The Hunter's Rede

by F. T. McKinstry

  According to Morfaen’s scouts, Asmat had set up a base of operation in the village of Lir, located on the Wolf River by the Lircrag Bridge five miles north of the fork on the upper tip of the Os peninsula. Lir had become a Faerin stronghold, as it lay north of the city. Lorth cast Eaglin a glance from beneath his hood. “You are sure Asmat is in Lir?”

  “Last report, he was,” the wizard replied. His ocean-green gaze settled on the hunter like a startling realization. “Does your heart tell you otherwise?”

  Lorth looked over his shoulder in the direction of Eusiron, recalling the grave farewells of the High Guard, a tearful, desperate hug from Freil and a kiss from Leda that caused seasoned warriors to blush and lower their gazes. Once more, he perceived a rift between his heart and his duty, though his dark task had been sanctioned by the Mistress herself.

  “I am uneasy,” he said, turning back around.

  The wizard put his nose to the wind. “I’ll guard Eusiron with my life.”

  They rode until they reached a dark opening in the crags at the end of the road. Lorth breathed a word to Freya as they entered the cavernous maw. Hoofbeats echoed from the stone towering around them. The black silhouettes of archers touched the lighter sky above. As Lorth neared the end, an icy blast of wind tore through the gap, taking the breath from his lungs. Freya hesitated and skittered sideways on the slippery rocks. “Easy,” Lorth soothed, guiding her into the darkening evening.

  At the bottom of the path spanned a wide oak bridge glittering with torches. The frozen Wolf rumbled beneath. Lorth flared his nostrils as he perceived energy rising up from the river, a whirling, silver fog so structurally complex as to be unnerving. The great, shimmering cloak surrounded the bridge like a sleeping dragon.

  He turned to Eaglin. “That yours?”

  The wizard maneuvered his steed over the icy way. “I’m guarding this bridge, if that’s what you mean. No one crosses without my knowledge.”

  “What happens when they do?”

  “Depends on who it is.”

  The wizard’s soft laugh put a chill on Lorth’s neck. He gazed at the fabric of the spell, amazed at the level of skill it would take to cast a web that could discern identity or intention.

  A sturdy line of men-at-arms stood before the entrance to the bridge. As Eaglin approached, they bowed their heads and stepped aside. Lorth breathed the icy air as the sun’s light faded from the sky. A few bright stars twinkled in the constellation of Oroseth.

  “Lars will be here at dawn,” Eaglin informed him. “By this time tomorrow, the west bank of the Wolf will be full of his men. You should be well on your way by then.”

  Lorth settled into himself, his life force vibrating like the starlight between his eyes. The mountain woodlands closed around him, quiet, peaceful...waiting. “Faerins went through elaborate maneuvers to bring our attention to the east and south.”

  The Raven looked up at the sky. “I’m watching this bridge, the river and the Wolfgard tunnel to the lower gate. If they’re planning to come from the west, they’ll have plenty to contend with up here.” He swung his mount around and moved up close, his gaze searching Lorth’s. “If you get wind of anything, find me.”

  Lorth tightened his hand on the reins. “You know I’m not skilled enough in mindspeak to get into your space.”

  “Use the Void.” He reached out, and they clasped arms. “Ride to vengeance, Hunter.”

  “Seat mor streac Maern,” Lorth swore, in Aenspeak. Letting the tension in his spine flow into the earth, he looked once more in the direction of the palace with a veil of edgy silence on his mind. “Take care of your mother.”

  The wizard regarded him with the same expression he had worn while beating him up.

  With a smile, the hunter whirled Freya around and pressed her into a heavy gait across the bridge.

  ~ * ~

  Winter stars wheeled over the sky and vanished into the nimbus of dawn as Lorth rode by the village of Mrin, nestled in a high valley overlooking the Wolf River. Frost glinted on the roofs, and smoke curled from the chimneys of homes and forges. He skirted around the town, keeping to the woods until he found the Silverfall, a creek that flowed through Mrin and over the rocks to the river below. It had been trampled by riders through the winter, leaving thin spots where Freya could drink. As he fed and rested the mare, Lorth threw down a tanned leather hide and settled against a tree. Wrapped in his heavy cloak, breathing deeply, he focused on the forest.

  Someone was shadowing him.

  He had first noticed the sensation of presence about an hour from the bridge. Like an animal, it didn’t touch his watch-webs. As subtle as the breath of falling snow, his pursuer left no trace on his mind, not so much as a cat hair, reminding the hunter of his uncultivated skill, such as it was. Only his heart, in its elusive yet persistent way, told him he was not alone.

  Times like these, Lorth wished he had the powers of a Raven, even given the sacrifices he knew he would have to make to get them.

  A short time later, he mounted and continued. He rode south, focusing on both the daunting mountain terrain and the darkness moving around him, until evening crept into the forest. The shadow at his back had grown as daylight faded; at times, it appeared at his side, causing him to turn and stare, seeing nothing; other times it surrounded him, or loomed before his steps like a raised hand. Freya didn’t appear to notice anything strange.

  Barenus’s words whispered to him. In Eyrie, we call our hunters siomothct. In the Dark Tongue, it means ‘Destroyer’s eye.’

  Lorth rode until he reached a small clearing. Evening sunlight painted the top of the forest yellow-gold. Brush and saplings draped in snow crunched under Freya’s hooves as Lorth drew in the reins and turned around. He grew still and closed his eyes. Icaros had once told him, wearing an extraordinarily grim expression, that if he ever wanted to call upon a Raven, he could envision the Oculus, the Waeltower of Eyrie, and speak a summoning spell. Any high wizard in proximity would have to appear.

  Lorth had never seen the Oculus, but Icaros had described it to him in vivid detail. He envisioned it now, a towering amethyst spire with eight sides, shining from the mountain of Rothmar like a jewel. He held the vision as his shadow cloaked the woods like an echoing laugh. Then he said, in the wizards’ tongue: “By the power of the sixth spiral, I summon thee.”

  Freya snorted and backed up as Lorth opened his eyes. Before him stood a man in a crow-black cloak untouched by snow, his energy vibrating above the physical dimension. He had brown hair pulled cruelly from his face and piercing blue eyes.

  “Who sent you?” Lorth demanded.

  The apparition didn’t reply. Wind stirred the trees in a rustle of whispers. A red squirrel chattered a high-pitched warning. Like a fool rummaging through a chest of junk, Lorth searched his mind for everything he knew about confronting wizards. Unfortunately, he had since learned how little effect all that had on a Raven. He considered trying to enter Eaglin’s space for help, but it was too late for that—and it assumed Leda’s volatile son hadn’t initiated this. Doubtful, but not impossible.

  The wizard spoke in a voice as dark as an old woman’s womb. “You are violating an injunction by the Eye.”

  Lorth lifted his chin. “In this you are mistaken.”

  The siomothct raised his hand and turned it in the air. Lorth knew the look on his face; he had worn it himself enough times. A hunter didn’t discuss, bargain with or consider the position of his prey. As Lorth gazed at the spinning claw of the man’s fingers, a fiery knot erupted in his solar plexus. His irritation grew quiet and fell. Without thinking, he said:

  “Lea Maern silin moth.”

  The siomothct opened his hand, and a violet bolt came down from an invisible sky and blasted Lorth from his saddle. Freya bolted with a startled whinny as the hunter thumped to the frozen ground. He rolled quickly to his feet—but before he could shake the knifing, spiraling scream from his mind, the Raven spoke a word that was not a word.

  “Rof
warsol.”

  Before Lorth realized his situation, darkness fell and the ground surrounded him. His senses changed; he couldn’t move or see, and he couldn’t hear so much as feel the vibration of the wizard’s voice as he said: “As you’ve put your hand on the side of balance, I must spare your life—but not as a man.”

  The last thing Lorth perceived was the siomothct’s laughter, rending the earth from the depths of the world.

  ~ * ~

  No heartbeat gave him life, but something did. His blood crept inch by thick, flowing inch through flesh that knew only the vibrations of wind and cold, things moving beneath or rustling above. Lorth assumed night had fallen, given the absence of warmth. After a long period of something that vaguely resembled time, he had the slow-drip idea that he might be a tree.

  A tree. Damned wizard turned me into a tree.

  His thoughts came slowly, and had no influence. They came more slowly the longer he stood there, giving him a pressing idea that eventually he would stop thinking altogether. He had better find a way out of this.

  Who had sent a siomothct after him? Surely, Eaglin didn’t possess such flagrant audacity that he would stand behind the decision to send Lorth after Asmat, and then mark him the minute he left. Whatever their differences, Lorth had to acknowledge the man’s integrity, at least.

  Focus, he thought. Concentrate. I am a tree.

  What had Barenus said? The decision came from Eyrie. Had that bastard given the orders without Eaglin’s knowledge?

  Focus. Lorth scoured his clogged mind for everything he knew about dimensions in which things changed their nature. Did he actually exist as this tree in another time-line? Perhaps he had become another aspect of his creator, living as a tree.

  Focus. Time slowed, and it was running out. He couldn’t change this without a word that was not a word. The only such words he knew, he had used to get into the dimension where Freil lived as a formless monster. But those words wouldn’t work here, even if he could remember them. They belonged to the lines Eaglin had pulled in another pattern.

  Barenus had ridden out before Leda offered Lorth the job to hunt Asmat. So how did the Osprey know? He must have used magic to track Lorth’s doings, and then assumed he was targeting Setriana. He wouldn’t have marked Lorth for hunting Asmat. Would he?

  Focus! Have to get out of this. Distantly, Lorth imagined thrashing his arms and legs around, as if to break from a cage. But he no longer had a human body; his identity had been encased in green living wood and roots surrounded by earth with no bottom.

  The Eye had to be involved; an Osprey wouldn’t have the authority to mark someone with a siomothct on his own. Had the Masters of Eyrie decided to cut Eaglin out of their business along with Leda? Our decision is as much to protect her, since she has foolishly decided to favor you. We cannot have that compromise what’s at stake. Barenus must have convinced them that Eaglin was on the wrong side.

  So much for wizards! And Lorth had thought the Eye would cage him—as if it could cage any man when his heart took control!

  I am a sodding tree.

  Dark warrior surrounds you, the Maelgwn leader had said. Eusiron? Too desperate to abandon the idea to fancy or delusion, Lorth focused on the Void, the source of his identity, the common ground in all equations, structures and patterns, the space between the lines, the infinite in the finite. He became the Void in the center of being a tree.

  Eusiron.

  In a brilliant river of perception, he became a seedling...then a mossy log eaten by worms and sheltering a skunk...other trees in the forest...a fern patch...a hillside covered with heather and broom. Then, more swiftly, he shifted into a stag, a squirrel, a frog, a flock of crows...and then dirt and mold, a frozen pool, a season, the sky, the ocean. He expanded into stars, fed by the living darkness between.

  From the primordial vastness stepped a tall, powerful lord. His storm-gray eyes shone with the force of war, terrifying and implacable. His black hair blew on the wind. He wore battle-ready attire in infinite shades of gray and black, and a devastating array of weapons glittering with light. Stars twinkled on the vastness of his black breastplate.

  You are no good to me as a tree, the god said. Do see to your homeland.

  As he lifted his hand, Lorth fell into the Void like a leaf caught in a maelstrom.

  ~ * ~

  Lorth opened his eyes to rain. For a moment he lay there, unmoving, forgetting how to move. Night surrounded him with a damp wind that smelled of the sea, sodden ground and death. The seeping cold made him aware of his limbs. His arm lay on a patch of snow.

  Something heavy leaned against his body—the source of the death-smell. He tried to move, and then realized he half lay beneath a corpse. He shoved off the body and sat up. The man must have died against the tree. The shadowy lump of another corpse lay nearby, and another beyond it. They all wore white tunics and the dark livery of Eusiron.

  Lorth got up, swaying on his feet. “Freya!” It appeared she had left him.

  How long had he been a tree? Rain clouds obscured the sky; he had no clear idea what time of night it was, or if he had even returned on the same day. The river below moved faintly, wrestling ice. He hadn’t been able to hear it, before. Much of the snow had melted, and the drifts drew away into shallow basins around the trunks of the trees. A chill crept over his scalp. A week could have passed. A year. For that matter, he could be in the past.

  Wind swelled through the bare branches, driving rain in his face and bringing the sound of riders from the west. Torchlight leapt over the hill, threaded with the voices of men. Lorth crept out of the clearing and into the deeper shadows. His foot caught on another body sprawled on the tree line. A Faerin.

  He looked down and inspected his own body, finding his bow and quiver, sword and longknife. He knelt and reached for the dagger in his boot, and ran his fingers over the hilt, feeling the silver curves. Then he rummaged through his cloak for the things that had been there before, things he had kept close in case he got separated from his saddlebags: coin if he needed it, vials of Leda’s healing, hurting and hiding potions, a sprig of woodruff Freil had given him for protection and a half-eaten poppyseed cake he had stored there from earlier in the day. Amazingly, nothing had changed.

  But something had. The horse, leather and metal clamor of an armed company filled the woods around him, the bodies of warriors lay everywhere and winter had eased off the land more quickly than it should have, considering its grip at the time of his departure from Eusiron. The riders fanned out between the trees, hunting for something. Given the state of these bodies and the smoking pall of occupation stinking up the place, Lorth doubted it was survivors.

  He had to tell Eaglin what had happened. He whispered a word to cloak his body in the night, found a sheltered place and sat. He breathed deeply until the surroundings faded to silence, and then opened his mind. At once, his awareness rushed out into a quiet ocean, still and black beneath a starless expanse. Panic tingled through his veins. The darkness stirred, as if moved by wind, or light, but it didn’t reveal another consciousness; either that, or Lorth didn’t have the skill to recognize it.

  When the oblivion began to spook him, he withdrew. Damn it! He briefly considered summoning Eaglin—but he didn’t dare try that after what happened before. He had no way of knowing whom he would get. Icaros had never taught him how to be specific about it.

  Fair enough, he didn’t need wizards. Useless lot, mostly.

  First, he had to discover what had passed here and how long he had been out. Without the stars to guide him, he would have to wait for dawn for more signs—though he saw enough to suspect he had been gone through the remainder of midwinter, anyway, unless a freakish warm spell had descended on the land. Possible. He gazed towards the river as disquiet prickled in the spider scar on his neck. A Faerin company this far north, west of the river, could mean many things, and none of them good.

  A loud crack echoed on the damp air. Woodsmoke drifted through the trees and
gathered into hollows. Lorth closed his eyes and cast his mind into the forest around. His experience as a tree, or perhaps the touch of oblivion, had darkened his heart to a bleak landscape of predatory instinct. Soon, a glowing life force headed in his direction. A Faerin bearing a torch rode into sight on the far side of the clearing. Lorth followed him.

  A short time later, the hunter perched in a tree in good sight of a roaring fire. Around it stood six Faerins in the double-elm livery of men-at-arms. Their horses were tethered in the trees beyond, breath steaming from their nostrils, eyes shining in the firelight.

  “Gods-forsaken country,” one of the warriors grumbled, rubbing his hands together. He roughly took a bottle as another held it out.

  “They call this spring,” one of them snorted. “Damned wolves! Spring won’t be here for another two moons!” The first man grunted in agreement.

  Another cleared his throat. “You lakelanders have thin blood.”

  Lorth sniffed the wind. Spring. It must be near the vernal equinox. If so, that would mean he had been a tree for a month.

  “Why’d he send us at night?” one of them said. “Cursed outpost could be right there”—he threw a gesture at the trees—“we wouldn’t find it.”

  “Somebody must have angered him.” Laughter rumbled around the circle.

  “He said they’re still using it,” said a taller man with blond hair. “We’d best not return without a location.”

  The first man drained the bottle and tossed it into the fire. He belched loudly and said, “I don’t think it exists. Just a rumor the wolves spread to lure us out here.”

  “Lord Asmat isn’t usually wrong about these things,” the blond man countered.

  Asmat. These men were a long way from Lir, to be talking like this. Lorth surmised they were looking for the sentry outpost near the river. The entrance was well hidden in the tangled forest of a steep rise that overlooked the tumbling waters. They would be searching for a long time; if his memory served him, the outpost lay a good fifteen miles off.