The Wizard Hunters (25 page)

Tremaine pressed her lips together. That was unfair, considering for once that wasn’t what she was planning at all. Telling him that wouldn’t exactly help her case.

“All right, I see why one of them can’t do it,” Florian put in with some asperity, ignoring Ander, “but why not me?”

“You fall down a lot,” Tremaine told her.

“So do you!” she protested.

“Not as much as you.”

This stymied Florian, who obviously hadn’t been keeping track. Tremaine hadn’t been keeping track either but Florian didn’t know that.

“You can’t do this,” Ander told her, shifting from no-nonsense-let’s-be-reasonable to anger. “I’m not going to let you.”

“Sure you are,” Tremaine said, in a deliberately maddening tone. She knew Ander couldn’t argue worth a damn when he was angry. “We’re wasting time.” She stood up, turning to climb back down the jumbled steps.

Ander swore, pushing to his feet to block her way. “Dammit, Tremaine, you are not—”

Ilias shouldered in and forced Ander back a step. Annoyed, Ander shoved him in the chest but Ilias didn’t move. Ander was a few inches taller but Ilias suddenly seemed to be taking up a lot more room in the narrow passage.

While Tremaine stood there stupidly, wondering who was going to win, Florian stepped forward, saying in a sharp whisper, “Don’t fight!” She clouted Ander in the ear and aimed a blow at Ilias. With faster reflexes Ilias ducked, giving her a reproachful glare.

“Dammit, Florian.” Ander clutched his ear, glaring at her incredulously. Finding one thing they could agree on, he and Ilias exchanged mutually outraged expressions.

“It was a reflex,” Florian explained, still ruffled. “I’ve got four younger brothers.”

“We don’t have time to argue.” Seizing the opportunity, Tremaine pushed past everybody, leading the way down.

“Wait.” Ander caught up with her, carefully not touching her arm. He glanced warily back at Ilias. “Let’s talk this over.”

Frustrated, Tremaine let him draw her a little further down the crevice, just out of earshot of the others. Ilias watched this suspiciously and Florian put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

It was hard to make out any expression in the dim light, but Ander asked softly, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

Tremaine let out an exasperated breath. “Are you?”

“You know what I mean.” He shook his head. “I know Gerard knows all about it, so I didn’t tell Averi about the asylum, but—”

Tremaine just stared at him. It was so unfair to bring that up right now. “I am not crazy.”

“I know that. But—”

“But—”
There’s always a “but” when it comes to my sanity
. It was taking a great deal of effort to keep her voice low and not explode. “You want to know the truth? I was kidnapped by an old enemy of my father’s and locked up in a mental asylum. My father found out about it and pieces of the people responsible were found floating in the river for a month. Only the Prefecture never could figure out how many people it was, because there were more right parts than left. That’s an old Valiarde family joke. But it ended up in the society column that Tremaine Valiarde spent a week in a nuthouse and that’s all the family enemies really wanted anyway, though they didn’t expect to have to give their lives for it. That’s the story of Tremaine and the asylum.”

Ander stared at her. He shook his head, caught somewhere between fascination and shock. “If that’s true—I thought your father was—”

“I’ll tell you what he was later.” Tremaine gestured helplessly. She hadn’t meant to get into this just at the moment. “If it’s not true, so what? I used to be crazy. You used to be a playboy that everybody thought would run as far from the war as possible, and you didn’t. You ran toward it. So why can’t I?”

“All right, all right.” Ander looked away, shaking his head. “Your new friend doesn’t need to protect you from me.”

She knew he didn’t mean Florian. “Why don’t you convince him of that?” She motioned for the others to come on and started back down the crevice herself.

Behind her, Ander muttered under his breath, “Who put you in charge?”

Tremaine was pretty certain it was a rhetorical question.

“
Y
es, I know the way. Yes, I know what to do. Now go on, go, shoo.” Tremaine and Ilias were crouched down in the shadowy lower passage, near where the ground still rippled with the digging creature’s efforts. Ander and Florian had already gone to take their positions for the ambush.

Ilias hesitated, watching her closely, obviously worried. She realized he might be thinking about her little moment above the chasm and felt her cheeks redden. “I’ll be fine,” she said emphatically, making go-away gestures again. He sighed, squeezed her shoulder and stood, vanishing in the shadows of the passage.

Tremaine let out her breath and rubbed her face. Besides making sense logistically, it was just better for her to do this. Maybe she was getting some odd idea that risking her life was making her value it more.
Worry about it later
, she told herself.

When she thought Ilias had had enough time to get into position, she got to her feet and cautiously eased up on the spot of rippling ground, gripping a rock.
I can’t believe they’re going along with this
, she thought, both baffled and terrified by the phenomenon.
Even Ander. He should know better than to listen to me
. She swallowed in a dry throat, braced herself to run, and tossed the rock.

Whatever it was, it exploded out of the ground with a roar. Tremaine bolted back up the passage.

She tore down the narrow alley between the stone walls that Ilias had shown her. She hadn’t thought then how the thing would follow her through it; there was only a few feet of clearance between the looming walls and the creature had to be much wider than that. She looked back.

She had imagined something like a bear. This thing was large and dark and didn’t seem to have a head at all. It had turned sideways to follow her through the narrow passage and it towered over her, its lower part tearing through the dirt and gravel and sending a plume high in the air above it. Tremaine ran faster.

The rock fell away and she bolted between two pillars and across open ground, still casting frantic looks back. She slammed into something that staggered back a step and grabbed her arm. Looking up she saw the pale startled face of a Gardier. He stared past her, his eyes going wide with horror. He slung her away from him, bringing up his rifle.

Tremaine fell, skinning her elbow on the gravelly ground, seeing the other Gardier in the open area turning, jumping to their feet, yelling in alarm. Gerard stared at her incredulously, shouting her name. She looked back and saw the thing looming up, the electric lamplight revealing something like the little round squidlike creatures that washed up on the beaches at Chaire, with hundreds of small white tentacles bristling along its underside. Except that it was a good ten feet tall and nearly that broad and a mouth filled with concentric rows of sharp teeth leered out of its underside.

The Gardier managed to get off one shot before the thing fell atop him.

The other rifleman pounded across the camp, sliding to a halt to fire into the rippling dark surface of the creature’s hide. Another man dragged out his sidearm and fired, but it moved swiftly toward him, rearing up again.

Tremaine recalled the rest of the plan and pushed to her feet, stumbling for the nearest lamp. Someone shouted at her as she shoved it off its rock base. It smashed and that half of the camp plunged into darkness. She turned to see Ilias leap down out of the rocks and land on one of the Gardier. Tremaine ran for the other lamp.

Another man grabbed her arm but Ander tackled him from behind. Tremaine tore free and saw Florian smash the other lamp. She turned to see the leader shouting angrily and lifting his pistol but Gerard rammed into him with his shoulder, sending the man staggering before he could shoot. The other Gardier clubbed Gerard down just before Ilias reached him, tackling him around the waist. They fell over the rock where the last lamp stood and it crashed to the ground and went out. In the sudden darkness Tremaine halted, confused. She heard Gerard shout a warning.

Tremaine started toward his voice but as her eyes adjusted she saw Gerard drop like a dead man, collapsing onto the stone floor. The Gardier leader was just a few steps away from him but she hadn’t heard a shot.
Dammit, he’s a sorcerer
, she thought frantically. She looked around, hoping someone had dropped a pistol. The Gardier leader was a sorcerer and they were all dead.

The leader turned to her and in the darkness she saw him lift his hand in a ritual gesture. Then Ilias leapt on him from behind, one strong arm wrapping around the man’s neck as his knife came up to his throat.

Tremaine winced away from the dark wash of blood and saw two shadowy figures on the ground, Ander still struggling with his Gardier. Florian hovered over them with a rock, waiting for a chance. Ander rolled suddenly, bringing the man up on top of him, and Florian swung with frantic strength. The Gardier went limp and Tremaine swore in relief. She looked for the digging creature, realizing she couldn’t hear it anymore but in the shadows she couldn’t tell if it was still here or not.

“Stop where you are!”

Tremaine stumbled to a halt automatically, staring at the two Gardier who had suddenly appeared out of the rocks, not six paces in front of her. Their lamp blinded her and she winced away. She didn’t dare look back at the others; Ander and Florian were too far away to do anything and in another moment the Gardier would shine their lamp on Ilias, crouched over the bloody corpse of the leader. The first Gardier’s pistol was just now moving to point at her and Tremaine realized she shouldn’t have stopped, she should have kept moving, that she could have thrown herself at him and given Ilias the chance to jump him or Ander time to find one of the discarded weapons. If the man shot her now, she would fall where she stood, useless.

“Put up your hands!” he snapped roughly, his eyes moving nervously from her to the shadows behind her. “Now!” She heard the odd tone of the translator in his voice and saw he had one hand against his chest.

Paralyzed with indecision, Tremaine saw a shape move in the shadows behind him and realized it was another person, someone trying to edge up on the two men from behind. It had to be Ander or Ilias, though she could have sworn both were behind her and unable to circle around behind the newly arrived Gardier. Whichever one it was, he couldn’t do anything while she was in the line of fire. “We’re just lost here, we’re shipwrecked,” Tremaine said and thought,
Now, before they have a chance to think
. She lifted her hands, starting forward. “You have to help us,” she said, her voice coming out high and shaky and hysterical. “We’re going to die here!”
Try for pathetic, not crazy
, she reminded herself. Crazy meant dangerous. If he shot her, this would still work but she had to be close.

The lamp showed her the Gardier was young, his round face under the tightly fitting cap lacking definition, any clues to character. He looked startled and wary and confused. The man with him held another set of aether-glasses, his pistol still holstered. He was looking past her, squinting to see into the darkness, fumbling to shove the lenses back in their case and reach for his weapon.

The one facing Tremaine tried to say something that began with “Stop—” but she talked over his words without any idea of what she said. She could have been reciting the alphabet for all she knew. She wrung her hands, lifted them to her hair, making herself shake. It wasn’t hard. One more step and he started to lift the gun, shouting, and she faked a stumble and fell on him. He tried to catch her and was almost as surprised as she was when she grabbed the revolver barrel and twisted it down. The report as it went off was shattering, stunning her, and she didn’t see the punch that came at her jaw.

Tremaine was lying on the muddy ground blinking up dazedly before she realized she hadn’t been shot. She rolled over, her ears ringing. The lamp was on the ground now, its light showing her both Gardier sprawled not far away. And there was a dark figure standing over them.

Tremaine struggled to sit up, then saw he was dressed in faded dirty clothes and had patches of mud on his face and arms. He also had a sword, a big one with a broad flat blade and a curved horn handle. A moment later Ilias flung himself on him, staggering him back a few steps. Tremaine stared, confused, then saw it was a wildly exuberant greeting, not an attack. That was probably for the best; Ilias was almost a head shorter than the other man. Watching them hug and pound each other on the shoulders, she realized this had to be the missing friend their difficulties had kept Ilias from searching for.
At least I don’t have to feel guilty about that anymore
, she thought in relief. Ilias was apparently filling his friend in on what had happened, in detail and with excited gestures.

Tremaine took a deep breath, realizing she was trembling.
We did it
. It was hard to believe. And her jaw hurt. A lot. “Ow. Ow, ow, ow.” She touched it gingerly.
Why do they always have to hit me in the face
? Then Ilias was pulling her to her feet, turning her head gently to see the injury.

“Tremaine?” Florian called sharply.

“Yes,” she answered vaguely, dizzy and swaying a bit. His friend loomed over both of them, touching her arm lightly. She looked up at him blankly and he smiled down at her. She realized she had been imagining Ilias’s people to all be about his size; this man was bigger and physically more intimidating. It was hard to see much detail in this light, but his hair was darker and less wild and he had a few extra braids.

Apparently satisfied the wound wasn’t lethal, Ilias released her to poke his friend in the chest in a proprietary manner and say, “Giliead.”

“Hello,” Tremaine managed. He was taller even than Gerard.
Gerard
.

Tremaine pulled away and headed into the shadows where she could vaguely see Florian. Light blossomed as Ander managed to get their torch lit and she saw Gerard still lay on the ground, Florian busy untying his hands. Ander eyed Giliead narrowly and asked, “Not that I’m ungrateful for the help, but who the hell is that? Another friend of yours?”