Hemlock (The Manhunters Book 2)

by Jesse Teller

  “I need not your body to do you a favor. Anything you ask, I will provide out of love for your kind. I need not be bought. I need you to make this decision because you wish it as much as I do,” he said.

  “Then I agree to help you, if you will promise to do two things for me.”

  “Name them and they are done.”

  “I will need you to travel to the northwest, into the country of Tienne, and find a group of warriors that used to be known as the Pack. They are the Pack no longer, as they have lost their noble leader, but still they fight for my patron Dervo. Find them and ask them to come here and bless these woods, to find a suitable leader for this place, and to plant her here,” Treleelay said. “Ask for Knuk-nuk and have her play her flute here and wake these wounded and sleeping souls. Beg her to restore our woods to its former greatness or burn us down.”

  Sisalyyon cried out, turning to Rayph and shaking her head. “No, absolutely not! She is a queen of my people. She cannot so easily be replaced. She has stood these lands for centuries, guarding this land and keeping it fertile. We need to restore her, not destroy her! Rayph, I cannot let you do it.” She turned to Treleelay and dropped to her knees. “Please, mighty sister, do not wish this upon your people. You are needed desperately. We can fix it. We can heal you.”

  “Only a sharp axe can fix me, darling. As the queen goes, so goes the forest. The demons that soured this land knew it. They came to my clearing and committed their vile acts and their debauchery so I alone would be turned. As I turned, so did my domain. I did this to my people. My fall was their fall. The queen must be chopped down and pulled out by the roots in order to save her land from her rot. It has happened many times, through the years, to many different queens of our people. It is our way.”

  “I will do this thing you ask. What else do you want from me?” Rayph said.

  “I want you to chop me down and make weapons from my flesh. I want to fight my enemy, and free my people of a sour ruler.”

  “I will do it,” Rayph said.

  Sisalyyon dropped to the ground, wrapping her arms around the dryad’s trunk and weeping. “Please don’t ask this of us. We can’t do it. There has to be another way. Not the axe, not for a queen.” Sisalyyon sobbed. She howled some unintelligible words, and Rayph looked the defamed queen in the face.

  “All will be as you wish.”

  Sisa turned back to Rayph with a wet face and growing anger. “We can’t, Rayph. You have no idea what you are saying.”

  “I know what I am saying, and I know what this will mean. I must do this for her, Sisa. I cannot leave her like this.”

  Sisalyyon wept and Rayph hardened his resolve. He touched his fetish and spoke to his crew. “Come to my location. I wish you all to bear witness to a sacrifice and a cleansing.” All the Manhunters agreed, and Rayph went to comfort Sisalyyon.

  They stood in the clearing, looking up at the towering trees, emotion plain on every face. The Manhunters had all taken turns speaking to the Queen of the Ironwoods. She told them all different stories they would take with them after her death. Rayph was told of her birth, of her seeding and how shamans of Dervo had carried her across three continents to plant her here in this place. She told of the dark, rich ground before she budded, and the way it felt to live in the embrace of the soil. She spoke about the first time she had felt rain splatter against her when she was a bud and nothing more. And she told him of the first birds to house themselves in her branches, and how she cried when the young ones flew from her for the first time.

  She waited to speak last to Drelis, who she told of her assault by the demons that soured her. Drelis listened like an apt student, deep into the night, hearing her speak of all the things they made her watch, and all the ways they defiled her soil and roots. Drelis turned to her and kissed her plain on the face when the stories were done. She pulled a knife and carved a bit of bark from the dryad’s skin and placed it in a small bag on her hip.

  “They will be made to pay for your fall, I assure you. I know of these demons you speak of. I will make them suffer even more than they do now in the depths of their hell.”

  The Ironwood queen wept and turned away. She looked deep into Sisalyyon’s eyes and beckoned her close. Rayph watched Sisa walk slowly as if dreading what she would hear from the queen. She bowed and looked at her feet until she was addressed.

  “I will ask of you a terrible thing. A thing I will be punished for when I am seen to Dervo’s side.”

  “Anything you would ask, I would do. Speak this thing and it will be done.”

  “Dig into my clearing once more. Become one with my forest so you may feel my passing and take my death with you when you leave.” She heaved a sob and looked to her own roots. “I just don’t want to be forgotten.”

  Sisalyyon looked as if she had been slapped. Her eyes held fear and dread, but she nodded and kissed the queen on the lips. “I will do this thing for you, but I want you to know that no tree, sapling, or bush will forget the queen who died so they might be cleansed.” Sisa turned and Rayph looked up at Treleelay with grim purpose.

  “Are you sure?” He needed to let her reaffirm her desire before he continued. She nodded, and he looked at Sisa, who sunk her feet into the ground and gently shifted into her tree form. “Then come to me,” Rayph said.

  The tree lessened in shape. She curled in on herself, her branches pulling in to deformed arms, bent and ragged. The leaves above her head became ratted locks of sickly green hair. Her legs lurched her body forward as she fought to step out of the hole that had so long ago been dug for her. She stumbled as she took on her female form. Her bloated, naked body nearly hit the ground before Rayph caught her. Her sweat ate through his clothes and chaffed his skin. He lowered her to the ground, and she laid gasping and dying below him. He pulled his dagger from his hip, and its handle grew thorns that dug into his palm. He felt Fannalis raging within the blade, and he kissed its tip and held it above her sobbing chest.

  “Treleelay, I take you from your suffering and send you to the loving arms of your goddess. May she heal you and care for you from this day on into eternity.” As Rayph prepared for the plunge, the dryad opened her eyes. She nodded one last time and thanked him the instant before he drove his blade directly into her heart.

  She screamed in agony one time. Sisalyyon burst into tears. Dreark began a Ganamaian dirge of loss and honor. Smear held Trysliana tight as she wept, and Drelis clenched her fist in anger, bearing the weight of the rage of the group.

  Rayph pulled his dagger back as her body expanded and warped again. She grew out in all directions, her feet twisting to gnarled roots, her flesh hardening to bark. Her face would not change back, and as the tree warped, her mouth took on a slight smile. Rayph stepped aside as she took on her full size, and he pulled up an axe he had commanded Smear to bring him. Dreark’s heavy hand stopped him.

  “She asked me to disperse her. She said she had asked too much of you already.”

  Rayph stepped back and let the emotion he had held at bay rush through him. He burst into tears and dropped to his knee. As violent sobs rocked Rayph’s body, Smear grabbed him and helped him to his feet. He led him away as Dreark’s song changed from one of death and mourning to a song of work and life. Rayph sat and Sisalyyon laid her head in his lap and, together, they wept for the Queen of the Ironwoods and the death she suffered.

  Bathing in Blood

  Aaron dipped a rag in the blood he drained from the bull raksa and wiped it on his skin. It was disgusting and sticky. It was a filthy mess, but he wiped anyway, and with the blood to wash him, the powder left his body. Within moments, he began to feel himself again. He stood, flexed his arms and hands, wiped back a sloppy lock of his hair, and grinned.

  This would serve two purposes.

  When the door opened about an hour later, four men stepped into the room. He grinned and laughed. They looked at each other and, as one, turned from the room and slammed the door shut.

  “Aww, that is too ba
d. We were about to get to know each other!” Aaron cried after them. “Come back! I want to play!” But no one was coming back. They all stayed out of the room, and Aaron heard a lock being latched. He rushed to the door and pressed his ear against it. He heard things being scooted and dropped before the door. They were moving crates and other goods in front of the door so he couldn’t get to them. Aaron laughed and turned back to the room he was in.

  With the club banded in iron, he shattered the trunks in the room and riffled through them. He found clothes that didn’t fit him and jewelry. He had no use for any of it, but he still stuffed a few ingots of gold in his belt in case he got away. He would need money to buy his way back to Bladesport.

  He threw the clothing in a fit around the room, and he clawed at the next trunk. Within he found a dagger, a short sword, and a bottle of rum. He found a belt that fit him well and a pair of boots he could stuff his feet in. The fit was tight, but it would work. He sat on the broken trunk and tipped back the bottle. He drank sparingly. He might not get much to drink in the next few days.

  He was hungry by the end of the day, but he had been hungry before. He remembered eating nothing for a week except a rat and a piece of moldy crust. In his time with Peter, Aaron had become acquainted with starvation, and he screwed his courage up to face it again.

  The days blended together. He slept when he could, trusting his instincts to wake him if anyone neared the door. Soon, he had run out of oil for his lamp, and he fell into darkness. The darkness did not bother him at all. He knew and loved the dark. He had fallen in love with a woman in the dark watches of a dank prison. Darkness held no animosity for him. They were both misunderstood. They were both despised. Darkness and Aaron were brothers. They would work together to bring fear to any who walked in this room.

  His beard was scruffy and long when the rum ran out. He fought for any idea that would save him. He needed to get back to his king. They had a plan. They had a war to fight. They had a civilization to save, and a home to go back to. Peter needed him. He needed to think. But still the days passed, and still he had no answers.

  The stench became an issue after a while. The bull and the other two men he had killed were rotting. Their meat was separating from the bone. They had all burst not long ago and their discharge had rolled the room, painting it in gore. When the worst of the hunger gnawed at Aaron, he thought of the meat spoiling around him, and he laughed.

  He had passed out from thirst and hunger when he heard objects being pulled away from the door. He struggled to rise, but he had no strength, no way of getting to his feet. He fought to roar, but his rage only coughed up a thin rasp. The door opened, and Aaron sobbed.

  A massive, sweaty man with no shirt and a pair of dirty pants scooped him up and threw Aaron over his shoulder. He patted Aaron on the ass, laughing. “Just as deadly as we heard you were,” he said.

  Aaron groaned, but the man ignored him.

  “I was a soldier in Tienne during the Madness Wars. Saw things I will never forget, but the greatest of these was the battlefield of the Trelain Pass after you and your king had been there. That was a mess. Rextur took that one, but you made him pay dearly for it. That is where you met him. That is where this all began.”

  Aaron was dropped into a bunk, and the man stared down at him under the light of a swaying lantern. “Saw you fight that thing. Saw it beat you. Kept up with that rivalry. We all did. All of us under Clark’s command sought tales of you and that cat. I think that is what this is all about. I wish I could spring you, Sleepless, I do. I would toss you on a boat and row away with you, but she has a long reach, and she scares me. I have a family she can get to, so I am her man in this.”

  The man dropped a bucket of water on Aaron and picked up a rough brush. He scrubbed Aaron with the tough bristles, and Aaron moaned in pain. “Water,” Aaron said.

  “Yeah, thirst makes children of us all. I got some water for you, but you have to wait ’til I get you cleaned up. Gonna feed you, too, but only because we have to put you in those chains and deliver you, and if you die, so will we. She will slay us all if you don’t make it.”

  “I will slay you all if I don’t make it, too,” Aaron said.

  Both men laughed.

  Water, food, and chains. He was too weak to fight any of it. In a kindness Aaron would not forget, the sailor shaved his face of the scruff. Aaron could only thank him and grin. He ran his hand across his smooth face and felt almost himself again.

  They kept him bound on the mast. He yelled curses at them and taunted them. A few of the men stopped to talk to him and a few more spat on him. But for the most part, he was treated with marked caution. They did not want to rouse him. They kept a close guard until they saw land and the city grew in the distance.

  “What is this place?” Aaron asked. “What city is that?”

  “That is your new home, and maybe your last. That is Hemlock, father of pirates and the rest of the scum of the sea,” a toothless man with a filthy shirt said. He wore no shoes and carried a rusted cutlass. “It has been a long time since I saw this dear city. Almost brings a tear to my eye.”

  A younger man walked past. “And a bulge in your pants. I will be at the Crow’s Nest tonight parting the fur of some hot broad. Might even let you watch if you will buy me a drink,” the man said. The older sea dog hissed and waved him away.

  “The young don’t have the respect they should have for the home of the Poison King. We are in his realm now, Aaron. Now, we all answer to the Poison King.”

  Aaron was approached and struggled to get to his feet. The sunlight, the rum they had given him, and the food had restored his strength a bit. Aaron was hoisted to his feet and three men with swords surrounded him. They were men he had grown to like.

  “Aaron, we are just being paid to deliver you. You have an enemy here you need to reckon with. We don’t want to beat you ’til you can’t stand and drag you. We want you to face her on your feet with your head high. It can go either way. What do you say?”

  “Take me to this devil. I will let her meet the King’s Demon. See how she fares.” Aaron braced himself for the worst and let them take him. If she had paid this much and sent a buyer across the world to get him, she would not want to kill him just yet. He could form a plan. He just needed a little time.

  The Speckled Lady

  “Have you been to Lorinth in the past few months?” Rayph asked the tall warrior of nature. Harpo was a man of few words, but he seemed extremely talkative while Knuk-nuk performed their rites on the forest outside of Chaste.

  “We are, or at least we were, planning on heading there within the next few weeks. There is a disturbance there, a few things that could not be a coincidence.”

  “What sort of things?” Rayph asked.

  “Fires mostly. Some very suspicious fires have broken out over the last few weeks. We are thinking arson, but if it is arson, a powerful wizard is doing it.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Crops and groves are catching fire. Entire crops lost, whole farming villages destroyed,” Harpo said. “People missing and people left dead.”

  “What kind of crops? What kind of groves?”

  “Lots of different things. Corn, beans, melons, coffee, garlic—”

  “Garlic?”

  “Yes, entire crops of garlic are lost.”

  “What about the groves? What trees?”

  “A lot of different kinds, no pattern we could find,” the warden said.

  “Ironwood trees?”

  “Yes,” Harpo said. “Are you thinking vampires?”

  “There was a village a few weeks ago that was destroyed, every citizen disappeared. Everything left behind. All the animals killed, a large number of trees cut down, debarked and sliced into boards. Boards were missing. I’m thinking coffins. Dirt missing. I found and killed a vampire left behind to taunt me.”

  “Is this part of the Stain threat you warned about a few years ago?”

  “Definitely. Th
e commander of the vampires would be a woman known as Kat. I know little about her, but I have come face-to-face with her lover and caregiver, a man named Tristan, who wields some sort of magic I can’t nail down.”

  “What sort of magic?”

  “Some vampire magic I would guess. It seems founded in blood. Powers from controlling blood to boiling it. Ugly sorts of things.”

  “As far as I know, vampires have little in the way of magic. Their powers are mind controlling and animal control, but it is not an actual magic. Can it be something else, some sort of school of spells you are unfamiliar with?”

  “Doubtful.”

  “I will ask around,” Harpo said. “We have a few other things to do around Tienne before we can turn south into your land, but we will be around soon.”

  “Harpo, what can you tell me about the location of these crop and grove fires?”

  “It’s happening in the central west section of your nation. Near the port city Hemlock.”

  A creeping fear crawled up Rayph’s spine, and he nodded. “Thanks for everything.”

  “Ivoryfist,” Harpo said. Rayph turned around, catching eyes with the man. “If you find him in your wanderings, let me know. Don’t tell him you’re informing on him. He will run again. Just send me word. I need to find him. He belongs with his people.”

  “I will do as you ask. Good luck in your search.” Both men nodded and Rayph walked away.

  Rayph, Smear, and Drelis rode the rickety cart through the old wall’s crumbled arch on the broad, gravel-packed road to Hemlock. The ocean beyond held the scent of dead fish and rotting bodies. Oceans always stunk, in Rayph’s opinion, too much salt and fish and birds and other mundane horrors. He tried to tell himself this was the reason he dreaded entering the city, but that lie would not stick.

  They did not speak. The meeting held back in Ironfall had been enough to let everyone know their part. Smear’s worry for Trysliana was poorly masked. Rayph knew that concern might be a distraction, but he felt Smear was solid. The wagon complained as they rode, and Rayph pulled his wide-brim hat down lower as he passed the workers harvesting hemlock on the sides of the road.