Black Sun Rising (69 page)

“That means he’s alive,” Ciani whispered.

“Or was, when they took him,” Damien corrected.

Hesseth looked at them sharply. “Can you be sure?”

He shook his head. “No. But it’s only logical. If their only concern was to kill him, they would have left the body where it fell. Or whatever remained of it. If they wanted the kind of power you can conjure from a corpse—or needed his flesh for some symbolic purpose—can you think of anything more powerful, or more personal to him, that
that?”
He indicated the sword. “Even if they killed him and then got rid of the body, they would have included the sword in their plans. Would have had to, to keep his spirit from wielding further influence. But if all they wanted was him, alive ... what would it matter that his weapon of choice was left behind? It only meant that much less danger for them.”

Hesseth’s tongue tip touched the edges of her teeth as she considered that. Ran over them, lightly. It was a ferocious expression.

The pierced one spoke again; clearly some sort of command. Hesseth stiffened, and barked back a sharp response.

The pierced one snarled. The rakh in the pit tensed, as though readying themselves for battle.

“What was that?” Damien demanded.

“He says that if this is a thing of your blood-kin, then it’s now yours. You must come and take it.”

He looked at the glowing blade, felt something inside his gut go ice-cold at the thought of touching it. “Okay,” he said quietly. “That’s fair enough.”

“He means ...” She floundered for the proper English words to describe it. “That is ... he
challenges
you to come get it.”

And suddenly he understood. Understood all the levels of status that were involved, all the crucial posturing. And the risk.

Their females hunt for food. Their males hunt for status.
—
And the more dangerous the prey, the better.

“All right,” he said at last. He began to move toward the edge of the pit, looking for a way down. And hoped he was guessing right about their customs.

“Unarmed,” Hesseth added.

He looked up at her and said sharply, “What?”

“Unarmed,” she repeated. “He said that. Actually,
naked of threat
is what he said.”

He looked at the pierced one. And something in him darkened—some part that had had its fill of tact and diplomacy and was very near the breaking point.

“Tell I’ll be happy to disarm,” he said coldly. “Provided he removes his teeth and claws.”

“They have no claws.”

“Then translate the rest.”

She looked at him somewhat oddly, then did so. The pierced one snarled but otherwise said nothing.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” the priest told her.

“Damien—” Ciani began. She hesitated, then whispered, “Be careful.”

From somewhere he dredged up a hint of a smile; it cracked ice crystals from his beard, that had set in a harder line. “I think we’re past that point.”

He found a place where the nearest stake was several feet distant from the wall of the pit, and lowered himself down. But the seemingly firm earth crumbled to bits beneath his fingertips and he was forced to drop the last few feet, landing unceremoniously on his side as the icy ground refused him purchase.

The Lost Ones watched.

He gained his feet quickly, noting for future reference that the ground down here offered little traction. Undoubtedly the snow drained into this area when it melted, only to freeze again come nightfall. He made his way carefully between the sharpened stakes, noting that their bases were set deep into the ice; a permanent hunting site, then, or at least semipermanent. Coarse wood caught at the wool of his coat as he passed; sometimes he had to press the stakes aside in order to squeeze his bulk between them.

Couldn’t draw a sword in here even if I wanted to.
He passed by the carcass of the xandu, felt a momentary pang of loss at seeing such an elegant creature reduced to formless carrion. And then he was clear of the deep-rooted spears and opposite the Lost Ones. They seemed larger from up close than they had from the ground above, and their smell was rank and musty, the reek of enclosed spaces. He could see now that their fur was edged with green, as if some species of mold had adopted them as its habitat; rosettes of pale gray marked the shoulder of one and muddy brown the haunches of another. Those growths added their own smell to that of their hosts, the odor of mildew and decay. In addition it seemed that some of the pierced one’s ornaments were olfactory in nature; the sharp smell of pine needles and the pungence of musk drifted about his person like fog, a miasma of adornment.

He came as close as he could to his challenger and postured himself opposite the creature. Though the Lost One was taller he was also considerably thinner, and he lacked Damien’s layers of insulating wool and fur. Though he tried to provide an imposing presence, he was no match for the priest’s hefty bulk—and his ritual hostility was nothing compared to the potential for violence that lurked beneath the priest’s carefully controlled facade, waiting for its first excuse to surface.

“You make one wrong move,” Damien growled, “and I’ll cut your vulking head off.—Don’t translate that,” he warned.

“No chance of it,” Hesseth assured him.

The pierced one hissed angrily, but made no move to harm the priest. Instead he stepped aside, so that the sword behind him was visible. The malevolent power of it blasted Damien in the face like an arctic wind; it took everything he had not to react visibly, so that the Lost Ones wouldn’t know his weakness. With a cold, tight clenching in the pit of his stomach he went to where the sword lay. And regarded it. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the Lost Ones were keeping their distance from him—they were—and then reached down to where it lay, and closed his hand about the grip

—and pain exploded in his hand, like spears of ice thrust suddenly into his flesh. He could feel all the warmth in his arm coursing down toward his hand, through it, drawn out to feed that hungry steel. He gritted his teeth and raised the weapon up, his fingers numb from the searing cold of it—but he held on, despite the pain, despite the panic that was rising up inside him.
The Hunter feeds on fea
r, he told himself.
His weapons would be Worked to inspire it
. He fought the panic down, forced his fingers to stay wrapped about the leather-bound grip even as the killing power flowed into his flesh—his lungs—his heart. He had submitted to Tarrant’s coldfire once, and this felt much the same—a hundred times more powerful, a thousand times more terrifying, but its nature was clearly similar. He closed his eyes and remembered that ordeal, used it to fortify himself as the power filled him, remade him—
tested
him, against some dark and terrible template—and then withdrew, until the pain became bearable. Somewhat. Until the cold, though still piercing, was no longer a direct threat to his survival.

He turned to the Lost Ones, fingers still wrapped tightly about the sword’s grip. His hand was still numb from the cold of it, but the blade seemed to have a life of its own; he had no doubt that if he had to wield it, he could.

The pierced one spoke. His tone was challenging.

“He says, that thing has killed many.”

Yes,
Damien thought. He noted the rope still wrapped about its quillons, which they had used to drag it
here. And the only reason it didn’t kill me just now is my link to Tarrant. The sword knows its own.

“It belongs to my blood-kin,” he repeated. The weight of it was like ice in his hand, but he refused the temptation to put it down.

The pierced one spoke again.

“He says, it eats souls.”

Damien drew in a deep breath, forced himself to think before answering. “Tell him ... that we came to kill an eater of souls. An eater of
rakhene
souls. Tell him ... sometimes it takes power of the same sort to kill one like that.”

He could see them react as Hesseth translated. He waited. Dark power flowed up his arm, wrapped itself around the circuitry of his brain.
Kill,
it whispered.
Kill, and be done with them.

He shifted his grip on it and tried to block out its message. Tendrils of malevolence continued to seep into his brain, but he refused to acknowledge them.

“There is only one eater of souls here,” Hesseth translated for them. “In the ...” she hesitated. “I think he means, the House of Storms.”

“What did he say, exactly?”

“I’m not sure. Their speech is so different....”

“Then don’t try to translate the concept—just give me the words.

Her brow furrowed tightly as she considered. “The place of ... blue lightning?”

“Blue lightning?”

“I’m not sure. I—”

“Blue
lightning?”

“I
think
that’s the word. Why?” she demanded. “Is it so significant?”

He was remembering the sky over Jaggonath, when the earthquake struck. The blinding spears that had shot up from the earth, filling the heavens with light. So much like nature’s lightning, only a hundred times more intense. And, of course, silver-blue—earth-fae blue—as opposed to nature’s white.

He tried to recall what it was that Hesseth had described, back at her people’s encampment.
Lightning,
she’d said,
that filled the sky for months on end. Thunder so loud it made speaking impossible.

That’s what it was. That’s what the storms were. Not real lightning at all. Power; bound power.

“Tell him what we need,” he ordered. He could hear his voice shaking as he spoke, tried to steady it. So much seemed to depend upon a display of strength, with these people. “Ask him if he’ll help us.”

An overload, firing heavenward. But an overload of what? There are no earthquakes in this region. And the currents here are so weak....
It was hard to think clearly with the power of the Hunter’s sword chilling his brain. Even so, he sensed that he had glimpsed the last piece of the puzzle. Finally. He had only to see where it fit into the whole picture, and then they would know where to strike....

Tarrant would have understood it.
Then he corrected himself, grimly:
Tarrant still may.

“He’ll lead us,” Hesseth told them. “As far as the ...
region of no,
is the phrase.”

“Forbidden zone?” Ciani offered.

“I don’t know. What he says ... it’s not a concept I’m familiar with.”

“Can we get from there to the House of Storms?” Damien asked. “To the tunnels underneath them? That’s all that matters.”

“He says ... that region is a place of dying. The tunnels beneath the House of Storms are filled with dying. Those are the ... the
places of no
.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“Taboo,” Damien guessed. “As any dwelling place would be, once demons moved in.” He looked at the pierced one. “Tell him yes. Tell him that’s what we want. What we
need.”

He looked to the dirt wall behind the Lost Ones, to the tunnel mouth that waited there. Somewhere at the far end was their human enemy. Ciani’s assailant. And—just possibly—Gerald Tarrant.

“That’s our entrance,” he whispered.

The winter wind howled across the eastern flatlands, flinging snow across everyone and everything in its path. It was a bitter wind, fresh from the arctic regions, and the moisture it had picked up while crossing the Tri-Lakes area and the Serpent made it doubly vicious. There was nothing to do but find shelter from the storm and stay there, and the various inhabitants of eastern Lema had done just that. The local rakh huddled in their tents, gathered tightly about their fires, and waited for the storm to pass. Flatland browsers were packed tightly in their caves and their tunnels, yawning as the first waves of hibernation dulled their minds with drowsiness. Even winter’s predators had taken shelter, and they paced restlessly in their cramped hiding places as they waited for the worst of the storm to pass, so that they could follow the trails made by their prey in the smooth, white snow.

It was no time for animals or rakh to be abroad, and all the inhabitants of Lema seemed to know this.

All but three.

They walked like humans, though their anatomy was clearly rakhene. It was a mismatch of body and purpose, as though somehow a human persona had been welded to native flesh. They were furred, like most rakh, and heavily clothed, but the wind that whipped across the open plains was more than a single coat could ward against. Beneath the thin fur, warm flesh was already turning white with death. Extremities first: the fingers and toes, then nose, lips, cheeks ... in the frigid cold of winter’s first storm they labored for breath, and the moisture of their lungs gathered like frost on their lips as they exhaled, gasping, into the wind.