Hunters (Spirit Blade Part 1) (7 page)

Nadia waited.

"Come out." Lord Je'Kaoron's voice broke the quiet hush of the wind.

The rustling stopped.

Nadia reached out with the dispirit power and felt it—a demon mind but far more aware than the natters. She recognized what it was.

From the shadows broke a shape no higher than her waist, a dome of a light green head catching the last light. Fanlike ears drooped. The goblin curled its shoulders to shrink from the circle of demonlords around it.

"Have you a message for High Lord Je'Dron?"

The goblin shook its bald head.

The squeak of leather accompanied Lord Je'Kaoron's shift in the saddle as he twisted to look back to Nadia. His eyes searched past her for a moment, a frown on his face. "We will leave him to you, Huntress, and return after our hunt. I'd like to know why he's here alone."

"Yes, my lord." So would she. Goblins didn't usually travel alone but preferred the company of demonlords. She had only had such an encounter on one other occasion, and it had taken the demonlords accompanying her putting some distance between them for the curse to lift.

His frown shifted past her again, but she didn't have to guess why. "You will do as she commands, Hunter."

"Yes, my lord," Kaelen grumbled from close behind her.

Lord Je'Kaoron waited, his attention on her and Kaelen until the others ran off, then took up the rear of the pack of tigers and riders.

Nadia dismounted, her eyes unwavering from the goblin except to look past at the disappearing demonlords. It would take a while before the curse lifted and the goblin could speak.

The squeak of leather came from behind, followed by the thump of Kaelen's feet hitting the ground.

"I thought goblins lived with demonlords," he said as he stepped up next to Nadia.

"Only the ones who serve."

"Don't they all?"

"No." The knowledge of the Adepts had been incomplete regarding goblins, as she had discovered.

To her relief, he fell silent, no questioning or trying to bully her. He'd learned long ago those tactics only aroused her defiance.

The goblin didn't run, but he had straightened upon the disappearance of the demonlords.

"One helped me find Je'Rol. He was…a scholar."

The goblin tilted his head and blinked.

"The goblin was a scholar," she corrected.

The goblin before her gave a nod. They were more intelligent than her teachers had indicated, not the servile whipping posts of the demonlords that were usually witnessed around the feet of their masters.

Kaelen said nothing but stood with a frown, brooding under that black hood. He hadn't even heard what she said about the goblins. She had mentioned Je'Rol, and that was all he'd heard. He had always hated her mentioning Je'Rol.

"I killed him, you know…Je'Rol," she said quietly, to get a reaction.

"You always said you would."

Typical. He had never accepted that she could love a half-blood. Her hatred of Je'Rol had been another matter, usually one Kaelen had supported. But this was something else. Kaelen had always been jealous, saying that her vehemence to Je'Rol had hurt her because of how deeply she had loved him and that she had been naive to believe a half-blood could love and that she had mistaken her awe of Je'Rol saving her from natters as an act of love. None of it had been real, according to him, and she had believed him, which had only fed her hatred of Je'Rol for tricking her. Only upon seeing him again had she learned otherwise. Half-bloods and demonlords were indistinguishable from humans with perhaps more humanity in some cases. "At least he left to protect me, not to hurt me."

"That wasn't what you said eight years ago." He muttered the words in a neutral tone, but that he had said it confirmed that any mention of Je'Rol still bothered him. Good. Maybe he'd leave her alone if he had to hear the truth.

"I was young and stupid then. I've changed."

"But you don't want to listen to me?"

"I said I was young and stupid. And what you did is unforgivable." She had done all she could to forget.

"But you could forgive a half-blood. Hm?"

"Shut it, Kaelen! It's not the same." Nadia clenched her fists and stepped away to let her temper cool. First Je'Rol and then him returning to her life. It couldn't get any worse. "I'm not talking about this now. We have a job."

"You're the one who brought it up."

To test him, and he showed no remorse for what he had done. After all those years, he hadn't changed. There were no excuses for the way he had mistreated her.

Or perhaps he was angry that she had finished her training and he couldn't accept that she had proven herself a worthy demon hunter. That would explain why he was so adamant about claiming the dagger himself. He thought her unworthy of any of it.

Damn him. Damn them all for trying to force her to comply with their version of what they thought she should be.

The demonlords respected her. Why couldn't he?

She stopped near the goblin and knelt to his level. "Can you speak now?" She'd rather hear the piercing voice of a goblin than relive the pain of her past. Of all the other hunters they could have sent, they had chosen the one who had ripped apart her soul.

The goblin opened his mouth but, when nothing came out, he put a hand to his throat and shook his head.

Damn. That meant Kaelen would want to talk.

"Do you have a message?" she asked.

The goblin nodded.

Hopefully the demonlords went out of range soon. She had never determined the distance of the curse to prevent goblins speaking in the presence of demonlords. Supposedly, the first demonlords had set the curse upon all goblins and their descendants. From her experience with Skar, she could only guess that it had been to spare their ears from the shrill voices of the goblins. Or maybe it had been to make dominating them easier. Then again, the goblins seemed to serve demonlords willingly, taking abuse by the commands of some.

"I wish you could tell me who sent the message." She hated waiting, especially with Kaelen's eyes burning through her.

The goblin looked from her to him and crossed its arms.

That it waited meant the message must have been important.

Kaelen stepped away from her, drawing his sword as his eyes fixed on a rustle among the trees.

"I—"

The squeak from the goblin stole her attention from whatever Kaelen stalked.

In a blur of motion, the goblin whirled and hissed at something in the trees. A high-pitched shriek accompanied the squish of something soft.

"Natters," Kaelen confirmed. The goblin returned with only a light splattering of dark liquid glinting on his clothes.

"They smell flesh," the goblin said in a voice deeper than she expected but no less grating on the ears.

"You can speak." Kaelen stood aside where he could watch the trees and the goblin.

"Demonlords far enough now."

"Then tell me what you came to say, before they get too close," Nadia said.

"Wark came not for High Lord of Je'Gri. This message for Guardian from Magworsh clan leader."

"Guardian?" Nadia looked to Kaelen for an answer, but he only shrugged.

"Leader sends warriors to find Guardians, First Ones."

"First Ones? Do you mean Old Ones?" The goblin Skar had referred to what humans called the Master Race as the Old Ones. Could this goblin, Wark, have another name for them?

"First Ones guard lesser races. Old Ones no more."

That was more unclear. If the Old Ones weren't the First Ones…"Who are the First Ones?"

The goblin's shoulders rose and fell with a heavy sigh, and he shook his head. "You must pass message to demonlords to reach Guardians. We observe bad things possible and First Ones needed to stop like long ago. Goblins observe, keep promises to Old Ones and Guardians."

Kaelen stepped back and pulled his hood away from a face displaying the surprise she felt. "Old Ones?"

"The Master Race," Nadia answered and turned back to Wark. "Is that why the goblins serve the demonlords?"

"Yes," he said as relief washed over him. "Goblins are keepers of ways of Old Ones, you call Master Race. You must tell demonlords. I travel to Gung Horsh clan."

"Who are the Guardians?" Kaelen asked.

Wark looked from him to her. "Leader does not know."

Kaelen stepped closer, his eyes spitting fire on the small demon. "Tell me."

The goblin stared at him, his eyes lulling into the familiar emptiness of a demon dispirited. "Demonlords."

"What demonlords?"

"Wark not told."

Kaelen glared at the goblin for several seconds but the goblin said nothing, until Nadia broke the spell by pushing Kaelen aside. The fool should have known better.

"He can't tell you what he doesn't know. Do you think their leaders would be stupid enough to reveal that for an Adept to discover? It's enough that he told us this much without—"

A rustle of grass drew her attention to where the goblin had stood.

Not a trace remained.

"You let him escape. We could have learned more," Kaelen growled.

"No, we couldn't," she argued, despite the guilt that she had broken the spell for the goblin to escape. She shouldn't have let him slip away like that, but at the same time, she wanted him to get away from Kaelen. If his purpose was to contact the Guardians he mentioned, maybe they were meant to stop the spiral into darkness she saw coming in the conflicts among demonlords and the Adepts who hoped to use it to their advantage. Maybe that's what the goblins also saw. It both relieved her and scared her that she might be right.

Kaelen directed his burning glare at her and returned to his horse. "Our leaders will need to know this."

"Great. Return to tell them."

"Not until…" He swung into the saddle. "…I get that dagger."

Nadia led her horse away to wait for the demonlords' return in the open, where any natters that approached would be easy to spot and destroy. "Then it looks like I'm stuck with you a while longer."

"I'm not complaining."

She was, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her upset.

"Start cutting up some wood if you're staying. We could use a fire."

He made no move, nor did the horse. Nadia waited as the song of the night played softly over the land with the gentle rustle of the wind through the grass, insects chirping, and occasional bird or ground squirrel squeaking faintly.

But she saw no indications of the demonlords returning yet.

They would return. Lord Je'Kaoron wouldn't abandon her, unlike the man left with her.

After a long silence, the creak of leather preceded the thump of feet on the ground. Steps shushed through tall grass to right behind her. A set of reins landing on her shoulder startled her and she whirled.

"Hold him for me."

Nadia took the reins as Kaelen returned to the copse while unsheathing his sword.

With both horses grazing beside her, Nadia watched Kaelen hack at the lower branches. She winced at the thought of what that would do to his weapon, but without the demonlords around, it was their best chance for getting a good fire going.

Kaelen dropped a branch from the tree when a noise arose from the direction the demonlords had gone.

It could have been something far worse, but the emergence of the large cats calmed the fears arising in her mind. The riders in the group burst from the darkness with a familiar figure cast in the moon's glow heading towards her.

"Huntress." Lord Je'Kaoron stopped his mount before her and jumped from the saddle in the same motion, a worried look on his face as his eyes searched her. "Are you all right?"

That he cared enough to worry about her teased a smile from her lips, and she nodded. "Yes."

Amid the tromping of many tigers and horses, he leaned close and in a low voice asked, "Was there any trouble?"

"No, my lord. The goblin cooperated without any persuasion."

"I didn't mean the goblin."

Nadia followed his gaze to the trees, where Kaelen helped pick up branches broken off by the demonlords, who had taken over breaking off branches.

"No," she said with full understanding. "He…No." Kaelen had been strangely cooperative. He could have tried to take the dagger when they were alone, but he hadn't.

Je'Kaoron nodded and straightened to his normal manner. "And what of the goblin?"

Nadia blinked away her thoughts of Kaelen, glad to have something else to discuss. "Yes. He brought a message. He said his clan observed some things that worried them and that they want to find some First Ones that are Guardians to do whatever needs to be done to stop bad things from happening."

In the darkness, the man stared at her, but in the moonlight, those pale blue eyes grew distant.

"He couldn't tell me who these Guardians are, and when I argued with Kaelen, he ran off."

In his usual pleasant manner, he tipped his head. "Thank you, Nadia."

Thank you? For what—letting the goblin go or for getting the message? "Do you know who the First Ones are? He said they were Guardians of the lesser races."

"I know of them, but they don't want to risk discovery. Those who have been revealed in the past have been tortured for their knowledge." The look on his face in the moonlight tugged at the pity inside her. Sorrow or fear, she couldn't discern, but she wanted to console him as he had provided her solace in her grief. After all he had done for her, it was the least she could offer.

As she would have done with the girls whose half-blood newborns she had taken or the families of demon victims, she reached for his hand in a simple show of sympathy. He had been there in her distress, and she wanted to give him some sign that she understood. He had obviously been close to some these Guardians, whoever they were.

He curled his fingers in hers, his hand warm.

"Did you know any of them?" she asked hesitantly.

His eyes fell to their hands and she noted the repeated sliding of his thumb over her hand in the seconds that passed.

"Please don't ask me about that," he said in a quiet voice and broke away.

The shimmer of magic transformed him and he bounded off to blend in with the others still in tiger form around the low fire they had started.