Ghost in the Hunt (29 page)

“This is speculation,” said Strabane. “The fact of the matter is that the Huntress escaped, and will likely come again once the demon heals her sufficiently. What shall we do about it?”

“Simple,” said Caina. “I will go alone to Silent Ash Temple, persuade the Emissary to lend me the valikon, and kill the Huntress.”

“Alone?” said Martin.

“Alone,” repeated Caina. “She is after me. She has been planning to kill me for months, perhaps ever since we escaped from Callatas’s Maze. All of you are in danger because of me. If I go alone, the Huntress will pursue me and leave the rest of you in peace.”

Claudia shook her head. “This seems unwise.” 

“The Huntress will surely track you down and kill you in the hills before you get anywhere near Silent Ash Temple,” said Martin.

“I have the shadow-cloak,” said Caina. “Her nagataaru can’t sense me while I wear it, and she’ll have to rely on her eyes and ears and wits. I can elude her and make my way to the temple.”

“Assuming you can even do this,” said Claudia, “what if the Emissary does not lend you the valikon? You’ll be trapped at Silent Ash Temple without a way to stop the Huntress.” 

“As if this were not enough,” said Nasser, “I know firsthand that the Huntress is not the sort of woman to respect the sanctity of a holy place. She will enter Silent Ash Temple and kill you, along with anyone else who gets in her way.” 

“I am willing to take that risk,” said Caina.

Claudia realized that Caina was trying to sacrifice herself. In fact, she had been trying to sacrifice herself since coming to Istarinmul, throwing herself against more and more dangerous opponents. Caina had freed slaves and defeated powerful enemies, but sooner or later she would push too hard and get herself killed. Now Caina was trying to sacrifice herself to spare those around her.

“No,” said Claudia.

They all looked at her. 

“We cannot let you do that,” said Claudia. “If you want to be noble and heroic and self-sacrificing like some hero from an old Szaldic tale…”

“Or an Istarish epic poem,” murmured Nasser.

“Yes, thank you,” said Claudia. “If you want to do that, far be it from me to stop you. But at least let your death have some meaning.”

“Meaning?” said Caina. 

“If the Huntress kill you, it will not change anything,” said Claudia. “Once she kills you, she will turn around and come for us. You told me that Callatas wiped out everyone who knew about his Apotheosis. Well, everyone here knows too much already. The Huntress will kill you and go back to Callatas, and then Callatas will send her to kill everyone allied with you, everyone who knows anything about the Apotheosis.” 

“I fear that Lady Claudia is all too correct,” said Nasser. “I escaped the Huntress once before, but only barely. Callatas will not permit me to escape a second time, and he has allies and servants other than the Huntress. He will send them after us, once the Huntress returns to him and reports her success.” 

“You can’t fight the Huntress alone,” said Claudia. “I can’t fight her alone, either. But you saw what happened when you stabbed her while I was trying to banish her nagataaru. Her wounds stopped healing. Even with the valikon, our only chance of victory is to fight as one.” 

Caina said nothing. 

“In any event,” said Nasser, “I will accompany you. I still hope for you to ask those questions of the Emissary.”

“And if I die here,” said Caina with a faint smile, “you won’t have my help in the future.” 

Nasser grinned. “Entirely correct.” 

“Both Claudia and Nasser are right,” said Martin. “You cannot go alone. Additionally, I have a duty to bring the Huntress to justice. She has unlawfully slain Imperial Guards under my command, and that cannot go unchallenged.”

“She has attacked my village and harmed my folk,” rumbled Strabane. “That, too, cannot go unanswered.” 

Caina sighed, closed her eyes, and leaned her head against the stone wall. “I see I cannot persuade you otherwise. Very well. We shall all go off to be killed together.”

Nasser laughed. “I hope for rather more than that.” 

“If we are attacked on the road to Silent Ash Temple,” said Claudia, “I will use my banishment spell, and the rest of you can strike and hopefully kill the Huntress.”

“And if we obtain the valikon,” said Martin, “perhaps we can turn the tables and become the hunters instead.”

“So be it,” said Caina.

###

They left Drynemet in the next morning, climbing towards Silent Ash Temple.

Five others accompanied Caina. Martin, clad in the grim black armor of an Imperial Guard, and Claudia in a simple riding dress with split skirts. Nasser in his black shirt and trousers, Laertes stoic as ever in his chain mail and leather. Strabane came as well, leaving his village in the care of its elders, carrying a massive greatsword strapped to his back. They led a train of Strabane's donkeys to carry food and other supplies, but were otherwise alone.

Six against the Huntress, when Kalgri had been able to cut her way through dozens of Imperial Guards and Immortals with ease. 

It seemed like madness.

Caina hoped it would be enough.

They saw no sign of the Huntress as they climbed higher into the hills.

###

A dozen Silent Hunters escaped the chaos in Drynemet, and met Kalgri at the base of the hill.

She killed them all.

Caina had done a lot of damage to her, and the Voice had expended a great deal of power to fight off the banishment and to fuel Kalgri’s escape from the village. The spirit was still in a crazed fury, and did not have the power to spare for healing Kalgri’s wounds.

So she took the power herself. 

The Silent Hunters tried to fight, of course. Kalgri killed them one by one, the Voice feasting and growing strong on their deaths, the power flushing through her. At last she killed the final Hunter, walked until she found a small cave about five miles from the village, and collapsed.

She slept for the better part of a day.

When Kalgri awoke, she felt better, her strength and stamina restored. The Voice hissed and snarled in her mind, filled with fury and hunger. The Balarigar’s escape enraged the spirit. It wanted to hunt her down and kill her, ripping her apart inch by inch and feasting upon her agony for hours. 

Kalgri found herself in complete agreement with the Voice. 

It had been years since someone had hurt her that badly, and she fully intended to repay Caina Amalas a hundred times over for every drop of spilled blood.

But carefully, carefully. Kalgri’s first attempt had failed through bad luck. Sometimes an assassination simply went wrong, no matter how careful the planning. The second time Kalgri had launched a more elaborate attack. That, too, had gone wrong. Caina had outwitted her, had in fact come within a few inches of killing her. 

The third time would be different. 

Kalgri needed allies, and she had used up all the Silent Hunters. Well, that was no great loss. They had been useless anyway.

Idly she wondered what the villagers of Drynemet would think when they found the dead Hunters piled at the foot of their hill, and decided that she did not care. 

Nevertheless, Kalgri needed allies. She did not want to fight Caina and her followers without help. Too many things had gone wrong already. She had not anticipated Caina’s pyrikon, or Claudia’s banishment spell. 

Kalgri needed allies stronger than the Silent Hunters. 

She wandered through the hills, thinking, listening to the Voice’s hisses and snarls. 

To her surprise, the Voice sensed…something.

A crack. 

An echo of the day of the golden dead, the day necromantic power had sheathed the world and raised the dead from their tombs. Kalgri and the Voice had feasted on that day, killing hundreds of the misshapen horrors, feasting upon their corrupted life force, and then killing them again when the golden fire raised them once more. The golden dead had collapsed when the spell binding them had failed, but Kalgri remembered the sensation of the wall between the worlds splitting open. 

Now the Voice felt a similar crack nearby. 

Here was Kalgri’s chance for powerful allies.

The Voice had occupied the inside of her skull for over a century and a half, but it was far older than that. The spirit had been a lord of the nagataaru in the netherworld, with a retinue of lesser nagataaru bound in vassalage. Those vassals would be delighted to come to the mortal world and kill at their lord’s command. Usually only a sorcerer’s spell could bring a spirit from the netherworld to the material world, but now the barriers between the worlds were cracked. 

Kalgri headed towards the crack, following the whispers of the Voice.

Soon after nightfall she found both the crack and the gathering.

A rocky hill rose over a small valley, its sides dotted with tough Istarish pines and flowering bushes. Atop the hill stood a circle of standing stones. Kalgri saw nothing remarkable within the circle, but the Voice sensed the faint crack there, felt the power washing out from it.

A mob of Kaltari men occupied the valley. A large boulder jutted at the foot of the hill, and a towering Kaltari warrior stood atop it. His hair and beard were a tangled mass of greasy gray hair, and he wore chain mail and leather, the hilt of a greatsword rising over his shoulder.

“The lords of the night shall return!” roared the man to his followers. “I, Aiovost, swear it! I have seen the visions and spoken to the princes of the void. The end of the world is at hand! Soon the lords of the night shall swarm over the world like the black clouds of a storm. The weak and feeble shall be devoured, while the servants of the great princes of the void shall reign as gods!”

The Kaltari warriors cheered, brandishing their weapons.

The Voice’s hissing laughter filled Kalgri’s thoughts, matching her own dark amusement. 

She had known of the nagataaru-worshipping cults among the Kaltari, and like the Voice itself she held them in contempt. It was like watching sheep worship wolves. Yet here were men who worshipped the nagataaru as gods, who would heed their every word as a command.

Here were Kalgri’s willing allies. 

Kalgri smiled, removed her mask and cowl, and climbed the slope of the hill as Aiovost continued ranting. 

“Hear me!” she roared as Aiovost paused for breath. As one hundreds of shocked eyes turned her direction. “You wish to serve the great lords of the night? The hour has come!”

“An outsider!” said Aiovost. “Take her, my brothers!” He smiled. “It seems the princes of the void have blessed us. She shall provide us with some amusement before she dies to keep her silence.”

Kalgri grinned as four Kaltari warriors approached her, the Voice crooning with anticipation. All four men looked accustomed to hard physical labor and frequent combat, and they towered over her like giants. They leered down at her, no doubt anticipating what they would do to her.

She understood the feeling. 

Kalgri raised her right hand, drawing upon the Voice’s power. Shadow and purple fire snarled around her fingers, and lengthened and hardened into the sword of dark force and black sorcery. Kalgri danced to the side and flicked her wrist, and the nearest man fell in two pieces to the ground, his body bisected from his groin to the crown of his head. 

It made quite a mess. 

The other three men froze in shock, and Kalgri attacked, the sword of the nagataaru weaving right and left as she severed limbs and split skulls. Within three heartbeats all four men lay in pieces upon the earth, their blood and viscera spilling across the ground. 

The mob’s hoots and cheers faded to shocked, horrified silence. 

No. Not quite horrified. Reverent, really.

Kalgri smiled and lifted the sword of shadow and flame. 

“The sword,” said one of the men, pointing at her. “She has the sword of the void. She is…she is one of the lords of the night, come to walk among us! She…”

Aiovost frowned, doubt and hope and fear warring upon his face. 

“What is this?” said Aiovost. “This is a trick, a…”

“Kneel!” roared Kalgri, the Voice’s fury thundering through her words. Some of the nearest Kaltari sank to their knees, awed terror upon their faces. Another warrior, stupider than the others, stepped towards her, drawing a scimitar from his belt.

Kalgri’s slash cut through his sword, his arm, his chest, and then his other arm, and the warrior fell in pieces to the ground.

The Voice shivered with pleasure at his death, and fresh power flooded into Kalgri.

“I said to kneel!” she thundered.

This time the Kaltari fell to their knees as one. Even Aiovost, perched atop his rock.

Kalgri strode into their midst, her cloak whispering about her legs. She waved the immaterial sword over the heads of the kneeling men, the Voice twitching with pleasure at their fear. 

“Rejoice,” she said, pointing the sword at Aiovost, “for your gods have come among you in the flesh. Your visions are true. Your prophecies are correct. The end of the world is nigh, and the princes of the void come to take the earth. Those who follow the lords of the night shall be rewarded. Those who dare to oppose them shall perish in fire. Are you among the faithful?” 

The Kaltari shouted their agreement.

“We are!” said Aiovost. “We are the devoted servants of the lords of the night.”

“Good,” said Kalgri. “For the princes of the void require your services. Our foes are afoot, plotting against us, daring to oppose our return. For their insolence they must die. Will you heed the call of your gods? Will you slay our foes?”

Again the Kaltari shouted in agreement.

“We shall spill their blood!” roared Aiovost.

“They travel to a place called Silent Ash Temple,” said Kalgri, “and we will kill them before they reach it.”

A ripple went through the Kaltari.

“The Emissary dwells at Silent Ash Temple,” said Aiovost. “Her powers are terrible, and…”

“Fool,” said Kalgri, pointing at him. “Do you fear the servant of a false god?”

“No, of course not, great lady of the void,” said Aiovost in sudden fear. “We do not fear the servants of false gods. But the Emissary is a witch of great might, and I…I fear we are not strong enough to oppose her sorcery.”