Practice and knowledge. Only there were so many other things to see and learn and do at the same time, and besides, he liked the sword. It was a pleasing sensation to launch an attack at an enemy and feel the heavy swing carry through like an extension of his arm, the sharp steel resonating with triumph as it cut through living flesh, blood dripping along its edge . . . or so he imagined. The truth was that he’d been just fifteen at the time, and the most he’d done was batter a jousting block with hardwood blades, and once—just once—helped dispatch a low-order, ghoul that was cruising the visitor’s dormitory. Which he’d done with a knife, not with a sword, but the theory was much the same. The point was, steel he understood. Steel he trusted. Black powder was more like . . . well, like magic. “They’re all yours,” he assured Tarrant, and he thought he saw the Hunter smile.
There was a slight tremor then, but the Hunter declared it to be of no consequence. Harmonic tremors, he explained, which felt like small-scale earthquakes but didn’t disturb the earth-fae nearly so drastically. Damien did note that there had been five distinct tremors since they’d started traveling south, and doubtless many more too subtle to them to detect. Neither he nor Tarrant had said it in so many words, but the truth was clear to both of them: this wasn’t a safe region to Work in. Tarrant was taking a chance with his transformations, but at least that was after careful study of the currents. They’d better be careful in the heat of battle, though, lest the energies unleashed by a shifting planet burn one of them—or both—to a crisp. Damien had already seen the fae sear through a woman’s brain in the rakhlands, and he had no desire to experience it any more directly.
They loaded the horses and began to ride. Damien and Hesseth had allowed enough time for resting that both felt somewhat refreshed, though nightmares had made sleep a touch—and-go affair. They were lucky that Tarrant was with them, Damien reflected; otherwise the powers at large might well manifest their fear and their horror right back at them. But the Hunter’s presence seemed to discourage fear-ghouls from forming, and most of the region’s extant terrors preferred to stay a good distance away.
They continued south. The horses were stronger now, and the terrain more obliging than it had been; considering the near-darkness that Tarrant’s schedule resigned them to, they made good time. Once they neared a village—its presence was proclaimed not only by its lights and its sounds but by the dozens of silent wraiths who flitted about its gates, hunger curling from them like tendrils of black mist—and they remained in the vicinity just long enough to read the currents that flowed through it, to see that no horror had just taken place or was just about to. But the village was peaceful, its people contentedly sequestered for the night, and Damien had to fight back his urge to warn them. In truth, what could a stranger say to them that they would believe? And what would he warn them about? They didn’t really know what happened, did they?
Once soon after, when the moonlight flashed down upon them, he gazed upon the Hunter’s profile. He knows what happened, the priest thought. He Saw. And it made a cold shiver course up his spine, to think that one of them had actually witnessed the slaughter.
I wouldn’t share that Knowing for anything.
The next village was directly in their path; they had to circle to the east to avoid it. That course led them down a rocky slope to a river, perhaps an extension of the stream they had followed so long ago. Had the night been dark they might have waited until morning before crossing, but Casca was full overhead by that time and Prima’s crescent added its share of light from the east; they waded their horses through what looked like the calmest stretch of water, and outside of riding calf-deep in the ice cold mountain runoff made the crossing without mishap.
They stopped at the first likely site they found and toweled themselves and their mounts dry. The night breeze was cool but not unpleasant, at least not when one was dry. As he wrung out his boots, Damien noticed Tarrant studying the land before them.
“What is it?”
“The currents,” he murmured. “They’re . . . odd.”
His tone was enough to make Damien tense up; he saw Hesseth’s ears prick forward. “Odd how?”
The Hunter held up a hand to silence him. Damien could see his pale eyes focusing on some point just beyond them, perhaps where the earth-fae surged over some promontory and became particularly Workable. After a moment he stiffened. A soft hiss escaped his lips.
“We’re being followed,” he said quietly.
He heard Hesseth curse in her rakhene tongue. For himself, he muttered angrily that it had all seemed too good to be true. The Hunter waved them silent again, his eyes fixed on fae-wrought pictures that only he could see. His companions waited.
“They found the tracks. They’re following them. They’re not sure who we are, or what we’re mounted on . . . damn,” he hissed. “They have information. Real information. And they’re organized.”
“Villagers?” Damien dared. Feeling a cold churning in his gut as he asked. He knew what the answer would be.
“We should be so lucky.” The Hunter’s expression was grim. “Not villagers, no. And I think . . . maybe not human.”
For a moment the words hung between them, impaled upon the stillness of the air.
“You’re not sure?”
He shook his head, frustrated. “They’re north of us, which means I have to fight the current to read anything. In addition there’s some extra unclarity, perhaps an Obscuring of some kind, perhaps . . .” He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “They don’t seem to have Workers with them. Yet I sense power. Something quiescent . . . maybe a Warding? Hard to say.”
“Which means what?” Hesseth demanded. That the fine points of human sorcery meant nothing to her was clear from her tone.
“It means we move.” Soft hair glimmered in the double moonlight as he turned to face her; his eyes were shadowed, unreadable. “We move fast. It means we think about some way to Obscure our presence, even though they already know where we are—which makes such a Working very difficult,” he added. “It means we think about the obviousness of our route, and finding a defensible shelter, and the possibility of ambush-” He let the last sentence hang in the air unfinished, with all its threat intact.
“It means the good times are over,” Damien said dryly.
“Assst!” Hesseth’s eyes sparkled darkly. “Is that what they were?”
“Perhaps we should consider crossing the mountains,” Tarrant told them. “Precisely because it is a more difficult route.”
“They’re behind us,” Damien responded “They haven’t got horses or any near equivalent, so if we make good time—”
“You’re not listening,” the Hunter said softly. The threat in his voice was all the more powerful for being so delicately voiced. “I said they have information. That means they got it from somewhere. That means that some kind of network is operating.”
It took him a minute for the implications of that to sink in. “Shit,” he muttered. “Shit.”
“We know this coast is lined with Protectorates, whose only purpose is to seek out and destroy enemy forces. If they’ve truly been alerted, do you think we can outrun them? Every border we pass means a new army poised in waiting. I don’t like it,” he told them. “Even with all of us together it’s too dangerous, and with the nights as short as they are . . .” There was no need for him to continue. The thought of facing the Protectorates’ legions was bad enough; the thought of facing them in the daylight hours, without Tarrant’s power beside them, was truly daunting.