The Dark Glory War (8 page)

The sun hung straight overhead by the time I emerged from the tent. My new hunting leathers fit me better than Nay’s fit him. His were tight across the shoulders and through the arms, but he shrugged off the problem. We both grabbed a small loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, and an apple from the provisions table in the clearing, then joined the rest of the hunters. We all seated ourselves in a semicircle facing Lord Norrington and a wizened, stoop-shouldered old man with long white hair and enough knotted mage-braid hanging from his mask to let us know he was a magicker of considerable power.

Lord Norrington waited until a few stragglers sat down, then addressed us. “We are here to hunt for frostclaws. We want to find them this afternoon, because while the sun is up we will have an advantage. In their native northern range, during the winter, there is very little sunlight available, so they have big eyes to gather in the light. Here and now the sunlight will be a bit more than they can bear, so we will be hunting for their lairs.”

He reached down and lifted the skin from the temeryx we’d killed. “Frostclaws hunt in a pack, and packs are believed to be formed from a single clutch. All the frostclaws in a pack will be related to each other, and this will make finding them easier. Archmage Heslin will explain.”

The old man shuffled forward and plucked a feather from the skin. “Blood knows blood. If you can see in the aether-realm, you can see the way the lines are mixed.” He squinted at us, enlarging one brown eye as he closed the other. “You and you, you’re cousins, and you and you are brothers, eh?”

The huntsmen he pointed to with a crooked finger gasped in astonishment.

The old man cackled gleefully. “The temeryx feather here is linked to those of its bloodkin, and I will be fixing feathers to show you the way to go after them.”

One huntsman raised his hand. “Will you be enchanting our weapons to kill them?”

“If such a spell existed, why would I need any of you here?” His riposte brought a ripple of laughter. Heslin waited for it to subside before he continued. “They won’t be easy to kill, but not hard for you, either. Finding them will be difficult, but I’ll see to that. Get yourselves fed and outfitted, then you’ll have your feather and go.”

Norrington held a hand up and circled it. “Break into your groups, get yourselves armed, and then we move out. You have a quarter hour.”

Two lesser mages joined Heslin and started to pluck feathers from the edges of the skin we’d harvested. Sandes walked over to the trio of us and pointed toward the largest of the wagons on the road. “You three will be with my group. Let’s get you armed.”

The large wagon proved to be a wheeled armory with multiple racks of weapons and tack. Bearing in mind the conversation Nay and I had had concerning how to fight frostclaws, I asked for a long dagger, which I sheathed at the small of my back. On my right hip I put a quiver of thirty arrows, each one featuring a razor-edge broadhead, black shaft, and red feathers. To shoot the arrows I took a horsebow. The compact recurve weapon had a short but stiff draw that would put an arrow through a man armored in mail at a hundred yards or so.

Sandes looked at me curiously. “No sword?”

I shook my head. “If I have to run, I don’t want it tripping me up. Besides, Nay pointed out that a sword against one of those things would be suicidal, so I’ll do without.”

Leigh laughed at my comments, but did shift his sword belt up so it looped over a shoulder and across his chest. He fixed the scabbard to it so the blade’s hilt projected above his right shoulder. He drew the double-edged broadsword without trouble. To the sword he added a light crossbow that had a goat’s-paw—a levering device that would let him cock it quickly. A quiver of bolts went on his right hip and a dagger was sheathed on his left.

Nay stayed away from bows and instead drew a boar spear from the stock of weapons. Eight feet long from butt to tip, the weapon featured a broad, dagger-bladed head and a wide crossguard that would prevent a creature from sliding down the spear to get at the man carrying it. The stout oak shaft promised the weapon wouldn’t break beneath the weight of a charge. And the point on the butt-cap would let Nay plant the weapon in the ground as he crouched to take a charge, letting the earth accept the brunt of the force. He augmented the spear with a hatchet and a dagger.

Once armed, we moved to where Heslin and his associates worked. I wondered exactly what they were going to be able to do for us, since we all knew that human magickers rarely lived long enough to master spells that could directly affect living creatures. While stories of mages casting spells that exploded fireballs to kill various brigands or Aurolani creatures did abound, combat spells appeared to be an exception to this general rule. More complex and delicate magicks, such as those that could heal disease or cure a wound, required control that most humans never attained.

But, as we discovered, the spells that would help us did not so much affect the temeryces as much as were affected by them.

At the mage’s direction, Nay presented his spear first. An apprentice used flax thread to dangle one of the temeryx feathers from the crossguard. Heslin then raised his left hand and circled his thumb and forefinger around the feather. He began mumbling under his breath and slowly swept his hand down over the feather.

A light golden glow seemed to spread from his palm and infuse the midnight feather with golden highlights. As his hand came past the end of the feather, the golden glow faded and the highlights sank into the feather as water sinks into sand. Then, all of a sudden, the feather twisted and bounced as if being buffeted by a light breeze, even though the air remained completely still.

Heslin nodded, then pointed in the direction the feather wanted to drift. “The frostclaws will be off that way. Follow the feather. As you get closer, it will get more active. When it palsy-twitches, set yourselves.”

He enchanted feathers for the rest of us as well, repeating his instructions. He fastened mine to the upper end of my bow and Leigh’s to the hilt of his sword. Sandes and two other of the half-dozen hunters accompanying us carried spears like Nay; the rest had bows like mine.

The whole company had broken down into three groups. Two of them—one led by Norrington, the other led by one of his deputies—mounted up on horses and headed out in both directions on the logging road. As per the plan, they would vector in on the temeryx lair, coming at it from two sides. The third group—nine of us on foot—was to head straight at it from the camp, ostensibly to catch any creatures that broke for freedom in our direction.

As he set off, I looked at Sandes. “You don’t mind that you are nurse-maiding us and won’t get a chance at a frostclaw kill?”

The round-faced man smiled. “Lord Norrington honors me by entrusting you to my care.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

Leigh slapped Sandes on the right shoulder. “Leave him be, Hawkins. The man has been my father’s chief hunter for two years now, and he will marry a month from now, won’t you, Sandes?”

“I will, my lord.”

“So, being allowed to herd us youngsters and keep us out of trouble is practice for the coming years. Besides, if we see no frostclaws, I’m certain Sandes can find us something else to hunt. We’ll bring back a buck or two for the victory celebration.”

I frowned. “How will we know when the hunt is over?”

Leigh pointed at the feather on my bow. “When the temeryces are dead, the feathers will stop moving.”

“Won’t be soon enough.” Nay pointed his spear along the feather-path. “Goodman Sandes, might be safer if we keep to the nursery groves. Cuts down their turning.”

Sandes nodded in agreement, so we shifted our course to move from protective stands of trees to other positions that were defensible. This slowed our progress, but I didn’t mind. I moved ahead with Sandes, watching as he picked out our course. He kept our exposure to attack minimal, and as a tactical exercise, I learned a lot from him.

It was an exercise that saved our lives.

For reasons we had no way to anticipate, the temeryces did not stay laired through the afternoon. We received the first inkling of this when our gently drifting feathers began to dance a bit more heartily. Sandes called an immediate halt, with him and me on the top of one hillock, the other five huntsmen in a grove on another, and Nay and Leigh caught fording a small stream that split one hillock from another.

Even though our forward progress had stopped, the feathers’ jerking increased.

“They’re coming at us!” Sandes waved to Leigh and Nay. “Move it, get up here.”

I stepped up to the fallen log that lay across the northwestern edge of our hilltop. In the distance I caught little flashes of movement, and I knew it was more than the feather tugging at my bow. “I see something coming in. Fast.” I fitted an arrow to my bow and drew it back.

The first temeryx came into view as it splashed across the stream about twenty-five yards down from Nay. I let fly and missed its breast, but did stick it in the left thigh. The creature shrieked and slipped off a rock, to splash down in the water. It scrambled to its feet again, leaping up and away as Leigh’s quarrel struck sparks from a rock in front of it.

Two more temeryces burst into the open as the first started charging up the streambed. The huntsmen on the other hill shot at them, with a trio of arrows catching one frostclaw in the right flank. It flopped down and thrashed, its feet clawing mud and stone from the bank. The third temeryx leaped over its dying companion and sped forward.

I drew another arrow back and tried to track the running frostclaws, but trees gave me only fleeting glimpses of them. I glanced back at the clearing where I’d gotten my first shot to see if there were more, but I saw no others. Another targetdid present itself, and I let fly with only a second’s hesitation, even though I could not identify the creature at which I shot. I just figured that anything runningwith the frostclaws instead offrom them had to be bad.

My arrow took the child-sized creature high in the chest, lancing down from right shoulder toward its left hip. The broadhead pierced its brown, downy pelt. The creature opened its mouth in a scream, spraying out blood where there should have been sound. It spun around, then crashed down between two rocks.

Shrieking furiously, the first frostclaw leaped at Nay. The scream was enough to curdle my blood, but Nay calmly dropped to one knee and set the butt of his spear in the streambed. He hauled back, directing the spear-point into the frostclaw’s narrow belly. The beast slammed down on the crossguard and the butt slipped. Rear talons clawed forward, barely missing Nay’s shoulders and head. Wrenching the spear hard to the left, Nay smashed the temeryx into large rocks at the stream’s edge and ended up sprawled facedown in the stream for his effort.

The other frostclaw came on hard. One of the huntsmen put an arrow into its tail. Leigh hit it with a quarrel in the left shoulder, ruining that foreclaw and knocking the beast against the stream’s far shore. Two more arrows whistled past it, but the creature’s crouch kept it too low for the archers to hit. The frostclaw hissed horribly, opening its mouth to display its fearsome teeth.

Then it gathered itself and sprinted at Nay.

Nay rolled onto his back, reaching for his hatchet, and yelped in horror at the monster streaking at him. I had no shot— neither did the archers on the other side—and Sandes, though sprinting down the hill toward the stream, would never get there in time to save him.

His sword flashing silver and gold in the dappled sunlight, Leigh leaped over Nay’s form and splashed down in the stream between him and the temeryx. Leigh bellowed loudly at the frostclaw and waved his sword back and forth. Hunched forward, he darted at the beast, extending his sword forward, set to impale it.

The frostclaw drew up short, rearing back and thumping its tail into the ground. Leigh skidded to a halt in the streambed, dropping to his left knee and hand while still keeping his sword extended in his right. The temeryx dipped its head forward and snapped at the blade. Leigh slashed once quickly at it, but missed the throat as the creature pulled back. The temeryx snapped at him again. Leigh cracked it across the snout with flat of the blade, then stood and slowly started to retreat.

Blinking its large amber eyes, the temeryx watched him go.

Nostrils flared as it drank in his scent, and it took a tentative step in his direction, then another. Leigh quickened the pace of his retreat. The temeryx started to trot toward him.

Leigh caught his heel on a stone and toppled backward. He never lost his grip on the sword, but his attempt to regain his balance left him flailing his arms. He landed flat on his back, his arms and legs spread, his belly open and unprotected. The temeryx saw this, shrieked, and leaped for him.

The huntsmen on the far side of the creek crossed three arrows through the beast’s chest, but its legs still arched toward Leigh. The big sickle-shaped claws on the interior toes remained cocked. As it descended, dying though it may have been, the temeryx reached a foot toward Leigh. When it touched him, it would rake through clothes and flesh and muscle, opening his viscera to the air.

But the temeryx never hit Leigh.

Sandes, sprinting full out, dove forward and drove his spear into the frostclaw’s belly. With all of his weight behind the lunge, Sandes deflected the temeryx, boosting it a bit higher and then dropping it on the far bank of the stream. Sandes released the spear, letting the shaft whip water into a froth with the creature’s death throes, and turned immediately to haul Leigh away and to safety.

I scanned the forest for more movement, but saw nothing. More importantly, the temeryx feather tied to my bow had stopped moving. Keeping an arrow nocked in the bow just in case, I retraced my footsteps to the streambed, half-sliding down the hill in my haste. Leigh pulled himself up onto a rock and let water drip off him, then shook his head and sprayed me and Nay with water from his hair.

I arched an eyebrow at him. “That was the most brave or most stupid thing I have ever seen.”