Gregory bolted into motion, Lillian at his side, with the pooka and unicorn two strides behind them. This Hunt lacked the starting dance, the howl of the dire wolves, the call of hunting horns, and the baying of the fae hounds. But in its oldest form, the Wild Hunt did not need those things. It only needed blood and sacrifice at its final destination.
Chapter 31
THEY RAN THROUGH THE night-shadowed forest, twisting, leaping over, or darting around anything in their path. Sometimes the pooka or unicorn would pull ahead. Gregory seemed content to allow them the honor for a short time before he would surge ahead once more.
Lillian stayed with him, determined to be as his shadow. As the night grew longer and the scent of their prey steadily stronger, she noticed something else of interest.
She’d already run far this night and should have been tired, but each step came as easily as the first, some unseen power buoying her up.
And she wasn’t alone. Both Gregory and the two equines seemed to feel it as well. Magic swirled around them at the edge of her vision, sparks and whorls like tiny incandescent snowflakes formed in the air, only to break away and drift behind.
Lillian chanced a glance back, curious to see what became of the magic they summoned from the Magic Realm, even without the aid of the great circle dances. It was as she thought. Wherever the tiny sparks landed, they nourished and renewed the land.
Even while in gargoyle form, her dryad nature sensed the land and trees growing stronger. With a smile, she bounded a stride ahead and stole the lead from Gregory for a whole ten seconds.
She was just easing back to run alongside him again when three shadows began to pace them. Turning her head, she studied the massive wolves as they communicated silently with Gregory.
She’d never forgotten the dire wolves she’d seen in her first Hunt, but she hadn’t seen any since she’d woken from her hamadryad’s healing. Gran had said they were in mourning, and once that was over, they would start the selection of new leaders.
Lillian wondered if their arrival meant the dire wolf packs had a new alpha king and queen. She and Gregory could sorely use the help in the coming fight.
“The dire wolf packs are still far to the north,” Gregory explained, crushing that small hope, “but these three and others along the way were sent to howl back the news of what they learned. Apparently, other Clan members sent word of our awakening to the packs, and later a second message about our preparations to fight the Lady of Battles.”
A nod to each was the extent of her greeting, for even as those three aligned their magic to the Hunt’s, more of the Clan joined them. These were the ones who had no reason to be near enough to the spa to hear Tethys’ song and so had avoided capture. Two blazing white elks, a male with a massive rack and a yearling female, galloped at the tips of the dire wolves’ tails.
She flashed to another time when a similar white buck had attempted to carry her to safety only to be brought down by the attacking Riven, his beautiful coat awash in crimson blood. Yes, the Riven had much to answer for, and she planned to make them pay it in their own blood.
A family of foxes burst from a thicket and flanked Gregory on his other side. Farther along the path, a bull moose awaited them. Perched upon his back, like she was born there, sat the banshee.
Lillian flicked a questioning ear at the banshee. The last time she’d seen that fae had been earlier in the day while they were finishing details for the masquerade. She’d just assumed the banshee was captured along with the rest of the fae helping at the spa.
The banshee guided her moose closer to Lillian and then smiled down at her from her higher perch. “Be at ease, young gargoyle. A siren, no matter how powerful, can’t out-sing a banshee’s keening. When I saw how many she was able to enslave, I fled into the forest and joined with the other free-ranging Clan. We will fight at your side. First the Riven, then the siren, and finally even the humans if they leave us no choice.”
Lillian nodded her head. There was no time to get into an argument about the humans just now.
Other Clan joined the Hunt, sliding out of the deeper shadows of the forest. Several sidhe joined them, riding either deer, elk, or moose. By a quick count, Lillian estimated that there were close to two dozen hunting hounds running silent at their hooves. Next to them, three massive bear-like creatures loped along, their giant strides easily keeping the pace. There was even a black hunting cat ghosting at the edges of the Hunt.
The Wild Hunt, which started four strong, had grown to over sixty in number by the time they reached the location where close to twenty-five Riven battled two gargoyles and one dryad. As the Hunt swept down upon the rear-most Riven, Lillian realized they had to leap over many already killed.
With a small part of her mind not already engaged in battle, she noted how deadly her family was. Even her baby brother was lethal, she admitted, as she watched him dispatch a Riven with a decapitating stab of his tail. Her father moved with brutal efficiency, but Lillian spotted wounds. None of them were without injury, mostly claw and bite marks.
Gregory surged ahead, making for the left flank of the Riven horde. Lillian followed with the rest of the Hunt howling at her heels.
It wasn’t like the movies, no glorious clash of steel on steel. There were only the nauseating sounds of tearing flesh, popping cartilage, and the dull thump of dead meat hitting the ground. The Riven did not use conventional weapons. They were the weapons. Their fangs and claws venomous with evil corruption, their blood a burning poison.
But worst of all was the smell—she’d never forgotten the charnel house smell of a Riven body torn open. The stench threatened to steal the breath from her lungs.
She fought as they did, with tooth and claw and blade-tipped tail. One Riven she tore nearly in two, baring its spine to the moonlight. Her powerful jaws promptly gifted a second Riven with a severed neck.
Spitting tainted blood, she scrubbed at her mouth and briefly worried how harmful it might be to her gargoyle body. The Riven didn’t give her long to worry, as two more attacked at once. Gregory, gripping his own opponents in each hand, tail-speared one of hers before she was forced to fight two at a time.
All around was death and the wails of the wounded. The Riven only hissed in rage as they died. She hated the monsters’ otherwise stoic silence, for it meant each of the grunts, yelps, and cut-off screams belonged to one of her people.
And there were many sounds of anguish filling the air.
For every cry, she sought to pull down another Riven as payment in kind. She didn’t know how long the battle raged. Seconds? Minutes? An hour? But between one ragged breath and the next, the battle was over, the last Riven dying upon Gregory’s talons.
With a snarl of disgust, he shoved the corpse away and glanced over at her where his gaze quickly scanned her for injury. An assortment of slashes and bite marks decorated her upper body and lower arms. Blood seeped from them, but she did nothing to stop the minor bleeding, deciding it was the best way to cleanse the wounds for now.
Lillian’s mother was examining a nasty wound on Darkness’s belly. It looked like he’d almost been eviscerated by one of the Riven.
She would have been more concerned, but her father was still alert, studying his surroundings as if prepared to continue the fight should more enemies appear.
A soft whine drew her gaze to her brother. He struggled to his feet and stumbled toward her location. Her eyes narrowing, she looked him over and didn’t see a wound deep enough to cause his distress.
He tugged at something along his side, just under where his last rib ended.
She saw it then, the hilt of a demon blade.
She’d taken a couple of cuts from one of those blades but hadn’t allowed the Riven who wielded it to land a stabbing thrust. Her brother hadn’t been so lucky.
Taking a step forward and opening her senses once more, she felt it too, the slow, deadly suction that could drain all magic from its unfortunate victim. Intent on offering him aid, sh
e started forward, only to be warned off by a low growl as Gregory put himself in her path.
“Let me by,” Lillian said, surprised her voice sounded anywhere near normal.
“No.” Gregory didn’t turn his attention from her family when he answered her.
Frustrated, but also respecting his reason for distrust, she didn’t challenge him about being overprotective this time. He had reason. But she was also sure that her baby brother was innocent. “Gregory, he’s got one of those cursed blades buried in his side. You know how much those hurt, and what it will do to him if we don’t get it out quickly.”
She could already see the ring of stone forming around the blade where his body tried to protect and heal itself.
Lillian’s parents looked up, just noticing the youngster’s distress. Shadowlight had been doing an excellent job of not broadcasting his pain, but now that he was closer, she could smell it even over the stench of battle.
“Shadowlight?” River called. Then the truth dawned upon her features, and her eyes grew large. “Shadowlight!” She ran, sprinting around bodies and over the gore-slicked ground to reach his side. She sank to her knees and brushed his hands away to better see the damage.
Darkness was at their side a moment later.
“I have no magic left that will touch this,” her mother whispered in horror, glancing between her son and her mate. It was easy to see her grief.
Darkness moved one hand from where it was braced against his own wound and raised it to the demon blade. As his fist engulfed the hilt, his muscles went taut, his wings trembled at the strain.
Lillian’s stomach dropped in sudden understanding. Her father was too weak to heal both himself and his son.
She glanced at Gregory, silently pleading for his help.
Gregory rumbled something under his breath as he fingered the tattoo around his neck. “If they came to achieve some mischief, they’ve already done their worst.”
He stalked forward, his tail poised over his back in threat.
Lillian trailed him. He glanced over his shoulder long enough to glare at her for not staying where he’d left her, but he didn’t reprimand her aloud.
Bodily pushing Darkness out of his way, he did a quick examination of Shadowlight’s side, then look back at Lillian.
“The collar won’t allow me to access this level of magic without your order,” he said without a hint of emotion. “Make it a command that I heal all our allies, all who serve the Light.”
Lillian sucked in a breath, surprised to find the Hunt had encircled them while Gregory examined Shadowlight. Many had wounds as grievous as her brother’s or father’s. “Do you have the strength for all that?” she asked in a low voice, more for a respectful tone than an attempt to hide her questions. The fae around them could clearly hear every word of their exchange.
“No.” Gregory gave a little shrug to Lillian’s question and then turned to address all the rest of the Hunt. “But it will not be my will that will allow the healing, I shall beseech the Spirit Realm, and all healing will be by the Divine Ones’ grace. Stay and be judged by them or go into the darkness.”
Gregory turned back to the wounded young gargoyle without further comment.
In that moment, she understood how Gregory was going to judge if her parents were allies or enemies.
There was some uneasy shifting among the other members of the Wild Hunt, but none fled that Lillian spotted.
Her father bowed his head and closed his eyes, preparing.
Lillian didn’t know how the Divine Ones would judge her parents, but she wanted the chance to know more about them before...before what might happen next.
Gregory speared her with a look. “This is your choice to make, you must make it soon. There are many more Riven to be hunted this night.”
More Riven? Of course, aren’t there always? She thought with bitter resentment.
“Heal them,” she ordered. “Heal everyone here who serves the Light. Let it be the will of the Divine Ones.”
She rested her fingers lightly upon the brand circling her neck. By Gregory’s earlier words, it sounded like anyone the Divine Ones judged to be tainted weren’t likely to see the dawn. Then she realized the gods might view her and Gregory as tainted.
Was that Gregory’s plan all along? To end them both before they could become the Battle Goddess’s playthings?
“So ordered, so shall it be.” Gregory’s somber tone matched the ritual words.
He mantled his wings, and they flared outward like two great sails. His eyes drifted closed as his voice rose in a melodic chant.
Lillian didn’t know what the outcome would be, but if she’d just ordered their doom, well, by the God and Goddess, she’d watch it come with her eyes wide and her mind free of fear.
Gregory held his hands out before him, palms facing each other like he held a globe-shaped object between them.
Cold air flowed downward from some unknown spot above her head. A breeze picked up, growing stronger by the second until it was kicking up debris in a circle around them. Cross currents continued to build as silvery, blue fog rose from the ground. Lillian’s lungs burned, and she released the breath she’d been holding.
Between Gregory’s outstretched hands, a spinning vortex of pure, cold magic formed. Brighter flares of magic twisted up through the opposing currents of air and a small twister began to swirl down from a denser, cloud-like mass of power overhead.
A tornado?
That was to be the mechanism of Divine justice?
Poetic justice too, perhaps, for Gregory had been like a tornado coming into her life: powerful, awe-inspiring, possessing a deadly beauty, and fully willing and capable of disrupting an orderly life.
If this was to be her end, she wanted to say one more thing.
“I’m sorry,” she shouted above the noise of the wind. “So sorry I made such a muddle of things. I only ever wanted to be worthy.”
Gregory’s eyes slid open, and his expression was serene.
“I know,” he whispered into her mind. “And you were always worthy, my beautiful dryad, my fierce, gargoyle huntress.”
He dropped the glowing ball of power he’d been holding. It fell slowly as if gravity’s hand had little effect upon it. When it finally hit the ground, it shattered, exploding outward in all directions.
A powerful force knocked her from her feet and rolled her a few times until she collided with a tree. The force flowed onward, feeling more like an ocean wave, one with a powerful, accompanying undertow than it resembled storm-tossed air currents.
Lillian gasped and shuddered before she managed to roll herself back into an upright position. All fours was the best she could manage.
A tingling sensation raced along her nerve endings, similar to the pins and needles of restored circulation. Though this was probably something far less harmless. The magic sank beneath her skin, seeped into her bloodstream, and then deeper yet, through muscle and into bone, until its cold tingle settled deep in the marrow. It paused then, and Lillian took a courage-strengthening breath. Nothing more happened for several heartbeats. She was just glancing up to see how the magic was affecting the others when a wave of pain welled up from within her bones.
The pain stole the strength from her limbs, and she grunted as she rolled onto her side. Her body twisted and quaked as it began to shapeshift.
The weight of her wings grew too much for her to hold up away from her body. They might as well have been two lumps of dead flesh for all she could move them. Then with another body-spanning shudder, her wings vanished, pulled back into her body in one quick and extremely painful surge.
Shapeshifting hurt. It always had. But this made the first few times seem easy.
Her jaws ached from clenching them, but the alternative was crying out in pain, and that might distract Gregory from the spell. She’d already caused enough trouble, she wouldn’t call down more.
Besides, with that mighty power riding him, she wasn’t sure if that
was really Gregory. He stood, head bowed and wreathed in shimmering, flame-like magic. Even over the distance, she could feel the cold magic of the Spirit Realm flowing outward from where he stood, feeding the spell, which was presently controlling her change.
Her gargoyle features vanished and left her weak and shaking in the smaller body she’d known far longer. Though, at this exact moment, her dryad body seemed no more in her control than her gargoyle one had been.
She continued to shake and quiver for a good minute. Slowly, her limbs regained feeling and strength, and she sighed in relief when they moved at her command.
Blinking, she found herself curled in a fetal position. The earth was soft under her, and its scent was reassuring. She didn’t want to move but forced herself back to her hands and knees. Only then did she realize there was still magic sliding through her, examining her. It shifted from the center of her chest upwards until it settled in a circle around her neck. The tingling increased.
Threat or warning?
She didn’t know but breathed a hardy sigh of relief when the magic moved on. If the power wanted to kill her, surely it would have done that at the first touch. No, the magic seemed more interested in studying her, which gave her no comfort whatsoever.
The magic continued to coil through her blood, a seemingly random examination.
She was just acclimatizing to the chilled presence when a tendril snaked lower and touched her womb with its insubstantial fingers. There it paused as if it found something of great interest.
Lillian shivered at the power’s creeping touch, and fear re-awoke, rocketing her to new levels of dismay.
But several heartbeats later, the magic gave one last probing search and then the power disappeared.
In its wake, she was left weak-kneed and very, very cold inside.
Slowly, her pounding heart eased its frantic tempo and warmth returned to her body.
With a half-conscious gesture, she reached to finger the skin of her throat. Disappointment rose within her at the feel of the raised brand. That it was still there came as no real surprise, for if it were that easy to get rid of, Gregory wouldn’t have been so angry.
The Complete Gargoyle and Sorceress Boxset (Books 1-9) Page 48
