Hunted (Book 3) Read online

  Trysmoon

  Book Three: Hunted

  By

  Brian K. Fuller

  Trysmoon

  Book THREE: HUNTED

  Copyright © 2014 by Brian K. Fuller

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form.

  Edited by Jessica Robbins [email protected]

  briankfullerbooks.com

  facebook.com/briankfullerbooks

  ISBN-13: 978-1502806291

  ISBN-10: 1502806290

  For the Wind River Mountains:

  A great place to get lost.

  Chapter 49 - Thunder and Rain

  “We will ride for as long as we can,” Maewen announced to the somber party gathered at the head of the bridge over Mora Lake. “We ride quickly, so keep together.”

  Grumbling was the only reply as her audience cinched saddles and stuffed what few supplies they had left into saddle bags. Despite their casualties, they came up one horse shy, and the Chalaine offered to ride double with Fenna. Dason protested, complaining that her horse would need speed if they fell into a fight, but the Chalaine silenced him with an order, and he helped her sit in front of the new Lady of Blackshire.

  Finally someone obeys one of my commands, the Chalaine thought bitterly.

  Fenna’s pale, empty face darkly complemented Geoff’s shamed, sobered countenance. Geoff was so out of character he seemed a different person altogether as he stowed his writing materials in his cloak and climbed up on a bay horse that reflected his lowering mood.

  “We will almost surely need to leave the horses behind at some point,” Maewen continued, “and slaughter them for food. If the Uyumaak are against us in numbers, then we will need to tread paths too difficult for four legs. If I should fall, you must head toward the rising sun. At all costs, avoid getting trapped against the shard edge.” She turned toward Chertanne and Padra Athan, who stood side by side improvising a way to tie the Pontiff’s Staff onto Chertanne’s horse. “I would ask both of you to reconsider leaving Gen behind. He knows wilderness lore and is the best fighter we have.”

  “Absolutely not!” Padra Athan refused sternly. “How can you even request such a thing, considering what he did last night?”

  “How could I not,” Maewen returned evenly, “considering what awaits us for the next month and a half? You will rue this decision.”

  She turned her horse and spurred it forward across the bridge. The Chalaine looked at her mother, who returned a meaningful glance. She would have Gen freed, whatever the cost. Her mother loved him better than anyone, and Padra Athan and Chertanne would find out what the former First Mother of Rhugoth was capable of.

  The Chalaine kicked her legs, and her black stallion, Roarer, cantered forward. The morning dawned chill with a hint of autumn in it. The clear sky above them awaited a mass of roiling gray clouds to the east that churned toward them at an alarming rate. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that it wasn’t natural. While she was not Maewen or Gen when it came to the wild and the weather, the storm felt wrong even at a distance, and as the bridge over Lake Mora faced east and west, their departure from the Holy city took them straight toward the oncoming disturbance.

  The Uyumaak attack and the casualties of the wedding night had reduced the once-mighty caravan to twenty-four souls. Three Dark Guard, their apprentices, Jaron, Dason, Cadaen, and five of Chertanne’s personal guard were all that remained of the soldiers. The Chalaine rejoiced that the majority were Rhugothian. If for no other reason, Chertanne would hold his tongue and his hand while surrounded by those who by law were his subjects but by heart were hers. Jaron, she knew, would kill Chertanne without a second thought if he so much as treated her with disrespect, and she didn’t doubt that others in the party would do the same. It was Gen’s legacy.

  They reached the end of the bridge and rode for the tall gate cut into the one of the high hills that surrounded the lake. The wind howled through the gap, plastering her veil to her face. Maewen rode on, glancing worriedly at the sky. Distant booms rumbled ominously in the wind, and, after they had ridden only a mile, lightning flicked across the edges of the mass of clouds now roiling above them. Maewen held up and signaled for everyone to gather around her.

  “We must find shelter!” she screamed in the mounting wind. “There are several buildings along the path ahead of us! Keep a tight rein on your horses!”

  Even as she finished, lightning struck a tree nearby, thunder booming so loudly that the Chalaine let her reins drop to cover her head. Her horse reared with fear and she and Fenna tumbled out of the saddle and onto the hard stones of the road in a heap. The Chalaine landed awkwardly on her right side, pain from her wrist lancing up her arm.

  She extricated herself from Fenna and stood with Dason’s help, Geoff nearby to lend his wife his hand. Tears stung the Chalaine’s eyes as she supported her hurt wrist with her good hand. Her horse sprinted back toward the gap along with three other horses, Dason’s and Geoff’s among them. Her mother swore, handing her reins to Cadaen as she dismounted to aid her ailing daughter. The rain descended in pelting sheets.

  “Come! Run or ride!” Maewen commanded.

  Jaron lifted the injured Chalaine onto his horse, Mirelle sitting behind to help steady her daughter, and a fearful Geoff hoisted Fenna onto Mirelle’s horse. By the time they found a small circular building shaped and constructed in the same fashion as those in Elde Luri Mora, the rain had thoroughly soaked everyone.

  The soldiers tied the horses to tree branches as everyone else hurried inside. Lightning cracked and thunder rolled all about them, the ferocious downpour drumming up a deafening roar on the ceiling of the building. As with the Hall in Elde Luri Mora, a small circular skylight was cut into the top of the dome. In the center of the room was a fire pit surrounded by an elevated bench carved out of the floor, a place for gathering and talking. A spectacular painting of the city of Elde Luri Mora stretched around the walls and was so lifelike that it almost seemed to be a window looking on the city. The circular border of the fire pit was carved to resemble flames shooting up from the ground, and carved animals and vines filigreed the benches.

  “Her Ladyship is hurt,” Dason announced loudly, helping the Chalaine onto the bench. “Can you do something for her, Padra? Maewen?”

  “My talents do not lie with healing, I am afraid,” Padra Athan apologized. Maewen jogged over, face worried. Pushing the wet hair out of her face, she knelt before the Chalaine and pulled up the young woman’s sleeve. As Maewen prodded her forearm, the Chalaine yelped in pain.

  “It is not a bad break,” Maewen reported, “but it will hurt you a great deal when you move. I will splint it and prepare a sling. I have some herbs I can stew for the pain. Do you want them?”

  The Chalaine nodded. Her arm throbbed, and the pain scarcely let her think of anything else.

  “I have enough for a few days,” Maewen continued, “which should get you through the worst of it.” She turned to the assembly of onlookers. “Don’t just stand there! Find some wood for a fire before it is all too wet to burn! And find the horses that ran off!”

  The Dark Guard dashed out of the building and into the rain. Maewen left and returned quickly with two straight sticks, and, as Jaron oversaw the fire, the half-elf gently splinted the break.

  How can Gen ignore such pain? the Chalaine thought in her anguish, remembering him at the betrothal standing with an arm shattered far worse than hers and not seeming the least bit strained. Every time Maewen put any pressure on her arm at all she felt like screaming.

  Dason retrieved two bedrolls and created a comfortable bed on the floor near the back of the structure. Mirelle led her to it and sat beside her, Fenna joining them. Before long, an acri
d odor filled the room, and in dismay, the Chalaine realized the bitter smell was a prelude to what Maewen would force her to drink.

  “A poor piece of luck, Highness,” Dason sympathized.

  “This is not cards, Dason. Luck had nothing to do with it,” the Chalaine disagreed. “I let go of the reins and lost control of the animal. The thunder unnerved me. It was so close. I need more control.”

  “Highness,” Dason said tenderly, “it is hardly your fault. The horse should have. . .”

  “Enough, Dason,” the Chalaine interrupted. “Being the Chalaine does not mean I am exempt from errors in judgment. I will pay for this and learn the lesson. Do not trouble yourself about it.”

  Dason opened his mouth to protest, but Mirelle stared him down and he snapped it shut.

  The stewing required over an hour. Chertanne inquired after her briefly and Jaron brought her some dried meat and water. The rain and thunder continued unabated, the storm stalling in place above them. The only comfort they had was that the enemy could not reach them. Maewen guessed they could travel for at least a day under Elde Luri Mora’s protection against Mikkik’s creatures.

  By the time Maewen arrived with her draught, weariness had sapped the Chalaine of her vitality. She had scarcely slept the night before, and the pain in her arm throbbed incessantly. The potion tasted as bitter as it smelled, but after several minutes the pain faded, dwindling to a shadow of its former strength. Maewen emptied one of her waterskins and poured the rest of the brew inside it.

  “Take a little when the pain comes on,” she instructed, laying it beside the Chalaine. “Drink sparingly. It will make you drowsy. I let you have a generous portion to start to help you rest.”

  The Chalaine nodded her understanding and laid her head in her mother’s lap.

  “There is one other thing,” Maewen said, glancing to ensure that Chertanne was nowhere nearby. Once convinced, she reached into a pouch at her side and removed three necklaces, each with a pyramid-shaped stone. “Before I left him, Gen gave them to me and told me to have you wear them.”

  “What are they?” the Chalaine asked, taking them with her good hand. “What do they do?”

  “I do not fully know,” Maewen whispered. “He only mentioned that he wore them during his training and that they would help you. He also said to keep them secret, especially from the Aughmerians.”

  Mirelle helped the Chalaine sit up and put them on quickly, and they clinked as they knocked against the Ial Stone that already hung about her neck. She wondered what they could be, but knowing that Gen had thought of her at the last brought a small contentment to her, and she found herself missing him again.

  The steady roar of the rain and the soporific in the medicine eventually lured her to sleep. She immediately fell into a dream, finding herself standing in a large Cathedral. The Chapel was beautiful, rivaling the Great Hall of her home. Expertly crafted white marble columns, darkly stained benches, and high windows greeted her, and the statues lining the walls peered unendingly over the empty pews as if to inspire obedience and reverence in any that sat beneath their gaze.

  The Chalaine walked forward tentatively, gasping at the magnificent stained glass window embedded in the ceiling, a picture of Eldaloth coloring everything around the altar. Turning her gaze back to the front, she noticed three doors to the rear of the choir loft, one in the center and two to either side. A quick glance to the rear of the building showed her nothing but a blank wall where the front door should have been.

  Her raspy footsteps echoed through the empty building, and she wondered where it could be or if it was real at all. It was certainly nowhere near Elde Luri Mora, since sunshine shone through the windows from a cloudless sky.

  “Hello?” the Chalaine called out, voice echoing through the vast spaces. Although she couldn’t say why, someone, she knew, was supposed to greet her here. But no one came or answered her calls.

  Something this finely constructed must be in a city of some size, or perhaps in Mur Eldaloth, she thought. Unfortunately, the windows were much too high to look out of, and after wandering around alone for what felt like an hour, the grand Cathedral felt like a prison.

  As far as she could tell, the sun had not budged, the light slanting through the windows at the same angles it had when she first found herself inside the structure. The passing of time, which seemed instantaneous and inconsistent in most of her dreams, crawled along too authentically within the confines of the Cathedral. She wondered if the stones Gen had given her were connected with what she was experiencing.

  But what does this Church have to do with Gen?

  At last, she resolved to climb the steps to the choir loft and inspect the doors. They were constructed of the same dark, tightly grained wood of the benches. Within carved ovals on the door faces, an artisan had carefully chiseled likenesses—on two doors were the faces of men and on the rightmost door an elf. Each of the figures was different, and she thought the runes inscribed about the apex of the oval probably told their names, though she didn’t recognize the runes and couldn’t read them.

  She decided to try the leftmost door, the oval depicting a man with short hair and a longbow. Of the three, he had the kindest aspect, though why it should matter she couldn’t guess. The door opened silently, and she only opened it a crack before peering cautiously inside. Her eyes widened at what she saw.

  A marble bier bore the body of the man whose face was carved into the door. He wore a black uniform very like what the Dark Guard wore, his sword and bow embraced within his arms. Candles affixed to the floor in mounds of wax encircled the bier, but their flames were motionless, frozen in time. The room itself was small, well-lit, and unadorned, though a placard was affixed to the bier in the language she could not read. The Chalaine thought he must have been part of the fighting order of the Church, but something about the profile of his pale gray face seemed familiar somehow and she entered to get a better look at him.

  The candlelight on the floor cast his face into shadow, so she stooped down, careful of her dress, and pried one of the candles out of the wax. As soon as she grasped it, it sputtered to life, flickering and dancing in her hand. Craning forward, she held the candle out over the corpse’s face to get a better look. There was a resemblance to someone she knew in his mien that she couldn’t place, but as she tried to sort out who, hot wax dripped and burned her hand and she let go of the candle. It fell onto the man’s chest and sputtered out. Delicately, she reached down to remove it, and as she touched his chest, his eyes snapped open. She screamed, startling backward and falling to the floor.

  She woke.

  “Are you well?” Maewen asked, coming to her side as her mother forced her to lay back down.

  “Just a dream,” she explained. “I am sorry.” Then she saw it. The man on the bier reminded her of Maewen, though she certainly possessed a fiercer aspect. The two shared the same deep, knowing eyes.

  “The potion often leads to dreaming. They are usually not unpleasant, however.”

  The Chalaine closed her eyes and tried to slow her pounding heart. “It was not unpleasant. Merely surprising. Do not be troubled.”

  She tried to relax and return to her slumber, but nervousness kept it at bay despite the dullness of the day. Time passed slowly with a great deal of talk in low voices. Padra Athan inquired after her welfare before turning to Maewen who sat against a wall nearby fletching. Athan crouched down before the ranger and she regarded him coldly.

  “I was wondering,” Athan said, “what you think the Uyumaak’s strategy to find us will be, if indeed they are arrayed against us as we fear.”

  Maewen sheathed her knife and wiped the wood shavings from her legs. “I think it is certain they are there and waiting for us, though in what numbers, I cannot say. This rain, however, is quite deliberate. Soft, wet ground slows our movement, especially in ascent. The horses will leave such plain tracks that even a child could follow them for miles without difficulty. Even walking after today’s deluge
would do little to help us pass unnoticed.

  “Most distressing, however, is that the storm is almost assuredly conjured through magic, which means they have a powerful Mage. We have you and Chertanne, but if we face Joranne, which is certainly possible, then I doubt the two of you can match her.

  “Their strategy will be simple. Its effectiveness and our chance of overcoming it hinge solely upon their numbers and our ability to be stealthy. They know we must leave Elde Luri Mora and head north, but from where, they do not know. They will patrol an east-west line, searching for sign of us. Once they find it, they will come, and quickly. If their numbers are few, we may get enough of an advance to help us get to places where tracking will be more difficult for them. If they can thickly patrol that east-west line, then our chances slim considerably.

  “The rain’s only virtue for us is that after the ground absorbs the water, we will be able to travel more quietly—provided that whoever is causing the storm cannot keep it up indefinitely. We will leave a clear mark wherever we go, however.”

  “So what is your plan?” the Padra asked, mouth curled down in worry beneath his hooked nose. Chertanne wandered up behind, arms crossed.

  “If they are smart,” Maewen said, “they will expect us to travel the shortest route, given the state of our supplies. The shortest course is northwest. I plan to do the opposite. Before we leave the protection of Elde Luri Mora, we will strike east. We’ll have to ford the river, but if we can get across, we will ride hard due north into the lower foothills. While we will be more visible, the easy terrain will allow us to put the speed of the horses to good use and get some distance on our pursuers. Before the Shattering, deer swarmed those hills, which, if still true, would go a long way toward solving our food problems. There is also plenty of water in that direction.”

  “How much longer will it add to our trip?” Chertanne asked, expression betraying his fear of the answer.