Dreamseeker's Road (38 page)

“Lugh would consider it a favor,” Aikin called over his shoulder.

“We do not
need
Lugh's favors!” someone—not the Huntsman—yelled back.

“I am mad,” the Huntsman snorted, his voice as rough as the bark of his hounds, “but I am no fool. A favor here, a favor there: thus is balance maintained.” A pause, then: “What might this favor be?”

Aikin told him.

“Those would be Rhiannon's men,” a woman com­plained. “They would claim her protection.”

“I swore only to preserve those of the royal house of Ys, and those
they
protect,” the Huntsman snarled back. “Rhiannon's guard are never of her house, and her protection prevails only in her presence or that of her blood kin, else she could shield all of Ys from me.”

“But—”

“Silence!”
the Huntsman roared. “I will do this thing! The small fey flee Tir-Nan-Og, for a land that lies beyond Ys, and thus beyond Faerie. If they reach there, I cannot hunt them. And I
like
to hunt them. They fight better than the Sidhe; there are few repercussions if they are slain—and their souls, my spear tells me, are tastier.”

Aikin was trying very hard
not
to think of wolves and cougars that killed many more rabbits, squirrels, and groundhogs than cattle, sheep, or deer; only hunting the latter when the rest became too scarce.

“We ride, then!” the Huntsman bellowed—and with that the pain in Aikin's back vanished. A crackling swish was the spear sweeping away.

“But my…friend,” Aikin ventured.

“He will heal or not,” the Huntsman growled. “We will not harm him, but you would be wise to leave him where he lies—for I seem to have come to like you, and you would be safer with us than otherwise. This swamp dislikes things that move and are…alive.”

“But—”

“Follow or stay,” the Huntsman snapped. “We are gone!” And with that he winded his horn, and reality shattered into noise.

Aikin shut his eyes and deliberately refused to watch as, with a roar like a hurricane, the Wild Hunt swept by. A few hounds loitered, one of which was nosing the motionless Eellar when Aikin finally dared open his eyes. “Git!” he yelled, as though he commanded one of his dad's 'coon hounds.

To his surprise, the beast responded, though it continued to stare at him with crazed, accusing eyes.

“You go too,” Eellar hissed through gritted teeth, his handsome face tight with pain. “I will not die, though I may hurt for a time. When you may, send someone in search of me.”

“You could ride with me…”

“It would not be wise.”

“I—”

But Eellar muttered a Word that sounded different from any Aikin had ever heard, and the stag surged forward. “Here!” Eellar called as he passed, and somehow found strength to toss Aikin his sword.

Aikin caught it, courtesy of the red rags that bound his hands, and managed to fumble it into his belt beside the one he'd received from Alec, and then was off again. Of Eellar's elk there was no sign.

He didn't know how long he rode.

*

Aikin had heard of soldiers who could sleep in the saddle, but had never expected to be one. He had a pretty good idea he had been cutting at least tentative Zs, though, when something cold slapped his face and roused him several levels of consciousness—to see the last of the glittering moss sweep past the stag's rack. And reveal a field of carnage.

The Track had emptied into a stretch of dryer, more open land than the swamps he'd been navigating, though stands of the odd gold-toned cypress still circled its three or so acres. Impossibly large birds perched on limbs here and there, none close enough to see clearly—which was a blessing, as the skies were already thick with dark shapes slowly spiraling down on vast dark wings.

Carrion birds, for certain—and there was definitely carrion. Rhiannon's troop evidently hadn't been far ahead of the Hunt at all—or had heard them coming and sought to meet them where the Track emerged—for the first body lay not ten paces inside the clearing. A man—a Faery man—it had been, and fabulously handsome as most of them were—had his chiseled features and beardless chin not been contorted in a rictus of something that clearly transcended pain, something that was probably linked to a large, neat hole in his chest from which blood had erupted in a perfect star to pattern his gold surcoat.

The next man had been dealt with even less pleasantly; indeed had been cloven nigh in twain, from the juncture of neck and shoulder. Fortunately, that part faced away from Aikin, so he was spared the full gory spectacle. Spared the sight, rather, for the air was rank with the stench of blood, viscera, and a nebulous something that could only be called fear.

The third body was a horse, and the elk went skittish at that, for the stallion's entrails twined in a sort of cat's cradle around its legs—and to his dismay, it still breathed faintly. He would have put it out of its misery, but the elk moved on, and he had little choice but to follow the Track toward the clearing's heart.

A warrior woman's corpse loomed into view to the right, face strangely peaceful for someone with the back of her head caved in. Her possible twin lay just beyond, crushed beneath a horse whose neck had been cleft in twain. A smaller shape sprawled beside her, a skinny feral-looking boy in motley of russet fur and emerald feathers: one of the lesser fey, a mascot perhaps. The sword that lay just beyond his outstretched fingers would scarce have made Aikin a dagger.

For some reason that affected him worse than the others, and his gorge rose unbidden. He lost it entirely when a vast crow lit atop that scrawny chest and poked its beak into an eye that had obviously been born to twinkle. He was barely able to turn his head in time to avoid soiling both his leg and his steed, and was only grateful that the elk seemed to sense his discomfort and strode past.

At which point a troubling thought struck him:
Supposing the ulunsuti was here: how did he find it?
And fast on the wings of that realization came another, that would have occurred far sooner had he not been so everlasting tired.

This was all
his
fault!

He, Aikin Daniels, had slain these folks as surely as Neman had caused the death of David-the-Elder! These folks had families who would hear of this massacre and curse his deeds, friends who might be prompted to seek revenge, who might cross the World Walls to effect it, as Dave had sought to do.

All because
he
was a coward. All because he'd tried to save someone who was no better than these folks from a similar doom.

He really was sick then—so sick he had no choice but to slide off his steed or faint. The ground was already soggy with his vomit when he fell upon it, and he doubled that amount twice over, heaving and groaning until there was no more to gag forth. When he looked up again, it was to see the dark lump of a fallen horse he'd not truly noticed before—and rising from where she'd evidently been crouching beyond its belly, a woman.

A survivor?
He hoped? He feared?

But this was no warrior maid of Rhiannon's; this was another sort of woman entirely.

—Red dress, red hair, crazy eyes, blood on her face and arms clear to the shoulders…

Macha!

The reveler among the slain.

“A fine feast,” Macha chortled, as she paused to wrench a crimson…something in twain and thrust it into her maw. She chewed noisily and spat out blood and gristle.

Aikin was too stunned to move.

“No,” he mouthed silently—helplessly. “No…no…no…” The world reeled.

The ground hit him hard.

When he awoke, it was to see Macha bending over him, her mouth far too close to his own. He could smell her breath, hot and fetid. But her eyes, when he glimpsed them, were clear.

“Yes, look at me, boy!” she commanded. “Look, and see me sane, as I briefly am at the quarters of the day. Look, and hear, and know I speak true when I say that you had no part in this. I knew you were pursuing someone when we met upon the Tracks, but it was I who clouded your reason, I who bade you urge the Hunt to this slaughter. The knowledge that Rhiannon's host rode ahead was in your mind, but I brought it to your tongue.”

“But…why?” Aikin choked, as he scrambled up on his elbow.

“Because Macha prefers many deaths to few, and thinks it better yet if a certain mortal goes insane. And best of all, if the folk of Faerie take the battle into his World. Then will Macha
truly
revel among the slain.” She paused, and madness glazed her eyes again, all hint of rationality fled. “No, not Macha…
me…I
will
revel among the slain!

“The slain…! The slain…!” she went on in a kind of childish singsong, as she danced away across the field. “…Blood and gore and the brains of the slain…!”

And then distantly a horn sounded. And as Aikin watched in gut-twisting awe, the crazy woman raised her arms, flapped them twice, and became the largest crow he'd ever seen, which flapped away across the clearing.

Leaving him alone in a battlefield, trying to convince himself that all this grief was not his fault. The elk hadn't fled, but was not close to hand, so he gave himself to aimless wandering, knowing he should seek the ulunsuti, yet loath to come anywhere near those ruined bodies, among which there was no sound save the rustling wings of eerily mute ravens and the hiss of wind through bloodstained grasses.

And, to the right, an odd humming. He started at that, eyes narrowed, tired, and wary. There it was again: a steady buzzing drone that seemed out of place in this land of swamps, death, and Straight Tracks. His curiosity promptly awoke, and he stumbled toward it, stiff-legged from all that riding. He freed Alec's sword as he limped along: three feet of sloppily forged iron, that was also three feet of death past revival to anyone from Faerie.

The hum was louder now, easier to trace; and before he knew it, he was running back the way he'd come, but at an angle that looked poised to bring him upon what he now saw was another Track—likely that from which Rigantana's host should soon appear.

He almost stepped on it before he could stop.

It was the ulunsuti: humming like a crazy thing, where it lay in a pool of blood beside a young blond knight whose throat had been sliced open. It quieted as he squatted beside it, and more as he reached out to retrieve it left-handed. Yet something stopped him.
The thing was primed!
And who knew what would happen now? Could he simply ignore it and let it fall quiet? Or did it have to expend all that latent power he could practically feel? Certainly it'd had power enough already to sense him worrying about it and summon him. But what
could
he do besides wait? Yet how could he stand to remain here with all these dead bodies? How could he explain them to their kin? It was Macha's fault, she had herself admitted. But would anyone believe him if he repeated that tale? Even if it were true?

“God,” he gritted, “I wish these folks hadn't died!” And then, with absolutely no warning, the World turned to light and heat, and he knew no more.

*

Aikin awoke to the fine clear pain of a sword point lodged between his pecs, and to the sight of a grim-faced Faery man whose high-crowned helm was silhouetted against a brassy sky. Something warm pulsed in the fisted hand he pressed to the blood-soaked ground, and even without looking he knew it was the ulunsuti.

“I do not know who you are, mortal lad,” the Faerie knight rasped blearily, “but I awoke here and found my fellows dazed as though newly roused, our horses running wild with a vast-horned stag, and only my brother still dead, in whose blood you seem to lie.”

“Unnnhhhh!” Aikin groaned, and felt that more than sufficient reply.

“I seem to have lost something, however,” the knight went on. “Have you perhaps found a certain…jewel?”

Aikin froze.
Lord, it was true!
He'd wished the dead alive, and here they were!—confused as much as he, and anxious to deliver the ulunsuti to Rhiannon's ships at the coast, but alive! Abruptly he followed the Faery's gaze to his left hand.

So what was he waiting for? Why didn't the guy simply grab the thing?

Because something lay beneath that hand, dropped clumsily when he'd fallen, but evidently sufficient to dissuade random pillaging: the hilt of Alec's sword.
Iron
sword, such as all in Faerie feared. And unless this guy killed him, he couldn't touch the ulunsuti while his hand lay upon it. Slowly, carefully, with the stone still in his palm, he eased his fingers part way 'round it.

“Raise your arm and live,” the knight snapped, as his blade sliced through Aikin's T-shirt.

Aikin considered this. The guy had a point…far too sharp a one. Certainly he could kill Aikin before Aikin could fumble a useful grip. It would then be a simple matter to roll him away from the weapon. On the other hand,
he
had reinforcements in transit…

“I wished you alive just now,” Aikin said, trying to sound formal and imperious, as he did in the games he ran. “I wished your souls free of the Wild Hunt, and so you live. I did it with the stone in my hand, but I could also wish you dead again—faster than you could slay me.”

“You lie!”

“Wanta try me?”

The man paused. “Others will be joining me soon. I will wait.”

“Yeah,” Aikin shot back, daring to ease himself up on his elbows, careful to maintain his grip on both sword and ulunsuti. “Or perhaps I can wish them away as well. Perhaps there is no end to my wishes.”

“You would be wise to wish yourself gone,” the knight snarled, as he withdrew his blade but did not sheathe it. Aikin managed to sit upright. “Rhiannon will make short work of you,” the Faery added with a smug smirk. “She will cast a glamour on you so fell you will do anything to be free of it, even release the oracular stone.”