Hand of the Hunter

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Foxes have ears.

Like many sayings, this one made its point by stating the obvious. An old saying in the Feywild, to understand it one needed to hear the whole thing: Bears have strength, wolves have the pack, and foxes have ears. The fox hunts by cunning, by studying its prey and using its surroundings.

One particular fox, the most cunning in this part of the Feywild, heard the words of the girl and the old goblin atop the tower. After listening, the hunter crept soundlessly away into the night-darkened woods. Before the girl and goblin had come down from their roost, the fox was already far away.

Well into the night, the fox came to the door between worlds and passed through, coming to a place of high, cold mountains. These lands had never been safe, but of late they had become particularly deadly as a new horror haunted them.

The fox could track this particular horror with senses that had long gone to sleep in the more "civilized" peoples of the world. The creature's very presence was an affront to this world, and it radiated a wrongness into the fabric of existence. It set a vibration through the hunter. First, no more than a mild irritation. An itch on the lower part of her brain. But as she drew closer to her prey the itch spread to a tingle, then a pulse that began in her head and shot through her whole body. By the time she reached her destination, she could almost feel her teeth rattling in her skull.

The fox found the pile of bones and gore. So fresh that it was still steaming in the cold, and the thicker pools of blood had not yet had time to freeze. The fox shook off its form, becoming the hunter on two legs.

"I felt you coming," said a voice from behind her.

The hunter turned. There in a well of darkness formed by a crack in the mountainside, she could just make out the dim, red glow of two eyes. The voice spoke in the ancient speech, but it sounded as if two voices were trying to speak through one mouth. The hunter could hear a great deal of ferocity in the more dominant tone, but it was weakening. The other sounded slightly off key, almost as if words themselves were not suited to a human tongue.

"The question," said the voice from the dark, "is why."

A shape emerged from the darkness and into the starlight. The hunter gasped.

The thing had probably been human once. The lean features and pale skin reminded her of the Frost Folk, who dwelled in the far northern regions of the world. She had hunted them before and knew their ways. But if that was indeed what the creature had once been, it had grown beyond that. The hunter knew that the true power was inside the creature, a being of insatiable hunger and fire, and that the body she saw was nothing more than a covering, like a gauntlet over a fist.

The monster had been hunting her own quarry for many, many days. She had taken to eating whatever she could kill in order to feed the thing inside her, and the body had begun to take on the traits of her food. Hair had become coarse and full, more like an animal's than a human's. Her hands ended in yellow claws. There were the beginnings of feathers sprouting along her limbs. Cracked and broken lips could no longer entirely cover the thick, pointed teeth filling her jaws.

"You are no match for me," said the creature, stepping forward. "Here, in this world, I am the wolf, and you are the little lamb. Were the moon full and your Master beside you… then you might stand a chance. But the moon is only a sliver, and not yet risen."

The hunter walked backward, matching the creature step for step. "Wolf that you are, you have not found the one lamb you seek. The one you need more than any other." She let the thing dwell on that a moment only, then said, "Have you?"

The thing snarled, and in it there was nothing of the woman it had once been. Only the hunger within.

"I know what you're looking for," said the hunter, and she even managed to put a little tremble in her voice. "I know who you're looking for."

"And…?"

"And I can bring her to you."

The creature stopped its advance. Its claws flexed, raking into the stone. "And what do you want in return?" it said.

Ashiin smiled. "I want you to kill her."