chapter 14
The huntress surged to her feet, her narrowed green gaze striving against the distance and the gloom of late evening. For long seconds she stood thus, poised upon the hillside, camouflaged both by the fading light and the thick outcropping of scrub grasses behind her which matched her buckskin leathers in hue.
Then she whirled away, snatched up her recurve bow and bounded down the slope like a gazelle.
As she went, she was careful to put the rounded ridge of the hillock between her and her quarry so as not to risk being seen, however slight the risk might be at this distance. She hissed a soft whistle, and her black mare dutifully wheeled from where she grazed and trotted to meet her. She stroked Shien’s glossy neck and whispered to her as she led her up the steep, shifting trail and into the cave. The animal quivered, and her velvet ears flicked as she sensed the tense excitement in her mistress’s words.
When the huntress reappeared at the mouth of the cave, having quieted the mare deep within its recesses, the cowl of her cloak was drawn up and she wore the dark veil across her features, exposing only her eyes. Her knuckles whitened around the handle of her bow as she scanned the hillside. She had been waiting for days, and doubt had become her companion during the long vigil. His party might have perished within the forest, and while she could not believe it would claim one such as him, such an occurrence might free him to travel by less mundane means and thus rob her of the chance to intercept. Or perhaps the party had already emerged by some other route and slipped by her.
Even if they did return the way they had come, as she deemed most likely, this location––while the best she had found––was a poor location for her ambush. The rough foothills around the cave offered some cover, but were too far back from the road to offer a sure shot, and the ground between here and the road was too exposed. If they had returned in the full light of day, they would have no reason to stop here, and she would likely be forced to trail them again and seek another opportunity.
Now, however, all the factors were coming together in her favor. Her prey was returning this way on the verge of nightfall, such that she could still spot them breaking from the trees. Furthermore, it would be fully dark by the time they drew abreast of the cave, and their previous camping spot would beckon against the hazardous prospect of traveling the road under the shroud of night.
She could scarcely credit her good fortune. Perhaps chance favored the just in the end, after all.
Her eyes raked over the cave mouth and the mantle of rock that swept back from it on either side, though in truth she had studied it all so often in the past few days that she had committed every detail to memory. As she had already done a hundred times, she weighed and rejected a dozen perches from which to take the one shot she needed. She cast one more hasty look around, and back again toward the distant tree line, though it was a futile gesture; it had already grown too dark to see such a distance. She melted back into the deep shadows of the cave entrance, partially shielded from view by the dried brush still piled together from when her quarry had camped there a handful of nights ago, and settled in for the wait.
It would have to be a perfect shot, she knew, and it had to be fast. His sight was as keen in utter darkness as that of a mortal man in the comforting illumination of midday. Step from the cave, draw a bead on him and fire, all in one smooth motion. It would be perfect, because it had to be.
The minutes slid by, teasing at the frayed edges of her patience. She stood unmoving, letting her eyes adjust to the gathering dark, and kept her breathing shallow and all but inaudible.
When the first noise came to her from down the hill, she suppressed a start. It seemed too early, unless they had ridden very hard to reach this point, but she knew how lying in wait with pulse pounding in one’s ears could distort one’s sense of time. She strained for every sound. Several footsteps, a small shower of pebbles, the scuff of foot against stone. There were a handful of them as expected, making little attempt to mask their approach, and they were on the winding trail below the cave. The huntress took slow, shallow breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, praying that Shien would not choose this moment to fidget deep within the cave. But no, the mare was well trained, as disciplined as her mistress; she would not betray their trap.
Her fingers brushed the fletching of the black arrow as she reassured herself every few seconds that she had selected the right missile in the darkness. She listened to the sounds drawing near, and tried to gauge her timing; he had a tendency to hang back, to let others risk themselves, and she needed him within range without allowing those in front to interfere with her shot.
As she tensed to leap from the cave, the noises came to a sudden stop.
She froze. Had they spotted her tracks on the rocky trail? It seemed impossible, as she had been so careful. Were their senses impossibly sharp, that they had heard some telltale sign from her? She chewed on silent, sulfurous curses as she wondered what had given her away. Shuffling steps and scrapes floated up to her, receding now but strangely unhurried, as if the group had merely lost interest in the cave for some reason.
She ground her teeth. Every step she allowed now would lengthen her shot. Now was the time, and if his back was turned such that he never had an opportunity to evade the lethal strike, so much the better.
Gliding from the cave, she drew back on the bow until her fingers brushed her cheek. She sighted down the arrow shaft and past the curved blades of the head, shifting from one moving figure to another as she sought her target. Several things dawned upon her in an instant: her target was nowhere on the trail below, and the creatures now whirling to face her were not the men with whom he traveled.
Moreover, the creatures were not even human.
There were six of them arrayed on the crumbling path, the nearest less than ten yards from her. They were clad entirely in tattered strips of cloth, and their black flesh shimmered dully in the meager starlight like unpolished obsidian. Bulging eyes and gaping mouths worked in soundless ferocity as the creatures gazed up at her.
Without hesitation they burst into frenzied motion, bounding and clawing their way up the trail. By reflex, she aimed at the one in the lead before she caught herself; she still had one of her three black arrows nocked, and they were far too valuable to waste on random assailants such as these. Cursing the lost seconds, she returned the deadly projectile to the quiver across her back, and, selecting another, she drew and fired.
The shaft slammed into the creature’s chest, staggering it back a step from the sheer force of the blow. To her astonishment, however, it uttered no cry of pain, and instead surged forward with undiminished vigor. In a blur of motion, she sent three more arrows hissing through the air to find their marks. The head of the nearest creature snapped back at an angle no mortal man could survive, and when it hunched forward again a shaft had sprouted from its forehead to match the one in its chest. Its unblinking eyes found her again, and it lurched after her with arms outstretched. The one behind it pawed to get past its cohort on the narrow trail, feathered shafts projecting from both of its legs. The foul thing seemed unaffected, its wounded legs bearing its weight without slowing its progress in the least.
The huntress gave a sharp whistle back into the cave, and then stepped forward to the top of the trail. She set her jaw and took a tight, two-handed grip on the lower limb of her bow. As the first creature reached the crest, she swung the weapon in a vicious arc, hammering it from the path to tumble down the hillside, rolling and clawing for purchase.
She struck at the next figure in line, but it caught at the bow and she was forced to release it. It cast the bow aside and came for her again, and she whipped out her long hunting knife to hack aside its grasping arms. Unflinching beneath the razor-edged blade, the creature grabbed at her first, its crooked black fingers catching at her clothing as she danced back to remain out of reach. She licked out with the blade, and it fumbled for that as well, seeking to grasp the weapon with its bare hands and wrest it from her.
Two more reached the top of the trail and flung themselves at her with the same heedless abandon, and she was forced to leap back into the cave or be surrounded. Yet more of the black things crested the trail, and they closed in, relentless.
So intent were they upon their prey that even the thunder of hooves from within the cave did not distract them until the horse was upon them. Shien slammed into the gathered throng, sending several of the creatures sprawling. The mare lashed out with iron-shod hooves, and another assailant reeled back under the force of the blows. The huntress leapt to the saddle and dug her heels in. Together she and the mare plunged through the press of bodies. At speed, in the dark, the treacherous path might well be the death of them, but they would have to risk it to escape the clutches of these unnatural, undying black monstrosities.
They hit the loose gravel of the trail and began a stomach-lurching slide. Shien dropped her hindquarters and braced all four hooves as the huntress tried in vain to discern the ephemeral ribbon of the path against the darker hillside. A sudden weight crashed into her back, knocking the wind from her. A black arm encircled her neck like a collar of steel as reeking, tattered cloth filled her gasping mouth. She sought to reach her attacker with the hunting knife, raking with desperate strokes. Several strokes found their mark, but the creature made no sound in reply, and the arm encircling her neck did not loosen.
It tried to wrench her from the saddle, and she scrabbled at the saddle horn to keep her seat. Just as she began to slide, the mare lurched forward with a shriek. The huntress strained to peer downward. She saw more of the creatures wrapping themselves about the horse’s legs, and in a split second the entire mass was pitching from the tail in a thrashing tangle of limbs.
The sloping, uneven ground and the night sky exchanged places, whirling together in a dizzying dance. The huntress was thrown free, and she screamed in pain as rocks and roots dug into her flesh and crushing weights came down atop her. Somehow she twisted violently in midair as her parasite shifted its grip, and she kicked free from it to tumble alone, end over end, down the hillside. She sprawled at last to a stop, wheezing and spitting blood from smashed lips.
When she raised her head, she saw that Shien still lived, for the moment at least. The mare was kicking and heaving, trying to roll to a standing position once more. Pinned beneath her glossy black bulk, the duller black of several crooked figures swaddled in cloth could be seen clawing at the ground, their unblinking eyes fixed upon the downed huntress.
She cast about for a weapon, but her knife and bow were both lost somewhere on the dark slope. She felt for her quiver, and found it gone. The creature on her back must have torn it away. Faint glimmers in the grass nearby marked where several of her arrows had come to a scattered rest. She crawled toward the nearest, groping as she went for a rock she could pry loose from the ground and use against her attackers. The instant her fingers closed around the missile, she knew it for one of her precious black arrows, and she groaned.
A grip like iron seized her ankle, and she rolled, lashing out with her boot to hammer kick after kick into the gaping creature. It came onward, undeterred, pawing and crawling its way over her like she was a rope to be climbed. Its face drew near to hers and the soulless wells of its eyes fixed upon hers, the mouth opening wide in some hideous, silent parody of mortal speech. An ebon fist drew back, trailing coils of tattered cloth.
She lunged forward with both hands and jammed the black arrow into the yawning mouth and up into the thing’s brain.
With a savage flare of satisfaction tinged by regret at the waste, she bore witness to what a small fortune in gold could purchase from a master arcanist, and to the fate she had planned for her malevolent quarry. A crack of thunder split the air, and a brilliant flash of light stole her vision. A rush of heat blistered the skin of her hands and face, and the weight vanished from atop her.
Blinking away the colors popping before her eyes, she cast about and found the mangled remains of the black thing lying in a motionless pile several yards distant. Thick tendrils of noxious smoke rose from where its head had been but moments before.
Rapid footsteps intruded upon the ringing in her ears. She twisted toward the sound, trying to face her attackers, but heavy blows rained down upon her and she knew no more.
Amric reined in his bay gelding, peering into the distance where the flash of light had erupted and then faded just as abruptly.
“Did you see that?” he asked.
“Do you think me blind?” Syth grumbled. “Of course I saw it.”
The thief sat astride Valkarr’s restive blue dun, and if he scowled down at the horse in distaste, it was no worse than the spiteful glares the beast bestowed upon him in return. The others drew rein behind them, with Halthak and Valkarr riding double on the Half-Ork’s chestnut mare and Bellimar on his placid, sturdy old nag.
“What in the heavens was that?” Halthak said.
“I have no idea,” Amric replied with a shake of his head. “But it was no more than a few minutes up the road, very near the cave.”
“An evoker’s magic, from the sharp report,” Bellimar said. “Though as to its purpose, I cannot say.”
Amric was silent for a moment, looking into the darkness. When he spoke, his voice had become cold and resolute. “It lies in our path. I mean to investigate it.”
Syth stared at him. “Do murderous lights hold some newfound fascination for you, after the Fount? Are you a moth, to be drawn so to the flame?”
The swordsman turned wintry grey eyes upon him. “I lost the trail of our missing friends at Stronghold,” he said. “If fortune is so kind as to offer me a pointer back onto that trail, I’ll not take the risk of circling wide around the sign.”
“You would assume that everything is now a possible sign from the fates?” Syth demanded. “How can you pursue every strange occurrence in this land gone mad?”
“One at a time,” Amric replied.
The thief threw up his hands in exasperation, then grabbed for the reins once again as the dun gelding shifted in a move that looked suspiciously like it was trying to shrug him out of the saddle.
“But you are correct, Syth,” the warrior continued in a mild tone. “It could be dangerous, and perhaps it would be wiser for you to remain here.”
Syth ground his teeth, eyes narrowed in an icy glare. “I’ll not have it said I took the coward’s route,” he gritted. “I will be at your shoulder, if I can keep this useless mountain of horse flesh pointed in the right direction.”
Amric chuckled and turned to Valkarr. The Sil’ath still looked gaunt and tired, but pushed himself stiffly upright to sit tall on the horse, his chin lifted.
“I know you wish to ride with us on this, my friend, but you have not yet regained your strength. I need you to stay with these two and keep them safe while you all follow at a short distance. Be ready, for as much as I would hate to lose time to a retreat or detour, it may prove necessary.”
The Sil’ath sighed and nodded. With a curt nod to Bellimar and Halthak, Amric wheeled his bay and kicked it into a gallop. Behind him, amid a shower of muttered curses, he heard Syth’s mount follow.
Minutes later, they slowed as they neared the location from which the burst of light had emanated. All seemed quiet, the only movement being the short scrub grasses of the foothills swaying under the hoary light of the stars. Amric’s eyes picked out the winding trail leading up to the cave, and he was guiding his mount off the road and toward that narrow path when a sound further up the main road drew their attention. They cantered ahead and found the source. It was a riderless black horse, a glossy patch of ink against the night, giving a subdued cough and stamping its feet as it backed away from them. Amric studied the trembling animal, taking in the rolling white eyes and the froth of sweat on its coat. It had seen strenuous activity, and quite recently. He scanned about for the rider, but found no sign.
Then another sound drifted to them from ahead and north of the broad road: a muffled scream, almost lost to distance.
Amric spurred his mount to a gallop, leaning low over the bay’s muscular neck. The gelding was somewhat tired from the long day of slow travel picking along the base of the rocky foothills bordering the forest, but given its first chance in many days to open up and race, the eager young animal seized the opportunity. Syth fell behind, bouncing awkwardly in the saddle and spewing a steady litany of blasphemous threats at his mount. Amric strained to pierce the gloom as he rode ahead, for he could not triangulate on the sounds over the clatter of his horse’s hooves, and at last a flurry of movement north of the highway caught his eye.
At first he thought he was looking upon some many-legged beast, scurrying through the long, waving grasses where the foothills gave grudging way to gently rolling plains. As he stared, however, he realized it was a handful of the repulsive black things dressed in rags that had assaulted them in the forest. The source of the indignant cry became evident as well, for the creatures bore a thrashing captive among them. The group was clustered around their prize, running in unison, cleaving through the undulating sea of grass in headlong, rapid strides.
With a jerk of the reins, the warrior sent his horse leaping from the road. The creatures were fast, moving at the kind of unflagging dead run which a mortal man could not endure for long. All the same, they could not hope to match a fast steed.
As he closed the gap, one of his swords slid gleaming into his hand, and he knotted the reins in his other fist as he leaned from the saddle. He overtook them on a small, rolling rise, sweeping by in a thunderous cloud, and his blade sang in the night air. The rearmost creature pitched forward to the sward, its head bumping along the ground without it for several yards. Another fell with one of its legs shorn almost clean through.
The remaining monstrosities reacted with astonishing speed. The pair in the lead swerved away from the threat, while the one now at the rear of the entourage broke free of the pack to sprint after him. Amric steered his mount wide, outdistancing his pursuer and circling back toward those still fleeing with their hostage.
His bay gelding suddenly reared as something rose before them. It was the one he had injured, dragging its useless leg behind it as it skittered rapidly through the grasses on its remaining crooked limbs like some huge, hideous spider. It gathered and hurled itself at him in an impossible bound, and he lashed out in a vicious cut that sent the grimacing head spinning away into the night even as its limp body crashed into the horse. He dragged on the reins, bringing the terrified bay under control, and surged forward once more just as the creature chasing him tore through a curtain of waving green stalks mere yards behind him. He peered over his shoulder as the fiend pounded after him in untiring pursuit. A tall, bulky shape loomed behind it, and he almost shouted in fierce exultation when the creature suddenly vanished, ridden down from behind by Syth’s blue dun. He did not see the thing rise again, and he hoped that iron-shod hooves had found its skull.
The remaining pair whirled to face them, dumping their burden to the ground where it rolled to an unceremonious halt, still writhing. Amric sprang from the saddle, and his other sword was in hand before his boots touched earth. Scant moments later, a gust of wind flattened the grasses around him, and Syth was at his shoulder.
“Aim for the heads,” Amric said.
“I will aim for whatever I please,” Syth retorted.
Amric grinned, and they leapt to meet their charging foes.
Afterward, Syth prodded with a metal-clad finger at the still form of one of the creatures as Amric wiped his swords clean. The things did not bleed, exactly, but instead left behind a clear, slimy, foul-smelling film on the blades that left him as eager to remove it from the metal as he was to avoid any unnecessary contact between it and his flesh.
“What manner of creature are they?” Syth asked as his lip curled in disgust.
“I do not know, but they seemed once again intent on seizing rather than slaying,” Amric mused. “I wonder to what strange destination they were bearing their captured prey.”
He gazed in the direction they had been headed, but to his knowledge nothing lay in that southern region for countless miles except rolling hills of prairie.
The thief rose to his feet with a lop-sided grin. “It seems to discover that, we had only to belay our interference for a time and follow them instead. Doubtless this poor fellow could have bided a while longer as we satisfied our curiosity, no?”
Amric studied the figure on the ground, bound tightly in coil upon coil of ragged cloth such that only a few glimpses of leathers and a dark cloak were visible. The captive still drew in deep, rasping breaths, but had otherwise grown still once the sounds of combat ceased.
“I rather think he would disagree with you on the point, Syth,” Amric said. “But it is time to let him speak for himself.”
He stepped forward, sheathing his swords and drawing his belt knife. “I am going to sever your bonds, friend,” he said. “Be very still, if you value your flesh.”
The figure froze, and Amric knelt down. The cloth parted beneath his blade and fell away from torso to thigh, and the warrior rose, stepping back. In an instant, slender hands made pale by the starlight were clawing at the remaining bonds, tearing and peeling.
Syth put voice to a realization that had dawned upon Amric as well. “That is no fellow,” he breathed.
Those hands reached up and unwound the strips from about the head, and then swept back the hood of the cloak. Auburn hair tumbled free, and startling green eyes regarded them both from an oval face swollen with a myriad of cuts and abrasions. Amric saw a strange mixture of fear and anger pass through her expression as she looked past them to search the darkness beyond. When frantic gaze returned to the two of them, she sagged with relief and seemed to regain a measure of her confidence. The warrior frowned. It appeared that she had expected someone else, had been in fact braced for another attacker of some kind.
“Well?” she demanded. “Which one of you is going to help a lady to her feet?”
They rejoined the others on the road near the cave.
Amric let out a breath he had not even realized he was holding when he saw the three men astride their horses, with no further sign of the foul black creatures. Halthak held the reins of the quivering black mare, and was speaking soothing words to it in a low tone. As they neared, the huntress slid from her seat behind Amric on the bay gelding and gave a sharp whistle. The mare jerked the reins from the Half-Ork’s hand with a toss of its head, and trotted to her.
“You are developing a way with horses, healer,” Amric said with a laugh, as Halthak gave a rueful shake of the stung hand. “But the horse well knows its mistress.”
He watched as the woman ran her hands over the horse and down each of its legs, checking for serious injuries. Amric noted that she kept her back to Halthak, Valkarr and Bellimar as she did this, and when she swung into the saddle a moment later, she kept her head low and looked out at them from under a tangle of tresses such that her features were almost entirely masked.
Amric cleared his throat. “The lady declined to give her name until we were all together, but she was an unwilling guest of the same black man-like creatures we encountered in the forest. Now, if I may introduce––”
The huntress, however, paid no heed to him whatsoever, and instead circled her horse wide around the group and left the road at a canter. She reached the trail leading up to the cave and dismounted, searching the hillside for something. Syth urged his horse forward after her, but Bellimar held up a hand and shook his head.
“Give her a moment, gentlemen,” he said with a hint of a smile. “Introductions should resume shortly.”
Syth exchanged a puzzled look with Amric, but held his position. For long minutes, the woman clambered over the hillside, thrashing about in the weeds in search of something, casting repeated glances over her shoulder toward the group.
Bellimar rode a few yards away from the others. He had his back to her as he sat relaxed in the saddle, scanning the countryside. At last she returned to her horse with a purposeful stride and rode toward them again. Amric saw that she now held a bow in one hand, and a quiver full of arrows was slung across her back. His eyes narrowed. She was guiding her mare with only her knees, so that both her hands were free. Valkarr nodded at him; he had noticed the same. Amric threw a hard warning look to Syth and then rode forward in a slow, non-threatening walk to meet her. The other men waited, expectant, as she approached. Bellimar guided his horse into a languid turn to face her, the same enigmatic smile playing across his features.
“Madam, I think there may be some misunderstanding––” Amric began.
His words died in midsentence, however, as the huntress suddenly stood tall in her stirrups. She raised the black arrow she had been holding along her thigh, nocked it to her bow, drew back and fired, all in a blinding flicker of practiced motion. Amric muttered a startled oath and jerked to one side, his sword ringing forth. But the shot flew well wide of him, and he realized it was not intended for him at all. He whirled to chart its course and saw Bellimar’s pale hand flash up before his face. Vibrating in his clenched fist, its razor point inches from his left eye, was the black arrow.
Amric’s mouth fell open. The old man had caught the bloody thing in mid-flight, without even changing expression! He spun back to the woman, only to find her with another black arrow drawn and aimed at Bellimar, though this one she did not release. Amric knotted his fist on the reins and prepared to charge, but she swung the bow toward him.
“Stay back!” she shouted. “I will feather the first to move toward me.”
“Nasty piece of work, this,” Bellimar was saying, rolling the missile between bony fingers. “I think it might well have fulfilled its purpose. How did you come by it, my dear?”
The huntress did not respond, except to level the bow at the old man once more. Amric studied her eyes, her expression twisted with hatred, her slender frame shaking with suppressed rage. Seldom had he seen such naked animosity.
Anger of his own flared within him.
“You have a strange way of repaying a courtesy, woman,” he snapped.
“And you, man, can be judged by the vile company you keep,” she retorted with a sneer. “You travel with an ancient evil: Bellimar the Black, destroyer of nations, the Vampire King himself. I have to assume that every one of you is either under his control or just as dark-hearted as he.”
Amric lifted an eyebrow. “You believe this old man to be the conquering sorcerer by the same name from untold centuries ago?”
The woman said nothing, the tip of her arrow tracking Bellimar even as her mare shifted back and forth with nervous steps. Amric opened his mouth to try again, but the old man interrupted with a sigh.
“Your words will not smooth this one over, swordsman. She speaks the truth.”
Amric stiffened and turned to stare at him. Bellimar did not spare him a glance, however. His tight-lipped smile parted to bare gleaming teeth at the huntress.
“Greetings, Thalya,” Bellimar said. “You are a long way from home.”