“There!” he shouted when he finally spotted it. There was a shadowy gap in the side of the hill, with the flickering light of the campfire dancing around the entrance. “Come on!”
The rain had turned the soil outside the cave to muck, some of it sliding away even as Teer stepped into the limited shelter of the hill face.
“Hello,” he shouted into the cave. “May we share your fire? It’s miserable out here and we mean no harm.”
The fire continued to flicker, though he couldn’t get a solid look at it. The weather was giving him a headache and he didn’t seem to be able to find the fire itself as he looked deeper into the cave.
He could see the reflected light, which meant it was deeper in the cave than he expected.
“Hello?” he repeated into the silence, then stepped into the cave. “We’re friends of the Kota. We mean no harm.”
Lora suddenly pushed past him, moving forward calmly like she knew exactly what she was doing. He stared after her for a moment—and then Kard followed. Both of them were walking forward like someone had called them in, but he didn’t see or hear anyone.
He realized he’d taken several steps forward on his own without realizing it and his headache was getting worse. Shaking his head against the pain, he walked forward, looking for the fire…and realizing there wasn’t one.
Teer could see the back of the cave. It was a spacious opening, worn out by some twist of nature over the turnings. The dancing lights of a campfire flickered across the walls, but there was no fire in the cave at all.
Kard and Lora were approaching the center of the cavern, and he realized they were even speaking, talking to someone he couldn’t see or hear. He couldn’t make out their words through his pounding headache, but he stopped moving forward and did the only thing that made sense to him.
He drew his quickshooters. The solid weight of the metal in his hands, even with the guns pointed at the floor, gave him something to focus on. He looked down at the silver-handled gun in his right hand, focusing hard on the delicate inlaid pattern that belied the underlying sturdiness of the weapon, until his head cleared, and then he looked up again.
Lora and Kard had both taken seats on rocks around a fire that Teer could now see as an outline of pale blue sparks—almost exactly like he saw Kard’s illusions when he focused on them.
Emerging from the darkness behind them was a seven-foot-tall creature out of nightmare and horror stories. The callipsus leaned forward on heavy legs, a forked tongue flickering in and out of its mouth as it closed on Teer’s friends sitting obliviously by the illusory fire.
“Hey!” Teer shouted. Kard and Lora jerked, but something dragged their focus back to the fire. The callipsus turned its long face up to look directly at Teer, surprisingly intelligent deep green eyes meeting his as the creature snarled.
That snarl exposed a mouthful of teeth the size of Teer’s fingers—and the top of the creature’s mouth as Teer opened fire. The callipsus snapped its mouth shut after the first handful of bullets, falling backward as Teer continued to fire until both guns were empty, and the cave had fallen completely dark.
The echoes of the gunshots took a few moments to die down. The dark cave was silent except for everyone’s breathing, and then a new light took shape. A blue orb rose up from Kard’s hand, cutting through the darkness with a sharply unnatural light.
Teer holstered one of the quickshooters and began reloading the other as he met the other Hunter’s gaze.
“You all right?” he asked. His ears were ringing but he could at least hear himself speak.
“What…happened?” Kard said, seemingly unbothered by the gunshots. His illusion was gone and he was unusually pale in the harsh magical light. “There were a trio of Kota in here, with a fire. Then you…”
Teer pointed and Kard turned.
Lora was already staring at the corpse of the callipsus.
“Iron Pillars,” Kard swore. “I… We walked right into one of their traps.”
“You warned us they had magic we didn’t know,” Teer said grimly. “It works better on me than your illusions, but mostly by hurting me.”
“I thought you said they were bigger than that?” Lora asked, somehow noticing the size of the creature despite the shock.
“The two I saw before were, yes,” Kard admitted shakily, examining the body. “But I don’t know much about them.”
The three of them shared a weary look.
“We need to rest here,” Teer decided for them all. “Kard, can you…get rid of that? This is the only shelter we’d found.”
Orange lights were moving the corpse before Teer finished speaking. Kard followed the body out and brought the horses back in with him.
“The horses probably thought we were crazy,” Kard noted. “They wouldn’t have seen the illusion. Just like Teer.”
“I was in too much pain to really wonder what you were doing until I saw it,” Teer admitted. “Fortunately, this one was less bulletproof than you said.”
“We need to take watches anyway,” Kard said grimly. “Something about this sounds…worrisome, but between the wind and the rain and the night, I’m not putting it together.”
24
Morning dawned gray and bleary when it came, but the rain had passed and Kard could finally locate them on his map as they checked over the horses.
“Teer, Kard… That thing? It’s gone,” Lora told them, the Merik woman stepping back into the cave. She held her thunderbuss tightly, the barrel pointed toward the floor rather than the two men.
“It was dead, right?” Teer asked.
“Seemed pretty dead to me,” Kard agreed. “Probably slid downhill in the mud and the rain. Even if it wasn’t, well…” He shrugged.
“Horses are faster. We’ll leave it behind, and the Kota will handle it.”
Teer doubted Kard was any more certain of the Kotan hunters’ ability to handle a callipsus than he had been before the storm, but they didn’t have much of a choice. They weren’t going to hunt the beast through the mud and the swamps, even if it wasn’t most likely dead.
He had put at least three bullets into the top of its mouth. Bulletproof hide or not, that had to have killed it.
“If we get up on top of that hill”—Kard pointed to the northeast—“we should be able to see the red hill Nia mentioned.” He looked around up at the gray haze covering the sun. “Assuming we can see colors in this mess.”
“We’ll find it,” Teer assured Lora. “You’ll be safe.”
“I know that,” she replied sharply. She still wasn’t meeting his gaze.
“Let’s move,” Kard urged them. “The storm drove it and us to the same shelter. Without the rain and the thunder, we should be fine. The camp can’t be too much farther.”
They rode out as one, Teer still hanging on to the leads from the two packhorses. None of the animals seemed all right. All of them were shying against something they could smell and the humans didn’t, and the mud wasn’t good for their footing.
Gray haze or no, the day warmed up quickly. The swamp they entered to reach what would hopefully be their last hill was a fetid mess, and Teer grimaced against the smell and Star shied from the even worse footing.
“Just a few hundred feet, girl,” he told the mare. “Then we’re clear.”
“Someone want to tell my boots that?” Kard asked, looking down at the offending garments with a forlorn look. “I think some of the mud just went in one.”
“Just a few hundred feet, Kard’s boots,” Lora echoed Teer’s words of a moment earlier. Forced as the joke was, it still hit the two men in the right spot, and both of them starting chuckling as they rode through the swampy valley.
“Thank you,” Teer told the woman as they edged closer together around a fallen tree. “I’m glad you’re with us.”
“So’re the biters,” she said as she slapped at her arm. “Hungry bastards.”
“Come on, I see a spit of solid ground ahead,” Kard said loudly. “Then w
e can get up and find this cursed red hill.”
Cresting a hill the better part of a mile across and at least a thousand feet tall wasn’t quite as easy as Kard made it sound, but it at least smelled better than the swamp and the ground was almost fully dry. The horses’ hooves were going to need cleaning when they made it to their destination, but they weren’t picking up new muck.
The haze seemed to be sinking as they rode higher on the hill, eventually allowing them to emerge into full sunlight as the mist sank into the valleys around the Venedor Hills. As the haze fell behind them, Teer let the warmth wash over him.
There were still biters and other bugs, but there were some small selling points to being this far north. Some of the insects, like the butterflies that had swarmed another hilltop, were gorgeous.
This hilltop was covered in an odd patch of trees, new growth forcing its way up around the burnt wreckage of old giants. At some point, probably several turnings earlier, the entire crown had gone up in flames and the ancient trees had burned like an immense torch.
Now, regrowth used the ash of those deaths to fuel the new trees growing around the wreckage. There was some kind of message there, Teer was sure, but he couldn’t put it in words.
Mostly, he was seeing burnt old logs in the way of their path as they tried to swing around to the east to see their destination. He figured he should have been able to see Nia’s “red hill,” but nothing to the east of them was fitting the description.
They’d reached the true peak of the hill and wrapped around to the northeast side, into a more recently burnt dead zone, before he finally saw just what the shaman had been speaking of.
It was partially that the hill was to the north and east of their current spot, partially the angle of the leaves on the bushes that covered it, and partially the angle of the sun. At the right place and the right moment, the entire hill turned a brilliant shade of crimson.
Now he was looking for it, Teer could see other patches of the sprawling multi-trunked plants with their trails of red leaves scattered through the hills, but only one seemed to be covered in the trees.
“Well, that’s not hard to find once you’re in the right place, is it?” Kard asked. “Teer, do you see any sign of people?”
Teer focused on the hill for a few seconds, then nodded briskly as he picked out the smoke.
“At least a dozen fires,” he told his mentor. “I’d guess houses if I had the impression the Kota built houses.”
“They’re probably houses, then,” Kard replied with a chuckle. “The Kota move more than most Unity peoples, but they do build. You’ll see.”
“That I’ll do,” Teer agreed. “They’re on the back of the hill from us, I’d say. A couple of candlemarks’ ride still.”
“Let’s go,” Lora said, but her voice sounded nervous and she pulled her horse beside Teer’s as they headed down the hill.
“The whole idea of livin’ with the Kota was a lot less scary when we weren’t here,” she said quietly, her eyes on the ground in front of her horse. “Now…I don’t know these people, Teer. Know nothin’ about them.”
“You met Nia and her hunters,” Teer said. “They weren’t too bad. I knew Doka well. I think you’ll be fine.”
“I know,” she exhaled. “Still scary. I ran an inn, Teer. I’m willin’ to work, but I don’t know what I can do for ’em.”
“Cook, ride, shoot,” he told her. “I figure most of what runs an inn helps run a house, helps run a tribe. You’ll be fine.”
“You make me sound like a servant,” Lora snapped.
They rode in silence for a few more moments before Teer sighed.
“Truth is, I’m not certain what it takes to run an inn,” he admitted. “You ride well, you shoot well. If you’re willing to work, I’d be able to find you a place on my ma’s husband’s ranch. ’Cept, of course, that’s in Unity land.”
“Sorry,” she said. “Just…just…”
“Everything fell apart and you’re stuck going forward,” Teer guessed. “If it helps, I don’t know when we’ll be leaving. I’ll be learning from this Tyrus, we think. Whatever he knows of my gifts.”
“Your magic,” she said, still looking ahead. “Didn’t think Merik had magic.”
“Me either,” he said. “Didn’t think I was special till Kard started testing me and we found I’ll see through all his illusions.”
“Saved us all last night,” Lora said. “That beast was goin’ to eat us, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” Teer shook his head. “We got lucky, too.”
She turned to look at him for the first time, her eyes flashing.
“What do you mean?”
“From what Kard said about callipsuses…that was a half-grown one,” Teer guessed. “The ma is one the Kota were hunting. The ma would like have eaten me before I could act.”
He’d seen through the illusion, but the pain had been nearly crippling. If there was a next time, hopefully he’d recognize the signs.
“Mountin’ Star,” Lora whispered. “You think that shaman can handle it?”
“Doka’s a half-trained Kotan shaman,” Teer said slowly. “She’s one of the fiercest fighters I know, and her power saved me from being crippled. If anyone can, I figure a Kotan shaman can.”
Lora looked at him oddly for a moment.
“Speakin’ of,” she said slowly. “How’s your shoulder?”
Teer hadn’t even thought of the injury he’d taken in the fight with Yosan. Twisting his head in the saddle, he pulled his shirt down to check the wound. There was still a bandage over it, but he didn’t feel any stiffness or pain.
“Fine,” he said hesitantly. “I think Kard did more than pull the bullet out.”
He wasn’t going to take the bandage off, but it felt far more healed than it should. It had been a shallow-enough wound, but Teer still wondered at the improvement. He could get used to traveling with people with magical healing.
“How are yours?” he asked, looking back at the woman. “Those wounds weren’t deep, but they were on the edge of going bad.”
“You did a good job,” Lora said. “They’re still sensitive but mostly healed over. Thank you.”
She paused, then sighed.
“Thank you for everythin’,” she said. “And you’re right…it is good to know you’ll be with me for a while still. Gettin’ used to havin’ you at my back.”
“We’ll see how long we can stay,” Teer told her. “But I’ll be here for you. I promise.”
25
They didn’t make it all the way to the Kotan settlement before being intercepted. The trio had barely brought the horses out of the swamp around the base of the red hill before an older Merik man emerged from the trees, holding a bow.
“Hold it there, strangers,” he ordered. “Who are you?”
“My name is Kard,” Kard introduced himself. “These are my companions, Teer and Lora. I’m here to speak with the Shaman Tyrus.”
“And what is your business with the Notable Shaman?” the man asked. From the casual way he held the bow, he wasn’t expecting to use the weapon—which told Teer there were others watching.
He surveyed the nearest copse of the strange interlinked red trees and was pleased to pick out the watchers. There were two more warriors, both blue-skinned Kota unlike their greeter, wearing cloaks of red leaves and carrying hunters.
“Tyrus and I are old friends,” Kard replied. “I need to ask a favor of him—and Lora here is a fugitive from Unity injustice. She needs a place to stay.”
The man challenging them wasn’t even dressed like a Kota. He wore a very similar jeans-and-shirt outfit to what Teer was wearing, though his shirt was recognizably the same color as the trees on the hill.
If this Merik was considered part of the Sondar Tribe, Lora would be fine. Teer had realized there had to be other non-Kota with the tribe, but he hadn’t expected to meet one on the outer patrols.
“Do you have any way to prove this, Kard?” the Merik aske
d.
Before Kard could reply, a third Kota Teer hadn’t seen emerged from another set of trees.
“Roku knows Kard,” the Kota, a gangly man probably twice Teer’s age, said brightly. He threw Kard a perfect Unity-style hand-to-temple salute. “Lord Colonel.”
“Please, Kard is sufficient,” the El-Spehari replied. “Rifle Roku? Second Squad, Third Platoon of the Scouts, yes?”
“Kard remembers Roku!” the Kota said brightly. “Roku didn’t return to Kota before Kard left again, but Tyrus spoke of Kard’s time with Tyrus.”
Teer exchanged a look with Lora.
Lord Colonel? Teer wasn’t sure if that was an honorific or a specific title, but a Unity Colonel commanded a brigade of five thousand rifles. He’d known Kard had served the Unity and the Sunset Rebellions, that he’d even ridden with the Prince in Sunset himself, but somehow, he hadn’t connected that to Kard being a senior officer.
“Roku will bring Kard to Tyrus, Lorn,” Roku told the other guard. “If the Lord Colonel needs to speak to Tyrus, it is important.”
Kard sighed loudly.
“Just Kard, I said,” he insisted. “I haven’t been a Lord Colonel in a long, long time.”
“Fair,” Roku allowed. “Apologies. Hard to forget. If Kard will follow Roku?”
Teer gave Kard a questioning look, but all he got was a shrug and a gesture for Teer to follow the El-Spehari.
“Be careful of redgrave grove,” Roku told them as they followed him up the hill. “Horses can take a bite or two without harm, but these trees are sacred. They are not to be cut.”
The path the scout was leading them along seemed clear enough that cutting wasn’t going to be required, but Teer appreciated the warning anyway—and the name for the strange trees that seemed to be linked both along the ground and in the air.
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