Hand of the Hunter

PART TWO
THE FEYWILD
CHAPTER TWO

"Oh, no."

The small figure scrambled and slid down the slope. The dark did not bother him, and the thick canopy of the forest held back the worst of the rain. But the runoff flowing down the hill made footing treacherous and swelled the already swift valley stream well past its banks.

The body lay half in the stream-her legs on the bank, her hips and everything above them all the way in the water. The current undulated her hair, and her left hand bobbed and waved in the current. At least she was on her back, her face just out of the water. That was some small mercy. But her eyes…

Her eyes were open to the storm. Sightless. Water dripping off the branches rained down on her, some of it right into her empty gaze, and she didn't blink. Didn't even flinch.

"Dead," he said as he dropped his staff in the mud and jumped into the water. "Still the bells and sod the Hells. Oh, gods she's dead and he'll kill-me-kill-me-kill-me."

He dropped to his knees, lifted her head out of the water, and cradled it in his lap. She was shivering.

All breath left him in one long hiss. Alive! She was alive!

He patted her cheek, softly at first, then once with a hard smack. Nothing. He shook her. "Hey! Hey, girl!"

Lightning flickered overhead, but only nail-thin shafts of light made it through the thick canopy of trees. Thunder washed over the valley, shaking the stones in the river. The rain, an endless rattle on the leaves, became a torrent, a roar. The swell of the river quickened. She'd be underwater soon.

He scrambled out of the stream. The girl was wearing fur-lined boots, suitable for a much colder place than this. Braided leather laces bound them up to her knees. He worked his fingers under the laces, planted both feet in the ground, and pulled. She moved, perhaps an inch. Then two more. A relieved smile creased his face.

Then both his feet skidded out from under him and he went down, mud and water slipping into his clothes.

He sat up, spat water and grit, and let loose with a long litany of curses.

Water was coming right off the hillside into the stream, and his fall had opened a nice little rivulet so that water was flowing over the girl. He leaped back into the stream and lifted her head out of the water. She made a choking noise then coughed. He looked at her, saw her eyes blink once-knew that in the darkness there was no way she could see a damned thing-and had time to say, "Are y-?"

The girl screamed and surged upwardThe horror had not passed. But it had retreated. No longer ripping and tearing through her mind, it had pulled back to-

Watch. Watch and wait. For now.

She fought to get back to light and breath and sound. But the darkness would not let her. More than the absence of light. This darkness had weight. Presence. And worst of all, a will.

"… he'll kill-me-kill-me-kill…"

A small voice. Not weak, but far away, as if she lay at the bottom of a well, listening to voices far above.

"Hey! Hey, girl!"

Something broke through the darkness. Not pain exactly. A jarring sensation. It seemed that she lay still, but the world shifted around her.

Cold. A wet cold was the first sensation to break through. Water, flooding in, choking her. She drew in breath to scream, and the water poured down her throat.

All her senses snapped back, and the darkness disintegrated like the bursting of a bubble.

Night. Dark, yes, but not that other presence that had tried to consume her. This darkness held no weight. An incessant roar filled the air. Rain. Storm. And all around her-washing over her-water, water, and more water. All the world had become a cold, lightless wet.

But a little of the darkness before her had a solidness to it. Then it spoke.

"Are y-?"

Instinctively, she screamed and lashed out. Her arm came around, and the back of one fist connected with flesh and bone. The figure fell back and the river swallowed it.

She ran. Her clothes were sodden, heavy, and they pulled at her. Her boot slipped in the mud, she went down in a splash, then came up again. She made it perhaps half-a-dozen steps, but then her boots sank into the muck. Momentum carried her upper half forward, and when her hands thrust out to break her fall, they too sank up to her wrists. She pulled, but the ground pulled back, yanking her until she was up to her elbows in mud.

She screamed, and only then did she realize she could see. Green light lit the wood around her. Where-?

The ground heaved, encasing her up to her chest, lifting her, and turning her around. For a moment, she thought she'd been caught in a mudslide brought on by the storm, but then she saw the figure standing at the water's edge.

Only a little over half her height had he been standing upright, he was made smaller still by his hunched posture. His right hand held a staff longer than he was tall. It twinkled with tiny lights in a hundred shades of green-sparks cast by dozens upon dozens of tiny amulets, coins, bits of chain, and random scraps of metal that tinkled with even the slightest movement. He held his other hand beside his face, and she could see his fingers working in intricate patterns. More light shone from there. Patterns-runes, most sharp edged-decorated his skin, and each of them blazed with an emerald fire.

She screamed.

The mud encasing her surged forward in a wave, then stopped and settled so that she was only a few feet from the small person.

"Be silent," he said.

The mud pressed on her. She couldn't move her arms, and the weight of it made breathing an effort.

"My name is Gleed," said the figure. "I just saved your life. The Master has sent you to me. Your name is Meyla. It means 'little girl' in my mother's tongue, for that is what you are-an ignorant little girl-until I say differently. Until you prove differently. Understand, Meyla?"

Rain and grit was streaming into her eyes, but she could not wipe them away.

"My name… is Hweilan."

His eyes widened and he took in a sharp breath. She had never seen a creature like this before. Small as a five-year-old child and scrawny as an old man. But even a fool could see he was shocked. Stunned.

"What did you say?" he said.

"My name"-she fought to get enough breath into her lungs-"Huh-Hweilan!"

He blinked twice, and the fingers of his left hand stopped their intricate motions. The lights decorating his skin and staff dimmed, but they did not go out. She felt the mud around her loosen, and a great deal of it sloughed off into the river, washing over the little creature's feet. Then his eyes narrowed, part suspicion and part curiosity.

"What do you remember?"

The Hunter's eyes blazed. Two green forge fires that gave no heat. A thousand howls filled the night. Raucous cries rained down from the boughs overhead.

Hweilan looked up.

Hundreds of ravens looked down on her, their black eyes reflecting the moonlight. Yellow wolves' eyes watched her from the shadows under the trees. Waiting and hungry, held back only by the will of the antlered thing before her-neither man nor beast, but something far older.

You are mine, Hweilan. You were always mine.

He took off his mask.

She screamed. And then he was inside her.

It was inside her. That presence, that mind, ripping through her essence. She'd once seen a wolf pack ripping into the carcass of a swiftstag, the strongest members of the pack barking and growling and snapping to get at the soft undersides. They beat back the others with tooth and claw, then set to their meal. Now and then a wolf's entire head disappeared into the carcass to get at the choicest bits.

That image flashed through her thoughts as the Hunter's mind tore through hers. Biting and clawing and consuming her. Chewing through every memory, every want and desire, every hidden hope, every secret shame, then going deeper still to-

He bit down.

And something bit back.

Something hidden. Something that had been sleeping for… forever-at least in terms of her own life.

But it was awake now. Awake and raging.

The Hunter bit down upon it, and that thing-that other-blazed.

Like a wolf who had bitten into its prey, anticipating soft flesh, only to find blazing molten steel in its mouth, the Hunter screamed, more a shriek of spirit than sound.

The world shattered.

Her mind snapped, like a rope holding too much weight, and she fell.

The horror had not passed. But it retreated. No longer ripping and tearing through her mind, it had pulled back to-

"What do you remember?"

Gleed lashed out with his staff, and the thick knob of it struck her across the forehead. "Answer me, Meyla."

She blinked through tears, which fell down her cheeks and mixed with the rain. "My name is Hweilan."

"So you say. What do you remember? And how do you remember it?"

The lights on his staff and skin blazed again, and the wet earth holding her constricted. She could feel her muscles being squeezed around her bones. The mud pulled her closer to him, so that his face was only inches from her own. In the light cast by the runes she could see that one of his eyes was a milky blur. His hot breath wafted against her face. It had an oddly bitter, spicy scent, like a very strong exotic tea.

"Now, girl," he said, "you are going to tell me everything."

"H-h-he… killed him." It all came out in a burst. "Th-that… that thing k-killed Lendri. Ripped… ripped his heart right out of his chest. Oh… holy gods!"

Hweilan vomited. There was little in her stomach, but bile surged up her throat and out. Gleed barely managed to step away in time.

"Mad as a half-drowned songbird," he muttered. "Best get you inside, eh? Then you can tell me everything. You will tell me everything."

He turned away, and the mud holding her collapsed with a splash. She found herself laying face first on the ground, one foot dragging in the river.

She squeezed her eyes shut and let her head fall into the mud. "Please go away."

Something tapped the back of her skull.

"Hey!"

Gleed stood before her, green light still spilling off his staff and upraised hand. "You're going to be difficult, aren't you?"

He nudged her with his staff again, and something about it made her suddenly angry. She slapped it away and glared up at him. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me who you are and where I am and how I got here."

"Have it your way," he said, then broke off into a low incantation.

Hweilan tried to ignore his voice. But then she heard something else: a wet, raspy slithering. She looked up. The nearby foliage-vines, branches, leaves, even roots dripping black mud-twisted and turned, forming a vaguely manlike shape. No head or eyes, but it had two massive arms. Too late she realized they were reaching for her.

The branches and vines entangled her and lifted her up.

She yelled and kicked and thrashed. But the branches only pulled tighter, pinning her arms to her sides and wrapping her legs together, snug as a shroud.

"Struggle all you like," said Gleed. "But I do wish you'd stop the screaming. It might draw attention we don't want. There are far crueler things in these woods than me."

Hweilan screamed louder.

Gleed shrugged, then turned and walked away. Just when the rain and shadows were about to swallow the last of his light, he gestured over his shoulder, and the mass of vines and branches holding Hweilan shambled after him.

The storm passed. Hweilan had stopped screaming-her throat had gone too raw. When she felt the thing carrying her stop, she opened her eyes. The forest ended at the shore of a lake, its flat black surface sparkled here and there with moonlight breaking through silver-limned gashes in the clouds.

In the midst of the lake stood the most decrepit tower Hweilan had ever seen-and she'd grown up in a land dotted with old ruins. Not much taller than a healthy spruce, the tower stood on an island only slightly larger than the base of the building. The tower looked as if it were only being held together by the moss and vines entangling it. Ravens roosted along the crumbling upper turrets, and dozens of bats fluttered over the water, feasting on insects.

The lake was fed by a waterfall that fell over a small ridge a stone's throw to their left. The sound of it made Hweilan shudder. The Nar word for waterfall was kuhunde, which meant "mountain laughter." In Narfell, the snow in the mountains only melted enough to form waterfalls in the height of the hottest summers. To the Nar, the sound of the falls sounded like the mountains laughing for joy at the rare warmth. But this waterfall, coming out of the dark woods to feed the stream that ringed the tower, held no laughter. It sounded more like the growl of some ill-tempered beast, warning her to stay away.

Gleed led them along the shore until they came to a small spit of land that pointed to the tower like a slightly hooked finger. He stood at the water's edge, raised his staff, and muttered an incantation that Hweilan could barely hear over the fluttering of the bats. The water rippled, and a bridge emerged. Parts of it were made from old flagstones held up by the roots of sunken trees, but great lengths of the bridge were formed of the roots themselves, raw bedrock, or soaked water-weeds that squished under Gleed's shoes as he led the way.

As the vine-thing carried Hweilan over the bridge, she heard something else. The whole structure of the tower rattled and tinkled in the breeze. Hanging from every available vine branch, twig, and shoot were hundreds of bells-some large as helmets, others smaller than thimbles. And amongst the bells were bits of chain, chimes, and coins of every shape and size. As they were out of the woods, the moonlight seemed very bright, and by its light Hweilan saw that some of the coins were old and black with tarnish, while others seemed newly minted.

Gleed saw her staring. He gestured around with his staff. "Nasty things haunt these woods. Lots of nasty things. There's power in gold, silver, and iron. Especially iron. These talismans keep all but the nastiest away when I'm not home."

"Demons," Hweilan rasped, and winced at the pain in her throat.

"Eh?" said Gleed. A few bats fluttered around him. He shooed them away with his staff.

Hweilan was no scholar. But she had seen the mad, hungry thing looking out from her Uncle Soran's eyes-and later from Kadrigul's. Nothing could stop them. Not arrows and blades, or even the earth-shattering power of Kunin Gatar's magic. Everything Hweilan, her friends, and her enemies had thrown at the thing had done no good. It just kept coming. Relentless. Until it had faced Nendawen. Only then had it truly faltered. And the scream that had seemed to stab needles into her bones when Nendawen had destroyed it… she could think of no other explanation.

She looked up at the metal-encrusted tower. "Will your talismans keep out demons?"

"No demons here," said Gleed. "This isn't the Abyss, though you may think otherwise in the coming days."

The vine-thing bore Hweilan through a door and down low hallways cut through the black stone of the lakebed. As Gleed led them downward, torches sputtered to life in his wake, flickering blue-green flames that popped and hissed but gave no smoke. Shiny green beetles scuttled out of the light and sought refuge in the cracks between the bricks. Silver spiders-small bodies, with long legs that looked sharp as needles-scuttled out of the shadows and sat in their webs or hung from tiny threads and watched them.

They passed other doors, all shut tight, runes and arcane symbols etched or burned along every board. Beyond, one passage was so utterly black that Hweilan couldn't see anything. But she could hear water dripping inside, and the smell that emanated out of the dark was so utterly rank that Hweilan's jaws locked and her throat constricted.

Not far beyond that, the passageway ended at an archway that filled most of the wall. A few stairs led down to a stout wooden door.

Gleed turned. "Your escort can go no farther. Time to walk."

He snapped his fingers, and the life humming through her bonds burst and seeped away. To Hweilan it felt like an arrow piercing a full wineskin-an instant of collapse, then the contents soaked into the ground and were gone.

Hweilan found herself on the passage floor in a mass of vines, wet roots, and mud.

"Get up and follow me," said Gleed.

Hweilan pushed herself up on legs that felt hollow and brittle. How long since she'd had a good meal? She couldn't remember. Her stomach felt small and shriveled, and her hands trembled as she tore away the vines and slipped out of the roots. When all but a few clinging tendrils lay in a pile at her feet, Gleed turned and started down the stairs.

Seeing him in the torchlight was the first really good look she'd had at him. Hobgoblins and worse filled the mountains west of her home, and she'd seen them a few times-prisoners brought in for questioning or bandits for judgment. They had been larger and much haler-looking than this shriveled old creature, but if he wasn't a goblin, he was certainly close kin to them.

Hweilan made her decision between one breath and the next. She turned and ran, going back the way they had come. Weak and hungry as she was, she knew that little creature stood no chance of catching her-if she could get out of the range of whatever dark arts he had at his command.

Behind, she heard him curse, but she kept going, past the room of dripping rankness and the dozen doorways, around the bend and up the stairs into moonlight.

Her foot was on the topmost stair when she saw him. She stopped so suddenly that she almost fell.

Lendri stood naked at the water's edge, one hand hanging limply at his side, the other grasping at the ruin of his chest, trying to hold in the heart that still beat there. He fell to his knees.

"All dead," he said. "Your family, Scith… me." His voice took on the timbre of a snarl. There had always been something of the beast in Lendri. But this was rabid. "All dead. Because of you. Because you-"

Hweilan heard the cawing of ravens.

Wolves in the distance.

And then the darkness took her.

She could hear a crackle and the low hum of coals breathing and she felt herself surrounded in the warmth of blankets soft as rabbit fur. A rich earthy aroma filled her head, and her ears caught the soft clink and scrape of a spoon stirred inside a kettle. She lay there, for one brief moment thinking she was home again, spring on the wane, and any moment one of the handmaidens would come through her bedroom door, telling her if she didn't get up and wash soon, she'd have no time for breakfast before today's lessons.

But then she opened her eyes.

A fire burned in a stone hearth, a black iron kettle set over the flames, and Gleed hunched over it, sipping from a silver spoon.

"Awake at last, eh?" he said, and turned to her.

He no longer wore the thick cloak and hood in which she'd first seen him in the woods. His feet and arms were bare, and he wore clothes of simply cut brown canvas, a long vest closed by a belt rope, the ends of which dangled to his knees. A dozen or more necklaces hung around his neck-fine chains, braided leather, and others no more than fraying thread. Hanging from every one were tiny jewels, bits of bone, black feathers, and medallions-some round and gleaming like silver coins, others that looked to have been crafted from iron nails twisted into intricate shapes.

Seeing his ruddy, leathery skin, the too-wide mouth, tiny nose framed by huge, round eyes-one orange the other milky and blind-and the pointed, erect ears, and there was no longer any doubt.

"You're a goblin," she said.

He smirked. "Oh, you are a bright one."

She looked around, her eyes skittish as a bird who has returned to her nest to find a viper coiled around her eggs. She lay in a nest of pillows, blankets, and rugs. Beyond was a chamber-so low-ceilinged that she would knock her head on the cobwebbed rafters if she stood to her full height. A bed and low table took up one wall. No chairs-the table was low enough that one obviously sat on the floor. Other than the doorway and hearth, every bit of spare wall space was filled with shelves holding tomes, scrolls, the reconstructed skeletons of small animals, and dozens and dozens of bottles of colored glass, wood, and clay. Not a single window. It looked more like the room of an eccentric old scholar than a wrinkled old goblin.

"Why am I here?" said Hweilan. Her eyes seemed drawn to the kettle bubbling over the fire, and she remembered every story about goblins she'd ever heard.

Gleed chuckled. "You're far too big to fit into my pot-and I stopped eating girls a long time ago."

She couldn't tell if he was serious or not. He used the spoon to pull the kettle from its hook and set it away from the fire to cool.

"Usually I have a whole speech prepared," he said. " 'My name is Gleed. The Master has sent you to me.' Then I give them a demeaning name to keep them in their place. But you, little girl, you seem to have broken the pattern." He made a sound that was part laugh and part cough. "I've been teaching your kind since before your grandmother's grandmother caught her man. But in all my years, you are the first to come to me knowing who you are. Before, my charges came with their memories wiped clean-their hearts new iron, ready to be honed according to the Master's will. But you… you know who you are… Hweilan. How can this be?"

"I don't know," she rasped.

Gleed's eyes narrowed and he watched her, obviously disbelieving. "Tell me what you remember," he said.

She tried to swallow. Her throat felt rough as baked boot leather-from her screaming earlier. And how long since she had last taken a drink?

"Water," she said.

Gleed shambled off, then returned with a silver goblet that looked very large in his hands. His other hand crumbled something and sprinkled it into the contents of the goblet, then he handed it to her.

She took it and stared at the pinkish contents. "What-?"

"No poison," he said. "If I wanted you dead, I'd have left you in the creek to drown. Just a bit of wine and water with a few special herbs. They'll soothe your throat and settle your stomach so that you don't wretch all over my floor after you eat."

She took a tentative sip. Both wine and herbs were very bitter, but the concoction seemed more water than anything. She drank it all in three swallows, each hurting a bit less than the last.

Gleed retrieved his staff from the nearest shelf and leaned on it. He fixed her with his one good eye.

"Where is Menduarthis?" she asked.

"Who?"

"He… he helped me escape from… that thing."

The old goblin chucked. "Well then, I'd say he did a poor job of it. I do not know this Menduarthis or what might have happened to him."

"He was hurt." He might have been more than hurt. Might be dead. The last Hweilan had seen of him, he'd been lying senseless on the ground, bleeding profusely from his head.

"I've told you I know nothing of him, girl. Now, speak. Tell me of Hweilan and how she came to be here."

She gave him no intimate details. Nothing of her childhood or family. Just "Creel killed my family" and then picking up where she'd met Lendri in the foothills. Gleed grinned as she told of Kunin Gatar and how she, Lendri, and Menduarthis had escaped. Her breath caught as she came to Lendri's death-not so much at seeing him killed as at the memory of his ghost in the moonlight outside. She told how the thing that had killed Lendri had been about to kill her.

"And then he appeared," she said, her eyes closed, her breath scarcely above a whisper. A figure, taller than any man Hweilan had ever seen. Moonlight glinted off pale scars that ribboned his muscled frame. His left hand dripped blood. In his right he gripped a spear, its black head barbed and cruel. Antlers sprouted from his skull.

"The Master," said Gleed, and in his voice Hweilan heard… not reverence. Ecstasy. The voice of a drunk long denied his drink who is suddenly given a priceless vintage.

"The… Master?" she said.

"Nendawen to those mortals who knew him best," he said. "Master of the Hunt, lord of this realm. He saved you, yes?"

Eyes still squeezed shut, Hweilan nodded.

She heard Gleed chuckle. But there was no humor in it. It was the laugh of a little boy dangling a mouse over the cat.

"He… filled you, yes? Spirit and mind. Heart and soul. The Master sifted you, scraped you, immersed you in his holy will."

She didn't know about that. Remembering it, she thought it had seemed more of a violation than a blessing. She certainly hadn't been willing. She'd heard priests speak of communion with the divine, comparing it with the passion of a lover. Hweilan had never been with a man, so she had no comparison in that regard. But what Nendawen had done to her mind had not been the ecstasy of lovers. More like consumption-the terror a deer might feel when it knows it will still be alive when the wolves start to feed.

Gleed kept talking. "You are the first whom the Master has left with any knowledge of who they are. Why? I do not know, but it is not for me to question his will. The Master has chosen you to be his Hand, little girl, but you are raw, unshaped… unworthy. To serve the Master, to honor the Master, you will be honed into the perfect weapon."

The first whom the Master has left with any knowledge of who they are… Hweilan wasn't so sure about that. The Master had seemed determined to do something to her-wipe her memories perhaps-until he had come upon something inside her. Something that fought back.

But she didn't tell this to Gleed. Instead she seized on the last thing he'd said, about being honed.

"By you?" she said.

Gleed scowled and his voice came out barely above a whisper. "Don't underestimate me, girl. I could turn you to ash with a word. But to speak the whole truth: You will have three teachers, of which I will be one. I will teach you, yes. Teach you Making. But before you can Make, first you must Know. You will be given the Lore."

"Lore?"

Gleed ignored her question. "I will feed you-can't have you dying on me-and then we should see to your wounds. Whatever you've been doing these past days, you've gotten yourself covered in cuts and scrapes.

"Tomorrow you will meet Kesh Naan, and it will be most dangerous if she smells blood on you. Kesh Naan will give you the Lore, and then you will return to me-if you survive. So listen to me very carefully."