Red Hood's Revenge (16 page)

“Do you know what’s happening?” the old one asked.

“Keep everyone in their rooms,” said Roudette. “Remain calm. If you flee, the Hunt
will
ride you down.”

The sister looked to Talia for confirmation.

“Do it,” said Talia.

“The Wild Hunt rides from midnight until an hour before dawn.” Roudette moved into the garden, assessing its value as a place of ambush. “They’d be upon you already if my cape hadn’t obscured our trail.”

“Since you’re the one who dragged me back here to begin with, I’m having a hard time feeling grateful.”

“You will once you face a hunter.” Roudette pointed to the far side of the garden. “That doorway is closest to the main entrance.”

“I’ll lure him into the garden,” said Talia.

Roudette shook her head. “You’re his prey. When he spots you, he might summon the rest. Wait by the wall. I’ll keep his attention on me. Strike quickly, and the Hunt won’t realize they’ve lost one of their number until they depart before dawn.”

Talia moved to the right of the doorway, crouching against the wall where a row of olive trees would help conceal her from view. She waited with a short curved sword in one hand, a knife in the other.

Roudette moved into the middle of the garden, making sure the moonlight shone upon her red cape. She gripped her hammer in both hands as she paced around the pool.

Even a single hunter was enough to rouse the wolf’s hunger. She fought the urge to don the skin and charge into the night, chasing down the hunters and ripping them from their mounts. Tearing into their throats until every last one of them lay dead before her.

The next howl was closer, eliciting cries of fear from within the temple. Roudette heard the sisters rushing through the hallway, doing what they could to calm their patients.

She smelled the hunter before she saw him. The sulfurous stink of a fairy curse mixed with the bloody musk of the hounds. Two hounds, but only a single huntsman. The leather- wrapped handle of her hammer creaked in her grip. She could remember her first glimpse of a fairy hunter, though she hadn’t known what he was at the time. Fool that she was, she had believed him to be a rescuer, come to save her from the wolf that had consumed her grandmother.

Shouts broke out from the yard. Footsteps pounded through the hallway as the more able-bodied patients fled, ignoring the pleas of the sisters. The hounds’ barks grew louder in response.

“In here,” Roudette shouted. The first one through the doorway was a young man with a splinted arm. Roudette pointed to the back. “Keep running.”

He vanished through the rear doorway. Four others tore through the gardens, and then the hunter appeared.

Flanked by his hounds, he could have passed for human. A bronze helm fringed with black horsehair masked his face. He held a spear with a leaf-shaped point in one hand. Fresh blood darkened the tip.

Swirls of blue, either painted or tattooed, decorated his bare chest. His loose blue trousers were bound at the knees. A bone-handled knife hung on one hip, a bronze-rimmed horn on the other.

The dogs wore neither collars nor leashes, though they appeared to strain at invisible bonds. Long- legged and lean, their ears flat, they growled at Roudette. Their eyes had a faint blue-green glow, barely visible in the moonlight.

Joy surged through Roudette’s heart as she charged the hunter. His dogs raced to intercept her. She saw Talia launching herself from the shadows, silent as the darkness.

Roudette swung at the dog on her right, the iron weight of her hammer crushing the animal’s shoulder. The other dog slammed into her. She fell, releasing her weapon and digging both hands into the dog’s throat. She kicked her legs into its ribs and hurled it through the air to land in the pond behind her.

The hunter had dodged Talia’s first attack. He pushed her back with his spear, then grabbed the horn from his belt. As he raised it to his lips, Talia knocked his spear aside and kicked high. Her foot cracked the horn and knocked several teeth from his mouth.

“Try blowing that thing now,” Talia said, breathing hard.

Roudette grinned and turned her attention back to the dogs. She finished off the wounded one first, stomping his skull. She picked up the body and tossed it at the second dog, knocking it to the ground.

Talia was on the defensive now. Her speed and reflexes were fairy-blessed, but this was a fairy hunter. She parried every attack, but the man was impossibly fast. Each time she tried to strike, the spear lashed out like a serpent. Talia shifted her weight, and the spearpoint cut her thigh. A second thrust tore the sleeve of her robe.

“I’ll deal with the hound. You help Talia!” The voice came from Danielle, who stood on the far side of the garden, glass sword in her hands. Danielle stared at the remaining dog, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “Come to me.”

The idiot! This was no common mutt. The dog was already charging toward Danielle. Even if she tried to flee, the animal was too fast. It leaped, jaws bared.

Snow stepped from the shadows, one hand to her lips. She blew, and dark splinters flew out to strike the dog.

Danielle twisted aside as the animal crumpled to the ground, whimpering in pain.

Roudette laughed and picked up her hammer. “Forget the princess and face me, you fairy-cursed bastard.”

The fight ended quickly after that. Roudette wasn’t certain who landed the final blow. Talia was the one who cut the hunter’s hand and wrested the spear from his grip, but it was Roudette who smashed his knee, knocking him to the ground. She thought her hammer struck an instant before Talia’s sword, but she couldn’t be certain.

Talia kicked the fallen spear away.

“He’s dead,” said Roudette. “I can smell it.” She scratched her arm, then flinched. Pushing back her sleeve exposed bloody gouges from one of the dogs. She hadn’t even noticed.

Talia was pressing a hand over the cut on her thigh. “Will there be more?”

“I hope so.” Roudette licked her lips. The magic of the wolfskin was more intoxicating than any drink. Having tasted blood, she wanted more. She stepped toward the doorway, the cries from beyond the temple walls tugging her forward. With her strength and Talia’s speed, how many more hunters could they destroy before the sun returned? The wolf cared nothing for her plans, wanting only to punish those who had hurt them.

“Soon,” she whispered, forcing herself to turn away from the screams.

Talia hurried through the garden toward Danielle. “What were you thinking? What would you have done if Snow’s little darts hadn’t stopped that thing?”

Danielle ignored her. Her attention was on the hound, still writhing from whatever Snow had done to it. “What’s happening to him?”

Roudette wiped gore from her hammer, then walked over to join the others. The dog was whimpering and biting his side. Foam dripped from his jowls. He tried to stand, only to collapse again.

“What did you do?” Talia asked.

“The spell is the same one I used on Roudette’s wolves,” Snow said. “This country doesn’t have a lot of pines, so I used a handful of thorns from the vineyard instead.”

The vines which had come from the fairy hedge. Without a word, Roudette swung her hammer, ending the dog’s torment.

“Are you all right?” Khardija stood in the doorway. She appeared shaken, but her voice was firm.

Talia jabbed a sword at the hound. “
This
is why you should destroy that thing. The thorns retain their curse. They kept the animal alive, tormenting it but refusing to let it die, just as they did to the princes.”

Khardija turned to face the other sisters who had gathered behind her in the hallway, as though Khardija could shield them from the horrors that had invaded Jahrasima. “See if anyone else was hurt, and do what you can to calm our guests. Reassure them the danger has passed for now.” She waited until they had left before addressing Talia. “The danger
has
passed?”

“For tonight,” said Roudette. She cocked her head, listening as the howls echoed through the city. “They’ll return tomorrow night, and it won’t take them long to discover where this one fell. I’d make sure this place was empty by then.”

“We can’t,” said Khardija. “Some of our patients are too ill to move.”

Roudette shrugged. “Then they’ll die.”

“Mind your tone,” Talia snapped.

Roudette bared her teeth. One hand went to her hammer before she caught herself. With the wolf’s rage still upon her, it was all she could do to pry her hand free. She wanted to
fight
, and to hell with Snow’s curse.

“I’m sorry, Mother.” Talia’s voice dripped anger and guilt. “They came for me. I didn’t realize—”

“The temple will survive,” Khardija said firmly. “If not this one, then the others throughout Arathea. We will move those patients we can and do our best to protect the rest.”

“You can’t,” Roudette whispered. “You can’t stop the Hunt. None of you can.”

But Roudette could. With Talia’s help. Very soon now, she would.

 

Once the initial panic passed, the sisters dealt with the aftermath of the attack as calmly and efficiently as Talia expected. By the time you had worked here a month, dealing with crises of every variety, you learned to push your immediate reactions aside in order to treat the injuries before you. Talia remembered the first time she learned that lesson, the night a man had walked up the path with a carving knife protruding from his skull.

Faziya had led the man into the temple as if she saw such wounds every day. She packed bandages around the blade and sent Talia to fetch one of the senior sisters. It was only later that day, after the man had died and Faziya was alone with Talia, that Faziya had allowed herself the luxury of fear and grief.

Emotion could wait. For now, the sisters tended the injuries left by the hunter and did their best to calm the temple’s guests. The hunter’s body was brought to the back of the temple, where it would be stripped and burned tomorrow along with the three people he had killed, including one of the sisters.

Talia knew they were right. Nothing could be done tonight, not with hunters still roaming the city. She did her best to imitate Mother Khardija’s steadiness as she returned to her room.

Talia raised an eyebrow at the sight of three temple cats outside the door. As she approached, one of the cats darted inside. Talia peeked through the curtains to see Danielle scratching the cat’s neck. “Our guardians are your doing, I assume?”

Danielle whispered to the cat, who arched his back, then sauntered out to join his fellows. “The others are atop the walls. If another hunter approaches the temple, they’ll let us know.”

Talia drew her sword, sat with her back to the wall, and began to inspect the blade. The edge had chipped where she struck the hunter’s spear. She dug a small whetstone from her pocket and set to work. Without looking up, she said, “How do you know about the Wild Hunt?”

Roudette cocked her head, listening as a hound howled in the distance. “It was a fairy hunter who found my grandmother. He cut this wolfskin from her body while I watched, hidden in the closet.”

Talia flipped the sword and began to work the other side of the blade. “Has anyone ever fought them and lived?”

“Individual hunters like tonight, yes.” Roudette’s upper lip pulled back. “It makes no difference. They’ll replace the man we killed. They always do. If you’re thinking of trying to defend the temple, you’d be better off falling on that sword of yours.”

Danielle leaned forward. “How do they replace their fallen companions?”

“The fairy church believes a man’s death is ordained from the moment of his birth. Decreed by God himself.” Roudette leaned back, resting her eyes. This was the calmest Talia had ever seen her, as though killing the hunter had allowed her to truly relax. “Most of those struck by a hunter’s blade fall dead as you’d expect, but a few live on, joining the Hunt. Those are the ones whose time hasn’t yet come. They accompany the Wild Hunt until they reach the end of their allotted days.”

“The man we fought tonight?” Snow asked.

Roudette smiled. “The church would tell you it was God’s will his life ended on this day. We were merely instruments of God.”

Talia didn’t dignify that with a response.

“Where did they come from?” asked Snow. “The stories I’ve heard say the Wild Hunt was cursed to ride for all time, but every curse can be broken.”

“Not this one,” said Roudette. “Some say the leader of the Hunt is one of the old gods, fallen from power. Others believe him to be a mortal king who insulted a fairy lord and was cursed for his rudeness. The church describes them as servants of God, sent forth to harvest the souls of the damned. They say Arathea has fallen into sin, and the Hunt is God’s punishment. Until tonight, the Hunt has mostly been attacking the Kha’iida tribes, avoiding the cities.”

“Kha’iida?” asked Danielle.

“Nomads,” said Talia, thinking of Faziya. Few Kha’iida ever left their tribes. Faziya had never spoken of her reasons for turning her back on her people.

Snow pulled a mirror from her choker and concentrated. Her face brightened. “Beatrice! Is Trittibar around? The Wild Hunt is after Talia, and we could use some help figuring out how to fight them.”

“You’ve been gone less than a day,” Beatrice protested. “How in the name of—no, I don’t want to know. Is everyone all right?”

While Snow consulted with Beatrice, Talia turned back to Roudette. “I won’t let the Hunt destroy this place.”

“You speak as though you have a choice,” Roudette said, her expression distant. “My cape will hide you for the moment, but now that the Wild Hunt has marked you as their prey, they
will
find you, and they will destroy everything in their path until they do.”

“If Zestan has the power to set the Hunt on my trail, she can also turn them away.” Talia held her sword to the lamp’s light, studying the edge. “All we have to do is find her and persuade her.”