Hunter's War (Legend of the Wild Hunter Book 4) (28 page)

She turned her attention to those smudges, the saladogs. They could be the weak links. And they were the only chance she had. It would have to be a hit and run. Poke the saladog’s mind and keep moving. It wouldn’t do for her to engage them. That would be futile.

Concentrating on the nearest one, she reached out to it, trying to break down its will and control it. But the saladogs were not wholly of the natural world like the Maligar they served. She could only grasp a small portion of its mind, and as their consciousness merged, her head was filled with visions of dark places and distant times, with temples and forests long since forgotten. She couldn’t risk going any deeper and threw her command into its mind as fast and as hard as she could, before pulling out. It was a single word, but with any word, in the natural world, it was filled with meaning.

Pulling away, she felt the long black tendril, which connected the saladog to the darkness, break. It was free, but it could never truly be free. She understood, from the brief moment of their joining, the saladog wasn’t being controlled by the Maligar, but was a physical part of it. She wasn’t sure how it was possible, or what it meant, or how she even came to understand it, she only knew it was true.

Free from the Maligar, the saladogs was mindless and uncontrollable. It did the only thing it knew how to do, and that was to kill. It quickly turned on its valrik handlers. Kile couldn’t see what was happening, what it was doing, but she knew. The raw emotion of the saladog poisoned the world around it. It was not what she wanted. But what choice did she have?

The second saladog, or Valgar, was easier. It didn’t take nearly as long to break down its will and merge with it. Within the dark recesses of its mind, she once again saw the long abandoned temple, deep in some unnamed jungle, but this time, she was allowed to see the interior. A room of immense size with a deep well in the center and writing, which she could not read, nor identify, scribbled around the outer walls. She tried to translate it, to understand it, but the more she strained, the darker it became.

-KEEP IT TOGETHER-

Grim’s voice filled her head, bringing her back to her senses. She almost let herself be sucked into the darkness again. It was all she could do to throw her single word command into the Valgar’s mind before breaking the connection.

Now there were two of them running amok. Was it enough, she wondered? She wasn’t sure if she could do it again, what with barely getting out the last time, but what else could she do? She needed to buy Jax, and his men, as much time as possible.

Searching the horizon, she picked out a third black smudge and was about to merge with it when, what appeared to be a streak of light, flew past her. That was something new. Whatever it was, it was heading directly for the outpost. She watched as the light flew up and over the wall, and then another one followed it and then a third. There were two more moving across the landscape, and one nearly ran her down. Of course, that might not have actually been possible, since she wasn’t really there to begin with, but it passed through her consciousness, and when it did, she caught the faint scent of lavender.

They were all heading toward outpost. Whatever they were, and what their purpose was, the soldiers would have to deal with them. She had the Valgar to contend with. She couldn’t let herself become distracted again.

Kile turned her attention back to the black smudge, but it was gone, and so were all the other life forces. The landscape was unnaturally barren and dark. The shadows began to close in on her. The Maligar had found her. She wasn’t exactly trying to hide from it. Unfortunately, it never occurred to her, it would try to defend itself.

The sticky black strands of the Maligar reached out, wrapping themselves around her and entangling her. There was no place she could go, no place she could hide. She tried to break free, but it was no use, they were pulling her toward the darkness, pulling her toward the laughter, and away from her own reality.

The more she resisted, the more tangled she became. The Maligar was too strong for her here. She got careless. She somehow wandered into its domain, if that was even possible. She could feel her grasp on her sanity, slipping away. She needed to protect her identity, to regain connection to reality. Reaching out to the dogs, which surrounded the wagon, she found only silence. There was an empty void where their minds once existed. She lost her anchor, her safety net. Something was happening back in Moran, and she was helpless to stop it. She reached out for anything she could connect with, but there was nothing, or almost nothing.

-Kile-

“Vesper?”

The voice was soft, barely above a whisper, but it was enough. As long as she could hold on to it, as long as she could keep remembering who she was, she couldn’t be absorbed into the darkness completely. It was one tether, one line which kept her grounded in reality, until the second voice came.

-Don’t you dare leave me here alone with these damn vir.-

Grim’s voice was so powerful she almost laughed out loud, and she probably did, but the sound fell into the darkness.

Then the other voices came, the ones she didn’t realize she connected to. The rats in Moran, the red shouldered hawks, the black hoofed deer, the ravens, the badgers, the black fox, the squirrels, even the sleeping possum, which was now wide awake. She felt them, she heard them, and now she was connected to them. Finally the dogs returned. She wasn’t sure where they ran off to, but she was glad they came back. With so many lines, so many connections, she was able to pull herself free of the Maligar, snapping back into her own mind.

Her psyche was stretched thin and her head was spinning as her identity came crashing down on her. She barely opened her eyes, when the wagon she was lying in was struck from the side and the sound of battle rang in her ears.

“About time you woke up, Hunter.”

Kile quickly sat up, which was a mistake as the world began to spin and she had close her eyes for a moment, until it stopped.

“Do you always sleep in the middle of a battle?” The woman asked.

She was standing beside the wagon with her sword drawn. She seemed out of breath. Her hair may have been longer and her clothes a bit tattered, but there was no mistaken who she was.

“When did you get here? How did you get here?” Kile ask

Turning, Erin looked at her.

“I may not do it much, but I can still wind-run with the best of them,” she said, jumping up onto the wagon. She extended a hand to Kile, who was at first reluctant to accept it, for fear this was some kind of illusion.

“You found her.”

A young man called out, running up to the wagon’s side.

“Steele, is that you?” Kile asked.

“The one and only,” Steele said with that same flirtatious grin. “We heard you might need a hand.”

“We, who’s we?” she asked.

“I’m afraid there are only six of us at the moment.” Erin replied. “But the rest aren’t far behind.”

“We weren’t even sure if we could get past the valrik, even with our Edge.” Steele added. “We only managed to slip through when those funny dogs turned on one another.”

“Heads up guys. Second wave coming in.” A young man called out from behind Steele. He had short blonde hair sticking out from under a bandage which was tightly wrapped around his head. He looked at Kile and smiled.

“Long time, no see,” he added.

“I know you?” she asked.

“You should. We were at the Academy together, although… I can understand why you wouldn’t want to remember me. I kind of gave you a hard time.”

“Lionora.”

“Figures you’d remember my horse’s name before mine,” He laughed

“I’m sorry. It’s just that…”

“No time for reminiscing.” Erin said, stepping between them. “We have to hold off the valrik, give Captain Jax time to clean up the eastern gate so Folkstaff can get through.”

Kile jumped down from the wagon. Steele gabbed her when she stumbled.

“You sure you’re all right?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure. It usually takes a few moments to get my bearings.”

“Okay, but… what about your eyes?”

“What about my eyes?”

“They’re, well… a bit… scary looking.”

“Oh, are they still stuck? I thought I got that cleared up.” She replied “Nothing I can do about it at the moment.”

Kile looked around the field and was a bit unnerved by what she discovered. Twelve hounds of Moran, and six Callor soldiers, lay dead beside the wagon. There were also several valrik and three reptilian wolves. It would appear the valrik sought her out and the dogs defended her with their lives. Did she actually cause that much of a disturbance with her Edge, they felt the need to stop her? She knelt down beside one of the dogs, stroking it gently.

It just didn’t seem fair. War didn’t seem fair. The dogs never wanted this war, it wasn’t their fight, and yet they were willing to die to defend her. Did the valrik want this war? They seem to blindly follow their leader into battle with no real thought of their own safety. The men of Moran certainly didn’t want this war. It came to their front door uninvited.

“There’s no time for that, Kile.” Erin said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

No, there’s never enough time, she thought. Everything was moving so fast and the fallen seemed to get left behind. She fell into her Edge and felt Grim’s presence. He was never too far away. The heavy clopping of his platter sized hoofs on the stone walk told her exactly where he was.

“Come on Grim, this isn’t over.” She said, getting to her feet.

Laying her hand upon his side, she felt surprisingly refreshed. He was her strength and she would need him now more than ever.

Climbing up onto his back, she drew the Lann from his harness, her hands tightened over the well-worn grip. Closing her eyes, she fell back into her Edge. She could feel the ravens, they were still here with her, as were the red shouldered eagles, who watched from the cliff face, and the dogs, who were still fighting alongside the men of Moran.

She felt surprisingly calm at the moment when Bakara came to her, gently landed on her shoulder. He showed her a view of the battlefield, which no other soldier could see, and through his vision, she searched for the source of the war.

If vir didn’t want the war, and the valrik didn’t want the war, and surely the dogs had no interest in any war, then who did?

“Vadokk.”

“Who, or what is a Vadokk?” Steele asked.

“Vadokk is leading the valrik forces,” Kile replied. “We remove him, and we may have a chance of breaking this siege.”

“Forgive me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that easier said than done?” Larks asked. “We have no idea where he is, and even if we did, we couldn’t get to him.”

“I know where he is,” Kile said with a grin.

“Kile… what are you planning on doing?” Erin asked.

“I’m planning on finishing this. I’m planning on taking the battle to Vadokk.”

“That’s madness,” Steele added. “Wait for reinforcements.”

They made sense, but she wasn’t listening to them. She just wanted this to end, and to end now.

“What do you think Grim? You want to wait for reinforcements, or are you ready for one more ride?”

-Oh… why not?-

Grim replied in that unapologetic attitude he always seemed to possess under pressure.

Mountain Ponies don’t run, unless they want to, and it would appear Grim wanted to end this just as much as Kile did. He picked up speed, and it wasn’t long before he was running flat out to where the Callor forces held back the valrik line.

The men of Moran quickly moved out of his way. They were all too familiar with Grim by now. Nobody stood in the path of a charging mountain pony, not if they wanted to live. Grim navigated the corridor left open by the men, a direct path to the barricade which was even now being overrun by the valrik forces. The dogs fell in with the pony while the ravens, and the hawks, took to the sky. Kile couldn’t help but wonder what Alex would have made of this spectacle. He may have made the prediction in jest, but now it was all too real. The soldiers stared in awe when she passed. This would not go unnoticed, she thought. If anything, it would only add to the Legend of the Wild Hunter.

Steele, using his Edge, quickly overtook Grim. At first, she thought the Hunter was going to try to stop them, but he hit the front line with an audible pop. It sounded like a cork being pulled from a bottle, only much louder. The valrik were thrown from the barricade by some unseen force, leaving a breach in the front line. Some mystic art of the air, Kile thought as she and Grim aimed for the opening.

Those valrik, who were fortunate enough not to get trampled by the mountain pony, were either taken out by the pack of dogs which followed, or kept at bay by birds. All she had to do was keep her head down and let Grim take her to where she needed to go. Of course, once she was there, she wasn’t really sure what she was going to do.

It didn’t take her long to find Vadokk, but then, she knew exactly where he would be. He wasn’t the type of leader who stayed behind and let his forces have all the fun. He enjoyed the carnage too much. The closer he was to the battle, the more control he had.

He was definitely one of the largest, ugliest, valrik she ever saw, but thankfully, not as large as a brunrik. He had the same gray complexion, like wet stone, but his stature was closer to that of a vir than of the Uhyre. He was riding on the back of a saladogs, and was decked out in some form of crude armor. It looked as if it had been slapped together from a variety of different sources, but the one piece she recognized was the helmet perched upon his oblong head. It once belonged to Sergeant Wargner.

She never really liked the man, and she knew the feeling was mutual. He was a narrow- minded, chauvinistic, foolish vir. She would even go as far as to say his action led to the demise of Perha Squad, but none of that mattered now. Seeing his helmet upon the head of Vadokk was unacceptable.

She could feel the fire burning within her, her feral side was rising, taking over, and this time, she didn’t try to stop it, instead, she embraced it. She let it wash over her, consume her, she felt more alive and more aware at that moment than she had at any other time in her life. Every feeling seemed to be amplified and yet it didn’t overpower her. She felt the cold air pass over her skin, the warmth of the mountain pony beneath her, and the soft worn leather of the blade in her hand. She could smell the burning of wood and the sharp metallic scent of blood. She could hear the sounds of battle and even taste the acrid smoke in the air. Even though she was focused on Vadokk, she was completely aware of everything going on around her.