Hand of the Hunter: Chosen of Nendawen, Book II (41 page)

Hweilan shrugged.

“But this new Lord of Highwatch … I hear things. Creel swarm the foothills like maggots on a nine-day corpse. They make for good sport. But other things now haunt the lands around Highwatch—and of late some of those things have begun creeping into the mountains.
My
mountains!”

“And—thus far,” said Menduarthis, “we have been unable to—shall we say?—deal with the problem.”

“Much as it pains me to admit it,” said Maaqua, “your friend here speaks the truth. These … things have been preying on my people. Wiping out entire hunting parties. Rhan here”—Maaqua used her chin to point at the massive hobgoblin behind her—“managed to kill one of them. But we only have one Rhan.”

“He didn’t kill it,” said Hweilan.

“Eh?”

“Your champion might have killed the body the thing wore, but the demon inside him, the true threat,
that
survived. And it will remember you.”

Rhan pulled his lips back, revealing his tusks and yellow teeth, and snarled.

“I’d listen to her if I were you,” said Menduarthis. “She knows more than her pretty face suggests. Just because you’re the biggest hulk with the pointiest stick in the village doesn’t mean you’re immortal.”

Rhan swept his black sword up in one swift motion and stepped toward Menduarthis.

“Rhan!” Maaqua said, and the champion stopped.

Menduarthis wiggled his fingers at Rhan, and a sudden breeze swept through the valley, spraying the hobgoblin champion in a cloud of dust. Another puff of wind swept it away. Menduarthis blew the champion a kiss, followed by a much less polite hand gesture.

“
Boys!
” Maaqua said. “You will
both
be silent. You can fiddle your own foolishness later when you aren’t wasting my time.”

Rhan growled and stepped back into his place.

“Now,” said Maaqua, resuming her normal voice, “as I was saying, we have not yet—
yet
!—found an effective way to deal with these … things. I can’t lose forty warriors for every one we take down—especially if you are right and the thing isn’t truly dead.”

“I am right,” said Hweilan.

Maaqua gripped her staff in both hands and leaned forward, studying Hweilan through narrowed eyes. She stared a long time, then closed her eyes and inhaled.

She opened her eyes and smiled, “The Hunter has marked you.”

“I am his Hand.”

A murmur went through the onlooking hobgoblins. Even Rhan tore his gaze away from Menduarthis to stare at Hweilan, and he looked on her with something almost approaching admiration. The Damarans only looked confused.

“This explains much,” said Maaqua. “Twelve days past, our scouts heard rumor of one of these things in our territory. Rhan led our strongest warriors to hunt and kill it. But all they found were corpses. On the way back, they found more. Five days ago … more rumor, followed by more corpses. It seems that something—or some
one
—is hunting the hunters.”

“And doing a damned fine job of it,” said Menduarthis.

“You know what these things are,” Maaqua said to Hweilan, “and you know how to kill them.”

“Yes.”

“And how is that?”

“You let me go.”

Maaqua started at that. “Eh?”

“You heard me.”

“You misunderstood me,” said Maaqua, a cold edge of steel in her voice. “I was asking how
we
might kill these things.”

“
You
can’t,” said Hweilan. “
I
can. You want them dead? Then get out of my way.”

Maaqua scowled, then went very still. “And then?”

“And then when I’m done, I’ll tell Nendawen what a helpful little goblin you were.”

Every hobgoblin in the valley drew a weapon. Rhan roared and raised his sword again. Uncle stepped forward next to Hweilan, black lips pulled back over his fangs and every hair on his body standing on end. The Damarans put their hands to weapons and stepped away from each other to give themselves room to draw and swing. Menduarthis stepped between Hweilan and Maaqua, hands raised between them, his mouth opening to say something he shouldn’t. All this happened in an instant. In all the valley, Hweilan and Maaqua were the only two who didn’t move.

“Be!
STILL!
” Maaqua roared, her voice echoing like thunder off the surrounding cliffs. She stood straight, no longer the wizened crone. Everyone obeyed. “The next one who so much as coughs without my leave will earn my most serious displeasure!”

The hobgoblins lowered their weapons, though they did not put them away. Jaden let out a very loud sigh, and Menduarthis lowered his hands and stepped back beside Hweilan.

Maaqua leaned on her staff again, then said, “Tell me. How is Gleed?”

Hweilan blinked and took an involuntary step back. “What?”

Maaqua chuckled. “See? Not half as smart as you think you are, girl.”

“You know Gleed?”

Behind her, Hweilan heard Jaden whisper, “Who in the unholy Hells is Gleed?”

“It might surprise you to know,” said Maaqua, “that I was not always the wise old husk you see before you. Nor was Gleed always content to putter around his little lake. There was a time—more than a few times, truth be told—that Gleed made Maaqua’s toes tingle and beg for more.”

Menduarthis gasped and his eyes went wide. He leaned in slightly to Hweilan and muttered, “That image is going to cause a few sleepless nights.”

“I hold the Master of the Hunt in the highest respect,” said Maaqua. “But don’t think for a moment that means I’ll tolerate rudeness from one such as you.”

Hweilan took a careful breath to regain her composure, then said, “My apologies. Gleed is … well as ever.”

“I feared as much,” said Maaqua. “Ah, well. Now, back to—”

Maaqua flinched, as if something had stung her. And then Hweilan felt it too—that familiar pounding at the base of her skull. It didn’t begin with a slow pulse and build as it usually did. It hit so fast that Hweilan thought she felt her back teeth pulsing.

The air a few paces to one side of Maaqua swirled in a miniature cyclone, gathering dust and grit—and something else, something darker—as it spun, taking shape. The wind
burst outward like a wave. At its source stood a figure dressed in once-fine clothes gone ragged and caked with filth. It lunged, fast and hard as a tundra tiger, knocking both Rhan and Maaqua to the ground and then tackling Menduarthis.

Hweilan took three loping steps back, her hand already grasping an arrow and laying it across the bow. She fitted nock to string, raised the bow, and pulled the feathers to the corner of her eye. The runes in her bow blazed with green fire.

The figure stood, holding one arm across Menduarthis’s chest, the other wrapped around his face.

Hweilan spoke the words of power, and aimed the point of her arrow. Looking beyond it, she got her first good look at the thing’s face.

The arrowhead shook and faltered, and Hweilan gasped.

“Mother?”

C
HAPTER
THIRTY-TWO

E
VERY HOBGOBLIN WARRIOR IN THE VALLEY SURGED
forward, Rhan the closest of them all, but again, Maaqua’s voice stopped them.

“Be still!” the goblin queen said as she regained her feet and stood on guard behind her raised staff. The gold crown hung slightly askew on her head, but a hot fire blazed in the rubies there. “Be still, all of you, I say!”

Merah looked at Hweilan from over Menduarthis’s shoulder. “Well met, girl,” it said, its voice rough and guttural. “We didn’t expect you here so soon. Most fortunate for us both. Half a moment. You need to see something.”

Hweilan’s hand steadied. The voice had done it. Despite the body it wore, this was not her mother. She fixed the point of her arrow on the thing’s right eye.

“I can put this arrow right through him and still get you,” Hweilan said.

“I’d rather you didn’t, please!” said Menduarthis. “Silence!” the thing said, and tightened its hand over Menduarthis’s jaw to force the point. But then it lowered him a little, and again Merah’s face peeked over his shoulder. All the hardness, the muscles tight and taut as harp strings, was gone. The hunger was gone from the eyes, and Merah simply looked tired. No, she looked bone weary.

“H-Hweilan? Is … that you? I can’t … can’t see. I’ve been in the dark so long, Hweilan.”

Hweilan forced her left hand to grip the bow and the three fingers of her right hand to maintain the tension on the bowstring. Her left arm suddenly felt as heavy as an anvil, and the effort of keeping it up made a small mewling sound escape her throat.

“Is that you, Hweilan?” Her mother looked at her and blinked, again and again, as if trying to clear dust from her eyes. “Say something. Please …”

Hweilan took a deep breath, swallowed, and said, “Let him go.”

“Let …?” She glanced down at the eladrin in her arms, and her entire body trembled. “Help! Help me, Hweilan! It’s still in here with m—!” And then every muscle in Merah’s body tightened, hard as old oak, her skin seemed to tighten over her frame, and her hair stood on end. The hands tightened around Menduarthis, and he breathed in a hiss of pain.

“Stop!” said Hweilan.

The thing’s voice answered, “She’s still in here with me, girl. Your mother. She’s screaming now. Screaming for you.”

“Stop it!”

“Put that bow down and we’ll talk.”

Behind Merah, Rhan took a careful step forward. At first, Hweilan thought the images carved into his sword had come to life, but then she saw that tiny flecks of lightning, each spark black as onyx, were playing up and down the blade.

“Your new friend moves another step,” the thing said, “and I’ll kill this one.”

“Rhan, stop!” Maaqua said. “Let this play out.”

“Kill him and I’ll kill you,” Hweilan said.

“You’d kill your own mother?”

“My mother is already dead,” Hweilan said, and saying the words gave strength to her faltering conviction. “Defending her maidservants.”

“Is that what they told you?” the thing said. “Her body was quite hurt. Death … a near thing. But my master is skilled. Most skilled. Her body has made quite a pleasant home for me. Though she does scream so. And cry. She cries for forgiveness from Ardan.
Begs
for it. Who was Ardan, girl?”

The world seemed to tilt around Hweilan, and she almost dropped the bow. Her right hand could no longer hold the full tension, and she slackened the tension in the string. The point of the arrow dipped, aiming at the ground.

“Much better,” the thing said.

“He told me she died,” said Hweilan, more to herself, remembering the words.

The last words she’d ever spoken to her mother had been in anger. She’d never seen her again after that. Someone had
told
her that her mother was dead. Scith had told her.
She died defending her maidservants
.

“I told you, girl,” the thing said, raising its voice, “there’s something you’ll want to see. Now … watch.”

The arm holding Menduarthis tightened further. Hweilan thought she heard something inside him crack, and he screamed. The thing’s other hand, the one gripping his face, loosened its grip slightly and moved upward. Hweilan watched in horror as one finger dug a deep gouge into Menduarthis’s forehead. He screamed louder and began to thrash. Wind swept down off the mountain, swirling through the valley and raising a great cloud of dust and grit. Hweilan could no longer see the hobgoblins, and Merah and Menduarthis were only a blur in the murk.

Hweilan raised the bow again and advanced. “Stop! Stop this now!”

Two things happened at once. The thing still held Menduarthis, but his entire face was a mass of blood. All the dirt in the air was sticking to it, forming a sickly black mess. As her gaze took this in, the darkest and wettest of the blood on his forehead flared with a red light, like a smith blowing fresh life onto hot embers. At the same moment a
huge form materialized out of the dust cloud behind them. It was Rhan, sword high and ready to strike.

Hweilan opened her mouth to scream for him to stop, realized the blow would fall before the words escaped her lips, and so she turned her arrow on the hobgoblin champion and loosed.

The runes blazing along the arrow’s shaft lost their light, perhaps sensing they were no longer headed for their sworn enemy. The arrow was just over half the distance, headed for the thick flesh of Rhan’s shoulder, when a blazing shard of light struck it in midair. The arrow absorbed the force and did not shatter, but it flew end over end, disappearing into the dust cloud.

Rhan’s sword came around.

“
NO!
” Hweilan screamed.

But it was too late.

A lesser warrior might have cut both Merah and Menduarthis in half. But even in the midst of the wind, Rhan’s aim was expert and true. The black sword cut through Merah’s neck, barely slowing as it passed through skin, flesh, and bone. Because there was no heart beating in Merah’s chest, there was no spray of blood. The body simply went limp, hitting the ground an instant before the head. Even in death, the grip held, and the headless corpse pulled Menduarthis down with it.

The wind died away at once, and the dirt in the air was already beginning to settle when Hweilan rushed forward. Rhan was standing over the bodies, neither of which were moving.