Marion Zimmer Bradley & Holly Lisle - [Glenraven 01]

by Glenraven (v1. 5) (html)

  Sophie drew her blade again and stared into the face of impending doom; the taste of bile and adrenaline burned at the back of her throat. She recognized several of the shapes as creatures Matthiall referred to as Kin-hera—warrags and fliers. She couldn't make out their numbers nor could she identify the varieties of the creatures who walked in the center of their group. In the moonlight the Kin-hera were silvered and huge and somehow fitting to the night and the field, to their hunting and their intended evil. They moved along the clear path she and Matthiall had left; the fliers quartered back and forth through the air in front of the main group—hell's own hunting dogs given wings. They were still too far for her to make out their words, but every step brought them closer.

  She wanted to call to Matthiall for help. She didn't want to stand and face those oncoming terrors alone. If Jayjay were to have her chance at life, though, Sophie knew she would have to hold them off.

  Matthiall had faith in his Blindstone, but Sophie could see it didn't hide the clear trail they'd left. And no matter how good the artifact was at casting confusion, she couldn't imagine that the creatures stalking the three of them across the plain would be fooled when the path ended in a bubble of fear. Could they see her? She didn't think so; that at least gave her some comfort. If they had been able to see her, she felt certain they would have run straight at her. The Blindstone and Matthiall's wards were effective to a degree.

  Did they do enough?

  With both hands clenched around the hilt of her sword, she waited and hoped.

  The first clear words carried to her ears. "The trail is still two people, one Kin and one Machnan. I tell you, I think they've set a trap for us. The other Machnan has circled round and even now closes in behind us." The voice that delivered this statement sounded childlike. It had to be one of the fliers, Sophie thought.

  "Then fly back and see, if you're so sure." That was a midrange voice—male, annoyed.

  "I don't want to go alone."

  "We aren't splitting up. If they're hunting us, we'll fight them better if we stay in our group than if we let them pick off stragglers one at a time."

  Something rumbled like the shift of tectonic plates in an earthquake. It took Sophie an instant to realize that sound, too, was the voice of a Kin creature, or rather, its laugh.

  "Matthiall runs with two Machnan women, or maybe one. No other Kin run with him. And the Machnan women are nothing. What do you fear?"

  "Aidris Akalan said they were wizards."

  "I was with Matthiall and Bewul the night we brought them in. They aren't wizards. They're nothing."

  They were close enough that she could finally make out details—that the deep-voiced creature, as gaudily dressed as all the Kin creatures she'd seen except the warrags, shambled bear like on four legs, but had skin as hairless as a human's; that several warrags loped at either side of it, grinning; that a dozen fliers looped and dove in a circle that scouted front, back and sides of the hunting party. She counted fifteen and wasn't sure she'd gotten all of the fliers. She couldn't hope to fend off so many, nor to survive a concerted attack.

  She glanced back at the tent. It was a dark, still shape, a lump behind her.

  I may fight and die, never knowing if I fought for nothing. They might both be dead.

  Then again, they might not.

  Sophie turned and faced the oncoming monsters. The wire wrap of the sword's hilt dug into her hands. She realized the muscles of her forearms already ached from holding the weapon so tightly. She tried to relax.

  The first of the flying Kin flitted within ten feet of the wards. It hissed and veered to the right, and the next two fliers followed it.

  "Their trail doesn't go that way," one of the warrags growled.

  "I touched an unhallowed spot," the lead flier called. "Go around and pick their trail up on the other side."

  "Un-hal-lowed spot! Hah!" the same warrag muttered, and kept his path aimed straight for Sophie.

  She swallowed; her mouth tasted like chalk, it was so dry. She aimed the point of the blade so it would skewer the warrag as he stepped through the ward. But then the warrag whimpered and backed up a step; he sat down on his haunches with a "woof and growled. The hunting party came to a complete halt.

  "What is it?" The bearish horror swaggered across the line the warrag had found and deep into the ward. But not through; it backed up so fast its scrabbling claws threw out little clods of dirt and grass. When it backed even with the warrag, it shook its head, and sat with a thud beside the smaller monster.

  The two of them were at most ten feet away from her—close enough that she could smell them. She looked straight at them, and they looked right through her. They didn't see her; she felt certain of this. But they weren't leaving, either. The fliers came whipping around the periphery of Matthiall's wards, back to their comrades' sides.

  "Unchancy," the bear thing said.

  "Foul," the first warrag agreed.

  "What do you think, Hmarrg? This feels to me like a warning set by her Watchers." The bearish Kin-hera leaned back and lifted a massive club-fingered hand to scratch its belly.

  Another warrag stuck his nose into the ward, pulled it back, and shuddered. His hackles rose. "I don't think so. She said she told them to leave us alone—that we were to be given free passage."

  The bearish Kin-hera puffed and chugged. Sophie realized it was laughing. "And if she made her bargain with them, does that mean they'll keep it for us? Not if they're hungry. If they're hungry, they'll suck us dry and throw our bloodless bodies in a heap, and she won't do a thing to stop them."

  "You're only guessing it's her Watchers. The unhallowed spot could be something Matthiall did." Hmarrg stood and stared at Sophie, his eyes focused on her for an instant. She had the horrible feeling that he could see through Matthiall's wards straight to her. But then his gaze shifted slightly and he drew his lips back from his fangs in a snarl.

  "Patience, Hmarrg. Next time we find Matthiall, we'll kill him," the ursine Kin-hera drawled. "We were going to do that anyway. I still think this stinks of Watchers."

  "Doesn't matter. We have to go through." The warrag Hmarrg turned and looked coldly at each of the other Kin-hera. "If we go around, we show whoever did this that we can be frightened."

  "If the Watchers set it, I am frightened," one of the little Kin-hera said. It fluttered around the warrags, landing at last on the back of one.

  The bearish Kin-hera stood.

  Hmarrg followed suit. The warrag growled, "Who takes the honor of first in line?"

  Shit, Sophie thought. Shit, shit, shit! Going around was a good idea.

  The moon came fully out from behind the clouds for a moment—a thin sliver that cast more light than it had any business doing. The bearish Kin-hera stood straight up on its hind legs and sniffed the air. "Can't smell Machnan, can't smell Kin or Kin-hera except for us, can't smell Watchers. Nothing on the air tonight but coming rain."

  Hmarrg cocked his head and grinned. "Which means you want to go first, or you will let me have the honor? Come now, Tethger. Which will it be?"

  "I smell no danger that would make it an honor." Tethger chuckled again. "If you think it will gain you some glory, Hmarrg, by all means go first."

  "Nicely spoken," the warrag said.

  Sophie saw Hmarrg turn to the wards and stiffen. Then, fur bristling, he took one slow step toward her. And another. And another. She aimed the sword at his open, panting mouth and steeled herself to run at him the instant she could tell he saw her. He began growling, and his head lowered, and his tail stuck out like a bristle brush. Another step.

  Turn back, she thought. Turn back, turn back.

  Another.

  One more would put him into the circle with her. She caught her breath, clenched both fists around the sword, and lunged. His eyes focused on her at that same instant, and he leapt. She'd aimed the sword well. It went into his mouth and part of the way down his gullet and out through his back, shoved as much by his forward mom
entum as by hers.

  But his teeth still snapped as his jaws slid up the blade at her hands, and his weight bore her down to the ground, and his almost-human hands wrapped around her throat with a ferocious strength that stopped the air to her lungs and brought the roar of her own blood to her ears. Pinned to the ground with him on top of her, she tucked her knees up to her chest and slammed her feet upward and back, toward the tender gut below the barrel of his ribs.

  Hmarrg coughed and retched, spattering blood and bile and worse over her face and hands and chest. She kicked again, and his grip loosened. She could see his eyes beginning to glaze, but the field of her own vision began to dim, too. He renewed his death grip on her throat; he wasn't yet dead. Not dead enough.

  She fought for air, shoved harder with the sword, felt the cold sharp points of his teeth against her hands. Felt pressure on one wrist as he tried to bite around the crosspiece. She refused to make a sound. She still feared those outside the circle could hear her even if they couldn't see her; then she jammed her feet into his gut again.

  Hmarrg collapsed onto her, crushing her into the ground. He gave an eerie, gurgling cry and went limp.

  He weighed entirely too much.

  Sophie lay underneath him for a moment, trying to catch her breath. His fingers, still around her throat, no longer choked her, but she still struggled to breathe. His dead weight crushed her, his hot blood coated her skin, his bowels and bladder released and soaked her in stinking excrement. She braced her legs far apart and twisted her body to one side. The dry grass poked through the back of her shirt and scraped her skin; chaff clung to her sweat-drenched neck. She paused, inhaled, held that breath, and tried again. By shoving her shoulders along the ground and twisting her hips, she managed to get out from under the warrag.

  She pulled the tail of her shirt loose from her jeans and used it to wipe the blood and mess off of her face. Instead, she managed to smear it around worse, and to bring the stink of his bowels right to her nose. The smell, held in place by the stillness of the night or perhaps by Matthiall's wards, proved too much for Sophie. She dropped to hands and knees and retched, trying not to make any noise and failing badly. When her stomach was empty, she wiped her face and hands on handfuls of dry grass, then turned to look at the other Kin-hera who waited outside the wards.

  One of the fliers flitted around to the other side of the enchanted circle, then back. "He still hasn't come out," she chirped.

  Another of the warrags sniffed the air and howled. "Death scent! Death scent! They've killed Hmarrg!"

  "Watchers," Tethger said. "Nothing else would kill him soundlessly."

  "We should revenge him," the same warrag said, pacing in a tight circle.

  The bearish Kin-hera turned its head and huffed. "You want to cross their line and do it?"

  No, Sophie thought. You don't. Really. You want to go home.

  The first fight had left her so exhausted she almost couldn't stand. If she had to try to kill the remaining warrags and the giant Tethger and all the nasty, bat-winged little fliers, she wouldn't live to see the dawn. One of them would kill her, and that would be it for her, for Jayjay, and even for Matthiall.

  The warrag glowered at the invisible barrier in front of him. "We should have brought one of the Kintari with us. He could have given us a spell to get through the Watchers' wall."

  Tethger dropped to all fours and snorted. "He could have, possibly. But the wards might be Kintari wards. Matthiall is a Kintari. He could have made them."

  The warrags growled among themselves, and one of them spoke. "If we consider that a possibility, we have to go in." He paused, and Tethger sat down with a snort, nodding slowly. "But I think you'll agree, those wards don't feel anything like Kintari magic. They feel like the work of the Watchers, and that is something only the highest of the Kintari can deal with. We will have to send an emissary to speak with the Watch-mistress."

  Tethger sighed. "Yes. An emissary. Someone…expendable."

  The warrags' hackles rose and their tails lashed back and forth like the tails of angry tigers.

  "None of you," Tethger said. "None of them." He nodded at the fliers. "I'll find someone."

  "Then we return?" a flier asked.

  Yes, Sophie thought. You return. You want to return. Really.

  Tethger sighed. "We can expect Aidris Akalan's disapproval, but yes. We return."

  Sophie smiled and sagged to the ground. Safe, she thought. God, we're safe—for a while, anyway. She glanced at the dead warrag.

  I won, she told herself. I lived.

  She rested her sword across her thighs and prayed the adventure she'd faced would be the only one the night held in store.

  Forty-six

  The tiny simulacrums on the table, little figures that looked very much like the absent heroes Jayjay Bennington and Sophie Cortiss, ran through their scenario one more time. Yemus watched them, clenching his fists together, almost afraid to breathe. "Win this time," he urged, but in their conflict with Aidris Akalan, both of them crumpled to the tabletop and lay still. Dead. Defeated.

  He'd watched the same scenario three times without changing anything, hoping that variables besides Machnan intervention would sway the outcome of their fight in Glenraven's favor. But each time, Aidris Akalan destroyed both heroes and everyone with them. With the heroes dead and the Machnan talisman in her possession, Aidris Akalan marched unchecked against the Machnan and destroyed them, too.

  The simulacrum method of predicting the outcomes of known events was not infallible, but it was very good. Yemus trusted it; he'd trusted it when formulating the plan that would bring the heroes in the first place, and although that had appeared to be a complete failure, every omen he could test pointed to the possibility that Jayjay and Sophie could be completely successful.

  If the Machnan fought beside them. Only if.

  Yemus faced ugly reality; the Machnan had risked everything once on his word—on his promise that he could deliver victory against Aidris Akalan without destroying Glenraven in the process. They'd trusted him with their magic; with their futures and their lives and their hope. They'd paid the price for their magicless existence in diseases, in plagues, in early death, in bone-breaking labor and the loss of every comfort they had known, and they had borne their suffering in silence, waiting only for the day when the heroes would come and lead them into victory against their hated oppressor. Their heroes had finally come, not days…not months…but years after they'd been expected, and when they arrived and word circulated among the waiting Machnan, people had prepared themselves for battle, for one final sacrifice that might not give them freedom, but that would guarantee it for their children. And after all of that, the heroes had slipped away, had gone straight to the Alfkindir and into Aidris Akalan's stronghold, Cotha Maest, and had temporarily vanished.

  When Yemus told his people that he'd failed them, and that in failing them he had left them defenseless against the Watchmistress and her hated Watchers, he destroyed all the hope they had and crushed them. They weren't going to want to trust him again.

  But he had to try.

  He went to the walled-over window and called out to the guard who stood nearby. "Hey! Drastu! Bring my brother here. Please. It's urgent." The guard, once a friend of his, ignored him completely.

  "Drastu! I have good news. But I need to speak with Torrin." Yemus put his arm out the slit and waved it. "Drastu…please. I was wrong about the heroes. They aren't helping Aidris. They are working for her downfall…but we will have to help them if they are to have a chance; I have to tell my brother. He said you were supposed to bring him to me if I asked."

  The guard didn't move. He didn't look up or respond in any way.

  Yemus went back to his table and stood staring at his simulacrums as they enacted their defeat again. If he'd kept his mouth shut, if he'd said Jayjay and Sophie were doing what they were supposed to do—that they were infiltrating the Alfkindir cotha, by the gods—everything would now be fine. The
Machnan would be waiting for the sign that meant attack, the heroes would be safe, and the future would be secure.

  I did this, Yemus thought. I alone have brought us to this desperate moment; we face failure and annihilation because I lost my nerve. I have to do something to fix everything.

  But what?

  Forty-seven

  The low roll of thunder woke Jayjay, and she shifted back into arms that wrapped around her and cradled her. Rain drummed on nylon above her head, and even the dull light of the rainy day was transmuted by the vibrant yellow of the tent roof into a delicious mimicry of sunlight. For a moment, confused, she thought she had been dreaming and had awakened beside Steven…but first, she and Steven had never gone camping, and second, even if they had he had never held her with such tenderness.

  She opened her eyes and looked down at the hand that pressed against her belly—a powerful hand, muscular yet elegant, with strong fingers terminating in needle claws. Matthiall.

  Yes. That made a sort of sense. It fit within the parameters of a dream she'd had, a marvelous, terrifying-yet-wonderful dream that still clung to the edges of her mind. Something had happened. Vague, glorious memories…

  Something had happened. What?

  She pulled away from Matthiall. She felt as if she ought to stay with him, to wake him and touch him and…love him? Yes. She felt she ought to love him…her heart insisted she already did. Her head, however, reminded her that she was a three-time loser where love was concerned and that, no matter how she felt, she would be best off getting out of the tent before she did something she regretted. If she hadn't already.

  God, he was beautiful lying there. His face, serene in sleep, called out to her.

  She longed to answer that inexplicable call, but she didn't let herself. She wouldn't. She couldn't. She couldn't love him, no matter how she felt. She couldn't love anyone, and certainly not someone who wasn't human.