When True Night Falls (32 page)

And because she could shed no tears, he did so. A few drops squeezed from the corners of his eyes, a monument to her grief. He hated himself for showing such weakness in front of Tarrant—and hated Tarrant for not doing so himself, for being so far removed from the sphere of human emotions that not even this outrageous slaughter could move him.

“Come on,” he muttered. Forcing himself to move again. Forcing himself to function. “Let’s get on with it.”

Hours later. How many? Time and distance were a featureless blur, each minute blending into the one that followed, each step shrouded in a fog of mourning. Perhaps yards. Perhaps miles. Perhaps half a night. Who could say?

At last they dismounted. The chill light of dawn was just stirring in the eastern sky; not enough to make Tarrant take cover yet, but enough to give him warning. They made their camp mechanically, pitching the tent that Hesseth had pieced together from their extra blankets. Not using the camping supplies that they had picked up in the village. Not ready for that yet.

When the small fire was burning and the horses had been tended to and water had been gathered from a nearby stream, then the words came. Slowly. With effort.

“Why?” Hesseth whispered.

“Your people are known for a fierce hatred of humankind,” Tarrant offered. It was the first time he had spoken since they’d left the village. “Is it so incredible that their hatred has found an outlet here?”

She glared at him. “My people aren’t like that.”

Tarrant said nothing.

She turned away. Her furred hands clenched. “My people would happily kill all humans. Just like they wanted to kill you, when you came into our territory. But that’s different. That’s ...”

“Better?” the Hunter asked dryly. “Cleaner?”

She turned on him; her amber eyes were blazing. “Animals kill for food, or defense. Or to rid themselves of something undesirable. They don’t torture other creatures for the sheer pleasure of seeing them suffer. That’s a human thing.”

“Maybe your people have become more human than they know.”

“Stop it,” Damien snapped. At Tarrant. “Stop it
now
.”

For a moment there was silence. The crackling of the fire. The soft breathing of the horses.

“We knew we were fighting something with the ability to corrupt men’s souls,” the priest said. “Didn’t we see that in Mercia? Men and women who meant well, who had devoted their lives to a beneficent God ... yet who would murder their fellow humans without a moment of remorse, and consign helpless children to a ritual of torture.” God, it hurt to remember all that. He fought to keep his voice steady. “I think what we’ve seen tonight is that he—or she, or it—has done the same to your people.” He watched as Hesseth lowered her head, trying to make his voice as gentle as it could become. “He did have something to start with, after all. How much work would it be to twist a rakhene soul, so that the desire to kill one’s enemy became the desire to torture him to death?”

“It isn’t a rakh thing,” she hissed softly. “It isn’t the way we work.”

He waited a moment before he answered. “That may have changed,” he said gently. “I’m sorry, Hesseth. But it’s the truth. God alone knows how long he’s had to operate, but it’s clear that he’s had enough time to influence your people. To influence both our peoples,” he added quickly. “God alone knows why....”

“Yes,” Tarrant agreed. “That’s a good question, isn’t it? A demon might feed on that kind of hatred, or on the pain it engendered, or on any other emotion that was a consequence of the system ... but only with humans, not the rakh. Why corrupt a native species? No demon could gain strength from that.”

“Are you sure?” Damien asked.

“Absolutely. The faeborn draw their strength from man because he creates them; they rely on him for sustenance. What good is a rakhene soul to them? Its nature is as alien to demonkind as we are to Erna. They can’t digest it.”

“So the purpose is something else.”

Tarrant nodded. “And you forget something else.”

Hesseth stiffened. Damien looked up sharply at him.

“The rakh who came to this continent must have done so over ten thousand years ago, when the land bridge in the north was still intact. Nothing else can explain their appearance on both continents. And it’s clear that when the fae began to alter them, making them more like humanity, both groups were affected. Why not? This planet is a unified whole; the same currents course over all of it. But the hatred?” He shook his head, his expression grim. “That wasn’t a physical change, but a social response to the Crusades, a western phenomenon. Why would the rakh who lived here—who had not even come in contact with humankind at that point—share such feelings? Why should the masters of their own continent hate a species they had never even seen? It makes no sense.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“That the rakh here were taught to hate. It’s all part of some greater plan, designed to corrupt those who live here. Human and rakh alike.”

“Why?” Hesseth demanded, her voice shaking slightly.

Tarrant shook his head in frustration. “I wish I knew. Tonight’s discovery raises so many questions ... and I don’t know where to begin answering them. I’m sorry.”

He stood. The sky was light enough now that it illuminated him from above, casting a shadowy halo about his hair. “What we do know is that the enemy’s cause is more complicated than we at first suspected ... and likewise his tools are more varied than we anticipated. We should be very wary.” He looked at the graying sky with regret. “I hate to leave you now—”

“We understand,” Damien said.

“Keep careful guard. I don’t think anyone will bother to come back to the village ... but it’s dangerous to anticipate our enemy when we don’t understand the game he’s playing. I wish now that we had obliterated our tracks,” he murmured, “at least through the town. But it’s too late for that now.”

Damien turned to Hesseth. “Can you—”

She shook her head. “Not from this distance. I’m sorry.”

“We need clear currents,” Tarrant said. “I need to get farther south, so I can Know him with nothing standing between us. Without understanding his motives....” He shook his head. “Our only hope lies in comprehending what he wants, what he’s done here.”

“And what he is,” Damien supplied.

“Yes,” the Hunter agreed. Stepping back so that he might transform himself without the power of his coldfire Working hurting his companions. “What he is. That, most of all.”

The dawn sky was gray now, with a hint of pale blue at the lower edge. Tarrant looked at it once as if gauging the sun’s progress, then studied the earth-fae at his feet for any warning of imminent seismic activity. Evidently there was none. The Hunter stood up straight, bracing himself for the painful effort of transformation.

And then the coldfire flared, and the broad wings rose into the sky. And there were only the two of them left, and the dawn, and the silence.

“Protector Iseldas?”

The creature who wore that form looked up, noted the arrival of one of his own kind, and nodded. “Come in. Close the door. Carefully,” he added, indicating with a glance the hallway outside.

The other looked carefully up and down the corridor, testing its privacy with more-than-human senses. At last he grunted in satisfaction and entered the firelit chamber. The heavy double doors swung shut with a soft thud and the lock dropped noisily into place

“Did you find her?” the mock-Iseldas demanded.

“Not yet.”

“Well, then? What?” His nerves were on edge from dealing with the Iseldas clan all day. Petty human underlings, with petty human concerns. Someday they would all be gone. Someday this region would be wiped clean of them forever, so that a more worthy species might take their place. “I told you to stay out until you find her.”

“We found something.” He hesitated before stepping forward, as if unsure of the protocol. He had been far more comfortable in Kierstaad’s domain, where all the house staff had been replaced; here, with only a few of them amidst two dozen true humans, the constant strain of his disguise was wearing his patience thin. “We thought you should see it.”

He handed the imposter—
call him Iseldas
, he chided himself,
learn to do it
—the paper in his hand. All folded and dirty and covered with blood, as befit a drawing from the village.

Ah, the village. He savored the memory with glee. So much of their life was spent pretending to be human, pretending to be civilized, that it was good to let one’s animal soul rear its head at last. The Prince would not understand, perhaps, nor condone such wholesale slaughter—on grounds of efficiency, of course, rather than compassion—but these creatures here who made the rules, these men of his own race who lived and breathed the lives of humans, they understood. They knew that the price of such a grand subterfuge was an occasional indulgence.

Leave no witnesses
, Kierstaad had said. They hadn’t.

He watched while Iseldas—the new Iseldas—unfolded the travel-worn paper. Watched while he scrutinized the crude ink drawings on its surface. His brow furrowed in concentration, but he said nothing. At last he held up the paper. “What are these?”

“Tracks, we believe.” He pointed to the first drawing—a precise reproduction of the street outside the Meeting Hall—and then the sketches below, which divided up the cryptic shapes into something resembling hoofmarks. “Three animals, all similar. Very large.”

The first set was crescent-shaped, sharp-edged, deeply incised into the earth. The second had been made by feet with three-clawed toes, the center digit slightly larger than the other two. The third might have been of their offspring, with a half-moon shape flanked by two deep scratches. Figures indicated how far apart the marks were.

“What are they?” Iseldas demanded.

“We don’t know. But they were accompanied by human footsteps.”

Iseldas looked up sharply. “You said all the villagers were dead.”

“All of them were. These must have come from elsewhere. You see that their animals are foreign—”

“And large,” he hissed. The reaction was not one of human reason, but of animal uncertainty; the thought of the foreign beast’s size and bulk was as unnerving as a hostile odor. “Any other signs?”

He shook his head.

“You’re sure the human footsteps came after?”

There was no need to ask him
after what
? They both understood what he meant. “I can’t swear they weren’t there when we cleansed the town. Why stop to check a dirt road for mere footsteps? There must have been thousands. But these flanked the animal tracks exactly, and I’m fairly sure those
weren’t
there before. They’re odd enough that we would have noticed.”

And threatening enough
, Iseldas thought. An animal which left tracks like that could weigh over a ton. That was rare in these parts, and decidedly dangerous. The hooves looked deadly, too, large enough and solid enough to crush bone. All in all, the thought of such a beast free in the woods—his woods—made him feel like his fur was standing on end.

“I want you out after this,” he commanded. “Find out where these tracks lead, what’s making them—”

“What about the girl?”

He hissed as he breathed in. What about the girl? Kierstaad said she would have gone north, but he frankly doubted it. Most likely the local carnivores had gotten to her, and all that was left for them was to locate her bones. If they hadn’t been buried somewhere for a winter snack.

But duty was duty. The Undying Prince had taught them that.

“Keep searching for her,” he growled. “But get at least two or three on this trail, too.” He looked down at the paper in his hands, at the odd shapes that could not be—but clearly were—some animal’s tracks. “I’ll send this on to the Matrias. See what they make of it. Do we still have birds?”

“For Mercia and Penitencia.”

“Mercia. That’s where the last letter came from. Maybe this has something to do with the westerners.” A sudden spark of excitement stirred within him. What if these tracks were connected to the outsiders, somehow? What if the western-born fugitives hadn’t gone by sea after all, but by land, and he was able to capture them? There’d be reward aplenty for that move, once the northern lands were taken. He growled softly in anticipation, considering it. “Send the question to Mercia.”

“Right away.”

“And also ... do we have a bird for Kierstaad?”

“Why not send a messenger? It’s right across the—”

“I don’t want to waste the people or the time. Do we have a bird?”

He blinked. “I think so. Why?”

“Send word that we need more support. Send word that I want enough people to replace Iseldas’ staff. Totally. This business of having to be on guard against eavesdroppers, of the constant pretense ... it wears. It wears badly. I want the support to establish myself here properly, before the Protector’s wife comes home.” And he muttered, “That’ll be challenge enough.”