Sudden Backtrack: A Hollows Short

CONTENTS

SUDDEN BACKTRACK

“T
hat’s not Peth. That’s Kalla.” The hunter’s name slipped from Gally with an oily hatred, hot and simmering, just below the point of ignition. His hand clenched until the scars pulled, and Newt, standing beside him under the moonlit, fog-coated trees in the ever-after, turned with a smirk on her hunger-gaunt face.

“You didn’t really believe they’d give us the courtesy of a conversation, did you?”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

A flash of fond pity crossed her red, goat-slitted eyes. “They’ll never live up to your ideals, Gally. Their nobility is an ugly mask.”

Indignant, he stared at her. “I don’t call them noble. They’re animals. Only animals can do the things they do.” That’s why they’d tried to kill them in the first place—and failed, failed miserably because of an ill-placed trust in a dream called the Goddess. There was no Goddess. Nothing could be that cruel.”

“And yet you expect them to hold to their word. They still have a veil before your eyes, Gally. Break it. See them for what they are.”

He knew what they were, and rubbing the tip of his severed thumb, he turned away, sending a questing thought out to find the six, no seven, other souls circling them, readying a trap. That’s all Kalla was here for, really, a margin of profit and a measure of respect for having recaptured Newt for the auction block.

Well aware of it, Newt tugged the sleeves of her red robe down to hide the scar tissue around her thin wrists. It was Dali’s robe, and he was a great deal thinner and shorter than she, but Newt had been on the run the longest and her robe was threadbare, an embarrassment when trying to convince the “Goddess’s chosen” that the demons had a right to freedom.

Fair and slim, Kalla waited beside the small fire with the confidence born of unaltered success. He was the elves’ best slaver, and they’d all felt the pain of his magic snuffing theirs. It took but a word to sunder their hold on the lines and make them helpless, and it was hard for Gally to stand even this close. But talk was not what
they
were here for, either.

“How much longer will you make him wait?” he asked, and Newt’s smile became sly.

“His men are not yet in position. If they aren’t close enough, the curse will act on Kalla alone. The more who take it up, the faster it will spread. A moment more.”

Grimacing, Gally fidgeted. The scent of Kalla’s breakfast made his stomach scrape his backbone. Food and clean clothes waited if he’d walk forward with his head bowed and his hand extended for a slaver ring. The beating for having killed his master would be a momentary indignity, all too soon lost behind “Yes, Sa’han. Of course, Sa’han.” The pain of being sundered from the lines would grow until he’d relish the chance to do someone else’s bidding if only to ease the ache for a moment. The lines were power, but the demons would never travel them again. It had almost killed them, to an individual, the last time they’d tried.

But as Kalla tossed the scraps of his meal to his dogs, Gally recalled the feel of the elf’s foot on his neck and his utter disregard. They were circling even now to capture them, and it took all his fortitude to remain where he was. He’d not leave Newt to deliver their curse alone. He would witness her success or failure. Otherwise, for at least a hundred years they wouldn’t know if it worked.

“I told you I could do this alone,” she said as if reading his mind.

“With five of us—,” he began.

“There would be five of us dead,” she interrupted.

“But why you!” he protested, voice hushed but intent. “We all know the curse. We helped you spin it. It will kill you if you invoke it alone. At least let me help.”

Her narrow chin lifted, and her short red hair flared out like a mane. “No,” she said shortly. “If it’s fated to kill the one who spins it, then I’ll be the one to pay the cost. It’s my idea, and I can do more as a martyr anyway.” Her red eyes fell from his, failing to hide the sheen of fear. “It’s time. Tell Dali thank you for the robe. At least I will die well dressed.”

Well dressed. It was rags, and they both knew it. “Newt,” he said, drawing her to a stop before she could take a step. “We’re only five. Don’t make us four when we can form a collective to do it together and all survive.”

But she was resolute and pulled from his grip. “The Goddess demands payment,” she said, eyes flicking to the fire where Kalla had begun to pose impatiently. “I do this, or we live and die as playthings.”

Goddess. There was no Goddess; he clenched his hands until his nails left dents.

“Thank you for standing with me,” she whispered, her gentle fingers opening his fist and stretching his hand across hers. “They never would have agreed to this if you weren’t here to give sanction to a dialogue. But when I fall, run. You will need every second to slip Kalla’s snare. He’s very good at what he does.”

“Newt . . .”

“Promise me. Don’t let your pride make our number fall to three.”

Gally’s breath slipped from him in resignation, his grip on the ley lines tightening until the tips of his hair began to float. “I won’t leave you to him.”

But he started when she turned his hand over and rubbed the indentation where the slaver ring had been two years ago. It lingered still, the burn having scarred him forever. “They cursed our children from us, Gally. We are things to be bought and sold as if we have no soul. Beneath their noble airs and words is nothing but black, old blood, soured and rotting. This is a chance, your only chance, to get Celfnnah back. She suffers for you, believing you’ll find a way. She loves you, even now. Promise me you will run.”

He grimaced, feeling as if he’d been hit in the gut as he nodded. Satisfied, Newt arched her eyebrows and walked away. Upon reaching the edge of the firelight, she turned back and mouthed, “Run.”

Gally settled deeper under the trees, peering into the misty shadows to try to spot the circling elves. The curse was down to three words, but if Newt didn’t say them before Kalla sundered her connection to the line, he’d try himself, futile as it would be. The renewed ache for Celfnnah scoured through him, and he vowed to live to see the next sunrise if only to find out which of the elven bastards had her. He hadn’t seen her for two years. Two tormented years.

At the fire, Kalla graciously lowered himself to a cushion and invited Newt to sit. There was nowhere for her to go but the cold dirt, and Gally’s jaw tightened. Perhaps the separation had been a blessing. To have had a child warped by elven magic would have broken Celfnnah’s heart—as if taking them as infants and exchanging them for favors wasn’t enough. The elves didn’t even call them demons, they were so broken, giving them to their children to play with as if they were ponies to learn with before being given a stallion.

Pleasantries were being observed at the fire, but Gally was more concerned with the seven elves creeping forward, tightening their grip with slow, even paces. It was a delicate balance. Let them get too close, and Kalla would spring his net before Newt spun her curse. Too far, and only Kalla would carry the curse, slowing its spread through the elven society.

“There were supposed to be ten of you to hear our grievances. Where are the others?” Newt said, boldly going to Kalla’s horse and petting his soft nose because it would bother the man.

Sure enough, the elf stood, peeved she’d negated his insult of offering her a chair that didn’t exist. “Finding lost property is my job, not theirs. Don’t make me beat you, Newt. I get paid more if your owners can beat you themselves.”

There was a flicker of movement across the glen, and Gally strengthened his hold on the ley line. There’d never been a chance that they’d listen, yet Newt stood there, chin raised, her red hair that once earned her treats and special attention drifting as she pulled harder upon her own line.

“I gift you with a new job, Kalla,” she said, and the first of the hunters circling them eased out of the mist; the young-faced elf crouched at the base of a tree and sucked on a sweet leaf as he smirked at Gally. “And you’re going to do it without even knowing.”

“Do tell?” Kalla questioned, starting only slightly when Newt muttered a word to circle them and keep them apart from the encroaching seven. The smoke from the fire rose and curled against the top of the circle, the barest amount of heat escaping as if through a sieve.

The watching elf spat out his sweet leaf and stood, not upset but wary. Gally, too, readied himself, his pulse quickening as a flush rose to make Newt all the more beautiful. The circle would curtail her curse, but it would also slow down the approaching seven. It wasn’t lost, but it wasn’t going well, either.

“Slippery Newt, clever Newt,” Kalla said, wary now as he moved to put the fire between them. “My uncle named you. Did you know that? When you were a squalling brat taken from your mother, still bleeding from your birth. You were supposed to be mine. Until you killed him.”

“He shouldn’t have beaten me for his wife chipping his pipe,” Newt said.

Kalla hesitated, his eyes on her feet, bare and cold on the moss. “I have raspberries, Newt. Red as your hair. You remember raspberries, tart and bitter like love itself. I’ll make sure your new owner knows you fancy them and that he won’t beat you unless you deserve it. Come with me.”

He was holding out a slaver ring. Face red in embarrassment, Newt shifted to cover her dirty toes with Dali’s ragged robe. “Let my kin walk away from their chains. End it now, Kalla, or it begins again, and you and your children’s children will suffer until there is nothing left of you or your Goddess whore but a fairy tale to frighten demon children.”

A snarl twisted Kalla’s pale face. Gally jerked when the elf reached over the small fire and grabbed her wrist, threatening to drag her through the coals. Almost. She was almost ready, her glistening eyes fervent with hate. “You’ve never been anything but what you are now,” Kalla said, and she resisted, narrowly avoiding catching her robe on fire. “Demons exist to serve. Even the Goddess knows it. She betrayed you. How dare you fight the heavens.”

“She allowed us to trap you here,” she said, jerking away in Kalla’s instant of surprise. “But your words have truth. Demons are what we are. But we have never been, nor will ever be, yours. Last chance.”

Gally’s pulse quickened as Kalla became still, his eyes darting past the spilling gold of Newt’s aura marking the edge of her circle. “Clever, silly Newt,” he breathed, his gaze meeting those of his hunters. “What are you thinking?”

She smiled, leaning over the fire to whisper, “The Goddess speaks to us, too.”

Kalla jerked back. “Blasphemy!” he exclaimed, and Gally stepped into the light when the elf slapped her, sending her spinning to the ground. She hit the edge of her circle, and it fell. The fire
whooshed
up in the new oxygen, and Gally froze at the stretching sound of arrows being pulled. Power trickled through him as all hung in balance.

But Newt laughed, spilled across the ground as she wiped the blood from her lip. An eerie keening was rising, and Gally’s eyes widened as he realized it was the line, screaming into her. My God, she was almost glowing.

“Blasphemy,” she said as Kalla calmed his horse, shying at the vibration. “Yes, that’s what everyone says. Everyone but her. You, Kalla, most famed slaver, will be my messenger.”

“And
you
will not live to see another sunrise!” Kalla said as Newt rose.

“Yes, I know.” Eyes alight, she sprang at him. “
Honna, tara, surrundus!
”

They went down in a tangle, both of them enveloped in a glowing aura that flashed black. Gally leapt into the shadows, the thump of arrows burrowing into the earth almost unnoticed as elves dropped from the trees and the horse reared and bolted.

“
Finire!
” Kalla screamed, pain ripping his voice to a ribbon of sound, and a wall of force slammed into Gally, tumbling him and the hunters back into the woods.

“You little bitch!” Kalla shouted again, and Gally gasped, clenching into a tight ball when the strength of the line was ripped from him.

Eyes watering, he clutched at a rotting log. It was dark. The fire was out. Hands shaky for not having eaten in days, Gally pulled himself up. Kalla stood beside the shallow, black depression where the fire had been. Heartache closed over Gally as he saw Newt, crumpled and unresponsive. Her aura was gone. The curse had taken everything from her, even her life.

“You stupid, demon whore!” Kalla shouted again, and Gally drew back, his hatred filing to a sharp point as the elf kicked her hard enough to roll her over. It was done, and there were elves in the woods. Soon they would be hunting.

“Someone find my horse!” Kalla demanded. “That half-handed runt of hers is around here somewhere. Where the hell is my horse!”

Everything in him screamed to run forward, to wrap his work-hardened hands around that pale throat and squeeze the life from him. His cry of rage rose only to gurgle to a halt, never leaving him. Hate-filled eyes jerked to Newt as the force of Kalla’s pacing shifted her hand and it fell, her gold slaver ring, the one she kept as a reminder, rolling from her to fall upon the mossy earth.

“Where is
my horse
!”

With the grace of one born to the mist, Gally eased back into the depths of the fog-dripping wood, a new certainty pulling through him. He realized now that he’d
let
them take his Celfnnah. He’d whined, “Unfair! Unfair!” as he
let
them beat him, convinced by their words that they had the right. There was no Goddess, and nothing would save the elves. Not now. He wouldn’t stop until they were all broken and bleeding. Newt had stood and died alone. Never again would he
let
them do anything but die.

Turning, he began to run. The sound of a horn lifted through him, and he ran faster. But this time, he was running toward something, not away. It would take time to sunder the curse that cut him off from the lines. Dali knew the how of it, if he could get to him in time.

A thud of feet hitting the earth struck him like a slap, and he instinctively dropped. He had nothing but his fists and feet, and he promised he’d never be powerless again. The moonlight spotted his haggard robe, hiding him among the fronds and decaying leaves. He held his breath, eyes darting to the staggering shape grasping for balance against a pine tree only to fall amid the prickly branches. How had they found him so fast? Had there been a second ring of hunters?