Hunt of the Bandham (The Bowl of Souls: Book Three) (28 page)

“But the Bowl of Souls is never wrong, Jhonate. The Bowl of Souls is never wrong!” Faldon said with glee. “My son, Sir Edge. What amazing news!”

“Sir Edge . . .” Qenzic grinned at Jobar. “Does it still sting that he beat you, Jobar three-lobe?”

“Shut up. He didn’t beat me.” Jobar frowned, fingering the ear where Justan had ripped out his earring. The mages had repaired it, but Jobar had never worn an earring in that ear again. “It was a tie.”

“No, my battle with him was a tie,” Qenzic said, laughing. “You were beaten. At least you can now say that the only man to beat you in hand-to-hand was a named warrior.”

“I cannot wait to tell Darlan!” Faldon said.

Locksher looked perturbed that the conversation had gone off track. “So Faldon my friend, will you have us on this mission of yours?”

“Of course,” Faldon said, still giddy over the news. “At the very least, I’ll have two capable healers at my side. My only concern is whether you two have the capacity to travel quietly.”

“I do,” Locksher replied. “And as far as Vannya, I have some magic that can help her with that.”

“Very well, then.” Faldon shook his hand. “We will leave in the morning. My earlier offer still applies. You are welcome to dinner this evening. In fact, I insist that you stay at my house tonight. Darlan will have so many questions for you.”

“I will requisition another tent and extra supplies for the journey,” Poz said.

“Okay, but wait. Uh . . . we do not wish to share a tent,” Locksher said.

The male students looked at each other, relieved that Vannya was available. Jobar got a stupid grin on his face and Faldon was sure that the student was about to make his own suggestion as to where the mage could sleep.

“Jobar,” Faldon said in warning, just as the student was opening his mouth.

“She will be tenting with me,” Jhonate announced, giving the men a glare that told them in no uncertain terms that she would not tolerate bad behavior. The grin on Jobar’s face faltered.

“Thank you,” Vannya said. She walked over to Jhonate and gave her an appraising look. “So you must be Sir Edge’s mysterious trainer, then? This will be fun, sharing a tent with you. We girls need to stick together, right?”

“As is proper,” Jhonate said, though by the way she eyed the mage, it didn’t look like she had done so out of any sense of camaraderie.

“We have much to talk about. We can both tell stories about our time with Sir Edge. Why, he told me so much about you . . .” Vannya remarked. A frown darkened her features for a moment, but she quickly turned that frown into her prettiest smile. It was evident to Faldon’s experienced eyes that the smile wasn’t completely genuine. “I must say that with all the time we spent together, I am surprised that he never mentioned how beautiful you were.”

Faldon winced at the double meaning in those words and he saw Locksher’s eyes widen as well. Jhonate’s features tightened and it was obvious that she didn’t take Vannya’s remark as a compliment.

“As I should expect from my pupil,” Jhonate said and forced a smile of her own that almost mirrored Vannya’s in its brilliance. “I do find it odd, however, that despite your beauty, in all his letters home, he did not mention you at all.”

Vannya’s face went red as her smile faded.

Faldon saw the death grip Jhonate had on the ring Justan gave her and gulped. He could tell that this was going to be a long journey.

The hunt took much longer than Deathclaw expected. The trail Talon left behind showed him that after he left her, she had stopped her meandering ways and took a direct route to the west. She still left death in her wake. He found the remains of her victims along the way, but she no longer wasted her time in trivial actions of destruction. She seemed to be moving with a purpose.

Her tracks headed straight in a westerly direction and she was stopping only to eat and sleep. Then whatever focus she had found must have faltered, because she found something to distract her. She had come across an isolated human dwelling inhabited by a male, a female, and three children. From the age of the tracks, Deathclaw could tell that she had stayed in the area around the small house for several days just watching the movements of the humans. Then she began their torment.

She started by killing some of their livestock. From the scent of blood around the home, it looked like she had strewn their remains about to terrify the humans. Then Talon had taken the smallest child, a female, from the home and brought it into the forest with her.

There Deathclaw found the remnants of a battle between Talon and a mysterious beast. The beast must have attacked before Talon had finished her twisted game, because the girl child somehow survived the ordeal and though injured, had escaped and made it back to the family’s home. By the time Deathclaw arrived, the humans had abandoned their dwelling. The small house was empty, their animals and wagon were gone, and their tracks showed that they had fled to the east.

Deathclaw crouched down and looked at an enormous five toed footprint in the wet leaves of the forest floor. Some of the leaves were charred as if whatever left the print was extremely hot. He leaned in closer and inhaled, filling his senses with the creature’s essence. The scent was both foreign and familiar, but he couldn’t grasp why.

The damage to the forest around him told of the battle that had taken place. Trees were broken and blackened, while the ground was scarred with rips in the earth and there were even more footprints like the one he was examining. The blood of both Talon and this creature was scattered around the battle site.

One set of tracks seemed out of place and Deathclaw stopped to examine it carefully. This set of tracks looked and smelled much the same as those of the large beast’s, but were much smaller. They must have belonged to a creature more similar to Talon in size.  These tracks were present at the start of the battle, but vanished part way through and did not return. He wondered where the smaller creature had disappeared to.

It was unclear who had won the battle. Neither combatant had died, or at least there was no corpse. The tracks of the two strange beasts had simply disappeared, but Talon had escaped and fled to the west.

A grim toothy smile showed on Deathclaw’s scaly face as he examined the freshest tracks. He was now just three days behind her. Soon he would catch up to her and he could finally end her horrible existence.

Now that he knew that his prey was close, he began taking time to try and figure out how to use the magical sword that the red-haired man had called “Star”. When he had followed the human Hamford out of the desert a year earlier, Deathclaw often watched the man practice his sword work. One time, when Hamford was working on a farm for a few weeks, he had met with another man every evening to swing swords at each other. At first Deathclaw had thought the men were trying to kill one another, but over time he came to understand that they were practicing to improve their skills.

It had been a foreign concept to him. Raptoids did not practice individual fighting skills; they fought from instinct and experience. But now that his self awareness had increased and he was alone without a pack, Deathclaw understood that such training could be useful.

He found that the long claws on his fingers made it hard to grip the hilt like he had seen the humans do. He was forced to adjust his grip, angling his claws up over his palms with most of his gripping strength focused on his thumb and forefinger. The end result was that his grip wasn’t very strong, causing the muscles in his hand and forearms to grow tired and sore quickly. Deathclaw continued on, swinging his sword around whenever he had a spare moment, knowing that his body would adjust if he kept at it.

Talon’s trail became more difficult to follow. She was running as if afraid that this beast was going to follow her. She rarely stopped to kill any more and when she did, she ate it quickly without bothering to torture it.

Deathclaw soon decided that her fears were well founded. He began finding traces of the other beast every once in a while along her trail. This creature could fly. That was the only explanation for the way its scent came and went. It also explained why Talon’s movements had become so bizarre. She was hugging the trees as she traveled, avoiding any open spaces and when sleeping, buried herself in the snow and leaves, keeping herself unnoticeable from the air.

Deathclaw wasn’t sure of the reason for the creature’s dogged pursuit, but the sheer determination such a chase required told him that whatever it was, this creature was intelligent. No normal beast would have kept up a hunt for so long. Its ability to use fire combined with its intelligence convinced him of only one possibility. It was a dragon, and one of a type that was unfamiliar to him.

What was this dragon doing so far from the desert and why was it so determined? Had she killed its children or a mate? The odd familiarity of its smell had Deathclaw wondering if she had angered the creature when he was still with her. He had stayed with her most of the time after they left the wizard’s castle and didn’t recall coming across anything like it. He would have remembered if Talon had killed a dragon youngling.

The set of smaller tracks he had found at the scene of her battle with the beast tickled his mind. Perhaps she had injured a youngling after all. But he hadn’t found a body. Deathclaw couldn’t see why a dragon would pursue Talon if its child had flown away.

Regardless of the creature’s intensions, he hoped that he would find evidence that it had caught and killed her. Then at least his mission would be accomplished. Then he could . . . but Deathclaw did not know what he would do next. The thought and the indecision that came along with it brought up an anxiety that he did not want to face. Whenever the question came up in his mind, he pushed it away. He needed to focus on his current goal. The rest would take care of itself.

Then Talon stopped running for a while. She had so well disguised her presence that it took him awhile to figure out why. She had found a good hiding spot in the hollow of an old tree, and by the age of her tracks had waited there for well over a day. At first, Deathclaw did not understand why she would do such a thing. He circled the hiding spot and found the tracks and scent of the creature that was pursuing her all around the area. It had come close, but hadn’t found her.

Out of curiosity, Deathclaw climbed into her hiding place and the answer became quite clear. From within the hollow of the tree, she had dug holes into the wood from which she could see out in any direction. She had been watching the dragon’s movements and learning its methods.

After leaving her hiding spot, Talon had spent her time meandering around as if searching for something. Soon Deathclaw understood what she was up to. It was the same thing he would have done. She had been looking for a good place to ambush the creature. She was determined to stop being the hunted one. Now both she and this mysterious beast were hunting each other.

A short time later, Deathclaw found her ambush spot and came upon the site of a second battle between Talon and the creature. Talon had hid in the top of a tall tree and waited until the dragon flew by. Then she had pounced.

Deathclaw examined the damage to the area, gathering in the sights and smells until a picture of the battle was formed in his mind. She had attacked the beast in mid-air, slashing and tearing at its wings until they crashed to the ground in a heap. The creature fought back, scorching the earth and trees around it.

Talon would have enjoyed the challenge. Her speed, agility, and healing ability versus the dragon’s sheer size, strength, and fire. The battle had gone on for a long while. In places, the damage overlapped itself on the battlefield, making it hard to make out the particulars.

It looked like Talon won the fight, because the beast had limped away trailing blood after it, but for some reason she hadn’t stayed around to finish the creature. Instead, she left and headed to the west again, this time with more confidence, as if she no longer feared pursuit.

Deathclaw tried to decide whether to follow the beast’s trail, if only to satisfy his curiosity about its identity. It was a tempting diversion, but in the end he followed Talon. Destroying her was his sole reason for existence now and he was now only a few hours behind her.

After following her trail a few miles more, Deathclaw came to the top of a ridge and stopped in his tracks. Before him raged an enormous river swollen with melted winter snow from upstream. The water stretched as far as his eyes could see.

Deathclaw’s heart beat fiercely in his chest. His fear of water had been crippling when he had first entered this wet land from the comfort of the desert, but he had learned to control his fear and now even used streams and creeks to his advantage. This river though . . .