by Mason Thomas
He looked up to the see the kug’ra step forward with the blade, ready to bring it down onto his arm.
“Wait,” Dax called out. “Wait. I will talk.”
Talk? About what? The Heneran was clearly convinced their presence was some kind of clandestine plot. Hunter knew he would never believe the actual truth.
The Heneran chuckled. “I know you will. That was never in question. But I tend to err on the side of caution. You may still require some encouragement to not waste any more of my time. Do it.”
Frantic, Hunter fought harder, putting all his strength into the struggle to free himself. But he was pinned. Helpless.
He closed his eyes. His heart hammered, and his head was dizzy with disbelief. Bile chewed at the back of his throat. All he could do was wait for the moment to come. Wait for the pain.
10
THE KUG’RA standing over him chuckled in a deep and unsettling voice. The creature was going to enjoy this. But the sound cut off with a sudden gurgle. Warm liquid spattered onto his face.
Hunter opened his eyes in time to see the kug’ra hit the ground next to him, an arrow protruding from its throat. Lifeless eyes stared back at him.
The other beasts cried out in alarm, and Hunter felt the weight on him lessen. The restraining hands pressing on his arm withdrew. Seizing the opportunity, Hunter flung himself from the ground, pulling in a full breath of air.
The kug’ra were spinning about looking for the source of the attack. A hiss cut the air as another shaft rocketed from the trees and struck one directly in the eye. The kug’ra made a pathetic sigh, and it collapsed as if all its bones had vanished. Hunter dodged for the mace and scooped it from the ground. He sensed more than saw one of the kug’ra closing in behind him. Without slowing, he spun about, giving the mace a wide swing. It made contact against the kug’ra’s sword arm, coming in with a downward slice. The arm was knocked aside, the sword thrown from its grip. Hunter clasped his other hand to the handle and with a savage cry he’d only spewed out in a scrum, swung it back around. The knobbed ball struck the creature just under the jaw and tore off the bottom half of its face.
The kug’ra staggered back, swaying but somehow keeping its feet. Fury like he’d never experienced pounded in Hunter’s blood, and one thought blazed like a furnace in his head. These fuckers were going to chop off his hands.
He swung the mace again with two sets of white knuckles on the handle. The kug’ra’s eyes widened just before the weapon struck its temple. Hunter felt the skull cave in, and the creature went down.
Panting, he spun about, looking for the next skull to bash in, but no others stood. Five large bloody corpses littered the forest floor. The Heneran, standing in the middle of it all, frowned down at the carnage. His eyes narrowed at Dax a moment before he touched the strange pendant on his chest and vanished.
Hunter’s mind was slow to accept the danger was over. It took a moment for the rage to begin its gradual bleed out of him. It left behind a cold void in his gut and furious quaking in his hands.
Dax stepped over one of the bodies to approach Hunter.
“It’s over,” he said.
Hunter nodded and tried to get his breathing under control again.
“Your stance still wasn’t right,” Dax added.
Hunter shook his head and grunted out a humorless chuckle. “Well, I haven’t had the time to practice it one hundred times yet, have I?” His chest throbbed like a steam engine. He tried to keep his voice steady but could hear his own heartbeat in his ears.
Dax’s mouth twitched into something very near a grin. But it disappeared in an instant, and his voice dropped low. “Let me do the talking. Stay quiet.”
A woman was the first to step from the trees. Her complexion was dark, and her black hair was cut an inch from her scalp. She was dressed in leather armor the color of espresso and gripped a bow in her left hand. A quiver stuffed with arrows hung on her back. She strolled in with a casual air, inspecting the scene.
“Zinnuvial,” Dax said. Hunter could hear a tinge of surprise in his voice. This was not who Dax expected.
The woman lifted her chin at him as she kicked one of the dead kug’ra over onto its back.
Three more emerged from the trees, all men. One was as large as Hunter—he may even have bested him by an inch or two—but he was lumpish and oily, and one side of his upper lip was lifted in what was likely a permanent snarl. The second was stout but strong. His head was shaved and half of the skull was inked in an elaborate scrolling tattoo. But Hunter’s attention was drawn to last one to enter the battleground.
The man had a lithe frame like a marathon runner and skin the color of faded khaki. His cheek bones and nose were flushed pink as if this were his first time in the sun in a month. He wore black leather pants and a sleeveless vest and a longsword strapped to his back, but the resulting look was more absurd than menacing, as if he was trying to fit in with a tougher crowd. Hunter could tell immediately this was the guy in charge. Superiority clung to him like bad cologne. He walked stiff-backed and moved like someone who enjoyed his power.
“Dax,” he said with a heavy exhale. He marched directly to him and pulled him into a tight embrace. One more intimate than Hunter would have expected. The man closed his eyes and rested his temple against the side of Dax’s head. “I feared the worst.”
Dax closed his arms around the man in return, but he seemed reluctant. Self-conscious. He patted the man twice on the back before he peeled himself away. Brief as it was, the embrace signaled their relationship extended beyond the professional. “I appreciate a dramatic arrival, Quinnar, but that was cutting it rather close.”
“We came as quickly as we could.”
The lumpish brute stumbled in Hunter’s direction. “And who’s this?” he grunted.
Hunter straightened his back in return and adjusted the mace in his grip. He’d almost lost a hand today. He was in no mood.
“Corrad, hold,” Dax told him.
Corrad’s face scrunched in irritation, but he came to a halt. His eyes held, steady and cold, on Hunter, and his fist opened and closed. Hunter didn’t flinch. He was well practiced at squaring off with brutes like this.
Quinnar didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands now that they were no longer around Dax. He planted them on his hips. “When you didn’t return….”
“A miscalculation,” Dax replied. “I adapted.”
Zinnuvial was circling around the area, inspecting each of the slain kug’ra. Bracing her foot on a body, she ripped her arrows free. She flashed a bored look Hunter’s direction as she dropped the shafts back into the quiver.
“And the amulet?” Quinnar asked.
Dax picked up the leather pack from where he dropped it and tossed it over to Quinnar, who stared back at Dax in disbelief. He flipped up the flap, reached in, and pulled out the broach.
“You certain this is it?” he asked.
Dax turned to face the trees. He seemed to be deliberately not looking in Hunter’s direction. He nodded. “No question.”
Zinnuvial sidled up next to Quinnar and looked over his shoulder at the amulet in his palm. “So… that’s what all this fuss was about. Better be worth it.”
Quinnar glanced at her, and his mouth lifted in a smile. “It will be.” Then he dropped it back inside and hung the pack from own his shoulder. Hunter’s stomach clenched in irritation. It had grated him when Dax possessed the broach. Sitting in Quinnar’s hands somehow made it worse.
“How did you locate me, Quinnar?” Dax asked. Something about the way he asked—or the way that Quinnar stalled before replying—told Hunter that Dax already knew the answer. And he wasn’t happy.
“That’s not important.”
“Zefora’s Hammer, you used it, didn’t you?” Dax said, rolling his head back. “Drained the last of it, too, I suppose.”
“It was the only way to ensure—”
“We talked about this. At length.”
Quinnar made a dr
amatic wave of his arm at the dead kug’ra around them. “If we hadn’t used the stone’s power, you’d be dead right now.”
“I knew the risks when I took the mission.”
Quinnar sighed and pushed his shoulders back, broadcasting that he was in charge. “My position allows me the prerogative to decide how our resources are spent. And what—or whom—is worth the expense.”
Dax ignored him and marched away.
Corrad continued to level his eyes on Hunter. “Quinnar? What are we doing with him?”
Quinnar looked over at Hunter and seemed to really notice him for the first time. His eyes narrowed, as if to gauge if he was a threat. “Who is this, Dax?”
Hunter, still standing in his underwear, felt self-conscious with everyone’s eyes on him. “You could just ask me yourself,” he said.
“His name’s Hunter,” Dax announced, with a wave of his hand in Hunter’s direction. A deep part of Hunter’s mind wondered how Dax could know that. He’d never told him. “I picked him up along the way.”
Was he a stray puppy now?
Quinnar lifted his brow. “Picked him up? Where?”
Dax didn’t answer.
“He’s trying to tell you that I’m not from the neighborhood,” Hunter said.
“Fuck,” Quinnar said as he spun away. He dug his fingers through the hair above his forehead. “He’s from… there? How did this happen?”
“He followed me through.”
“Chased him through, technically,” Hunter added.
Quinnar and Dax both shot him cold looks. “What do you know about him?” Quinnar asked.
“I know enough. I’ll vouch for him.”
“After two days?” Quinnar replied with his brow arched. He shook his head. “No. He knows nothing of what’s happening here. Has no allegiancy to our cause. What if he’s captured? How long would it take for him to turn on us to save himself?”
“He won’t.”
“You can’t know that. He’s a liability, Dax. A complication we don’t need. We don’t have the resources to nursemaid—”
“Suddenly, you’re concerned with our resources,” Dax replied coolly. “I’ll handle it, Quinn.”
“I could just kill him,” Corrad said.
“You always this charming?” Hunter asked him.
Corrad glared back at him. “No. Sometimes I’m in an ill humor. Usually when people get in my way.”
“No one is killing him, Corrad,” Dax replied as if suddenly tired.
Corrad grimaced and looked disappointed.
“We’ll discuss this later,” Dax said with a note of finality. “Now, we need to move. That Heneran bragged there are several search parties already on this side of the river.”
Quinnar looked dubious. “You think they’d be that brash?”
“Wake up, Quinn. Haven’t you noticed anything peculiar? Where are the patrols?”
That seemed to get his attention. His eyes bulged a fraction. “She’s pulled patrols from the border.”
“Certainly appears that way. And that’s not all.” Dax grabbed the sack Hunter was carrying, dug out several items, and tossed them on the ground at Quinnar’s feet: a hooded lantern, a leather-bound journal, a tin box, iron stakes, and a small earthenware jug with a cork stopper.
“Just a sampling of the items I discovered in a kug’ra camp a day west of here,” Dax continued. “Crates of it. Weapons too. None of this is kug’ra made. Or Heneran.”
“Stolen?” Quinnar asked. “Or supplied?”
“An excellent question,” Dax replied.
Zinnuvial stepped closer and leaned toward Quinnar’s ear. “Someone’s approaching.”
Everyone tightened into alert until a woman jogged out from the trees to join them. She was small and dressed in green wool, her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. She went straight to Quinnar. “Word coming in from the north. A band of kug’ra spotted, heading this way.”
Quinnar glanced at Dax with a sour frown. “Patrols?”
She shook her head. “None reported.”
“Are they readying an invasion?” Zinnuvial asked.
Dax bit his lower lip. “Or just freeing up their movement.”
Quinnar nodded. “All right. We head to the camp, regroup, and decide our next course of action from there.”
Everyone snapped into action. Practiced and efficient, the group headed into the trees.
Hunter fell in alongside Dax. “So…,” he said. “You and Quinnar….”
Dax wouldn’t look at him. “Don’t start with me, Hunter. Or I will let Corrad kill you.”
11
A HIGH-PITCHED call came from a nearby tree. Birdlike, but Hunter was fairly sure it didn’t come from a bird. None that he’d heard before anyway. He scanned the canopy but saw no sign of who or what made the noise. Moments later, a response came from farther down the path. Their arrival had been noted.
Light streaming through the canopy told Hunter it was drifting toward evening. They’d been traveling through the forest without signs of slowing for hours now, a long steady line that wound through the dense understory of massive ferns and brush. He was positioned in the middle of the pack, sandwiched between the tall, dark-skinned Zinnuvial and the ogre Corrad. Dax had spent the entire time up toward the front with Quinnar, and the two of them talked quietly together while they led the hike. The pace they set was sharp, with no apparent interest in hiding their presence. No fear, it seemed, of Henerans or kug’ra or whatever other horrid surprises this world had out there.
Since the arrival of his friends, Dax hadn’t said a word to him or even looked his direction.
His calves first noted the path begin a steady incline. Slow at first, but then growing steeper. To his right, he spotted a lanky man in brown leather in the trees. He leaned one shoulder casually against a large tree and yawned as he watched the procession drift by. Most of the others ignored him, but Zinnuvial lifted her chin at him and the man responded with nod. The ground eventually leveled off again. At the top, the trees hung back as if reluctant to broach the bald crown of the hill. The wide clearing had a circle of canvas tents, like a mountain range in miniature. Packs and crates were stacked outside each one. Horses were tied at the tree line. In the center was a large firepit, set up as an outdoor kitchen, with iron kettles hanging over the coals from a horizontal rod.
A dozen people or so, all dressed in the same primitive garb, milled about the camp. They glanced up as the line filed into the clearing, then returned their attention to their tasks, unconcerned. Only one, a severe-looking woman with gray-streaked hair pulled back into a tight bun, stopped what she was doing. She straightened from the sawhorse table she was bent over as they emerged from the tree line. The edges of her mouth lifted at the sight of them.
“I’d hoped it was you returning,” she said as she casually strolled over to meet them. She was relaxed and had a warmth about her that belied her harsh features. “Pleased to see you are safely back with us, Master Dacuro.” She bowed to Dax.
From farther back, Hunter could hear Dax mutter a low “thank you.” He scanned the camp as if suspicious.
“Immediate area is secure, Master Quinnar,” she continued. “Appears the other kug’ra parties have lost interest or got nervous and made it back across the river. Scouts from the north, though, have returned with some intelligence you might find interesting.” She gestured to the table with a wave of her hand.
Quinnar nodded. He rested a hand on Dax’s shoulder a moment and split from the group, following a step behind the woman.
As the rest streamed into the camp, they dispersed, some heading for the central fire and the pot hanging over it, others disappearing into the tents. Zinnuvial drifted closer to Dax, whose eyes shifted in Hunter’s direction for a brief second.
“Find him a tent,” Dax told Zinnuvial.
She had a stiff coolness about her that Hunter couldn’t read. “All have been assigned,” she replied.
“Then reassign,” D
ax replied flatly. “And see that he is provided with… more appropriate gear.” He marched off to join Quinnar at the table. Hunter opened his mouth to call out to him, but snapped his mouth closed again. Dax wouldn’t answer him, and Hunter was too tired and too hungry at this point to fight it. He’d corner him later.
Zinnuvial regarded him coolly for moment. Her nose twitched as if she’d been assigned the most unpleasant of tasks. “Follow me.”
They circled to the opposite side of the camp. He caught himself once again wringing fingers around his wrist as if to reassure himself everything was still attached and unharmed. His appearance drew surreptitious attention from the others. He could feel their unsettled eyes on him as they stopped what they were doing to watch him pass. His presence was causing a quiet stir that he could feel on his skin. “Remain here,” Zinnuvial said. She marched over to a man dragging a long tree branch in from the surrounding woods with one hand while he gripped the handle of an ax with the other. After a quick exchange, he pointed to one of the tents with the blade of the ax. Zinnuvial shook her head, and based on how his expression darkened, he wasn’t happy with what she told him. He was being evicted.
The man dropped the branch, lobbed the ax blade into the wood so it stuck, and trudged off toward the tent. After only a moment inside, he slipped out again with a sack slung over his shoulder and his eyebrows knotted. As he tossed the sack inside a different tent, he shot Hunter a cold look.
Hunter was already making friends.
Zinnuvial gestured toward the newly vacated tent with a sweep of arm. “Stay inside and out of sight.”
“Why is that?”
“You are dressed funny and people don’t know you. These folks get jumpy when a stranger’s lingering about.”
Hunter sighed and nodded. He ducked under the flap and went inside.
The peak at the center was high enough for him to stand erect, and the ceiling angled sharply down from there to short walls on either side. The inside was dark, except for one wall glowing yellow from the firepit outside, and it was as extravagant as a prison cell. The ground was covered by a woven mat, and two cots pressed against canvas walls on either side, folded blankets set on one end. He sat on the edge of a cot and let the mace drop with a thump by his feet. Elbows on knees, he propped his forehead onto his fingertips.
