Aleksei slid onto Dash’s back and nodded, “Thank you, though I hope I’m allowed a friendly visit now and then.”
Roux chuckled, “Perhaps. Ride well, Aleksei Drago.”
The Hunter spared his cousin one last glance, then turned Dash to the west. In a matter of seconds he was out of sight and Roux allowed himself a deep sigh, “Keep him safe, Mother Wood. I pray his heart remains ever true.”
“Did you see it?”
Bael scowled at his grandmother, “Of course I saw it. What does it mean? Four streaks of blood? Is that important?”
She muttered something unintelligible under her breath and reached for another handful of herbs. She cast them into the embers, releasing a burst of heady smoke.
“He’s been marked,” she said finally, “as a Ri-Vhan Hunter. They don’t come along too often, but from what I heard as a girl, they can be formidable.”
Bael glanced at her, suddenly more interested in her knowledge than he had been in recent days, “What do you know of them?”
Jorna shrugged, “They have different senses, different abilities than normal men. Can hunt by feel, pulse, and scent. Can track in the dark and never miss a shot they commit to. They can meld with the shadows and cannot be harmed by mortal men. Rare, rare. Very rare.”
“Are you sure about all of that?” Bael asked.
Jorna shrugged her shoulders, “Some of it might be flights of fancy, dearie, but stories exist for a reason. There has not been a Ri-Vhan Hunter that I know of since long before I was born, but my people still feared them all the same. You don’t get stories told about you unless there’s something very real behind all of it. Something dangerous.”
Bael felt a giddy rush thrill through him, “And he’s coming to me?”
“Might be coming to you.” Jorna corrected sharply. “He’s in the Seil Wood, and the Wood’s magic prevents my talents from seeing much of anything. You have that fledgling bond, child. You should know better than I.”
“I might know more if I was the only one.” Bael grumbled.
Ever since he’d suspected that another Magus, possibly his own cousin, was trying to lure Aleksei away from him, Bael had become increasingly irascible. And increasingly desperate.
Aleksei was his salvation, his one chance to avoid the horrors that Darielle had revealed to him during her last visit. Darielle’s visions still haunted him. And the closer Aleksei came to him, the more vivid the visions became. Specters reminding him of his urgent need for Aleksei Drago to appear and save him from the path to prophetic infamy.
But a Ri-Vhan Hunter? This was quickly becoming even better than anything Bael could have imagined. This was no longer a simple farm boy, but a man who commanded unique abilities of his own. A man to be feared.
Bael had limited dealings with the Ri-Vhan, only daring into the Seil Wood on occasion when food around the Commune had proved too thin. Every now and then a hunting party would encounter the tree people, but their only real communication came in the form of warnings. Warnings to stay on the outskirts of the Wood and not venture too deep.
His father claimed the Ri-Vhan were demons in the skins of men and needed to be purged from the sacred Wood they blighted, that they were actually attempting to destroy the greater forest and thus must be punished.
A few of his acolytes had even tried to track down the elusive Ri-Vhan village, but not a single one returned. This only further convinced Rafael that the Ri-Vhan were a godless tribe of malevolent sprites. Still, with Aleksei being one of them, perhaps he could convince his father to sue for peace.
Bael sighed. He had a better chance of convincing squirrels to sing. His father was not a man bent towards any task his god didn’t command of him. Any stranger arriving from the Wood would be met with open hostility at best. If he were to convince Aleksei to side with him, Bael knew he would have to leave the Commune behind.
But if his choices were between that and fulfilling his sister’s dark predictions, he would gladly abandon his home. It wasn’t much of a home to begin with. True, they no longer called him Toad to his face. That was the greatest accomplishment he’d made in the last five years among his people.
Bael was more than ready to leave these small people behind, to become someone of value, of merit. He would never find that among his father’s people. For that, for true worth, for greatness, he would need Aleksei Drago’s strength and courage.
Bael’s magic was strong, but he often lacked the conviction to bring it forth. This fault had made him a target early on. As a child he’d been bullied for his unwillingness to fight the other children.
Children in the Commune learned to wield the Archanium as a weapon from the time they could walk. Weakness in the face of an open challenge usually singled out those who would not survive past their twelfth or thirteenth summer. Bael had survived because he was pitied and because no one dared kill the child of the Master, his Lord Father.
But that fact alone could not buy him friends or fondness. Instead, he’d endured only cruelty, the same cruelty his faith demanded.
I’m not weak now. He thought triumphantly. I’m stronger than they thought. I just needed a push. My sweet sister provided that well enough and now he’s coming here. And once he’s here, they’ll see why it was a mistake to cross me. He’ll show them that I can be a hero. And they’ll finally understand that underestimating me was the last mistake any of them will ever make.
The entrance to Granny Jorna’s tent swept open and one of his father’s acolytes poked her head in, “Master Bael? Your Lord Father has requested your presence in his tent immediately.”
Bael sighed, letting his flights of fantasy dissipate with the rest of the drugged smoke, “I’m coming.”
As he rose to leave, Granny Jorna suddenly grasped his arm. He looked down into her wrinkled face to demand an explanation when he caught her eyes. Black mist gushed from both her sockets, filling the tent with a darkness unlike anything he’d witnessed before.
“He is coming. The paths will converge. The fork approaches faster than the blink of an eye, but only fire remains. Only fire.”
Bael stared at her as she shook herself free of her trance. The smoke trickled off, slowing to the occasional droplets of midnight mist he had become accustomed to.
“Is that all?” he asked sharply.
She stared up at him, her wrinkled brow creased in confusion, “Is what all?”
Bael scowled and stormed from the tent, shutting the old woman back in her smoke-filled coffin. She was starting to severely nettle him. At times, he thought he understood Darielle’s hatred for her, why his sister might have wanted to wound the creature, if not kill her.
Much as he’d been as a boy, it seemed Jorna was now pitied rather than feared, only allowed to live because of who, rather than what, she was. By Rafael’s own logic, she was a living embodiment of blasphemy. The irony was almost too much to bear: a woman who now exemplified the very thing she’d long ago trained her son to deride and stamp out.
He followed his father’s acolyte, taking in the Commune. He was finally noticing how humble his surroundings were, now that he was determined to leave it all behind. He saw the same hovels and hide tents as before, but what had once been his entire world was suddenly rendered as rude, too poor to ever suit him.
He didn’t belong to this world. He was a prince, and it was his due, his right, to be treated as such. Sitting in smoky hide tents that stank of boar fat and boiled frogs was no place for a prince.
It was only a matter of time, though. Aleksei was on his way.
He entered his Lord Father’s tent, surprised to find the man alone. The stern expression on Rafael’s face was less of a shock, excepting that the older man’s anger didn’t seem to be directed at Bael.
“I have an errand for you.”
“Yes, Father.” Bael said solemnly, “What would you have me do, Father?”
Rafael studied Bael for a long moment. “I’ve d
ecided it’s time long overdue that we struck a blow to your mother’s traitorous family. One of your cousins is making her way south. Sammul just sent word that she’s leaving under utmost secrecy, which means she’ll be lightly guarded.”
“And you would like me to deal with her?” Bael guessed.
Rafael barked a harsh laugh, “You? Hardly, Toad.”
Bael tried to keep the hurt from showing on his face. He’d thought they were past all that, but it wasn’t realistic to think that his father would be become a different person in the matter of a few days. If anything, it served as a reminder that no matter how far Bael might have risen in the estimation of the Commune, to Rafael he would always be the same, lowly Toad. The only thing that had changed was that Bael was now slightly more useful.
“No,” his father droned, “you will carry a message to the man who will carry out the attack. He will be waiting for you on the western edge of the Seil Wood. Tell him to arrange his archers at this location.”
Rafael handed Bael a slip of paper sealed in blood-red wax, crested with a crow’s foot. “This will tell him where to place his men. You need merely give him the message.”
Bael took the message and tucked it into the pocket of his homespun trousers, placing his hand over it protectively to ensure he didn’t accidentally lose it. This was an important mission, even if little was required of him.
Still, he was being trusted to Fade to the western edge of the Seil Wood and meet with an assassin. That was hardly a simple task.
Never mind that his own father had just called him Toad.
It would soon be over.
Rafael sat back at his desk and began scrawling something onto a piece of tree bark. When Bael didn’t leave, the Master looked up angrily, “What are you still doing here? Go!”
“Is that all you want, Father? For me to deliver the message? Nothing else?” Bael asked, trying to keep the unwanted eagerness from his voice.
Rafael didn’t even look up, “What more would I want with you, Toad?”
Bael turned on his heel and left the tent without a sound. He had done his best not to get too far ahead of himself. Had done his best not to expect too much from a father who had treated him as an irritant at best. He hadn’t, however, expected this level of indifference after the progress they had made. Perhaps it had all been in his head.
Bael ducked off the path and stepped into the woods. When he reached the frog pond he crouched down and pulled the letter from his pocket. He snapped the wax seal with his thumbnail and tossed the cracked red wax into the water.
His eyes poured over the missive, memorizing its details. He liked some of the ideas, but others he found a bit too gentle for his own taste. With a thought the scrap of paper went up in smoke.
Bael blew the drifting ash over the pond, watching with distant fascination as it was enveloped by the slime and murk. He sat back on his heels and thought for a solid hour, trying to come up with a better solution to his father’s ‘problem’.
And then it came to him.
There was a princess, one who would be exposed to attack. There was an assassin, poised to remove her guards and take her prisoner. And there was a prince who was meddling in his affairs and trying to pull Aleksei away from him. A prince who would be next in line to become King of Ilyar if the princess was killed in an ambush. A prince who had already been discovered by Sammul to be a Magus.
The pieces clicked together faster and faster in Bael’s mind.
By the time he had reached his own small hovel, Bael was well ahead of his father’s plan. He scrawled his own orders on a piece of tree bark, dribbling a bit of tallow across the opening. He focused his faith on the melted fat and it reshaped itself into a red glob, imprinted with a crow’s foot.
Or near enough.
Aleksei rode at a brisk canter, guiding Dash along paths he’d never known existed. The Wood seemed a different place from the one he’d entered the day before. What had been a series of faded images in his mind’s eye had been replaced by a knowledge so intimate it seemed innate as breathing.
Even though he’d never seen this part of the Wood, Aleksei knew exactly where he was. It was the first time he’d actually been conscious of moving so fast. Seeing the trees outside of Keiv-Alon or the dusky prominence of Seil Wood far before time should have permitted was one thing, but the complete and perfect realization that for every step Dash took, he moved twelve was a decidedly different experience.
At this pace, Aleksei would be at the Wood’s edge in mere hours. From there it would take mere minutes for him to reach Kalinor.
Aleksei felt his pulse quicken at the thought. His destination was finally within reach. And the dream man would be waiting.
“For what?” he muttered to himself.
For you, my Hunter. The voice of the Wood was gentle and sweet, though Aleksei thought he detected a hint of possession in Her ancient tones.
“But why?”
To make you whole.
He sighed and let himself drift amidst his thoughts, wondering how the Harvest was going, how his father was doing without him. Was it true he didn’t need Aleksei’s help? Or was Henry merely being the stoic man Aleksei had always suspected was hiding under that warm exterior? He wished he knew.
He fares well.
Aleksei jumped, not expecting the Wood to have listened, much less care. How did She know? He silently hoped the Wood would explain Herself, but She apparently decided to leave that much a mystery. Aleksei shrugged. The Wood had little reason to lie to him. He wasn’t even sure if She was capable of lying.
Gods, Aleksei, he thought, now you’re conversing with trees and wondering at the nuances of their conversation?
He ran a confused hand through his hair. Maybe he was going mad. He had never actually ruled out the possibility. Could this just be one more clue in a long series of obvious indicators?
Dash turned at a bend in the path and Aleksei drew him to a halt, his eyebrows drawn down in confusion.
A gift, Hunter. To ease your doubts.
Not fifty paces from where Dash stood the Wood terminated, opening out into several leagues of farmland before the brilliant white walls of Kalinor rose majestically towards the sky.
“But how….” he began.
Hunter! Aleksei gasped instinctively as he heard the tone of fear in Her voice. Hunter, there are men near. Their words serve a darker purpose. Make haste!
Aleksei’s head jerked to the side, where he could suddenly feel the presence of two figures several hundred paces distant.
Where he could hear two thundering heartbeats.
He slipped off Dash’s back, patting the horse’s flank. “Stay.”
The draft horse bowed his head and Aleksei spared a brief moment to realize Dash had understood. Then he was jogging lightly through the Wood, his feet ghosting over dead leaves and fragile twigs. When he was twenty paces away, Aleksei realized that he clutched his sword in his right hand, the point dragging in the air just behind him. Ready to spring forward should he require its protection.
“–should be an easy job. We’re in position already. Target should arrive in a day, two at the most.”
“Perfect. And you’re sure she won’t escape?”
“You said there were only five, right? And if we take down the two unarmored ones first, the Knights drop too?”
“Immediately. They can’t sustain the death of their Bonded.”
“So three shots for four archers. Not very good odds for the target, eh?”
“The odds matter less than the result. I want a courier here in a week proclaiming her unfortunate ambush and murder by brigands. And I want it to be traced. You know where.”
“Aye, sir, I know where. Shouldn’t be too difficult to set up. Only one with a motive and all that.”
“Very well. Here’s half your pay. You’ll receive the other half when the job is completed.”
Aleksei heard the sound of mon
ey jangling in a purse, then risked a look around the tree he hid behind.
He couldn’t see either man’s face, though the one nearest him wore the uniform of a Legionnaire. The other man was too obscured by the shadows to clearly make out. The shadowed man tensed, “You said you came alone.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Aleksei silently cursed.
“Tell your man to show himself.”
The Legionnaire turned, his rough-shaven face a mask of confusion, “Dammit, I didn’t bring another man.”
“A spy?” the shadowed man breathed. “Perhaps from the Palace?”
Aleksei looked around wildly for a place to hide. He didn’t know what would happen if they found him, but he had no intention of finding out.
The Legionnaire did not concern him. He’d dealt with their kind before. But the shadowed man seemed…different. Smelled different. Aleksei couldn’t nail down exactly what it was. He only knew the man was inherently dangerous.
Run, Hunter. They shall not catch you.
Aleksei spared no time for thought. He turned and ran as fast as he could.
Behind him, he heard one of the men break out into a curse, immediately followed by the same inexplicable feeling of danger. On instinct, Aleksei threw himself to the left. A bolt of fire burned through the air where he’d been a moment before and splashed across an oak trunk.
He kept moving, running as fast as his legs could carry him until he reached Dash. Aleksei vaulted onto the horse’s back, digging his heels into Dash’s sides. The horse took off at a gallop towards the city, heedless of anything but the need to move faster.
As they raced away from the Wood, Aleksei turned to see the Legionnaire emerge, sword at the ready. There was no sign of the shadowed man.
Aleksei sighed. He was safe.
He allowed Dash to gallop for another league, slowing him to a canter when he felt they were sufficiently far away. No man on foot would be able to catch up to him now.
He rode the rest of the way to the city gates deep in thought, turning over the conversation he’d just heard. What had those men been discussing? He could feel the…wrongness of their intent. They meant somebody great harm, that much was clear. But who? That had never been mentioned.
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