by Kate Elliott
“We don’t have time to watch them cross the bridge.” Rowan set off back toward the overgrown city as the sky darkened in the east. The first faint star of night bloomed in the heavens. “We have to believe they’ll get to the portal before it closes. Right now we’ve got to find a way to the amphitheater before the hunt rides. Look!” A flicker of light twisted and shivered in the air. “There’s the flame.”
Will gave a curt laugh.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
He unsheathed a machete. “This was strapped to Elowen’s pack. Very practical. What was it she said? The heart realm is a maze of shifting paths. Let’s try the path again. Riding from this direction I can remember about how far away the fork was. If the path won’t open for us, we’ll cut our way through.”
They plunged into the trees. With twilight falling it was impossible to see the path underfoot, and although well trained and sure-footed, the horses hesitated to move forward. Will dug a traveling lantern out of his pack and lit it. Its wavering light stretched elongated shapes over the path. The dismembered arms of lost statues transformed into the grasping hands of giants, but they were only shadows.
“There’s the fork!” Will cried.
They urged their horses forward, only to pull up in dismay. The skull of the dragon gleamed as if phosphorus had been rubbed all over the bone. But the gaping jaw was shut. There was no way through.
He hefted the machete. “I’ll hack a path around it–”
“Wait,” she said. “Do you hear that?”
A low rumble built in volume until the ground trembled. Their horses side-stepped nervously, ears flattened. The rattling and rustling of a fleeing animal sounded in the trees, growing louder, closer, and then passing to their right. Its pace didn’t slacken. With a flash of antlers, it was gone, racing toward the river.
The stag, running for its life.
In a grinding rasping groan as of rusty hinges, the skull’s jaw cracked and began to yawn open wide and wider still. Within the gaping muzzle no path could be seen, no paved plaza choked with roses, no amphitheater of stone, and no flame burning on high. Movement churned amid flashes of light like enchanted ribbons of fire torn to pieces and sucked into a maw of swallowing death.
A horn call swelled out of the darkness, so bright and clear its beauty brought tears to Rowan’s eyes although she couldn’t have said why. A hot wind gusted, followed by a wintery blast. Suddenly they were engulfed in a violent storm blowing past them.
But it was no storm.
The hunt poured forth from the dragon’s skull. Elvish riders and their steeds jostled past, horses with eight legs, two-headed goats, big cats with horns on their sleek heads, slithering serpents with a hundred eyes, silent chimera on rooster legs, and bleating rams as big as draft horses. Black hounds with hideous burning eyes belled and barked, and while although one or two cast their noses in the twins’ direction they did not slacken their pace.
Queen Ayara galloped past on a magnificent roan stallion beside her cousin Aelfra who rode a dappled deer. They were laughing, bold and joyous. Although Rowan and Will called out to Ayara, and although Rowan called Aelfra’s name as well, the elves took no notice of them. Rowan and Will might as well have been ghosts.
The storm swirled past. Snow spun down over them, coating the path in a glittering dust. The wind died. The noise faded. A solitary figure strolled out from the dragon skull’s jaws, balancing a globe woven of slender vines on his left palm. Light seethed inside it.
“However did you escape the vines?” Oko asked, looking amused rather than angry. “Well, no matter. I’m off to enjoy the pleasures of the hunt. And the war its bloody end will incite.”
He tossed the globe into the air as Will flung ice and Rowan infused a javelin with lightning and threw it at him. The weapon tore through the globe instead of through Oko. Tiny blue faeries spilled out, wings buzzing in indignation. They poked and prodded at the horses with miniature spears and thorn arrows. It took all of the twins’ effort to control their horses’ panic. By the time the swarm flew away in a shrill mob after the hunt, Oko had vanished. The twins were left alone on an empty path amid the abandoned ruins of Midwinter’s Night.
14
In the distance a wild voice howled.
“That’s Garruk!” Will tilted his head as he tried to catch the direction of the cry.
“Asking for Garruk’s help didn’t work out so well the last time.”
“He said he was going to hunt down and kill Oko.”
She stared at him, mouth parted, then said, “He did.”
“If the stag crosses the bridge—and why wouldn’t it?—then the hunt has to cross the river, which means Oko has to cross the river, which means Garruk will have to cross the river. Find Garruk, and he’ll lead us to the hunt.”
The traveling lantern hadn’t broken during the altercation. When they reached the meadow they no longer needed its light. A bloated moon, larger than any full moon Will had ever seen, cast so much light he could distinguish individual flowers in the meadow and trace the undulating wavelets of the river’s current. The hunter stood knee-deep in the water, hands pressed to his head as his flesh throbbed with the unleashed corruption. The rot had escaped his veins and seemed to be devouring him from the inside out.
Will said, “What if the shard was protecting him? What if he would have been better off if it had stayed in him? The curse is going to eat him alive.”
“We didn’t know, and there’s nothing we can do,” said Rowan impatiently. “I’m not sure how much longer he’s going to live. If he can’t follow the hunt, then we have to try. We have to save Father.”
She rode away toward the bridge, expecting Will to follow her. Of course she was right, yet a knot of anger and remorse dug up under his ribs like a spiky mace. Dark undines pushed against the current to remain close, waiting for a chance to drag Garruk under. The hunter sank to his knees in the shallows, roaring in agony as he struggled against the curse.
A stronger set of ripples lapped the shoreline. The undines dove, vanishing. A beast the size of a cart lunged out of the deeper water in a spray that splashed all over its armored back. It had at least six gaping mouths. The largest mouth clamped around Garruk, and it began dragging him into the current. The big man fought back, grappling with the beast as they rolled over and over in the shallows.
Will dismounted and ran over, sword drawn. From the bridge Rowan shouted after him, “Stop! It’s no use! He’ll kill you like he did Hale!”
What drove Will on he could not have said. They needed Garruk to track the hunt, but it was more than that. He felt a compulsion that might be as noble as honor or as petty as self-reproach. A witch’s hex might take hold of someone in this way, dragging them against their will into doing deeds they would later regret, if they survived. Fleetingly he wondered if Elowen was right, if he and Rowan did have a witch’s hex bound into their bones. But there was no time to think, only to act.
He reached the shore just as Garruk wrestled the huge beast onto its back and snapped its spine with a pop that resounded in the night. Swinging around, Garruk spotted Will and his sword. Black blood leaked from cuts on his skin like pus draining from an infected wound. His teeth gleamed as he snarled, raising bloody hands.
“Garruk, it’s me, Will Kenrith.”
Shadows pulsed in the hunter’s flesh. His mouth worked but no words came out. He flung himself at Will so fast Will couldn’t dodge. But Garruk wasn’t after him. He snatched up his axe from where it lay in the grass and with a shout threw it toward the bridge. The axe head buried itself in the dirt at the foot of the obsidian span. For an instant Will thought the hunter was attacking Rowan, who had a javelin in her hand as she tried to calm her frantic horse. Then he saw what Rowan had turned to confront.
A monster worse than anything they’d seen before raced down the jet-black span toward her. It was a dark blue, almost black, creature with four clawed arms and four taloned legs, a spine ridged w
ith writhing tentacles, and an eye-less head whose hideous round maw was lined with perfect white sharp teeth. A four-armed, tentacled howl-back, just as Elowen had warned.
The creature leaped. Rowan cast her lightning into the javelin, but the beast’s mouth gaped wide and swallowed the magic because that’s what made its breed so much more dangerous than their clawed arms, taloned legs and venomous, grasping tentacles would already suggest.
Will ran, although he knew he would be too late.
The monster’s tentacles lashed out, striking Rowan so hard she tumbled off her horse. The mare bolted. Rowan tried to roll out of the way of the monster as it lowered its maw and snuffled closer to her body.
Garruk barreled into it from the side. The impact should have knocked the howl-back over, but it was too big, or maybe the curse had beaten all Garruk’s efforts to fight it off. He staggered back, shaking himself, and grabbed his axe. He swung it, chopping off one of the monster’s arms. A pulse of red lightning—Rowan’s lightning!—shot back out of its maw to flash through the axe. Garruk stumbled back, sinking the haft of his weapon in the ground as the spell discharged into him but did not topple him. The beast scuttled backward up the bridge. Garruk sprang after it, and with a powerful slash cut off two more of its arms.
Its tentacles lashed out, smashing him sideways into the stone balustrade. His head hit, he lost hold of the axe and slumped over the rails, an easy target. But the beast was already scuttling away across the span, fluid pumping with hisses of steam from the stumps of its arms.
Garruk’s bodyweight tipped him over the rail. He hit the river with a resounding splash, the spray sprinkling Will as he dashed to the river’s bank.
Tails flashing, the still waiting undines vanished in pursuit of the unconscious man.
Rowan screamed, “Will!” but he didn’t stop. Lack-witted Will. Muttonhead Will. So be it. Saving others when they were helpless is what his father would have done, no matter the circumstances. He plunged into the thick of the current. Where the river bottom sloped steeply away from his feet, he inhaled and dove.
The midwinter moon poured enchanted light as through glass into the river’s translucent depths. The undines swam a tightening whirlpool around Garruk, the force of their swimming pulling his body deeper so even if he woke he’d drown before he could reach the surface. Will kicked with the strength he’d honed over summers swimming and diving in Glass Tarn and the rivers of Ardenvale. His sword cut through water, sliced through delicate mer-flesh, his slashes slow but deadly. Merfolk blood trailed in ribbons as they thrashed away from his unexpected attack, diving deeper into a bottomless chasm.
He still wore his riding gloves, so Will grasped hold of Garruk’s wrist without fear of the writhing corruption. The hunter’s weight pulled him down like stone. No bubbles of air popped from Garruk’s lips. Was he even breathing? Was he already dead?
Will’s lungs were almost empty. Instinct urged him up. Let go. Save yourself. Get air.
The sleek shapes of more undines swam into view, circling him at a prudent distance. They could wait for him to drown.
He refused to give up. He released his sword so he could pull with both hands. He kicked harder, casting his icy magic down the length of Garruk’s body, hoping the ice would help him float. They rose, so slow, too slow. Spots dotted his vision, smearing into undulating blotches. He refused to believe it was too late. Above, a glamour of purplish light beckoned to him, a perfect circle spilling hope into the water. At first he thought it was the moon seen through the flowing water, but the shape was too large to be the moon, or perhaps he was hallucinating. Where the beams poured into the water and touched his body, their brilliance lifted him as if with invisible hands or maybe just with a kindling of persistence that he mustn’t give up, he must keep striving. If he could reach the light, could breach the surface, they would survive.
His lungs were going to burst. His vision faded in and out. He had no air left.
His hand grasped a cold metal strut, and his boots hammered into a freezing hard object that curved outward like a huge iron bowl. A final thrust of his legs, all he had left. Garruk’s body rose past him and with the last burst of energy remaining to him he heaved the hunter’s blackened, shriveled body over the lip of a cauldron so large the man fell inside. Will’s head breached the surface and he sucked in glorious air, then coughed until he vomited water. He clung to the legs of the vessel, most of his body still in the river, too exhausted to pull himself up, just breathing. Breathing.
The river rushed past him. As air settled in his lungs he could see again. Impossibly, he was caught in the middle of the river as if beached on an unexpected shoal, except the shoal was a cauldron whose rim lay even with the surface. Even holding on to its metal legs below the water, it was difficult to discern the its shape beneath the constantly rippling movement of the water. The current roared past on either side so fast and loud he couldn’t imagine swimming through it. The heads of a few undines popped up twenty paces away, where the waters eddied. They swam no closer, although they stared greedily at him with hungry eyes.
A crystalline purple glamour pulsed in his face. Braced on one of the struts he could see over the rim and into the interior of a cauldron with rocky, gem-like sides. Garruk lay curled inside, eyes closed, face slack.
The corruption in his flesh twisted angrily through agonizing distortions as if it were trying to penetrate the cauldron’s gleaming bowl. With each pulse the magic of the cauldron absorbed a patch of rot, and another, and another. Will could almost hear the darkness screaming as its stubborn tendrils were weeded inexorably out of Garruk’s body. Whatever the curse was, it had met a more powerful magic, or at least it had at long last come into contact with a force willing to consume and engulf it into its own shining structure. Vein by vein the hunter’s flesh cleared of the curse until he was nothing more than a silent corpse with matted hair and dirt-smeared skin.
Dead but free.
Will wept, though he wasn’t sure why. The waste of a man’s life. The loss of Titus. His fear for his father. Had he done the wrong thing bringing the hunter here instead of abandoning him and riding forward on his quest?
A bass hum throbbed up out of the cauldron, its force so strong he felt it push at his body. He stiffened, wondering if he would have to plunge into the river and either drown or get torn apart by the ravenous undines.
Worthy.
The voice did not resonate in the air but squeezed in his heart.
All at once, light from inside the vessel burned so brightly it blinded him. The world went white, first hot and then cold. A searing pain stabbed into his side, passed through his body with a ghostly tremor, and vanished as if pulled out by unseen hands. He passed out.
When he came to, he was stranded on a sand bar, half in the water with his legs rumbled by the streaming current and half on its narrow strip of land with gravel digging into his chest. Where his fingers had dug into the gravel, the curved rim of a huge cauldron was just visible, hidden beneath an enchantment and surrounded by the heart river of the Wilds.
A voice lifted frantically from the distant shore, Rowan calling out to him. “Will? Will! Can you hear me?”
Beside him, Garruk lay face down on the islet, arms flung out to either side, hands trailing in the water. With a groan, he rolled over and sat up.
“Where am I? Who are you? No, I remember now. You’re Will Kenrith.” He spoke in a voice with the growl of a hunter but also changed: quieter, calmer, introspective, and yet tense with caution. His chest and back bore many healed scars, some old and some fresh, but of the corrupting rot—the shadow curse—there was no trace.
15
Even Rowan, as suspicious as she was, had to admit the hunter acted utterly changed as she helped him drag a coughing Will out of the river. Will’s sword looked like a toy held in Garruk’s big hand, but the pale blood of undines dripped from the blade the big man had wielded while in the water. He greeted Rowan’s fighting stance with a long
look before setting the sword on the dirt beside poor Will, who was still coughing water out of the lungs.
“Will Kenrith healed me,” he said. “I owe him a debt.”
Will rasped, “I didn’t heal you.”
The hunter shook his head. “Then what destroyed the curse?”
Rowan understood lightning: how it came into her hands like a breath of power inhaled, how it could be wielded at speed and with impulsivity. She judged the scene now with the same impetuousness. She had feared the cursed hunter. But she trusted this man.
“The Cauldron of Eternity healed you,” she said. “It rose out of the river, and then it vanished and you two swam to shore.”
Will choked down a cough and pushed up to his knees, turning to look over the river under the sickly light of the swollen moon. He hacked several more times, spitting out the last of the water. “It’s hidden beneath a sandbar.”
“There’s no sandbar out there. The current is too strong in the middle of a river for a sandbar to form.”
“It’s gone now,” he whispered, staring at the flowing water. There was indeed no sign of any sandbar, just the moon’s light rippling across a rushing current.
Rowan picked up his sword and offered it to him hilt-first.
“Does this make you a knight of Locthwain?” she said.
Their gazes met. They’d been together all their lives: twins, siblings, comrades in training, best friends. She saw in his gaze the weight of all their shared experiences and the harsh realities of the last day: Titus’s death, Hale’s corruption, Elowen’s transformation, Cerise’s injury. Their father being pursued by a deadly hunt that, in the old village stories told of it, never missed its kill.
