The third round of the match didn’t last long. The tall man was more badly hurt than he had let on at the start; he conceded. As his opponent raised his sword in victory, he looked at Barenus, who nodded. He strode off, and the others began to file out of the yard or mill around before the next match.
“In Eyrie,” the wizard said, “we call our hunters siomothct. In the Dark Tongue, it means ‘Destroyer’s eye.’ A siomothct is Raven, and wields death by the powers of balance. Your feeble grasp of the art of assassination scarcely compares to the skill of such a one.”
Lorth watched the people in the yard without seeing them. Siomothct. Years ago, he had heard that Eyrie employed hunters. A myth, he had thought.
Barenus glanced at the hunter sidelong, as if to bask in his reaction. “The Mistress has given us orders to let you be and go where you will. But should you attempt to harm Setriana or Astarae, we will mark you. She won’t have a say in it.”
Lorth turned and stared at him.
“The decision came from the Aenlisarfon, in Eyrie,” Barenus added.
Lorth folded his hands together. “So let me get this straight. You lot will put a hunter on me to protect your women, while at the same time disregarding the will of the Mistress of Eusiron, the life pulse of this realm?”
Barenus smiled. “You were hoping to hide behind her, I see. Our decision is as much to protect her, since she has foolishly decided to favor you. We can’t have that compromise what’s at stake.”
Aggressors and protectors. The power of male force shone over the hunter through a black cloud of irony. “The only thing at stake here is the balance of Ostarin against forces you aren’t taking into account, for all your high and mighty honor.” And I love her, he added to himself as he wrestled the absurd notion that Leda needed protection from him.
Barenus rose to his feet. “Heed my warning.” The Darkstar on the back of his cloak shadowed him as he strode from the yard.
Lorth took up his sword sheath and cradled it in his arms. In a purely emotional reaction to a challenge by a rival, Barenus had attempted to strip Lorth’s instincts by twisting his natural sense of balance into something threatening. But the wizard had made a twofold tactical mistake, first by telling Lorth about the siomothct—and second, by assuming it would change anything.
Confidence escapes notice.
Lorth gathered his things, got up stiffly and headed back to his room. Barenus’s clumsy warning did change one thing. The hunter would be leaving Eusiron sooner than planned.
Chapter 13
Shade of Fate: I owe nothing.
The Snow Moon had come and gone, and the new moon gazed unseen from the pre-dawn horizon as Lorth led Freya from the stables to the High Pass gates. He wore a ghostly energy shield that blended him with the moon and the mare. He pulled his hood over his face and made a habitual inventory of his person: bow and quiver, sword, longknife, silver Leaf girl in his boot. Freya carried his snowshoes, supplies and enough winter gear to keep him alive in the wilds for a while.
As long as Setriana walked the earth, so would he.
The wide passage flowed like a river with men-at-arms, moving horses, packs of hounds, people moving about with supplies, weapons and the like. Reports had reached the hall two days before of a large Faerin company on the Wolf River Road, riding north. No longer privy to war councils and the talk of commanders—evidently, Eaglin had given them rugged orders to avoid him—Lorth couldn’t be sure why Faerin would send a company to Eusiron in late winter, even after what had happened during the solstice feast. But it didn’t concern him. No one had ever besieged Eusiron, or so much as considered it, not for a thousand years anyway. And if the Faerins did start trouble, Lorth didn’t want to be trapped in the palace. He could do more damage to them in the wilds.
He had told no one of his departure, not even Leda. Under her care, over the six weeks since his fight with Eaglin in the refectory, Lorth’s body had healed enough to do his work. He had spent most of his time in the yards, training, strengthening and gathering his resolve. A good hunter never stayed in one place long enough to form attachments. He certainly never allowed himself to fall in love. Lorth had done both, leaving him no choice but to slip out unseen, his heart limping with futile sentiment.
A large company of archers rode by in a clatter of hooves, wearing fog gray cloaks. He recognized some of them from the docks on the day he had arrived in Os. Oddly, though not surprisingly, he now left with little more acceptance by the Lords of Eusiron than that with which he had been hauled in.
As he passed beneath the towering portcullis, his senses fled like birds into the morning twilight. Restless wind blew cold, but not bitter. He stopped by a row of stunted birch trees on one side of the path and drew the reins over Freya’s head. “Ready for a trip?” he soothed, moving his hand over her withers. He yanked a leather strap snug. “Good girl.” He mounted, drew his cloak close and headed out, just another scout or deer hunter, to an outside observer.
Avoiding the bridge, he headed for the cover of the trees, where he could skirt around and shadow the road from the east. He moved Freya into a heavy gait over a trail that had been packed by riders all winter long, making for good time.
He didn’t look back. As if to torment him with his indifference, images of his companions rose up and clutched his body and heart like wolves tugging at a carcass: Freil’s sparkling hemlock eyes and mischievous laugh; the way Freya turned her head and eyed the boy as he entered the stall; Ivy, spinning a blade to check its weight; Regin and Cael throwing punches over a joke; Scrat, stretching against the bed, kneading her claws with a yowl.
His thoughts of Leda bit the hardest. In retrospect, he should have avoided her for the last fortnight. Instead, he had brought her into his arms again and again, touching, tasting, inhaling her, spilling his life force into her fragrant cleft with the passion of a sun god, his departure as certain as dusk. He knew no other way to tell her. Bad enough Eaglin and Barenus had discredited her for loving him, but for Lorth to tell her his plans would expose her to them and thereby risk his being marked by a siomothct, something he knew she would never agree to. Unfortunately, Eaglin wouldn’t tell her. So Lorth had to make a choice: abandon her to bleed in the silence of her son’s orders, or in the void Lorth had just ridden away from by not saying anything. Either way, she would be left to her cats, plants and her black pool.
Maern help them all if she decided to look into it.
Light grew as the sun neared the tops of the hills. It had been warm enough over the last few days to melt the snow from the trees, and the falling clumps had riddled the drifts with pockmarks. Now and again, the trail split off into other parts of the forest. When it ended, he moved into the deeper snow of a spruce thicket. Birds fluttered about, chirruping in the cold morning air. Now and then, a morning dove cooed, or a woodpecker tapped on a hollow tree.
A faint sense of foreboding prickled over his heart, and then vanished like a drop into the river of his emotions. He halted Freya, dismounted and sank into the snow. Then he breathed deeply, drained the waters into the earth and called upon the Rede to strengthen him.
I have no name.
He hadn’t bothered casting a watch-web near the palace, but he had come far enough out to justify it. As he spoke the words, the web spiraled out in strands of awareness as a silken net connected to his belly. Silence settled over the web.
I have no place.
His foreboding came into focus like a reflection on a pond, growing still. He couldn’t see its nature.
I owe nothing.
He mounted Freya and rode on. He began to climb, and turned east when the sun shone in long, clear rays through the woods. The spruce thicket opened to a hardwood stand. When he reached the Starfilon, he dismounted, found a place to cross and led Freya over the frozen rift. Once across, he turned south. He continued to search his thoughts for a darker impression. He couldn’t shake his unease.
He doubled over with a gasp as something sl
ammed into his watch-web and raked over his body with an iron chill. He moved up a wooded rise, sending ice and snow flying in his wake. He rode for at least a mile, then two, but saw no one, no fresh tracks, nothing.
When he reached the base of the Greenrock Ridge, he had to ride around several obstacles to find a way up. The thinner woods on top contained snowshoe tracks of a different kind than those worn in Eusiron. Lorth followed them. The ground opened to wind-cleared outcroppings. Still, he saw or heard no signs of men or horses aside from old tracks scattered everywhere. Ravens squawked in the distance. The hunter cast out his senses with a word to cut through the damp air and the impressions of terror and death. His solar plexus had gone numb by the time he finally spotted something ahead that didn’t belong in the natural landscape.
A wave of ravens lifted off and clattered into the surrounding trees, leaving behind a heap of bodies. Maelgwn, by their clothes, faces, the color of their skin and hair. Men, women, even children slaughtered by swords and arrows and thrown into a pile with their furs and snowshoes—no doubt, those who had made the prints he followed here.
The Void loves nothing.
Faerins, again. They had come from the southwest. The tracks of hounds were mingled with those of horses and men. Lorth dismounted and crept over the trampled snow. He began moving the bodies apart to look for survivors, though he knew he wouldn’t find one. Faerins rarely left things like that to chance.
His thoughts scattered as a tingle touched his spine. He hit the ground and rolled to avoid the arrow that whizzed by his neck and struck a Maelgwn body. Lorth pulled Leaf and threw her like a shot through the trunks of pines. His target cried out as it hit him.
I am swift.
A man cloaked in brown and red knelt in the snow with a pale expression of disbelief as he clutched Leaf below his navel, just beneath a fold in his mail. Lorth approached, leaned down and pulled out the knife with a casual twist, causing the Faerin warrior to double over with a cry.
Lorth said, “If you don’t want witnesses, why’d you leave the bodies?”
The Faerin spat. “You!” he said in a gravelly voice. “Back from the dead. Damned witch was right.”
Lorth raised his brow. Apparently, Setriana suspected he hadn’t been killed at the solstice feast. Using the bloody tip of his blade, he lifted the man’s chin and looked deeply into his eyes. “Where is she?”
The Faerin exhaled and licked a cruel smile from his lips.
“Loss for words?” Lorth soothed. He tightened the pressure on the knife tip.
“Fuck off,” the warrior growled. “I’ll die anyway.”
Lorth withdrew Leaf and traced his fingers along the silver curves of her hips and breasts. “I can make this fast or I can make it slow,” he looked up at a pair of ravens rustling in the bare branches of a nearby tree, “and far more unpleasant than the death you’ll have if I leave you here. Where is she?”
“How should I know? Probably warming Forloc’s bed by now.” He clutched his cloak over his wound.
“The Princess of Tarth is in league with Forloc?”
The Faerin blinked up at him, and then coughed. Blood splattered his lips. As the warrior caught his breath, Lorth realized he was laughing. “Aye. Aye, she is.” He doubled over and pressed his face into the snow. He was still laughing. “Stupid wizard—”
With the speed of a snake, Lorth silenced him. “I’m not a wizard.” He plunged his fist into the snow, sheathed the knife, stood and turned around, his heart pounding and his hunter’s sense tearing and wailing like a storm gale.
I am the Destroyer.
In the corner of his eye, something moved. His nerves stretched taut, he whirled and growled a command that caused a tree limb to lift from the ground in a rush of splattering snow and sail with great force at the dark-clad figure standing on the edge of a wind torn copse.
Eaglin turned and watched the limb crash through the trees and clatter over the outcropping behind him. Then he returned his gaze to Lorth and said, “That was elegant.”
Lorth swung his bow around, pulled an arrow and nocked it.
“You can’t hurt me,” Eaglin added.
Lorth drew the string with jaw-clenching precision, and released it. The arrow whistled through the apparition’s chest and stuck into the limb behind him. Lorth lowered his bow and rolled his shoulders. “Worth a try. How long have you been standing there?”
The Raven strode past the dead. “Long enough to watch you in action. The Roar Pass Road is being held by the Maelgwn. They aren’t letting anyone pass. Now I know why.”
“They’re blocking Eusirons?”
Eaglin moved to one of the bodies and broke off an arrow, then handed it to Lorth. “That look like a Faerin fledge to you?”
Lorth took the arrow. Mountain ash, snow goose, dark gray and blue thread. He threw a glance at the dead Faerin. “I was distracted. The Maelgwn think we did this?”
“I doubt they care. The stolen arrows were all Asmat needed to turn them against us. His men ride north, and he doesn’t want us using the Roar Pass to flank them.”
“What are they—”
“Lorth,” Eaglin interrupted quietly. “They have Freil.”
As the blood left his face, Lorth’s earlier foreboding came sharply into focus.
“I won’t ask what you’re doing out here,” the wizard continued. “But that fool boy followed you. The woods to the southeast were full of Faerin scouts by the time he stole out of the palace, and they caught him. Their hounds must have seen through his shields. They drugged him with etherweed.” At Lorth’s blank expression he added, “It’s a rare plant that disables wizards by severing the connection between formlessness and structure. I recognized it around his mind.” The Raven began to pace, his boots making no print or sound in the snow. “Shortly after that, everything around him went dark. I believe he called to the Old One for protection.”
“Are you sure he’s alive?”
“There’s a difference in the feeling. He is alive.”
“What do they want?”
Eaglin stopped pacing. “You. They’re demanding a trade. We have until sunrise, or they’ll kill him.”
Lorth ground the tip of his bow into the bloody snow. “I thought Setriana might assume I was still alive, but this is a big chance they’re taking. They must be certain of it.”
Eaglin nodded. “This was well planned. Setriana must have learned what wizards are capable of, what etherweed is, and that dogs can see past energy shields.”
“Don’t assume she didn’t learn all that from Barenus.”
The wizard tilted his head in doubt. “He denies that.”
“Of course he does. But we all know how the charms of a woman can blind a man.”
The two men locked gazes for a moment. Then Eaglin released a breath and said, “After solstice, I sent a message to Eyrie requesting an army, in the event we discovered Forloc was behind the murder of Roarin.” He looked pointedly at the Faerin slumped in the pinkish snow. “Setriana is working for him. She must have killed Roarin to clear the way for invasion.”
“I never doubted that,” Lorth said. “But to what end? Have the Tarthians’ fear and distrust of wizards finally broken their minds to the point where they would ally with Faerin to bring down the Masters of Ostarin—even Icaros, who caused them no harm but for his relation to me?”
“My men in Os have orders to take Prince Setarin and his sister to the High Keep and hold them for questioning. Eyrie’s warships are in the Bay of Maerth. I sent them orders to attack. Barenus and Morfaen will ride out with a large force to deal with the Faerins riding north.”
“You are leaving Eusiron exposed?”
“Certainly not. The palace is protected by the High Guard, a heavy presence of men-at arms, archers—and me.”
Lorth hesitated in the silence that followed the claim. “Are you not bound to the same laws that Roarin broke by protecting Os?”
“I am. But my mother has seen enough in he
r pool to give me a great deal of leeway.”
“What about Freil? Did you think I had him?”
Eaglin lowered his gaze. “I found out from Morfaen that Freil has been staying close to you, and when you both went missing, we hoped you were together. I thought the Faerins were lying. Now I have to assume they have him. They must have been planning to come to the palace gates and demand we hand you over, but then found Freil instead. They have taken Icaros’s house and are holding him there.”
Lorth grew still inside, still as winter. “How’d they find it?”
The wizard stared into some invisible distance. “I don’t know.”
“Why there?”
“Probably to draw you in, in case we didn’t have you. I had a scout in the woods near Icaros’s house. He was trained to send me messages through the inner space. Before they caught him, he told me they have three hundred men and a Faerin Net. If we come near the perimeter with anything but a small escort holding you, they’ll kill Freil. Unfortunately, my scout had something else to say but they killed him before he got the chance.”
“Three hundred—!”
Eaglin shrugged. “They want you alive.”
“Flattering. Surely, holding and threatening Freil falls under the jurisdiction of the Eye. Can’t you use magic to go out there and—”
Eaglin shook his head. “Two problems with that. First, Faerins will kill him if they detect any magic at play, anything at all. They were very specific about that. But more powerful is the Old One. She is cloaking it, and I can’t pass, or see into it, because Freil invoked her.
“However, I have a hidden door. I took a chance on finding you out here, and that you will help us.” He hesitated, his eyes dark. “I already told them we would make the trade.”
Lorth pointed at his own chest in question.
“You’re a Web,” Eaglin reminded him. “Now listen closely.”
~ * ~
The Hunter's Rede Page 18
