by Anne Bishop
At first, she’d resisted because they didn’t appear to be so terribly ill. Then the Small Folk explained that none who had been bitten had recovered. The ones who asked for her help were more afraid of having their spirits devoured before another of Death’s Servants passed by than they were of giving up life prematurely.
So she had gathered them gently and taken them to the Shadowed Veil so that they could pass through and reach the Summerland beyond.
Even for the Gatherer, death had become too constant a companion.
As soon as they reached the stream, the mares hurried forward to drink their fill. Then the sun stallion took his turn, drinking quickly while the dark horse stood watch.
Morag untied her canteen from the saddle and dismounted. “Go on, drink,” she told the dark horse. She watched the trees for any movement. The sun stallion guarded the mares.
When the dark horse finished, she filled her canteen and drank, gulping down the water, which had a slightly bitter taste. Another sign of the nighthunters’ presence—or the loss of magic in the land.
As she bent down to refill the canteen, the sun stallion reared, screaming, and struck a mare’s flank with his hoof.
As the mare bolted toward the field, a small black body fell off her flank. The nighthunter spread its wings and leaped toward the sun stallion, trying to sink its needle-sharp teeth into the sole of the upraised hoof.
The sun stallion twisted its body. The nighthunter’s teeth scraped the side of the hoof. Before it could attack again, the dark horse lashed out, knocking it to the ground. His hoof came down, pulping the body.
Then came the awful sound of nighthunter wings in flight.
“Run!” Morag yelled. The horses had to be away from here before she made her own kind of strike. The mares obeyed instantly, running for the field. The stallions moved to either side of her, prepared to fight.
Frustrated and scared, she swung her canteen by its straps, hitting the sun stallion’s rump. He whirled, ears flat, teeth bared.
She swung the canteen again, hitting one of the nighthunters before it could reach the dark horse’s neck. “Run so I can fight!”
That they understood. The horses ran, and, for a moment, she was alone, feeling as defenseless as any other creature against those spawns of twisted magic.
Then she gathered her power and released it in a short burst, hoping the horses were far enough away not to be touched by it. The nighthunters fell all around her, stunned. But they wouldn’t stay stunned for long.
Morag ran.
The other horses had fled the length of the field and were gathered by the road. The dark horse, however, danced nervously a few yards away from the woods.
“You stayed too close,” Morag said angrily.
The dark horse snorted, offered his left side.
Morag barely had time to get both feet in the stirrups before he turned and galloped across the field to join the others.
Her power couldn’t kill the nighthunters. She’d learned that the night the mare was attacked. They were bodies without spirit, and there was nothing for her to gather. But her power could leave them flopping on the ground for a few minutes. They weren’t completely helpless—they could still bite and scratch— but they could then be killed by mundane methods.
When they reached the other horses, Morag dismounted and sank to her knees, shaking. Her skin crawled while she raked her fingers through her hair, almost expecting to dislodge a nighthunter from the tangles. After a minute or so, she got to her feet and examined the horses. One mare’s flank was bleeding a little where the sun stallion’s hoof had struck her, but none of the others had been injured. The sun stallion’s hoof, where the nighthunter’s teeth had scraped it, wasn’t really damaged. Still, she poured the water she had left in the canteen over the stallion’s hoof and the mare’s flank to clean them as best she could.
She glanced at the woods. The nighthunters would be revived by now and were no doubt flying through the woods to reach the trees closest to this part of the field. But it was still daylight, and there was enough open ground between the trees and where she stood. The nighthunters kept to the woods and the shadows within it. They wouldn’t cross this much open ground in daylight. However, once the sun set . . .
She would have been willing to stay a little longer to give the horses a chance to graze, but, although they sniffed at the grass in the field, none of them ate.
“Let’s go,” she said, moving toward the dark horse. “We’ll find someplace else to rest.”
Death whispered.
Morag turned in a slow circle, trying to find the reason for that whisper.
The sun stallion and the dark horse watched the road. The mares bunched together.
Moments later, a young man riding a floundering horse came into sight. When he saw them, he spurred his horse. It broke into a heavy-footed trot for a few paces, then dropped back to a walk, its head hanging down.
There was nothing exceptional about the young man that Morag could see. He had average looks, and his hair was adequately described as brown. He wore black trousers and a black coat, both dusty.
The sight of him repulsed her.
He swung out of the saddle, quickly stripped the bridle off his horse, and walked toward her, greedily eyeing the stallions before focusing on the mares.
“I require one of your horses,” he said, approaching the mares.
That he thought he could take what he pleased with no more explanation than that, and that she would meekly yield to his command, infuriated her.
“They aren’t for sale,” Morag said coldly.
He gave her one quick, thorough glance, as if debating if she were another kind of mare he’d like to mount, then turned his attention back to the horses.
The mares trotted way from him—except the mare who had been bitten by the nighthunters. She laid her ears back and stood her ground.
As the man looked at the mare’s wounds, Morag saw recognition—and satisfaction—in his eyes. Her own eyes narrowed as she studied him again.
“You’re a Black Coat,” she said. When he gave her a puzzled look, she added, “An . . . Inquisitor.”
“Yes,” he said impatiently. “I’m the personal courier for the Master Inquisitor. My horse is used up. I need one of these.”
“So that you can deliver your Master’s orders to kill more witches?” she asked, her eyes on the flat leather bag that rested at his hip.
“Of course.” He looked proud and arrogant. “He is the Witch’s Hammer.”
“And I,” Morag said softly, “am the Gatherer.”
His face paled as he finally, really looked at her. “You killed Konrad,” he whispered.
“I didn’t ask his name.”
As he turned to flee, the wounded mare lashed out with her hind feet, kicking him in the chest.
Morag heard bone snap.
The nighthunters flitted around the edge of the woods, darting out a few yards into the daylight before returning to the shadows. A fresh death would make them bold enough to come to the feast before anything else could feed, despite the sunlight.
“Move out to the road,” Morag told the dark horse. He and the sun stallion obeyed. The mares followed.
Morag approached the young man, but not close enough for him to touch her. Bloody foam bubbled over his lips. She could sense the blood spilling inside him, filling him up.
“Help me,” he gasped, trying to reach for her.
She smiled at him. “You want me to gather you?”
His eyes widened in fear as he struggled to breathe. “No! You’ll send my spirit to the Fiery Pit, the Evil One’s lair.”
Morag tipped her head to one side, studying him. “I have never heard of the Fiery Pit, but it sounds like a fitting place for your kind. Perhaps your Master Inquisitor can show you the way.” She looked at the woods. The nighthunters were becoming bolder, but weren’t quite bold enough—yet. “Then again, perhaps his other servants will take care of you.”<
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With effort, the young man turned his head, saw the black shapes darting out from among the trees.
“You can’t leave me here with them,” he gasped. Blood gushed from his mouth. “You can’t leave me.”
“You and the other Inquisitors created them, didn’t you? They didn’t exist here until your kind came to soil this land.”
His eyes glazed. He made one more feeble attempt to reach her. “Please. You can’t leave me.”
The nighthunters left the shadows. Morag watched them fly across the field.
“Yes, I can.”
Hurrying toward the dark horse, she made a sharp gesture with her hand. “Go!”
The mares cantered down the road, the sun stallion following to guard. The courier’s horse trotted after them.
Morag mounted the dark horse, then looked at the courier’s horse. If it tried to keep up with them, it would die soon. It might die anyway.
Let it try to stay with us, Morag thought, keeping the dark horse to a trot the courier’s horse could manage. There’s nothing I would want to see die near that field. Almost nothing, she amended as she heard the courier’s ghost scream.
Exhausted, Morag snuggled into the straw to get a little more comfortable. Even with the summer days being so long now, they hadn’t been able to travel as far as she’d hoped. But they had reached this farm. One of the small bags of silver she’d found in the courier’s saddlebags when she’d stopped long enough to strip the saddle off the horse had been enough to buy grain for the horses, a meal for herself, and a place in the barn for her and the dark horse. The sun stallion and the mares were in a nearby pasture. They would be safe enough for the night.
The farmer thought the courier’s horse might recover with proper care, so she’d given the animal to him to keep or sell. She couldn’t take it with her. Fae horses had more strength and stamina than ordinary horses. Sooner or later, the poor beast would be left behind to fend for itself if the effort to keep up didn’t kill it.
Tomorrow was the Solstice. She hadn’t known that, had lost track of the days. The farmer and his wife had invited her to stay for the Midsummer celebration, but she had declined. This year, the only thing the Solstice meant to her was there would be more daylight during which it was safe to travel. And that was especially important because she finally had a name in the human world to mark her destination.
Ridgeley.
It had taken some effort to get her hosts to understand that she wanted to find a village on the southern coast of Sylvalan but didn’t know its name. She really wasn’t interested in a particular village; she just wanted to have a marker in the human world that would help her reach the southern Clans as swiftly as possible. Because of the horses, they’d told her the place she was looking for was a village called Ridgeley. An old man named Ahern lived near there—a man who bred the finest horses around. When the dark horse had pricked its ears at the sound of Ahern’s name, she had a suspicion about who she would find there. But even if it wasn’t the right place, the Lord of the Horse would surely know where to find the Lightbringer or the Huntress.
Three days more. Four at the most, depending on how swiftly they could travel. And then . . .
No. She wouldn’t let her mind circle around what might be. She would find out soon enough what might be waiting for her in Ridgeley.
Chapter Twenty-four
“Today is the Summer Solstice,” Ari told Merle as she brushed him. “The longest day of the year. A celebration day. And the only day in the summer when work gets set aside to simply enjoy the feel of the season. Well, there’ll be a little work or else we won’t have our feast this evening.” She put the brush beside her on the bench and leaned back against the cottage wall. She grinned at the puppy, who seemed to be grinning back. “May the Mother bless Ahern. Beef. A lovely piece of beef that will make a wonderful roast. Not that the rabbits the hawk has brought haven’t been welcome, but they aren’t the same thing, are they?”
She stood up, stretched. “Come on. This morning we’ll walk the land. Not all of it, of course, Brightwood is much too big for that. But I’ll show you some of my favorite places. The hill my grandmother always favored because she said it was the best place for her to sit and listen to the messages the wind brought her. And the pond my mother favored.”
She sobered. Merle, sensing the change, whined quietly.
“It’s also the day to visit the dead,” Ari said softly. “Because it may be the last time I’ll take this walk on the Solstice. My grandmother died on that hill. She went to sleep in the autumn sunshine . . . and she never woke up. And my mother . . . Her body rests with the Great Mother near the pond. I wasn’t sure she would want to be there after . . . There wasn’t another place I thought she would prefer to be, except, perhaps, near that spot on the beach that she often went to. But it wouldn’t have been a good resting place.”
She shook off the mood before it had a chance to take root. “A long ramble, then I’ll start preparing our feast. And after that, a long, deep bath.” She laughed as Merle backed away. The puppy was having trouble learning what “no” meant, but, apparently, he’d learned “bath” quick enough. “For me. You’ve already had your bath. I don’t know what you rolled in this morning, but you certainly smell better now.”
Merle sneezed.
Laughing, Ari set off, with Merle bumbling along beside her, to walk the land and listen to whatever messages were there.
“Are we ready?” Dianna asked quietly.
“If the horses’ hind legs don’t sink into the ground from the weight of these saddlebags, then we’re ready,” Aiden teased. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn we didn’t leave anything for the Clan feast.”
“We aren’t bringing that much,” Dianna muttered.
“That’s easy for you to say.” Lyrra said it in a grumble, but her eyes danced with amusement. “You weren’t the one who kept taking bits and pieces of the feast—or the jars to put them in. And you weren’t the one who requested a plainly roasted chicken.” She widened her eyes and shuddered. “Plain chicken?” she said in horror, her voice a high, scratchy, perfect imitation of the Lady of the Hearth, who ruled the kitchens that produced the meals for the Clan. “The Huntress can’t be wanting plain chicken.”
Dianna stared at Lyrra, not sure if she should laugh or run. “Did we get a plain chicken?”
Lyrra, continuing her imitation, sniffed haughtily. “It’ll be basted with honey butter. That will be plain enough. Imagine. Plain chicken, No stuffings. No sauces.” Sniff. “So, yes,” Lyrra said in her own voice, “we got a plainly roasted chicken, and I’m sure between requesting that and snitching the rest I’ll never get another morsel out of the kitchens no matter how many amusing stories I tell.”
“Oh,” Dianna said. She was very glad she hadn’t braved the kitchens. The Lady of the Hearth would have been doubly offended if she’d asked for the chicken directly. At least with Lyrra, such a request, while unusual, wasn’t too shocking. The Muse was known for moments of whimsy.
“Are you sure we can’t bring a packhorse?” Aiden asked plaintively.
“That would be too obvious,” Dianna said tartly. Then she looked at Aiden’s harp and caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Unless you need one.”
He smiled at her, and she knew she’d swallowed the bait and never saw the hook.
“I’m bringing my smallest harp,” Aiden said. “It doesn’t have as much range as the other, but it will do well enough for this evening. And Lyrra can manage her drum. It’s not that long a ride.”
“Then let’s go while everyone else is preoccupied with dressing for the evening feast and festivities.”
Except everyone wasn’t preoccupied. Falco met them before they reached the stables.
“Take me with you,” he said.
“This is a private celebration,” Dianna said, giving him her best Huntress stare.
“You’re going to the cottage, aren’t you? That’s what you’ve been whisp
ering about these past few days, isn’t it?”
“This is none of your concern,” Dianna said sharply.
“You’re taking Aiden and Lyrra, and they’ve never even been there before.” He gave her a sly look. “I’ve been there several times.”
“And you wouldn’t be able to keep that to yourself,” Dianna snapped. “She knows the hawk is a Fae Lord, but she doesn’t know I’m Fae, and she’s not going to. Not yet. But you’d give out so many hints about rabbits and hawks she’d have to be deaf and blind not to realize you’re the hawk. And if you’re with us, it would make her wonder about us.”
Falco looked sulky. “If I can’t go with you, I’ll just have to spend the evening with Lucian.”
Dianna’s breath caught at the audacity of that threat. Lucian would find out about this evening sooner or later, but she’d prefer that it be later. Much later.
“If wanting to go is making him stupid enough to utter a statement like that, we’d better take him with us,” Aiden said coolly. “At least that way we’ll know what he’s up to. But the Lord of Hawks would do well to remember just how sharply the Bard can hone words into a weapon.”
“Especially when he has the Muse to inspire him,” Lyrra added.
Falco looked nervous but didn’t back down. “I’ll behave. I just want to see how witches celebrate the Solstice.”
Don’t we all, Dianna thought, wondering just what they would find when they reached Brightwood.
Ari put on the long, sleeveless sea-blue vest, then looked down at herself. Her own brown skirt would stand for the earth. The ivory lawn tunic, which had belonged to her grandmother, would stand for air. Her mother’s vest would stand for water.
“I doubt anyone would mistake me for a lady of fashion, but at least, in some way, the three of us will stand together for this celebration. Besides, no one but Merle is going to see me, and he won’t care how I’m dressed. And I don’t care what anyone would think about the way I’m dressed anyway. Well, perhaps Neall.” She paused, then added softly, “But he would understand that the three of us together had held the four branches of the Mother, and this is the only way I can do that—and this is only a gesture to water and air at best. But I still need something for fire.”
