Hand of the Hunter

PART THREE
THE GIANTSPIRES
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

"Darric of Soravia," said the woman, and she looked around at the others, "and company, meet Uncle."

Darric could take no more, so he said, "Hweilan, what in the Hells happened to you?"

Hweilan looked at him a long moment but gave no answer. Mandan was eyeing the wolf more warily than the woman standing over him with a knife in hand.

And so it was Jaden who brought the main point home. He wiped the back of his sleeve across his mouth, looked to Darric, and said, "So what now?"

Darric opened his mouth to reply, and only then realized he had no idea. Most of their company lay dead, their horses fled, and they were a day away from" Highwatch," Valsun said to the woman. "It is fallen then?"

"Yes," said Hweilan, and the acid was plain in her voice. She said something to the wolf in a language Darric didn't recognize. The beast gave her a look that he found unnervingly human, then bounded back into the dark. She stepped over Mandan and went after the last Nar corpse holding one of her arrows. "Gather what you want," she said. "The Creel scattered. Doubtful they'll come back, but there are worse things in these mountains than Creel, and your idiot wizard lit a beacon for anything within ten miles."

Hureleth…

Darric had to close his eyes and swallow very carefully to keep his emotions in check. Too much was happening too fast for him to think clearly. But remembering the wizard's fate brought one practical concern to the forefront of his mind.

"We must tend the dead."

Hweilan crouched at the very edge of the torchlight, her back to him. Darric could not see what she was doing, but the sound of tearing cloth was quickly followed by the sound of steel cutting through flesh and bone.

"How?" she said without turning. "You plan to dig graves into the rock? It'll take you a day to gather enough wood for pyres. You could spend the rest of the night gathering stones for cairns, but if you do that, gather enough for yourselves as well. You'll have company long before dawn."

"You suggest we leave our comrades for wolves and ravens?" said Valsun, who had finally found his feet again.

The woman shrugged as she came back to them. "Wolves and ravens have to eat too. Better that than-Do not touch that!"

Darric's hand froze less than an inch from the arrow that protruded from the chest of the body next to him. The body lay as lifeless as the stones beside it, but something about the arrow had caught his attention and refused to let it go. Although it appeared only as black wood when he looked at it directly, when he looked away he thought he could see tiny flickers of green flame trickling along its sides. It was a lovely thing, and Darric had long admired a well-crafted weapon. The whorls and sharp thorns of the runes… they had an odd look to them. Almost like claws. Still, they had an alluring beauty to them, and before he knew what he was doing he'd pulled off his glove with his teeth and was reaching out, his skin needing to feel the smooth shaft of wood.

But Hweilan's words broke the spell. Startled and feeling strangely ashamed, like a boy caught at some mischief, he looked up at her. "What?"

She kneeled beside Darric and grabbed his arm, which he suddenly realized he still hadn't lowered. She pulled it away. "Touch that with naked skin and I'll be putting an arrow in you next."

"I don't understand."

"Move back," she said.

He did, and she settled in next to the corpse. She studied it-no, she was studying the arrow, he saw, almost like a scribe struggling over some difficult passage in an old tome.

Valsun walked over, Mandan looming behind him.

"What's she doing?" Jaden called, who was still standing well back.

"Be silent," Hweilan said. "All of you."

She reached behind her head and pulled off the bone mask. There, in the dying light of the torches, Darric got his first good look at the woman he had risked his life to find. Although he hadn't seen her in almost ten years, he recognized the features. The fine cheekbones and slight cant to the eyes made him believe those who said her mother had elf blood. But she had the strong nose and chin of her father's family. A dark paint stained her eyelids, and she had symbols on her cheeks and forehead very much like those on the arrow. A young woman's face, but the look in her eyes held no more youth. They had seen too much. There was pain and hurt there, but something else as well. Anger and determination, yes, but beyond all that was a look that Darric had only seen in triumphant predators and religious zealots.

She drew a knife from her belt, and in the light of the fires, Darric could have sworn the blade was red. Using it ever so carefully so as not to damage her arrow, Hweilan dug into the chest of the corpse.

Unable to hold it any longer, Darric turned to the side and became very noisily sick.

The hobgoblins were already busily looting the dead when their leader came into the camp. Even though he stood a head taller than any of the others, his movements alone showed he wasn't one of them. His form was too lithe, his movements too graceful.

Whoever had done the killing hadn't been gone long. The fire in the tree had burned itself out, but the thicker branches were still glowing with heat in the breeze, and its acrid smoke filled the little valley. It definitely had not been another goblin clan though. He knew that for certain. Goblins would have never left so many weapons, armor, clothes, and fresh meat.

"Here!" his second called.

They had seen the blazing tree from miles off, and they'd come in ready, in full armor, weapons drawn. But they were too late.

"What have you found?"

The leader used the common speech because, of all the languages he knew, he could not wrap his tongue around the foul goblin speech. Still, he had to admit the creatures had their uses. He'd seldom met fiercer fighters, and they knew this country better than he did.

His second pointed at the corpse at his feet. It wore no armor, but layers upon layers of clothes. Well-made boots that had obviously seen long use. The pale hands-bare, despite the cold-made the leader suspect this fellow had been a wizard of some sort. He'd needed the bare hands to work his spells-and those scars and missing digits showed he'd had more than his fair share of mishaps.

"The Ujaiyen?" his second asked.

"No," he answered. "Ujaiyen wouldn't have needed two arrows to take him down. And they certainly wouldn't have hacked at him afterward. This looks like locals."

"Out of Highwatch then."

"So it would seem."

The leader kneeled beside his second for a closer look. "I see now why this one has so many clothes," he said. "He needs them to hold all his pockets."

The man had dozens, all filled. Some with typical oddments-needles and thread, bits of food, a small pouch of very pungent tea, some coin. But the others revealed what, if not who, this fellow had been. An oilskin pouch filled with pasty pellets that smelled as if they'd come out of the north end of a southbound bat. Various powders and herbs. Tiny jewels of various cut. And at least a dozen tiny scrolls bound in assorted colors of thread.

"Wizard?" said the hobgoblin.

"Either that or he just robbed one."

His second chuckled. Another thing he liked about hobgoblins. They had a sense of humor. A pleasant change from where he'd come from.

He rolled the corpse over but didn't find anything else. He stood and began scanning the nearby ground.

"What?" said his second.

"This!" he said and kneeled beside a boulder. The object he'd seen had rolled into the dust and grit where it still lay. "Foolish for them to leave this lying about."

The wizard's orb. Dull as the dust in which it lay. But it flickered, just a little, deep in its heart, when the leader picked it up and stashed it inside his coat.

His second stood and watched the rest of the troop work. They were almost done. He looked to his leader and said, "By their clothes, most of the dead came from west of the mountains. But there's a few dead Nar." His voice took on a brittle tone-"And the other."

"Ah, yes," he said. "To that."

He walked over and looked down at the corpse. Unlike many of the others, it had not been savaged by weapons or the jaws of some large animal. One gaping wound in the chest. It was obvious what had killed him. A very well-aimed arrow, which the archer had then used a knife to retrieve.

"The same as the others, yes?" said his second.

"The third in two tendays." He scratched at his cheek, considering. "We've been trying to find a way to kill these damned things for months, our only reward many dead hobgoblins."

His second grunted his agreement, then said, "Something is hunting Highwatch's monsters."

"And doing a damned fine job," he said. "So far at least."

"Who?"

"That is the question of the hour, is it not?"

He left the corpse and walked around. Not far away, two hobgoblins were looting the corpse of a Nar. Another one of the damned Creel that he had come to hate so much. He'd learned enough in the past months to recognize the distinctive cut of their clothes and the unique stitch of their boots.

"Another arrow kill?" he asked.

"Yuh," said one of the hobgoblins, and pointed at the wound. "And bless my bones, I hope I never run into the archer. Thing went all the way through a rib and out the back again. Whatever bow loosed that arrow…"

"Stop! Do not move!"

The hobgoblins froze and those nearby did as well, turning to see what the matter was.

The leader kneeled beside the nearest hobgoblin. Only a few inches from his right foot, in the muck of frozen blood and dirt…

He picked it up.

"What is it?" his second asked.

"Feathers," he said. He turned it in his fingers, examining it. "Fletching from an arrow. Our archer retrieved his arrow but couldn't save the fletching."

He twirled the fingers of his free hand, and a slight current of air wafted through the feathers and brought the scent to his nostrils. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply.

There.

Mostly it was what he'd expected. Dirt. Blood. The scent of the bird itself-a raven most likely. The glue that had been used to fix it to the arrow shaft. But there! Ever so faint-so faint that even he almost missed it. But there was no mistaking it.

It brought him such delight that he laughed aloud.

"What?" his second asked. "What is it?"

Menduarthis stood. "I misspoke. Our archer retrieved her arrow."

"Her?"

"My little flower. She's back."