When True Night Falls (38 page)

They found the rakh-woman’s camp soon after midnight. The gap hadn’t taken her far, but it had taken her there safely; she and the two horses were gathered around a minimal campfire about a half-mile from the crevasse’s eastern end.

Two horses. That meant fewer supplies, missing maps, and one less animal to ride. Damien wondered which of the two remaining saddles would best allow him to ride double with Hesseth; his groin had no desire to repeat last night’s experience. Of course it would be Hesseth and him together, and Tarrant would ride alone; he never questioned that. He couldn’t picture the aristocratic sorcerer sharing his saddle with anyone, even if it would be the most practical distribution of weight. Some things you just didn’t ask.

There was a bandage on her arm, he noticed as they came into the small camp, and a patch of smelly ointment on her mare’s flank. Thank God the animal hadn’t bolted when it was hit. Tarrant’s black mount seemed unharmed and unflustered.
I guess if you come from the Hunter’s Forest
, Damien mused,
even a place like this looks good
.

There was no surprise on her face when they came into camp—armed and wary, she had probably spotted them coming some time ago—but the joy that suffused her face was a welcome greeting after hours of painful hiking. She came up to Damien and put a hand to the side of his face, rubbing gently. Sharing her scent, he realized; it must be a rakhene custom. He grinned at her in turn, not quite knowing how to respond. She even vouchsafed a minimal smile for Tarrant, a rare and precious gesture. He responded with a nod that said yes, he knew just what she meant by it, and yes, he was appropriately moved.

They traded their tales over the campfire, while Hesseth brewed warm tee and dug out the freshest of their rations. Damien could have eaten a horse. As for Tarrant, he stood apart from them while they ate and talked, scanning the darkness for danger. It was not a role Damien would have chosen for him in his current state, but he was glad to have him do it. He was so stiff by now that it was all he could do to lower himself to a sitting position and take the food that Hesseth offered. It was going to hurt like hell in the morning, he thought miserably, as he bit into a strip of dried meat.

He was acutely aware of Tarrant listening to him as he described their exploits of the night before, rediscovering his own actions through Damien’s words. A strange concept. How much they had come to depend on each other on this trip!

Danger makes strange bedfellows
.

When he had told her everything, and when she had shared her own journey through the narrow gap, he set his food aside and applied his attention to their wounds. His groin ached like hell as he stretched forward to reach her arm, but thank God physical infirmity didn’t affect one’s Working. His own arm throbbed hotly as he studied her rakhene flesh, then used the fae to knit the broken cells together once more. After that he applied his skills to himself, and though his concentration was less than perfect, the currents were strong in this region; half an hour later, when he was secure that all the serious damage had been repaired, he relaxed and let the Working fade. His body still hurt like hell, but that was something he couldn’t fix.
Pain is the brain’s way of signaling that something
is wrong, his master had taught him.
Alter that system and you’re messing with the brain itself
. In time his throbbing nerves would figure out that the source of the problem was gone, and would quiet down.

It was partly his own fault, of course. He hadn’t Healed himself completely. But when earthquakes were as frequent as they were here, you didn’t waste precious time cleaning out a leftover hematoma; it was just too risky to Work that long. And besides (he told himself, wincing as he shifted position), no one ever died from a black-and-blue mark. Right?

When they were done with all that, Tarrant rejoined them. He looked slightly better than before, but that might have been the lighting; the warm light of the campfire was kinder to him than the moonlight. Certainly he was still weak, and when he lowered himself to the earth beside them, Damien saw his balance wavering.

“We’re still far from the valley,” he said. His voice sounded better, at least. “The map shows another two ridges between us and it, although what that translates to in terms of real-life mountains is anyone’s guess.”

“It’s a climb,” Hesseth agreed. “What about pursuit?”

“Unlikely, I think. They can’t follow your trail through the gap; I saw to that. And I’ve Obscured ours since dusk, so that it will be next to impossible to find.”

Given his condition, Damien was surprised. “Did you?”

The pale eyes fixed on him. “I only make a mistake once, priest.”

“Then we should get moving as soon as night falls.” Hesseth re-wrapped the dried meat so that it would keep. “By then we should all be rested enough, anyway.”

The Hunter seemed to hesitate. “You can move when night falls,” he said quietly. “Or even before that, if you like. But I would recommend not entering the valley until I’m with you again; the Terata are said to hunt there.”

“What—” Hesseth began. Though she was clearly surprised by his intentions, Damien wasn’t. He’d been expecting something like this since Tarrant had climbed out of the cave.

“He needs food,” he said. He could hear the edge in his own voice. “That means humans. And there aren’t any where we’re going.”

“I could hold out for long enough to make it down south,” Tarrant explained, “but not in this condition. Nor would I be of any use to your—or to our communal—purpose without substantial healing.”

“Which requires killing,” Hesseth challenged.

Tarrant didn’t answer. No words were necessary.

“You’ll have to be careful,” Damien muttered. “They’re looking for us.”

“They won’t expect me to return, least of all on wing. I can fly right over their traps and their armies, into villages where no one lies in wait for me. The land is full of people,” he said evenly. His eyes were fixed on Damien, daring him to protest. “I’ll be safe enough.”

“How long?” the priest managed. Not meeting his gaze.

“At least a day or two. I’ll want to go far enough that no act of mine is linked to our presence; it would be a shame to escape their clutches now, only to inspire them to new pursuit later. I’ll be careful. Trust me.”

“Like you were in the cities?” Damien said sharply.

“Like I was in the cities,” he answered coolly. Not missing a beat. “Cover what ground you can in the next few days. But don’t go into the valley without me. If you get to it before I come back, then stop and rest. The horses will be grateful for it.”

He stood, then, and Damien could see by the motion how weak he was. How stiff. How much blood would it take to heal a weakness like that? How many deaths? He tried not to think about it.

You hire a demon to fight a demon, and this is the price you pay
. “Where will you go?” he asked. Hating himself for his curiosity, even as he wondered which Protectorate would surrender its women to sate the Hunter’s appetite. God, if there were only an alternative.

“North,” the Hunter told him. “The way we came. Some place large enough to harbor an army ... or a sizable raiding party. Some place that already smells of blood.”

He heard Hesseth draw in her breath sharply as she realized what he meant. Who it was he meant to kill.

Damien thought of the village they had passed through. The bodies, the blood ... the children huddled in the bathroom, their necks cleanly slit. Whoever had killed them, their crime would taint the currents for miles. For one with the Hunter’s sight, they would be easy to find.

Easy to kill.

“The least I can do for the man who saved me last night is choose suitable prey,” the Hunter said. Standing back now, so that the shadows of the night might enfold him. So that the darkness might lend him its power. For a moment Damien was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to summon the power he needed, that his strength was too far gone. Hadn’t he once said that transformation was the most difficult of all workings?

Then the coldfire flared, blindingly bright, and from its pyre arose a great black bird. It beat the night air with its wings—once, twice—and then rose up into the air, where the night obscured its motion. Garnet talons glittered in the moonlight.

“Be careful,” Damien whispered. Watching as its great wings tamed the night wind. Watching as it rose yet higher, until distance and darkness hid it from sight.

Only later, when he knew for a fact that it was out of hearing, did he add—very quietly—“Good hunting.”

It took them four days to cross the mountains. They could have made better time if they’d tried, but there was no reason to rush. Knowing after Knowing made it clear that none of their pursuers had followed them, which gave them the luxury of leisure time for the first time in their journey. And after what they had seen and done in the Protectorates they needed it, both to regain their strength and their composure. Fortunately, the fertile silence of the wooded slopes was a perfect balm for human and rakhene soul alike. Even the horses seemed grateful for a few easy days.

Damien tried hard not to worry about Tarrant. Tried not to remember that once in the past the Hunter had left their company and then not returned. It seemed so long ago that he’d been captured, almost in another life ... but the enemy was the same. In the rakhlands it had taken the form of a woman, here it might be a man or rakh or even a true demon—but there was no question in his own mind that the two powers were linked. And so Damien worried about Tarrant’s safety, and Hesseth no doubt worried about Tarrant’s safety, and they tried hard not to inflame each other’s fears by talking about them. That would only make it worse.

How much I’ve changed, he mused as they made camp one night. Once I would have stood back and let him die. Once I thought that nothing could be worse than freeing the Hunter to feed again. Now I protect him without a second thought, and calmly wave good-bye while he goes off to murder countless innocents
. But the situation was different now and he knew it. Tarrant had saved his own life several times, and while he understood that it was always for a selfish purpose—the Neocount never did anything except to benefit himself—the fact remained that he had done it. That changed how you looked at a man, whether you wanted it to or not. And the people he’d be killing weren’t innocents this time, were they? Murderers deserved to die. Since the justice of the Church couldn’t touch them, let the Hunter provide their punishment. Whatever he did to them, it couldn’t possibly be worse than what they did to that village. Could it?

Be honest, he chided himself.
We can’t succeed in this mission without him. That’s the bottom line. You need him, and so you must endure him. Protect him, even. It’s all part of this dark game we’re playing
.

He shut his eyes. His hands were shaking.

God, protect my spirit
, he prayed.
The enemy can have my body, my life ... but preserve my soul, I beg You. I’ve placed it in such jeopardy with this alliance. But there was no other way. You can see that, can’t You? No other way to succeed
.

At night, while they set up camp, he tried to explain to Hesseth about the earth-fae. Though she manipulated it unconsciously—as all native species did—she didn’t really see it, at least not in the sense that Tarrant did. And so she listened to his descriptions in rapt wonder, like a child listening to fairy tales. He tried to explain it all. How the earth-fae surged up from the beneath the planet’s crust with enough force to kill. How it settled down soon after and then flowed like water over the land, in currents that could be mapped and harnessed, from the strongest tide down to the tiniest ripple. Since humans used the earth-fae for their Workings, he explained, then all their Workings must flow with the currents. Thus Tarrant or he could attempt to Know their enemy—in other words, interpret the effect of his presence upon the earth-fae—but it would take tremendous power to launch an active assault against the current. For their enemy, of course, the opposite held true. It would take almost superhuman force to draw information upcurrent for hundreds of miles, but any message or assault which was launched from the south would naturally flow toward them. That’s what had worried Tarrant so much about the foreign touch in the currents near the crevasse, he explained; if it was an attempt to focus on their exact position, it might mean that something very big and very nasty was on its way.

And then, when he was done, he dared to ask her about the tidal fae. It was the first time since the rakhlands that he had broached the subject directly. He wasn’t sure she would take it well—in the past she had responded to such questions with downright hostility—but though she was silent for a moment, he sensed that it was not because she was offended by his question, but because she was trying to find words for something that was beyond all language.

“It’s like a heartbeat,” she said at last. “Like the whole world has a heartbeat, very slow and very resonant. Sometimes, when I want to Work, it’s as if I can feel the blood of the planet surging through everything, through the land and the sky and through me, and I can shape it with a thought ... and sometimes the world is silent, and there’s nothing to shape. Nothing at all. There’s no telling which it will be, either. No predicting any given moment. Because I say it’s one heartbeat, but it’s really like a thousand, and the rhythm between them is what matters ... including my own pulse. And all the rhythms of my body. Do you understand? It’s so hard to explain something you don’t think about. Something that humans never sense.”