When True Night Falls (49 page)

He staggered to another body, and another. Not all of them were as old as the first, but all stank of age and neglect. Cuts which had been left undressed had ulcerated, leaving one body a mass of open wounds. Cancer, untreated, had consumed a middle-aged woman. From one gashed leg he could smell the stink of gangrene, and another had broken his foot only to have it heal into a crooked, twisted mass.

Numbly he moved from body to body. Sorting through the carnage for understanding, for acceptance. A few of the fallen had been real children, but even those were in bad shape. Whatever Working had maintained the illusion that these poor creatures were children, it had also blinded them to their own infirmity. It had kept them drunk on the vitality of false youth even while age and infection ate away at their true bodies. Little wonder so few of them had survived to old age. Little wonder they had fallen upon their unlucky comrade with such savage glee. Once the concealing illusion had been stripped from her, she was a reminder to them of what they would themselves become. No wonder they feared and hated her. No wonder they killed.

Then the vision faded, and the ground was littered once more with the bodies of dead children. He lowered his head and shuddered, overcome by the awful power of what he had learned.

“We don’t want them following us,” the Hunter whispered hoarsely. His voice echoed with the pain of his exposure; how much longer could he go on like this? “You get the horses and see if you can find our supplies. I’ll see there’s no pursuit.”

“You’re going to kill them,” he whispered.

The Hunter said nothing.

“Some of them are real children, you know. And none of them understand what’s happening.”

“They’re all
his
,” The Hunter said sharply. Gesturing back toward the statue. “Do you want that behind us? Do you want to be hunted down again as soon as I turn my back?” He strode toward the wall of fog; it seemed to part at his approach. “I’m not arguing with you this time, priest. There’s a time and place for mercy. This isn’t it.”

He said it quietly but firmly. “Not the children, Gerald.”

For a moment the Hunter stared at him. Then, with a muttered curse, he strode into the wall of mist. The gray veil closed behind him, hiding him from their sight.

With effort, Damien rose to his feet. His body ached as though he had fought all night. He looked at Hesseth, at the small child huddled in her arms, and thought,
At least we’ve saved one
. What was her name, Jenseny? At least she was still a real child, he mused; Tarrant surely would have killed her otherwise.

So many deaths. So much destruction. What force was responsible for all this? He remembered the statue of Calesta and shivered. What was his motive?

“Come on,” he muttered. Trying not to think. Fighting not to feel. “Let’s find the goddamned horses.”

The horses were tired and edgy and not in the best of shape but they could walk, and right now that was all Damien cared about. Jenseny stared at the huge creatures in amazement as Hesseth and the priest gathered up what few stores they had left. Their food was untouched, as were their camping supplies, but many of the small items were missing. At least the weapons were still there, Damien thought. Thank God for that.

They led the horses to the edge of the island, where Tarrant was waiting. In silence he led them down the rocky slope, and out onto the water. Though he knew that what appeared to be part of the river was really a bridge, Damien had trouble getting the horses to brave the route a second time; in the end he had to blind the animals with strips of linen and force them to follow.

When they were across, Tarrant turned back toward the hidden bridge. His movements were stiff, Damien noted, and he sensed that the man was in no little pain. Thus far the thick mist had held, but if it thinned out even for a moment ... he shuddered to think of it.

Then the Hunter reached out his hand, and the water exploded. Pieces of wood and ice went flying up and downstream, and a tree trunk which had been near the bridge shattered into a thousand glassy fragments. Splinters of frozen wood rained down upon the party like hail.

“That should do it,” Tarrant said shortly, and he turned back to lead the party into the woods. Damien felt something tight in his gut loosen up just a little bit. If the Neocount had taken time out to destroy the bridge, that meant that he hadn’t killed everyone on the island. The real children were still alive.

Later, when he managed to pull up beside Tarrant, he whispered softly, “Thank you.”

The Hunter didn’t answer. But Damien knew that he heard.

They walked their horses into the forest. After a day and night in the cramped prison, Damien and Hesseth both needed the exercise. As for the girl, she was hard-pressed to match their pace, and at last her strength gave out. Damien called for Tarrant to stop, and together he and Hesseth lifted Jenseny’s limp form up onto the mare’s back. He could feel Tarrant’s eyes boring into his back, his rage at indulging such a delay.
Tough luck
, he thought, as he strapped her firmly into the saddle.
Deal with it
. But when they were done and had begun to move again, he did take a minute to let Tarrant know that the girl might have information they needed. It was only half the reason she was with them, but it was the half that Tarrant would care about. No doubt he had used up his limited quota of human compassion when he spared the children’s lives.

When they moved into the depths of the forest, where foliage conspired with the mist to shield the party from sunlight, Tarrant seemed to relax somewhat. Soon after, when the last of the dim light began to fade, he pushed the makeshift hood back from his head. The skin of his face was raw and crusted, and Jenseny—who had caught only a glimpse of him before—stiffened in her saddle and gasped. But Damien and Hesseth’s reaction (or lack of one) seemed to calm her, and after a moment she was slumped in her seat once again, dozing as they went.

“You’ll be all right?” Damien asked. Not really doubting it.

The Hunter nodded; a bit of singed skin fell from his temple. “True night falls for half an hour tomorrow; if I’m not whole by then, that will heal me.”

He stopped and turned and regarded Jenseny. The tired girl was sound asleep. “Does she really have information?” he challenged. “Something useful?”

Damien hesitated. “She might. And she seems to have Vision of some kind.”
She knew I was a priest. Who knows what else she Saw
? He looked sharply at Tarrant. “Why? Did you think I said that just to save her?”

Tarrant’s lips tightened, loosening bits of burned skin. It was hard to say if his expression was a smile or a sneer.

“I wouldn’t put it past you,” the Hunter muttered.

They made their camp long after midnight. Damien could no longer remember how many miles they’d traveled, or how long they’d been moving. He remembered passing the thornbushes, Hesseth holding the girl tight against her while he drove back the branches with smoke, as he had seen the Terata do. They weren’t quite as efficient as the children had been, having had less practice, Tarrant’s horse was badly scratched going through. But it was almost a pleasure to Heal again, a kind of cleansing, and Damien took care to make sure he had cleaned the wound of poison before he used the forest’s earth-fae to knit it safely shut again.

Throughout it all the girl watched them. She was still wary of Damien, though her initial terror seemed to have subsided somewhat. Tarrant seemed to both fascinate and repel her. For his part the Hunter attempted to ignore her existence, and when he did look her way it was with great irritation, as if to say that his life had enough complications without a crazy child being dropped in the middle of it. Damien sensed that as soon as they were alone, or as soon as the girl was safely asleep, Tarrant was going to let him have it for bringing her.

But she could be useful,
he thought to himself.
She could have information
. And behind that lay another thought, even more compelling.
I just couldn’t leave her there
.

By the time they made camp his whole body ached, and he thought that once he sat down he would surely never move again. For which reason he saw that the girl was down from her mount and working at unpacking the horses before he even tried it. They had lost a lot. Not the large items, the important ones, but all the hundred and one tiny items that he had packed against the day of their unexpected need. Oh, well. On a trip like this you prepared as best you could and then made do with the cards that fate dealt you. At least they had blankets and the crude tent which Hesseth had assembled. At least they had food.

When those were in place—and a fire had been started, and water gathered from the stream nearby to be heated over it, and the horses brushed down and hobbled for the night, and Jenseny huddled inside the tent for some much-needed sleep—he finally allowed himself to ease his weary flesh down to the ground and rest. Hardly a moment after he had done so, Tarrant sat down opposite him.

He met those eyes, so pale, so cold, without wondering what was in them. He knew.

The Hunter spoke first. “You don’t know who she is. You don’t know
what
she is. The danger of having her with us—”

“In this forest? What’s she going to do?” With a weary hand he wiped a crust of dirt from his forehead. He could taste the salt of sweat on his lips. “She’s a child, Hunter. A very tired, very frightened child. I want to get her out of this dismal place. When we get to the coastal cities, then we can talk about alternative plans.” He rubbed his hands one against the other; his fingernails were dirt-encrusted, his skin little better. “Not here. Not now. Not when I’m so tired I can barely think.”

“She’s not just a child and you know it. If she has Vision—of any kind—then she may have power. She knew you were a priest, Hesseth tells me. Don’t you realize what that implies?”

“I know. I know. But even if she were a full adept—”

“Not all adepts are sane,” Tarrant reminded him. “In fact, very few are. Even in a normal environment the pressures of such a life are almost beyond bearing, and here....” He shook his head. “And she is, as you say, a
child
. Unstable to start with, even more so under these circumstances. Who can say what goes on in the darker corridors of that brain, or how and when madness might manifest itself? You’re playing with fire here.”

“Then let’s just say I’m prepared to be burned.”

He could see the Hunter’s jawline tighten; reflected firelight burned in his eyes. “Maybe you are, Reverend Vryce. Brave and foolhardy man that you are. But I’m part of this expedition, too, and so is Mes Hesseth. And our mission here is far too important and dangerous for us to take chances like this—even to satisfy your nurturing instincts.” With a fluid motion he stood, and settled his cloak more comfortably about his shoulders. “Think about it.”

“You going somewhere?”