Hweilan's mind reeled. She looked down at her hand.
"Wait," said Menduarthis. "Death in her right hand? You mean…?"
Lendri nodded. "Show him," said Lendri.
Hweilan pulled off her glove, spread her palm, and turned it so that the firelight caught it full force.
"I've seen it already," said Menduarthis.
"Death," said Lendri. "Hweilan holds 'death' in her right hand."
Hweilan stood.
"Where are you going?" said Menduarthis.
"I need to be alone."
"It isn't safe out there."
"The sun will be up soon," said Lendri. "She'll be fine." He looked at her. "Don't stray far. If you need me, use your kishkoman."
Behind her, she heard Menduarthis ranting. "Are you mad? One of your bloodthirsty beast-gods wants her and you tell her to blow a damned whistle?"
Hweilan ran, leaving them behind.
She wandered out of the gully and sought the heights. As the stars began to fade in the lightening sky, a sudden hungry longing to see the sun woke in Hweilan. How long had it been since she'd watched the sun rise? She couldn't remember. Since well before the fall of Highwatch.
She found a way up a low offshoot of the nearest peak, her boots often slipping on the slick rocks or ice-covered grass beneath. But she made it up and found a nice perch, where she had a clear view of the eastern sky between the mountains. The Giantspires towered around her.
Nendawen…
Jagun Ghen…
She shivered. Not so much at the horror of Lendri's tale, nor that it had a sharp ring of truth. No.
She'd heard those names before. She knew that now. Never in her waking memory, not until Menduarthis and Lendri had spoken them. But those names had haunted her dreams.
Nendawen. The Hunter. The antlered man she kept seeing from the corner of her eye. Time to grow up. Time to choose. Understanding will come later. If you survive…
Jagun Ghen. Destroyer. That voice out of the darkness. The stench of death, of rot, of carnage unimaginable.
And familiar. It hit her then. Her dream had met the waking world. When that… that thing, that monster wearing her uncle's face had come after her. It wasn't even a scent so much as a complete miasma. A reek that sank into the spirit.
This Nendawen had sent Lendri to claim her: Had Jagun Ghen sent something as well? That thing, that mockery of Soran? And would he keep sending them?
With a jolt, she realized something else. That thing had not come alone. The first time he'd found her, Creel had been with him. Creel had taken Highwatch. Had killed her family.
And Kadrigul had been beside Soran too. Kadrigul who served Argalath.
Hweilan had heard the whispered tales that Guric's chief counselor was more than spellscarred. Though the man himself had always denied it, more than a few had said the man was a demonbinder, that he sacrificed to the ancient devil-gods of the Nar.
Jagun Ghen.
"Damn," said Hweilan. It all made sense.
Highwatch had fallen and her family had been murdered. And all because of some conflict that went back thousands of years.
Sitting there surrounded by mountains, weighed down by her thoughts, Hweilan felt very small.
And terrified. She'd lived a sheltered life at Highwatch. The world was much bigger, harder, and meaner than she had ever imagined. Every person she'd ever loved was dead. Murdered.
That didn't make the terror go away. A little pit of it still churned in her stomach. But it shrank as something else grew inside her. Something stronger.
Anger. Fury.
It cleared her thoughts.
She was alive. Through all the horror, the fear, and the uncertainty of the past days, one fact remained, pure and cold in the growing predawn light: she was alive. Her breath came cold and plumed before her. The halbdol was beginning to lose its potency, and she could feel the first pangs of chill against her skin, but it was a good feeling. She was hungry, tired… but those feelings seemed to strip her to her purest essence. She was alive. She still had her breath, her blood, and her freedom. If anyone or anything wanted those things, they would have to take them. Hweilan was tired, yes. Tired of running. Tired of being hunted.
She remembered a lesson Scith had given her in her eighth year. Her first time in the wild without her family. Only her, Scith, and a few guards. But she and Scith had roamed away from the others for much of the day, Scith teaching her the ways of the wild. His first lesson, the one on which all others had built, came to her now.
"There are two types of beings in the world, Hweilan, neither better than the other, and both depending on one another, blood and breath, for survivaclass="underline" the hunter and the hunted."
Hweilan was tired of being the hunted. Whatever the days ahead brought, she would be hunted no more. Time to stop running. Time to stop being hunted. Time to hunt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The sun was climbing into the sky when Hweilan returned to their shelter. Menduarthis was pacing outside, and Lendri crouched just outside the entrance. When Menduarthis saw her approaching, the tension left his shoulders.
"We were getting worried," he said.
Hweilan took a deep breath, then said, "I'll go."
Menduarthis looked at her, looked at Lendri, then back at her. "Go? Go where? What are you-?"
"To Nendawen," she said.
"You can't be serious."
"I want to find the people who killed my family. I want to kill them. If this Nendawen can help me do that…"
Menduarthis opened his mouth to reply, but Lendri spoke first.
"Hweilan, it isn't…" He stood and gazed off northward to the pass between two of the peaks. "Not like that. Nendawen isn't one to be bargained with. He wants Jagun Ghen, and that is that. Your family-"
"Was killed by Jagun Ghen," said Hweilan. "Or by those who serve him, at least."
Lendri scowled and Menduarthis rolled his eyes as Hweilan laid out her reasoning to them. Lendri's eyes sharpened, but she could see his attention focused inward. Menduarthis's eyes widened in dawning horror.
"Am I the only one here who hasn't lost all sense?" said Menduarthis. He pointed at Lendri. "Just because he made some deal with a barbarian demigod doesn't obligate you to help him. He wants to honor his people's ways by jumping face first into the fire? Let him. But don't jump in with him."
"They're my people too," said Hweilan.
"Oh, for-"
"They killed my family! Do you remember what you told me? "The world isn't a nice place,' you said. "Fools say it's unforgiving, but that's why they're fools. The world doesn't forgive because it doesn't blame. And the world doesn't blame because it doesn't care.' You were right, you bastard. The world doesn't care. But there are people in the world who do. I loved my family. They loved me. And they're dead now. Murdered. And those who did it are sitting in my home. My home! And if Jagun Ghen is responsible, I swear to my family's gods that I'm going to make him regret the day he-"
An arrow hit Menduarthis in the chest. He still wore his armor, and the shaft bounced off, but it struck with enough force that it knocked him to the ground.
They looked up. An archer stood on the southern rise that they had come down earlier. He was already reaching for another arrow. Below him, two tundra tigers were descending the slope, each carrying a rider. Other figures-some small, their odd hats giving them away as uldra, others taller, their long hair blowing in the morning breeze-crested the rise and fanned around the archer.
"Ujaiyen," said Menduarthis. "How…?"
Lendri grabbed Hweilan and pulled her behind him. "Run!"
They had no real chance. Their weapons were down to Hweilan's two knives and a bow she could not use. The Ujaiyen had the element of surprise, superior numbers, and Hweilan, Menduarthis, and Lendri were still hungry and haggard from their escape. Still, desperation lent them strength and speed, and they were halfway up the northern slope when the tigers' roars washed over them.