The Hunter's Kind: Book II of The Hollow Gods

by Rebecca Levene

  ‘Will you leave us?’ Olufemi said to Eniola.

  The younger woman’s spine stiffened with indignation.

  ‘Please,’ Olufemi said. ‘This woman is a friend I haven’t seen for a very long time.’

  Eniola, from a family unused to being disregarded, held Olufemi a moment longer, her lips pressed to Olufemi’s, before rolling from the bed. She stooped to gather her robe but didn’t bother to wear it as she walked from the room. Vordanna’s brittle gaze followed every step until she was through the passage and out of sight.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ Olufemi said.

  Vordanna eyed her naked and sweaty body. ‘Really? And this was you mourning me?’

  ‘Vordanna, what happened? How are you here? And where’s Jinn?’

  The other woman turned her gaze from Olufemi to the two men standing to either side of the bed. ‘Your slaves?’ she asked.

  Olufemi felt herself flush hotly. ‘Get out,’ she said to the slaves, her flush deepening as she heard the careless command in her own voice. ‘My family’s slaves,’ she explained weakly as the men bowed and left the room.

  She felt herself growing angry too, at the judgement in Vordanna’s eyes. She’d always known how Olufemi’s people lived. Olufemi had never lied to Vordanna about the source of the bliss powder that had enslaved her. And gentle, placid Vordanna had never cared. And yet here she was, in a place she’d never visited, wearing an expression she’d never worn.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Olufemi asked.

  ‘I came to warn you,’ Vordanna said. The silver moon’s rune Olufemi had given her glittered on a chain round her neck. ‘I came because he called.’

  Dae Hyo was trying to teach Dinesh to pull a bow when the messenger found him. Dae Hyo had his hands resting against the slave’s shoulders, though in truth he didn’t enjoy touching him; he could hardly even stand to look at him. His empty smile and vacant eyes made Dae Hyo’s skin crawl. But if he could be trained to fight, there was hope for the other slaves too.

  ‘I’ll be there soon,’ he told the messenger and then said to Dinesh, ‘Yes, you see, pull your shoulders back, not just your arms. The blades should meet in the middle – can you feel it?’

  ‘It’s difficult,’ Dinesh said, his arms shaking as he held the bowstring taut.

  ‘If it was easy, the world would be full of bowmen.’

  ‘Your pardon master, it cannot wait,’ the messenger said. He was, or had been, a man of the tribes – Gyo to judge by the scarring on his cheek – but there was no warrior’s pride in him now, only bliss. Dae Hyo could hardly bear to look at him either.

  ‘There’s not much that can’t wait,’ Dae Hyo told him, ‘except a drawn arrow and a loose shit.’

  As if to prove at least half his point, Dinesh released the bowstring to slap bruisingly against his own wrist and send the arrow in the approximate direction of the target.

  ‘Your pardon master, they said to bring you now,’ the messenger persisted.

  Dae Hyo sighed and turned to face him. ‘And what will happen if I don’t come?’

  That seemed to baffle the man. His smooth face shifted into a frown with the slowness of his thoughts. ‘My mistress will be angry,’ he said eventually.

  ‘I tell you what, there’s a few things in this life I fear, but Olufemi isn’t one of them.’

  ‘Angry with me,’ the messenger said.

  The man didn’t sound worried – bliss left no room for worry – but Dae Hyo felt ashamed. Of course a slave would be the one to suffer for it, not Dae Hyo himself. It was a terrible thing, for one person to own another. But here was a happy thought: if the slaves could learn to fight for Krish they could use those skills to overthrow their masters. Dae Hyo was doing doubly right by helping his brother.

  He grinned and said magnanimously, ‘We’ll come now.’

  The messenger looked at Dinesh, clearly uncertain about whether the invitation had been extended to him, but Dae Hyo waved him on and of course he wouldn’t argue. Dinesh trailed amiably at his heels, as pleased to be doing that as he had been to miss the archery target.

  Dae Hyo had taken them to the city’s edge for their practice, to keep them away from the curious eyes of the mages. Dinesh wasn’t their slave, but it was clear enough he was someone’s, for all Krish liked to deny it. And slaves weren’t meant to be weapon wielders.

  Dae Hyo was glad to be leaving the desert. He couldn’t love it. However much he told himself that this wasn’t the Rune Waste, his heart wouldn’t believe it. He’d skirted the boundaries of the Waste once as a young warrior, a foolhardy proof of bravery attempted by the youths of many tribes. And he’d seen there the same endless waves of sand with littler waves curled into them. The sky was the same yellow as the sand, drained of the colour that made the sky pretty, and there was nothing living, as far as he could see, for miles in any direction, except for the small pale lizards whose splayed toes seemed to float them above the dunes as they skittered about to no purpose.

  Soon they were walking through fields, growing improbably with their roots in the same barren sand. Olufemi had told him the mages of old planted them, back when the runes still did what they ought, and the magic lingered here. It was fading, though; even Dae Hyo could see that. They walked through the famished and broken stalks of abandoned cornfields before they reached those that were still green and growing.

  Mirror Town distressed him, as it always did, with its solidity. The wind that shaped the sand dunes dashed itself against the buildings of the city. Their whiteness was too much to look at and worse still when the turning of the many mirrors sent sunlight straight into your eyes. He kept his down as they walked the dusty streets between houses slender and ornate and squat and functional and oval and square and round. Each design marked the dwelling of a different family, but the only one he’d learned to notice was Olufemi’s own.

  Her kin seemed fond of maps. The surface of their sprawling mansion was covered in them, each made of tiny brightly coloured pieces of glass that must have taken a thousand slaves a thousand days to press into the plaster. He recognised a map of the Moon Forest high on the domed roof and his own plains to one side of the door they were approaching, but many others were strange to him. Were there so many places in the world? But perhaps the mages had imagined these other lands. It wouldn’t surprise him. Sometimes they seemed as addled as their slaves.

  Another slave, a small Ashane girl, waited for them inside to lead them past the grey-haired mirror masters to the room where Olufemi and Krish waited. There was another woman there too, whose face sparked a memory he couldn’t quite grab hold of, something to do with the moon and a fight in the mud.

  ‘I have news,’ Olufemi said before he could sit down.

  ‘Well I’m glad you didn’t drag me all the way here because you like the look of my face.’

  ‘What news, Olufemi?’ Krish said with an exasperation that suggested it wasn’t for the first time. Then his brother’s gaze shifted from the mage to the other woman. Hers had never left him: she was studying Krish with an intensity that clearly made him uneasy but which seemed to Dae Hyo filled more with admiration than threat. She was attractive enough: round-hipped and fair-faced and young enough to bear children, if Krish chose to court her.

  ‘Sit then, now you’re finally here,’ Olufemi said to Dae Hyo. ‘There’s drink, and food if you want it.’

  There was, plates of sliced fruit sprinkled with a fiery spice Dae Hyo wished the mages weren’t so fond of. Someone had left a game of Night and Day half-finished on the table and he knocked over one of the tall black pieces as he grabbed a flagon of wine. ‘This is news we need to be drunk for?’ he asked, pouring himself a generous measure.

  ‘If you’re expecting good news, you haven’t been paying attention,’ Olufemi snapped.

  ‘It’s my news,’ the other woman said. ‘I brought it.’

  ‘Where did you bring it from?’ Krish asked. ‘And who are you?’

  �
�I’m Vordanna, my lord.’

  ‘Vordanna is my … friend,’ Olufemi said, as if she’d meant to use a different word. ‘And she brings us tidings from the enemy’s camp.’

  ‘You’re him,’ Vordanna said, her eyes only for Krish. ‘You’re really him.’

  ‘I’m Krish.’

  ‘You’re him. It was all true. Jinn said it wasn’t, but I knew it was. I felt it.’ She touched her own chest, or something that rested against it, a hard lump beneath her cotton dress.

  ‘The news,’ Dae Hyo said. ‘I’m sure you’re very pleased to meet Krish – he’s a likeable fellow. But what’s this urgent news you bring him?’

  ‘It’s danger, my lord,’ the woman said.

  ‘The danger I warned you of,’ Olufemi interrupted brusquely. She picked a yellow fruit from the bowl but didn’t eat it, instead turning it round and round in her fingers as the skin bruised and the juice ran down her wrist. ‘Perhaps if you hear it from another, you’ll act as I’ve advised. There’s an army coming for you, and any army you might have had to defend you is dead. There’s no hope left, but time to flee if you choose. You might head south to Vordanna’s homeland. There are no cities there whose ruin your presence will bring, only a land broad enough perhaps for you to lose yourself in.’

  ‘Flee?’ Vordanna said. Olufemi had called her a friend, but she stared at the mage now as if she were a stranger. ‘That wasn’t what I came to say.’

  ‘Belbog’s balls!’ Dae Hyo shouted, pounding his fist against the table and sending splashes of wine to stain the white wood. ‘The news, woman – the news!’

  ‘Yes.’ Krish’s quiet voice sounded louder in the silence that followed Dae Hyo’s outburst. ‘I’d like to hear it for myself and make my own mind up.’

  ‘There is an army,’ Vordanna said. ‘Two armies. The Hunt has come from the Moon Forest—’

  ‘A force dedicated to eliminating your creatures and all who might serve you,’ Olufemi interrupted.

  ‘—and the Ashane are coming from their land to the plains.’

  ‘You see,’ Olufemi said, ‘it’s as I told you. And as for the Brotherband, whom you might have gathered to your side, if not for Dae Hyo here. Tell him about the Brotherband, Vordanna.’

  Vordanna shot her a very unloving look, but then turned back to Krish and said, ‘They’re dead, my lord.’

  ‘They were defeated?’ Krish asked.

  ‘No. They … there was to be a battle. Sang Ki and Cwen – that’s the leaders of your enemies – they planned a raid on the enemy camp, but when they got there they were all dead. They’d killed themselves, or just sat there waiting to die.’

  ‘Killed themselves?’ Dae Hyo didn’t know what he felt. Joy, or maybe regret. He’d wanted to be the one to put a blade through their hearts. ‘Don’t tell me they finally realised what evil rat-fuckers they are and decided the world was better off without them.’

  Vordanna eyed him uncertainly and then turned back to Krish. ‘No, it was – it was despair. I heard Sang Ki talking about one who was still alive. When they questioned him he said there was no point carrying on, that the battle was already lost and the moon would never rise. But the moon has risen,’ she added fiercely. ‘You are the risen moon.’

  For once Dae Hyo could almost believe that Krish was. His brother’s eyes flashed silver and strange as he leaned forward, every line of his body tense. ‘When did this happen? When?’

  ‘It was … nearly a moon past, my lord.’

  ‘A moon.’ Krish leaned back, his bottom lip caught in his teeth. It was a gesture Dae Hyo had come to recognise. It meant his brother was thinking about something important.

  ‘This army,’ Olufemi said. ‘Do they know where we are?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Vordanna’s eyes returned to Krish like a magnet drawn to true north. ‘But my lord, the leader of the Rah is with them. There might be someone among his people who knows.’

  ‘How did you know where to find us?’ Krish asked.

  ‘I … my lord, I felt it – I felt you calling to me.’ She touched her chest, over her heart.

  ‘What is that you wear?’ Krish asked.

  She pulled out a pendant from beneath her dress: a silver swirl that Dae Hyo had seen before, sewn into the robe Olufemi hadn’t worn since she’d come to Mirror Town. It was the moon’s rune – Krish’s mark.

  Krish stilled, staring at it, then abruptly leaned back. ‘I think … I think … I need to think.’

  ‘There’s nothing to think about,’ Olufemi said.

  Krish pushed his chair back and stood. ‘Please be quiet.’

  Olufemi looked as if she meant to argue, but Dae Hyo glared at her and she crossed her arms and said nothing. Neither did Krish, only paced up and down the room wearing a stern frown. Dae Hyo tapped his foot in time with his brother’s steps and Vordanna followed his movement with her eyes, back and forth and back and forth. Only Dinesh seemed entirely patient, leaning against the wall with a dreamy smile.

  Finally Krish sat down again. His silver gaze swept them all before settling on Olufemi. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘You’re wrong about two things.’

  ‘Am I now?’

  ‘Yes. You must be.’

  ‘And about what am I so mistaken?’

  ‘The runes do work, I know they do – I’ve felt it. I dreamed about what happened to the Brotherband: I dreamed that I was drowning but it wasn’t like a normal dream. It seemed … real. I felt the death of one of the Brotherband warriors, killing himself just like you said, Vordanna. I think because they wore that rune – my rune – I think they felt what I feel. When they all died, it was the time you told me there was no point fighting, Olufemi. You told me I was bound to lose.’

  ‘You said that?’ Vordanna stared in horror at the mage.

  ‘Yes, and I believed her. I felt hopeless and somehow I must have made them feel it too.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Olufemi said. ‘Why would that rune have power, just that one and no other?’

  ‘After what you told me, that the runes weren’t working, I wanted to know more. Your family found me books from the great library, everything about the runes. A slave read them to me. I think I understand it now: the sun and the moon, they’re like the ends of a piece of string, or the fingers holding the string tight. Everything else is between them, some closer to the sun and some closer to the moon. But that rune –’ he pointed at the pendant around Vordanna’s neck ‘– it’s just the moon, right?’

  Olufemi nodded grudgingly. ‘That’s all a gross simplification, but in its essentials you’re correct.’

  ‘So my rune worked because I’m here – I’m Yron. But every other rune needs a bit of the sun too.’

  ‘I know this, boy. Why do you think I summoned you back? But you’re wrong: even your rune requires the power of the sun to be sparked into life. Else the Sun rune alone would have held power until you returned, and it had none. Don’t you think that was the first thing I tried?’

  ‘But that proves it. That proves what I’ve been trying to say! You told me the sun, my sister, that she’s still alive. That she just stepped away from the world. But it can’t be true. The sun must be as dead as the moon was before I was born.’

  ‘No,’ the mage said. ‘It can’t be. Everyone knows the tale.’

  ‘And tales never lie?’ Krish’s expression was intense, the same way he’d looked when he told the Rah they must end their slavery. ‘Just pretend I am right. If I am, what would it mean?’

  ‘Smiler’s Fair,’ Olufemi said slowly. ‘I thought that your rune quenched the fire but … there could be another explanation. The sun’s magic is a straightforward thing: power for power, a cost you pay and a price that’s known. The moon’s magic is trickier: it’s the reason the mages of old preferred to deal with Mizhara and the reason Mizhara’s forces won in the end. The moon exacts a price, but you won’t know what it is until you pay it, and it’s different for every person.

  ‘I thought the rune
quenched the fire, but did it start it? Did the fire spread so very fiercely because the rune ate the living of Smiler’s Fair as the cost of its work? And then … yes. If quenching the fire wasn’t its purpose then it must have been a call for help. Your call for help, of course, as it’s your mark. It summoned your Servants the worm men to aid you, but perhaps it was even more than that.’

  She looked at Vordanna, sudden warmth in her expression. ‘You told me the monsters fled the Moon Forest on a day that may well have been the same day Smiler’s Fair burned. What if they weren’t driven away but pulled towards – summoned quite uselessly by Yron’s need, by Krishanjit’s formless, thoughtless cry for help?’ And then all the excitement drained from her face to leave it weary and old. ‘All that could be true, if Mizhara were truly dead. But the sun won the war – she didn’t perish in it. What happened at Smiler’s Fair must have been merely the last gasp of Yron’s power in the world, the remnants of it that remained in his Servants igniting at your need.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’ Krish rested his clenched fist against the table. ‘Mizhara could have died too, she and Yron could have killed each other. It would explain why no one’s seen her for a thousand years. Maybe your ancestors lied about her dying because they didn’t want their enemies to know – or their followers. I’m right, I know I am.’

  ‘This is hope, not knowledge,’ the mage said. ‘A theory built on the flimsiest of evidence. An excuse not to do what you know is right, to leave before you bring these armies down on us.’

  ‘No,’ Krish said. ‘There’s more. I think … I think there was one other time I did whatever it was I did in Smiler’s Fair.’ His voice faltered for the first time as he turned towards Dae Hyo. ‘Tell me, when did the Brotherband attack the Dae?’

  A sour feeling began in the pit of Dae Hyo’s stomach. His brother had the expression of a man who knew he needed to draw a deep-buried splinter and couldn’t face the pain. ‘It was seven winters past,’ Dae Hyo said cautiously. ‘Just before the pivot of the year.’