Huntress, Black Dawn, Witchlight

by L. J. Smith

  “No. I heard about it a year or so ago from someone who had been here. I was coming here for a reason—it was just bad luck that I got caught by the slave traders on my way in.”

  Maggie wanted to ask her more about it, but a nagging voice inside her said that this wasn’t the time. It was already getting very cold. They couldn’t be caught on the mountainside overnight.

  “That road the cart was on—does it go all the way to the castle? Do you know?”

  Cady hesitated. She turned her face toward the valley, and Maggie had the strange sense that she was looking out.

  “I think so,” she said, at last. “It would make sense that it does, anyway—there’s only one place to go in the valley.”

  “Then we’ve got to find it again.” Maggie knew that wouldn’t be easy. They’d run a long way from Bern and Gavin. But she knew the general direction. “Look, even if we don’t get to the castle, we should find the road so we know where we are. And if we have to spend the night on the mountain, it’s much better to be in the forest. It’ll be warmer.”

  “That’s true. But—”

  Maggie didn’t give her a chance to go on. “Can you stand up? I’ll help—put your arm around my neck….”

  It was tricky, getting Cady out of the nest of boulders. She and Maggie both had to crawl most of the way. And although Cady never complained, Maggie could see how tired it made her.

  “Come on,” Maggie said. “You’re doing great.” And she thought, with narrowed eyes and set teeth, If it comes to that, I’ll carry her.

  Too many people had told her to leave this girl. Maggie had never felt quite this stubborn before.

  But it wasn’t easy. Once into the woods, the canopy of branches cut off the moonlight. In only minutes, Cady was leaning heavily on Maggie, stumbling and trembling. Maggie herself was stumbling, tripping over roots, slipping on club moss and liverwort.

  Strangely, Cady seemed to have a better sense of direction than she did, and in the beginning she kept murmuring, “This way, I think.” But after a while she stopped talking, and some time after that, she stopped even responding to Maggie’s questions.

  At last, she stopped dead and swayed on her feet.

  “Cady—”

  It was no good. The taller girl shivered once, then went limp. It was all Maggie could do to break her fall.

  And then she was sitting alone in a small clearing, with the spicy aroma of red cedar around her, and an unconscious girl in her lap. Maggie held still and listened to the silence.

  Which was broken suddenly by the crunch of footsteps.

  Footsteps coming toward her.

  It might be a deer. But there was something hesitant and stealthy about it. Crunch, pause; crunch, pause. The back of Maggie’s neck prickled.

  She held her breath and reached out, feeling for a rock or a stick—some weapon. Cady was heavy in her lap.

  Something stirred in the salal bushes between two trees. Maggie strained her eyes, every muscle tense.

  “Who’s there?”

  CHAPTER 11

  The bushes stirred again. Maggie’s searching fingers found only acorns and licorice fern, so she made a fist instead, sliding out from underneath Cady and holding herself ready.

  A form emerged from the underbrush. Maggie stared so hard she saw gray dots but she couldn’t tell anything about it.

  There was a long, tense moment, and then a voice came to her.

  “I told you you’d never make it.”

  Maggie almost fainted with relief.

  At the same moment the moon came out from behind a cloud. It shone down into the clearing and over the slender figure standing with a hand on one hip. The pale silvery light turned red hair almost black, but the angular face and narrowed skeptical eyes were unmistakable. Not to mention the sour expression.

  Maggie let out a long, shuddering breath. “Jeanne!”

  “You didn’t get very far, did you? The road’s just over there. What happened? Did she drop dead on you?”

  It was amazing how good that irritable, acerbic voice sounded to Maggie. She laughed shakily. “No, Cady’s not dead. Bern’s dead—you know, the big slave trader guy. But—”

  “You’re joking.” Jeanne’s voice sharpened with respect and she moved forward. “You killed him?”

  “No. It was—look, I’ll explain later. First, can you help me get her to somewhere more protected? It’s really getting freezing out here, and she’s completely out.”

  Jeanne leaned down, looking at Arcadia. “I told you before I wasn’t going to help you if you got in trouble.”

  “I know,” Maggie said. “Can you sort of pick her up from that side? If we both get an arm under her shoulders she might be able to walk a little.”

  “Bull,” Jeanne said shortly. “We’d better chair-carry her. Link hands and we can get her up.”

  Maggie clasped a cold, slender hand with calluses and a surprisingly firm grip. She heaved weight, and then they were carrying the unconscious girl.

  “You’re strong,” she grunted.

  “Yeah, well, that’s one of the side benefits of being a slave. The road’s this way.”

  It was awkward, slow work, but Maggie was strong, too, and Jeanne seemed to be able to guide them around the worst of the underbrush. And it was so good just to be with another human being who was healthy and clearheaded and didn’t want to kill her, that Maggie felt almost lighthearted.

  “What about P.J.? Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine. She’s in a place I know—it’s not much, but it’s shelter. That’s where we’re going.”

  “You took care of her,” Maggie said. She shook her head in the darkness and laughed.

  “What are you snickering about?” Jeanne paused and they spent a few minutes maneuvering around a fallen log covered with spongy moss.

  “Nothing,” Maggie said. “It’s just—you’re pretty nice, aren’t you? Underneath.”

  “I look out for myself first. That’s the rule around here. And don’t you forget it,” Jeanne said in a threatening mutter. Then she cursed as her foot sank into a swampy bit of ground.

  “Okay,” Maggie said. But she could still feel a wry and wondering smile tugging up the corner of her mouth.

  Neither of them had much breath for talking after that. Maggie was in a sort of daze of tiredness that wasn’t completely unpleasant. Her mind wandered.

  Delos…she had never met anyone so confusing. Her entire body reacted just at the thought of him, with frustration and anger and a longing that she didn’t understand. It was a physical pang.

  But then everything was so confusing. Things had happened so fast since last night that she’d never had time to get her mental balance. Delos and the incredible thing that had happened between them was only one part of the whole mess.

  He said he’d killed Miles….

  But that couldn’t be true. Miles couldn’t be dead. And Delos wasn’t capable of anything like that….

  Was he?

  She found that she didn’t want to think about that. It was like a huge dark cloud that she didn’t want to enter.

  Wherever Jeanne was taking her, it was a long, cold trek. And a painful one. After about fifteen minutes Maggie’s arms began to feel as if they were being pulled out of the sockets, and a hot spot of pain flared at the back of her neck. Her sweat was clammy running down her back and her feet were numb.

  But she wouldn’t give up, and Jeanne didn’t either. Somehow they kept going. They had traveled for maybe about forty-five minutes, with breaks, when Jeanne said, “Here it is.”

  A clearing opened in front of them, and moonlight shone on a crude little shack made of weathered wood. It leaned dangerously to one side and several boards were missing, but it had a ceiling and walls. It was shelter. To Maggie, it looked beautiful.

  “Runaway slaves built it,” Jeanne said breathlessly as they took the last few steps to the cabin. “The Night People hunted them down, of course, but they didn’t find this plac
e. All the slaves at the castle know about it.” Then she called in a slightly louder tone, “It’s me! Open the door!”

  A long pause, and then there was the sound of a wooden bolt sliding and the door opened. Maggie could see the pale blob of a small face. P.J. Penobscot, with her red plaid baseball cap still on backward and her slight body tense, was blinking sleepy, frightened eyes.

  Then she focused and her face changed.

  “Maggie! You’re okay!” She flung herself at Maggie like a small javelin.

  “Ow—hey!” Maggie swayed and Cady’s limp body dipped perilously.

  “I’m glad to see you, too,” Maggie said. To her own surprise, she found herself blinking back tears. “But I’ve got to put this girl down or I’m going to drop her.”

  “Back here,” Jeanne said. The back of the cabin was piled with straw. She and Maggie eased Arcadia down onto it and then P.J. hugged Maggie again.

  “You got us out. We got away,” P.J. said, her sharp little chin digging into Maggie’s shoulder.

  Maggie squeezed her. “Well—we all got us out, and Jeanne helped get you away. But I’m glad everybody made it.”

  “Is she…all right?” P.J. pulled back and looked down at Arcadia.

  “I don’t know.” Cady’s forehead felt hot under Maggie’s hand, and her breathing was regular but with a rough, wheezy undertone Maggie didn’t like.

  “Here’s a cover,” Jeanne said, dragging up a piece of heavy, incredibly coarse material. It seemed as big as a sail and so rigid it hardly sagged or folded. “If we all get under it, we can keep warm.”

  They put Cady in the middle, Maggie and P.J. on one side of her and Jeanne on the other. The cover was more than big enough to spread over them.

  And the hay smelled nice. It was prickly, but Maggie’s long sleeves and jeans protected her. There was a strange comfort in P.J.’s slight body cuddled up next to her—like a kitten, Maggie thought. And it was so blessedly good to not be moving, to not be carrying anyone, but just to sit still and relax her sore muscles.

  “There was a little food stashed here,” Jeanne said, digging under the hay and pulling out a small packet. “Dried meat strips and oatcakes with salal berries. We’d better save some for tomorrow, though.”

  Maggie tore into the dried meat hungrily. It didn’t taste like beef jerky; it was tougher and gamier, but right at the moment it seemed delicious. She tried to get Cady to eat some, but it was no use. Cady just turned her head away.

  She and Jeanne and P.J. finished the meal off with a drink of water, and then they lay back on the bed of hay.

  Maggie felt almost happy. The gnawing in her stomach was gone, her muscles were loosening up, and she could feel a warm heaviness settling over her.

  “You were going…to tell me about Bern…” Jeanne said from the other side of Cady. The words trailed off into a giant yawn.

  “Yeah.” Maggie’s brain was fuzzy and her eyes wouldn’t stay open. “Tomorrow…”

  And then, lying on a pile of hay in a tiny shack in a strange kingdom, with three girls who had been strangers to her before this afternoon and who now seemed a little like sisters, she was fast asleep.

  Maggie woke up with her nose cold and her feet too hot. Pale light was coming in all the cracks in the boards of the cabin. For one instant she stared at the rough weathered-silver boards and the hay on the floor and wondered where she was. Then she remembered everything.

  “Cady.” She sat up and looked at the girl beside her.

  Cady didn’t look well. Her face had the waxy inner glow of somebody with a fever, and there were little tendrils of dark hair curled damply on her forehead. But at Maggie’s voice her eyelashes fluttered, then her eyes opened.

  “Maggie?”

  “How are you feeling? Want some water?” She helped Cady drink from the leather bag.

  “I’m all right. Thanks to you, I think. You brought me here, didn’t you?” Cady’s face turned as if she were looking around the room with her wide, unfocused eyes. She spoke in short sentences, as if she were conserving her strength, but her voice was more gentle than weak. “And Jeanne, too. Thank you both.”

  She must have heard us talking last night, Maggie thought. Jeanne was sitting up, straw in her red hair, her green eyes narrow and alert instantly. P.J. was stirring and making grumpy noises.

  “Morning,” Maggie said. “Is everybody okay?”

  “Yeah,” P.J. said in a small, husky voice. There was a loud rumble from her stomach. “I guess I’m still a little hungry,” she admitted.

  “There’re a couple oatcakes left,” Jeanne said. “And one strip of meat. We might as well finish it off.”

  They made Cady eat the meat, although she tried to refuse it. Then they divided the oatcakes solemnly into four parts and ate them, chewing doggedly on dry, flaky mouthfuls.

  “We’re going to need more water, too,” Maggie said, after they’d each had a drink. The leather bag was almost empty. “But I think the first thing is to figure out what we’re going to do now. What our plan is.”

  “The first thing,” Jeanne said, “is to tell us what happened to Bern.”

  “Oh.” Maggie blinked, but she could see why Jeanne would want to know. “Well, he’s definitely dead.” She sketched in what had happened after she and Cady had started running through the woods. How Gavin and Bern had chased them and had finally driven them into a corner on the boulder pile. How Bern had climbed up and changed…

  “He was a shapeshifter, you know,” she said.

  Jeanne nodded, unsurprised. “Bern means bear. They usually have names that mean what they are. But you’re saying you tried to fight that guy off with a stick? You’re dumber than I thought.” Still, her green eyes were gleaming with something like wry admiration, and P.J. was listening with awe.

  “And then—there was this lightning,” Maggie said. “And it killed Bern and Gavin ran away.” She realized, even as she said it, that she didn’t want to tell everything that had happened with Delos. She didn’t think Jeanne would understand. So she left out the way their minds had linked when they touched, and the way she’d seen his memories—and the fact that she’d dreamed about him before ever coming to this valley.

  “Then I filled the water bag and we heard Sylvia coming and he went out to make sure she didn’t find me or Cady,” she finished. She realized that they were all staring at her. Cady’s face was thoughtful and serene as always, P.J. was scared but interested in the story—but Jeanne was riveted with disbelief and horror.

  “You’re saying Prince Delos saved your life? With the blue fire? You’re saying he didn’t turn you over to the hunting party?” She said it as if she were talking about Dracula.

  “It’s the truth.” Good thing I didn’t tell her about the kiss, Maggie thought.

  “It’s impossible. Delos hates everybody. He’s the most dangerous of all of them.”

  “Yeah, that’s what he kept telling me.” Maggie shook her head. The way Jeanne was looking at her made her uncomfortable, as if she were defending someone unredeemably evil. “He also said at one point that he killed my brother,” she said slowly. “But I didn’t know whether to believe it….”

  “Believe it.” Jeanne’s nostrils were flared and her lip curled as if she were looking at something disgusting. “He’s the head of this whole place and everything that goes on here. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do. I can’t believe he let you go.” She considered for a moment, then said grimly, “Unless he’s got something special in mind. Letting you go and then hunting you down later. It’s the kind of thing he’d enjoy.”

  Maggie had a strange feeling of void in her stomach that had nothing to do with hunger. She tried to speak calmly. “I don’t think so. I think—he just didn’t care if I got away.”

  “You’re fooling yourself. You don’t understand about these people because you haven’t been here. None of you have been here.” Jeanne looked at P.J., who was watching with wide blue eyes, and at Cady, who was listening silen
tly, her head slightly bowed. “The Night People are monsters. And the ones here in the Dark Kingdom are the worst of all. Some of them have been alive for hundreds of years—some of them were here when Delos’s grandfather founded the place. They’ve been holed up in this valley all that time…and all they do is hunt. It’s their only sport. It’s all they care about. It’s all they do.”

  Maggie’s skin was prickling. Part of her didn’t want to pursue this subject any further. But she had to know.

  “Last night I noticed something weird,” she said. “I was standing outside and listening, but I couldn’t hear any animal sounds anywhere. None at all.”

  “They’ve wiped them out. All the animals in the wild are gone.”

  P.J.’s thin little hand clutched at Maggie’s arm nervously. “But then what do they hunt?”

  “Animals they breed and release. I’ve been a slave here for three years, and at first I only saw them breeding local animals—cougars and black bears and wolverines and stuff. But in the last couple of years they’ve started bringing in exotics. Leopards and tigers and things.”

  Maggie let out her breath and patted P.J.’s hand. “But not humans.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. Of course humans—but only when they can get an excuse. The laws say the vampires can’t hunt slaves to death because they’re too precious—pretty soon the food supply would be gone. But if slaves get loose, they at least get to hunt them down and bring them back to the castle. And if a slave has to be executed, they do a death hunt.”

  “I see.” The void in Maggie’s stomach had become a yawning chasm. “But—”

  “If he let you go, it was so he could come back and hunt you,” Jeanne said flatly. “I’m telling you, he’s bad. It was three years ago that the old king died and Delos took over, okay? And it was three years ago that they started bringing new slaves in. Not just grabbing people off the mountain if they got too close, but actually going down and kidnapping girls off the streets. That’s why I’m here. That’s why P.J.’s here.”

  Beside Maggie, P.J. shivered. Maggie put an arm around her and felt the slight body shaking against hers. She gulped, her other hand clenching into a fist. “Hey, kiddo. You’ve been really brave so far, so just hang on, okay? Things are going to work out.”