Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) (27 page)

The old man didn’t blink. ‘I won’t let you go north after him, Gair.’

Gair scowled. ‘You can’t stop me.’

Scratching at his beard, Alderan said, ‘Actually, I can, but I’d rather you simply saw sense. When you can’t defeat a man with main strength, you have to do it with guile. There’s no shame in that. Have patience.’

Pulse thumping dangerously hard, the blood loud in his ears, Gair glared at the Guardian of the Veil. ‘You said
when
, not
if
. You don’t think I’d beat him.’

‘Right now?’ The old man’s lips twisted ruminatively. ‘No, I don’t. In a fair fight, maybe you would, but Savin’s never been interested in fair. In Gimrael we might find a way to clip his wings without him even feeling it.’ He showed his teeth. ‘It’s not as direct as your approach, but it might be more effective, at least until you’re fully recovered.’

Stung, Gair began to protest. ‘I don’t need to be coddled, Alderan. I’m fine—’

‘Are you? Are you really?’ Blue eyes fixed him, cold as glacial ice beneath those tangled brows, and he had to turn his head away before they saw too much. ‘Do you remember: last year you gave me your word that one day I could ask you to do something for me, and you’d do it?’

The inn in Dremen. Sudden anxiety fluttered inside Gair, thrashing against his ribs. Dismayed, he stared at the dusty ground. If the old man called in that favour, he would have no choice but to go with him.

Alderan grunted, satisfied. ‘I see that you do remember. This is that day, and this is me asking. Come to El Maqqam with me, and maybe we can bring this wretched business to an end.’

Every face a reflection of Aysha, every voice an echo.
Don’t ask me to do this
. ‘I can’t.’

The resolute lines of the old man’s face did not relent. If anything they hardened. ‘You can and you will, Gair,’ he said harshly. ‘On your honour: this one thing, and we’re done.’

‘Oh, we’re done all right.’ Gair turned on his heel and strode over to his scabbard. Slamming the sword home, he glared back at Alderan. ‘I will make him pay. As the Goddess is my witness, I will put Savin in the ground.’

‘And once you’ve done that, what then?’ the old man demanded. ‘Once you’ve filled the hole in your heart with hate so there’s no room in it for anything else, how will you let it go when you’ve nothing left to hate any more?’

‘
I don’t know!
’ Gair threw down the sword. ‘I don’t know, Alderan! I can’t see past what I have to do – I’ll deal with what comes after that when it comes!’

He’d looked to the future, and it ended at Savin’s death. The road unrolled to a corpse; there was nothing beyond it but blackness, as if the significance of it was so enormous that it blotted out all light from a world beyond that point.

Alderan reached out to him, perhaps intending a sympathetic touch, but Gair shied from the contact as if it would sting.

‘I’ve got things to do,’ he said and scooped up his sword, slinging the baldric over his shoulder.

The old man’s gaze followed him across the yard, heavy on the back of his neck with things unsaid. When he reached the opposite steps and began to ascend them, Alderan called after him. ‘I will hold you to your word, Gair. Three days, then we embark for Gimrael.’

Three days, then we embark on a colossal waste of time
. But he’d given his word, damn it. He couldn’t take it back now.

The boy’s rage blundered about in Savin’s head like a bumblebee on a windowpane, butting its head against the glass over and over as if sheer persistence would wear it down. It was almost funny. To think he’d had such high hopes for the lad and his potential.

‘Strong but oh so stupid,’ Savin murmured.
Don’t you realise I can hear you?

‘Hear’ was too strong a word, of course; he couldn’t actually pick out any words, but when emotions ran high and especially when strong feelings were channelled against him, he could sense it in much the same way a man sensed he was being stared at. And these emotions were certainly strong. Hate. Fear. A seething morass of pain-death-vengeance that sucked at him the way a bog sucked at a boot.

‘My, you are a very unhappy boy, aren’t you?’ he said to the air, pouring more wine into his glass. ‘You’ll rupture something if you’re not careful.’

He’d hoped for a stronger hold on Gair’s thoughts than this, but that Healer had been good – very good, and fast as a knife. She’d recognised what he’d done and thrown a shield around the boy’s mind, then used the Leahn’s own strength as a weapon to weed out his influence before it was fully rooted. Now instead of a window into Gair’s head he had only a crude shadow play on the curtain of the shield: all impression, no fine detail. Amusing as it was to watch, so far it was completely unproductive.

He settled back in his chair, feet outstretched towards the fire. Much as his failure irked him, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the girl’s skill. Idly, sipping at his wine, he wondered if she was as pretty in real life as she had been in Gair’s head.

From her iron cage in the corner, the firebird watched him unblinkingly. Her painted feathers were smeared and smudged now, and even from across the room he could smell her: the sharp note of sweat, the rich reek of her plundered cunny. The animal odour was repellent and at the same time intensely arousing – it appealed directly to his hindbrain, where desires dwelt that he couldn’t afford to unleash, not just yet. Finding a way to make her scream would have to wait for another day.

16

THE USES OF POWER

In the water, another Teia was learning to work with fire.

She saw herself sitting cross-legged, wrapped in the warm golden glow of a clay lamp on the floor. Around her was a suggestion of carpets and cushions, enough to imply that she sat in the chief’s chamber, as she did now.

At first the image was cloudy, like her reflection in Ytha’s bronze mirror. As it began to clear, details emerged: folds in other-Teia’s clothing, the glint and shimmer of a bead necklace. The lamp flame reflected in other-Teia’s eyes, and as she watched, it stretched up as tall as her hand was long then dwindled to a bluish glow about the blackened wick before returning to its former size. She could almost hear the thin, whispery music that made the flame dance.

Careful
, Teia told herself, recalling Ytha’s instructions. To scry was to observe; it was dangerous to allow herself to be drawn into the image in the water, the Speaker had admonished, or to attempt to change it. She could only watch, whatever she might see.

Nonetheless, a little thrill of triumph turned her stomach over. At last she was learning to control her gift: the water was showing her a glimpse of the future she had chosen instead of bewildering fragments with no sense of time or scope.

Just as she felt her lips curving into a smile, white fangs flashed past her face as a Hound’s jaws snapped closed on the image and snatched it away.

Teia recoiled. Her eyes flew open, her heart racing, but there was no Hound in front of her, only Ytha, cross-legged on a cushion as she had been every day for a month now, since just before Firstmoon. Between them, the water in the wide bronze basin shimmered and cleared.

‘You almost had it, child,’ Ytha said. ‘Come, try again.’ She reached for Teia’s hands to place them on the rim of the basin once more.

‘I saw a Hound.’ The words came out small and timid, like mice. ‘As soon as I saw the image clearly, a Hound bit it.’

‘It bit you?’

‘No, the scrying. The Hound snapped at it and the image disappeared.’

She struggled to remember details; the Hound had leapt through her thoughts in a heartbeat. Each time was the same: the creature present only long enough for her to recognise it for what it was then gone again, leaving nothing but a cold foreboding in the pit of her stomach.

She rubbed her forehead and screwed up her eyes, but there was nothing more to tell. Besides, learning to guide her scrying was too precious a gift to waste. ‘I’m sorry, Speaker. Can we try again?’

‘Of course.’

Grasping the Speaker’s outstretched hands, Teia let her wrists rest on the rim of the bronze basin and closed her eyes once more. No sooner had she reached for a strand of that glorious music to begin to scry than massive paws thumped into her chest.

She felt herself driven backwards into the cushions by the impact. The huge beast crouched over her, its weight crushing her chest, and all her breath left her in a
whoosh
. The Hound’s jaws lunged towards her, ready to crush her head like a bird’s egg, then stopped just inches from her face. Eyes as red as madness fixed her. Lips curled back from jagged teeth, and it gave a coughing growl that sounded disturbingly like laughter, its rank breath fanning her face. Teia struggled to breathe with its weight bearing down on her. Her lungs began to burn; panicked, she tried to thrash her way out from underneath the beast. Its mask contorted into a warning snarl, saliva dripping on her dress. It could kill her with a snap, and it wanted her to know it.

A scream clawed its way up Teia’s throat but she had no breath for it and it emerged as little more than a moan. Then the weight lifted and the Hound was gone.

Her eyes snapped open and she sucked in a huge breath, as if she’d just emerged from underwater. Let it out, took another, and the burning in her lungs began to fade. Only then did she realise she was still sitting upright, and the feeling of being knocked over and half-suffocated had all been illusion.

The Speaker frowned at her.

‘What did you see?’

This time, Teia would have to tell her all of it. Ytha had chosen to teach her scrying today and she had no way of knowing how much of the vision the other woman had seen in the water.

‘I concentrated on tomorrow, like you said, and I saw the two of us with a lamp. You were teaching me to work with fire. As soon as the image was complete, a Hound leapt out at me. When I tried again, the Hound knocked me over and crouched on top of me as if it was going to tear out my throat.’

‘A Hound?’

‘One of Maegern’s Hounds,’ she said, hating the taste of the words.

Ytha’s expression cooled. ‘What do you know of that?’

‘At the Gathering, Maegern promised She would send two of Her Hounds, didn’t She? I think . . . I
know
it was one of them that I saw.’ She heard the Raven’s voice again, scraping around the inside of her head like claws, and shivered. ‘It threatened me.’

The Speaker sniffed. ‘I think perhaps you have let fireside stories go to your head,’ she said. ‘The Hounds mean you no harm.’

So why had it felt so much like a warning when the beast hulked over her? A demonstration of its power, of what would happen if she stood in its path. ‘I can only remember fragments from the summoning, but I see images of Maegern in my dreams, all the time. Her Hounds chasing me, and destruction everywhere I look.’

‘You saw our victory, that is all,’ Ytha scoffed. ‘You saw our enemies driven before us, as She promised us they would be. You are imagining monsters in the shadows, girl.’

I’m not. I know I’m not
. Teia took a deep breath for courage. ‘I’m afraid, Speaker. I’m afraid of what She might do once She is freed.’

Ytha straightened up, drew herself in. Teia watched her wrap herself in her authority as clan Speaker the way another woman would pull on a coat. ‘She will help us, in return for our aid.’

‘What help could one of the Elder Gods possibly need from us?’

A crease appeared between Ytha’s brows. ‘You ask many questions.’

Ducking her head, Teia mustered herself. ‘Forgive me, Speaker, but these dreams trouble me. I have . . . misgivings.’

A bony hand gripped her jaw and forced her to look up. Green-flame eyes stared into hers, icy and remote as Finndail’s Banner unfurling across the midnight sky. ‘Do you doubt the goddess’s word, child? She vouchsafed us Her aid – would you call Her a liar?’

‘N-no,’ Teia managed. Rising panic shook her voice, but she pressed on. Ytha had to be made to see, for all their sakes. ‘I don’t know what She told you, but I think you heard what She wanted you to hear. Once She’s free She doesn’t need you any more. She’ll do what She’s always done and turn the Hunt loose.’