Return of the Hunters (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 4) (10 page)

R
eun stepped forward and extended his arms, motioning for everyone to stop. “I will deal with this,” he said. “They’ll not harm any of you.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. Most Fae had very little love for humans, and the Seelie definitely had issues with the Unseelie. I hoped Reun’s nobility would be enough to keep them at bay. Because they really looked ready to harm someone.

“Lord Reun.” One of the guards broke away from the line and started toward us. He was taller than the rest, and he carried the biggest sword. “You seem to have an excessive number of humans,” he said.

Reun lifted a hand briefly, and then let his arms fall. “Naevahn. I see you’ve been made captain. What an…interesting development.” Somehow he managed to sound surprised and condescending at the same time. “Yes, these humans are with me,” he said. “We’ll not be long in Arcadia. In fact, we are about to cross the Veil and return to the human realm.”

“I’m afraid you won’t be doing that. Lord.” Naevahn rested a hand on his sword. “Care to tell me why you’re skulking about the Valley with this…collection? And you’ve an Unseelie among you, too.” The captain glared at me. “A young and foolish one, from the looks of him.”

“What the hell’d he just call us?” Denei said, cutting off my own ill-considered retort. “A
collection
? Collection of what, Fae?”

“
Enough.
” The single word from Reun boomed like thunder, and all four guards cringed. “You will stand aside and let us pass, or the King will hear of this.”

This was not going well. As I tried to decide whether to interfere with the negotiations, and concluded that was probably a bad idea, Denei slipped back and called the rest of them into a huddle. I glanced over my shoulder and frowned. “What the hell are you doing?” I whispered harshly.

“No time for this bullshit,” she murmured. Bastien and Isalie were pulling pouches and jars from bags, and Zoba had palmed a blade. Rex was chanting something, low and rapid, and Senobia held a small wooden bowl out in the center of the circle. “They won’t stand aside, we’ll knock ’em flat,” Denei said.

Meanwhile, Naevahn had regained his composure, but he wasn’t paying any attention to the Duchenes. “Aye, the King
will
hear of it,” he said. “If you’d like, you can tell him yourself. Eventually. You see, we’ve orders to detain you—and we’ll take your humans along, as well.”

“Really,” Reun said flatly. “And whose orders are those?”

The captain offered an unpleasant smile. “The King’s.”

“Excuse me?”

Instead of answering, Naevahn drew his sword—just as Zoba sliced the knife across his forearm and splashed blood into the bowl to join a small heap of powder and bone fragments. Then Denei scooped the mixture out, darted past Reun, and threw the bloody dust in the Fae captain’s face.

He screamed and fell writhing to the ground with blood streaming from his eyes.

Reun stared at her. “That was perhaps not the best course of action, love,” he managed.

“Like I’m gonna stand here and let these little boys with swords
detain
us,” she spat. “Any of ’em. Bring it, Fae,” she called to the other three guards.

Unfortunately, they decided to take her up on the offer.

“Goddamn it,” I said as the guards charged down the hill. “Guess I’ll take the one on the right?”

Reun grimaced. “We’ve no choice now,” he said.

“Yeah, lucky us. At least there’s only three more.”

“Three.” He laughed with absolutely no humor. “I’d not depend on that.”

The words didn’t inspire me with confidence.

I tried to ignore it and focus on the guard coming at me. Denei and Zoba had already engaged one of them, and Reun had blown another back with a spell. The one rushing me had his sword upraised.

Good thing I’d learned a few tricks the last time I was here.

I gestured at him and called, “
Dei’ahmael!
” He looked surprised when the sword fell from his hand—enough that he didn’t react too fast, and I darted in to grab the weapon. “
Seabh’fos
,” I said quickly.

He froze in place.

Still holding the sword, I turned to find the other two guards immobilized and everyone more or less okay. “All right,” I said. “Any chance we could just open a portal right now, and get the hell out of here?”

Reun opened his mouth to reply, and a wave of sound crested the hill—pounding feet and clanking metal. The sound was followed by more of the Seelie Guard.

Dozens more.

I guessed running away was out.

So this was the Seelie dungeon.

The battle on the hill hadn’t lasted long, and everything that happened was still pretty fragmented in my aching head. There was a lot of magic flying around. Reun had disarmed a bunch of guards and attacked a bunch more wielding a sword in each hand. I’d held onto the one sword for a while, but I couldn’t do jack shit with it. So I’d cast shields and knock-back and sleep spells until my spark wore out.

And the Duchenes had gone after the Guard with a vengeance, paired off and tearing them up one by one with a combination of magic, borrowed weapons, and brute willpower. Zoba hardly needed the spells, though. He was strong as a herd of stampeding bulls, and twice as pissed. They were still fighting when both Reun and I went down—him with a sword through the chest, and me out of juice and bleeding from a dozen deep gashes. The Fae couldn’t counter their magic…and I was pretty sure the element of surprise helped. They thought they were fighting humans.

They hadn’t counted on furious swamp demons wielding voodoo and desperation.

But still, here we all were. I’d grayed out from blood loss while the Seelie Guard dragged us off, and came around slumped against a wall in what was definitely a dungeon. Stone walls, metal bars, shackles hanging from chains. At least no one was clapped into them. Zoba and Denei were in one large cell with me, and another cell across from us held Reun and the other four. All of us were in various stages of battered and bloody.

“Fuck,” I slurred, trying to sit up straight. Everything hurt. Even the roots of my hair, for some reason. “That was a lot of guards.”

It dawned on me slowly that no one was talking, or even moving. For a minute I thought one of the guards had thrown a spell on them while I was out, until Denei shifted a little and closed her eyes. “We ain’t gonna make it,” she said, so low that I could barely make out the words.

I wasn’t going to accept that—and not just because it meant I’d die of a broken promise. “We’ll find a way,” I said, forcing myself to my feet. Christ, it hurt to move. But I was surprised to sense that my spark had recharged, at least partway. “Maybe we can unlock the doors, or just cross over from here. I mean, you can open the Veil anywhere, right?”

Reun shuddered hard from his slumped position on the floor. “This place was made to imprison Fae,” he said. “The bars are cold iron. The entire dungeon is warded, and there are guards, should the wards fail. There is no way to escape.”

“Don’t matter anyway.” Denei’s voice still didn’t rise above a whisper. “It’s been near three hours since we left the train.”

“Jesus. How long was I out?” No wonder I had some of my spark back. But I didn’t expect an answer to the question, and it didn’t really matter. What mattered was how much time we had left.

Which was maybe half an hour. Probably less.

“Fine. Then we’ll get someone to let us out,” I said. “We’ll talk to the King.”

“The King.” There was something terrible and broken in Reun’s voice. “You mean the King who ordered me brought here in the first place. Fantastic plan, Gideon.”

“I’m sure he’s a reasonable guy.”

“Then you know nothing of Seelie royalty.”

I didn’t have time to debate my nonexistent knowledge of Fae politics. Something had to happen, right now.

So I moved as far to the end of the cell as I could without touching the cold iron, and started shouting.

“Hey! Guards! Whoever’s supposed to be in charge down here.” I could see a curved stone staircase beyond the bars, at the end of an open area with a lot of unpleasant-looking apparatus. “We need to talk to the King. Now!”

“Stop that,” Denei hissed. “You gon’ get us all killed.”

“And that’s not going to happen if we
don’t
get out of here?” I shot back, and then resumed yelling. “Guards! I demand an audience with the King!”

It wasn’t long before I heard faint footsteps, and someone came down the stairs. A dark-haired male, dressed in soft brown suede-like pants and a matching vest with no shirt beneath it. He strode across the open space and stopped around five feet from the bars, glaring at me with cold blue eyes.

Familiar
blue eyes.

I blinked until my own eyes watered, and finally blurted, “Cobalt?”

“Unseelie,” he snarled. “How do you know my brother?”

C
HAPTER 17

I
t took a minute to process that. I finally realized that he only looked a hell of a lot like Cobalt, without the piercings and throat tats. He did have tattoos, but they were raised and colored with blacks and browns. It looked like deliberate scarring.

“So…I guess you must be Braelan,” I said.

In the other cell, Reun gasped and struggled to his feet. He held a hand clamped to his chest, but blood still drizzled between his fingers from the gaping wound. Must’ve drained his spark during the fight, too. “Prince Braelan,” he said. “What—”

“It is King Braelan.” He spoke without looking away from me. “And you’ve not answered me, Unseelie. My brother. How do you know him?”

Damn. Well, that explained why Reun had been so convinced the King would give him a pass. He’d been counting on the wrong king. “Er. Cobalt did some tattoos for me,” I said. “A long time ago.”

Braelan sneered. “And you believe this distant acquaintance excuses your brutal attack on my Guard?”

“Whoa. First of all, we didn’t brutally attack anyone,” I said. “They came at us. And second, it might’ve been a distant acquaintance once, but Cobalt’s a friend now. And Uriskel saved my life not too long ago.”

“Uriskel…?” His eyes widened, and he took a step back. “You are Gideon Black. The DeathSpeaker.”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“My brothers have told me of you,” he said.

“Oh. Good.” Considering Uriskel had spent quite a bit of our little romp through Arcadia thinking I was an incompetent idiot, I wasn’t sure that would help our case. But I had to try anyway—without wasting a lot of time. So I got straight to the point. “How about letting us go?”

After a brief pause, Braelan laughed. “Ciaràn…Cobalt, as you know him, mentioned you were somewhat blunt. I must say, I do enjoy your directness.” His amusement faded fast as he added, “I am sorry, but I cannot release Lord Reun, or his followers. There are several charges he must answer for.”

“Followers?” Denei stood abruptly behind me. “Listen, you—”

I motioned hard at her. To my shock, she actually closed her mouth. “Look, I don’t know what Reun did before, but he’s not the same guy anymore,” I said to Braelan. “And I’d love to chat and explain everything, but we’re on a deadline. With an emphasis on dead, if we don’t get back to the human realm really fast.”

Braelan raised an eyebrow. “That does sound unfortunate,” he said slowly. “Still, I cannot allow him to leave the realm. And provoked or not, the rest of you have decimated my Guard.”

“Highness.” Reun staggered closer to the bars. “I am prepared to pay the price for anything I’ve done in the past,” he said. “Keep me here as long as you like. I’ll not protest my fate. But I beg you…please, release my friends. They’ve done nothing save defend themselves, and they face imminent death should they remain here.”

Denei cried out and threw herself at the cell door, trying to shove through the bars. “Reun, no!” she said. “You cain’t leave me. You
promised
…”

The desperate emphasis she put on that word made my throat clench. “Hold on. Exactly what level of promise are you talking about?” I said.

She didn’t answer, but the misery in her eyes told me anyway. “I told him not to,” she whispered. “But he wouldn’t listen. Said he wanted to prove he wouldn’t do nothin’ foolish like last time. Only he’s doin’ it
right now
.”