Black Sun Rising (35 page)

It moved to the center of the road and stood there, as if challenging them to ride over it.

Damien moved. His mount, responsive to his needs, broke into a sudden gallop. Despite his misgivings Senzei followed suit. The priest charged directly at the wolflike beast, as if daring it to stand its ground. But its only response was a low snarl and a twitch of its lips: a mockery of human laughter.

Then, when he was almost upon the beast, Damien veered off toward the right. Off the path. The move sent them toward the river, and their horses were forced to make their way through thicker and thicker brush. Damien’s mount stumbled once but managed to stay on its feet. After they had ridden parallel to the river for some distance the priest turned west again; Senzei realized that he was hoping to circle around the pack, and regain the road. But as they went farther west, they saw that the eyes were already there, waiting for them. Arrayed at an angle that seemed just a shade too calculated, as though they meant for the pair of them to reach the road at one particular point.

Herding us,
Senzei despaired. Evidently the same thought had occurred to Damien; with sudden determination he pulled his sword free of its sheath and made ready to hack his way through their line. Senzei clutched his springshot to his chest and tried to pray. He wondered if Damien was praying as well—and whether the priest thought his prayers would be answered, or used them only to discipline his mind.

They broke from the trees, back onto the road. At least a dozen animals were arrayed before them, red eyes gleaming hotly; each of them was clearly capable of taking a man and a horse to the ground, and enjoying the fight.

And then Damien pulled up short, and motioned for Senzei to do the same. Confused, he did so.

In the middle of the road, poised tensely before them, was a man.

He was thin and lanky, with hair the same bleached color as the animals’ fur and skin that was nearly as white. He had red eyes that reflected the Firelight like crimson jewels. His skin was thin, translucent—so much so that it was possible to see the veins throb in his neck, deep blue veins running down into a white silk collar. He wore a white shirt and sleeveless jacket, white leggings, white leather boots. As if he, being albino, would only wear such animal produce as came from beasts that shared his affliction.

He smiled, displaying needle-sharp teeth. One of the beasts moved to his side; its claws flexed as it waited.

Too many,
he despaired.
How can we fight that many?

Apparently, Damien thought the same thing. He didn’t sheathe his sword, but he lowered it. With his other hand he reached into his pocket, and drew out the golden earth-disk.

The man grinned, a bestial expression. In a voice that was half hiss, half laughter, he challenged Damien: “You claim to be a servant of the Hunter?”

“I’m looking for one of his people.”

“Then you’re brave, sun-man. Or stupid. Or both.” He squinted toward the Fire. “Put that thing away.”

Damien hesitated. “Light a torch,” he ordered. It took Senzei a moment to realize that he was talking to him. He fumbled in one of his packs for a brush torch and matches. Finally he found them. And managed to get the thing lit. His hands, and therefore the light, shook badly.

Damien slid the crystal flask out of his belt and into the neck of his shirt. The Firelight faded, replaced by Senzei’s flickering orange flame.

“Much better.” More of the beasts had come onto the road; Senzei could feel his horse trembling, anxious to flee the smell of danger. “It hurts the eyes.”

“I’m looking for Gerald Tarrant,” Damien told him.

“Yes. He knows that.”

“You know where he is?”

The thin man shrugged. “In the keep. The Hunter’s warren. Where he belongs.”

“And the woman he had with him?”

The red eyes sparkled. “I don’t keep track of the Hunter’s women.”

Damien tensed; for a minute Senzei thought that his rage would get the better of him and he would attack the man. He looked at the two dozen animals waiting to take them, and despair filled him.
Prepare to die,
he thought, and he gripped his weapon even more tightly.

But Damien didn’t attack. Instead he said coldly, “You’ll take us to him.”

Something flashed in the albino’s eyes. Irritation? Anger? One of the white wolves growled. But then he answered, in a voice as smooth as silk, “It is what I came to do.”

He looked to the south, where the road behind them was swallowed up by darkness. For a moment it seemed that his eyes gave off a light of their own, a crimson far more brilliant than mere reflection could account for. He whispered something into the air—a Working? —and then waited. After a moment, a pounding could be heard in the distance. Rhythmic. Familiar. Horses’ hooves? Senzei wished that Damien was facing him, so that he might read his expression. But the priest refused to be distracted, and kept his eyes fixed on the albino sorceror. When a horse broke into their circle of light and galloped past them, he didn’t turn. Not even Senzei’s horrified gasp was enough to bring him about, although his body went rigid in anticipation when he heard it.

It was their horse. The one they had left behind, the one that Damien had killed. Now it was drained of all its color as surely as it had been drained of life. Thin rivers of blue coursed down its hide where red blood once had spilled. Its eyes were empty, unfocused, its expression unresponsive. And from its belly—

Senzei fought the urge to gag, succeeded only because there was nothing left in him to bring up. Or no strength left in him to vomit. Out of the horse’s belly hung the tail ends of the worm-creatures, which writhed from side to side as their forward halves, buried within the beast, sought out choice morsels of horse flesh.

The white man swung himself up onto the ghastly animal. One of the worm-ends, responding to his proximity, wrapped itself around his ankle—and then snapped back suddenly, as if burned. After a moment, it shuddered and went limp. The rider grinned.

“Since you will not be driven,” he hissed, “then you must be led. Yes?” He kneed the gruesome mount into motion, one hand tangled in its death-bleached mane. “Follow me.”

And he laughed softly—a silken, malevolent sound. “I believe the Hunter is expecting you.”

I’m going
to kill him
, Damien thought.

It wasn’t anyone in particular that he meant, so much as a general desire to strike out at the source of his frustration. The Hunter would serve. So would the courteously arrogant Gerald Tarrant. Even this albino henchman of the Hunter would do nicely—although if it came down to trying to unhorse him in combat, Damien didn’t know if he could bring himself to kill the same animal twice.

But he was checked in his rage by a single thought, which echoed in his soul with unaccustomed power.
Ciani.
She was still alive. He sensed it. If he gave in to his fury, and by doing so caused her to suffer more ... no. It was unthinkable. Alone, he could have risked such action. God knows, his sword had gotten him out of worse situations than this. But now he was traveling with others and was responsible for their well-being. It was an unaccustomed burden, and sometimes it chafed as sorely as manacles. It would have been far, far easier to deal with this situation if he were alone.

But let’s be honest, shall we? If it wasn’t for the others you wouldn’t be here in the first place
.

He twisted back in his saddle to take a look at Senzei, who was following somewhat behind him. The man was flushed with fever, and the bruise on his forehead shone livid purple in the flickering torchlight. His hand on the reins trembled slightly—not from fear, Damien suspected, so much as from weakness. He looked bad, in the ways that Damien had come to recognize as life-threatening. He should never have let him come this far. But what other choices had they had, realistically speaking? Should Senzei have remained behind in Morgot so that the rakh-creatures could make a second attempt to kill him? Or stopped for a rest in mid-Forest, in the hope that a doctor would just happen by? Damien wished he dared to Heal his companion, or even do a Numbing. That was the most frustrating part of all of this: riding through a land of such incredible raw power, and being unable to Work it to save the ones he cared about. But he remembered Senzei on the roof of the hotel in Kale, trying to throw himself over the edge in order to embrace something he later described as a “black sun.” If the current had been that bad there, then Working it this close to the center of the whirlpool would be tantamount to suicide.

I’d do it,
Damien thought grimly.
If I thought I could Heal him before it got me, I’d do it in a second.

They reached the base of yet another steep incline; Damien felt his horse shudder in exhaustion. And for the first time all night he felt a touch of true despair. All of his assorted skills couldn’t save them if his mount gave out; they might free Ciani and even manage to heal Senzei, but without horses they would never make it out of the Forest alive.

The trail switchbacked several times, growing steeper and steeper as they went. They were near the mountains, then. Perhaps even among them; it was impossible to gain any sense of their true position with the canopy overhead, and the endless exhausting miles behind them. He patted his horse firmly on the neck and heard it nicker in response. They had been through worse together. They would get through this. Senzei’s mount, on the other hand, was city-trained; Damien wondered how much longer it would last.

And then they came around a turn and it was there before them: a soaring edifice of black volcanic glass that broke through the canopy high above and laid bare the night sky beyond it. Prima’s silver-blue crescent crowned the central tower like a halo, and cold moonlight shivered down the glassy stone walls like gleaming mercury, caught in the streaks and whorls of the obsidian brickwork. It was surreal. Breathtakingly beautiful. And, to Damien, disturbingly familiar.

Where had he seen it before? He tried to pin down the memory, but nothing would come. Maybe it wasn’t the castle itself that he remembered. Maybe just something like it.

They rode into the courtyard and for a moment simply sat still on their horses, stunned by what was before them. The volcanic glass of the castle’s facade reflected their torchlight back in pools and arcs that shimmered across the brickwork like living things. Finials rose like tiny black flames from the tips of sweeping arches, and a tracery of fine black stone guarded narrow windows that reached up toward the moonlight. Revivalist, Damien observed. The pinnacle of that style. And for the first time in his life, he understood what the allure of the period must have been.

Dear God. What must this place be like in the sunlight!
He stared at the perpendicular windows, wondering if the dawn would reveal patterns of tinted glass. And again, a sense of familiarity flickered in the back of his mind.

The albino had dismounted, and he came to where Damien and Senzei’s horses stood. He waited. After a moment Damien dismounted, careful to favor his wounded arm. And Senzei did so also—or tried to. Fortunately, Damien was close by, and he was at Senzei’s side the instant he began to fall. He caught him about the chest and helped lower him to the ground, until his feet were steady beneath him and it seemed that he could stand unaided. His flesh was distressingly hot, and it burned like fire even through the fabric of his shirt.
He needs rest,
Damien thought grimly.
He needs a Healer. But how likely are we to get either one of those, in this place?

Shadows came at them from one of the archways—human-shaped figures swathed in black, that reached out to take their mounts. A muttered warning from Damien was enough to cause them to draw back, long enough for him to remove their more valuable possessions from his and Senzei’s horses. God alone knew if they would see the animals again. He patted his horse one last time to calm it, then gave its rein over to the black-cloaked men. Senzei’s they simply took, assuming—rightly so—that the wounded sorceror had neither the strength nor the will to oppose them.

Side by side, the travelers entered the Hunter’s keep. Black volcanic glass gave way to black numarble, streaked with random bits of crimson. In the light of Senzei’s torch, it made the floor look bloodstained. The furniture was black as well, heavy novebony pieces that were as intricately worked as the building’s facade, cushioned in jet black velvet. Red silk tassels and fine red fringe edged black velveteen draperies, fixed permanently shut over the high arched windows. There were bits of gold visible here and there—drawer handles, locks, opulent doorknobs—but the dramatic darkness of the castle’s interior was only intensified further by the contrast.