Hand of the Hunter: Chosen of Nendawen, Book II (33 page)

“
Drakthna
will stop our hearts,” he said, “and the roots of the sweet white
iruil
will wake them again.”

Hweilan swallowed hard and said, “You mean …?”

“We walk the ghost path, girl. The living do not go there. Only the dead.”

He put both hands into the basin, formed a cup with his palms, then lifted them out. He drank the water, though much of it spilled down his face and neck.

Hweilan stepped forward. She had a bad history with drinking Gleed’s concoctions. She swore to herself that if she woke naked in the woods after this, her first order of business would be drowning the little goblin in his own lake. But surely if he was drinking the same thing, had even gone first …

“Hurry, girl,” said Gleed, and she heard the strain in his voice.

She put both her hands into the water. It was cold, but in a way that was more soothing than painful. Blood still smeared her hands in places. Too late for it now. Hweilan brought her full palms to her face and drank.

The water had an earthy taste, and it seemed to go to work inside her at once.

Her body began trembling so badly that she had to sit down. Other than the rite in which she’d eaten part of Nendawen’s heart, she hadn’t had a thing to eat since the day before, and her body seemed light and fragile as a hollow eggshell.

Only a few feet away, Gleed shuddered, his breath caught in his throat, and he fell over. His head actually bounced off the stone floor as it hit.

Hweilan’s heart had taken on an irregular beat, each more painful than the last, and she just had time to set her bow aside and lower herself to the ground when the darkness closed in around her.

Sight did not return first, but sound. She could hear a wind blowing, and from somewhere far off the raucous song of a murder of crows. There was no sensation of opening her eyes, but suddenly she could see. No sense of smell or taste, or even feeling. Hweilan had the senses found only in unremembered dreams.

What she saw did nothing to dispel her feeling of dreaming. A featureless plain, gray as ancient dust, stretched in every direction. Something on the plain swirled, but she could not tell if it was dead grass or swirls of dust. Her vision wouldn’t focus.

Wolves howled in the distance, and she heard the ravens again.

“Gleed?” she called, though she couldn’t even be sure that she had a mouth. But she heard the words, and she heard the response—

“Here … here …”

She went toward the sound, wading through the grayness. She found him, though he seemed little more than a slightly darker, slightly more solid bit of grayness amidst the gloom.

“What is this place?” she said.

“Where the dead wait,” said Gleed. “Quickly. Find your friend.”

“How?”

“He is your blood, and sworn by oaths to your family. You are bound. Follow that binding.”

She had no idea what he meant by that, but just thinking about it, she became aware of … 
something
. Some sense pulling her in one direction. She followed it.

The howls of the wolves faded behind them, but the sounds of ravens grew closer. And then Hweilan saw them—a black cloud of hundreds of ravens, swirling over the gray plain, one or more of them diving down again and again.

And then she saw at what the birds were diving. Lendri walked the plain beneath them. Or shuffled more like. He moved like an injured man, in a sort of dragging limp, one hand clutched to his body. As she drew closer, she saw why. Just as she had seen him before, he held his own heart in his hand, and the gaping wound in his midsection that had killed him was still a bloody mess. Blood drenched his naked body. Only his almost-white hair seemed clean, which struck her as strange.

“Lendri,” she called.

He didn’t stop. Didn’t even look up.

A raven dived down, gouged a large bit of flesh out of Lendri’s back, then flew off again.

“Go to him,” said Gleed.

She did, stopping in front of him.

One of the ravens shrieked and dived for Hweilan, but one look from her and it exploded in a mass of burning feathers. The others cawed their displeasure and flew away.

“I will not come,” said Lendri, not even looking up.

She said, “Why?”

“Let me rest,” said Lendri. “Just let me rest.”

Hweilan heard the ravens again. They had flown off, but not far.

“As soon as I leave, they’ll come back. Is that the rest you want?”

He looked up at her then. His eyes were empty sockets, and tears of blood leaked from them. “Why can’t I rest? So long … I have been apart from my people. Even in death, I cannot join them. Why?”

“Because your work is not done,” said Gleed.

“What more can I give? I died trying to protect the girl.”

“What did you do?” said Hweilan.

“I tried to stop that monster, and he ripped my heart out.”

“No. Not that. What did you do that earned your exile?”

Lendri actually laughed at that, though it was all bitterness. “I chose my friend over my clan. When my sister chose to love a man rather than one of her own people, my father sent me to kill him and bring her back. But she was already carrying his child. And he was my friend. So I chose to stand by them.”

“That’s it?” Hweilan couldn’t believe it.

Or could she? Her mother was only part Vil Adanrath, but Hweilan had run up against that unyielding hardness on many occasions. Her father had often said that her mother’s will could crack stone and make the mountains bleed.

“I broke my oaths,” said Lendri.

That hit Hweilan hard. Was what Gleed was suggesting to her—fulfill her mission as Nendawen’s Hand, then run on her own—anything less? No. She knew it was far worse. Betraying oaths to family and clan was one thing. Betraying an oath to a being like Nendawen …

“Did you know my mother’s father?” said Hweilan.

Lendri recoiled at that, so strongly that for a moment he was no longer a bloody, broken elf, but looked like a wolf, caught in a trap.

“You did, didn’t you?” said Hweilan. “Why does the question frighten you? Tell me his name!”

“I knew him,” said Lendri, “and I know his name. But I will not speak it before a goblin sorcerer.”

Hweilan tried to look at Gleed, to see his reaction, but he was still only a blur. No matter. She’d deal with that later. She was here for a different reason.

“Lendri, Nendawen came to you. Sent you to find me. You remember?”

He turned away at that, trying to get away, but she stopped him.

“I told you before—on the mountain that day with Menduarthis—and I tell you now: I want this. I
want
to serve Nendawen and hunt those who killed our family.”

He turned back to her then and looked up at her through those empty, bloody sockets. “Then why do you ask your father’s name?”

Hweilan ignored the question. “Will you come back with me? I need your help.”

Lendri closed his empty eyes and turned away. “Let me rest.”

“You have no rest, you fool!” said Gleed. “You have only an endless existence of ravens pecking at your flesh while you feel sorry for yourself. You want to rejoin your people? Regain your honor? Die in peace? Then redeem yourself! Help the girl!”

“I am the last,” Hweilan told Lendri. “The last of our people. Your oaths to my ancestor bind me to you. As long as I need you, you will never rest. Come with me, Lendri. I beg you. Help me.”

“She speaks the truth,” said Gleed. “And consider this: She may be your last chance. Help her, redeem yourself, and then you may die in peace. But if you stay here, sniveling under hungry ravens when you could have helped her, and she dies out there fighting Jagun Ghen, who do you think will come for you then? It will not be Dedunan, come to take you to rest. If Nendawen comes, it will only be to drag away your cowardly soul to make sport for a High Hunt.”

“Be silent, Gleed,” said Hweilan, then she returned her attention to Lendri. “He will not help me to save his own skin—or his own soul. He will not help me for his own reward. He will help me because it is the right thing to do.
That
is honor.”

The featureless plain suddenly shook around her, and Hweilan heard a huge thunder that she instinctively knew was only in her mind. Ravens cawed again, but they seemed faint, and Lendri was fading away.

“The
iruil!
” Gleed shouted. “It’s working. It’s—”

Hweilan and Gleed both sat up at the same time, drawing in such a great draft of air that it sounded like a scream in reverse.

“—bringing us back!” Gleed finished.

Hweilan was still trembling and felt weaker than ever. Gleed fumbled for his staff, and its meager glow flared again, but Hweilan couldn’t make her eyes focus. Everything seemed to waver before her.

“Did it work?” she said. It came out a raw croak.

“It is in Dedunan’s hands now.”

Hweilan heard it first. A bubbling like a heated cauldron. The sound drew her gaze to the basin. Still shaking, she forced herself to her feet. Gleed did the same beside her, leaning heavily on his staff. Together, they looked at the basin. The sprinkling of oak leaves around its rim was sparkling, and the water within was no longer clear or calm. It had gone cloudy as milk. It bubbled. Steam rose from the water, and a thousand lights of as many colors danced within.

Gleed rasped, “I think we should stand ba—”

The basin erupted in a spray of water, steam, and light. A wolf leaped out of the water. It landed on the ground, its legs shaking, then fell over. Hweilan noticed at once that its sides weren’t moving. The wolf wasn’t breathing.

She said, “Is that …?”

“Lendri,” said Gleed.

At the sound of his name, the wolf’s head lifted off the floor and looked at them.

“He’s—” the words caught in her raw throat.

“A wolf,” said Gleed.

“Dead,” said Hweilan. “Look, Gleed! He isn’t breathing.”

The old goblin studied the wolf a long time, then said something she didn’t understand.

“What was that?” she asked.

Gleed spoke louder this time. “
Ren kucheh.
”

Vil Adanrath words. They meant
living dead
.

C
HAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

T
HE NEXT DAY
, H
WEILAN STOOD BEFORE THE FALLS
. She had scrubbed the previous day’s dirt and blood from her body, bound her hair in a tight braid with long strips of leather, and dressed in new clothes that Gleed told her Kesh Naan had made with her own hands. The clothes fitted close enough that Hweilan wouldn’t snag them on branches and thorns, but they flowed over her skin, smooth as silk, so that she didn’t feel in any way constrained. The red blade of Nendawen rested in a plain leather sheath at her hip, and Menduarthis’s knife was tucked into one of the boots she had worn throughout her stay in the Feywild. The bone mask in which Ashiin’s spirit rested rode on her other hip, in a special harness Gleed had made. She had a few supplies in the pouches on her belt and a pack on her back, nestled next to a quiver stuffed with new arrows. The bow she held in her hand.

Gleed stood beside her. “You still lack one thing, I am thinking,” he said, “and I must confess I’m most surprised you haven’t asked for it in all this time.”

Hweilan looked down at the old goblin, and now that the time had come for farewells, she was surprised at the sudden affection she felt for him.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Gleed reached into his robes and pulled out a curved bit of antler bound to a leather thong.

“My
kishkoman,
” she said. Seeing it, memories flooded her mind—of her mother mostly—and Hweilan found herself fighting back tears as she took the whistle knife from Gleed.

“You have become something great,” said Gleed, “but that doesn’t mean you should forget where you came from.”

“Thank you,” she said, and surprised them both by kneeling and giving the old goblin a hug.

Gleed’s ruddy skin took on a rich brown tone, and Hweilan realized the old toad was blushing. “You know the way out,” he said, and pointed to the falls. “The portal works both ways. If you ever need a rest from hunting demons, come see your old teacher. We’ll share a special drink beside my fire.”