Hand of the Hunter: Chosen of Nendawen, Book II Read online

  “All dead,” he said. “Your family, Scith … me.” His voice took on the timbre of a snarl. There had always been something of the beast in Lendri. But this was rabid. “All dead. Because of you. Because you—”

  Hweilan heard the cawing of ravens.

  Wolves in the distance.

  And then the darkness took her.

  She could hear a crackle and the low hum of coals breathing and she felt herself surrounded in the warmth of blankets soft as rabbit fur. A rich earthy aroma filled her head, and her ears caught the soft clink and scrape of a spoon stirred inside a kettle. She lay there, for one brief moment thinking she was home again, spring on the wane, and any moment one of the handmaidens would come through her bedroom door, telling her if she didn’t get up and wash soon, she’d have no time for breakfast before today’s lessons.

  But then she opened her eyes.

  A fire burned in a stone hearth, a black iron kettle set over the flames, and Gleed hunched over it, sipping from a silver spoon.

  “Awake at last, eh?” he said, and turned to her.

  He no longer wore the thick cloak and hood in which she’d first seen him in the woods. His feet and arms were bare, and he wore clothes of simply cut brown canvas, a long vest closed by a belt rope, the ends of which dangled to his knees. A dozen or more necklaces hung around his neck—fine chains, braided leather, and others no more than fraying thread. Hanging from every one were tiny jewels, bits of bone, black feathers, and medallions—some round and gleaming like silver coins, others that looked to have been crafted from iron nails twisted into intricate shapes.

  Seeing his ruddy, leathery skin, the too-wide mouth, tiny nose framed by huge, round eyes—one orange the other milky and blind—and the pointed, erect ears, and there was no longer any doubt.

  “You’re a goblin,” she said.

  He smirked. “Oh, you are a bright one.”

  She looked around, her eyes skittish as a bird who has returned to her nest to find a viper coiled around her eggs. She lay in a nest of pillows, blankets, and rugs. Beyond was a chamber—so low-ceilinged that she would knock her head on the cobwebbed rafters if she stood to her full height. A bed and low table took up one wall. No chairs—the table was low enough that one obviously sat on the floor. Other than the doorway and hearth, every bit of spare wall space was filled with shelves holding tomes, scrolls, the reconstructed skeletons of small animals, and dozens and dozens of bottles of colored glass, wood, and clay. Not a single window. It looked more like the room of an eccentric old scholar than a wrinkled old goblin.

  “Why am I here?” said Hweilan. Her eyes seemed drawn to the kettle bubbling over the fire, and she remembered every story about goblins she’d ever heard.

  Gleed chuckled. “You’re far too big to fit into my pot—and I stopped eating girls a long time ago.”

  She couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. He used the spoon to pull the kettle from its hook and set it away from the fire to cool.

  “Usually I have a whole speech prepared,” he said. “ ‘My name is Gleed. The Master has sent you to me.’ Then I give them a demeaning name to keep them in their place. But you, little girl, you seem to have broken the pattern.” He made a sound that was part laugh and part cough. “I’ve been teaching your kind since before your grandmother’s grandmother caught her man. But in all my years, you are the first to come to me knowing who you are. Before, my charges came with their memories wiped clean—their hearts new iron, ready to be honed according to the Master’s will. But you … you know who you are … Hweilan. How can this be?”

  “I don’t know,” she rasped.

  Gleed’s eyes narrowed and he watched her, obviously disbelieving. “Tell me what you remember,” he said.

  She tried to swallow. Her throat felt rough as baked boot leather—from her screaming earlier. And how long since she had last taken a drink?

  “Water,” she said.

  Gleed shambled off, then returned with a silver goblet that looked very large in his hands. His other hand crumbled something and sprinkled it into the contents of the goblet, then he handed it to her.

  She took it and stared at the pinkish contents. “What—?”

  “No poison,” he said. “If I wanted you dead, I’d have left you in the creek to drown. Just a bit of wine and water with a few special herbs. They’ll soothe your throat and settle your stomach so that you don’t wretch all over my floor after you eat.”

  She took a tentative sip. Both wine and herbs were very bitter, but the concoction seemed more water than anything. She drank it all in three swallows, each hurting a bit less than the last.

  Gleed retrieved his staff from the nearest shelf and leaned on it. He fixed her with his one good eye.

  “Where is Menduarthis?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “He … he helped me escape from … that thing.”

  The old goblin chucked. “Well then, I’d say he did a poor job of it. I do not know this Menduarthis or what might have happened to him.”

  “He was hurt.” He might have been more than hurt. Might be dead. The last Hweilan had seen of him, he’d been lying senseless on the ground, bleeding profusely from his head.

  “I’ve told you I know nothing of him, girl. Now, speak. Tell me of Hweilan and how she came to be here.”

  She gave him no intimate details. Nothing of her childhood or family. Just “Creel killed my family” and then picking up where she’d met Lendri in the foothills. Gleed grinned as she told of Kunin Gatar and how she, Lendri, and Menduarthis had escaped. Her breath caught as she came to Lendri’s death—not so much at seeing him killed as at the memory of his ghost in the moonlight outside. She told how the thing that had killed Lendri had been about to kill her.

  “And then he appeared,” she said, her eyes closed, her breath scarcely above a whisper. A figure, taller than any man Hweilan had ever seen. Moonlight glinted off pale scars that ribboned his muscled frame. His left hand dripped blood. In his right he gripped a spear, its black head barbed and cruel. Antlers sprouted from his skull.

  “The Master,” said Gleed, and in his voice Hweilan heard … not reverence. Ecstasy. The voice of a drunk long denied his drink who is suddenly given a priceless vintage.

  “The … Master?” she said.

  “Nendawen to those mortals who knew him best,” he said. “Master of the Hunt, lord of this realm. He saved you, yes?”

  Eyes still squeezed shut, Hweilan nodded.

  She heard Gleed chuckle. But there was no humor in it. It was the laugh of a little boy dangling a mouse over the cat.

  “He … filled you, yes? Spirit and mind. Heart and soul. The Master sifted you, scraped you, immersed you in his holy will.”

  She didn’t know about that. Remembering it, she thought it had seemed more of a violation than a blessing. She certainly hadn’t been willing. She’d heard priests speak of communion with the divine, comparing it with the passion of a lover. Hweilan had never been with a man, so she had no comparison in that regard. But what Nendawen had done to her mind had not been the ecstasy of lovers. More like consumption—the terror a deer might feel when it knows it will still be alive when the wolves start to feed.

  Gleed kept talking. “You are the first whom the Master has left with any knowledge of who they are. Why? I do not know, but it is not for me to question his will. The Master has chosen you to be his Hand, little girl, but you are raw, unshaped … unworthy. To serve the Master, to honor the Master, you will be honed into the perfect weapon.”

  The first whom the Master has left with any knowledge of who they are … Hweilan wasn’t so sure about that. The Master had seemed determined to do something to her—wipe her memories perhaps—until he had come upon something inside her. Something that fought back.

  But she didn’t tell this to Gleed. Instead she seized on the last thing he’d said, about being honed.

  “By you?” she said.

  Gleed scowled and his voice came out barely
above a whisper. “Don’t underestimate me, girl. I could turn you to ash with a word. But to speak the whole truth: You will have three teachers, of which I will be one. I will teach you, yes. Teach you Making. But before you can Make, first you must Know. You will be given the Lore.”

  “Lore?”

  Gleed ignored her question. “I will feed you—can’t have you dying on me—and then we should see to your wounds. Whatever you’ve been doing these past days, you’ve gotten yourself covered in cuts and scrapes.

  “Tomorrow you will meet Kesh Naan, and it will be most dangerous if she smells blood on you. Kesh Naan will give you the Lore, and then you will return to me—if you survive. So listen to me very carefully.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  YOUR BROTHER IS DEAD.” SAID ARGALATH.

  Jatara shrieked. The two Nar holding her flinched and strengthened their holds on her arms. They’d forced her to her knees. She could feel the tendons in her shoulders stretching. The blood running from her mouth and nostrils was staining the rug that took up most of Argalath’s bedchamber. The rug was ruined. At least it would give the Nar something in which they could wrap the two dead men on the floor behind them.

  “Release her.”

  Argalath’s voice. Strained with weariness, but no fear. Both guards looked up in shock. Jatara followed their gaze.

  Argalath sat in the room’s one chair. Here, in the privacy of his bedchamber, he’d removed the robes and wore loose trousers and a sleeveless undershirt. The mottled blue of his spellscar covered every inch of exposed pale skin, from the tips of his fingers to the top of his hairless head. Behind him stood a tall, imposing figure, the fine Damaran clothes covering a frame of hard muscle and sinew. Guric. Or what had once been Guric. The body no longer breathed, the heart lay still in his chest, and the hunger lurking in his black eyes had not been born in this world. The remains of the table Jatara had shattered in her attempt to murder her lord lay strewn on the floor before Argalath. Had Guric not been there, she would have succeeded, and there would be more than two corpses cooling in the room.

  Argalath spoke again. “I said release her.”

  The man holding her right arm kicked the bloody knife away. It clattered against the far wall, then both men released her arms and stepped back.

  Jatara collapsed. Sobs shook her, and the sound of her weeping drowned out the crackle of flames in the hearth.

  Squinting against the glare from the fire, Argalath looked down on her, shook his head, and said, “I am sorry.”

  From the corner of her one remaining eye, Jatara could see the Nar just behind her and to her left. He’d stepped back. But not enough.

  “You’re … sorry?”

  Her arm snapped out and she snatched the knife from the Nar’s belt. He lunged backward—sure that in the next moment he’d feel his own steel spilling his guts on the rug.

  But Jatara leaped for Argalath.

  He didn’t move, but from behind him Guric did, stepping around his master and crouching to meet her.

  Jatara knew her business. This monster had thwarted her once. She didn’t need to kill Guric. Just get past him.

  She landed and kept low, spinning prone and aiming one boot at Guric’s knee. Bone shattered.

  Guric didn’t cry out in pain. Didn’t even wince. But he did topple as his leg collapsed under him.

  Jatara was on the move again before he even hit the floor.

  Guric’s hand shot out to grasp her, but she twisted away. Another three steps. She raised the knife and lunged.

  Argalath’s spellscar glowed.

  The center of Jatara’s chest constricted, and agony shot outward from it, locking her limbs in a tight spasm. She crumpled to the floor. Her head bounced off the rug so close to Argalath’s foot that she could have counted the stitches lining the sole of his boot. She had no idea if she still held the knife; she couldn’t feel her hands. Couldn’t feel anything except the pain radiating out from her chest. She tried to draw breath, but that only made blackness close in around the edges of her vision.

  “You know better, Jatara.” Argalath’s voice, seeming faint and far away. “Now stop this foolishness. I did not kill Kadrigul.”

  The pain left her as swiftly as it had come. But with it went the last of her strength and the will to fight. All she had left was the hollowness inside. She couldn’t even muster the strength to cry.

  “Help her up,” said Argalath. “Put her on the bed.”

  The Nar obeyed, laying her atop the thick fur coverlets. Guric was sitting up and staring at the lower half of his leg, which bent outward.

  “Your brother is dead, Jatara,” said Argalath. “And even if your grief makes you think otherwise, I am indeed sorry. I loved him as you did.” His gaze flicked away, and for a moment the barest hint of a smile bent his lips. “Well, perhaps not exactly as you did, but I loved him nonetheless. I did not kill him. But I know who did. We will discuss it here, now, and then never again. You know me. You know my word. Do you understand?”

  He leaned forward in his chair, his chin resting on his clasped fingertips. He stared at Jatara, where she still lay strengthless on the bed. The flames in the hearth were burning low, and the room was more shadow than light. She could not see Argalath’s eyes. Just two wells of darkness. But she could feel his gaze on her. Her heartbeat still felt stiff and strained, as if it had just been thawed and was straining to its work. Her limbs were tingling, and she couldn’t stop the shivering in her body.

  Jatara made a sound of assent. Her mouth was bone dry and she didn’t yet trust herself to speak.

  “Very well,” said Argalath. “Your brother died in my service. You and he have both faced death in my service more times than I can remember. You did so with honor. Without complaint. With eagerness even. Why do you now blame me?”

  Tears welled in Jatara’s eye. Her brother, the only one in the world she truly loved, was dead, and she hadn’t even been there. Wolves and ravens would eat his corpse.

  “You sent him,” she said, forcing the words out through a throat that still seemed narrow as a pipe stem. “With that … monster.”

  Argalath sat silent a moment, as if waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, he said, “That monster as you call it did not kill your brother. He was, in fact, the best protection I could have sent with Kadrigul.”

  “You could have sent me.”

  “Then you, too, would be dead.”

  Had the knife been within reach, had she been able to muster the strength to move, she would have tried to kill him again. The damned, cursed fool. Didn’t he know she’d rather be dead than have to live without Kadrigul?

  “But,” Argalath continued, and she heard a strange note in his voice, “here you do speak—speak truly—of my mistake, and I beg your forgiveness, Jatara.”

  Nothing he could have said could have shocked her more. She’d heard him ask forgiveness from others before—those whom he served or who stood in higher station than him. But never to one who served him. And never with such sincerity.

  “I thought we were going after one scared girl. I thought I was sending more than enough to do the job—swatting a fly with a smith’s hammer. But it seems that our little fly found unexpected aid. I swear to you that had I known the baazuled was not up to the task, I would never have sent your brother with so few.”

  “Baazuled?” said Jatara. She’d never heard the word, though the flavor of it reminded her of the incantations Argalath used in his most secret rites.

  Argalath motioned to Guric, who still sat in the floor. “Our new friends. You see the flaw?”

  Jatara shook her head.

  Argalath stood, so quickly that the chair toppled behind him. Jatara flinched, and she realized that her heart was beating so hard she could hear the blood pulsing in her head. The sudden movement sent a breath of air through the room that made the fire flare, painting him in a hellish light.

  “Masks,” said Argalath, in a tone like a street prophet about to
explain sin to the unworthy.

  The two surviving Nar exchanged nervous glances. The one from whom Jatara had snatched the knife looked at it longingly where it still lay on the floor.

  “We all wear them,” Argalath continued. He spread both his arms. “These mortal bodies are nothing but masks—the image we present to the world, hiding the true life within. And when we die, that life … departs. Such a waste. Leaving the body an empty shell. But”—and Argalath pointed down at Guric—“that shell can be filled by those who know the ancient ways, the secret arts of our ancestors. Is it not so, Jatara?”

  She tried to swallow, but her mouth held no moisture. Our ancestors? Argalath claimed that his mother had been of the Nar, but his father of her people, the Frost Folk. Which ancestors did he mean? The shamans of her people had many secret arts, but she had never heard of anything like these baazuled until Argalath.

  Argalath turned, extended one hand, and his chair leaped up, its back slapping into his open palm. The two Nar each made the sign to ward off evil spirits, and she could hear one of them muttering a prayer. She could see his breath. The temperature in the room had dropped suddenly. The air had taken on a still, almost brittle state, making every sound sharp and clear, and it was then she realized what had just happened.

  She’d long known of Argalath’s ability granted by his spellscar. He could move things with his mind—small things only, but his cunning had learned to put it to great effect. Moving anything larger than a flagon of wine pained and weakened him. But he’d discovered that there were veins and organs inside the human body far smaller than a flagon. A slight squeeze applied to the right area could kill. The wounded pounding of her own heart reminded her of that.

  But the entire chair—a heavy thing of solid oak and iron—had jumped off the floor into his waiting hand. And Argalath’s spellscar had not so much as flickered.

  Argalath sat down again and motioned to Guric. “He hoped that his beloved wife would return to fill her shell. It was not to be. Not even the gods themselves can force the unwilling dead to return. Instead, something came from … elsewhere.”