The Sacred Hunt Duology (33 page)

The moon suddenly disappeared; he leaped to the side, and something brushed against his ribs. Sharp, cold pain cut along the nape of his shirt, exposing the side of a rib. He pushed the trance, prayed for speed, dodged again; this time, only the shirt was abraded. He faced two, and he had no idea how the girl fared.

• • •

Stephen knew the shadows now. Even though there was no burning temple and no dying Priests surrounding him, he knew what they presaged. The dreams had returned, and they were his only reality. Blackness and death came under the cover it chose. What chance had he? The lower city held no sacred chamber, no hidden retreat—and none of the regalia of the Hunter God. But it held Gilliam; perhaps that would be enough.

He rounded the corner, and found that it was the final one. In the moonlit street, with shadows as carpets and flooring, he found Gilliam, Lord Elseth, as his Hunter struggled for his life.

He didn't recognize the two who attacked him. They were enemies; that was enough. His dagger slid out of his sheath, and he crouched into the nearest wall,
trying to keep even with the shadow, and at the same time trying to stay out of its reach. His breath came heavily; his throat felt raw.

One of the men dressed in black turned suddenly. In the moonlight, his dark fingers were gloved by a red, liquid sheen. He moved so quickly, Stephen thought of the Hunter in trance, and involuntarily, his gaze found Gilliam. Lord Elseth was injured; the night couldn't disguise it.

He had never wondered, in all the years since the wyrding, why he ran in those dreams; he didn't wonder now. The assassin—what else could he call it?—leaped through the air, both hands extended. He carried no weapon, and took no time to dance the intricacy of mage-spell through the air. Just the same, his presence was death. Stephen used the wall to push himself into the ground. The hands of his attacker splintered wood above his head as they drove themselves into the exterior of a building.

They were stuck there for seconds; long enough for Stephen to raise the dagger and slash out at the man's neck. Steel grated as if being sharpened; the dagger hilt shook in his hand as he drew the edge against stone, or perhaps something harder. The only damage his single, free strike had done was to cut away the lower edge of the mask.

Black cloth rolled up, revealing another layer of darkness—ebony and a glint of white that overhung obsidian lips.

Gilliam didn't know the exact instant that he became aware of Stephen; certainly his huntbrother shouted no greeting or warning. But he felt a sudden surge of fear that was neither his own nor his strange new companion's. And where two had attacked him, one stood alone.

The knot in his chest tightened. He fumbled for his dagger, but without any hope; the hand that had twisted his sword from his grasp was not likely to be affected by the smaller, thinner blade. The attacker lunged low; Gilliam jumped high, and dragged the blade across his back. He heard again the scraping of metal against stone, and felt it rumble up his arm. The black cotton shirt was split from collar to waist. There was no skin beneath it.

Yet there had to be some way of injuring these assassins; the girl had done it. The taste of cold, hard arm, alien to him, lingered in his mouth. His mouth. She'd
bitten
down.

It meant something, he was certain—but he had no time to think what; he was moving, at the farthest reach of his trance, while the creature kept up its attack. He felt pain along his back, and his skin split as easily as the black shirt had done along his enemy's.

• • •

They were not going to survive this. From the moment wood splinters had cleared his head, he knew it for fact. He didn't have Gilliam's speed or skill; there was no Hunter's trance to draw on for protection. The dagger, dragged across an exposed
throat, had done no damage. Were it not for the fact that the assassin's hands were caught in the wood for a few seconds longer, Stephen wouldn't have been able to avoid its next strike. He just moved too damned slowly.

He had to run; he knew it.

But he couldn't leave Gilliam behind.

Frantic, he began to race across the street, out into view of the silent moon and the cold, pale stars. The shadows roiled at his feet, growing more substantial as they tried to impede his progress. His heart wouldn't still; it filled his ears with its beating, although he needed to listen for any sign of his pursuer.

The cold, full laughter that suddenly broke the silence told him more than he wanted to know. Like a rabbit, he froze and looked over his shoulder. The assassin had not bothered to follow in his steps; he had waited, timing the perfect, deadly leap that would carry him to his quarry.

Stephen's knees unlocked. He tried to throw himself to the side, but too late, and far too slowly. The assassin fell like a perfectly aimed sword strike.

And the lightning that suddenly flared in the street answered his attack, an equally perfect shield.

Laughter was dwarfed by sudden screams, the sickly smell of death replaced by the scent of charred and charring flesh. The impact of the strike sent the creature flying in a direction, and with a speed, that mirrored its attack. The shadows reached up, caught it, and appeared to consume it; the screams halted suddenly.

The remaining two assassins stopped and drew back; the one that had attacked Gilliam without cease now threw up its arms and spat out syllables that no one could understand. Together they sprinted out of sight, back the way they'd come. The shadows seemed to pull in around them.

“No!” Gilliam shouted, and a small, dirty girl skidded to a stop. Her lips were black, as were her teeth, and the growl in her throat was feral, inhuman. “Stephen?”

Stephen rolled to his feet. His forearm was bruised, but he'd managed to keep hold of his weapon; it glinted with a light that had proved too pale to pierce the darkness. “Gil.” His voice was shaky. “Who?”

“I don't know. I found her. Maybe she found me.” He drew closer to his huntbrother; close enough to give Stephen a full view of the various bleeding gashes he'd suffered. Stephen reached out automatically, but instead of pulling back, placed one hand on his Hunter's shoulder. They took two seconds to gain their breath as the smoke slowly cleared in the breeze.

“Hunter's power?” Gilliam asked quietly, as much awe in his voice as there had ever been.

“I don't know.”

“No.”

Two heads turned at the voice; only the girl seemed intent on her enemies to the exclusion of any interruption. Another shadow stood in the darkness.

And Stephen of Elseth recognized her voice.

“Well met, Lord Elseth. Well met, Stephen. You must follow me now. We have no time for explanations. The demon-kin will be back in minutes—and I do not have the power to strike again. Not from here. I am late, and the spell was . . . costly.”

“Where?”

“Back,” was the soft answer. Stephen squinted into the night, but the figure stayed out of moon's reach. He saw the hood pulled low, and the sleeves, long and flowing, that entirely covered her hands. “To Maubreche.”

A cold, shrill cry rode on wind.

“Not yet!” Her words, soft and urgent, were not spoken to Gilliam or Stephen. “They return too soon.” She gestured, and white hands broke free, for a moment, of concealing cloth. A light flared in her palms; it was a pale orange, beaded like fine mist as it trailed to the ground. “Follow the path the light reveals. Do not stray from it, or the lower city will not let you escape.”

Gilliam turned to the girl, met her eyes, and gestured. Without further question, he stepped upon the path this stranger had created.

Stephen hesitated at the last moment, caught perhaps by strands of dream, or perhaps by the great weariness in a voice that still held power and decisiveness. “What of you?”

“I will join you if I am able. Now go!” So saying, she turned to face the darkness, shoulders slightly stooped, hands shaking but infinitely strong, as those she had named demon-kin burst once more from the night, wielding shadow that was edged in bright lines of shining blue.

Stephen ran. He followed Gilliam's lead, aware of the fact that Gil slowed his pace in order not to leave him behind.

B
LOOD MINGLED WITH MIST
as it made a wet, slick trail down Gilliam's exposed flesh, but acknowledgment of the injuries would wait; the path, faintly luminescent as it cut a trail beneath their feet, wavered and flickered like a lamp run low of oil. It was safety. It would not remain so. All around it—and it was not wide—shadows reared up like small garden hedges. Even the buildings that had seemed so tightly packed to Stephen's eyes now seemed a river away; they no longer blocked the moon's vision, but they offered no sense of comfort or familiarity.

The streets were still empty—or almost.

Stephen thought he saw people at the shadow's edge, but before he could give warning, they screamed with their young, terrified voices and melted away. It stopped him by stopping his breath; he turned as if to reach out, and faltered.

Gilliam caught him firmly; Gilliam, unperturbed by the shouts and the awful silence that followed. Like any Hunter Lord, his concern was first for his huntbrother and his pack, second for the people in his demesne and preserve. For street urchins and thieves, as these must have been, he might have spared either pity or contempt had he time—but he did not. Tonight, he, Stephen, and the odd, dirty girl were being hunted. No matter that the methods of the hunt were foreign and heretofore unknown—it was still a hunt, and he had no intention of falling prey to demon-kin.

Demon-kin.

He pulled Stephen more squarely onto the path. The lower city circle was almost breaking; he could see the perimeter of the merchant's circle—and beyond that, Maubreche lay nestled in the highest circle in the land.

Stephen's shoulder trembled. He was still fit and trim, used to the rigors of accompanying Gilliam while the Hunter's trance was deep, so the shiver had nothing to do with exhaustion.

“You're injured,” he said.

Gilliam nodded. There wasn't much else to do. “We're almost there.”

“Great. What are we supposed to do when we get there? We can't lead those—those—into the ball; they'll kill everything in sight!”

As if talking to a testy child, Gilliam replied. “Lord Maubreche has his pack on the grounds.”

“His pack?” Stephen laughed hysterically. “Gil, our daggers couldn't touch the God-cursed things at all—what the Hells good will a bunch of hounds do?”

Their situation was too urgent to allow Gilliam the luxury of bridling; he did anyway. “Maybe teeth have more of an effect—she bit them!”

It was difficult enough to argue and run, but they'd made a practice of it, and become near-experts. Throwing a third person into the process put Stephen off his stride, and for the second time that evening, he looked at the dirty girl. He also chided himself, very briefly, for being so unkind in his appellation. Except that she
was
dirty; filthy. She smelled rank and stale, even though the breeze and the pace pushed her scent away from, not toward, him. She looked at him with only a faint trace of interest in her eyes, and those eyes were all of a single color; either black or a very dark brown.

If they ever reached safety and light again, he would have to look more closely.

“Who in the Hells is she?”

Gilliam shrugged, and Stephen felt him turn and shy away from the question. It wasn't like Gilliam; he was usually direct to the point of rudeness.

Not the time for arguments: not yet. Stephen swallowed, and asked a different question. “Why is she with us?”

“They,” Gilliam said, motioning with his head toward the darkness behind, “were hunting her. She found me.”

Again, Stephen felt an odd shifting.

“I had to help—you would have.”

I would have, yes.

A scream broke the night again, shattering the conversation. Cold, long, with a hint of sibilance to underpin its ringing clarity, it gave the shadows more force as they crowded the path.

It certainly made it easy to remain with the light.

• • •

Maubreche Manor was still brightly lit, and even as the path brought them racing across the threshold of the grounds, the strains of orchestral music joined the rustle of leaves. There were guards at the front gate; Stephen saw them as he ran past, at Gilliam's heel.

Perhaps they were enchanted, or perhaps they were sleeping—although, with Lady Maubreche as their commander, he very much doubted that was the case—but for reasons that he did not understand, they did not stop or challenge the newcomers. Indeed, they stared straight ahead, like the Queen's guards at attention, rather than stooping to notice the noise and the scramble that passed yards away from their torchlit vision.

“Something's wrong,” Gilliam said, breathing hard.

“You mean, beside the fact that demons from the Hells are hunting us?”

Gilliam didn't answer, and Stephen gave up—but he had a feeling that what he had said in sarcastic jest was, in fact, true. Any hunt, no matter who the intended victim and who the hunter, was “natural” to a Hunter; it probably felt somehow natural to Gil. Mouthing a quiet, heartfelt curse at Hunter Lords in general, Stephen dropped his eyes down to the misty path and continued to run along it.

To his great relief—or perhaps just to his relief—the path veered away from the grand manor, with its lovely lights and the carriages that stood as stately emissaries in the long, cobbled drive. He had no idea at all where they were running, but as long as the path still arched on ahead, he didn't worry.

Until he heard the screaming again, keen and icy. Until he heard the human voices that followed, and quickly died into stillness. The guards. Gilliam slowed; Stephen felt the sudden lurch of tension that revealed itself only in the squaring of Gilliam's jaw. The thieves had been prowling the lower city on their own, and their death was inconsequential to him. But he had led the demon-kin to Maubreche, where the two guards would never have met them otherwise.

It was Stephen who pushed him on this time; they had exchanged roles, as they sometimes did under duress. For if the demon-kin were so close on their trail, it meant that Evayne—if the ghostly, hooded apparition had indeed been the woman of his dreams—would no longer be there to offer them her protection.

And solid steel had availed them nothing.

The path never forked and never faltered; it remained wide enough to follow easily by foot, and straight enough to follow with eye. And although the moon was at her peak, with no buildings to hide her open face, she cast no shadows to bleed the light from the mystical road.

Stephen wasn't sure exactly when it all changed; he was too concerned with running, and too certain that their flight would soon be halted by the demon-kin. He had seen how quickly they moved, and was certain that they were mere inches away, waiting and preparing. They didn't come, but the hedges did, springing up like dark life on either side, with a scent of dirt and water, of leaves and bark—of green. In the night, they had no color, but they had shape and height, and they were so perfectly kept, so solid in appearance, they seemed to be walls.

Looking down at his feet, Stephen saw the only shadows there were the ones the moon cast. He took a deep breath, tried to hold it, and winced as his lungs expelled air, seeking more.

“Stephen?”

He shook his head and kept running.

• • •

They came at last, through a maze of dark hedges and perfect new grass, to light's end. The hedges stood at a respectful distance in an almost uninterrupted
circumference. There was only one way in—and one way out—from this center. The light crawled the last leg of the journey, and ended abruptly at the base of a tall, solemn statue. Even in the poor light, it was obvious that this was carved in the likeness of a man—one tall and proud, perhaps a little severe. He stood, completely straight, and a simple robe fell gently to his feet. His face was long, his chin rounded gradually to a point; his hair, long as well, fell away from his face and forehead, trapped only by a circlet across his brow. It was hard to read his expression, and Stephen would not have been surprised to find that that expression was both changeable and changing. One hand was raised, palm out; the other held a spear or like weapon that ran from his feet past the height of his shoulder. Stephen had no doubt that one maker-born had fashioned the likeness, and he wondered who the original model had been; something about the man was familiar.

“This is it,” Gilliam said, softly and irrelevantly.

Stephen barely heard him. He walked quietly, his steps gentle and almost hesitant, his right hand outstretched. “Is it a King, do you think? Maybe the founder?”

“It's no King,” was the quiet reply.

And hearing the voice, Stephen lost his own. He spun in the darkness, his heart ice. Hidden, until this moment, by the folds of the robe and the base of the statue's pedestal, was Lady Cynthia of Maubreche.

• • •

She was pale, white even in shadows and moonlight. Her dress was of a simple and pleasing cut—but its make was no such thing; it had cost a fortune. Stephen had, many times, bought the bolts of cloth and the reams of lace that Lady Elseth and Maribelle required, and he knew how dear they could be.

“Stephen?” She stepped out and away from the statue; her finger trailed along its hem before pulling away. “What are you doing here? I wouldn't have thought you could navigate the maze on your own—not in this light.”

He swallowed; the sides of his throat formed a neat trap for words—none came. Her smile faltered; her eyes widened, and even though he couldn't see their color, he knew how brown, and how deep, they were. Then they narrowed; her shoulders straightened, her jaw came up. Even her voice changed subtly. “Is that Lord Elseth, then? And who is your companion?”

“It's—”

The shrieking of demon-kin rescued Gilliam from a rather large social crime. A plume of fire flared up into the sky, dampening the light of the moon with its brilliance and its harshness. It burned itself into Stephen's vision, lingering until the very slight breeze, carrying the smell of burning leaves and wood, arrived.

“What was that?” Cynthia said softly. Her voice was steady and very cold.

“What are you doing here?” Stephen's words overlapped hers, but where she had chosen ice, he held fire. She was no Hunter Lord, trained to death or dying—she was a Lady, skilled in lore, history, politics, and the management of the
Maubreche preserve, which would one day be her own. He felt certain she would die here, because she had been rude enough to leave a gathering held in her honor alone. A few short hours ago, he would have been overjoyed.

Another person would have taken a step back from the force in his voice. Her nostrils flared, and perhaps her cheeks grew a little more red. “I could ask the same of you, Lord Stephen. This is a private area of the Maubreche Estates, and is
never
open to the . . . public.”

“Ask later!” Gilliam snarled. He had no sword, but his dagger was readied—and useless. He hated it.

Silence reigned a moment. The moment stretched.

“Why are they waiting?” Gilliam muttered at last. “They're fast enough to have followed.”

Fire answered, stronger and closer. The smoke that the hedges surrendered drifted up in a thick, pale cloud. During the day, it would have been darker; now it wended its way on the thin breeze, the ghost of flame.

Cynthia's eyes widened. “They're—they're burning the
maze
!”

“Maybe they can't follow,” Stephen offered quietly. “There's no shadow here, Gil. Look at the ground.” It was a faint hope, but better than none.

Gilliam nodded; the shallow dip of chin told Stephen that his Hunter wasn't really listening. He was testing the wind, seeking the unfamiliar scent, readying himself for quick action and quicker response.

Slim fingers, strong and firm for all their lack of size, closed tightly around Stephen's forearm. “Stephen, who are they?”

He swallowed, fear for himself and fear for her becoming so tightly entwined they were inseparable. “Demons.”

“Demons?” She laughed in astonished disbelief; her eyes seemed to sparkle.

“Damn it, Cynthia—demons! Look at Gil—I know he's barbaric, but he usually doesn't run around in bloodied rags!” She didn't have the chance to follow his command; Stephen caught her shoulders.

Angry, she wrenched herself free. He reached out again, but his hands met the invisible wall of her icy wrath. They fell, shaking. “Maybe,” she said, and for a moment she reminded him of Gilliam—her jaw was clenched, and the tone of her voice walked the thin, tight line between anger and all-out fury, “they're of the mage-born.”

Another scream, chill and loud. Yet another bolt of flame. Smoke and the smell of fire had become so common they barely noticed it.

“Oh?” He turned away, feeling a helpless anger of his own. “And what gives you that idea?”

“This is the Hunter's Hallow.” Her lips curled up in what might have been a smile; it was an unpleasant expression. “The mage-born have no easy entrance here.”

“It doesn't have to be easy,” Stephen snapped back. “If they get here, we're lost. We met them in the lower city. We tried to fight. Steel doesn't affect them at all. Does that sound like the mage-born to you?”

“Not immediately, but mages are cunning and capable creatures.” Her voice lost a bit of its edge. “Why did you call them demon-kin?”

“It's what she called them.”

“She?” The edge returned, redoubled.

“Will the two of you shut the Hells up?”

Both Stephen and Cynthia spun, their mouths open in angry unison. The odd, dirty girl sprang suddenly to life, half-leaping and half-running to stand between Gilliam and his huntbrother. Her throat seemed to grow larger and thicker; the sound she made was unmistakable and loud. She was growling.

Cynthia took a step back; she couldn't help it. The black tongue, darkened teeth, and wild, wide eyes made the girl look mad, and dangerously so.