The Coming Storm (27 page)

One of the stars in her mind and heart suddenly went out.

Grief and loss struck her like a blow, a pain so huge she cried out. “Delae! NO! Delae!”

Her eyes burned but she could shed no tears.

She fell and found herself on her knees in the grass with her head to the dirt, anguish twisting her heart. The pain was nearly too great to bear.
Delae
! Gone. She shook her head in denial, though she couldn’t deny the pain, or the sure knowledge of her grandmother’s death.

Then she heard the far distant scream, the echoing, frustrated fury that rang against the vault of the sky. So far away. She knew that sound, knew that voice.

She knew the other sound, too, that distant howling. A baying, like hounds at the scent but much higher, almost a scream. Gleeful. She’d seen them, those beasts that trolls and goblins would ride like horses. Those huge creatures that looked only somewhat like dogs and more like something from a dreadful nightmare. Even through the grief and the loss that sound sent a chill through her.

Delae’s voice surrounded her. Delae’s hands were on her arms. It was all memory but somehow real. Those ephemeral hands shook her.

‘
Don’t let them get you, sweetling, my heart. Don’t. You’re all that’s left of us, all of us. Don’t you die, too
.’

She was the last of her blood now, save for what remained of her father. The last of her name.

There was Elon, too.

In his stillness she’d known his struggle to balance his honor against the law. If she died here, he’d blame himself.

Jareth. Colath. Jalila. They hadn’t wanted her to go. If she died here…

She couldn’t. It wasn’t in her. For those others or for herself.

There was more, there was something she couldn’t name.

She pushed herself up.

Her legs were unsteady. Smoke had stopped and stood waiting in the early dawn light, the sky the pale color of pearls behind and above him so like his hide he nearly blended in with it.

The distant baying was insistent.

Hellhounds, and they had the scent.

“We’ll have to run,” she told the horse, for lack of anyone else to talk to, “but don’t run yourself out, you silly beast. And if we have to fight, don’t toss me off?”

He stood patiently.

This time there was no one to lift her up. That had been an unexpected kindness. There was a rock, though, where she needed one for once. Her knees felt like rubber but she made it onto Smoke’s back somehow.

One glance behind her.

She couldn’t see them yet but she knew they were there. At least two of them. She pulled out her bow. She’d never tried to use one from horseback. It looked like she’d learn the hard way.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Smoke leaped forward, settling into that long steady gallop. If there were riders with the hellhounds they would leave them quickly behind.

The hellhounds they wouldn’t. She’d seen them run.

The sun had burned away the last of the light mists of morning when she finally saw them. A quick look behind to the dark shapes bounding in that odd awkward run that was more like a series of leaps. She strung her bow and notched an arrow, remembering Jalila. That one was so sure, so fast. She’d never seemed to need to look at the arrows, rather she simply reached, set and fired. Elon, as well. Her quiver was full but she must try not to waste them or it wouldn’t be full for long.

Baying became belling, the sound of the hounds in sight of prey. With knees and thighs she clung to Smoke’s back and turned with her bow ready. They closed fast. Holding her breath, she released it with the arrow. It flew but missed. She saw it now, her mistake. There was no room for another.

Arrow in hand, notch, draw and fire.

A yelp, as the arrow took the hellhound in the shoulder and it pitched to the ground. It tumbled, screaming its rage and snapping the end of the arrow into pieces. It scrambled to its feet. The other closed. Another arrow. The thing dodged and the arrow flew past. Another, this one scoring it down the side.

The other was back in the hunt.

Even Smoke couldn’t keep that pace for long. Already the hellhounds were almost on them. Smoke seemed to sense it, his ears flattened and his muscles shifted. Grabbing a handful of mane, Ailith hung on as the horse stopped in mid-flight, spun and lashed out with his rear hooves. The impact sent a hellhound flying.

Ailith turned and let fly at the other. Another yelp and her arrow bristled from its side.

The other came at them.

Somehow, she stayed on as Smoke spun, kicked and bucked, holding the hellhounds at bay even as she drew and fired. A slash of claw raked the horse’s hindquarters but the hellhound had gotten too close. Ailith put an arrow through its eye.

It dropped.

The other struck, slamming into her from behind to send her plummeting from Smoke’s back even as pain ripped through her shoulder. The impact knocked her bow from her hands.

Ailith saw the ground come up and tucked her head in as the hellhound overshot and tumbled down the rise past her. She hit, rolled. Her shoulder was on fire from where it bit her. Burning pain.

Sweat wasn’t the only thing trickling down her back now.

Desperately, she scrambled to her feet and drew her longsword even as the hellhound raced up the hill towards her.

Smoke drove his forefeet into the other, pounding it to pulp.

Ailith dodged, ducked and the hellhound sailed past her only to turn like a cat and leap at her again.

This time she swung, anticipating the charge and had the satisfaction of hearing it scream in pain and fury. It twisted, scrambled to swat at her like a cat. She hacked and slashed at it, watching for an opening, getting its rhythm, its pattern. She took another set of scores on her thigh as it came in low but she danced and spun away before it could do more harm and opened up a gash along its ribs. It leaped and she swung, a feint. It twisted but so did she, swinging as hard as she could.

Blade sunk into flesh and crunched into bone. The hellhound crumpled and hit the ground still thrashing.

Smoke spun and his rear hooves lashed out to send it flying. It smashed against a tree and lay still.

It was over.

Ailith looked around. The other hellhound was a smear on the ground, pounded into the dirt.

“Good horse,” she said, her arms so weary she could barely hold the sword.

She gathered up her bow, looked it over to be certain it wasn’t damaged. It was a good Elven bow, though, and solid. It had survived the fall.

Would she ever be able to tell Dorovan his gift had saved her life?

Someday she hoped she would.

The wound in her thigh stung badly.

Looking around she found a small stream not far away. As best she could she washed out her wounds while Smoke nibbled at her hair. She couldn’t see it but she could certainly feel it. It burned like fire. This time she didn’t push Smoke away. It was oddly comforting.

The water was cold but it tasted wonderful.

With a handful of grass and some more water she carefully washed out the scores on Smoke’s hindquarters. Remembering Colath’s words she wiped the blood off the blade of her sword with handfuls of grass, and then cut off a piece of her shirttail and dampened it to wipe off the rest. She needed those swords too desperately to let them be damaged.

Did she dare rest? Even for a few moments?

If there was a time, it was now, any riders would be far behind, and she was so tired.

She lay in the grass and closed her eyes.

The sun was warm.

Smoke stood guard over her, nibbling at her hair now and then to let her know that he was there.

Delae. The grief was still there, deep and raw but not as mindlessly devastating now.

She slept uneasily but not for long. Dreams and memories chased her back to wakefulness. She sat up.

The wound in her thigh bled lightly but sluggishly. She ripped off another piece of her shirt and bound it around it as best she could. At this rate by the time she got where she was going, she’d be in tatters. A ragamuffin. Well, she’d never been one for dressing up much – as Colath had noted.

There weren’t many rocks here. It took her two tries to get up on Smoke’s back, weariness, her wounds, or the weight of the swords throwing her balance off.

Where
? The sun was shining but so were the stars that spangled her mind.

She knew where. As she’d known where to find that little boy so long ago.

Turning Smoke’s head in that direction, she said, “Set your own pace, horse.”

He did. A long, smooth, ground-eating canter.

For a time, Ailith thought she slept sitting up on his back, for when her eyes opened it was getting dark. She found a place, a small tumble of stones thrusting up out of the grass on the rise of a hill where they could rest.

The howling woke her in the moonless night. At first the sound made her shiver, it was so lonely. She wasn’t afraid. They were only wolves. Even if they caught the scent of the blood on her and Smoke, they would be wary. She’d faced hellhounds and boggins of late, what were wolves to that? For all of that there was something reassuring in their cries. They wouldn’t be howling with borderlands creatures about.

As soon as the light was bright enough, they were off. She felt little rested, both hungry and tired. The sun seemed too bright and her head pounded. The wounds in her thigh and shoulder throbbed dully. Smoke’s even canter of the day before was a little off, as he favored the wound in his hindquarters. The country had become more mountainous, the hills steeper. She found a road she knew, little more than a track that led the way she wanted to go.

There was a traveler’s shack along it somewhere.

It was a small stone building kept stocked by the Hunters and Woodsmen and by those who wandered these roads and byways. An emergency shelter in case of storm, a secure retreat as well. Food. Simple food, rough food. Honey, travel bread and flour, in crocks sealed with wax and hung from the ceiling so rodents and insects wouldn’t get them easily. A rain barrel outside for water. Wood for a fire.

She coaxed Smoke inside and barred the door. An ogre might get through that door but not much else. She ate half the travel bread with honey, although she wanted more.

The nights were cool up here in the mountains, even in the summertime, so she built a fire against the chill.

Then she collapsed on a pallet on the floor and slept.

Shivering woke her.

The wound in her thigh didn’t look good, the slashes had turned dark red and angry-looking. Despite the pain, she washed it and the one in her shoulder as well as she could. Ailith couldn’t imagine what they looked like but it felt as if they were on fire, they burned furiously when she cleaned them. There was an odd shimmery haze around everything. She knew she was ill but there was nothing for it but to keep going.

Smoke, too, looked off but his head came up as she walked toward him and he seemed willing enough. She used the rain barrel to mount him.

No canter today. Instead an uneven trot.

“Just a little while longer, Smoke. Almost there.”

Even so the little village was a surprise.

She hadn’t expected such this far up. Even riding with the Hunters, she didn’t think she’d ever been here before. It was little more than a collection of simple stone cottages surrounded by a wall. The wall was made of stones, rough stones that had been dug from the earth as they’d plowed the thin earth.

Colath saw rider and horse first and froze.

He looked again.

“Elon.”

Something in Colath’s voice caught Elon’s attention.

He’d been talking with the Hunter Gwillim about what had been happening up in these mountains, about the affairs in Riverford. It had taken time to find them, tracking them from village to village, watching for them as they rode, hoping to see them.

He looked up.

Colath’s tone alerted Jareth, too.