“My lord?”
“Has the deer been gutted and cleaned already?”
“Yes, my lord,” said the boy. “It’s roasting on the spit now with the geese. Your supper shall—”
“Never mind that,” said the duke. “Bring me the skeleton and hide.”
“B-but the offal’s been buried.”
“Dig it up.”
“Aye, my lord.”
In no time, the boy returned with his arms piled high with a dirty mess of hide and bones. The duke took it from him and the boy stood there, gaping, until Brond snarled at him. The duke strode away from the camp and the firelight. The darkness of the plain settled around him, waiting. The hide was already in tatters. He slashed it into three piles with his knife. He snapped the bones into pieces. The skull shattered under his boot. He scattered the bone shards on the three piles and stood back.
Brond did not speak, but frowned, concentrating. The darkness crept closer and, high overhead, the moon hid itself behind a cloud. The piles of bone and hide twitched and then, abruptly, heaved themselves up on slender, gangly legs. Darkness wove in and out of the gaps of hide and attached itself to bone, weaving sinew and flesh from shadow. Shards of bone flashed in their mouths like teeth and a red light glinted where their eyes should have been.
“Listen well,” said the duke. “I’ve a task to be done.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
THE END OF THE HUNT
Giverny was not aware of the day passing by. She only knew a dull, heavy grief that blinded her senses. Her body worked on its own, without needing her thought. Her legs walked on, even while she saw nothing, and the sun neared its completion of the day.
She could not see or smell or hear what was around her—the Scarpe plain at twilight—but the senses of her memory were sharp. Unbearably sharp. She could smell oatmeal steaming over a fire. She saw her mother’s face intent over the fire, sweat gleaming on her brow from the heat. From somewhere close by, she could hear her father whistling to himself. The tuneless whistle meant he was whittling or braiding a halter or polishing a weapon, any number of things he did with his callused hands. And then she saw Levoreth’s face smiling before it dissolved into earth.
There is another way to mourn the dead.
The voice was deep. Giverny had heard it before inside her mind. It had a strange but reassuring sound to it. A furry sound. That was it.
The wolf.
The shock of the thought caused her to truly see. Beside her, so close she could have stretched out her hand to touch his fur, paced a wolf. His fur was black and his eyes were silver. She shivered away from him.
I would never hurt you.
“How can you speak inside my mind?” she said. “What are you?”
A wolf.
“Can all wolves speak like this?”
The wolf chuckled.
To you? Aye, all wolves can speak so.
The wolf opened his mouth and she glimpsed sharp white fangs.
“But if mindspeech troubles you,” he said, “I can speak out loud. And this, other wolves cannot do.”
Giverny was not sure what frightened her more—the sound of the wolf’s voice in her mind, or the sight of him speaking out loud. She could not answer the wolf for a while. She was shy of him. The wolf was content to pace in silence beside her. Far off on the horizon, the jagged line of mountains shone in the afternoon sun. The sun was dipping down in the west, and Giverny’s shadow wavered across the grass.
“What did you mean?” she said. “What did you mean about—about—”
“About mourning?” said the wolf, when Giverny could not finish her sentence. “When death comes to a wolf it is a gift, a good thing. The chance to chase the sun and join the great hunt which courses beyond the stars. Those who remain behind should not mourn such a thing. They should live joyously in honor of the departed.”
“I can’t live in joy,” faltered Giverny.
“Perhaps not now, but when time has passed? For now, the important thing is that you shall live. Only that. For if you die, then the Dark shall tighten its grasp upon this land.”
She did not understand what he meant. She was not sure if she wanted to understand.
“Who are you?” she said.
“I am the companion of the Mistress of Mistresses, her paw and her fang. I am the memory of the Earth. I am he who stands at the side of Eorde against the Dark.”
“And who am I?” said Giverny, her voice shaking.
“You are the Mistress of Mistresses. The guardian of the Earth and bulwark against the Dark.”
“No! That can’t be true. I’m just a girl.”
The wolf did not say anything, but he regarded her with his silver eyes. Giverny fell to her knees on the grass. The grass was cool and reassuring against her hands. Tears sprang from her eyes. She lay on the ground and pressed her face against the grass. And the earth spoke. She could hear it murmuring to her. Wordless impressions of stone and silence and peace. It spoke of mountains and forests and the dry and thirsty desert of the south. It spoke of trees and hills and rocks. It spoke of the animals that found their home in and on the earth. And it spoke her name.
Giverny did not know how long she lay there. When she sat up, the sun had set and there was only a purpling radiance on the horizon in the west. Stars pricked their way into life in the eastern sky, one by one, in faint points of promised brilliance. The wolf sat by her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I fell asleep. But I don’t think I’m tired anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever be tired again.”
“Once,” said the wolf, “I used to be an ordinary wolf.”
“I know,” said Giverny.
The wolf nodded in a satisfied fashion, as if he had remembered something he had almost forgotten.
“My name,” he said, “is Ehtan.”
They made their way quickly then, for Giverny found that she could run along with a loping pace that did not tire her. Every time her foot struck the earth, it seemed as if life flowed up into her from the ground.
“We should journey east for now,” said Ehtan, running by her side. “We’re near the forest of Lome and that’s a friendly place for our kind. I do not want to be out on this plain at night, for I do not trust the sky. It’s for your safety. Consider that a seed needs careful nurture as it sprouts. It is only later, when it has become a tree, that it can withstand the storm. You are that seed and I fear that a storm draws near to Tormay, for the Dark is in this land. We must find safety for a while, and the forest shall give it.”
It was darker now. A cold wind rose out of the evening and brought with it the scent of rain and the smell of wood and leaves and the damp rot of the forest floor.
“We’re close,” said Ehtan. “Noses are better than eyes.”
And he was right. As they ran on into the night, Giverny felt her senses come alive, but none more so than her nose. A musky, peppery odor blew by, and with a thrill she realized she knew what it was. A fox. A fox intent on the hunt, and there was the scent of its prey—the sweet, warm smell of a frightened rabbit. She could smell the jona plant, stripped of its summer bloom by the weeks of cold weather. Grass and earth and stone and the faint whiffs of worms and beetles and grasshoppers. And beyond it all, the deep old damp of the forest.
The forest loomed up out of the dark. It was just in time, for the rain began to fall. The girl and the wolf paused under the cover of the trees at the forest’s edge and looked back. The leaves above them rustled and dripped with water. The light was failing and the darkness rolled across the plain toward them.
“What is it?” said Giverny. “I can feel unease in your mind. I can smell it.”
“I do not know yet. I might be imagining things.” The wolf’s teeth flashed in what looked like a smile. “You are my first and only charge and I am perhaps overly anxious of my duty. I wish the wind was blowing toward us.”
They made their way deeper into the forest. Besides the rain pattering on the leav
es overhead, the place was silent to the ear. But Giverny was starting to discover there was another way to listen than with her ears. She turned to the wolf, delight on her face.
“Can all animals listen like this?”
“Listen like what?” said Ehtan.
“This murmuring in my thoughts! Oh, it’s not in my thoughts. Rather, it waits politely on the edge of my thoughts, waiting for me to turn to it, to choose to listen to it.”
“Most animals can, to a degree. But nothing such as what you are able to do.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because,” said the wolf, “you are the Mistress of Mistresses.”
The wonder of being able to listen to the speech of animals was so great that, without realizing it, Giverny’s grief fell away. She would have walked straight into tree trunks and stumbled over bushes, so intent was she on listening, were it not for Ehtan patiently nudging her this way and that as they walked deeper into the forest.
A badger chiding her son.
Eat your supper now, there’s a good boy.
But I don’t like grubs.
They’re good for you. Don’t you want to grow up nice and strong? Besides, grubs’ll make your fur shiny smooth. See, your pa eats his grubs right up.
A mouse telling a bedtime story to his six children.
Once upon a time, there lived a mouse named Cheesetwig. He lived in a hole beneath an old willow tree. One day—
Father?
Yes, son?
I know what a twig is, but I don’t know what a cheese is. What’s a cheese?
I don’t rightly know, son, but I’ve heard it is something wonderful. Now, don’t interrupt. As I was saying, one day, Cheesetwig packed a lunch and set out to see the world.
Father?
Yes, son?
What did he pack for lunch?
Two squirrels curled up in a hole in an oak tree.
Walnuts. Let’s see. One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me. One for you, one for—
You gave me the same walnut twice.
No, I didn’t.
Yes, you did.
All righty! All righty! We’ll start over. Walnuts. One for you, one for me. One for—
That’s an acorn.
No, it isn’t.
Yes, it is.
Giverny smiled. And then realized there were other voices besides the animals. Quieter, slower voices.
Sweet water. Sweet water deep down here. Deep down.
Aye, deep down. Beneath the rock. But your roots have already broken a way. I thank you, friend oak.
It is nothing. Nothing, little willow. You are still young.
“The trees,” said Giverny. “I can hear the trees.”
“Hush,” said Ehtan. “Something is not right.”
The wolf stopped in his tracks and turned his head from side to side. His lip curled in a snarl.
“Can’t you smell it? Something comes near. Something of the Dark.”
“What do you mean?”
Giverny only had the vaguest of notions of the Dark. Her father had told her tales when she had been a child, but they had been only that to her, just tales. Deliciously frightening stories that sent children to bed with the shivers.
“I don’t think I’ve ever believed in the Dark.” But her voice was shaking, for she could now smell something strange in the air. It was the faintest of odors, a whiff of decay and blood and something even more dreadful than those.
“Believe, Mistress,” said the wolf. “The Dark believes in you.”
“What shall we do?”
Ehtan glanced around. He shook his heavy head.
“The old oak there, Mistress. Climb as high as you can. Find a place in the branches to wait in stillness and silence for my return. The oak will hide you in its quiet. I shall find the creature and slay it before it draws near to you.”
“Let me come with you!”
“No. Remember, climb high and then await me there in silence.”
With that last word, the wolf disappeared into the dark trees. Giverny scowled and stamped her foot, but then she shivered. She ran to the oak and began to climb. The branches were wet with rain, but it seemed as if the tree shifted ever so slightly beneath her so that her hands and feet always found a secure hold. She settled into the fork of a branch high within the foliage and listened. Other than the dripping of the rain, the forest was silent. The murmur of the animals within her mind had ceased. Instead, there was only a breathless expectancy, a stillness, and dread. Giverny strained her eyes, trying to see through the darkness to the forest floor below, but the night had grown so complete that she could see nothing save her own hands and the leaves in front of her. A thought formed in her mind.
Cats.
They see at night, don’t they?
Giverny growled, deep in her throat, and then stopped, shocked. Where did that come from? She blinked. And then discovered that she could see much more clearly. How strange. Through a gap in the leaves, she could see the ground below.
She heard Ehtan howl somewhere to the north. It was a sharp bay, the call of the hunter that means the prey has been sighted and the chase is on. The howl came again, but it was fainter and further away this time. Giverny thrilled with the sound of it. Her fingers flexed. Surely she was safe now. Ehtan had headed off the intruder and, no doubt, he would pull it down to the kill. But he had told her to stay in the tree until he returned. She frowned. And then climbed down several branches. The wolf’s howl wavered through the air a third time. It was so far away now that it was barely discernible. Giverny climbed down another branch and then froze.
The smell.
It was back.
Decay and death. The smell was so strong it made her eyes water. The skin on the back of her neck pricked uncomfortably. It felt as if someone was watching her. She peered down at the ground below. Nothing stirred. Rain dripped down her neck. And then the branch broke beneath her.
Giverny didn’t have time to scream. She fell, grabbing at branches and only getting handfuls of leaves. Something whipped past her face and she felt a burning line of pain on her cheek. The ground rushed up fast. It was far to fall. But she landed lightly on her feet like a cat. For several seconds she crouched there, her heart beating wildly. The forest was still silent. Nothing moved. But the stench was stronger now. Blood trickled down her cheek. Something rustled in the bushes next to the oak. It was the quietest of noises, but it was appallingly loud in the silence. Giverny backed away.
Something stepped out of the bushes. It was a creature straight from a nightmare. Moonlight gleamed on bare bones and dangling shreds of hide. Its breath steamed in the air, stinking with decay and death. The thing stared at her for a moment. And then it lurched forward.
Giverny screamed and ran. She blundered through bushes and tumbled down sudden embankments. Briers scratched and tried to hold her. Her heart pounded painfully in her breast. Her lungs could not gasp in enough air and she was drowning in the darkness. She did not dare look behind her, but she could hear the strange, staggering run of the creature, crunching across the leaves on the forest floor.
She did not know where to run, only that she had to get away from that thing. Ehtan! If only she could get to him, then she would be safe. He had gone north. Something in her mind nudged at her. North was that way. She turned and stumbled down what seemed like a long avenue of trees leading away into the darkness. But a blot of shadow shambled out from the trees ahead of her. It was the creature. No—a second one, for the first one still followed in her wake.
With a sob, Giverny angled away from them both. Trees loomed up out of the darkness. Oaks and willows and ash. For a moment, she could hear voices—old, deep, and slow—murmuring anxiously on the edge of her mind. But the frantic beat of her heart drowned out the voices and she blundered on. She came to the edge of the forest. The trees thinned and the rain fell down in earnest. She tried to turn back, but she could not. The two things hemmed her in on every side except toward t
he plain. Whimpering, she ran on.
The stars were hidden and the plain stretched out into the night. The two creatures drew closer and Giverny could hear the harsh, greedy rasp of their breath. With a frantic gasp, she ran faster and, for a while, it seemed as if she were outstripping her attendant nightmares. It was then she saw the light in the distance. A tiny smudge of radiance in the darkness. She wiped rain from her eyes, uncertain whether she were only imagining the light. But no, it was there. She ran toward it.
The light grew brighter as she ran. It was a fire of some sort. A campfire. Giverny sobbed out loud with relief. People would be there. Behind her, she heard a hissing snarl and the two creatures increased their speed, stumbling along on their long, grotesque legs. It was a campfire. She could see the flames dancing up from the ground. The firelight gilded the outlines of several tents grouped near the fire. Figures were visible in the encampment.
“Help!” she screamed.
She was nearer now. Near enough to see faces turning toward her. The flames of the campfire roared up as if in response to her scream. But behind her, the creatures snarled and lunged forward.
“Help me, please!”
Several men ran toward her. The firelight glinted on the edges of swords. A tall man with hair as bright as polished gold charged past her. She heard a hideous shrieking noise. Giverny stumbled past the first tent and was in the warm wash of the campfire. Someone wrapped a blanket around her. Voices spoke but she heard nothing of what they said. Her body shook uncontrollably. Hands gripped her shoulders and she found herself looking up into the face of the man with golden hair. He was extremely tall. He said something, his face tight with concern, his eyes intent on hers. He spoke again, more slowly this time.
“They’re dead, girl,” he said.
“Th-thank you!” Giverny stammered.
“You need not fear them anymore, though such strange beasts as they were—I haven’t seen their like in Tormay.”
He led her to a chair set beside the fire. A young man hurried up with a mug of steaming broth. She was aware of other faces watching her from across the flames and in the edges of the shadows.
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