Tribulations (Rogue Mage Anthology Book 2)

by Faith Hunter

  Heresy. That’s what Elder Doolan would say. Suggesting that the armies of God bore any resemblance to old pagan tales would earn me a branding at best, or more likely a stoning.

  The Catholic priests and missionaries who’d first come to Ireland had done their best to stamp out the old religion and transform its tales to fit their theology. Later, the Protestant Brits had done their all to wipe out the Catholics, destroying churches and monasteries, enforcing Anglicanism as the state religion and making it illegal to speak Gaelic or, practically, to be Irish at all.

  But we were a stubborn people. We held fast. And I had seen both too much and too little during my time in Enclave to believe in Elder Doolan’s God.

  Hence my meeting with Whit Lahey. I wasn’t committed to the Earth Invasion Heretics. My opinions were too complex, and I wasn’t much of a joiner. But my mind was open, and their money spent as well as any other. Being an itinerant storyteller gave me all the freedom a girl could want, but it didn’t exactly provide. Not a living wage. That came from special deliveries—information, packages—not all of them approved by the Administration of the ArchSeraph. But not all under-the-table, either. Not with mail service only intermittent and glaciers making more of the countryside impassable by the year.

  Elder Doolan got waylaid by a rawboned woman I didn’t recognize, and I used her distraction to get away, barely glancing at my hat as it came back to me holding a mere pittance. Possibly enough for a meal and a pint, if I wasn’t too picky about the quality.

  I found Whit exactly where I expected to, at a small table at the back of the public room, his back to the wall. He was nursing a hot cuppa, and as I sat, I reached for it without asking—not to sip, but simply to wrap my still-gloved hands around. He relinquished the mug with a wry grin and signaled for another. I gave an additional signal that there should be a tipple in it. I’d trade Whit’s mug back to him when it came. I needed something stronger than tea to warm my blood.

  “So,” I said, meeting Whit’s gaze across the table. In the low light of the taproom, his eyes were nearly black. Ages out in the elements had carved lines into his face like the glacier-swept grikes of the Burren, but they worked for him. They gave him character. “What do you have for me?”

  His lips quirked, as though he was about to say something completely unrelated to the package I was to carry for him, but then my tea arrived, the vapor rising from it carrying the distinct tang of whiskey, and I pushed his mug back to him. I raised mine to my nose even before my lips, inhaling the scent, letting the steam begin to thaw my face. I closed my eyes as I drank. Pure heaven.

  When I set down my cup and opened my eyes again, the moment had passed. Rather than take his mug, both of Whit’s hands were hidden beneath the table, and I felt something nudge at my leg. I lowered a hand to take it from him but it was bulkier and heavier than I’d expected. Reluctantly, I took the package in both hands and transferred it to the satchel hidden beneath my jacket. It just barely fit. The flap would close but not fasten.

  “For the Widow Reilly at GtV Repairs in Kerry,” he said, giving me a meaningful look. “No one else.”

  “Got it,” I answered. “Mule train leaves tomorrow. I’m leaving with it. Any message?”

  “She’ll know.”

  He folded some money behind the salt and pepper shakers before rising to leave, pulling a woolen cap down over his head and raising the collar of his coat. That wad of bills was more than enough to cover his drink. Enough to cover my fee, I hoped. Not that I could check it right now with potential witnesses all around. I grabbed the money, stuffed it into one of my pockets and signaled for the server, hunger gnawing at my insides. The drink had done me good, but trying to stay warm in the biting temperatures burned calories that I needed to replace.

  I spotted the kylen as I approached the muster point the next morning. Even with his glow dampened, even turned away so that I couldn’t see his unearthly beauty, I could read the signs. The man who was not a man was tall and broad, at least at the shoulders, his coat bulky to accommodate the wings I was sure were hidden beneath. His long, copper-blond hair was gathered into a ponytail with a leather cord, his head bare in defiance of the cold. But it was the power that rolled off of him in waves that truly gave him away.

  And put me in grave danger. There was no reason for a kylen, not even second or third generation, to be outside the Realms of Light. Not unless he was on a mission of some kind . . . like hunting down EIH sympathizers.

  I nearly turned back to town. I could, potentially, wait for another mule train, but there was no telling when the next might be leaving. Possibly not until Liam and his riders returned from this trip. And recovered. I wasn’t crazy enough to strike out on my own across the icy landscape, and I couldn’t afford a private guide or guard. It wasn’t so bad here in Kilkenny, but the glaciers that had once covered the Burren menaced the landscape once again. They hadn’t reached all the way to Kerry, but it was still several days journey on treacherous footing. No sane person braved it alone.

  Then the kylen turned and spotted me, and I was caught in his gaze like a fly in amber. His eyes were ice-green with darker rims encircling them and possibly even flecks of gold at their center. I tried not to study them. I tried to tear my gaze away, but it was no good.

  I couldn’t turn back now. It would be remarked. I would give myself away.

  He nodded at me, merely acknowledgment, but my heart raced and my . . . well, if I could ride on the wings of my libido right now, there’d be no need for a mule train.

  I nodded back, trying for neutrality. I was pretty certain I accomplished at least that much. I’d learned stoicism during my formative years in Enclave, having to hide what I thought of the arrogant neomages who tried to order me around, though it was my parents who worked there and not me. As soon as I was old enough to enter service, I got out.

  To make matters worse, Elder Doolan and his wife bustled up, loaded with packs, clearly set to join the mule train. The glint in the elder’s eye as he caught sight of me said that he looked forward to delivering his aborted lecture of the evening before. I wondered if setting off alone was truly as foolhardy as I feared.

  Beside the Doolans and the kylen, there were Liam and his outriders, both of whom I knew from travels past—Mad Molly, who came by her name honestly, and Ronan, who was always trying to get me to share his bed “for warmth.” On the colder treks, I’d even considered it. I enjoyed his company well enough and, if I was truthful, the breadth of his shoulders and knowing spark in his eyes. But I knew men like Ronan, and if he got what he wanted once, he’d expect it to be available whenever he liked. As my livelihood depended on travel and Liam’s mule train was one of my only options, it was best not to start anything. I could do without complications . . . or stoning, which with the Doolans along seemed a likely thing.

  There was a family with us as well—a woman, two men who looked to be brothers, and two children, one a babe in arms, who seemed desperate to escape her carry sling . . . or his; it was hard to tell all bundled as he—or she—was. The other child hid behind his mother’s legs, peering up at the kylen with stunningly big eyes framed by dark lashes. The kylen noticed the boy’s regard and the ice of those green eyes seemed to melt. A smile cracked his face. The boy reddened and ducked back behind his mother, peeping from her other side seconds later.

  The kylen pretended not to notice, but I saw the quirk of his lips. He had a sense of humor, then. That did not at all help my libido.

  Ronan sidled up to me as I was making nice with my mule and cinching up my saddlebags. Whit’s package was strapped to my body, no longer in my messenger bag, but in a pack between my shoulder blades. I’d done my best to redistribute the weight without actually opening the package, but still I looked like I had a hump . . . or wings hidden underneath my coat. No one, though, was going to mistake me for seraph spawn. I was all angles—no more flesh than would coat my bones. I had cheekbones that were an angel’s envy, I’d give myself that
. They were sharp enough to cut. Everything I had came to points, from the widow’s peak of my stark black hair to my arched brows to my vaulted ears.

  “So, that’s the way it flows, does it, lass?” Ronan asked, nodding toward the kylen. “You know, if your motor gets running and you need to burn off some steam . . .”

  I looked up into those dancing eyes of his. As tall as I was, Ronan had me by a good five inches, at least. “Ronan, you silver-tongued devil. You certainly know how to sweet-talk a girl.”

  He didn’t look the least chastened. “You’ve managed to resist all of my charms so far. I thought I’d try a new approach.”

  I laughed, and Ronan’s leer turned into a grin. That was another thing I liked about him—he never took rejections to heart.

  “Ah, me lad,” I said, pouring it on thick, “how could I possibly end our merry chase?”

  “I have a few ideas,” he said, but he left then with a wink and a nod, ignoring Liam’s scowl as he got back to work.

  It was a well-organized train, and it wasn’t long before we were on our way. Too brief a time before the life and warmth of Kilkenny was behind us and what lay before us was nothing but the road, nearly choked off by the tall, unruly weeds that seemed to survive the frosts even when nothing else did. There was thistle, as always—hearty, like the people of Ireland. There was also meadow grass as tall as a man, and groundsel, nettle, and the tall, yellow-tipped stalks of mayweed. It was a prickly riot of color that we stayed well clear of. The mules might be tempted by the thistle, but our weeds had the habit of biting back.

  We pushed through beyond sunset to get to the campground the muleskinner had picked for the night. It was nothing more than a series of lean-tos, really, arranged in a semi-circle around a central fire pit. Stacked wood and kindling were stored inside one of the structures, covered over by a tarp and obscured by a dusting of snow that had blown in. Liam assigned the lean-tos while Ronan and Mad Molly went about clearing the fire pit and building the fire.

  We ended the night around that fire—Liam, Ronan, Molly, me, and Flynn and Aidan, the men from the young family. The rest had turned in as soon as their plates were cleaned. Elder Doolan had stayed awhile, as though to chaperone, but disappeared somewhere during my tale of the gypsy and the fox. Aside from my children’s stories, it was the tamest I knew, and as soon as he left I shucked it aside for a livelier tale. Ronan passed around a flask of good Irish whiskey, loosening Liam’s tongue enough to regale us with stories of the last mule train and the battle of wills between one mule and the fool of a boy riding him. That one’s trip to Kerry might very well be one way, since he’d have trouble sitting a mule again after the chunk the last had taken out of his bum.

  I turned in only after my laughter turned to yawns.

  That night I dreamt of blood and madness.

  At first it was disjointed images—claws and teeth, red and black, flashes of light, the clang of steel, the rending of flesh, screams. Flashes of pain. Fabric tearing away, flesh with it.

  I thrashed in my sleep, aware deep down that it was sleep, a dream. Still, my body reacted as if it was real, jerking to throw off the nightmare. I tried to force myself to surface, to break free of the visions, but something powerful kept pulling me down, a sick, dark horror that sucked at me like a bog. I was trapped, and the more I struggled, the deeper I fell.

  The flashes resolved into images. Cinder-red eyes belonged to an unnaturally white face on which the veins stood out like ink spills. There was a terrible beauty to the angles of the face and the knife-point cut of the chin, but it was the fangs that riveted me. Serrated like shark teeth and flashing toward a throat . . . a child’s throat. The little boy with the big eyes, now rolling in terror, the whites revealed all around. The scream had been his, cut off by the blackened claws that trapped him.

  Something came at me inhumanly fast as I faced off with the nightwalker. I could see a glowing blade in my hand. I had just time to whirl before an impossible monstrosity was on top of me, spraying black spittle that burned on contact.

  There was a flash, another scream, and I woke, sweat freezing on my face.

  With a pair of eyes staring into mine.

  I screamed and jerked back, away from those eyes, but I was trapped in my bedroll like a butterfly thrashing in its cocoon. My heart beat so hard I thought it would burst.

  “You sense it too,” said the voice that went with those eyes. “What did you see?”

  In my terror, it took me seconds to realize the eyes I was staring into were pale green rather than red, and while they glowed, it was with the warmth of the sun or, given the color, the sun reflected off the moon. Kylen eyes. My heart gave a great kick and then settled, still beating just as fast but no longer as hard.

  “You scared the shite out of me,” I spat at him, yanking myself free of his gaze and trying to kick loose from my bedroll. The adrenaline flooding my system insisted there was still danger, and I wanted to be free, just in case.

  “What did you see?” he repeated.

  “Nightwalker. Spawn. Danger.” A child.

  “You know about the attacks—”

  “Up north. We’re supposed to be safe here. What would the Darkness want in this godforsaken place?”

  The kylen stared at me intently, and for a moment I feared he’d lash out at me for my heresy. The powers of Light took those things seriously. Some—Elder Doolan most assuredly—believed that blasphemy was like a beacon to the Dark. I swallowed hard.

  “What do we want with this place?” he asked, his voice as cold as the wind whipping around outside the scant shelter, blowing snow into the kylen’s face—which he ignored.

  “Nothing. This is just a waystation.”

  “And so—”

  Mad Molly in her bedroll beside me cried out, “Baba noose!” or something equally nonsensical, and flung an arm out, hitting the kylen in the side. He didn’t so much as flinch. He did look up, but it wasn’t Molly who snagged his attention. It had gone from my face to the foot of my bedroll. A sick feeling rolled over me, clenching my gut. I knew what lay there. My pack. I was afraid of what I might see when I followed his gaze.

  My bedroll was sturdy canvas lined with thick wool, and yet through the protective layers, something within glowed. I’d pushed Whit’s package down to the foot of the bedroll where no one could possibly get at it without alerting me. Every time I stretched, the obstruction was a reminder and reassurance. There was nothing reassuring about the eerie red light.

  “Your pack is glowing,” the kylen said, deadpan.

  “I can see that.”

  There were numerous reasons something in a pack might glow, but not to this extent. I thought fast. “I have an amulet that flares in the presence of the Dark. I’d say my dream isn’t our only warning. And you’re up and about. You must have sensed something.”

  He gave me a hard look, not buying my explanation for a second, and started to pull at my bedroll.

  “Hey!” I said, loudly enough that Mad Molly snorted in her sleep. Some protection she was. “Stop!”

  I had my knobbed walking stick just beyond the rolled blanket I used for a pillow, but I didn’t want to start a fight I couldn’t win. My father had taught me bataireacht—Irish stick-fighting—practically from the time I could walk, but as nimble as I was, I knew myself no match for kylen-speed. He’d have me disabled or dead by the time I could kick free of my bedroll.

  So I wouldn’t.

  I tightened my core, gathered my legs, my pack flapping like dead weight at the base of my bedroll and lashed out with it, catching him under the chin with the heavy pack. His head flew back, but his reflexes were like lighting, and he caught my legs in his arms, trapping me in an awkward and vulnerable position.

  Our eyes met and his suddenly went wide. His arms tightened around my legs in shock, and I looked beyond him to see Mad Molly, awake, her eyes dancing with gleeful menace.

  “Let. Her. Go,” Molly said. She sounded dangerous, like she ferve
ntly hoped he’d ignore the command so she could have some fun. Fun. With a kylen.

  He growled.

  “Carrick,” she snapped out, “I’m not playing. If you’ve got an issue, you take it up with Liam. But you don’t lay hands on any member of this train.”

  “She’s got contraband,” he said.

  “Do you have proof?”

  “How can I prove it if I can’t look in her pack?”

  Molly was right behind him. With kylen reflexes, he could almost certainly have shaken her off, so either she had a blade aimed at a particularly sensitive area or he wasn’t as concerned as he looked.

  “All right, Molly,” Liam said, his deceptively quiet, absurdly deep voice coming out of the darkness to our right. The fire had been banked to keep from drawing notice. “I think he’s gotten the message. In fact, I think everyone has gotten the message. Whole camp is awake . . . except maybe the Missus Doolan, who sleeps like the dead.”

  He fixed a hard-eyed stare on Carrick, who was still frozen at the point of Molly’s blade. Or maybe it was just his regular kylen stillness. The powers of Light often reminded me of birds of prey—statues one minute, part of the landscape, silent and deadly the next, sweeping in for a kill you might never see coming, might never feel until your head was looking back on the rest of your body. “Carrick, just because we’re away from civilization doesn’t mean we’re uncivilized. If you have a warrant, serve it. If you have a problem, come to me. Otherwise . . .”

  I looked around. Sure enough, we had an audience. The eyes of the boy, Tom, flashed in the moonlight like a cat’s.

  Carrick bristled, seeming to grow larger. Then he took a deep breath and released it, exhaling his aggression.