It was the memories.
Not just memories of the past now, though chilling images of his family’s slaughter—and his own cowardly inadequacy-still churned in his brain. Now there were memories of the girl, as well. Sweet memories, warm and seductive ... and more painful than all the others combined. Because he wasn’t going back to her. He knew that. He was going to pit himself against the Forest in the hope of avenging his family, but the odds of his coming back from that quest were minimal. And even if he did, how could he take that gentle girl into his arms again once his flesh had housed the Hunter’s spirit? Even if he did survive this, even if he somehow-impossibly-managed to salvage his sanity, how could he pretend to just pick up where he had left off as if nothing had changed? Could a man become the Hunter in spirit and not be poisoned by the experience?
When he could, he lost himself in drink. When he couldn’t, he vacillated between fighting the memories-all of them—and giving way to the sweetest ones, a last fleeting indulgence before the darkness of the Hunter’s realm swallowed him whole.
They were received warmly in Kale, even passionately, as befit the first visit of this Patriarch to the thriving port city. To Andrys, who had never paid much attention to Church hierarchy-or any other power structure, for that matter-it was an eloquent reminder of the importance of the man who rode by his side, and the significance of his position to the men and women who worshiped the One God.
There were thousands of them lining the south road when they arrived, the faithful and the curious both, come to see this man who embodied God’s Will. Many reached out to touch him, and once or twice the Patriarch reined up and indulged them, offering his hand to be shaken or kissed or whatever. Watching him, Andrys was awed by the aura of the righteous authority which he exuded, and by its power over the people here. Some of them even fell to their knees as he approached, a gesture which he accepted as naturally and as regally as he did all the others. It was hard to remember who and what this man was when you saw him only in small rooms and on dusty horseback, running small affairs, dealing with trivial day-to-day matters, surrounded by people who were accustomed to his presence. It was something else again, Andrys thought, to see this. He found that he was trembling despite himself, and when the Patriarch turned once to look back at him he felt genuinely shaken, as if those blue eyes had been a channel to something greater, something any mere human should be frightened of.
The mayor met them at the city gate-an impromptu structure which had been hastily erected in order for there to be somewhere to hold such a ceremony—and showered them with verbal honor. Saviors of the north, he called them. Saints of the One God. But despite his surface enthusiasm, Andrys had the distinct impression that the man kept looking back over his shoulder, as if expecting something to creep up behind him at any moment.
It’s the ghost of Mordreth, Zefila whispered to him. It took him a minute to place the name, but when he did so he nodded solemnly that yes, he understood. Mordreth was a town just across the Serpent, on the very border of the Forest, which had once hosted a similarly organized effort to destroy the Hunter’s realm. In retribution, the town had been destroyed in a single night: man, woman and child; their pets and their flocks; and even the buildings that housed them, reduced to dead meat and rubble in one night of vengeance. It was little wonder that the mayor seemed so nervous, with such a reminder of the Hunter’s power only miles away. Given the circumstances, it was almost surprising that the troops had been welcomed at all.
They were given rooms, and food, and offered supplies; the Patriarch accepted it all. He was pressed into holding an impromptu service in the local church, which had to be moved to the city square to accommodate all the people who came. Andrys knew enough about Church theosophy to recognize that as the man stood there, the center of attention for thousands of worshipers, he was in fact shaping the fae through their faith, weaving additional power for use in this venture. Why can’t they just do it openly? he wondered. Call a stone a stone. But by the end of the service even he could feel the force of what had been conjured, and for once that night he retired without doubt, without fear, drifting softly into a realm where even the nightmares were gentle.
Would that it had lasted!
In the morning they set sail for Mordreth. Across the choppy waters of the Serpent (was the Hunter sending a storm to harass them?), past the dark bulk of Morgot (what enemies might emerge from that secret port?) into the muddy waters of Mordreth’s harbor. This time there were no warm welcomes awaiting them, no crowds to shower them with honor, not even a low-level official or two to make sure that they followed local port custom. Their own agent met them at the pier, along with the four Church-folk he had brought with him. Other than that, the harbor was practically deserted.
“They’re afraid,” he told the Patriarch, and Andrys thought, Who can blame them?
Through a nearly deserted town they rode, and the sky added its own silent comment by drizzling rain down on them. Many of Mordreth’s inhabitants had left the town in fear for their lives, and those that remained dared not even look upon the passing troops, for fear that the Hunter would read his own meaning into such behavior and “exact a terrible vengeance. Nevertheless, there were signs that life—and hope—had not been totally extinguished. A shutter creaking open as they passed, so that frightened eyes might gaze through the opening. A curtain pulled aside to reveal shadowed faces. It seemed to Andrys that once or twice he could hear muttered words-fragments of a prayer, it seemed-but he was at a loss to identify its source, or even explain how the sound had reached him.
“This is the face of our enemy,” the Patriarch pronounced, when they had all gathered at the far edge of town to hear his words. His arm swept toward the south, encompassing the town they had just passed through. “This is what we’ve come to fight. Can any man see what we have seen and doubt the inevitability of such a battle? Can any of you bear to stand back and do nothing and watch this influence spread, household by household, city by city, until the entire eastern realm scurries like frightened animals at the mere mention of the Hunter’s name? Until your husbands and your wives and your children cower in shadows at the slightest hint of his presence? We will cleanse this land forever,” he pronounced. “Not only to destroy an unclean thing which God Himself abhors, but to restore the spirits of our fellow men. It is the souls of humankind that we do battle for,” he told them, and the winds of the fae etched that message into their brains so powerfully that it seemed the fate of the entire world was at issue in this one campaign.
They rode northward for several hours, until at last, atop a low rise, Zefila called a halt. In the distance it was just possible to see the grasslands give way to a tightly wooded expanse, and Andrys felt his soul clench up at the sight of it. For a long time they stood there, gazing down at the enemy’s domain, and no one spoke a word. The air seemed to be thicker coming from that direction, and colder, and it carried a scent that was markedly unpleasant, of blood and illness and flesh gone to rot. One man was sickened enough by it that he went off to the rear of the company to vomit; Andrys could hear his heaving off to the left somewhere as he struggled to gather his own courage, and he wished desperately that he could sneak away and steal a drink. But there’d be no more ale now and no more wine until this matter was finished, he knew that. In a realm where one’s every fear would be given wings and teeth and the hunger to kill, drunkenness was too volatile a weakness.