Black Sun Rising (51 page)

“Untie my companions,” Tarrant said quietly.

She made no response, other than to step back a bit. Giving him room.

After a moment the Hunter stepped forward and applied himself to Damien’s bonds. The priest’s flesh was so numb from the cold that he couldn’t even feel it when his hands were at last freed, but observed them as they swung down by his sides as though they were strange to him, the limbs of some other creature. He forced himself to acknowledge them, to use one to try to rub warmth into the other, as Tarrant untied the two other humans.

Then the adept turned, and faced the rakh-woman again. Even soaking wet—his hair plastered messily to the side of his face, his clothing torn in a dozen places by the application of claws and spearpoint—he was possessed of a regality that commanded a power all its own. A dark charisma, which even the rakh must respond to.

“You touch my companions again,” he warned—and his eyes scanned the warriors as he spoke—“and you die. Instantly.” His eyes fixed on the rakh-woman. “Tell them,” he commanded.

For a moment the woman just stared at him. Then, without answering, she walked to where her xandu stood. With a motion as fluid and unpredictable as a cat pouncing suddenly on its prey, she gained its back. And twisted one hand into its mane, sharp claws entangled in gleaming silk.

“They understand you,” she told the Hunter.

And she smiled coldly, displaying pointed teeth. “They understand more than you think.”

The xandu rode like the wind. The horses rode like overtired, overwrought horses, who’d had enough of earthquakes and waterfalls and long rides without rest, and who hadn’t collapsed before now only because no one had let them stand still long enough to do so. It didn’t help that Senzei and Ciani were sharing a mount, or that Damien—a heavy man to start with—was carrying twice his weight in water-logged clothing. But at least they’d been spared a fourth rider.

Damien looked up at the sky, at the great white predatory bird that soared high above their company, and felt a cold, unaccustomed awe fill him. Shapechanging wasn’t supposed to be possible, at least not for the flesh-bom—but he had seen it done, and the memory chilled his blood more than weather and river-water combined. Against his will, he recalled it: a budden burst of coldfire brilliance, so frigid that it blinded, human flesh dissolving as if in an acid bath, features running together like water in a whirlpool—and then, in that last instant, white wings rising up out of the conflagration, bearing the Hunter’s new body into a moonlit sky. But it wasn’t the transformation itself that made Damien’s blood turn to ice in his veins, or even the memory of human flesh dissolving before his eyes. It was the look on Tarrant’s face, in that last moment before he entrusted his life to the earth-fae. Utter discipline, total submission—and an echo of pain and fear so intense that Damien, remembering the man’s expression, still shivered before the force of it.

I couldn’t have managed it, he thought. Not for all the power in the world. No sane man could
.

Unsane, unconquerable, the Hunter soared high above them. Periodically a rakhene warrior would glance up at him, and the fur-bordered eyes would narrow. In defiance? In fear? It wasn’t unreasonable to hope for the latter. Damien’s small party needed every advantage it could get in dealing with these creatures—and if the rakh decided that Tarrant was a man to be feared, so much the better.

He nodded grimly, and thought,
Good for him.

Miles passed beneath the pounding hooves, flat land layered in thick black soil and the dying remnants of summer’s bounty. In places the browning grass was so deep that the horses’ legs sank into it a foot or more, before withdrawing; In other places it was so sparse that a shoulder of granite might be seen, forcing its way through the moist black cover of the earth. Damien wrapped himself as tightly as he could in the thick woolen blanket he had taken from their stores, which did little to raise his body temperature but at least kept the wind off his soaked hair and clothing.
Just a little bit farther
, he promised himself.
Body heat is an easy thing to conjure, once you’re standing still. No damage has been done that you can’t undo, if they’ll just leave you alone to Work
. But the likelihood of them doing that was very small indeed, and the dry clothing he would have liked to change into must be halfway down the Achron by now, still strapped to his horse’s corpse.

It was Tarrant who first spotted the rakhene encampment—and he let out a shrill shriek to warn his companions as he circled down lower, overseeing their arrival. Seconds later the leader of the rakh drew a finely engraved horn from out of his belt and blew on it, presumably to alert the camp to their presence. The rakhene formation pulled in tighter about the humans, spear-points nearly touching the horses’ flanks, forcing them to a halt. After a few minutes Damien could see a second company riding toward them, maned warriors who gripped their weapons tightly as they approached, as if impatient to use them. They glared at the humans as they approached the raiding party, and angry words passed between the leaders of the two groups. The cadence of the newcomer’s speech resonated with fury as he indicated Damien’s unbound hands, and those of the other humans. Their captors responded defiantly, and Damien could only guess at his argument: the humans were disarmed, they were wounded and exhausted, they were sharing two mounts among three of them—how much damage could they possibly do? At last, with an angry nod, the leader of the second group agreed to lead them in. His companions went galloping on ahead, presumably to warn the camp that they were coming.

The great white bird swooped low overhead: a warning to the rakhene warriors, a gesture of support to the three humans. Despite his anxiety, Damien smiled.

Never thought I’d be this glad to have you around, you son of a bitch
.

They rode to the top of a gentle swell, where thick autumn growths crowded about their horses’ ankles. From here it was possible to see the rakhene encampment, a village of tents and lightweight structures that stretched as far as the eye could see. Xandu grazed between the primitive dwellings, with no hobble or leash to bind them in place. Despite the lateness of the hour there were numerous people about, going about the day’s business as if the sun were still high in the sky. Children darted out into the moonlight and then were gone again, small golden forms as naked as the xandu who indulgently made way for them. Full-grown rakh tended cookfires, carved new weapons, sat around low-banked fires with bowls of steaming drink in their hands and made noises that might have been laughter. There were warrior-rakh like the ones who had captured Ciani’s party, broad-shouldered, heavily maned males with glittering ornaments woven into their fur; slender females, clothed from neck to ankle in finely gathered cloth, layered necklaces cascading down the front of their tabards; other females, aggressively naked, whose few, carefully chosen ornaments served only to highlight full rounded breasts, a sensitive strip of hairless skin that ran the length of their abdomen, hips and thighs that swayed as they walked in a motion at once exotic and familiar: the timeless dance of sexual desire. There were others, too, whose dress or manner blurred the dividing line between those groups, but they were gone too quickly for Damien to identify. Castes? Genders? What manner of society did these creatures develop, when human-style intelligence first began to stir within them?

With a brusque, barking sound, one of the rakh ordered him to dismount. Damien tried to obey. But his legs, weakened by the exertions of the night and numbed by the searing cold, were barely able to support him. He held onto the horse for support and breathed deeply, trying to will the feeling back into his flesh, praying for the strength not to look as weak as he felt in front of his enemies. Ciani and Senzei dismounted quickly, without being ordered to, and came running toward him. There were spears placed in their path, but Zen shoved them aside; for once he seemed more angry than afraid. Then, suddenly, a shadow swept cross Damien’s face. The rakh nearest to him drew back—fearfully, it seemed to him. Then, in the space that they had cleared, the great predator-bird landed. Feathers gave way to burning coldfire, which melted in turn into flesh; Tarrant caught Damien before he could fall, and for once his skin was no colder than the priest’s own.

“Good flight, I hope,” the priest whispered.

“I’ve had better.” He held Damien steady while Senzei rewrapped the blanket around his shoulders. “You need to get warm, fast.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

A group of rakh were approaching from the camp. Damien managed to stand up straight, though he could feel the strain of it pounding in his heart. Beneath the blanket he grasped at Tarrant’s arm, hoping such weakness went unseen. Whoever thought that man’s presence would be so reassuring?

They waited, side by side, as the strangers approached. Seven in all: three males, two females, and two that might have been either—slender figures, fully clothed, whose form and manner offered no hint of gender or social status. Eunuchs? Adolescents? Not knowing their society, Damien couldn’t begin to theorize.

The newcomers seemed to command some special respect, and warriors hurried out of their way as they joined the raiding party. They came to within several paces of where the humans stood and studied them. So focused was he upon staying on his feet, denying his own weakness, that Damien almost missed it when the rakh-woman joined them. Clearly, she was one of their number.

It was Tarrant who spoke first; his tone was harsh. “If you mean to kill us, now’s the time to try it. If you intend anything else, I think it’s time you told us about it.” It was hardly a speech calculated to make friends—but there was very little time left for diplomacy, Damien realized. In less than an hour’s time the sun would begin to rise, and Tarrant would have to leave them. He was trying to force some kind of confrontation before that happened.

It was the rakh-woman who responded. “It’s your intentions that need to be judged—not ours.”

“We came to heal one of our own kind. Not to do battle with the rakh.”

“Our peoples are at war,” a male challenged him. “Do you deny that?”

Damien stiffened. “That war ended centuries ago.”

The woman hissed softly. “Not for us, human. Not for us.”

Damien was about to respond when Ciani broke in. “Please ...” she said softly. “We’re exhausted. Can’t you see that? We don’t have the strength left to hurt you, even if we wanted to.” Damien felt Tarrant stiffen at his side, as aghast as he was at her admission of weakness. What in hell’s name did she think she was doing? “Please. We need ... a fire. Something to drink. A minute to breathe. just that,” she begged. “We’ll do what you want. Whatever you want, after that.
Please.”

For a moment, utter silence reigned. Damien trembled—in disbelief, and apprehension. He’d never imagined that such words would ever come from her lips, such an abject admission of weakness ... and not here! Not now! Not when they needed so desperately to establish themselves on strong ground. But because she was Ciani—because she must have
something
in mind, some reason to act this way—he bit back on the defiant words that were half-formed on his lips, and forced himself to be silent. To wait. To let her speak for the four of them.

The rakh conferred among themselves, sharp phonemes passing like animal hisses between them. At last the woman looked back at them. For a few seconds she just waited, perhaps to see if one of the men would protest Ciani’s message. But Senzei and Tarrant had clearly come to the same decision that Damien had—in fact, Tarrant was nodding slightly in approval.

“Come with us,” the rakh-woman said. “You’ll be fed, and given warmth—and then you can explain yourselves.”

The woman’s small group surrounded them in guard formation, herding them to the north. As for the real guards, the rakhene warriors, they hissed disapprovingly as their prisoners were taken from them—but they did let them go, which said much for the status of the woman’s group.

Damien glanced up at Tarrant, who put a slender finger to the side of his face. Through the contact of flesh-on-flesh a Working formed, that widened the channel between them until words could pass along it.

Very clever of her, don’t you think? Assuming that animal instincts would still be active among them. Enough so that a display of abject submission might be enough to short-circuit their aggressive instincts. She seems to have earned us a place
—
however low
—
within their hierarchy. Which means the hierarchy may now afford us some protection
.

Quite a woman
, he thought, and his words resonated with admiration.
She’s put us all to shame, for not having thought of it before.

It surprises me that the Hunter can still experience shame
, Damien thought back.