The Eye of the Hunter (28 page)

Faeril, some distance away, cast a glance southward and finding no foe in sight, turned and came to Gwylly’s side.

“Look, love,” breathed Gwylly.

Faeril gasped, for at the bottom of a cusp in the ice was impressed the hollow of what could be nought but the shape of a Vulg, now gone. And in the moonlight shining upon that hollow, there where a Vulg once lay, something glittered. “Gwylly, it’s a knife!”

Her heart racing, the damman scrambled down into the cusp and reached into the hollow and took up the blade. It
was
a knife, a silver knife, the mate to the one in her bandolier. “Gwylly?” The damman looked up, her eyes shining. “It is Petal’s knife. The one she hurled into Stoke.”

Gwylly looked at the hollow. “Then that shape in the ice…”

Fearil drew back from it. “It was Stoke. He was here. Right here.”

Gwylly looked up and southward, in the direction that the Rūcks and Hlōks and Vulgs had gone. “Riatha was right: that howl of a wounded Vulg—that was Stoke we heard. Calling for aid. And now he’s gone with them…or has been carried off by them.”

Overhead, blood red and ominous, the Eye of the Hunter gashed the skies, its long tail blazing behind. And the earth shivered below.

As the quake rattled the land, Faeril sheathed the silver dagger in its long-empty bandolier scabbard and then scrambled back up and out from the cusp. Across from the Warrows, shards clattered out from the glacier face, slithering down the ramp where Riatha and Aravan worked, the judders loosening more ice around the trapped figure. And now the Warrows watched as the Elves backed out from the hole they had cleared. And hauling, straining, out from the glacier Riatha and Aravan drew the body of a huge Man. A broad Man. A giant of a Man.

It was Urus.

Riatha wept as they dragged him down the slithering mound of shards and to the bottom.

Now all could see what caused the glow, for at his belt was an aspergillum—a device used by monks and clerics for sprinkling blessed water upon a congregation. And it was this object which gave off the illumination.

Even as they looked, a wondering Aravan reached out and touched the glowing dispenser. Instantly the light faded and was gone, leaving behind what appeared to be nought but a religious device, though a precious one, for it was made of ivory and silver.

Riatha lifted her ear from Urus’s chest, and on her knees she rocked back and forth, keening, her arms clutched across her breasts. Her face was twisted in anguish, and wrenching sobs racked her frame, as if she had been withholding her grief for a thousand years. And ’midst her sobs she called his name—
“Urus…oh, my Urus!”

Faeril’s face fell, and tears rolled down her cheeks and she turned to her buccaran. “Oh, Gwylly, I was hoping against hope…”

Gwylly embraced her and held her close and stroked her hair, his own features stricken. Aravan knelt beside Riatha, and put an arm about her and spoke softly. And still overhead, the Eye of the Hunter streamed through the sky, and again the earth below jolted violently and trembled for a time after, and from a distance came the sound of iron bells ringing.

And
lo!
in that same moment, Urus drew in a great, shuddering breath of air, and exhaled again, and did not move afterward.

Riatha flung herself forward, her ear against his chest This time she remained listening long. At last, without lifting
her head, she spoke. “He lives, but only by a thread We must get him to a place of safety. A place where we can warm him, tend him.”

Gwylly looked at Faeril as the echoes of the iron bells diminished. “The monastery?”

Faeril called down from the height of the calved mass “The monastery, is it close?”

Riatha lifted up from Urus’s form, and still kneeling, glanced at the damman above. “Nay, ’tis some seven miles o’er rough terrain, broken land…but thy words are worthy—it is the only proper place of care for league upon league.”

Aravan stood and loosened an ice axe at his belt. “We cannot carry him for a lengthy distance. I will find a tree or two and make a travois.”

Gwylly turned about and from his vantage spotted a stand of scrub. “This way, Aravan.”

The buccan scrambled down from the mass and led the Elf southward.

Faeril clambered down as well, coming to where Riatha tended Urus. The Elfess examined the Man for broken bones, finding none, after which there was little she could do until they got him to a place of shelter and warmth “Perhaps if we could move him away from this ice…” suggested the damman.

“I would rather wait for the litter, wee one,” replies Riatha.

They waited without speaking, watching, and after a long while Urus for the second time slowly took a breath, one breath, no more. Again Riatha put her ear to his chest. “He yet lives,” she murmured.

Removing a glove, Faeril reached out and took the Man’s huge hand in her own. His fingers were like unto the very ice itself. “How can this be…that Urus is still alive after a thousand years?”

Riatha’s answer was long in coming. “I know not,” she said at last, lost in thought, absently gazing at the silver and ivory aspergillum. “Perhaps—”

Gwylly’s hail interrupted whatever Riatha was about to say.

Using ropes and climbing harnesses and limbs chopped from an arctic pine, they fashioned a travois. Carefully, they rolled Urus onto the litter, and Aravan slipped the make
shift harness onto his shoulders. Aided by the others, the Elf dragged the Man out away from the glacier, and following Riatha’s lead, they set off southward, intending to bear west as soon as the terrain would permit, heading for the abandoned monastery.

By the platinum light of the overhead Moon the Warrows could clearly see the Man, and how like Petal’s description in her journal he looked: he had dark reddish brown hair, lighter at the tips, giving it a silvery, grizzled look, and his face was covered with a full beard of the same grizzled brown, both beard and hair were grown long, very long, reaching to his waist and beyond. He was dressed in deep umber, and wore fleece-lined boots and vest, and a great brown cloak. A morning star depended from his belt, the spiked ball and chain held by slip-knotted thongs to the oaken haft. And although they couldn’t see them, they knew by Petal’s journal that his eyes were a dark amber.

Indeed, it was Urus…

Alive…

Barely….

After some moments of march, Gwylly said, “We must be wary, for this is the way Stoke was borne.”

Startled, Riatha swiftly questioned the Waerling, her voice sharp. “How know thee this, Gwylly?”

The buccan looked up at Riatha. “Above you, in the ice where we stood, we saw where Stoke had lain trapped all these centuries, for his impression was yet there—a Vulgshaped hollow at our feet. And in that hollow Faeril found her lost knife, the one Petal winged him with.

“You yourself said that the howl of the wounded Vulg we heard was Stoke. Calling for aid. Well, they came and got him and carried him off, or so I think.

“And while Aravan cut branches for the travois, I looked about and discovered the track where the Rūcks and such went with him, bearing him…or so I surmise. For if Stoke is damaged, as we think he is, then I would expect to find evidence of a limping Vulg, or tracks of a Man…if Man he be. Yet none of these things did I come across. Only Rūck and Hlōk and loping Vulg tracks did I find, running south, there to the left a hundred or so paces away.”

Riatha groaned, indecision upon her face. “If he is indeed
helpless, as is Urus, then now is the best time to halt his murderous madness.”

Gwylly protested: “But he is warded by many maggot-folk.”

“Vulgs, Rūcks, Hlōks,” added Faeril.

“Nevertheless,” began Riatha, “if he regains his strength—”

Riatha was interrupted by Aravan, the Elf speaking even as he pulled the loaded travois across the snow, his words labored. “Hearken, two demands lie before us: we must not lose Stoke; we must tend to Urus. These two goals are not incompatible, but it means we will have to divide our forces.

“This I propose: Riatha and Faeril will track Stoke; Gwylly and I will bear Urus to the monastery—”

Gwylly began to protest, as did Riatha, the Elfess speaking first: “To divide our force is to court disaster. And I have the best skills to treat Urus.”

“I would not be separated from my dammia,” added Gwylly.

Aravan continued dragging Urus. “List, and list well:

“First, we know not what the weather has in store. But should a spring storm come, it will erase all trace of Stoke’s trail, and in this season storms are likely. Hence, to not begin tracking him immediately risks all.

“Second, only I have the strength to hale Urus any distance, especially o’er rough terrain, and he must be taken to a place where he can recover.

“Third, Gwylly is hampered, there where his shoulder was struck while climbing, and he cannot wield his sling. To send him tracking after the
Rûpt
is to send a wounded, defenseless warrior into combat. Yet he can aid me greatly, by ranging to the fore in the broken land ahead to find the least arduous trails, those with the easiest passage unto the monastery, and once there he can aid in the treating of Urus.

“Too, we are without food and other supplies, and by going in pairs, while one forages or hunts, the other can tend to the task at hand.

“In Gwylly’s and my case, one will hunt and forage while the other tends the Man.

“In thy case, it will take two to track Stoke for any length of time: one to guard while the other rests; one to forage, to hunt while the other tracks; one to bring back word if
and when Stoke goes to ground. And heed, I deem that he
will
go to ground, and soon, given that he is impaired as is our newfound comrade, Urus.

“Now
if
ye wish to risk losing Stoke, then let us all fare to the monastery; mayhap after reaching there and treating Urus, we will later discover Stoke’s location. Yet I remind ye that once long past he escaped for nigh twenty years, years in which he committed his foul deeds.

“But if ye would of certain not lose him now, then here we must divide, and two follow Stoke unto his hiding place, while two others hie Urus unto the monastery.”

Aravan’s arguments were unassailable, and in the end Riatha, Gwylly, and Faeril had no choice but to accede to his logic. And so, after Riatha described the location of the monastery to Aravan and Gwylly, and spoke to them of the treatment for Urus, handing the Elf a packet of herbs taken from a pocket in her down jacket, she and Faeril were shown by the buccan to the track of the southbound
Spaunen
.

Then Gwylly embraced Faeril and gently kissed her. “Take care, my dammia. Come to me soon with news of Stoke’s bolt-hole. But should Stoke not go to ground, then leave trail sign, and we will follow as soon as we may.”

Saying nothing, Faeril only hugged Gwylly tightly, then stepped back, her eyes glittering, but Riatha spoke. “I pray that Urus recovers swiftly.”

With a glance at Faeril, who nodded that she was ready, the Elfess and damman slipped away into the moonlit night, while again the earth trembled. Gwylly watched them go, anguish in his eyes, then turned and trotted toward Aravan, the Elf yet hauling Urus across the snow.

* * *

Gwylly could see Riatha and Faeril for some time, as slowly the two courses diverged from one another, Elfess and damman tracking southerly, Elf and buccan veering southwesterly. Gwylly had overtaken Aravan with Urus on the travois, and then had pressed on, seeking the best route through the rugged land ahead, toward the abandoned monastery whence they were bound.

To their right loomed the wall of the glacier, its edges rounded and sloping and raddled with great cracks and ravines, eroded by weather. Huge ridges of ice extended outward from the interior mass, like titanic fingers on a vast
hand. Skirting the tips of these ridges, Gwylly went slowly forward, the jumbled terrain rising up to meet the massifs of the dark mountains beyond.

Now and again Aravan would stop to rest, the Elf perspiring freely, for the task was arduous. And Gwylly always returned to the Elf’s side during these pauses, describing the land to come, advising Aravan as to the easiest way, though at times there seemed to be only hard passages ahead. And on this difficult terrain, often would Aravan have to hale the travois and Urus up rough steeps, and at times they were beyond the Elf’s strength; even with Gwylly helping, some places could not be traversed, and another way would have to be found.

And when they rested, they did not speak of the dire straits in which they found themselves—stranded in shuddering, icy mountains teeming with foe, Gwylly himself unable for the moment to use his sling, the party split, all of their food and most of their supplies lost, an incapacitated comrade on their hands, the route to the monastery all but impassable burdened as they were. Instead they spoke of the trail ahead, of finding the monastery, and of Urus.

During one of these stops, Gwylly looked down at the huge Man, and Urus drew in a breath and exhaled, then was still. “I say, Aravan, Urus’s beard reaches below his waist, and his hair is long enough to come to his belt. Do you think that they’ve been growing all these hundreds of years?”

Aravan glanced at Urus. “If so, wee one, then it has grown very slowly.”

Gwylly thought awhile. “Slowly, slowly, like his breathing.”

Aravan nodded. “It is said that extreme cold will slow the pulse of life.”

“How so, Aravan?”

“That I do not know, Gwylly. But heed, things go to ground in winter. Growth stops. E’en those things which do grow throughout the year—pine trees, some shrubs and grasses, lichen, and the like—all slow to near imperceptibility in the winter season. Some animals go to ground as well, sleeping as do the plants.”

Gwylly looked at the Elf. “Like Bears in the winter, neh?”

“Exactly so, Gwylly. And in this case, thine example is most apt.”

Gwylly again looked at Urus, remembering what he had read—that Urus at times took on the form of a Bear.

Aravan stood and shouldered the harness, and Gwylly once more clambered through the land ahead, leading the way.