Hand of the Hunter

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

You were chosen. By Nendawen himself. But you, dear girl… there's something about you that even the Master had not planned on.

Hweilan rolled Gleed's words over in her mind, again and again. She had come to the High Place where the old goblin had taught her to remove Jagun Ghen's demons from a blessed weapon. Yesterday, when she had so needed to see distance, she'd thought Gleed's tower was the best she could do. But she'd been too caught up in her own welling emotions to think clearly. There was a better place. This place.

The wind in her hair felt good. Soothing. Of all the places she'd been in the Feywild, this was the one place that most reminded her of home. A completely treeless height, covered in grass and lichen-encrusted rock. She could see sky all around. The seemingly impenetrable forest lay beneath her, and even Gleed's lake was no more than a blue shard occasionally sparkling under the sun.

She had woken long before dawn, Gleed still snoring in his nest of blankets beside the hearth. Hweilan had no idea what lessons he had planned for her that day. But after what he'd told her, she didn't much care. She'd dressed quietly and fled to this place. The ring where Gleed had sent Jagun Ghen's minion back to… wherever, was no more than a windswept bit of ground. She sat on the edge of the height, looking down on the miles on miles of forest, though her eyes didn't really see them.

In her blood… something other.

This voice came to her with such strength that she flinched. Not Gleed's words. Spoken with a laugh. By Menduarthis.

How long had it been since she thought of him? Yet he'd risked his own life to save hers. Was he even still alive? The last time she'd seen him, he'd been unconscious on the ground, blood gushing from his scalp. But he had been the first to tell herSomething other. What…?

… you're one of us. Menduarthis's voice again. A mortal nature? Yes. But also… something else. Something magical. The blood runs thin in you, perhaps, but it runs true. Someone from… well, somewhere else planted a seed in your family garden. You're something else too. Something… more.

At first, she'd thought he simply meant her Vil Adanrath heritage. That was her connection to Nendawen, after all. But no. She'd been a fool, and she should have known all along he meant something else, something more, if she'd only taken the time to think.

That night, when she'd very first seen the Master, when Nendawen had saved her from Jagun Ghen's minion, he had invaded her mind.

Hweilan chuckled at that, but there was no humor in it. Only bitterness.

Scith had once told Hweilan that if wolfpacks became too bold and dangerous in an area, some Nar tribes would leave a swifstag corpse out for them to find. Only they would imbed razor-sharp steel in the corpse. A hungry pack who found the frozen carcass would lick at the frozen flesh, the heat from their own body thawing it, but at the same time making their tongues numb. So numb that they didn't feel the sharp steel slicing into them until it was too late.

But what Nendawen had found… it had been far worse than biting down full force upon sharp steel. How he had…

Howled did not describe it. No word she knew described it. His pain had shattered their connection.

What had Nendawen found? Found inside her?

… there's something about you that even the Master had not planned on.

What?

Did it matter? Did it really? What it all came down to wasI can help you get away.

"Get away," she said the words aloud, only half-aware she did so. To where?

Her family was dead. Her friends. Everyone she had ever loved. And the one responsible was sitting in her home.

And that, more than anything, made all her confusion, all her questions, burn away. Wealth, power, prestige, honor… none of it meant anything without family. And Jagun Ghen had taken hers away. Had taken away everything from her. That left her with only one thingVengeance. Cloak it in "justice" if you like. Paint it with concepts like honor or even saving the world. True or not-didn't matter. It all came down to one bare, burning truth: That thing had killed her family. She was going to kill him or die trying.

And then what, girl? Gleed had said. When Jagun Ghen is beaten and his sickness purged from the world… what then? You think the Master will free you? Nendawen is the Hunter. He has always been the Hunter. He will always be the Hunter. It is his nature. His only… beingness. The Hunter does not free his prey. I should know.

And then what…?

And then what…?

"Doesn't matter," said Hweilan. It didn't. After that… she didn't much care. Nendawen could finish the job and swallow her whole. Hweilan no longer cared. If he demanded years of service from her, if she was doomed to train other servants for eternity… well, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

Until then, only one thing mattered: killing Jagun Ghen.

Hweilan stood. She wasn't yet ready to return to Gleed and listen to him prattle, but she was done moping. She turned her back on Gleed's lakeAnd there, no more than five paces away, stood Ashiin, leaning upon her staff.

"Going somewhere?" said Ashiin.

Hweilan opened her mouth to say, I was going that way, but thought better of it, and instead asked, "What do you want?"

Ashiin blinked. Had Hweilan ever spoken to Scith with such an insolent tone, he would have told her he had no time for ungrateful little girls and left her to spend the day on her own. Her mother would have given her a tongue-lashing to make her ears bleed.

"Defiance," said Ashiin. "It can be a good thing. When you are in the right and your opponent in the wrong. When death is preferable to your opponent letting you live. Which are you now, girl?"

"You won't kill me," said Hweilan. "I am the Hand of the Hunter. Chosen of Nendawen. He needs me."

"If I can kill you, then you are not the Hand he needs."

"The day is not over," said Hweilan. It was one of Ashiin's favorite sayings. It meant that just because you couldn't do something, it didn't mean that you couldn't learn how to do it.

Ashiin stood there a moment, impassive. Then a grin broke her face. And finally she threw back her head and laughed.

"Defiance can also be a bad thing," she said, "because little girls use it simply for spite, to no good reason. That is you, O Hand of the Hunter." A hardness, ever so slight, entered her eyes, though the smile stayed on her lips. "There is still much of that in you: the little girl who wants her own way and damn the consequences."

Hweilan scowled. "Is that why you came to find me? To lecture?"

"You want a lecture, go back to the old goblin."

"Then why-?"

"Your father's bow."

For a moment, the world spun around Hweilan. Even though she could not string the bow-could barely even bend it-she had carried it with her out of Highwatch and through the days of horror that followed. She had risked her life to retrieve it and convinced Menduarthis to risk his. It was the last thing she had of her father.

And she had not seen it since coming here.

"What about my father's bow?" said Hweilan, and all the defiance and then some was back in her voice.

"You want it back."

It was not a question, but still Hweilan said, "Yes."

"Such a fine weapon-a master's work for a master's hand-is not a relic. It is a weapon, meant to be used."

Hweilan took in a breath to speak, but Ashiin cut her off.

"Time you learned to use it."

Hweilan's jaw snapped shut, and for a moment she couldn't breathe. "Wh-what?"

The smile melted from Ashiin's face, but the hardness stayed in her eyes. Hardened even further. She turned, stepped away a few paces, then turned to face Hweilan again. She sat crosslegged, almost on the very spot where Nendawen's spear had once rested, her staff across her lap.

"Sit," said Ashiin.

Hweilan's feet were moving before she knew it. She sat across from Ashiin.

"The old goblin has taught you the uwethla," said Ashiin. "Has taught you how to craft them into your weapons to capture the demons of Jagun Ghen."

"He has."

"The uwethla the old goblin has taught you are of two kinds." Ashiin reached across the distance between them and traced Hweilan's uwethla that began with the spider just over her left breast, then continued with the webbing and sacred words over her shoulder and onto a portion of her neck until it ended just below her jaw. "Tunaheth, the uwethla that sleeps, like memory, waiting to be woken. And there are hrayeh, the uwethla that bind, that capture, like those etched into your arrows. But there is the third kind, rarest and most powerful of all. The shesteh."

Hweilan knew the word. "Home," she said.

"Yes. Like the hrayeh, they contain a spirit, but where the hrayeh contain a spirit against its will, the shesteh invites a willing servant, an ally. And your father's people, Hweilan, these knights on their flying beasts, even they knew of this, though they had their own words and rituals for them. Those symbols etched into your father's bow?"

"Shesteh," said Hweilan. She had always wondered at them. They so resembled the runes on the robes of the priests of Torm and on the knights' armor that she had always assumed they were merely part of the faith. And no knight would ever speak of them, not even Ardan to his daughter.

"Yes," said Ashiin. "You think your grandfather's knights could plant an arrow in an enemy's eye from three hundred feet away simply because their weapons were well made? No. They had help."

"But… but the Knights of Ondrahar knew nothing of Nendawen, of uwethla, of-"

"Truth is truth, girl. What the servants of Nendawen can know and use, so can the servants of Torm. Words may change, but Truth is immutable."

"You mean my father's bow is-"

"No," said Ashiin. "No longer. Remember: I said that the spirit the shesteh contains is an ally. I'll go further: It is a friend. A sister. I do not know the sacred rites of your father's people, but I do know that somehow their bows contained a sacred spirit. Some lesser spirit servant of their Torm?" Ashiin shrugged. "Perhaps. But I do know that its connection to the wielder was… intimate. When your father died, the spirit in his bow joined him with his god. The bow is now an empty vessel. But an empty vessel can be filled again."

Hweilan looked down, and her gaze turned inward. "But…"

She could not find the words. If the runes were sacred to Torm… well, she had been raised in her father's faith. She had never been what even the most magnanimous would call devout, but she had honored the faith. But with her oaths and service to Nendawen… where did that leave her? She had not consciously forsaken Torm. Had he forsaken her?

"You will craft new uwethla into the bow," said Ashiin, as if reading her thoughts. "Shesteh into which Nendawen will send one of his own spirits."

Hweilan did not understand. But again words came to her out of the past, words spoken to her in a dreamYou do not need understanding. You need to choose. Understanding will come later… if you survive.

"What must I do?" she said.

Ashiin smiled. Not one of good humor or kindness. This one showed every pointed tooth in her jaw.

"So glad you asked," she said. She reached behind her back and produced a stake-a shaft of white wood no more than a foot long, sharpened to a lethal point on one end. "Into this you will craft hrayeh. To call forth your ally, to waken the bow, Nendawen requires sacrifice."

"Sacrifice?"

"We're going hunting."