Hunting (21 page)

Mockhold Valley had once been the best
address in Luinhall, when the area immediately around the Milk had
begun to fill and the attractively broad western valley had offered
a perfect location for spacious houses. It had prospered in the
centuries after the Breaking, but then the southern passes had been
reopened, making travel into Montmoth easy during the warm months.
With the travellers came stories of Montmoth's waters, and both the
glacial Milk and Luinhall's hot springs acquired fame as waters of
youth, blessed by Luin. For a brief time, Luinhall faced summer
crowds greater than the city could handle, and responded with
cheap, dangerous, firetrap construction to accommodate them. By the
time the stories were finally deemed exaggeration, and the crowds
died away, Mockhold had tipped well over the edge of a long slide
to the blot it was today: an eyesore, a fire waiting to happen.

At night, moonlit, its crazed
architecture became the city's jewel.

Ash slowed her progress to a crawl as
they neared the centre of the Shambles. These tight-packed roofs
were less than stable, and ahead was The Pile, a cluster of
buildings that had leaned together into total collapse a decade
ago.

They prowled closer, poling only rarely
out above the streets now that they were in their prey's territory.
Ash broke her group into two sets of three, and took one set ahead
to settle at the location where Larkin had originally sighted the
skarl. Larkin's group were south of her, staking the other street a
creature like a skarl was likely to use to exit the tangle of
fallen houses.

Sim, least able to keep quiet for
extended periods of time, had been sent to the peak of a roof
between the two ambush sites. He would relay any signal from Larkin
with gestures, so there was no possibility of the skarl detecting
their usual whistle-talk. Scent should not be a major issue, with
so many in the buildings beneath them, but without calm there was
too much chance of detection.

Seating herself against the canted wall
of a second story, Ash looked over her group, and then nodded. No
one in a position that would cramp them or be visible from the
ground. She leaned back, wrinkling her nose as the breeze wafted
fetid stench out of the tangle of tumbled buildings, then fixed her
gaze on the street.

Ever active, her mind immediately
wandered to that day's lecture on water purification. She'd noticed
a distinct change in Marriston's attitude. Not the "he saved the
Veirhoi but I don't know how to apologise" hesitancy of most of the
seruilisi, but...anticipation. Marriston would be the type who
responded with petty vengeance to being proved wrong. She wondered
what it would be. A quick scuffle in a deserted part of the palace?
No, too open to consequences. If she were out for revenge, she'd
work out a way to make Marriston make a fool of himself with the
maximum audience. There was a garden party and a banquet coming up,
where the seruilisi would stand about in the full scrutiny of half
the Landsmeet. Did Marriston have the skill – the subtlety – to
bring off anything worth caring about?

Irritably she rubbed the hilt of her
knife, which Thornaster had returned without comment. The Mern
still felt like a distraction, especially while the Veirhoi kept to
his sickbed. Carlyon was better positioned to play investigator
among the Kinsel. But, after tonight, her role as gutter seruilis
may no longer be an issue. If they uncovered the identity of the
assassin's employer.

A flicker of movement caught her
eye.

With effort Ash kept her breathing
even, letting out no telltale gasp. Time to loose the hounds.

Lifting a hand, Ash watched for Sim's
reaction. She could see him only as a silhouette, one that turned
and crossed its arms over its head. Once she was sure he had seen,
Ash turned her head and met the eyes of each of her group of
Huntsmen as the skarl padded into sight. Her hand signal was now a
command to hold. It would not do to give themselves away and send
the beast skittering back to her lair.

Not that the skarl seemed at all
inclined to skitter. Trotting confidently down the centre of the
little street, a lean animal made large by coarse, shaggy black
hair, bringing shadow in its wake. A cursed wolf of Naggol. Ash
trembled as her target passed beneath her – the creature that had
come into her home, and cut the throat of the person Ash loved
most.

She waited until the shapeshifter
reached the end of the street, and then closed her hand into a
fist, rising silently to her feet as she did so. Gesturing to Carl
and Bitty to indicate that they were to move ahead, Ash ran with
swift, light steps along the roof's edge. As she came within range,
she chose a strong-looking gutter and dropped, clutching the rim
and hanging down to swing her long, rowan staff, striking the
animal hard across the rump.

The skarl screamed.

Ash bared her teeth. Rowan was the bane
of many magical animals, and had been the key to the first skarl
hunt. It could not only touch the shadow-cursed, it caused pain.
Excruciating pain.

Swinging back to solid footing, Ash
hurried after her Huntsmen as the skarl headed toward the first
junction. It turned the wrong way at the corner, but half of Lark's
group were waiting, and a second keening yelp rose over triumphant
human voices. Bitty struck as the four-footed assassin went past,
and the hunt was engaged in full.

The plan was the same as their previous
hunt in the Shambles. To drive the animal into a prepared trap,
directing her with goads of rowan, never letting her have a chance
to stop or turn or think. Racing in frantic leapfrog moves to block
street after street with crossed staves, to strike again and again,
to keep the pain and confusion and noise at maximum pitch, so that
a human woman in the form of a skarl would not have time enough for
any thought beyond RUN.

"Get off the street!"

Startled by Bitty's yell, Ash almost
lost her footing, dropping a pace behind. Someone had strayed onto
the carefully chosen route, and Ash cursed them, trying to judge
the distance. Would they be able to get whoever it was out of the
way in time?

"Mad dog!" Melar yelled, not too far
away, his voice cracking. "
Mad dog!!
"

The cry was taken up by other Huntsmen,
and must have been effective because Ash, panting as the pace began
to tax her, passed a wholly confused and frightened man, who almost
took a nose-dive back into the street when she leapt around
him.

The skarl tried to turn and Dest caught
her across the lower jaw with an upswing. Ash joined him and a hail
of blows of varying strength beat the shapeshifter into continuing
on her way. The creature tried a different tactic, putting on a
stunning burst of speed which no human could keep pace with, but
she was defeated by the Shambles. Although Ash had chosen a
relatively clear path, it was still incredibly twisted, and the
Huntsmen only managed to keep pace through a combination of
knowledge and practiced skill. A stitch in her side impeding her
almost as much as her burning lungs, Ash thanked Astenar that she
had not placed the trap too far away.

The skarl burst into what had once been
a market square and immediately a jury-rigged gate fell into place
behind her, leaving the shapeshifter trapped in a hastily fashioned
but solid cage. Ash, driven by her momentum, almost fell into the
enclosure with the skarl, which would have been as embarrassing as
it was fatal. Gasping for breath, she dropped to her knees on the
corner of the building as Investigator Verel, standing on the far
side of the makeshift cage, said something loud and
incomprehensible which made the hotchpotch collection of doors,
broken wagons, gates and rubble shimmer with an only partially
visible blue light.

Howling, the skarl slammed into the
gate that had fallen behind her. A flash of light threw her
violently backwards, but this only enraged the creature and she
threw herself at the barrier again and again. Watching the scene
scarce feet below her, Ash wondered if the cry of "mad dog" had not
been correct after all. But then, quite abruptly, the shapeshifter
ended her frantic attempts to escape, and turned to study her
prison with burning eyes, circling the cage once then pacing into
the middle of the enclosure and stopping, facing Verel.

As the creature transformed, a murmur
ran through the gathered audience – from the panting Huntsmen on
the rooftops to the emerging collection of Guard and Watch.
'Vomiting'. Ash could not help but bring Sho's description to mind
as thick fur regurgitated pale flesh and faded cloth.

The bruised, crop-haired woman which
took the animal's place, with her odd, many-pocketed gown and her
cloth-bound feet, seemed to have no relation to the animal she had
been. Nothing but those burning, red-rimmed eyes.

"Why?"

Ash had meant to keep quiet. Her voice
seemed to echo, though she had barely raised it above a
whisper.

The woman turned to stare up at Ash.
They searched each other's faces, Ash seeking reasons or reasoning,
the shapeshifter looking for Astenar knew what.

Something grabbed Ash's shirt from
behind, yanking her backwards just as the woman's arm blurred
upwards. The staff Ash had been holding clattered noisily to the
ground as she landed on her back, eyes wide open when the flash of
steel passed overhead.

There was shouting from below, and
chanting. Hastily Ash sat up, gripping Melar's arm tightly as the
shapeshifter tore away at the barrier, a stream of incomprehensible
words accompanying her movements as she tried to combat the spell
and climb at the same time. Almost, it seemed that she would
escape, because the faint limning of blue light flickered out of
existence, but then it returned in a skull-piercing flash and the
killer was thrown backwards, as far as the opposite side of the
enclosure, falling into a twisted heap of wrong angles.

"Oh, damn," Melar whispered.

Ash, though momentarily paralysed by a
variety of pure fury she rarely experienced, was able to release
his arm, aware that he would have bruises where her fingers had
sunk into his flesh. She took a deep breath.

"You saved my life, Melar," she said,
evenly. "Thank you."

He was still staring down at the
body.

"And that 'mad dog' thing was quick
thinking," Ash continued. "You probably saved that man's life as
well."

Melar looked at her then. "But it's all
wasted!" he blurted, his usual calm lost to the night's failure.
"She's dead! We'll never find out who hired her now!"

Ash shook her head, watching as Verel
disbanded her spell and the Guard efficiently began to dismantle
the physical cage. The death touched her less than she had
expected. For all she had driven the woman into this trap, it had
been the assassin who had chosen to fight rather than be
captured.

"Wasted? Genevieve's killer has died as
she should – surrounded by her enemies, scrabbling for her freedom.
As for her employer...well, perhaps we will discover something of
that one when we track back to wherever in The Pile she was
sleeping."

"Never give up, hey, Ash Cat?" Larkin
asked, coming up behind them.

She looked up at him and watched him
react to her expression. Then she shrugged and rose to her feet,
became all business again, sending her Huntsmen on their way, all
but Larkin and Melar, who were less easily ordered and who knew the
heart of the Shambles best. The three of them dropped lightly to
the ground, where Thornaster and Verel waited. The Aremian handed
her her staff, his eyes flicking over her in a quick, precise
search for injury. Then he nodded.

"Formidable," he said, the words both
congratulation and comment.

"Anything useful on the body?" she
asked.

The Investigator shook her head. "Food.
Weapons. Trinkets. Nothing."

"You want to track back to her nest
tonight, or wait till daylight?"

"How long before the scavengers move
in?"

Ash shrugged. "It would have to be a
brave scrabbler."

Thornaster and Verel exchanged a look.
"Tonight," Verel said, decisively. "Tracking is very limited, and
best not delayed. Can you lead us to the point you first sighted
her? I'll cast from there."

After a pause, while Verel removed one
of the bindings from the dead shapeshifter's foot, presumably to be
used in her casting, Ash and her friends resumed the skyways and
returned to the start of their hunt at a much slower pace, guiding
Thornaster, Verel and two of the more hulking Guards.

The trail led directly to the narrow
entrance of The Pile, and Thornaster had to remain behind with
Larkin and the guards, while Ash and Melar crawled with Verel to
the place the shapeshifter had spent her days. There, among the
mouldering blankets and scraps of a life lived rough, they found
buried three purses heavy with gold. Nothing else.

It was not until Ash and Thornaster had
returned with Verel to her office in the palace that they thought
to empty the purses, and found two signet rings. Thornaster scooped
them up, studying them with disbelieving eyes. In response to the
Investigator's anxious question, he displayed one next to the ring
he wore on the smallest finger of his right hand.

The other was Hawkmarten's.

Chapter Twenty-One

"Hello, Heran."

"Ash. You came."

"Why wouldn't I?" The window was once
again curtained and shuttered, and Ash busied herself in opening
it, then sat down on the sill. "Still bedridden? I would have
thought you'd have recovered enough to get around by now."

"Master Tsimon says I have to stay here
for another week."

"Whatever for? Come over here," she
ordered. "I like your view."

She smiled vaguely into the distance
while Heran decided to do as she said. He came to a stop by the
sill and looked resolutely out.