The Sacred Hunt Duology (52 page)

“Scarran,”
he said.

“Yes.”

“What in the hells is
Scarran
?” Gilliam broke in.

But Stephen of Elseth was already throwing together the odds and ends that were absolutely essential to their survival: money, furs, the letters that Lady Elseth had written. All else was trivial.
Don't argue with her, Gil
, he thought, and the urgency behind his fear hit his Hunter hard.
We've got to run.

Espere began to dance from foot to foot, her eyes darting from Evayne to Gilliam to the door as if they formed the points of a mysterious triangle that she was compelled to trace over and over again.

“Scarran?”
Evayne said softly to Gilliam. “Do you know what
Lattan
is?”

“
No
.”

“
Lattan
is High Summer. The bright conjunction.” She walked to the door, motioned Zareth Kahn to one side, and opened it. “
Scarran
is High Winter. The dark conjunction. The old power and the old roads are open this eve, and they will be used against us.”

Zareth Kahn raised a dark brow. “The Summer and Winter rites? Not even the most diligent of pre-Weston scholars do more than a cursory study of their significance. There are certainly no mages who—” Then he stopped. “Ah. The kin.”

“Indeed. No, don't use your magery here. I have studied the ways of hiding, and I've done what it is possible to do.”

Zareth Kahn glanced at Gilliam and Stephen, then nodded. “It appears that we are all set to follow where you lead. Lead us to safety.”

Evayne smiled grimly. “I can only lead you,” she replied, “into the darkest night.”

• • •

Night made of the world a quiet, sleepy place, a near-hidden landscape in which dream—or nightmare—unfurled. The air was crisp and chilly when inhaled, but there was no breeze. The moon was under a veil of darkness; to Stephen's eyes, it seemed that it had somehow shattered, and the shards, hard and cold, were scattered across the sky like a brilliant spill.

The shivery feeling at the base of Stephen's spine had little to do with the cold; Gilliam, Hunter Lord of Elseth, was calling the Hunter's trance.

Evayne said nothing, although Stephen was certain she noticed the momentary slowing of their pace, the stiffening of Gilliam's body, as he readied himself. She did not demur. Stephen unsheathed his sword, careful to make little noise. The stillness of the air, the silence on the snow- and ice-covered path, were eerie enough that he didn't wish to disturb them.

Evayne's hands moved briefly; she whispered a word that sounded vaguely familiar to Stephen, although it was in a tongue with which he was unfamiliar. He listened, trying to place the word, before he realized that he would listen long indeed, and with little result.

Magery.

Beneath his feet, the land changed. Where there had been a flat surface of ice and snow, a path appeared, limned with an eerie, pale light that wound its way into the heart of the darkness. She did not tell them to follow it; she didn't need to. They walked, two abreast, Espere bringing up the rear, the silence bearing down upon them more heavily with each passing moment.

Something's going to happen
, Stephen thought, forcing himself to exhale as he strode across the night landscape. Although the night was clear, storm was brewing; the air was thick and heavy with it. He cast a surreptitious glance over his shoulder and met the gaze of Zareth Kahn. A flicker of blue light adorned the mage's eyes; they looked inhuman and unnatural. Stephen stumbled, and seeing this, his companion narrowed his eyes.

“What is it?” Gilliam said, instantly aware of his brother's unease.

Stephen swallowed. “Magic.” Then, quickly, “Ours.”

“No,” Zareth Kahn replied, gazing at the woods they were approaching. “Not ours alone. Evayne—there. Directly north. Do you see it?”

The blue-robed seer raised a dark brow and then gestured; light flickered over her face like a mask before sinking into her eyes to lurk there like hidden fire. “
Kalliaris'
frown.” The goddess of luck was, like the night, of dark aspect. Evayne raised her arms to either side; the command to stop was implicit in the gesture. “You're of reasonable power, Master Kahn.”

“And you,” he replied softly.

“The rest of us don't have mage-sight,” Gilliam said tersely as he squinted into a row of trees that looked almost the same as any other row of trees did in the distance with night and winter to obscure it. “What do you see?”

“Spell,” Zareth Kahn replied, his brow furrowed. “I don't recognize it. But it is either a very powerful Shadow magic or a very powerful
Scarran
rite. I don't know enough about either of those schools of study to say which it is with certainty.” His tone implied that neither school was a magic that was friendly.

Evayne took a deep and weary breath. “This is ill news,” she said at last. “I've
done what I can to shield us from the sight of our enemies, but we can't continue to hide forever; it's a costly spell to maintain. I'd hoped that beyond the forest there would be some respite.” She turned and began to retrace her path. “We cannot cross to the east; not tonight.” They did not question her, but instead, followed as she led them west.

And in the darkness of the western woods, the same cold magic deepened and broadened the shadows of the night. Like a liquid, it pooled near the roots of the trees, waiting. Evayne would not tell them the spell's purpose, although it was clear that she knew it.

They walked to the north, and then to the south; in every direction, the danger was identical.

Evayne cursed, and then cursed again, more loudly, for good measure. “I am a fool,” she said at last. “They never meant to wait for you to take the bridge; they only meant to prevent your flight should you make it that far.” She lifted a hand to her lips, and stood, gazing out at the Northern woods. “Zareth Kahn,” she said, after five minutes had passed, “give me some hope. Tell me that the shadows are not moving toward us.”

“I never lie to a lady,” the mage replied gravely. “But I had hoped that it was my imagination.”

“What's wrong? What is it?” Gilliam reached out and touched the seer's draping sleeve. It pulled away from his hand, but in the darkness he could pretend it was the woman who had moved.

“Do you remember the demon-kin that you faced m the King's City?” Evayne asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“Expect far worse.”

Stephen's grip on leather and steel tightened out of habit; he no longer expected to be able to wield the sword to any advantage. He remembered the fight in the King's City quite well. He felt, rather than saw, Gilliam's painful wince; the Hunter Lord still bore the scars of that evening's work, and would while he lived.

Which might
, Stephen thought, as the night began to deepen,
not be that much longer.

Evayne cursed again. Stephen had only seen her thrice at this age, and on none of those occasions had he seen the weight of fear bear so heavily down upon her. She closed her eyes, and her brow furrowed as if she were already upon the field. Then she turned to the wild girl. “Espere,” she said tersely. “Come.”

Gilliam bridled, but the wild girl tossed her tangled hair and obeyed the seeress' command. She stopped mere inches away from Evayne's shaking, outstretched palm.

“Take it.” A deep golden light suffused her hand, cocooning palm and fingers beneath the warmth of its glow.

Espere reached out and almost gently gripped the light. It surrounded them both, running from finger to finger, from hand to hand, until it was hard to see who it had originated from.

“Enough.” Evayne lifted her head, and even in the darkness, Stephen thought her haggard.

“Evayne?”

But she waved him off. “Espere.”

The girl blinked, and then, slowly, raised hands to eyes. Stephen thought the motion very odd, but not as strange as what she did next: she spoke. “Y-yes. I am—I am back.”

“You won't be for much longer. I need your eyes. I need your father's ability. Test the wind, little one. Guard my back.”

Espere nodded gravely, pushing a tangled curl away from eyes that were no longer black. Stephen's breath caught in his throat as he saw the change; she was golden-irised now, and her eyes had the peculiar brilliance of the god-born at work. Where had the wild girl gone?

Evayne reached into her robes and brought forth the crystal sphere that she had called the seer's ball. She cupped it carefully in her hands and bent over it; her dark hood fell forward, obscuring her face but not the ball itself.

Mists curled there, trapped beneath a glassy layer. Light sparked; shadows fled. Stephen took a step forward, as if drawn by the visions the ball promised.

And the wild girl stepped blithely between the future and the present, blocking Stephen's vision. She was not so wild now, and not so much the girl. There was a lift to her jaw, a strength to her features, that he had never seen there. He started to speak, but she shook her head.

“But—”

“No. If we talk, we may well pay with our lives for the discussion.”

Wide-mouthed, he watched her as she left him, tracing some invisible circle around the seeress who gazed, transfixed, into the pulsing ball. He felt shock, surprise, even a little pain and bewilderment; emotions so strong, that it took him a minute to realize that they did not originate with him.

Gilliam.
He spun lightly to see his Hunter Lord staring, almost glassy eyed, at the wild girl—at Espere.

“What's wrong?”

Gilliam shook his head. He was mute under the weight of what he felt; he had no words to describe it, or perhaps, no desire to bind the emotion with words. Stephen could feel some of it, but he could not understand it. What passed between Gilliam and his pack—be they the finest of the hounds, or a mysterious half-wit, half-god—was so private a communion that not even a huntbrother could comprehend all of it.

And what did it mean, to be bound in that way to a woman—to a whole, sane,
rational being; to an equal? What did it mean, when the bond changed suddenly, shifting in place as if it had never truly been anything but illusory?

As if the question were one that he had spoken aloud, the wild girl turned and gazed at him, her eyes luminous in the darkness. He took an involuntary step back at what he saw there: grieving. Stephen of Elseth was a huntbrother, and therefore no stranger to grief. Although she met his gaze for only a second, he recognized it at once.

And then she lifted her head, testing the wind as if she were a scent-hound. It was almost a comfort to see the motion, because it was the only thing that she had done that seemed remotely familiar.

The comfort was a cold one, and the moment Espere spoke, it turned to ice. “They're coming.”

“I . . . see them,” Evayne replied. The light from the crystal shadowed the lines of her face, deepening them. “Oh, holy triumvirate, aid us. Goddess, smile. Smile, please.” She bit her lip; her hands shook. Then she closed her eyes, and her face aged years. Slowly, carefully, she set the ball aside.

“Evayne?”

“Lady?”

“The tower was a game,” was her pale reply. “They come in earnest. Look.” And she cast her arm in a circle, scattering a spray of orange light across the snow and shadows. It melted the darkness, contorted it, gave it many forms. Each of those forms was moving toward them, linked in a series of concentric circles. Evayne stood at its heart, the center of a vast target.

“Well met,” came a soft voice.

Zareth Kahn started slightly and then raised his own arms in a shield of coruscating light. It, too, was orange.

The demons—for there could no longer be any doubt as to what they were—slowed their stride. Twice, Stephen tried to count them and failed. He made no third attempt. He swung his sword round and held it level, glancing from side to side.
How?
he thought, as Gilliam became a wall at his back.
How did they get here?

“Well met,” Sor na Shannen said again, as she stepped from the darkness to the darkness, gleaming like polished obsidian. “We have unfinished business with all of you.” She raised her arms and spoke three harsh words; the darkness fell from her shoulders like a cast-off cloak. Beneath it, her raiment was fire.

“High Winter makes you bold,” Evayne said, her expression unreadable.

“No, seeress,” Sor na Shannen replied. “It makes me
powerful
.” Like a whip, fire leaped from her hands. The snow and the ice that she stood on were gone in an instant, as was the slumbering grass beneath them; the fire left red and white rock sizzling in its wake.

“Wild Fire,” Evayne's whisper was a weary one.

“Oh, yes,” the demon replied. “And now, before Winter passes, let us see an end to this.”

The seeress nodded quietly. “Before Winter ends.” And she, too, lifted her hands. In comparison, they seemed thin and frail, bereft of power or magic. She carried only a dagger, and it was a meager and pathetic weapon. A flash of purple in the handle caught the orange light and glinted softly above her head as she gazed into the moonless night.

The laughter of the demoness carried across the silent, winter landscape. “Did you truly think to stop us?”

Evayne tightened her grip on the handle of the dagger before driving it into the flesh of her right palm. Blood trickled from the wound onto her upturned face. Her voice was trembling, her complexion gray, as she began to speak quickly.

“We break the Spring circle. We deny the birthing.” She shook her right hand; blood spattered on the ground and hissed there, as if alive and in pain. The ice beneath her feet gave way to a slick, sudden blackness.

Flame lapped at the perimeter of the first circle as Sor na Shannen gestured lazily.