
Valdisa hesitated. She seemed to regard him strangely. Then she moved, down from the summit and toward the trees. When the tangle of limbs finally hid her, Gyll put his back to the trees and ran upstream along the creekbed. Be with me, Dame, and this will put an end to the night. Another soul’s gone to the Hag by my hand, but it’s not Valdisa and it’s not me. Give me a little more time, and she can’t take me.
Running, he did not see Valdisa come back out from the trees, did not see her watch him and then—swiftly, lithely—begin the chase, keeping to the higher ground, moving parallel with him.
He could not run for long. His wind was low, his side ached with each breath, his legs were sore with fatigue. Gyll had put himself in good condition over the last few standards, but the night had taken its damage, as had age. He simply did not have the stamina of his youth. He forced himself to continue moving, if only at a trot, coming to an area of broken rock. He began to climb, seeking a hollow where he could rest in concealment for a while. He reached for an outcropping of rock with his left hand.
Steel grated against rock—his hand throbbed with stabbing agony. Gyll bit back a shout of pain and surprise. A Khaelian dagger impaled his hand. Like a live thing, it twisted and bucked, tearing flesh, grating against bone, blood spilling down his arm. It pulled loose even as he reached for it, a hissing coming from the tiny jets in the handle. The dagger turned in the air and was gone, spilling droplets of red. Gyll turned to watch it go, cradling his injured hand. Valdisa was there, above and behind him, and the dagger was back in her hand. Her arm went back to cast it once more. Gyll twisted sideways, sliding down the rocks, his hand in torment, sharp outcroppings tearing at his clothing and skin. Valdisa’s dagger clattered against rock where he had been, falling and then leaping up again to return to Valdisa. Gyll found his footing and ran, knowing that the range of the Khaelian weapons was very short, aware that the fuel for it was limited. Run. She won’t throw again until she’s very sure of her target. He couldn’t move the fingers of his left hand, and the blood poured forth—he put pressure on the wound as he ran, trying to stop the flow, gritting his teeth against the hurt.
He didn’t know why he hadn’t used the dagger he’d taken from Meka. Was it because the target would be Valdisa, or did you simply forget with the pain and fear? For the first time that night, he felt that Hag Death might be able to take him, and panic at that thought filled him with a new energy. He ran, knowing that Valdisa and the Hag were close behind, each pursuing him relentlessly. If he had harbored doubts that Valdisa could finish this task, they were gone now. She would. She would kill him.
The worst realization was that he was not sure if, to stop her, he could kill her first. Certainly he might be capable of it—self-preservation is a powerful motivator—but would he strike first with all his strength? To try to wound her, disable or disarm her, was to limit himself, to lower his odds. He knew he could not run long enough to avoid a confrontation. Already the new rush of adrenaline was gone. His breath was harsh and loud, his lungs cried for surcease. He had to turn, had to become the hunter instead of the hunted.
Damn Neweden, damn all of its gods: She of the Five, Dame Fate, Hag Death. Why did You bring me to this? The night could have gone easily, but You wouldn’t permit it. Why, damn You? Why?
Ahead, the valley widened into a meadow dotted with large boulders. The creek meandered through the middle, glinting in moonlight. There was no cover here, but the walls about the valley were steep and high. Valdisa would have to enter as he had, along the creekbed—she would be too easy a target if she attempted to descend the cliffs. Gyll crouched behind a scree of rock, trying to slow his breath. He heard her footstep and rose slightly, Khaelian dagger in his hand.
He threw it, knowing he could not miss. She was too close.
And he knew he had been abandoned by the gods. The dagger tumbled, awkward, like any plain dagger. Broken. It struck her fully in the chest, handle foremost. Valdisa let out a cry and leapt back. The dagger flopped on the ground, the jets moving it spasmodically.
Gyll knew that dawn was close. It might as well have been hours away. If he ran, she’d use her own dagger again, and this time she would not miss. If he stayed, she would come to him.
“Valdisa?” he said loudly.
He thought at first that she would not reply. Then her voice came from darkness. “You’ve destroyed the caves, Gyll. I hope it gave you pleasure—there’s no home for the guild now. I’ll have to go begging to Vingi, and we’ll lose what little autonomy we had.”
“You won’t go begging if you’ve sold the ippicator’s bones.”
He heard her grunt of surprise. “So that’s why you demolished Underasgard,” she said. “Because of a religion you claim you don’t believe.”
“I would have done it anyway.”
“Then you’re simply vindictive and you deserve to die, Gyll. As for the bones—they would have staved off the inevitable. You’ve destroyed us, Gyll. The Hoorka have no future here, and your code and the guild will die together. I’ll sell the rest of the bones if I can get to them, and we’ll guarantee deaths, for the Li-Gallant at least.”
You’ll get your answer. I hope you enjoy it. “I’ll smash the Hoorka myself, then. I told you that I could do it. Now I will.”
“Hoorka wants your life. I’ll have it, too.”
“It’s almost dawn, Valdisa.”
“What is dawn, if the code’s gone?”
He felt a thrill of fear tightening his back. “You can’t mean that,” he said.
“Does that scare you, Gyll? Good. But you needn’t worry. You’ll never see dawn.” Then she stepped out, kicking aside the dagger he’d taken from Meka. He could hear the whine of her vibrofoil, could see the glimmering of vibrowire in the moonlight, the luminous tip glowing. “You have a foil, Gyll. Use it, and see if She of the Five will forgive you.” Valdisa hefted the Khaelian dagger as well, holding it easily in her right hand. “Come out, or are you going to hide like a lassari?”
He’d finished tending the wound. Dame Fate had made her decree known. Gyll slipped his foil from its sheath, held it in his hand, unactivated. He ducked behind the rocks, moved a few meters to his left, then peered up again. Valdisa was looking to where he’d been, the dagger ready. Gyll stood in a rush, flicking on his vibro. Valdisa whirled and tossed the blade.
Gyll sidestepped, his vibro in front of him. He was lucky; he managed to touch the quickly thrown weapon; that, plus his motion, deflected it enough. The keen edge nicked his side, tore a hole in Meka’s nightcloak. Gyll rushed at Valdisa, who had transferred her foil
to her other hand—their weapons met with a clashing. Brilliant sparks arced to the ground. Gyll tried to muscle past her defense; Valdisa parried, riposting. Gyll countered the attack, still advancing. They did not speak. Their feet scraped on rock, their breaths loud and harsh, their gaze always on the other’s foil.
Valdisa had been good. She was better now. It took all of Gyll’s skill to keep her back, to stop her from reaching him. The Khaelian dagger slashed through the air near him, hissing like an angry dragon, clacking against Valdisa’s homing belt. She took the dagger in her left hand as fear hammered at Gyll’s chest—he could not watch two weapons at once.
Neither had noticed the rising sound through the clamor of their vibrofoils, but now thunder rushed by overhead: a flitter, low in the sky. Valdisa’s foil stopped in mid-attack, though she did not glance up at the craft as it passed them, nor did she let her guard drop to give Gyll an opening. Gyll had seen the insignia on the flitter’s side: the taloned world of the Oldins. He lunged at Valdisa, a straight thrust. She hesitated a fraction of a second too long; his foil nicked her shoulder as she knocked his blade aside. He could see her hand, just at the edge of his vision, tightening on the handle of the Khaelian dagger. He knew she was ready to use it, and he did not have enough hands or the two sets of eyes he needed to defend himself.
The flitter wheeled about savagely, dipping, then careened to a halt in the meadow near them.
Valdisa, underhanded, tossed the dagger. The jets spat vapor, speeding the weapon unerringly toward him. Gyll tried to slap it aside with his foil. As he did so, Valdisa thrust, lunging.
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