Hinterland g-2

by James Clemens

  Then it flashed again.

  Deep within the well, a trickling trace of green fire snaked across the mark and away again. Flames within a dark sea.

  “Did you see that?” Dart asked, startled.

  Sheershym glanced at her, shook his head, then returned to study the mark.

  Tylar caught her eye. “What did you see, Dart?”

  “Flames, stirring deep with your mark. Then away again.”

  “Flames?” Rogger mumbled. “What did they look like?”

  She frowned, picturing them, trying to capture how they made her feel. “Emerald but with a sickly cast. A feverish sheen to them.”

  Tylar touched his mark and found only flesh. “Green fire…” His eyes narrowed.

  “What?” Rogger asked, plainly sensing some recognition in the other’s voice.

  Tylar kept his gaze fixed to Dart. “Like moonlight off pond scum.”

  She slowly nodded.

  “I’ve seen such a flame before,” Tylar said. “It shone from the blade Perryl struck me with. Or rather struck Meeryn’s naethryn with.”

  “Who is this Perryl?” Sheershym asked.

  “A black ghawl,” Rogger said. “A daemon wearing another’s skin.”

  “His dark sword grazed the naethryn when it was last released. I felt the burn of the blade’s kiss.” Tylar touched the side of his chest. “Here.”

  Sheershym inspected the bruised flesh. “Where your rib is broken now.”

  Tylar nodded.

  Off to the side, Brant stirred and mumbled. “She…she…we must…” Then he drifted away.

  The master looked to the boy, then back to Tylar. “I fear young Brant might not be the only one poisoned here. That blade must have carried some corruption. It poisoned your naethyn-and as the two of you are bound together, you suffer for it, too.”

  Silence settled over them.

  “And if his naethryn dies…?” Rogger finally asked.

  Sheershym shook his head. “I cannot say. But I suspect the wear and break of your body reflects the vitality of the naethryn inside you. As you grow more crippled of limb, it maps your naethryn’s slide toward death.”

  “Is there some cure?” Rogger said. “Some powder to smoke the poison out, like you did with Brant?”

  “Such matters are far beyond my skills,” Sheershym said. His face looked especially waxen with fear, something unspoken.

  “What?” Tylar asked.

  “Even if there were a cure,” the master said, “I fear its potency might never reach where it is most needed.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “There has been talk and speculation amongst the masters since you rose to your regency. Arguments and thoughts shared by raven’s wing. One consensus is that the naethryn inside you…isn’t truly inside you. How could it be? Instead most believe it to be tethered to you while trapped half in this world, half in the naether. For any hope to burn the poison from the creature, you must bring it fully here.”

  “Which I failed to do before,” Tylar said.

  “And while poisoned, you may never be able to do.”

  Rogger shook his head. “A perfectly laid trap.”

  But it wasn’t the only one.

  Brant suddenly sat up on the neighboring litter, gasping out as if startled by the terror of a dream, “She…she…”

  A shout caught his words and finished his thought, coming from the forest, in the direction of the cliff’s edge. “She comes! She comes!”

  Dart straightened, along with everyone else.

  Even Brant gained his legs, wobbly but supported by Lorr.

  They all stared to the east, toward the burnt swath of the black river.

  The Huntress was on the move.

  “The river remains quiet,” Brant said. “Takaminara seems to show no interest in stopping the Huntress this time.”

  “She may not be able to,” Rogger said. “It must have cost her greatly to split the land the first time.”

  Their party gathered at a hunting lodge that overlooked the cliff’s edge. It had been turned into a watchtower by a pair of sentinels, boys barely past twelve. The lodge offered a wide view of the valley floor, once a green sea, now split by a black river.

  Brant shifted the arm in his sling. The firebalm had sealed his wound, and Grace already knit the tissue with a burning itch. Between his eyes, a throbbing ache persisted, the dregs of his poisoning. His left leg also felt numb and thick. But the walk here had helped return sensation with a fiery prickling.

  He was alive.

  But for how long?

  Harp stood at his shoulder. Brant could not believe how much his old friend had grown. Once shorter, he now stood half a head taller than Brant. But so much remained the same, too. The worried crinkle at the corners of his eyes, the way he tapped his chin when struggling with a puzzle, even the same crooked grin, offered when he’d first crossed to Brant back in the camp. Still, despite the warm and genuine greeting, there remained a darker look to his eye, something Brant had never seen before. Shadows that would forever haunt his friend.

  Brant studied the land below. In just the short time it had taken to come here, the Huntress had led her war party halfway across the river. She did not shy from its burn and stink any longer. Brant had heard the story of Harp’s flight. The Huntress, angered by their escape, meant to end this now.

  “They move swiftly,” Tylar said.

  “And so must we if we’re to reach the cliffs and the hinterlands beyond,” Rogger said.

  Brant had walked these lands as a boy. He knew them well. The Divide fell away into the hinter about two leagues away. A hard march, but one they should be able to make. They had already sent ahead the youngest and oldest, to await word at the cliff’s edge, in case Takaminara chose to protect them yet again. No one wanted to enter the deadly hinterlands unless there was no other choice.

  Now they knew.

  “We must go,” Brant said.

  Harp had everything prepared. While camped here, he’d had ladders woven of vine and sinew. They waited at the Divide, coiled and ready to be unfurled down the cliff into the hinterlands. But Harp had planned further strategies as well.

  “I’ll leave ten of our fastest runners,” he said and pointed to key high points. “Along the ridges here and there. With arrow and bow, they should be able to hold the pass, slow the others a bit longer. We don’t want to be caught on the cliff, still on the ladders. A few ax chops and we’d all be tumbling headlong into the hinter.”

  “How likely will her hunters be to follow us down there?” Tylar asked.

  “She won’t stop until we’re all dead,” Harp said with certainty. “But I’ve already soaked the ladders in poxflame oil. Once below, we can set the ladder afire. Burn them off the cliffs. It will take time for any pursuers to find another way down.”

  Brant read the appreciation and respect in the regent’s eyes as he nodded. “Very good,” Tylar said.

  Krevan stood at the lip of the cliff, a long glass to his eye. He finally lowered it. “Six score,” he said. “Eighty with bows. Forty with spears.”

  Harp frowned at him. “Six score? You’re sure of that count?”

  Krevan stared hard, not bothering to answer.

  Harp’s frown deepened as he glanced below. “The best of her hunters number two hundred. She comes with too few.”

  Brant understood what he meant. All attention had been on the war party that crossed the river directly. But the burn spread to the north and south, stretching out of sight in both directions, beyond the view of the sentries in the makeshift watchtower.

  “She sent others ahead of her,” Harp said and turned to them, his eyes wide with worry.

  “To close off our escape,” Brant said. There was a reason their god was named the Huntress.

  Confirming this, screams suddenly erupted, faint and distant, coming from the top of the pass. Where the others had been headed. Horns sounded from that direction, echoing darkly through the wood.
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  The snare had been sprung.

  Responding to the horns, the Huntress called to them from below. Her voice carried to them, borne aloft in Grace.

  “I want only the Godslayer and the boy! To bring his stone!” Horns punctuated her words. “The rest will be allowed to leave my realm. But any further trespass will be met with blood!”

  “What are we going to do?” Dart asked as the horns echoed away. She stood with Lorr and Malthumalbaen at the door to the lodge. “You can’t go down there.”

  “Agreed.” Krevan pointed toward the Forge. “Best we fight our way through to the Divide. There are only two score up there.”

  “Two score of her best hunters,” Harp said with a sour shake of his head. “And they have the high ground. Even if we could make the cliffs, they’d burn us or chop us off the ladders.”

  The Huntress called again, pointing an arm. “Come to where the black rock meets the green wood! In the open. If you are not there when I set foot back to loam, your lives-all your lives-will be forfeit!”

  Brant watched Tylar study the spread of hunters below, his eyes narrowed with calculations. Though his body was broken, his mind remained sharp.

  Tylar finally spoke. “Krevan, lead the others toward the Divide. Gather everyone you can along the way. Keep them safe.”

  The leader of the Black Flaggers seemed ready to argue, but whatever he saw in the regent’s eyes held his tongue.

  Dart was not so reticent. “I can be of help,” she said.

  “No. If the Huntress spots anyone else below…” Tylar shook his head. “We dare not antagonize her any further. And I’d rather you’re safely away.”

  “Then take Pupp at least. No one can see him, and he’s…he’s fierce.”

  “He is indeed. But we’ve never tested his nature against a god, and now is not the time to find out. Still, you’ve given me a thought.”

  Tylar turned to Harp. “You mentioned swift runners. Take me to your fastest.” With a nod, Harp led him around the corner of the lodge.

  Dart came to Brant and touched his arm, still unconvinced. “It is surely your death if you go down there.”

  “I pray it’s only my death,” he mumbled, remembering the bloodstained lips of Marron. “Perhaps this is my path. It started in the shadow of the Forge. Maybe it is supposed to end here.”

  Tylar quickly returned, hopping on his good leg. He had overheard Brant’s words. “Don’t be so quick to accept death. Do that and you’ll have one foot in your grave already.”

  Rogger crossed to them and held out his hand. A piece of yellowed bone rested in his palm. “Before we fled, I stole a sliver of the skull. Mayhap it still contains enough Dark Grace to break the seersong’s hold with that black stone of yours.”

  Brant stared at the skull, touched the stone at his throat, and slowly shook his head. “I feel the smallest tingle or warmth, nothing more.”

  Rogger frowned. “I was afraid of that.”

  In his heart, Brant was relieved. He wanted nothing more to do with the skull.

  “Still, keep it safe for now,” Tylar ordered the man, then nodded toward the approaching hunters. “We dare tarry no longer.”

  In short order, their two parties split. Harp led the others toward the higher pass, guarded by Krevan and Malthumalbaen. Tylar headed back down the small deer path. He hobbled heavily on one side, lost in his own thoughts.

  Brant followed. “You have some plan?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  Brant waited for him to elaborate, but the regent remained silent, marching onward, descending toward the dark river below. A view opened briefly. The leading edge of hunters neared the fringe of forest below, running ahead of the Huntress. Her scouts would reach the jungle first.

  Brant tired of Tylar’s cryptic silence. “So am I part of this plan?” he asked, a bit harshly.

  “A big part.” Tylar glanced back to Brant. “You’re the worm on the hook.”

  Dart climbed beside Malthumalbaen. The giant looked back as often as Dart. Both were worried for Brant…for Tylar. While they climbed toward safety, the others descended toward certain doom.

  “Master Brant knows how to take care of himself,” the giant said.

  Pupp also kept her company, lagging at her heels.

  Ahead, Krevan slipped into and out of shadow, sword drawn. Calla and Lorr followed behind with a handful of Harp’s young hunters. Farther ahead, Rogger marched with Harp. Spread around and between them were the other ragged survivors, the last small handful.

  Boys in torn leathers, some bootless. Elders with crooked staffs to help their steps over uneven rock. One young girl carried a babe in her arms, though barely more than a babe herself. All looked gaunt and hollow.

  There was no joy in their survival.

  Even if they cleared the Divide, they were headed into the hinterlands.

  Rounding a steep jog in the track, they heard a horn sound ahead. A commotion jarred through the group, starting near the front and flowing downslope.

  From both sides, hunters appeared, dressed in leaves to match the jungle, faces painted black. They bore spears, poison-tipped for sure. Their party was herded closer together, forced up the slope to a jungle dell with a creek trickling over rock. Moss lay thick over all surfaces, turning the small glade emerald green.

  It was too bright and handsome a place for the horror here.

  To either side knelt the party that had left earlier. Their hands were tied behind their backs. Many looked beaten. One old woman lay on her side, face bloody, unmoving.

  But worst of all, a body lay near the creek, seeping blood into the water, swirling it crimson.

  Headless.

  Standing over the body was a familiar figure, baring the filed points of his teeth, feral and blood-maddened. His arms and chest were drenched in the fresh flow of his kill, lifeblood steaming on his skin.

  “Marron…” Harp moaned.

  To the hunter’s side, a fierce fire had been stoked with smoky greenwood. Another of the hunters charred the end of a long pole, sharpened at both ends in the flames. At his leader’s signal, he pulled the pole out of the fire and jammed the cool end deep into the mossy loam.

  “Don’t,” Harp said.

  He was ignored.

  Marron bent and lifted the head of the corpse at his feet. Holding it between his palms, he raised it high, then jammed it atop the hot stake. Blood sizzled. Smoke issued from the gaping mouth and nose.

  Dart recognized the naked head, tattooed with disciplines.

  Master Sheershym.

  Dart turned away, hiding her face. Across the creek, more hunters knelt with sharp blades, straddling long branches, shaving them to points.

  More stakes, already sharpened, lay piled nearby.

  Marron stepped to a young girl who knelt at his feet. He twisted a fistful of her hair and cruelly bared her neck. In his other hand, he carried one of the same blades used to cut the stakes.

  The giant reached out and covered Dart’s eyes.

  But she could still hear.

  Down by the hardened river of black rock, Brant allowed himself to be roughly searched. Hands dug over his body. Finally he was shoved forward to join Tylar at the edge of the black river of steaming rock.

  Tylar studied his toes. He had already been searched, even stripped of his shadowcloak. He shifted a full step to one side, more than necessary, as if he were avoiding Brant’s company.

  Out on the river, the Huntress had stood waiting. Only now did she come forward, striding through the steam, her skin shining with sweat and Grace. Her hair had been unbraided, giving her a wild look that stirred Brant in unpleasant ways.

  Brant and Tylar were forced to their knees, spearpoints at their backs. Tylar, hobbled by his bad leg, fell to one hand.

  Ignoring him, the Huntress crossed immediately to Brant. She held out her palm, her eyes bright with desire. There was no need to ask what she wanted.

  Brant reached to his neck and pulled out the
twisted cord from which the rock hung. It was bound tight. The Huntress motioned with her other hand. The spearpoint was shifted from his back and cut the cord. The stone fell free, into Brant’s palm.

  She studied it, lifting her chin and staring down her nose. “It appears such a dull thing-but he was always clever. Sometimes too clever for his own good. Like entrusting it to an equally dull boy.”

  She paced one step to the side, then back again, plainly hesitant with the prize so close. “I think I knew, back when you were brought before me. That was why I banished you-but afterward, I couldn’t remember why. The dark whispers filled my head again and I knew I wasn’t in the correct turn of mind to take its responsibility.” A bit of madness crackled. “But now I must be. Why else have you returned? It must be a sign, surely!”

  Brant sensed she was trying to goad herself into taking it but was plainly fearful at the same time. He could almost sense the tidal pull and push warring inside her.

  Beside him, Tylar remained crouched, his face down, leaning heavily on his one arm. But Brant noted a certain tautness to his shoulders. The way his toe shifted ever so slightly, catching a purchase on a lip of stone, like a climber firming his hold.

  “The time must be ripe!” the Huntress cried out. “A plain sign!”

  Brant held his breath.

  Everything happened too fast.

  The god lunged for the stone in his palm and grabbed it. At the same time, Tylar shoved off his good leg, away from the spear at his back, and pulled out a bladeless gold hilt that had been hidden beneath a flat yellow stone.

  Rivenscryr.

  Here was what Tylar had sent ahead, borne by one of Harp’s fleet-footed runners, to be planted in secret at the river’s edge. Bladeless, it had been easy to hide, easy to miss.

  Rising now, Tylar spun off his good leg. Glass tinkled in his other hand, revealing a tiny repostilary hidden under his wraps. A splash of crimson spilled and struck a silver blade that shimmered into existence with the touch of blood.

  Still turning, Tylar swung the freshly whetted sword for the Huntress’s neck, ready to take her head clean off-but while all this happened in a blink, Brant’s eyes had truly never left the Huntress’s face.