Vengeance of the Hunter

by Angela Highland

  With distinct reluctance, Ganniwer took a step back so that she could survey them both. “No,” she answered baldly. “My home is invaded, my activities constrained and now I learn that you both are arrested along with me.” Her gaze, fiery now, snapped past them to the third Hawk in the room. “I presume that is the case, sir?”

  “Yes, my lady.” Wulsten’s reply was steady and so were his eyes, though his bearing and the frown tugging at his mouth betrayed his patent discomfort.

  Kestar whirled on him, without sympathy. Out of deference to Ganniwer, Bron hadn’t drawn his pistol, but his hand lingered on it nevertheless—and Jekke Yerredes was waiting just outside the door. The woman was one of the smallest Hawks Kestar had ever met, but she was also one of the fastest. She, like Bron, was armed to the teeth. Striking the man, therefore, was not an option. “My mother is blameless,” he growled instead. “You have me. You can let her go.”

  “We’re coming along quietly,” Celoren agreed. “Lady Ganniwer need not be involved.”

  “You both of all people should know better than that.” Wulsten’s right hand stayed poised on the gun at his side, but with his left, he reached beneath his uniform shirt and pulled out his amulet. It glowed pale and blue between his fingers, and he held it out toward Kestar, letting it speak for itself before letting it drop to his chest. “And your mother has already testified that she assisted you once you escaped custody in Camden.”

  Ganniwer laid a hand on Kestar’s shoulder, though all her attention lingered upon the other Hawk. “Of course I did, and as I said before, I wouldn’t expect you to understand. The Order never has placed much stock in the loyalty of blood.”

  Wulsten’s frown flickered momentarily into a wince, all the sign he gave that the withering contempt in the baroness’s voice had struck him, and he was nervous or perhaps wise enough to refrain from engaging her. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. But she’ll still have to come to the tribunal in Shalridan with us.”

  Yet again, wildly, Kestar wished he’d fled with Faanshi when he’d had the chance—and that he’d somehow been able to take both his mother and Celoren along with him.

  Then, as if that notion of Faanshi was a conduit, all at once he felt something flaring deep within him. He’d built a vision of a meadow there, when the healer girl had saved his life and overwhelmed them both in the process. Through her, and with the grudgingly given advice of her elven teachers, he’d learned to build up that meadow to guard his innermost self and help Faanshi try to sever the link between them. Her presence had faded in his psyche, becoming nothing more than a memory of sunlight—but now he heard her voice shrieking from within that meadow’s heart.

  Kestar, if you can hear me, come to the elves!

  There were no further words, but they brought with them a surge of anxiety that he identified instantly as hers. That their link was only weakened and not gone entirely was something he’d have to consider later. For now, his head began to pound with the effort to answer her.

  Faanshi, I can’t!

  “Kes?”

  Celoren’s voice hauled his attention back to his physical surroundings—and Kestar realized he’d spoken aloud. His partner and his mother were both staring at him, wide-eyed with surprise and concern. Most tellingly of all, Bron Wulsten had snatched up his amulet again, and he held it up before him like a torch.

  It was glowing more brightly now.

  “I’m sorry,” the other Hawk said, and it didn’t soothe Kestar in the slightest that he sounded as though he meant it. “But now that you’re all in custody, you should prepare to leave for Shalridan. Lady Vaarsen, pack lightly, if you please. You have fifteen minutes.”

  * * *

  With a larger patrol now at his disposal, and out of deference to Ganniwer’s station, Captain Amarsaed commandeered a carriage in which to confine his three prisoners. Kestar couldn’t fault the man’s strategy—this way, he and his mother and Celoren could be kept locked up even in transit. With a carriage, too, they could carry extra weapons and ammunition—commandeered from Vaarsen Hall’s own stock—atop the carriage, well out of the prisoners’ reach. That frustrated Kestar once they got underway again, yet he couldn’t help a wave of relief that the captain hadn’t bothered to order him and Celoren back into chains. Locked into a carriage and under heavy guard, after all, there would be little either he or Cel could do to effect an escape.

  They were, at least, finally able to talk in relative peace and privacy. Even if the first words uttered between them were no balm to any of their moods.

  With a heavy sigh, leaning his head back against the paneled oak behind him and closing his eyes, Celoren said to Ganniwer, “For what it’s worth, Bron wasn’t a bad sort at the Academy. It doesn’t gain us much to antagonize him.”

  “I see no obligation to be polite to persons intending to do harm to my son.” Ganniwer swung her gaze to the son in question. “The patrol who came for me reported unrest in the countryside. I don’t suppose that girl who healed you and her friends might be responsible?”

  Simultaneous hope and dread that that very thing might be true had already sprung up in Kestar. All he could think of was his great-grandmother Darlana, dying in Arlitham Abbey, and telling him bitterly of the Anreulag slaughtering the elf she’d loved along with many of his people. But he couldn’t put that into words, or his sudden fervent desire that Faanshi might reach his thoughts again, so he could demand of her what in the name of all the known gods she and her elven compatriots were doing. As it stood, he had to settle for telling his mother, “I have no way of knowing. I wish I did.”

  Celoren opened his eyes again and gave him a long discomfited look. “Back at the Hall, it seemed like...like Faanshi was talking to you again. Did you...I mean, can you...?” He trailed off and tapped his own brow. “You can’t reach her?”

  Kestar blushed, all too sympathetic to his partner’s awkwardness, for he was feeling it too; they’d both been Hawks too long to be comfortable casually discussing magic. “I don’t know how she did it in the first place, much less how to do it myself. And I’d rather not give our escorts’ amulets anything more to speak about than they already have.”

  “They’ve already proclaimed you guilty,” Ganniwer pointed out. “Yet you cling to the wisps of their teaching. Kescha, they’re most likely going to kill you. I endorse accepting whatever strategy your healer and her friends might have to prevent this from happening.”

  Her vehemence stunned Kestar even as part of him appreciated it, and he couldn’t help stare at her in bewilderment. “Mother, you do realize you speak heresy?”

  “Fluently. Oh come now, don’t look so surprised. They took you from me when you were a baby, and your father’s soul was ripped in two by what he had to do at Riannach. I’ve seen the Anreulag with my own eyes, and I can believe in Her power. But I stopped believing years ago in what the Church and the Order do in Her name.”

  Kestar swallowed. Ganniwer was regarding him with her usual steadfast conviction, yet now it made a strange new kind of sense; Celoren for his part watched them both and remained pointedly unobtrusive, even as their carriage rumbled back into motion. None of it seemed important now, as Kestar thought about his father. He barely remembered Dorvid Vaarsen. The Battle of Riannach had happened when he was too small to be aware of it, but he’d had the details emblazoned into his memory over and over again during his training at Hawksvale. Elven slaves in the town of Riannach, faced with conscription into the Bhandreid’s armies to carry out the ongoing war with Tantiulo, had revolted instead—and his father had led the combined force of Hawks and soldiers who’d had to put them down.

  Not a single elf had survived the conflict. And ultimately, neither had his father. Dorvid Vaarsen had taken severe enough wounds in Riannach that the Bhandreid had granted him leave to retire from the Order. Kestar himself had seen him a single time, before he’d gone home to die at Vaarsen Hall. That stood out in his memory, being hugged by his pale, haggard father. With on
ly one arm, for Dorvid had lost half of his right one.

  Faanshi would have healed him. But would he have let her? “Mother, did Father ever—” yet again, he had to struggle for his words, “—know things before they happened?”

  Ganniwer drew in a long shuddering breath at the question, and a wet sheen began to glimmer in her eyes. “Twice that I know of. He knew you were going to be a boy before I gave birth to you. And he knew the day he was going to die. That was why he insisted on going to Hawksvale to see you, one last time.”

  “Did his amulet glow?” Celoren asked, his voice as quiet as hers.

  “Those two times, yes, though never as brightly as Kestar’s does...did for him.” Ganniwer grimaced, wiped tears away from her cheeks, and then briskly reached into the reticule she’d been clutching ever since their journey had begun. “Then its light died along with him. They took your amulet, my son, but they didn’t take his. I think you should have it.”

  The amulet she pulled forth was silver, as all Hawks’ amulets were, and with deep trepidation, Kestar accepted it from her. Each Hawk’s amulet was different. His father’s was two tiny, thin disks joined together by a hoop of brass; the front disk was a miniscule moon, and the back bore delicate etchings in a pattern of clouds. Kestar stared at it, wondering with a pang which of the silver disks might have been the one that glowed, and imagining that moon shining with pale blue light. It was dormant now, even in direct contact with his hand, proof that his father’s death had dissolved the blessing upon the amulet that had been made for him. With no glow to distract him, Kestar could focus instead on the texture of the engraved clouds and the supple leather cord, well-worn from many years, from which the amulet hung.

  “Thank you,” he whispered when he could find his voice. Kestar offered her a crooked little smile, and slipped the cord over his head. Dorvid’s amulet was heavier than his own, but the weight of it felt right, felt welcome. “I’ll wear it proudly in his honor.”

  Ganniwer answered his smile with one much like his own, and then leaned forward from her side of the carriage to fix him with a fervent gaze. “Do this, too, in your father’s honor. Don’t let the Church destroy you as it did him. And don’t try to sacrifice yourself for Celoren and me.”

  Glancing at his partner, Kestar began to protest, but Celoren was no help. “If you’re about to argue for the good of the Vaarsen and Valleford names,” he said, “spare us. I love my family, but not a one of them would tell me not to help you.”

  “Vaarsen Hall will be safe in our steward’s hands,” Ganniwer added, “and I will gladly never set foot there again if it means you remain alive and well.”

  “Mother...Cel...” Kestar looked back and forth between them, his brow furrowing. Before he’d even realized it his hand curled around his father’s amulet, his fingers toying with the pair of silver disks. The reflex comforted but gave no answer to the expectant looks trained on him now. “I don’t see any options before us. We’re in custody. The Hawks are the Anreulag’s eyes and sword, and She must surely have meant for this to happen. She just doesn’t let people go.”

  “Except when She does,” Celoren said. “Remember, I was at the abbey too.”

  Kestar could make no argument to that. Sighing, he admitted, “I did hear Faanshi. She wanted me to come to the elves—but that was all I heard. It wasn’t like before, maybe because she finished healing me, or because the elves taught her to protect her thoughts.” And himself by extension, but he wasn’t ready to think of that, even now. “But they might be trying something.” Gods help them if they are.

  “Then I recommend that you attempt to speak to that girl through whatever means you can, and find out what we can do to help.” His mother leaned back again in her seat and settled her reticule serenely in her lap. “That will, I think, be the most productive use of your time on the rest of this journey.”

  “Don’t worry about ignoring us.” Celoren’s expression turned wry. “We’ll play charades.”

  Kestar couldn’t help laughing at that, at least a little. “If I fall asleep, wake me at the slightest sign of trouble.”

  Then he settled himself, closed his eyes and reached down within himself for his meadow.

  * * *

  Lomhannor Hall, Kilmerry Province, Jomhas 30, AC 1876

  “Your Grace,” Idrekke Sother said with utmost deference, “given what we’ve begun to set in motion, I don’t think it wise for you or your children to travel. For your own safety, I must recommend that you remain at Lomhannor Hall.”

  Sother had arrived early enough at the Hall that no one would look askance at her coming to call, but for the sake of young Artir and Yselde, she’d held off reporting to the Duchess Khamsin until after the children had been bedded down for the evening in their nursery. The women had retired to Khamsin’s personal parlor, and Enverly, already alerted, had been waiting for them.

  He watched them now from his chair in the corner. The servants had brought them heated chocolate and cakes, and the scent of the chocolate filled the room, but the tray remained untouched near the hearth. Enverly was made ill at the thought of trying to consume either, and the women were too distracted. Sother stood straight and tall, at almost military attention, while the duchess stalked in restless circles around the room. She paced like her husband, and he idly wondered which of them had learned the habit from the other.

  The mourning garb she’d had to assume, though, was entirely Khamsin’s own. No one could fault the propriety of the stark black, though it didn’t suit her dusky coloring. She looked every inch a proper Adalonian duchess, if one ignored her smoky veil and the Tantiu cut of the choli and sari she wore along with her long skirt. Which was the effect Enverly had intended when he’d recommended the wardrobe in the first place.

  That long skirt flared now as Khamsin spun to eye the other woman. “It’s unavoidable.” She smiled thinly. “My husband’s will must be read, and the Church will expect to see Yselde confirmed as his heir. Camden won’t suffice. Particularly now that the people say that there’s a new firebrand of a priestess in the pulpit there, calling for the people to return to the old gods.”

  Suspicions must be avoided, Enverly wrote upon his slate.

  To that, as she glanced his way, Khamsin laughed darkly. “Indeed. I am Tantiu, and my children half so. There are those who’ll seek to argue at the reading that House Kilmerredes shouldn’t pass into such hands. I must be in Shalridan to contest them. Fortunately for our purposes, this will also serve admirably as a distraction.”

  Too canny to argue with that, Sother inclined her head, her eyes lighting—considering, Enverly suspected, the same implications and possibilities he’d already fathomed. “What would you have us do in the meantime?”

  The duchess’s smile broadened. “You’ve already inspired one militia to riot in Marriham. We need more. Make certain they have any armaments they require. Moreover, there is the fascinating question of the Hawks our Captain Follingsen left behind in custody when he brought Father Enverly to join us. We know they’ve claimed not to know the whereabouts of the girl. But it’s quite possible that they’re lying. And were I a gambling woman, I might bet that the girl in question might be moved to act again on Lord Vaarsen’s behalf if he’s become her friend.”

  Enverly straightened hard in his chair, gripped for an instant by a rush of reaction too fierce for him to label it as bitterness or anger or even hate. The room and the women in it vanished as he saw nothing but the faces of Kestar Vaarsen and Celoren Valleford, heard nothing but the thunder of the Anreulag’s disappearance that had left them alive. When his sight cleared, he almost dropped his slate in his haste to scrawl upon it, How do you expect to find her if she does?

  “A just question, akreshi. Kestar Vaarsen denies any knowledge of Faanshi’s whereabouts. But now we know his, and, conveniently enough, he and his partner are also en route to Shalridan. From what our Captain Follingsen has reported, the patrol should soon be acquiring Lady Ganniwer Vaarsen herself
to take with them, if they haven’t already. There will be a tribunal. That, too, I will be expected to attend.”

  I’m coming with you. Enverly’s chalk broke in two halfway through his next words, but he didn’t bother to retrieve the piece that fell to the floor. Scowling, he held up the slate for Khamsin’s inspection, and inwardly cursed every god he could think to name that he couldn’t simply communicate with the woman by the force of his will alone.

  Both women looked at him now, the priestess visibly reluctant, the duchess with a more speculative glint in her dark eyes. “The Hawks have already arrested you once for your knowledge of the Rite, and I’m not of a mind to lose you and your counsel.”

  Calculated risk, wrote Enverly, beneath the words he’d scribbled before.

  “It’ll be harder to hide you in Shalridan, especially in our lady’s company,” Sother said, but her expression turned thoughtful too. “But if the slightest chance exists that the Hawks could lead us to the girl, it may be worth the effort.”

  Once again Khamsin began to pace, her motions too controlled to be restless, even as she nodded at Sother. “My sister’s daughter,” she said, her mouth tightening at those words, “risked herself to aid Lord Vaarsen. It’s reasonable to assume he wishes to repay that debt. If we can circumvent the Church’s intentions for them, if we have the slightest chance of directing their actions in our favor, we must take it.”

  “Do you want the patrol that has them to actually reach Shalridan?” the priestess inquired, her brows rising.

  “Send word out that if any of our people can keep them from the city, they should do so. If they can’t, we’ll take other measures at the tribunal in Shalridan.”

  “I’ll take care of it at once, my lady.” Sother bowed, inclined her head politely to Enverly, and strode out.