The Dreaming Hunt (32 page)

He pressed his ear to the panel.

“Guildmaster Aurelius Lightstar?” a new voice asked briskly.

“Yes. I believe we have not met, Commander.”

“I'm Thanon of the Imperial Legion of Koth, commander of the Talons of Koth. You are hereby summoned to present yourself to his Most Resplendent Majesty, Emperor Maximillian the Third, with all due haste. To that end, I have the ritual components necessary to transport you to the Isle of Nissa, from whence you shall travel by portal to the Imperial Seat.”

Horror shuddered through Rynn. No one came back from an Imperial summons. It was tantamount to the most terrible kind of death sentence.

Aurelius spoke with admirable calm, though. “If I might have a short time to put my affairs in order here? After the untimely demise of the landsgrave of Hyland, I have been managing his estates for the governess. I will need to let her know I am leaving.”

“Of course, Guildmaster. Say, first thing in the morning?”

“Very well. Thank you for your understanding, Commander Thanon.”

The Imperial Army officer was shown out, but Rynn stayed hidden to be safe. Aurelius came in and said grimly, “I need to speak with Phinneas immediately. I will wait here.”

When Rynn returned with his mentor, Raina was upstairs, the others had left, and Aurelius was alone in Leland's study. The solinari rose when they entered but did not sit back down. Rather, he began pacing nervously.

“As I'm sure Rynn told you, I am summoned to court to appear before Maximillian.”

“My sympathies,” Phinneas responded soberly.

“Let me be blunt. I need more than your sympathy. I know things that I would rather not have come under the Emperor's direct scrutiny. Can you remove them from my mind?”

Phinneas pulled a doubtful face. “I can conceal thoughts and erase memories from all but the most intense scrutiny. But should the Emperor himself tear into your mind, there is nothing anyone on Urth can do to conceal what rests there.”

“I must ask you to try, if you are willing.”

“If I put all my power into erasing a single memory, I might be more successful.”

Rynn sympathized with Aurelius's dilemma. How did a man choose from a lifetime's worth of thoughts, memories, and learned bits of information to erase? With a nod of decision, Aurelius sat down at Leland's desk and pulled out a piece of parchment. He wrote quickly upon it a single paragraph. He folded it, sealed it with wax, and pressed his signet ring into it.

Then, to Rynn's surprise, Aurelius passed it not to Phinneas but to him. “Hide this in the safest place you know; and if I return, give it back to me.”

He bowed his head in acknowledgment and took the folded note.

“Help me, Rynn,” Phinneas said. He stepped forward and laid his hands on Aurelius's head alongside his master's as Phinneas intoned, “Show us what it is you wish to forget, my friend.”

Rynn was stunned at the revelations as he probed the guildmaster's thoughts. Will Cobb was both his grandson and the son of an Imperial fugitive. But that wasn't the memory that terrified the solinari. The memory he'd chosen to lose was one of High Matriarch Lenora revealing to Aurelius that the youth's mother came from a long-lost line of pastors, whose purpose was to care for and speak for the Great Trees and their tree lords. If Maximillian learned that, Will Cobb was
dead
.

And then there were no more memories. Just waves of forgetting, one piling on top of the next. But no matter how many they sent into the solinari's mind, Rynn feared they would not be enough.

 

CHAPTER

17

Will inhaled deeply. He hadn't realized how much he missed the rich manure odor of fresh-plowed dirt. By the Lady, it was good to be out among the fields and crofts and forests once more, away from the crowded buildings, cobbled streets, and stench of humanity that was Dupree.

He was tired of waiting around. Tired of not taking action to find his friend. Tired of having the quest to wake the Sleeping King hanging unfinished over his head. Tired of endless lessons and lectures on the nature of magic and its sources. Of the exhausting, demoralizing practice sessions with Krugar.

More and more recently, though, his lessons with Krugar had been following the same pattern. Krugar would show him the first step or two of an attack or counterattack, and all of a sudden, Will would be executing the entire sequence, having had no idea at all that he'd ever learned it and locked it away in his muscles' memories. It was as if Tiberius had taught Will all the pieces of being an accomplished warrior but had failed to teach him
when
to use which piece. It was incredibly frustrating.

Every time he did it, Krugar went silent and grim, eyeing him as if he was some sort of dangerous creature. Krugar and Aurelius would exchange a loaded glance and sometimes a faint nod from one to the other. If nothing else, his training sessions had seemed to build a rapport between Krugar and Aurelius. They kept telling him to listen to his muscles and trust his instincts. But most of the time Will feared the only instinct speaking to him was an irascible truant with no care whatsoever for his host's weapon training.

Bah. He knew how to use magic, and that was what mattered in a fight. Granted, magical energy was finite whereas the number of swings in a sword was limited only by a warrior's stamina and strength. Still. Magic was a potent tide turner at the very least.

He and Rosana had slipped out of Dupree with the flow of homeward-bound farmers and laborers who lived in the villages nearby, and no one even gave them a second glance. He liked the idea that people saw them as a couple. He'd never expected to think of such things, but mayhap he should consider proposing to her. They could settle down someplace quiet—not in Dupree, where a death sentence lay upon his head—build a little house, start a family in a few years. It would be a good life.

Will was stunned by the amount of destruction outside the city walls. Practically every structure they passed was damaged—windows smashed in, roofs collapsed, fences destroyed, or the buildings burned down. The greenskins who'd invaded the capital of Dupree had not spared the surrounding area from their marauding. A smell of fire still hung in the air, and a general pall lay over the countryside. Bloated corpses of cows and sheep and goats still littered fields, and circling vultures wheeled in spirals overhead.

The memories conjured by all this death and destruction were almost more than Will could bear. The night his parents had been killed had looked much like this except lit by the ghoulish light of torched houses and tainted by the smell of blood and sound of screams.

He did not wish to appear weak to Rosana, so he set his jaw and strode onward, in a hurry to leave it behind. She seemed to understand his need and was uncharacteristically silent beside him as she hustled to keep up.

They rejoined the others at the rendezvous point they'd set. Everyone seemed disturbed by the sights they'd seen upon leaving the city. Subdued, they agreed to travel late into the evening to put more distance between themselves and anyone who might attempt to pursue them. In particular, the Royal Order of the Sun.

Raina was apparently not allowed to take off her colors. Doing so would indicate resignation from her order, or something like that. She had, however, covered the bright white of her surcoat with a dark cloak. She was growing into a beautiful young woman, though, and her striking golden hair was hard to miss. He doubted that she'd left the city unnoted. Word would get back to the Royal Order of the Sun that she had fled Dupree. Hopefully, the high matriarch would be able to convince the knights not to give chase.

It was like old times as twilight turned to dusk, and dusk turned to night. They fell into their usual marching order with Will and Eben up front, Rosana and Raina in the middle, Sha'Li and Rynn—the paxan in place of their absent friend Cicero—bringing up the rear. They walked a paved Imperial highway, rendering countertracking unnecessary.

The moon rose, lighting their steps along the West Road, which actually ran slightly northwest between the Lochlands and Delphi. Hyland's chef had hastily prepared them a marching supper for tonight, and they munched on the tasty picnic that could be consumed while walking. Night hid signs of the recent invasion, and everyone's mood improved considerably.

As for Will, every passing mile lightened the load upon his shoulders a bit more. Not that the journey before them was free of peril. For surely there would be danger. And of course, there was Lenora's concern that he might not be able to resurrect, should he die. But even with the grim specter of permanent death hanging over his head, it felt good to finally take action.

“What say we find a stopping place before long?” Rynn suggested. “The road before us is long, and we would do well to pace ourselves.”

“Tired already, paxan?” Will challenged. “The road will be long, indeed, if you are.”

Rynn answered so mildly as to make Will's comment sound a little foolish. “I but thought of the healers who are unaccustomed to heavy physical exertion.”

He scowled into the darkness. The man tried to make him look bad in front of Rosana, did he? Will asked the healers solicitously, “Are you tired? Of course, we will stop if you are.” There. Take that, Three Eyes.

Raina shrugged. “I've been stomping around Dupree for weeks in an effort to build my strength in case I got a chance to escape.”

Escape? She felt trapped in Dupree, too, then? Or mayhap it was the White Heart that trapped her. He could never bear the constant babysitters the Heart forced upon her.

Rosana spoke up soothingly. “I, too, feel fine. Perhaps we should walk another hour or two. Then we can find a nice spot to stop, yes?”

Sha'Li added, “A good place I know a few miles on. To it I'll take us.”

The lizardman girl's good place turned out to be a bramble-clogged, rocky, bug-infested clearing next to a deep, quiet stream. If a soul could rightly call this mess of brush and thorns a clearing.

Rynn pulled a gigantic machete out of his pack and chopped at the brambles with shocking efficiency. Will thought to get out his long sword and help, but by the time he fumbled at the ties holding it across his pack and unsheathed the blade, Rynn had a spacious area cut back. Plenty of room for all five of them to spread their bedrolls. Sha'Li was already heading eagerly for the stream, shedding her outer clothing as she went.

Thankfully, the night was warm, and they had no need of a fire.

The paxan declared that he would take the first watch and sat down with his back against a tree, machete across his upraised knee.
Show-off
. Will noticed Rosana and Raina staring at the handsome paxan, and then their heads going together as they whispered and giggled. Surly, Will volunteered for the second watch—the least desirable of the night watches for it interrupted a person's sleep the most. So there, pretty boy.

By the Lady, it felt good to sleep upon the ground under the stars once more, with a night breeze rustling through the trees for a lullaby.

*   *   *

Raina woke abruptly, alarmed, as something blunt poked her in the side.

“Wake up,” a voice whispered.
Rosana
.

“What is wrong?” she whispered back, reflexively gathering magical power to her hands.

“Nothing. Get up quietly and come with me. You won't regret it.”

Frowning, Raina rolled out of her warm bedroll. Dawn was just lightening the forest, and the stream they'd bedded down beside burbled quietly as she followed Rosana across it, leaping from stepping-stone to stepping-stone.

On the other side of the stream lay a tiny clearing within a grove of white-barked birch trees. In the middle, Rynn stood in profile to them, shirtless. His fists and forearms were encased in gauntlets that had to have been custom-made to fit the contour of every powerful muscle beneath. They appeared to be made of some sort of crystalline material covered by a fine fretwork of swirling metallic strands. As his hands passed through the air in a fluid and beautiful dance, the crystal caught the first morning light and reflected shards of rainbow color.

Rynn's lean-waisted torso rose to a pair of broad shoulders wreathed in muscle. The whole was tanned and perfect, glistening with sweat. He held a lunging pose with his front knee deeply bent, his back leg stretched out behind him. He glided from one pose to another and all the while, his hands wove those intricate, beautiful patterns. Raina fancied that he wove magic in the air for it seemed to shimmer around his hands. Or maybe that was just his unusual gauntlets causing a trick of the light.

Rynn commenced what could only be described as a combat dance. He punched and kicked, jumped and blocked phantom attacks, but one movement flowed so seamlessly into the next that it reminded her of the ballet dancer she'd seen once as a child. She did not know much about unarmed combat, but she guessed she was looking upon a master of the art.

“Beautiful, yes?” Rosana breathed.

“Yes,” Raina replied fervently. The way the man's muscles bunched and stretched, the way he exuded grace and power, was mesmerizing.

A hand landed on Raina's shoulder without warning, and she jumped about a foot straight up into the air. Rosana let out a squeak beside her, as well.

Sha'Li stood behind them, looking back and forth between the girls and Rynn. “Problem there is?” the lizardman girl asked low.

“Nay,” Rosana whispered. “We're watching the paxan exercise.”

Sha'Li stared at Rynn, the expression in her eyes perplexed. “Why?”

“Because he's beautiful to look at,” Rosana answered impatiently.

Sha'Li turned her attention to the paxan who'd moved into a strenuous series of jumps, spins, and kicks almost too fast for the eye to follow. The sequence ended, and Rynn stopped, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Sweat dripped from his brow and ran down his torso in rivulets. Veins corded over his bulging muscles, and Raina had to admit he was one of the most attractive beings she had ever laid eyes upon.