Damien lowered his head in exhaustion. For a moment it seemed like the whole of the desert was closing in on him, black and dry and deadly. For a moment he could hardly speak. Then: “All right. We knew it wouldn’t be easy.”
“There’s an understatement,” Hesseth muttered.
“Clearly you can’t travel tonight,” Tarrant observed.
He looked at the girl, at the rakh-woman. Considered his own state, drained and battered. “No,” he muttered. “Not tonight.”
“Which means waiting until dusk tomorrow, if you want me with you. Do you have enough water for that?”
He tried to remember how much they had drunk on that terrible journey, How much they had consumed at the end of it, half dead and not thinking straight. Too much, he thought grimly. “We’ll make it. If there are no more surprises.”
“Do you want to count on that?”
Damien sighed heavily. “You know an alternative?”
“There’s always the river.”
He said it so calmly that for a minute Damien was at a loss to respond. Hadn’t he said once that they shouldn’t go to the river? For a moment he couldn’t remember why.
At last it was Hesseth who protested, “That means going farther west. Almost to the Black Lands themselves.”
“You asked me if there was an alternative,” he pointed out. “Not how safe it was.”
“He knows where we are now,” Damien said. “No way he could miss us, with all the Working we’ve done. What’s the chance that your Obscurings will work for us now that his attention’s fixed on us?”
“Practically none,” the Hunter admitted. “That’s in the nature of the art.”
“Great,” he muttered. “Just great.”
He walked to the edge of the granite mound; lava coiled in ropy whorls near his feet. God, it was hard to think clearly.
“How about a misKnowing?” he asked at last.
The Hunter considered. “Feed him the wrong information?”
“Would it work?”
“Possibly.” Not saying what they both were thinking: that it had been used against them in the rakhlands, and had almost cost them their lives. “There are no guarantees, of course.”
There never are, Damien thought darkly.
He rubbed his head and tried to think. Was the power of the trees still affecting him, or was he just that tired? “All right,” he said at last. “It’s our only chance. Let’s do it.”
“You want me to lead him to believe that you’re not going to the river?”
He closed his eyes. His head throbbed painfully. “He won’t believe that. Not if he knows what happened today. He’ll know we’ve got to go for water ... but that doesn’t mean he has to know where we’re coming in.” He looked up at Tarrant; in the moonlight the man’s skin looked almost as pale as the trees. “Would that work?”
“Perhaps.”
“No better than that?”
“The Prince isn’t an amateur,” he said quietly. “Any Working can be seen through, if one knows how to look.”
Damien looked at Hesseth. The rakh-woman hesitated, then nodded. “All right,” he muttered. “We’ll do that. And then we’ll pray.”
He started to take a step back toward Tarrant, but his legs were weak and his feet were unsteady and suddenly his knees folded and he was down, bruised legs striking the ground with numbing force. His upper body followed, and though he managed to get his arms out in front of him to keep from cracking his head open, his elbows hit the ground hard enough to send fresh pain shooting up his arms.
And then he was down, gasping. The granite island was spinning about him and the stars ... they were streaks across the sky, throbbing in time to his pain.
Then: footsteps on rock. Soft-soled shoes. Gentle hands touching him and then a firmer, colder grip.
“Nothing’s broken,” the Hunter assessed. “Yet.”
“Thanks a lot,” he gasped.
The chill hand reached inside his collar, pressed against the side of his neck as if to test the pressure of his pulse. He could feel the channel that bound him to Tarrant come into focus, as if drawing power from the heat of his body; he let it, knowing that the Hunter was using it to examine him.
“He’s tired.” The cold hand withdrew; the soft hands remained. “Tired and dehydrated and bruised and cut up ... but otherwise fine. He needs salt and water and sleep, in that order.”
The soft hands withdrew. The soft footsteps moved away.
For a moment there was silence.
“I’ll stand guard,” Tarrant told him. There was the sound of someone rummaging through their packs. Hesseth? “You just sleep.”
He could barely manage to shape coherent words. His tongue was hot and swollen. “If the Prince attacks—”
“He won’t. Not tonight.”
There was something being placed on his tongue, something small and salty. Then cool hands helped him rise up long enough to drink from the cup that was held to his lips, a cool arm braced against his back to support him. He took enough water to wash down the pill and then tried to stop, to conserve their precious stores, but the water remained at his lips and he swallowed and swallowed and at last it was all gone.
Gently the strong hands lowered him back down to the rock. There was something soft beneath his head, something folded up to serve as a pillow. The soft wool of a blanket settled down over him, shutting out the chill of the night.
“You’re a stubborn man, Vryce.” The Hunter’s tone was surprisingly gentle. “But you have real courage. That’s a rare attribute.”
He could hear the Hunter rising. He could sense him standing, gazing at him. Studying him, for God alone knew what purpose.
“Let’s hope it’ll be enough,” the adept said.
Thirty-nine
According to theologians, the Hell of the One God was a truly terrible place. It was so bad, they said, that if you tried to imagine all the terrible things that might exist in the universe, and then you put them all in one place, and then you multiplied them a thousand times over, the combination still wouldn’t hold a candle to the horrors of Hell.
In short—Damien thought—Hell was probably worse than the Wasting.
But not by much.
He awoke soon after dawn, with a dry mouth and an aching head and a body that hurt in at least a dozen places. After a moment he dared to test it, and found that at least it moved when he wanted it to. After his last awakening, that seemed like little less than a miracle.
He managed to push off the blanket and get to his feet. It took his eyes a minute to adjust to the light: blinding yellow from the east, a cooler white from overhead. Around the Core the sky was an odd shade of green; he felt that he had seen it once before, but couldn’t quite place the memory. His legs seemed strong enough, but his sense of balance felt precarious, and he stood where he was for a few long minutes, giving it time to settle in. When at last he felt that he could walk without falling he started back toward the center of the island, and looked for his companions.
The granite mound had a hump in its center and Hesseth was seated on it, her strange northern weapon cocked and ready by her side. Looking at her crouched there—long ears pricked forward, fur bristling slightly, eyes as golden as the Core itself—it was easy to forget her human attributes and see instead a predator, an alien, a creature to whom scent-cues and survival reflexes were as natural as they were to any four-legged hunter. He was suddenly very glad to have her there, and to have those reflexes on his side.
“Morning,” he managed, as he hiked up to join her. His mouth felt like he’d been eating rock dust all night. Ten yards across, maybe three feet up; it wasn’t much of a vantage point, but it was the best the island had to offer.
She shot him a look that was half smile, half grimace. It took him a second to realize the reason for the latter.
“You see something?”
She exhaled noisily. “Smell it.”
“Shit.” He flexed his arms in a
n easy, conservative stretch; they hurt like hell. “Animal, rakh, or human?”
She shook her head. “Not sure yet.”
Trouble. It could only mean trouble. God damn it, couldn’t it have waited a day? Long enough for them to heal? “If you had to guess, what?”
She hesitated. “Animal. Maybe.” She faced into the wind again and drew in a deep breath, drawing it in through her nose and her mouth. Her neck fur bristled in the breeze. “Shouldn’t be here,” she said shortly. “Nothing should.”
“Jenseny said there were animals in the Wasting.”
“Jenseny said they fed on the trees,” she reminded him. “But I didn’t see any sign of feeding on the trees we passed. None at all.”
He tried to remember, but revulsion welled up inside him at the mere thought. For a moment he swayed, wondering if he was going to be sick. “No,” he muttered at last. “I don’t remember anything like that.” Was his fear of the trees that great, or was this some kind of defense mechanism his body had conjured, to keep them from getting hold of his mind again? Or had Tarrant whipped it up and glued it to his psyche while he was sleeping? If so, he could have picked something a little more pleasant.
With a sigh he turned in the direction she indicated and tried to detect any odd scent on the wind, but his merely human senses could not see or smell anything of consequence. At last frustrated, he looked about for the girl. “How’s the kid?”
“Alive. Just. I gave her some food about dawn. She seemed pretty shaken. I take it she had some rather fierce nightmares.”
Yeah. And I’ll bet it wasn’t just because of the trees. I had nightmares, too, the first time Tarrant Worked on me.
Hunger stirred in his belly, sharp and demanding. He looked back at the camp. “She sleeping now?”
The rakh-woman nodded. “Soundly, I think. Maybe for the first time all night.”
“I won’t disturb her.”
He made his way down to the place where Hesseth had laid out their supplies; given her predilection for neat tents and carefully tended campfires, the jumbled blankets and scattered piles of supplies were mute testimony to her own exhaustion. The pile of food was all too small, Damien noted, the water skins too empty for comfort. He managed to find the vitamins with the first aid kit and downed two of them, wondering what their caloric value was. Could you survive on those alone if all other food ran out, or would you wind up poisoning yourself with some toxic dose of a trace mineral before they did you any good? He wasn’t anxious to find out.
He ate as sparingly as he could, but even so their stock was noticeably depleted when he was finished. They must have left a feast behind when they fled from the trees. Damn it. He hoped there was game at the river, or at least some kind of edible plant life. They’d need something if they were going to make it to the rakhlands with their strength intact.
He looked out toward the east—the way that Hesseth was facing—and thought, At least if it’s animal she’s smelling, it might serve as game when it gets here.
If we can kill it, he told himself soberly.
And: If it doesn’t kill us first.
Shoe leather scraped on the rock behind him: it was Hesseth, coming down from her guard position.
“Joining me for breakfast?” he asked her.
“Hardly.” With a quick glance over her shoulder she stooped down, and with agile hands she began to place the food goods back in their pack. “We’ve got problems.”
He capped the canteen in his hand and put it down. “They getting close?”
She glanced up at him. “Maybe.” Then down again, to the packages she was quickly storing. “The scent’s faded. It was coming straight at us and then it faded. Suddenly.”
“What do you make of it?”
“Something was upwind of us. Now it’s not.” He knew her body language well enough to see the tension in her movements, to hear the tautness in her speech. “Animals will do that. Hunting animals. When they get close to their prey, they position themselves downwind ... or at least where the wind won’t betray them.”
He felt something tighten inside him as the understanding came. “Not the habits of a tree-eater.”
“No.”
She had finished with the dry goods now, and he helped her tie up the canteens and the water skins. The first aid kit was lying out on the rock; he closed that up and packed it, too.
“If they’ve been upwind of us up until now, then how would they know we’re here?”
She looked at him. The was a spark of incredulity in her eyes, as if she couldn’t understand why he would need to ask her that. “The trail,” she said. “They’re following our trail.”
It hit him then. The trail they must have left behind them, paved in blood and sweat and fear. Not the kind of thing a man might follow easily, but it would stand out like a beacon to any predator.
Damn!
He stood. The wind ruffled his sweat-stiffened hair as he looked about the island, assessing their defensive options. Bad, he decided. Very bad. The low mound offered them a good enough vantage point but no shelter to speak of, and there was none within sight. None within miles, he thought, gazing out upon the flat wasteland surrounding them. In another time and place he might have noted the location of major tree-clusters and worked them into his defensive plans; in this time and place he would rather walk naked and unarmed into a den of ravenous meat eaters than ever approach one of those things again.
“Get the girl,” he said quietly.
He checked his weapons as Hesseth went to Jenseny, loading the projectile weapon Tarrant had left with them. Like the western springbolt it would launch a metal-tipped quarrel with good speed and reasonable accuracy; unlike a springbolt, it would only do so once before needing to be reloaded. Not a good situation if there was a whole pack of animals on the way, he thought grimly. Didn’t the Neocount have a gun? He seemed to remember it at one point. Was it tucked into the pack Tarrant had left behind? He began to go look, then reconsidered. This was a hostile land, undeniably sorcerous in origin, controlled by an enemy adept who even now was focusing his attention on them ... in short, if ever there was a situation asking for a misfire, this was it. No. He’d take his chances with the simpler weapons, and not give the Prince such an opening.
Then Hesseth was beside him, and the girl was with her. Eyes bloodshot, weaving slightly, she looked so small and so fragile that he could hardly believe she had made it this far. He’d known a lot of children who couldn’t have.
“You okay?” he asked gently.
Her face was drawn and pale and there were deep circles under her eyes, but she nodded. From her movements he guessed that she still hurt badly—probably along her back, where the tree roots had pierced her flesh—but she obviously wasn’t going to admit it. Still afraid, he thought. Still convinced that she hurt too much or feared too much they might leave her behind. As if that was an option in this place.
Someday this will all be over, he promised her silently. Someday we’ll be able to take you away from here and find you a real home, where you can grow up in peace. Where you can be a real child again.
“I’m going to Work,” he warned them.
He turned to the east and braced himself. Maybe it was foolish to Work again, but the way he figured it the Prince already knew where they were and what they were doing here, so he wasn’t going to make matters worse by crafting a Knowing in their defense. He used a visual key, a linear pattern that he traced with his mind’s eye in order to focus his consciousness—
The Knowing took shape suddenly, brilliantly, before him. He saw a scaled animal, obsidian black, whose long, low body flowed over the ground with serpentine grace. The narrow head sported sharp white teeth that glinted in the sunlight as it opened its mouth to take in the smells of the region; its talons flexed on the hard black earth as it caught the scent of blood. In the distance similar creatures were moving silently, swiftly, their movements so perfectly coordinated that it seemed as if some single will mig
ht have organized them. As well it might have, Damien thought suddenly. How much sorcery would it take to reach out from the Black Lands and take control of these creatures? Very little, if they had been created for that purpose.
Suddenly cold, he turned to Hesseth. He didn’t have to say anything ; the look on his face said it all.
“Assst,” she hissed. “A pack?”
“Maybe worse,” he told her. “Maybe a pack under somebody’s control.”
“How many?” she demanded
The vision was gone now; he shut his eyes and tried to resurrect it. “At least a dozen,” he said finally. “Maybe more.”
“Predators,” she mused. “But how? There’s no game here.”
“There’s us,” he reminded her. “And all the victims of the trees. Maybe the roots don’t use up all the meat. Maybe there’s enough left for scavengers.” And sometimes living bodies, too, immobilized by the power of the tree. He remembered the skeletons that had been torn apart, limbs and torso and head and tails each gone to provide an individual meal. There would be other game, too, men and animals not yet claimed by the trees’ power but affected by it, who lacked the strength to run and the clarity of thought to defend themselves....
Like we were last night. Like we might be again, once we leave this island.
“We can’t defend ourselves here,” he heard himself saying. “Not if they surround us.” There were species that did that, he knew. Pack instinct. Those were the most deadly hunters of them all.
“Where can we go?”
He looked around helplessly, knowing what he would see. A grouping of trees here and there on the plain, one low dome of crusted lava. Otherwise: Flatness. Emptiness. A total and absolute lack of shelter, for God alone knew how many miles.
He felt panic rising inside him, drew in a deep breath as he struggled to fight it down. He had faced worse than this, hadn’t he? He’d done it and come out on top. He would come out on top of this one, too.
“Undying Prince be damned,” he muttered. The man had made a crucial mistake. By forcing them to Work to defend themselves he might have managed to locate them, but now that they had given themselves away they had no more reason not to Work the fae. He drew in another deep breath, reaching out to take hold of the earth-currents. Not a Knowing this time, but a Locating. Something focused on the concept of defensive ground, something that would help them find a place where they could put their backs to a wall—so to speak—and face their enemy together.
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