Vengeance of the Hunter (13 page)

Not to mention that he was hardly in any condition to field curious questions, much less resume his place as the resident priest of the town. Or any mood. Enverly had no wish to see misguided pity in the eyes of the townsfolk; the sheer thought of such emotion on their faces was enough to make him want to howl in fury. Since he could no longer do that, he would have settled for taking up a weapon, any weapon, and smashing it through wood or stone or flesh. And, lacking a weapon, he was grateful—sourly, but grateful nonetheless—that the Duchess Khamsin had seen fit to grant him as much privacy as possible.

Eventually she’d want to see him, he was sure. But until then, he took advantage of the hospitality provided, and of the young footman assigned him as a valet. Much of his wardrobe had been brought up from his cottage, and once he’d bathed, shaved and put on far fresher clothing, Enverly began to feel human enough to receive her. He couldn’t bear to take any food or water while the footman was present, though, and banished the boy into the corridor so that he could try to sip tea unobserved.

The duchess, though, gave him little chance to wait.

She gave the footman enough time to announce her, but only just, stalking into the room with the loose-limbed stride of a desert lioness, then ordering him out of the room once more. Enverly rose from the chair he’d taken by the fireplace, inclined his head and held up his slate so she could see what he’d written on it in advance.

Forgive my lack of conversation
,
Your Grace.
Will you have a seat?
Tea?

“Thank you.” With the same regal grace, Khamsin claimed the chair that faced him, and accepted the cup of spiced black tea he poured for her. At the sight of him taking some for himself, her dark brows rose. “You can bear to drink? Though I suppose that in your situation, I should like the reminder that I yet lived.”

The observation was apt; the tea scalded his abused mouth almost unbearably, enough that he could take no more than the tiniest sip at a time. Yet the flavor of it, rich and textured stuff that he knew to have come from Khamsin’s homeland, was a goad to his senses. Later, perhaps, he would write to ask for laudanum. For now, he merely offered the duchess a thin smile of acknowledgement. Then, after a moment, he did wipe the slate clean and write again.

My condolences upon the loss of your husband
.

To that, Khamsin smiled narrowly in return. “I should offer you the same, for he was almost more your friend than my own wedded lord. Did you think I never noticed? For eighteen years I was loyal to him, far more loyal than my weak little sister. I bore him strong and healthy heirs. But not once did he include me in your private counsels.” She drank down the tea with vigor before setting the cup ahead and fixing her stare upon his face. “Until the end. After your Anreulag broke him, and before my accursed kinswoman took his life even as he took hers—”

Enverly scowled and held up a hand to interrupt.
Ulima killed him?
She is also dead?

“She was old, yet she could still defend herself like a woman of Clan Sarazen. And if my husband in his madness came to her in the night to strike her down, I cannot fault her for that, at least. Much as it pains me to admit it.” Khamsin grimaced, then focused her gaze anew upon him. “I won’t ask you now to tell me of what befell you in the abbey, though I will have paper, ink and pen brought to you, and I would have you write it down for me in your own time. For now, I have testimony enough from Captain Follingsen and the other guards who were with you. But I will ask you this. Was that the last time you saw my lord?”

No.
I
saw him once after.
He raved about the girl.

“I expect he did. He spoke to me of only two things before he died—how that casteless chit of a slave survived the Voice, and of his guilt at the failure of his plans. This land was Nirrivy once. He longed for it to be Nirrivy again.”

Enverly took in the sight of her. The duchess had grown thinner and harder of face since he’d seen her last. While her gaze didn’t burn with the same religious fervor as Captain Follingsen’s—or for that matter, her late husband’s—there was nonetheless a glittering intensity there he’d never seen before. And with challenge in his own gaze, he wrote once more.

Why do you care about Nirrivy
?

“Would it surprise you to learn,
akreshi
, that I loved my lord? I’m not of this land, but he was, and so are his children. For them, I’ll take up my husband’s cause.”

That’s not all
. His next words on the slate were stark and almost accusing in their simplicity, but Enverly let them stand.

The duchess did smile then, with a cool, satisfied appraisal. “Your wits remain unimpaired, despite what befell you. Good. I have need of your acumen. Will you serve me as you did my husband? Will you take up your place again, to see the land of Nirrivy restored? You will have all the privacy and comforts this Hall can provide, and its protection in days to come.”

What do you get in return
?

“Your counsel on how to win the minds and hearts of the people, for one. Don’t think,
akreshi
, that I’ve never noticed how many of your people react to those whose faces are brown, no matter how long we’ve lived among you.” Khamsin’s tone darkened with contempt, though her gaze remained alight, scrutinizing him, as if she sought to glean straight from his face what his lost voice would have given instead. “And for another...you know how to call the Anreulag.”

Here then was the heart of it; Enverly would have laughed if he’d been able. Instead he raised his eyebrows and gestured meaningfully at his mouth, and it didn’t surprise him in the slightest to hear the duchess chuckle, rich and low.

“Ah, no, you can hardly do it yourself now, can you? But I can. Teach me the words to call and bind the Voice of the Gods, and I will give you everything my lord promised you and more.” Casually now, she took up the teapot and poured two more cups of the fragrant tea, one for each of them. “If we are very clever, who knows? Perhaps we can even restore the voice of Shaymis Enverly.”

His interest, already sharpened, sliced out across his thoughts with an almost painful intensity.
We would need Faanshi for that
.

“This is true. I can tell you,
akreshi
, that in any other circumstance I would care little for whether my sister’s spawn runs free in the woods. I certainly do not claim her as Clan. But if what the guards say of her is true, she turned aside the Anreulag.”

Khamsin held out the cup she’d poured for him, the ease of her stance at one with the anticipation in her eyes. Oh yes, she was a lioness. Or at least she fancied herself one; perhaps she saw herself as the true lion’s heart of Lomhannor Hall, on the hunt now for the greatest prey she would ever pursue in her life.

Whether she would prove a better patron than his lost lord remained to be seen. But Enverly could not resist the temptation to put her to the test.
She did.
I
saw it
.

As soon his final word took shape Khamsin smiled, bright and broad.

“My lord had his prejudices against the Hidden Ones. I don’t share them. If Nirrivy is to rise again,
akreshi
, I suggest that it would suit us well to call them to our banner. We can either take the Anreulag for our own—or take the only person in living memory to meet and match her power. Either way, it is a victory. And if we have the girl, we have the means to give you back what you lost.”

Approval coursed through Enverly. He didn’t trust the duchess, not yet, but he began to think that he might respect her. Bargains had been made throughout history on worse foundations than that. If she could deliver what she promised, it would be all the better.

My lady
,
I
am at your command.

Then he saluted her with his tea.

Chapter Eleven

On the road to Shalridan
,
Kilmerry Province
,
Jomhas 28
,
AC 1876

Gods damn it all
,
it’s for the best.

For several hours Julian and Rab headed south from the woods the elves controlled. Much to Julian’s relief, for Morrigh had barely had any time to rest in Dolmerrath, they found no new Hawk patrols. He didn’t need to press the stallion to his fastest speeds, and as long as they remained cautious, it was safe enough to stop as necessary to sustain Morrigh’s strength. Not to mention his own.

To be sure, Julian’s muscles relished the burst in his activity, and his spirit couldn’t help but take flight at the unlooked-for gift of Nine-fingered Rab returning to his side. There was no other option, really. His partner had made his disdain for the elves plain, and if Julian was going to return to his chosen calling, he needed Rab more than he’d ever done before. They’d have to work together to get him back into fighting form, and to find new ways to take down their targets now that most of his old ones had been rendered irrelevant. And they could even take advantage of how he’d changed, for the Rook was known to lack an eye and a hand. If they were careful, if they were clever, they could make this into a whole new weapon in their considerable arsenal.

After all, they were assassins. Not nursemaids, not warriors, not rebels, not what the elves needed for the success of their cause.

Yet as they made their way inland from the coastal woods, all Julian could see in his mind’s eye was Faanshi’s stricken face. She hadn’t breathed a word of complaint to him, not even when he’d kissed her—the surest sign of all that he needed to put as much distance between himself and the girl as possible.

Not that he could dismiss her from consideration, not yet, for amazement blazed like a signal fire in Rab’s face. His partner however knew better than to interrogate him in the saddle, and mercifully seemed to realize when Julian’s strength began to flag. He got them into the first inn they could find on the road that led to Shalridan, a place whose name Julian didn’t bother to note. His vision had remained clear, but weariness summoned back his headache, and his entire right arm ached with the exertion of hours of riding.

What food Rab might have fetched for them Julian couldn’t have said, for he scarcely noticed any qualities past hot and filling. But the pear cider was good, with a crisp, dry bite to it, and Julian was nursing a second welcome mug of the stuff when Rab’s curiosity finally exploded out of him.

“Rook...what the nine bloody hells?”

Tiredly Julian leaned back in his chair, resting his aching head against the wall behind him. “I already told you the basics.”

“Yes, but...” It wasn’t often that Nine-fingered Rab was at a loss for words, and his attention kept flashing between Julian’s altered face and the hand he’d rested upon the table. “Damn it, I was afraid I’d never work a job with you again. And now you’re telling me that girl almost got you killed.”

“She also saved my life. For starters.” Julian smirked down at his right hand, and then leveled a determined stare on his partner. “I need to learn to accommodate what she did. Fast. Will you spar with me? I’ve got to practice, and we’ve got to plan.”

Rab brightened, nodding eagerly, though Julian noted once more the traces of exhaustion that had ravaged his face—and the spark of bitterness in his eyes. “One thing before that, though. You
kissed
her.”

Julian scowled into his drink. “I might’ve known you wouldn’t let that go unremarked.”

“I knew you liked the little chit!” As Julian snapped his scowl back up to him Rab held up a placating hand, grimaced and added reluctantly, “All right, I knew you liked
her.
Are you planning on doing it again?”

For a moment Julian could make no reply, for fragments of memory sparked across his senses: the texture of Faanshi’s hair, the warm shape of her in his arms and, most maddening of all, the slow rhythm of her fingertips against his brow in half-remembered fragments of memory, where he was sure she’d massaged his brow as he dozed. He had to knock back more of his cider to distract himself from the thought of sleeping without the girl beside him—a notion fraught with implications he didn’t want to begin to consider. “Not if I can help it,” he said when he could finally speak.

There was more he could have said, any one of the arguments he’d been making with himself ever since he’d woken up in Dolmerrath. The beauty of having Nine-fingered Rab as a compatriot, though, was that Julian didn’t have to utter a word of it. Rab craved what he did. Neither of them took particular pleasure in the actual kill. But the challenge of the hunt, the eluding of pursuit, and the surety of payment in their pockets were the things the two of them had prized above all else from the first day Julian had taken Rab on as a partner.

He wanted those things back again, to ground himself anew in their clear simplicity. And seeing the younger man’s face light up told him, to his deep satisfaction, that his partner wanted them too.

“Good,” Rab said.

Of Faanshi, he didn’t say another word.

* * *

Shalridan
,
Kilmerry Province
,
Jomhas 30
,
AC 1876

It took another day and a half for them to reach Shalridan, and throughout the journey, nightmares dogged what little sleep Julian allowed himself. They showed themselves at first as old familiar demons. Once again, as he’d been doing in Julian’s sleep for the past twelve years, his brother Cleon took his eye and his hand while Dulcinea turned away from him in scorn. Through it all, his other brother Erasmus, the architect of his destruction, was laughing. Lightning and flame devouring his entire body, though, was new. So were the glimpses of Dulcinea becoming someone else, her blond hair turning black, her fair skin dusky gold, before the fire engulfed her too.

Rab, to his relief, gave no sign that he’d noticed anything amiss. After jolting awake twice out of such dreams, Julian resolved to avoid giving him the chance. When they weren’t riding or refreshing themselves, he hurled himself into exercise. Strengthening his right arm was paramount, but so too was restoring his quickness and aim, and for that there was no better sparring partner than Rab. Julian had never matched his partner’s dexterity even in his best physical condition, and Rab gleefully took on the task of teaching him to juggle. Not with his knives, not yet, but Julian was pleased enough to focus on practicing with the set of rubber balls Rab carried in his saddlebag. More complex demonstrations were Rab’s province alone, and twice on the way into the city, he turned teaching Julian into an opportunity to earn them coin by juggling for the interested passersby who stopped to watch.

They did it a third time when they reached the city, this time in an open square where Rab’s provocative showmanship could be put to best use. Julian didn’t quite trust his returning strength enough to risk their staying in any of the more dangerous districts of the city, where he and Rab both were well-known enough that they might be recognized, and neither were they prepared to explain the change in his appearance. That meant better rooms, and clothes to suit, though they’d have to choose with care where they’d hole up.

And that, in turn, meant revealing themselves long enough for Rab to put on a show.

They started simply, with the balls, so that Julian could practice and Rab could start attracting a crowd at the same time. Once faces began to turn their way, the younger man began deliberately playing to them, encouraging them to pick up where Julian left off and start throwing him things to juggle himself.

“Why, it’s the simplest thing in the world, and if my friend here can learn it, so can you! Allow me to demonstrate. Toss and catch, toss and catch—behold!”

Soon enough Rab escalated his performance, with Julian and two other men throwing him his own juggling balls as well as two more from eager children, until he had seven balls in the air at once. Had Julian been in sharper form, he’d have melted without a qualm into the crowd and liberated a few purses from their unsuspecting owners. But there was something intoxicating about being on even the edge of Rab’s display, and about pushing his own reflexes as far as they would go even if he couldn’t handle more than two of the balls himself. It cleared his mind and let him focus on here and now, rather than where he’d been and what had been done to him.

Or the healer girl he’d abandoned, with barely more than a word.

The crowd grew, drawn by Rab’s antics, until he began to swap his knives in for the juggling balls. Julian caught each of the balls as his partner tossed them out, including the two that’d belonged to the starry-eyed brother and sister now drinking in the sight of the show, and those he returned to their owners. Rab, in the meantime, drew a blade for every ball he abandoned, until he was juggling all six of the knives he’d been carrying upon his person. At his urging the crowd began to clap, and three young women at the front of the throng sang out in sweet harmony in time with the rhythm of everyone’s clapping hands. To their delight, Rab himself joined them on the call-and-response flow of the song, without losing track for an instant of the tapestry he was weaving with his flashing blades.

Julian couldn’t carry a tune, so he engaged himself instead with circling the edge of the crowd, where he could coax money from the nearest outstretched hands. Most of the women and a few of the men, smitten by his partner’s youth and beauty, paid him only enough attention to throw him coins—or to beg him for Rab’s name or where in the city he might be staying.

To his surprise, some of the women began to notice him too. He wasn’t unfamiliar with feminine attention, though he hadn’t sought it out as a rule for more years than he cared to consider. This, however, was far more blatant appreciation than he’d seen directed his way in even longer. His grin broadened and turned rakish; the voice he used to cajole their audience became purest velvet. In half an hour he’d gathered them enough funds to last the week, and four propositions besides.

He had too much pure male pride not to relish the reactions they won. But behind it, his conscience twinged.

They wouldn’t be looking at you like that if not for her.

Julian was working on driving that prickle of regret into the back of his mind when he spotted a carriage on the far edge of the crowd, and even from a distance, he froze at the sight. At first glance there was nothing to command the eye about it, for one noble family’s carriage looked much like another’s. This one, sleek and elegant of design with a pair of matched gray stallions before it, was no exception.

The crest on the side, though, had no business being in Shalridan. It was a crest that belonged in Dareli, on the far side of the country, where Julian had thought he’d left it.

But there was no mistaking it, not when his sight gave him depth and detail even from many paces away. He knew the crest of House Nemea when he saw it.

And when a slender blonde figure leaned out of the carriage window, Julian’s blood ran cold.

Tykhe showed him a modicum of mercy, for the figure in the carriage didn’t actually get out. Nonetheless he had to shake himself to drag his attention back to Rab, for his partner was bringing his juggling act to a grand finish, with two lit torches spinning through the air along with his knives. On the final bars of the song everyone was merrily singing, he nimbly sheathed knife after knife until he was left with nothing but the torches. Those he extinguished, with a last broad flourish, while his high clear tenor joined in the chord resounding from the singers in the crowd.

A roar of applause drowned out anything Rab might have called to him, or anything Julian might have said in reply. Half a dozen young men surged forward, eager to shake Rab’s gifted hands, and several of them called out offers to buy them both drinks. In moments they were off to the nearest tavern, his partner blithely chatting with everyone in range, though Julian had no notion of what he himself might have said before he was caught up in the throng.

On the way into the tavern, Rab caught his arm.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Later,” Julian muttered. He hung back as the younger men flooded into the tavern, and looked over his shoulder through the crowd dispersing out of the square. The carriage was moving on, its driver flicking the long reins of the grays to set them back into motion. Julian could no longer glimpse the figure inside it, but the one brief sight of her had been enough.

He hadn’t seen a ghost.

He’d seen Dulcinea.

* * *

“Driver! What’s the delay?”

“Street performers in the square, sir. Can’t make it through this way, do you want me to go around?”

“If you see a path through, take it. But we can afford a small wait. Dulcinea, my dear, would you care to step out to see what entertainments Shalridan offers its people?”

Erasmus Nemeides never uttered a word that wasn’t smoothly cultured. His mellifluous tenor was the rival of any musical instrument crafted by human hands, always clear and resonant, whether he spoke in simple conversation, in the softest of whispers or in the commanding shout that could fill a room. Dulcinea was not immune to that voice’s power, and she knew it; she’d had over a decade to steel herself against its draw, and she hadn’t learned to do it yet, even after he’d forced her to marry him. In the confines of their carriage, with little besides the clatter of wheels and hooves to distract her ear, her husband’s voice slid into her chest as though she’d drunk it down like whiskey.

She hated the sound of it, and longed to silence it forever with a knife through his treacherous throat.

But as that option was currently denied her, Dulcinea forced herself to smile instead and cast a disinterested glance out the carriage window. “I wouldn’t want to delay us any more than necessary,” she murmured. “Your contracts do need to be signed. And I’m sure we could find better amusements than street performers later.”