The Dreaming Hunt (76 page)

“I have to say, I did not expect you to succeed.”

A disturbance caused Goldeneye to look away from them as one of his lieutenants said, “There's a problem up near the Ringstones. A brawl of some kind has erupted.”

“Kondo, go deal with it,” Goldeneye ordered.

“Yes, my lord.” A huge rhinoceros changeling stood up, wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt, and shoved his way out of the tent.

“Tell me how you captured a were-alligator.”

“I assure you, it was with utmost difficulty, my lord,” Rynn replied dryly. “A were-boar, two were-rats, and a host of boglins also fought against us.”

Raina listened as Rynn told of the fight, recalling mainly her terror and frantic racing around in the woods trying to find her friends and heal them before they all died. Their injuries had been terrible in that fight. It had taken all her skill to keep them from dying. She'd healed the boglins she'd come across enough for them to stagger away from the fighting, as well.

Although Rynn described the fight in the style of an epic bard, she was surprised to realize that he wasn't actually embellishing the truth of what had happened at all. It had been an intensely dangerous fight. She winced a little as he launched into a description of the various wounds, poisons, and deaths she had fixed during the battle. Worse, Goldeneye's gaze narrowed as he clearly did the math in his head of how much healing she'd performed.

“And you did all this healing he describes by yourself?” the cobra changeling asked her.

“Well, yes. Sister Rosana is a capable healer in her own right, but her magic was more useful for combat-related spells.”

“How many dagger wounds can you heal in one sun cycle?” Goldeneye asked.

“I don't know. A lot.”

“Define a lot.” It was easy to forget that keen intelligence was at work behind Goldeneye's grotesque and animalistic features until he said something like that.

“Several hundred, I suppose.”

Jaws dropped around Goldeneye, and guffaws of disbelief erupted. But his stare never wavered from hers. She probably ought to look away lest he try to enslave her as he had Rosana, but for some reason, she did not think he would. This man knew more of the Empire, more of what her colors represented than he was letting on. He might not honor the neutrality of her colors, but he understood the implications of them.

Without looking away from her, he said, “Does she speak truth, paxan?”

“Yes.”

Another runner interrupted them again. “My lord, the brawling grows worse. Some elementals have shown up and joined in the fighting. Kondo Ironhide sends word that it gets out of hand.”

Goldeneye made a sound of exasperation and stood up. “Fine. I'll go take care of it.”

Rosana spoke quickly, “You have not removed my … curse. You promised.”

“Come along, then,” he threw over his shoulder as he strode out of the tent. He was easy to follow, for everyone jumped out of his way and gave wide berth to him.

Now that Raina looked, the tent had emptied a fair bit while they had spoken to Goldeneye. Had his soldiers been quietly called away to deal with the disturbance, or had they left to join in the fun? Bracing for a long bout of healing cuts and bruises, she followed along in the snake changeling's wake.

They headed uphill, winding through the rough city. This place was built on the principle of functionality and not beauty or permanence. They emerged into a vast open area that, while not paved, was built upon wind-scrubbed stone.

The fight was hard to miss. Knots of changelings fought with elementals and with one another all over the space, and a huge melee with Kondo Ironhide at its core took place not far away from them. The rhinoceros changeling was throwing aside anyone who dared to approach him, while some sort of simian changeling clung to his back, ineffectively knocking him on the head with one fist.

Raina'd expected fisticuffs with the occasional chair leg or length of firewood as a weapon. But these warriors were going at one another with claws and swords, axes, maces, spears, and any other manner of weapons. She was stunned by the violence of it.

Goldeneye himself grunted in surprise at the sight.

“Do your people often beat one another's brains out?” Rynn asked him.

“Often enough. But not like this.”

As they looked on, a group of six humanoids raced out from behind one of the humongous standing stones ringing the plain and dived into the fight. But they were not just any people, nor even changelings. Some appeared to be made of burning fire, others shaped like wispy, windblown representations of humans.
Elementals.

Raina stared in horror as they cut and slashed their way across the open space, mowing down everything in their path.

“Is it a slave uprising?” Will asked, looking confused.

“I do not keep elemental slaves.”

She was intrigued at Goldeneye's restraint. She frankly would have expected him to take one look at this fight and wade in, sword swinging, and start chopping people down with that inhuman speed of his. But instead, he was assessing the situation coolly, learning the lay of the battlefield, as it were.

Another group of elementals burst around one of the inner standing stones. They looked around aggressively, spied Lord Goldeneye, and charged straight at him and his immediate lieutenants. Raina and her friends were forced to retreat to get away from the fight that ensued between the elementals and Goldeneye's men.

While the outer circle of stones was made of some light gray stone, the inner circle of stones was tall and black, absorbing light and reflecting none of it back, lending the stones an inky hue.

“Nullstone,” Sha'Li breathed. She walked toward the stones, and Raina followed suit, fascinated by the unusual stones.

Eben kept pace with her. “Have you ever seen anything like it?” he asked in wonder. “I must touch that stone.”

She could feel it calling to her, singing in her blood. Was the nullstone magic?

“Raina!” Rosana shook her arm. “Stop!”

“Stop what?” she asked, continuing to walk forward.

“Come with me, right now.”

Raina frowned. “No. I have to go look at the stones. Sha'Li says they're made of nullstone.”

“Sha'Li is under the same compulsion you are to go to the middle of the rings. You must come away now. Please. Trust me.” Rosana bodily blocked her path, forcing her to stop.

“I have to go. Move, Rosana.”

Instead, the gypsy hooked her arm in Raina's and stubbornly tugged her back toward the outer stones. Raina yanked her arm, trying to free it, but the gypsy hung on doggedly. They passed the outer stones, and Rosana stopped. She asked cautiously, “How are you feeling now?”

“Fine. What was that all about?”

“You tell me. You, Eben, Sha'Li, and Tarryn all took off for the inner circle at the same time and didn't want to come back.”

Raina glanced at the tall nullstones and didn't feel any particular need to examine them more closely. Especially since any number of Dominion warriors were brawling like Diamond fighters around the stones at the moment.

Rynn said grimly, “There's some sort of mental effect at work here. A compulsion to go to the middle of the Ringstones.”

“Those changelings in the middle of the stones look as if they want to kill someone,” Will commented.

Rynn nodded. “Where there's one mental effect at work, it's possible that there is another. Perhaps their aggression is being triggered somehow in the same way you four were drawn toward the center stones.”

“We should let Goldeneye know,” Raina suggested reluctantly.

The others nodded and moved around the outer ring of stones to where Goldeneye was trying unsuccessfully to get a group of his men to stop fighting with one another. At the moment, everyone was separated and being held by other warriors, but the combatants looked determined to take up where they'd left off as soon as they were freed.

“My lord Goldeneye,” Rynn said, “we believe mental effects are at work within the circles.” He explained briefly the others' compulsion to go to the inner ring.

“Why didn't it affect you?” Goldeneye asked tersely.

“I have a certain resistance to mental attacks inherent to my race. As for the boy and the gypsy, who knows? But they were safe.”

Raina knew why Will was safe. Undoubtedly Bloodroot protected him. But Rosana? Why did she suddenly have the mental resistance of a paxan?

Another group of elementals emerged from the inner ring, moving fast. They clearly planned to break through the line of Dominion changelings starting to form around the outer ring of stones as more Dominion warriors came up to the Ringstones to see what all the fuss was about.

The aggression she'd expected from Goldeneye before surfaced now. The cobra changeling whipped out swords from the crossed scabbards on his back and shoved through the warriors who would have protected him. He stepped inside the outer stones, and she watched closely to see if he, too, was drawn to the middle of the circle.

Goldeneye caught the fastest elemental on the edge of his sword and sliced it almost in half as the second one impaled itself on his blade. A third one leaped in between his dying comrades, heedless of them, almost as if their purpose had been to tie up Goldeneye's swords. The cobra changeling caught the third attacker with his fanged teeth, his snake half asserting itself with shocking violence. Raina recoiled from the sight, horrified.

The first elemental went gray as it died, its body losing shape and form upon Goldeneye's blade. The cobra changeling yanked his blade free and slashed at a fourth elemental as he spit out the corpse of the now gray creature he'd bitten. The entire attack had taken barely the blink of an eye, and four elementals lay dead on the ground.

A group of fighting changelings spilled out of the inner circle, rolling and tumbling across the wide space in a tangle of limbs and fur. Somewhere within that melee, the rhinoceros changeling, Kondo Ironhide, must have spotted his leader, for he charged across the open space straight at Goldeneye, head lowered, plowing through anyone and everyone in his path. A number of the changelings he knocked aside took umbrage with his passage and followed in his wake, swinging weapons at his tough hide. The result was that the brawl came to them whether they wished it or no.

“What are you doing?” Goldeneye roared at his lieutenant as the rhinoceros closed on him. “Halt!”

But Kondo was so lost in the battle rage that had claimed him that he apparently did not hear his liege lord. He swung a pair of massive clubs from side to side, smashing everything and everyone around him.

Goldeneye danced back, narrowly avoiding getting clocked by his own man. “You dare to attack me?” His cobra hood flared in warning.

One of the clubs arced down toward Goldeneye, and Rynn somehow managed to get in front of the blow and deflect the force of it away from Goldeneye's head. The blow spun Rynn into Kondo, though, and the two men fought hand to hand, Kondo's brute strength pitted against Rynn's agility and speed.

Goldeneye joined in the fray from the right, striking at his man with the flat of his sword. Meanwhile, Will dived in from the left, using his staff to pummel the rhino changeling.

The other changelings, fighting anyone and everyone, surged and heaved around Raina, buffeting her from side to side. She ducked frantically as errant blows came dangerously close to gutting her. None of these Dominion warriors would pull their punches or halt a sword swing mid-strike because of her colors. They would kill her as quickly as they cut down one of their own in this furious, senseless battle.

“Where are the elementals coming from?” Rynn shouted to Goldeneye as Kondo finally dropped, unconscious.

Raina reached for the changeling, but Goldeneye snarled, “Leave him. He is not mortally wounded.” The cobra changeling was not amused at being attacked by his own lieutenant, apparently.

Another larger wave of elementals and elementally aligned humanoids emerged from the inner circle, this group followed by a screaming horde of Dominion soldiers who plowed wildly into their backs. Some of the creatures slipped through, however, and Goldeneye, Rynn, and Will stepped up to meet them.

The cobra changeling called out between sword swings, each one resulting in the death of an elemental, “These creatures must be coming from the gate. Shouldn't be active, though. The claviger guards it.”

Raina leaned down and tried to heal one of the formless gray shapes, but her magic slid off the creature as if it were not even there.
What on Urth?
“Rosana, my healing won't work on this!”

“It's not a living creature,” Rosana called back.

Rynn called to her, “Elementals have no spirits. They're constructs.”

Huh. Did that mean she could kill one if she wanted to? Not that she actually did want to. And then there was the problem of her having not a single damaging spell in her arsenal of memorized magic.

“Why are the Dominion warriors fighting with one another?” Raina ventured to ask. “Why are they not just attacking the elementals?”

Goldeneye must have heard her, for he sent her a piercing look. She shrugged back at him. She couldn't help noticing these things. Everyone else might be busy fighting, but she had nothing to do except heal people and watch the battle.

“Let us investigate that, shall we?” Goldeneye hissed. The threat in his voice made her skin crawl. When he got to the bottom of this brawl, heads were going to roll.

Someone came around the large stone behind them and rolled in on the party from behind, apparently targeting Rosana. Will leaped in front of her, magic crackling abruptly along his staff.

A wolverine changeling snarled, “You dare fight me, human child? I will kill you!” His voice rose with each uttered syllable until he was roaring in rage. He slashed an impressive pair of claws at Will, who parried one with each end of his staff. Sparks flew as the claws slid off the metal cladding at each end of the weapon.