The Eye of the Hunter

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Seeing this, Riatha stepped to the Ghûlk slain by Faeril and, striking below the steel collar, decapitated the creature and then dismembered it. When she was finished, she retrieved Faeril’s Elven knife, pulling it from the Ghûlk’s heart, returning the silver dagger to the damman.

  Faeril girted herself with her long-knife and slipped the silver dagger into its scabbard. Too, she located Gwylly’s sling and bullet bags, as well as his other weaponry, and she gathered them up along with her bedroll and his, too. Strapping hers onto her back, she untied Gwylly’s blanket and enfolded her buccaran within.

  Finally, laden with saddlebags and other goods, they stepped through the broken doorway, Urus leading, Riatha coming after and bearing Gwylly’s blanket-wrapped body, Faeril next, and then Aravan.

  As they passed from the chamber, Urus roared, imitating the Bear, and Faeril could hear footsteps scuttling away in the shadowed hall.

  Urus led them to a spiral stair, and up this they went, emerging through an open trap and up onto the altar dais in the central chamber, torches burning at each of the four corners, brightly illuminating them. The hall was devoid of distant voices murmuring, unlike the time when they first had entered.

  Down from the dais they stepped, Faeril’s heart pounding, for any minute she expected black-shafted arrows or crossbow bolts to come winging out from the shadows.

  Faeril saw something gleaming on the floor, and she stepped to it; it was the silver throwing knife she had hurled at Stoke, just missing. Quickly Faeril slipped the blade into its scabbard. Most of her steel knives were gone, having been cast in battle, but both silver blades were now housed in the bandoliers.

  Now they started across the floor toward the way they had previously come into the hall, but the portcullis was yet down across the corner door, and so Urus changed course, swinging back toward the doorway through which the Ogru had come.

  They entered a short corridor and came to a cross hall stretching away into shadows left and right. Straight ahead stood a stairwell, steps going upward as well as down. “This I ween will lead below, where lies the passage to the minaret,” hissed Urus, and down they went.

  No enemy did they meet in the hallway beneath, and swiftly they came to the tunnel. Taking a burning torch from its bracket, down the length of the underground passage they hurried, coming to the portcullis yet unlocked, the pole from the paddock yet lying against the wall. Urus spun the lifting wheel, Clack! Clack! Clack! the ratchet clattering and chains rattling as the protesting iron squealed upward.

  As the others passed through, Urus propped the pole under the raised grille, then strode to the mechanism and, using his morning star, broke loose the lifting chains and shattered the spokes and ratchet. Then the Baeran stepped through, and with a grunt he heaved the pole free. The grate squealed down, Clang! the portcullis teeth slamming into the sockets below.

  Up the stairs and to the ground floor of the minaret they went, finding the courtyard door yet open. Bright moonlight shone through. “After our ‘invasion,’ the Wrg perhaps never came here,” breathed Urus, setting down his burdens. “Even so, some may be above. And though the squealing portcullis banging and clanging has announced our presence, they might think we are merely other Rutcha. I will go first in case Wrg lie in wait. Aravan, quench the torch and come with me. Riatha, stay here with Faeril…and Gwylly.”

  Taking his morning star in his left hand, up the spiral stairs went Urus, Aravan with his spear coming behind.

  Faeril’s heart raced as up they went, and she heard their soft steps ascending, but only until they were beyond sight, and then nought but silence.

  Gently, Riatha lay Gwylly’s body down. Then drawing Dúnamis, she stepped to the doorway and peered out, standing ward.

  Faeril drew her long-knife and waited in the shadows.

  All was silent, the front of the mosque dark, and of their horses there was no sign.

  Long moments passed, endless moments, but at last Urus returned. “All is clear.”

  As Faeril went up the steps, Riatha came after, bearing Gwylly. Below, Urus closed and barred the door to the courtyard, then scooped up all remaining gear and followed.

  At the top of the minaret, Aravan stood in the shadows, peering outward through the archways of the crowning pavilion. The Moon was two days past full, and it stood nigh the zenith, shedding its pale light down on the mosque and courtyard and the surrounding terrain beyond the fortress walls.

  Faeril and Riatha came up through the trapdoor, followed by Urus. The Baeran dropped gear to the floor, while Riatha prepared to lay Gwylly down. “In the moonlight, Riatha,” said Faeril, tears glistening. “Gwylly always said that moonlight was special.”

  As the Elfess placed the buccan on the stone where struck the silvery beams, Urus disappeared back down the spiral stairs. Faeril sat beside her buccaran and took loose the blanket and held his cold hand in hers, softly weeping.

  Moments later Urus returned, and he had with him the paddock pole. The Baeran closed the trapdoor and then wedged the post athwart it, sliding one end far through a drain port, then haling it partway back to jam the opposite end under the anchoring arch of a stone table. “There,” he said. “That ought to—”

  A distant clank and clatter sounded.

  Aravan cocked his head, listening. “A portcullis being raised,” he hissed.

  Faeril stood, drawing her long-knife. “Below?”

  “Nay.” Aravan pointed. “Yon. The front entrance, I deem.”

  Riatha unsheathed Dúnamis, her voice grim. “They come.”

  Next sounded a metallic dnng of a heavy brass door fetching up against stone, and wavering torch-light shone out from the front portico. Seconds passed, and suddenly five Hlōks scuttled across the space to the front gate, one bearing a torch, the others scrambling to draw the bar and open the leftmost portal, shoving the gate out just enough to squeeze through. Down the switchbacks they ran, fleeing toward the canyon below. Ere they reached it, three Rūcks came bolting out after, pounding through the bright moonlight, trying to catch the Hlōks ahead.

  Aravan clutched the blue amulet and laughed softly. “There is yet a chill on the token, but even now it warms. I ween that they were the last of the Foul Folk, all but one left behind.

  “Mayhap they think the Bear is yet inside, and that is why they fled.”

  “Even so,” gritted Riatha, resheathing Dúnamis, “let us not cast lots with Fortune. Dawn is but five hours hence…then can we leave our aerie.”

  Aravan watched as the Rûpt entered the canyon and fled northward. Then the Elf turned to Urus. “My friend, we thought thee dead. Tell us, what passed?”

  Urus sat down on the stone, drawing Riatha after, motioning Faeril to sit at his side, deliberately guiding her away from where she could see Gwylly. “When the Ogru had me in its grasp, I, too, knew that I was slain, for I could feel the monster crushing the life from me, bones breaking, blood bursting from my chest, filling my throat, choking me. Then all went black.

  “How long I fell in the darkness, I could not then say, for when I wakened, all I knew was that I had been…‘dead.’

  “Mayhap Faeril has the right of it, and only by silver pure or starsilver rare can I be slain…that or by fire, or by the fangs and claws of another so cursed.

  “Regardless, when I awoke, I was strapped to a table. Yet I was fully alert, and I knew that my Ogru-given injuries had by this time healed, for breathing pained me not and blood no longer filled my throat and lungs. Knowing that I was whole, I looked about; beside me there were horribly mutilated dead, their chests laid open, their skulls split, legs and arms flayed to the bone, muscle and tissue and organs splayed about, as if some madman had been at work—Stoke. I was in his foul laboratory.

  “I tried to break free, but the heavy straps were beyond my strength, and I knew that only the Bear might be able to rend the bonds.

  “And so, I fixed my mind on but a single thought, telling the Bear to find each of you and set you fr
ee if you yet lived, and then I began the transformation…”

  * * *

  In a dull rage at being trussed, the Bear shattered the bonds and rolled off the ledge. Dead two-legs were in the room, strapped to other ledges. Snuffling each, none of these were the two-legs he sought, and he growled low, for he knew that his two-legs comrades were in danger.

  Out from the chamber the Bear stalked, verging into a corridor. To one side lay other doorways, some open, some closed. To the other side it looked the same. Having no better choice, the Bear turned in the direction of his darker paw, nose in the air, seeking scent of his companions. Finding them would be difficult, for the two-legs cave was filled to overflowing with the stench of death.

  Moving along the hallway, the Bear peered into every room, bashing open doors when they stood in the way. The chambers held arcane devices he could not fathom: some were iron cages hanging from the ceilings, dead two-legs inside; others were iron doors, dead two-legs mashed between; still others were long ledges, dead two-legs tied atop, ripped apart, arms over there, legs over here. None was a companion of the Bear, but even so, he knew that he had to find the comrades before some such thing happened to them.

  Behind one shattered door the Bear found the lair of an old enemy, one he had fought long past, the scent like that of an Urwa but not an Urwa. Inside was his foe’s rumpled bed. And about the den was the smell of two-legs blood from a kill no more than a day old.

  Again, it was not from one of the two-legs companions he sought.

  Whuffing to clear his nose of the stench, the Bear stepped back into the hallway, only to confront three Urwa.

  “Waugh!” they shouted, leaping back, turning, fleeing.

  “RRRAAAWWWW!” roared the Bear, charging after. Ahead fled the Urwa, shrieking in panic.

  But above their cries of terror, the Bear heard other sounds, other shouts and screams—and he recognized them as coming from the small two-legs he had befriended.

  Now the Bear no longer pursued the Urwa, even though they ran before him. Instead he raced toward the cries of his comrades.

  The Urwa ahead leapt through a door, slamming it after, and it was behind that very same door that the Bear could hear the screams of the small two-legs. Rearing up, and charging forward, into the door whelmed the Bear, the portal crashing inward before him, smashing down atop the Urwa and shattering.

  And as the Bear stood upon the wreckage, he heard the cries of his comrades and saw them hanging from chains, and he scented his old foe—the-Urwa-not-Urwa—and he heard his enemy’s voice, and he saw dead two-legs turning to attack…and he was enraged.

  * * *

  “…And you know the rest,” concluded Urus.

  Aravan turned from his vigil. “Blessed be the Bear, Urus, for he came in the nick of time.” Then Aravan’s eye fell upon the tiny body wrapped in a blanket.

  Beside Urus, Faeril began weeping again, and the huge Man enwrapped her in his arms and rocked her gently and stroked her hair as she sobbed in utter desolation. What he murmured is not known, but he did hum softly, a deep rumbling in his chest. And the exhausted wee damman in his arms cried herself to sleep.

  * * *

  Dawn came, the Sun beyond the mountains. Down from the minaret descended the four, Riatha carrying Gwylly. They made their way to the back of the mosque, and there they found camels in the paddock. Of their own horses there was no sign. “Slain by the Rutcha, I would think,” said Urus. “Unless they are well trained, steeds cannot abide camels, their stench, their eructions. I would think that the Wrg slew our mounts rather than put up with their panic or rage. Too, they would look for any excuse to get at horseflesh.”

  “Horses or not,” said Aravan, “a long journey lies ahead. We will need food and water, and tack for the camels.”

  Faeril spoke, her voice trembling. “You three search. I will remain here with my love. Yet I remind you, we need a funeral pyre for Gwylly. That is what he wanted.”

  The building nearest the stable once had been a smithy, for there they found a forge and bellows and mauls and tongs and anvils and other such long unused. Therein they also found plunder piled high, booty from raids, cargo from caravans: silks and satins; carven goods of ivory and ebony and semiprecious stone; spices and seasonings and flavorings, packed in tins and jars; small crates of crue; casks of tea; kegs of oil; chests of unknown contents; brass lamps and bronze and other such; woven rugs; other treasures scattered in piles. They searched among the jumble and located camel tack, though they did not find any of the double saddles fit to carry a child…or Faeril.

  In the next building, a warehouse, they found more of the same, as well as a stair leading down. And as they stood above the steps—“Hist!” whispered Riatha. “I hear the trickle of water below.”

  Beneath, they found a cistern, water seeping from the stone of the mountain and running in. Too, there was an underground passage leading back toward the mosque. Urus scooped up water in a cupped hand and smelled, then tasted it, nodding.

  “Now we have all we need to leave this place behind,” said Aravan. “Water. Food. Camels.”

  Riatha turned to the Elf. “Back by way of Nizari? Then across the Karoo? It will be dangerous.”

  Aravan agreed. “Thou art right, Dara: in the Red City they seek our death, and we are not likely to slip past unnoticed, even at night. Instead we can turn west from here and fare into Hyree, then head north along the west flank of the Talâk Range, posing as caravaneers. Northward, too, is the port of Khalísha along the Avagon Sea, where we can book passage to Pellar.”

  Riatha held up a hand. “If we go into Hyree, we will need guises, for if they are readying for a jihad, they will take us for spies lest we hide our nature.”

  Aravan nodded, glancing at Urus. “Then let us get on with it,” said the Man.

  They bore water to the camels and let them drink their fill. Then fitted them with tack and laded them with waterskins and food and cargo taken from the store of plunder.

  When that was done they took apart the paddock fence, stacking the poles into a funeral pyre, covering over all with silks and satins.

  And they washed Gwylly, cleansing him of blood, and clothed him in his Elven leathers and laid him thereupon.

  During these ministrations, Aravan walked away, the Elf with tears in his eyes. Yet there was something he had left to do.

  He bore with him his spear and a cask of oil and a heavy maul and paced to the third building. A foetor, a miasma hung upon the air, and he could hear the squeal of an angered beast behind the closed doors. He flung the portals wide, letting the day shine inward; an enraged scream chopped to silence, the Hèlsteed now dead, fallen into ruin.

  Aravan clutched his amulet and nodded, all chill now gone from the stone. He strode to the front entrance of the mosque and flung the remaining portal wide, the bronze door fetching up against the inner wall with a massive dnng!

  Inward he stalked, past the Troll bones and into the main chamber, daylight streaming after. To the north archway he went, and there in piles of dust he retrieved steel throwing knives, shoving them into his belt.

  Next, Aravan went to the central dais and down the spiral stair and into the chamber of death where Stoke lay. He thrust Krystallopŷr into Stoke’s torso, the spear burning through the heart. Then he jerked the golden, steel-bladed impaling stake free, and with the iron maul he hammered it to ruin upon the stone floor. He dragged the shards of the wooden door to the center of the room and flung Stoke’s remains thereon, head and body. Then he poured oil over all and set the heap afire, the dry wood exploding in flames and burning furiously, Stoke’s corpse blazing up, skull afire, the heat searing. “Mayest thou burn forever in Hèl,” gritted Aravan.

  As he left the inferno behind, he took up the Ghûlk’s head by the hair as well as the cruelly barbed spear, and back up the spiral steps he went, coming to the daylight. And there the Sun turned the Ghûlk’s head into dust, the spiked steel collar clanging to the stone.

&
nbsp; “Now, Gwylly, it is finished.”

  * * *

  When Aravan returned, he gave the knives over to Faeril, and he cast the steel collar and barbed spear of the Ghûlk to the foot of the funeral pyre, the shaft broken in two, the Elf saying, “The weapon and armor of his enemy should lie at his feet.”

  Faeril, weeping, placed Gwylly’s sling in his hand, a silver bullet in the leather. Then they poured fine oil over the silks and satins and wood.

  At last all was ready, and Faeril gave her buccaran one final kiss. “I love you, Gwylly,” she whispered, choking on her grief.

  She stepped back, and Urus, bearing four torches aflame, handed one to each of them.

  And together, standing at the cardinal points and weeping, they ignited the pyre.

  And with voices of silver, Riatha and Aravan sang Gwylly’s soul up into the sky.

  * * *

  They rode out through the gates, a long string of camels behind. As they passed beyond the walls, a white dove flew past, winging northward. “An omen of safe passage,” murmured Aravan. “Let us hope it is true.”

  Down the switchbacks they rode, toward the canyon below. And just ere they entered, Faeril, riding before Aravan on an improvised saddle, looked back toward the mosque. A pillar of grey smoke climbed into the sky, turning gold as it emerged from mountain shadow and ascended in the morning Sun.

  Her vision blurred with tears, Faeril whispered, “Rise up, my love, rise up to Adon on the golden wings of fire.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Passages

  Late Winter to Early Autumn, 5E990

  [The Present]

  Northerly through the canyon they rode, stone rising steeply to either side, hemming them in, binding them. And even though the gorge twisted and turned, wrenching left and right, still they moved at a goodly pace, for they wished to be free of the gulch ere nightfall some nine hours hence, the opening into the pass forty or so miles ahead. For the most part the caravan jogged in silence, the riders lost in their thoughts, though now and again a camel would hronk an idle complaint. There were eighteen camels in all, fifteen bearing light loads of cargo, three bearing riders, all bearing water. Aravan with Faeril rode in the lead, five camels trailing after. Next came Riatha and finally Urus, five camels in each of their trains as well. And northward through the twisting canyon they passed as the day first waxed then waned.