The Gates of Night: The Dreaming Dark - Book 3 (10 page)

Daine’s gaze flickered to Lei, but he wasn’t going to let the enemy distract him. “Who are you, exactly?” he said. “And what makes you think we’ll let you walk off with the lady?”

The Huntsman laughed again. “My name is not for you, mortal man. I am the ninth brother of night, and I ride beneath the Hunter’s Moon. I come on behalf of the Woodsman, to secure his bride.”

Lei felt a growing sense of anger—resentment building in the staff and spreading out through her nerves. She took a step forward, ignoring Daine’s sharp gesture. She wanted to attack, to drive the tip of her staff into the soft flesh beneath the stone mask, but she pushed down the alien emotions. “How do you know me?”

The effect was dramatic. The Huntsman’s horse recoiled, and every hound took a step back, whining. The rider’s stone face concealed his true expression, but his spear twisted to cover her.

“Truly, it is ghastly what has become of you,” he said, and his deep voice was filled with sorrow. “But the Woodsman will still accept you, I think.”

Lei didn’t remember closing the distance to the rider. The staff filled with rage, and this fury drowned out all rational thought. One moment Lei was standing by Daine. The next, she was lashing out at the dark rider, throwing all her strength into a swift thrust.

Driven by anger, she moved with uncanny speed. But the Huntsman was quick to react. Man and horse moved as one. The stallion stepped to the side and the rider raised his lunar shield.

The impact was stunning. Thunder rolled across the valley, as if the sky itself were outraged.

The staff howled.

It was a terrible sound, a keening filled with agony and grief. The cry tore away hope, leaving a horrible void and sense of doom. As painful as it was, Lei could sense that she was only feeling the barest edge of the despair it channeled at the Huntsman and his hounds. The rider fell back before her, wilting against the force of the wail. Then the moment passed, and the bloodhounds charged.

“I hoped to escort you, my lady,” the hunter cried over the continued keening of the staff. “But I will bring you by force if I must.”

Lei let the fury guide her. The first hound to reach her leapt into the air, intending to tackle. Lei’s thrust caught the beast directly in the chest, sinking deep into the flesh as if the staff was a spear. Even as Lei staggered back against the impact, the hound seemed to
boil
, lines of heat rippling around it. An instant later it exploded, and Lei felt warm blood splatter across her face.

Lei reached up to wipe the blood from her eyes, but the distraction came at a crucial moment. A second hound smashed into her, throwing her to the ground and pouncing on her chest. It knocked the staff from her hands. The wail came to a sudden end, and Lei’s strength and anger drained away. The hound moved with blinding speed, striking at her throat with bloodstained teeth. Powerful jaws closed, straining to snap her neck … and failing.

Before the battle, Daine had ordered Lei to weave a protective enchantment into her vest, and this magic dispersed the brunt of the attack. The pain was great,
and Lei gasped for breath, but the hound couldn’t pierce her armor. There was a breath of wind, and the creature jerked back as it was struck by Pierce’s arrows. It dissolved, pressure vanishing as blood flowed over Lei’s chest.

Xu’sasar danced among the hounds, lashing out with knee and elbow. Lei heard the
thrum
of Pierce’s bow as arrows cut through the air around her. Then she saw the dark stallion charging her.

At one point in her life, Lei might have been terrified. But after all she’d been through over the last few days, a man on a horse just couldn’t frighten her. She saw the stone mask of the Huntsman, the single tear gleaming in the moonlight, the silver tip of his spear leveled at her heart, and the stallion’s hooves, tearing the ground as it thundered toward her. Her staff had been knocked from her grasp, and there was no time to reach it. She was empty-handed.

But there was a golden glyph painted on the palm of her left hand.

Raising her hand, she reached out with her thoughts to touch the power she’d bound into the glove. The symbol exploded outward in a burst of light, catching horse and rider in a brilliant spray. Thousands of golden motes filled the air, then the light condensed around the Huntsman and his mount, covering both with a layer of glittering dust. The stallion staggered to a halt, stumbling blindly and pawing at the earth. Two of Pierce’s arrows sang through the air—one was aimed at the stallion’s eye, while the second caught the rider in the throat. Both shafts shattered on impact. The hunter didn’t even seem to notice the blow.

“Fie!
” the Huntsman cried, his voice thundering
across the plains. He shook his head, but the magical dust could not be removed that easily. “Such trickery will not keep me from my lady!”

“Then let’s try a new trick.” Daine vaulted up behind the hunter and wrapped his arm around the man’s throat. The blinded stallion bucked and leapt, but Daine clung to the hunter with grim determination. The two struggled, and Daine pulled the rider from the saddle, sending them both tumbling to the ground. The Huntsman roared with rage. He spun, catching Daine with a wild, backhanded stroke of his shield; the man was far stronger than his slender frame suggested, and the blow sent Daine flying.

“Your weapons cannot hurt me!” The Huntsman brandished his spear, and his voice seemed to roll down from the sky itself. “I am a lord of the night! I—”

“Talk too much,” Lei said. Daine had bought her time, and she’d risen to her feet and recovered the darkwood staff. As the outraged knight howled his fury, she drove her staff into his back. Once again, wood parted metal and flesh with the ease of the sharpest spear. The harrowing cry of the darkwood staff mingled with the Huntsman’s howl of pain. The hunter fell to his knees, reaching down to grasp the wooden head protruding from his chest. Though his voice was a whisper, Lei could hear him perfectly.

“My lady,” he rasped. “It seems you deserved your fate.”

Then he was gone.

Horse, rider, hounds … the entire pack vanished. Even the traces of blood were quickly fading. Only one thing remained: a stone face staring up from the ground where the Huntsman had stood, a single glowing tear traced down its cheek. At first Lei thought it was the hunter’s mask, but when she prodded it with her foot
she found it was firmly embedded in the soil.

The staff had fallen silent, but Lei could feel its emotions. There was a certain satisfaction, a sense of victory. But this was overshadowed by deep pain and lingering anger.

“Hello?” Lei whispered. She felt a vague flicker of emotion, the faintest acknowledgment … but no words in response. Could it actually speak? She turned the staff so she could look directly into the eyes of the carved face. Before she could say anything, a hand closed on her arm and spun her around.

“You want to tell me what that was about?” Daine had a gash across his scalp, and blood was streaked across his forehead. “By now, I thought I could rely on you to follow orders.” While he was angry, concern was the stronger emotion.

“I … can’t explain it.”

“Try.
Betrothed?
Hadrian’s dead.”

“So are we,” Xu’sasar pointed out. The drow woman was helping Pierce recover the arrows scattered across the battlefield. Most were intact, and given the circumstances they couldn’t afford to waste a single one.

Lei shook her head. “I still don’t believe that.”

“But he knew you.”

“I don’t think he did,” Lei said. “I think he knew this.” She pushed the staff between them.

“Go on.”

“Remember my Uncle Jura? Jura … Darkhart?”

Daine nodded slowly. “You said his wife died.”

“And that she was a dryad,” Lei said, turning the face on the staff toward Daine. “I think some part of her still lingers within.”

“So it’s a
haunted
staff?”

Lei shrugged. “Dryads are bound to trees. If this is
from the heart of her tree … I don’t know. But perhaps we should save this discussion for another time.”

“And why’s that?”

“She doesn’t want to talk about it.” Since the Huntsman had fallen, the presence within the staff seemed much stronger—and throughout the conversation, Lei could feel the spirit’s discomfort growing.

Daine shot a glance at Pierce. “Am I the only one without an imaginary friend?”

“Perhaps you should ask Jode.”

“Good point.” Daine sighed. “So now what?”

“Surely we have another battle to fight,” Xu’sasar said, sticking her head into the conversation. “I do not think that we truly defeated the Huntsman, and we must still earn our passage. More blood must be spilled.”

I’ve had quite enough for one day, Lei thought. The gore from the hounds had largely evaporated, but the memory of warm blood flowing across her skin was all too fresh. “No,” she said. “The vision I had said the answers lie in twilight. Beyond the Gates of Night.”

To Lei’s exasperation, Daine glanced over at Xu’sasar.

“She doesn’t know anything about this place—” Lei began, but the drow cut her off.

“The spirits told you this?” Her musical voice was low and serious. Xu’sasar was a head shorter than Lei, and she pushed closer and stared up into Lei’s eyes.

“I suppose you could say that …”

The drow girl reached up and placed her hand on Lei’s forehead. Her skin was smooth and cool to the touch. Lei wondered if the blood of the dark elves was colder than that of humans. Then Xu reached out with her other hand, touching the face of the carved dryad.

“Ask her,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Ask her. This tortured one, whose spirit has been bound in wood. She is of this world. She can show us the path to Dusk.”

Lei frowned. She didn’t like the drow girl. Lei had learned planar theory in the Towers of the Twelve, and she didn’t want to debate with a jungle savage. The problem was, this time Xu was right.
Darkheart knows the path
.

She looked at the staff. “Can you lead us to the Gates of Night?” she said.

And the spirit showed her the way.

D
aine caught the moonlight on the edge of his sword, watching the light shimmer across the steel. In the chaos of recent events he hadn’t had the time to study it, but he knew that something had changed. It wasn’t that he felt a living presence in the weapon, and thank the Sovereigns for that; between Lei’s sobbing staff and Pierce’s unusual behavior, the last thing Daine wanted to deal with was another strange spirit. Still, he could feel some force stirring within the weapon, a power he couldn’t quite touch with his conscious mind, which he could draw out in moments of anger. Just days ago the traitor Gerrion had been stunned when he’d tried to sunder the sword with Daine’s own dagger—a blade of Cannith-forged adamantine, which should have sliced through the steel with ease. In Karul’tash, Daine had been filled with rage and fear at the sight of Lei in peril. Somehow, that emotion flowed into the sword. He’d brought the warforged assassin to the ground with a single blow. He should have been pleased; it seemed he had a powerful weapon at his disposal. Still, he didn’t like mysteries. What were the limits of this power? How could he
control it? And what was its origin? Daine had inherited the sword from his grandfather, and if it had a fabled history, Daine had never heard it. But it seemed there was much Daine didn’t know.

One more thought nagged at the back of his mind, the faintest fear. When Daine and his companions had first arrived in Sharn, Jode had pawned Daine’s sword. Some time later, the blade had been returned to by Daine by Alina Lorridan Lyrris, a gnome with considerable magical talents. Daine had scored the House Deneith sigil off the pommel when he had left the house, but Alina had restored it and refurbished the blade. Today, the sword was in better condition than it had been when Daine had first received it. Alina was a manipulator by nature. While she worked to increase her own wealth and power, her favorite pastime was toying with the lives of others—and she certainly wasn’t known for her altruism. Alina did nothing without a reason.

So why had she gone to the trouble of finding and returning Daine’s sword?

For that matter, how did he know that it
was
his sword? The balance was perfect. Refurbished as it was, it was the very image of the blade he’d seen his grandfather wield in battle. Still, could it be that Alina had given him a
different
weapon?

Daine sighed.

Lei led the way across the rocky plains, her staff held before her like a torch. Occasionally the staff would murmur, a fluting sob that sent a chill down Daine’s spine. After their experience with the Huntsman, he found himself studying each stone face buried in the ground with suspicion, wondering if a new warrior would rise out of the soil.

“How much farther?” Daine called.

“I don’t know,” Lei said. “It doesn’t talk. I just sense emotions, I guess. I don’t know what we’re looking for, or how far we have to go. Just that it’s …” She paused and changed direction. “This way.”

“There’s nothing out there!” Daine gestured ahead of them. The light of the full moon spilled across the plains, illuminating a seemingly endless expanse of grass and stone. “What are we looking for?”