Hand of the Hunter: Chosen of Nendawen, Book II

by Mark Sehestedt

  “I hope you will forgive our lack of lamps, my lords,” said Morev. “Since the recent … unpleasantness, I fear our supply of oil and pitch has grown thin.”

  “With summer, trade should resume, yes?” said Thidrek.

  “We hope.”

  “We saw fires in the Nar camps we passed,” said Almar.

  “Indeed,” Morev replied. “The Nar burn grass and horse dung that they cache throughout the year to dry. Here in the fortress, we do not care for the stench.”

  “You mean they cook their food on … on shit?” said one of Thidrek’s men.

  “Yes,” said Morev. “And for warmth and light. Narfell is not a place known for its abundant forests. What few there are hug the mountains here, but the Nar—and especially the Creel whom you saw—are creatures of unbreakable habit.”

  “Remind me not to dine with the Nar.”

  “Oh, not to worry. We have a most special meal prepared for you, my lords.”

  Standing outside the main hall, for a moment Thidrek dared to hope that he might have been wrong, that every sense in his body and mind were raw from lack of sleep and good food. The receiving chamber was long overdue for a good sweep and scrub. Even the cobwebs overhead looked stale and abandoned. But there was blessed, blessed light. A brazier wider than a paladin’s shield burned a healthy bed of coals next to the far wall, and Thidrek could smell incense there as well. A dozen torches burned in sconces along the wall, their smoke pooling thick overhead before it finally leaked out through vents in the roof. More Damarans stood as guards, their backs as straight as the spears they held. They did not look at Thidrek and his company, and their clothes were just as dirty and worn as that of Morev and his fellows, but after occupying a sacked fortress cut off from trade with everyone except a bunch of dung-burning barbarians, what could one expect? Even the four Nar standing guard farther down the hall were dressed in their finest and looked at Thidrek and his men with proper deference.

  One of the doors opened, and a huge Nar stepped out. He was dressed as the rest of his countrymen in various bits of wool, fur, and horse leather, and he wore the sides and crown of his hair in the traditional topknot, but when he spoke, his Damaran was flawless.

  “I am Vazhad,” he said. “I serve Argalath, Lord Guric’s chief counselor. I have come to take you to my lords.”

  The man showed nothing. No deference or respect. No contempt. No amusement. No emotion whatsoever.

  “Very well,” said Thidrek. “Do your men hold our weapons while we are in the hall?”

  “That is not necessary.”

  “Then proceed.”

  Vazhad nodded and pulled the door wide. Almar scowled when the man simply stared at them without a bow.

  “I will announce you,” said Vazhad.

  Thidrek led them inside. As the last man passed, Vazhad called out, “Thidrek of Goliad and company!”

  More torches burned inside the main hall, but there was no brazier, and the hearths held only cold ash in their beds. Orange torchlight and dancing shadows filled the hall but gave no warmth. Full night had fallen, the upper windows stood dark, and Thidrek could see steam as he breathed.

  He led his men across the hall where an impressive Damaran sat in a simple oak chair upon the dais. A smaller man, swathed completely in thick robes and a cowl, stood behind his right shoulder.

  Thidrek had heard of Guric, of course, long before Yarin had told him the full story. He’d been sent by his father to Highwatch to strengthen relations between the two houses, but he’d been besotted by some lordling’s daughter whose father had chosen the wrong side during Yarin’s ascension. He’d chosen love over his inheritance and been taken into High Warden Vandalar’s household. But then his wife died. He’d given up everything for an empty bed and no heirs. However, Guric had not accepted his fate. He’d seized what he wanted and sat as the new lord of Highwatch. Thidrek couldn’t help but admire that. Should things continue to worsen for Yarin in Damara, Thidrek could do far worse than look to Guric as an ally.

  Thidrek stopped at the foot of the dais and kneeled. He heard his men do the same behind him.

  “Lord Guric, High Warden of Highwatch,” said Thidrek, “I bring you the good will and congratulations of Yarin Frostmantle, rightful ruler of Damara.”

  “Please stand, Thidrek,” said Guric. “We have no supplicants here. Though I hope you’ll forgive me keeping my seat. I’m afraid my duties have kept me so busy of late that I am quite famished.”

  “Of course, my lord,” said Thidrek, and he put on his most ingratiating smile as he rose. But he felt it falter when he looked up. There it was again. For just a moment, he’d seen a red, hungry fire burning in Guric’s eyes. Surely it was just a trick of the torchlight.…

  “Why are you here?” said the robed one behind Guric.

  Thidrek scowled. No my lord or why have you honored us with your presence? It had been spoken like one might speak to a chambermaid knocking on the door after her duties were done.

  But looking into the depths of that cowl where the torchlight did not penetrate, Thidrek felt his offense and resolve waver, and the fear that had dogged him since entering the valley came back full force.

  Thidrek swallowed and, in a near panic, fell back on the rote he had turned over in his mind a hundred times since leaving Damara.

  “A-as I said, we have come to bring you the good will of King Yarin—and to offer his congratulations and sincere gratitude in successfully bringing the king’s justice to the traitor Vandalar.”

  “And …?”

  “And we have come to invite you to renew your vows of fealty and friendship to Yarin, the rightful King of Damara.”

  “There,” said Guric, “we come to it.”

  “Highwatch is not in Damara,” said the robed man.

  “Nevertheless—”

  “Enough!” said Guric, and he pushed himself to his feet. Thidrek flinched, but Guric had not spoken in anger or offense. In fact, he was smiling down on Thidrek. But the smile lined Thidrek’s veins with frost. “There are new lords in Highwatch now. Are you hungry?”

  “A-am I—?”

  “Hungry,” said Guric.

  “Y-yes,” said Thidrek.

  “I am starving,” said Guric.

  The lord of Highwatch moved so quickly that Thidrek only had time to draw in a breath to scream.

  But Guric swept past Thidrek, knocking him to the cold stone floor.

  Almar shrieked—a high-pitched wail so loud that Thidrek actually heard the man’s throat tear. The other men yelled and tried to run, but Guric’s guards caught them.

  Thidrek scrambled to his feet and gaped at the scene before him. Every one of his men caught in the arms of a Damaran or Nar—except for Almar. It had not been the scream that tore the man’s throat. Guric had one arm wrapped around Almar’s waist, the other tangled in his hair, and was bending the man over backward. For one absurd instant it looked like some horrific dance. Then he saw the blood. So much blood. Guric had his face buried under Almar’s jaw, and by the movement of his head, Thidrek knew he was biting, rending, chewing …

  Wide-eyed, hand trembling as he reached for his sword, Thidrek forced himself to look away.

  And wished he hadn’t. He looked right into the eyes of a Damaran holding one of his men. There was no mistaking it. They glowed, red like fire, but with no warmth. Only hunger. And then Thidrek noticed something that had escaped him before. He and his men were breathing great clouds of steam in their panic. But not a wisp of breath escaped any of the Damarans of Highwatch. They weren’t breathing.

  Thidrek felt warmth as his bladder released. His hand refused to grip the hilt of his sword. As a knight, he knew that in the thick of battle, the body’s natural reaction was to fight or flee. His mind screamed, Flee! But his body had not the strength. It was all he could do to keep his feet.

  Guric straightened, and the sound of flesh and tendons ripping and tearing made Thidrek’s gorge rise. Had he anything in his stom
ach he would have spewed it out, but he only filled his mouth with bile. The lord of Highwatch threw his head back and swallowed. Then he looked down at Thidrek.

  “That took the edge off,” he said.

  “Whuh … whuh …” was the only thing Thidrek could manage.

  “What are we going to do with you?” said the robed man. “Fear not. A man of your … stature is worth more to us than a meal. We have something very special for you in mind. A bit of lore I have been most eager to try—and one in which we find ourselves of sore need.”

  “Wh-what?” said Thidrek.

  Thidrek felt strong arms seize and lift him. He didn’t struggle.

  “Sarkhrun …” said the robed man.

  Thidrek heard the man before he saw him, shuffling out of the deeper shadows behind the dais. A dead man … a dead man was coming at him. Some small part of Thidrek’s brain that still clung to rational thought reminded him that he seemed to be surrounded by dead men, but there was no mistaking the thing that approached him for anything but a shambling corpse. Skin hung off stiffening muscles in tatters, all but a few lanks of matted hair had fallen out. The eyes had either sunken all the way into the skull or fallen out altogether, for suddenly, the only gaze there was red hunger.

  “Our brother Sarkhrun,” said the robed man, “one of the first to join us. But as you see, his spirit seems to have outworn his body’s welcome. If the hunger grows too strong without being sated, the effects are as you see—irreversible. We cannot have that. Our brother deserves better.”

  The corpse stopped in front of Thidrek and reached out one emaciated hand. The stench coming off the thing …

  Thidrek screamed. All reason had left him, and the most bestial instincts of his body took over, and at the moment every fiber of his being fought to survive.

  It was a useless fight.

  The thing holding him held his head steady while the corpse used his fingernail to gouge deep into the skin of Thidrek’s forehead. The thing carved a pattern there, a rune all of sharp angles and hanging arms, like a broken holy symbol.

  Hot blood ran into Thidrek’s face. He blinked it away and saw the corpse before him fall to the ground. The light in its eyes died and it was then truly a corpse.

  Thidrek’s forehead was a mass of pain. That pain suddenly flared, like fire, and although he could not hear it over the sounds of his own screams, he could feel the skin there sizzling and popping.

  But it was a backward burning. Whereas normal fires blaze and send light and warmth outward, the symbol on Thidrek’s forehead blazed, and a hideous, cackling, rending fire came inside him. Thidrek felt—actually felt—veins in his brain swell and burst, felt minuscule sections of the spongy mass inside his head crisp and burn as the new life inside him took over, pushing the Thidrek down, binding and sealing him inside the tomb of his own mind.

  The man holding him let him go, and Thidrek’s body stood on its own strength. Sarkhrun looked out from his new eyes, forced his new lips to pull back in a grin, and said, “It worked.”

  CHAPTER NINTEEN

  ASHIIN HAD OPENED THE PORTAL FOR THEM, MAKING slight variations to the rhythm of the drum. And instantly, Hweilan saw why. They had not stepped through the veil of water into the near-desert land of towerlike mountains. No. She knew these mountains.

  “The Giantspires,” she said.

  She didn’t know this particular valley, no. But that peak off in the distance … she knew those ragged edges. She’d seen them out her bedroom window her entire life. She was seeing them from the other side, which meant that she was many miles north of Highwatch.

  “Yes,” said Ashiin. “The Giantspires.”

  Hweilan waited for the warning to come—Don’t think of running home, girl—or some such. But it never did.

  “Close your eyes,” said Ashiin.

  She did.

  “Can you feel it?”

  She could. That grating on her nerve endings, as if tiny shards of ice filled her blood, and every pulse of her heart sent their jagged edges into her flesh. And the pulse, the steady drumbeat at the back of her skull. She had first felt it during her flight from Highwatch, and she had first realized what it was in the realm of Kunin Gatar.

  “Jagun Ghen,” said Hweilan, and opened her eyes.

  “One of his minions, yes,” said Ashiin. “You can sense it.”

  “Yes,” Hweilan said, “ever since …”

  She searched her memory. She had first noticed this new sense in the foothills with Lendri, after the fall of Highwatch. But in her visions in Kesh Naan’s cave, she had seen Jagun Ghen break into Toril, possessing a young Argalath. And she had been around Argalath many times in her life. The man had always made her skin crawl, but nothing like this. This had begun …

  “When Jagun Ghen began hunting you,” said Ashiin. “This … sense, this pulse on your brain, bordering on pain, that is not from the Master, nor from you.”

  “You mean,” said Hweilan, “Jagun Ghen is … is in my head?”

  The thought horrified her, made her feel sick.

  Ashiin shrugged. “Not like that, I think. He and his minions can sense you, but you can sense him. This connection goes both ways. If he could read your thoughts, I think you could read his. Can you?”

  “No.”

  “Have you tried?”

  “No!”

  “Try now.”

  “What? Are you mad?”

  “Think, you stupid girl. If he can sense your thoughts, do you think he’d balk at it? No. He would use every weapon at his disposal. Would you do less?”

  Hweilan gritted her teeth. Ashiin had a point, and she knew it. As much as the thought repulsed her, if she could gain an edge …

  She took a deep breath, released it, then closed her eyes. The pain was still there, the nagging pulse, and concentrating on it made it seem worse. She did her best to relax, to concentrate on that sense, growing stronger by the moment. But that’s all it was—a sense of danger drawing nearer.

  “Nothing.” She opened her eyes and looked at Ashiin. “I can feel it coming, but nothing more.”

  “It is close?”

  Hweilan looked around. The sun rode high in the sky, but it only made the shadows under boulders and in the cracks of the cliffside seem all the darker. Pines and underbrush grew in the valley floor. They swayed in the wind, and the shadows under them twisted and shifted constantly. Anything could be hiding in the valley. Hweilan shivered, and only part of it was from the cold.

  “Getting closer,” she said.

  “You feel ready for this?” said Ashiin.

  “No,” said Hweilan. She remembered looking into the eyes of what she’d thought was her Uncle Soran, and then at Kadrigul. The former had gone toe to toe with Kunin Gatar, and the latter had ripped Lendri’s heart from his chest.

  “Good,” said Ashiin. “If you felt ready, I’d know you’re still a fool. The more important question: are you willing?”

  Hweilan looked down at the stake in her hand. She’d carved the uwethla herself. They were rough, and she could still smell the charcoal scent of the burned wood. But she could feel the power in them. Dormant, yes, but still there.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You’re going to need everything I’ve ever taught you to survive this,” said Ashiin.

  Hweilan closed her eyes again. She had learned much since she had last faced one of these monstrosities. The familiar pounding was much the same—still bordering on pain—but after so many tendays of training with Ashiin, she knew how to use the pain, not to deny it but embrace it and use it to fuel her will. Every drumbeat in her skull was a little stronger than the last. But rather than resist them, she opened herself, let her muscles relax, let the pounding send her blood and breath racing through her body.

  “I’m ready,” she said. But when she opened her eyes, Ashiin was gone.

  Hweilan considered her options. She remembered how these things had tracked her before. No matter how far and fast she and Lendri
had run, those things had always managed to find her again. She could sense them, and she had every reason to believe that connection ran both ways.

  “No sense in hiding,” she told herself. That left only one option: choose the battleground.

  She had the knife Lendri had given her. Fine steel and razor sharp, but not much more. Then there was Menduarthis’s blade. After their conversation, Gleed had taught her a few of its tricks, which might prove useful. But ultimately, all that was just decoration. If Kunin Gatar hadn’t been able to stop one of these things, no amount of weaponry and magic would help. It all came down to the pointed shaft in her hand. Somehow she had to get that inside the thing.

  Hweilan looked down at the bottom of the valley a few hundred yards below. What trees there were grew down there—tall pines with thick scrub at their feet. She could use them. Not to hide—she’d already decided there was no use in that—but she could use them to her advantage.

  If she hurried. The drumbeat in her skull had taken on a sharper edge, each pulse piercing. The thing was close. Hweilan ran.

  She made it to the woods and had passed the first trees when she saw her mistake. The thing was already there. Hweilan stopped and took a defensive crouch, Menduarthis’s knife in one hand, the uwethla-covered stake in the other.

  A dozen or so paces in front of her, crouching on a log, was a horror from her nightmares. Still vaguely human, the emaciated features and pale skin were being overrun by more bestial features—thick, coarse hair that stood on end off the back of her head; twisted sprigs that looked like half-formed feathers sprouted up the back of her arms and shoulders; thick fangs protruded from bloodied lips. The hand that had struck the log raked upward, dislodging more pieces of wood and ice, and Hweilan noticed that both hands and feet ended in claws. Still, there was enough left to suggest the woman that the thing had once been. It was the eyes that finally gave her away. One teary blue orb looked at Hweilan with nothing but a sad, pathetic madness. But the other … a blazing, fleshy jewel. A new eye—one birthed from some foul power. Still, Hweilan remembered all too well the day she had gouged it out.