The Eye of the Hunter (39 page)

Riatha and Aravan put their common burden down.

“Let us take refuge,” said Gwylly.

“Where?” asked Faeril. “I can see nought.”

As Riatha turned to answer the damman, her eyes flew wide and she shouted,
“’Ware!”
the Elfess wrenching her sword from its shoulder harness.

Aravan whirled about.

Faeril heard a horrendous snarl, and she started to turn, but someone or something crashed into her from behind, slamming her facedown into the snow, smashing atop her.

* * *

After the transformation, when he was no longer Urus, the Bear snuffled the snow and caught the acrid traces of
Urwa
, the Bear’s name for Foul Folk. He turned to the two-legs behind, those companions he befriended, and called out for them to follow:
Wuff!

Deep within this savage creature, reason prevailed, but barely, for the Bear was driven by other urges, other needs from those of the Man he once had been. He was now a thing of the wilds—not some Man in the shape of a Bear, but a Bear cunning beyond all others, a Bear who at times had strange un-Bearlike urges, urges and motives akin to those of Man, perhaps even akin to those of a particular Man, a Man named Urus. Yet the Bear who once was Urus only occasionally thought along those paths, and although he might again
become
Urus, there was no guarantee he would. And
that
was a danger that the Bear and Urus both lived with: Urus might never again become the Bear; the
Bear might never again become Urus. The Man Urus was aware of this danger; the Bear was not.

But now the Bear followed
Urwa
, hated foe of all Bear-kind, and he would not be swayed from this task. And so, down the track he lumbered, knowing that the others followed in his steps. How he knew this was beyond his ken—but he did not question, for he simply
knew
.

Miles he went, and miles more, the scent of the
Urwa
growing fainter. Often he had to root about for the spoor, and at times he raged in anger, roaring loudly in challenge, slashing the snow with his claws. But he found dim trace of the scent again and again, though it was now all but gone.

The pelting white all about him grew thicker until he could not see more than a Bearpace or two, and it tried to hide the
Urwa
. It would fail.

The blowing air tried to stop his walk. It would fail. He
knew
.

The Bear had no concept of time, and little of distance, only knowing that light came, then dark, only knowing that something was near or far.

He lumbered far. He
knew
far.

He lumbered until the white and the blowing air erased all
Urwa
spoor. He roared and bit the white, clawed the white, bit the blow, clawed the blow. The scent of the
Urwa
was gone.

The Bear sat on a hillock, the last place he had smelled
Urwa
. Here he would wait until the two-legs came in his footsteps.

White howled about him. He waited.

White grew thinner. Howl grew less. He waited.

The blow stopped pushing and just breathed little. He waited.

The white stopped. Light would come. He
knew
.

Light did come. The two-legs did not come. Something was wrong. He
knew
.

He thought of Urus….

And a dark shimmering came upon the beast, and swiftly it
changed
, altering, losing bulk, gaining form, and suddenly there in the deep snow sat a giant of a Man: Urus.

Urus stood and looked at the sky. Dawn had come. He remembered much of what the Bear had done, for Mankind has the capacity to do so, whereas Bearkind has much trouble envisioning the acts of Man.

Mountains loomed about, and from the knoll Urus could see five ways that Stoke and his minions might have gone, five ways they could have escaped.

And where were Riatha and Aravan, Gwylly and Faeril? Surely they could not have fallen that far behind.

The Sun rose.

Urus scanned up the vale until it twisted from sight.
Where are they?

A sudden foreboding filled his heart, and he
knew
that ill had befallen his comrades. And Urus the Man roared his anger, wrath twisting his face beyond all recognition as he raised his clenched fists unto the sky and bellowed the name of the enemy—
“Stoke!”

His shout flew out among the mountains, and the mountains hurled it back—

Stoke!…Stoke!…stoke!…stoke!…stoke…stoke…toke…oke…o…

4E1430 to 5E988
[The Past Millennium& a Half]

“T
he Baron is dead!”
Amid the clatter of returning horses the cry rang throughout the keep.

Baroness Lèva looked up, her startled breath drawn inward through clenched teeth. Steelshod hooves rang on cobbles, and the shouts of stable men and riders alike echoed in the bailey. Voices rose and fell, intelligence lost amid babble.
Boom! Doom!
The massive outer doors of the main keep boomed open, echoing throughout the great building like the knelling of doom, even in the remote chamber of the Baroness. Lèva set aside pen and parchment and composed herself, turning from the desk to face the doorway. Approaching footsteps rang upon flagstone, and she braced herself.

A knock sounded. “Enter,” she called. A tall, rawboned Man dressed in begrimed hunting garb, a smear of dried blood high on one cheek, trod into the room, his hard stride bearing him across the stone floor. As he stopped before her and bowed slightly, his silver-shot dark hair fell ’round his bearded face. “Lady Stoke, Baron Marko is dead. Slain by a boar.”

Lèva’s heart leapt for joy—
At last!
—yet in no manner did she let such pleasure cross her thin-faced features. Instead, her voice was cold. “How, Kapitain? Through what dereliction of your duty did you let him die?”

Janok’s eyes flew wide at this deliberate accusation, yet he swallowed his anger as he looked upon this ice-eyed,
black-haired bitch. “The Baron ordered us to stand aside and he faced the boar alone. But the shaft on his spear snapped, and the beast slew him.”

“I would have that spear, Kapitain. I would see the weapon which failed to serve. I would have it destroyed before my very eyes.”

Janok bowed his head in assent.

“And the boar, what was its fate?”

“Dead, Baroness. Slain by my own spear as it gored the Baron.”

Drifting up from the courtyard came the clatter of horses ridden out through the gate, and then hooves pounded off, galloping down the reach of the high mountain road leading away from the keep. Lèva turned her head toward the open window. “Kapitain, where do they ride?”

Janok smiled. “They ride for Aven and Vancha.”

Her thin lips drawn white in fury, the Baroness wrenched her face toward the Kapitain. “I gave no orders!”

“Nay, madam, but I did. As Kapitain of the Keep, it was my duty. The Baron’s brothers, his
heirs
, must be informed.”

“Out!”
Lèva spat.
“Out!”

Again, Kapitain Janok bowed slightly. As he withdrew, a sardonic smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

When he was gone, the Baroness swept the papers from the desk in rage.
Meddler Janok! Sending word to the brothers! Lenko now Baron lest I somehow…somehow…Oh, why did I not anticipate this and take measures?
Lèva leapt to her feet and paced the floor.
What to do? What to do?
She stopped before the fireplace and stood staring at the grating.
Calm down! Calm down! First things first: when the broken boar-spear is burned, the evidence will be destroyed
. Lèva knelt at the hearth and with her own hands she kindled a blaze. Flames leapt upward.
But what to do about Lenko?
Lèva crossed to the bell cord.

When the maidservant appeared, the Baroness stood at the open window. “Pick up that mess at the desk. Then send a runner to bring to me the foul weapon that failed to protect my husband. And tell Madam Orso to attend me here,” she ordered, not shifting her glacial blue gaze from the surrounding massifs of the dark Skarpal Mountains.

* * *

“She wishes to bear a child within six months.”

Pale, long-fingered hands reached up, lifting cowl back
and away from a white face, the shaven head giving it an ugly, skull-like aspect. Yellow eyes stared forth from beneath hairless brows, sight shifting from mother to daughter and then to mother again.

Lèva felt her blood run chill, and she looked away from the gaunt Man, if indeed Man he was, summoned here by her mother, though how, Lèva could not say.

His voice was whispery, seeming somehow ancient, belying his youthful frame. “
Tji
need an heir to Baron Marko.” His words formed not a question, but a statement of fact instead. “Else
tji
cannot control the estate, the lands, the wealth.”

“Yes. We need an heir,” answered Koska. The older Woman was somewhat shorter than her daughter but otherwise as narrow-faced and thin, her hair black as well, though her eyes were dark—black as a pit, said some.

Again his voice came soft. “To control the estate.”

Koska shifted uncomfortably. “Yes. Yes. To control the estate.”

“A male child,” added Lèva, glancing at her mother but not at the Man, turning away from his yellow-eyed countenance. “In Garia, a girl child has no status as heir.”

“What would
tji
give?”

“What do you ask?”

“For
tji
, Madam Orso, what
tji
have given before when summoning me.”

Lèva shivered, as if spiders crawled across her flesh. Koska gritted her teeth, then jerked her head up and down once, no more, agreeing to his terms.

“For
aun
daughter, a place to stay as long as
jai
desire, and to be tutor to
mai
son.”

Lèva gasped and turned to the Man, the dregs of her soul shuddering at the sight of him. “
Your
son? It will be
your
son?”

The Man nodded. “Baron Marko Stoke is without heir. His brother Lenko is next in line of succession. None else but
jai
can give
tji
a child, a male child, to be born within six months. To go to a
Human
Man and get with child will depend on chance: first, that
tji
and he are fertile together, as
tji
and Marko were not; second, that if
tji
do bring forth a child from such a mating, that it be a male. Regardless, a child born of Humankind, even if it were a male, would
come entirely too late to be the fruit of Marko’s loins, and
tji
would lose the estate to Lenko in any case.

“Nay, if
tji
would have a male child arrive in such time that it could have been sired by Marko, it will need be
mehr
who sires it.”

Lèva turned to her mother, fear in her eyes. Madam Orso slowly shook her head. “There is no other way. Lèva. You must truly be pregnant, for Lenko will bring his own personal physician to verify such. And the physician will be present at the birthing as well, for should the child be still-born or female, then Lenko will be heir.

“You must submit to Ydral if you would keep the estate.”

Revulsed, slowly Lèva nodded, agreeing.

Ydral smiled, then stepped forward and savagely rent the clothes from Lèva’s body, hurling her naked to the stone floor, holding his long-fingered white hands over her mouth, muffling her shrieks.

…And when he was done with her, he turned to the waiting mother.

* * *

Lèva spent much of the next six months locked in her room, all sharp instruments forbidden. At night her yowls and yammerings filled the keep, and in the day she wept uncontrollably and babbled in unalloyed fear of something or someone hideous and grasping, but what or who it was none knew or would say. That she was pregnant was plain, and by the size of her it could be no other but Baron Marko’s get, as Madam Orso claimed.

Baronet Lenko came from Aven, and among his entourage was his personal physician, who verified that in spite of her madness Lèva was indeed pregnant and would deliver in a few short weeks. Lenko was enraged, yet would stay for the birth.

On the other hand, the younger brother, Baronet Marik, remained in Vancha, not bothering to come to pay his respects to his dead sibling, and instead sent word that if aught happened to Lenko, then and only then would he return to Garia.

And in the isolated chambers atop the east tower of the keep, a strange Man came to live: a Man who kept to himself and was never seen in the day, though sometimes at night he was espied stalking the shadowy halls and high ramparts of the keep, and some said they saw him coming
down from the roofs above; a Man who always wore a cowl, and none ever saw his face; a Man who filled the rooms with scrolls and tomes and arcane instruments and peculiar animals; a Man who performed strange experiments in the nighttide, the animals shrieking in terror. Yet Madam Orso, mother to the Baroness, said that the Man was physician to Lèva and would assure a live birth and ordered that he not be disturbed, and so he was let be.

The weeks dragged by, the Baroness shrilling in the ebon dark, lamenting in the wan light, growing larger with child even as she sunk deeper into madness. She was attended by both Ydral and by Lenko’s physician, Brün: Ydral at night, Brün in the day. And Ydral gave her concoctions to drink, some clear and sparkling, others dark and bubbling; while Brün tried to soothe her with herbs.

Lèva went into labor in the nighttide, and amid wild shrieks gave birth in the pit of the dark. It is said that the birth of the child was marked by two ominous events: an attending midwife ran screaming from the birthing chamber, babbling of demons and a mouth filled with fangs—she was never seen again; white-faced and shaking, Brün came forth from the room, and at the very moment he reported to Lenko that it was a male child, Brün fell stone dead. Whether none, one, or both of these tales are true, it is not now known. What
is
known, however, is that Lenko stalked into the chamber to see the child for himself. Lèva, pale and trembling and quite mad, cowered in the corner of the childbirth bed, the sheets drenched with sweat and birth water and blood. Madam Orso bore a cup of liquid to her gibbering daughter. Hooded Ydral held the child, wrapped in soft blankets, and as Lenko approached, Ydral passed an arcane hand over the child’s face. When Lenko lifted the blanket to see for himself the visage of the newborn Baron, what he saw was a babe seemingly normal in all respects but one: the child had yellow eyes.