Vengeance of the Hunter

by Angela Highland

  They did it a third time when they reached the city, this time in an open square where Rab’s provocative showmanship could be put to best use. Julian didn’t quite trust his returning strength enough to risk their staying in any of the more dangerous districts of the city, where he and Rab both were well-known enough that they might be recognized, and neither were they prepared to explain the change in his appearance. That meant better rooms, and clothes to suit, though they’d have to choose with care where they’d hole up.

  And that, in turn, meant revealing themselves long enough for Rab to put on a show.

  They started simply, with the balls, so that Julian could practice and Rab could start attracting a crowd at the same time. Once faces began to turn their way, the younger man began deliberately playing to them, encouraging them to pick up where Julian left off and start throwing him things to juggle himself.

  “Why, it’s the simplest thing in the world, and if my friend here can learn it, so can you! Allow me to demonstrate. Toss and catch, toss and catch—behold!”

  Soon enough Rab escalated his performance, with Julian and two other men throwing him his own juggling balls as well as two more from eager children, until he had seven balls in the air at once. Had Julian been in sharper form, he’d have melted without a qualm into the crowd and liberated a few purses from their unsuspecting owners. But there was something intoxicating about being on even the edge of Rab’s display, and about pushing his own reflexes as far as they would go even if he couldn’t handle more than two of the balls himself. It cleared his mind and let him focus on here and now, rather than where he’d been and what had been done to him.

  Or the healer girl he’d abandoned, with barely more than a word.

  The crowd grew, drawn by Rab’s antics, until he began to swap his knives in for the juggling balls. Julian caught each of the balls as his partner tossed them out, including the two that’d belonged to the starry-eyed brother and sister now drinking in the sight of the show, and those he returned to their owners. Rab, in the meantime, drew a blade for every ball he abandoned, until he was juggling all six of the knives he’d been carrying upon his person. At his urging the crowd began to clap, and three young women at the front of the throng sang out in sweet harmony in time with the rhythm of everyone’s clapping hands. To their delight, Rab himself joined them on the call-and-response flow of the song, without losing track for an instant of the tapestry he was weaving with his flashing blades.

  Julian couldn’t carry a tune, so he engaged himself instead with circling the edge of the crowd, where he could coax money from the nearest outstretched hands. Most of the women and a few of the men, smitten by his partner’s youth and beauty, paid him only enough attention to throw him coins—or to beg him for Rab’s name or where in the city he might be staying.

  To his surprise, some of the women began to notice him too. He wasn’t unfamiliar with feminine attention, though he hadn’t sought it out as a rule for more years than he cared to consider. This, however, was far more blatant appreciation than he’d seen directed his way in even longer. His grin broadened and turned rakish; the voice he used to cajole their audience became purest velvet. In half an hour he’d gathered them enough funds to last the week, and four propositions besides.

  He had too much pure male pride not to relish the reactions they won. But behind it, his conscience twinged.

  They wouldn’t be looking at you like that if not for her.

  Julian was working on driving that prickle of regret into the back of his mind when he spotted a carriage on the far edge of the crowd, and even from a distance, he froze at the sight. At first glance there was nothing to command the eye about it, for one noble family’s carriage looked much like another’s. This one, sleek and elegant of design with a pair of matched gray stallions before it, was no exception.

  The crest on the side, though, had no business being in Shalridan. It was a crest that belonged in Dareli, on the far side of the country, where Julian had thought he’d left it.

  But there was no mistaking it, not when his sight gave him depth and detail even from many paces away. He knew the crest of House Nemea when he saw it.

  And when a slender blonde figure leaned out of the carriage window, Julian’s blood ran cold.

  Tykhe showed him a modicum of mercy, for the figure in the carriage didn’t actually get out. Nonetheless he had to shake himself to drag his attention back to Rab, for his partner was bringing his juggling act to a grand finish, with two lit torches spinning through the air along with his knives. On the final bars of the song everyone was merrily singing, he nimbly sheathed knife after knife until he was left with nothing but the torches. Those he extinguished, with a last broad flourish, while his high clear tenor joined in the chord resounding from the singers in the crowd.

  A roar of applause drowned out anything Rab might have called to him, or anything Julian might have said in reply. Half a dozen young men surged forward, eager to shake Rab’s gifted hands, and several of them called out offers to buy them both drinks. In moments they were off to the nearest tavern, his partner blithely chatting with everyone in range, though Julian had no notion of what he himself might have said before he was caught up in the throng.

  On the way into the tavern, Rab caught his arm.

  “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Later,” Julian muttered. He hung back as the younger men flooded into the tavern, and looked over his shoulder through the crowd dispersing out of the square. The carriage was moving on, its driver flicking the long reins of the grays to set them back into motion. Julian could no longer glimpse the figure inside it, but the one brief sight of her had been enough.

  He hadn’t seen a ghost.

  He’d seen Dulcinea.

  * * *

  “Driver! What’s the delay?”

  “Street performers in the square, sir. Can’t make it through this way, do you want me to go around?”

  “If you see a path through, take it. But we can afford a small wait. Dulcinea, my dear, would you care to step out to see what entertainments Shalridan offers its people?”

  Erasmus Nemeides never uttered a word that wasn’t smoothly cultured. His mellifluous tenor was the rival of any musical instrument crafted by human hands, always clear and resonant, whether he spoke in simple conversation, in the softest of whispers or in the commanding shout that could fill a room. Dulcinea was not immune to that voice’s power, and she knew it; she’d had over a decade to steel herself against its draw, and she hadn’t learned to do it yet, even after he’d forced her to marry him. In the confines of their carriage, with little besides the clatter of wheels and hooves to distract her ear, her husband’s voice slid into her chest as though she’d drunk it down like whiskey.

  She hated the sound of it, and longed to silence it forever with a knife through his treacherous throat.

  But as that option was currently denied her, Dulcinea forced herself to smile instead and cast a disinterested glance out the carriage window. “I wouldn’t want to delay us any more than necessary,” she murmured. “Your contracts do need to be signed. And I’m sure we could find better amusements than street performers later.”

  Smiling benevolently, Erasmus leaned back in their seat and slipped a possessive arm around her shoulders. “Indeed. I’m told this city manages a proper symphony and theater, despite its barbaric locale. We must see if the rumors are correct. I’ll fetch us tickets for something tonight, once our business is concluded, if you’d care to choose.”

  “I’m sure I’ll enjoy either option, sir.”

  She’d made the correct response; as long as she played the part of the dutiful wife, Erasmus was the soul of magnanimity. It made no real difference which option she chose, or whether she chose at all. Acquiescence was all he required of her, and as long as she remembered that, she was safe.

  Never mind that she’d have given her right arm to be able to leap out of the carriage and lose herself in the
crowd around the jugglers. To clap and sing with the same joyful abandon, or better still, to join in on the complicated interplay of ball and knife and torch that the fair-haired young man in the center of the square was orchestrating with every willing volunteer in sight.

  It took a second glance for her to spot the fair-haired man’s companion.

  He was tall and lean, with hair as black as a raven’s wing, and even from a distance her heart gave a painful lurch at the sight of him. Oh gods, oh goddesses, could it be—

  Surely not, for whoever he was, this man was catching and throwing with two hands, not one. The face he turned in all directions, calling to and answering those around him, seemed unmarred. But then he turned in just the right direction for her to see the broad, devilish grin he unleashed on those nearest to him in the throng, and when she saw that, the bottom fell out of Dulcinea’s world. Sweet Mother and blessed Daughter, she knew that grin. It had never stopped haunting her dreams.

  “Are you quite all right?”

  Displeasure shaded Erasmus’s voice, the beginning tendrils of smoke that warned of conflagration to come if not swiftly checked—for she took her attention from her husband at her peril. Plastering what she prayed was an innocuous smile across her face, Dulcinea turned back to face him. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  His brown eyes narrowed, studying her with a keenness that sent a warning skittering along her nerves. “You turned rather pale just now. Has something alarmed you?”

  “Certainly not.” When he would have shifted to look past her out the carriage window, she feigned slumping back a bit in the seat, and made a point of opening the delicate silk-and-lace fan she was carrying against the heat of the Jomhas afternoon. “There are simply far too many people on the streets, and it’s hot. Can’t we continue on our way? I’ll feel much better with something cool to drink. Perhaps a sorbet.”

  Erasmus raised his brows, but she must have looked convincing, for he finally inclined his head. “Of course. Driver! Can you get us through?”

  In response to his raised voice, the driver called back, “Looks like the jugglers just finished up, m’lord! Just another moment or two and I’ll get us going again.”

  “Good man,” Erasmus answered, pounding light acknowledgement on the carriage’s roof. More softly, he added to Dulcinea, “Well then. We’ll take care of our contracts with the solicitor, and then, I think, dinner and the symphony. It’ll do us well to be seen as long as we’re in town, and we must pay our respects to House Kilmerredes even if we’ve missed the Duke of Shalridan’s funeral.”

  He kept talking even as the driver finally got them moving again, but by then, Dulcinea knew the crisis had passed. She paid enough attention to her husband to offer him the sounds of affirmation that were all she was expected to contribute to their conversation, and so that she could intelligently navigate the rest of the hours before her. But through it all, her mind raced. She had a new imperative now, above and beyond simple daily survival of her marriage to Erasmus Nemeides. She had to find out if she’d seen the man she’d thought she had.

  Which should have been impossible, for the man in the crowd had been catching and throwing with two clearly living hands. But every detail of him had been correct, from his height to his tousled dark hair, and the eyes—two of them—that even from a distance had sparked a vivid twilight blue.

  And if her own eyes hadn’t deceived her, if the gods had sent impossibility incarnate across her path, her next goal would be to discover how to keep her husband from finding out that his brother Julian was alive.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dolmerrath, Kilmerry Province, Jomhas 29, AC 1876

  Two nights after Julian’s leaving, while she slept fretfully without his warmth beside her in her bed, the fire-mage Tembriel came in the middle of the night to wake Faanshi from her slumber.

  “Mouse, you’re needed. Come quickly!”

  Faanshi hadn’t yet lost the habit of sleeping in her clothes, for so she’d quickly learned to do on the road, all the way to Arlitham Abbey and back again. And so she sprang out of bed, not even bothering to put on her boots. She’d seen Tembriel only a time or two since her coming to Dolmerrath, and in truth had shied back from approaching the she-elf. Between Tembriel’s ability to summon flame and the scowl she always wore, Faanshi had scarcely known how to address her. Yet as she hurried after Tembriel out into the caves there was no question of what to say, not now. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

  “Another Hawk patrol,” Tembriel spat. “Got too close to my brother and his scouts. Alarrah’s with them but she can’t do it all by herself. Mother of Stars, can’t you move any faster?”

  She might have argued, might have challenged the she-elf’s ire, but it seemed useless in the face of the frantic worry brimming just behind Tembriel’s hard, bright eyes. And before they even reached the cavern where the horses were kept, a raw blast of pain roared across her senses.

  Hearth, she thought, the only word she had room for in her mind before the presence of three injured scouts in the cavern made it imperative for her to reinforce the shields Kirinil and Alarrah had taught her to build around her magic. It surged inside her nonetheless, discontent at being confined to the hearth she’d built for it in her mind’s eye, and she couldn’t keep her hands from glowing gold as she pulled ahead of Tembriel in their headlong dash into the cavern.

  “Almighty Djashtet! Alarrah, I’m here, guide me!”

  She caught sight of her sister kneeling in the midst of the scouting party, and Alarrah’s gaze snapped up just long enough to note her arrival. Then she threw out a hand glowing almost as brightly as Faanshi’s own. Without conscious volition Faanshi seized it, and between the two of them, they bathed the scouts in light.

  To the young healer’s profound relief, it wasn’t like healing Kestar, much less Julian. Jannyn and his two compatriots, one male, one she-elf, were all badly hurt—Jannyn and the she-elf with bullet wounds, and the second male had been run through with a sword. It was on him Alarrah had focused, while half a dozen other elves pulled the scouts’ exhausted horses out of the way, and his pain screamed the loudest to Faanshi’s power. But she had little to do but put her hands where her enorrè bade her, and with Alarrah’s direction, not a single glimmer of another’s mind breached her inner hearth. Pain, weariness and blood surrounded her, but in the midst of it all, her mind remained clear. She remained Faanshi.

  Still, it was more control than she’d ever had to exert over a healing before, and she was panting and drenched in sweat by the time Alarrah finally pulled her back from the last injured scout. Tembriel anxiously inspected her brother for any remaining signs of damage, while other elves helped the scouts to their feet.

  Faanshi didn’t have to ask if they’d be all right; they’d both just seen to that. “How did it happen?” she asked instead.

  Though his face was quite ashen, Jannyn waved off Tembriel’s inspection and made it upright, albeit cautiously, under his own power. “As it always does,” he said, turning a dour expression upon her. Blood still stained his leathern jacket and the linen of the shirt beneath, dark rust against the green and brown, and more of it streaked his face. “Only this time there were more of them. We were faster. But they had guns.”

  Tembriel scowled. “And no matter how fast our horses are, none of them can outrun a bullet. We need better arms.”

  “Gerren will want to know how many,” Alarrah said.

  “Seven,” Jannyn replied, though his gaze was still on Faanshi. To her he added, “Healer, thank you for your help. And don’t mistake me—I praise the Mother of Stars that we’ve got you. But you need to think very, very hard about whether you want that Hawk of yours here or not, because his compatriots nearly killed us.”

  He whirled and stalked off without another word, and Tembriel fell into step beside him, leaving the two healers to their own devices. The others in the cavern had finally settled the horses, but someone Faanshi didn’t know brought
them both mugs of something hot and steaming, and Alarrah made her drink hers before they moved a step. “It’s got òrennel in it,” she advised wearily. “The herb’s good for easing pain without dulling the thoughts too much. But it also soothes when you’ve exercised your magic, and we’ve each just used a lot of ours. We’re going to need it to sleep.”

  The tea smelled foul and tasted worse, but Faanshi drank it anyway, gulping it down with long, deep breaths between each sip. Yet the herb helped, relaxing tiny muscles in her hands and larger ones where she’d inadvertently tensed in reaction to the wounds they’d healed. Only then did Alarrah let them make their own retreat, and on the way out of the cavern Faanshi ventured, “Jannyn and the others. What were they doing when the Hawks found them?”

  Possibilities jabbed through her mind in small, quick points of fear—that perhaps the messenger birds were dead, and Jannyn’s scouts had had to retrieve them. Or that for all that she was no longer an active threat to Dolmerrath with a Hawk’s awareness behind her eyes, the Order had found her anyway. Or even worse, that they’d found Rab when he’d left. And Julian.

  Alarrah voiced none of these things, but what she had to say instead offered little consolation. “Seven Hawks in one patrol is more than any of us have seen in years. And from what I gathered when the scouts came in, these had come dangerously close to the Wards. Just like the ones who chased us when we came in.”

  “But the Wards will drive them away,” Faanshi protested. “Won’t they? Because of the magic, and the fear it makes.”