The Hunt: A Custodes Noctis Book (19 page)

The soft tug of the Hunt was beginning to pull at Rob. The sound of bells, of the horses, was getting insistent, and the need for a dose of the iridescent liquid was fast becoming obsession. He shifted in his chair and felt Galen’s eyes on him. Looking up, he met his brother’s gaze. “We need to go.”

“About damn time,” Flash said, standing up.

The waitress appeared in the door, carrying the bottle from their room and a golden cup on a tray. Rob watched it, fascinated by the way it looked when viewed with the Sight. The colors swirled around it like an oil-slick in sunshine. “Wait,” Rob whispered.

“What?” Galen followed his look with a frown. “We’re putting a chair under the door and going out the balcony from now on.”

The waitress put the bottle on the table and poured it into the cup, holding it out to Rob with a bow of her head, her eyes fixed on the floor. He smiled and took it, glancing at his brother as he did. Rob had no idea what the dose would do, but judging from the setting he didn’t think it would put him to sleep this time.

Rob sniffed the bittersweet liquid before drinking it. As it slid down his throat, it traced a fiery path, pulling bits of his body along with it. He leaned back against the hard chair for a moment. It was difficult to believe anything taken orally could hit him so fast, but it had. And because it had, the soft chanting was growing louder, the bells calling him. He turned his eyes away from Galen, listening to what was there, what the drink brought him. “
Soon,”
part of him whispered. Rob felt joy bubbling in his veins with that thought. Another voice, his voice, but not his, whispered with rapture. The night was moving on, the ritual needed to begin.

“Rob?” Galen said softly.

“It’s time,” he replied.

“Time for what?” Flash asked.

“To ride with the Hunt for the first time.”

“To do what?” Flash demanded, anger bubbling around him.

“He has to ride with the Hunt tonight, Flash, in person, not just with them in spirit. It’s part of the rituals, he rides tonight and formally becomes king tomorrow.” Galen’s voice was far steadier than the emotions coming through the bond.

“Let’s go.” Rob led the way out of the restaurant.

“How? How does he ride with them?”

“They are corporeal at the time of the rituals.”

“He’s actually going to get on an actual horse and actually ride with them?” Flash stared at them.

“Actually, yes,” Rob answered as he walked into the parking lot. The fog had drifted in during dinner. The soft, chirping call of small frogs through the mists was a happy noise in a gray and dark landscape. The wind had dropped, the whispering echo of its voice gone, replaced by the soft chanting and the ringing of bells, far away, but there, under everything like the heartbeat throbbing in his veins.

Moving color at the edge of the empty lot caught his eye. He stopped for a moment to look at it, letting the Gift flow to see through the dense fog. Rob took a deep breath, as promised his Gift was returning, he’d used it without thinking. He recognized what was there in the lot almost immediately. Stephen Blake was lurking at the side of the building, watching them leave the diner. He lifted a hand in salute, apparently knowing Rob could see him, then turned and disappeared. Rob wasn’t sure if he went behind the motel or if he’d actually disappeared.

“It’s that thing,” Flash growled.

“The
each uisge
is here Rob,” Galen said gently.

Rob looked over, the Fae creature was standing between the lines of a parking spot, waiting to take him to the other place. “
Soon, very soon. Ride to where it will begin,”
the voice that was and wasn’t his own said. Joy and fear fought for equal purchase in his heart. The bells were chiming. He could hear the horses gathering.
“They are waiting.”
The voice was sounding more and more like his own. The chanting was growing louder, a longing was beginning. A longing so deep, so profound, he felt it as a physical sensation. Pain mingled with exhilaration, knowing what would come.
He was starting to lose focus, the world was falling away, the bells and the soft sound of the waiting horses pulling him away. “Galen?” he asked with what little of himself was left.

“It’s okay, Rob, we’ll be right behind you, waiting for you when you return.” Galen pulled Rob against him in a tight hug, then pulled away. “Hang on to yourself as much as you can.”

“I’ll try.”

“We will see you in the morning light, after your sleep under the stars,” Galen said, surprising
 
Rob with the formal words from the Saga.

“I will greet you in the light, my brother,” Rob replied.

The
each uisge
stepped forward and nudged him with a partially-fleshed nose. He turned and smiled at it, running a hand along its soft gray flesh, the cold touching him. He swung himself up on the horse with the ease of millennia of practice. It moved away from the parking lot, walking into the fog, into the night.

The trail wound through the trees. He could hear the movements of the night creatures beyond where they walked. The small things of the forest moved away from the
each uisge,
but other things, those beings that walked in the ever-dark, joined them, moving behind them, coming to witness the ritual to be there as it began.

They passed by the blood-red bog, the few fruits left on the plants withered to black, the details clear to him as they moved on, the night no longer a dampening dark. His Gift was almost back to full strength, and the night was something seen and understood. The road turned towards the place of the ritual. His heart was beating wildly, joy pounding through him as they approached.

“Welcome, welcome!” chanting voices sang, the ancient language filling the air around him.

The clearing was before him, the altar already waiting with its gift, the blood sacrifice found and left by the
each uisge
before it came for him at the motel. Rob slid off the
each uisge
and stood beside the stone, a smile on his face. “It is good,” he said and turned to face them, the riders and the others, waiting for him. The priestess came forward, a bright smile on her face.

“Welcome,” she said, gently.

“Thank you,” he said. “I am here, the Ritual has been met.”A cry resounded through the clearing, the note echoing back from the water to swirl around them like dancers.

The king approached leading a black horse behind his huge mount. “Ride with us, brother, before the final joy of the night,” he said.

Rob’s heart pounded. “Yes, please,” he said, swinging up onto the horse. The others gathered around him, skeletal hands patting him on his back as they chanted their welcome in the ancient tongue, the words beautiful as the song rose around him.

“We ride together tonight,” the king said, his face shifting, young to old and back again.

“Together, brother,” Rob said.
“Galen? Where are you?

 

The soft answer shivered up the connection with Galen.
His brother’s voice whispered in his head, the words forming but taking a moment before coalescing into something that held meaning. Then they were gone again, the horn blaring in the night
 
as the hunting cry was ripped from a dozen throats, his own voice joining in as the howling of the hounds blended with the voices in rapturous welcome.

They moved out, the dark horses coasting through the night like the fog, the small dark creatures flitting before them, like a flock of birds. Rob’s heart was beating wildly, the longing to ride with his lost brothers filling every fiber of his being, his mind chanting the hunters song as easily as if he’d always known it.
The dogs ran ahead, baying, chasing the small creatures that moved from the Hunt.
The laughter of his brothers filled the air, his own voice joining them with glee. Bright eyes on fleshless skulls turned to smile at him as they rode. “It is right, it is good, it is joy,” he sang. “It is as it should be this night.”
Hands touched his back, his shoulder, a pat, a slap, a welcome.

Finally, seemingly moments later—but it could have been weeks for all he knew—the longing was too much, the other longing, that deep and profound pain. He smiled at the riders of the Hunt. “My brothers, it is time to return to the ritual place, it is time to finish this night’s joy,” he said. They shouted around him, the ancient song beginning, the words of triumph floating on the air as they galloped back, the cold wind streaming over his face, blowing through his hair as his heart shouted in joyous freedom and he sang with them, his bright laughter ringing out loudly in the silent night.

The fire was already burning by the bog when they arrived, others had gathered, singing the songs of the Hunt, of days past. One of them he recognized, or part of him thought he did. He glanced around looking for someone else that should be there, but he was disappointed.

He pulled the horse up and slid off, running a grateful hand over blackened flesh and naked bone. “Thank you,” he whispered to it. The horse gently nuzzled his ear. “Tomorrow we will ride again.” It threw its head back in happy affirmative. He patted the nose one last time before turning to the lead rider, the king.

“It is time,” the king said.

“Yes,” Rob said, looking into ancient eyes. Two
each uisge
walked to stand on either side of him. The priestess came forward with a silver chalice and held it to his lips. He drank, the sweetness of the liquid filling his mind with velvet. Holding out his hands he turned and walked into the icy water of the pond, the
each uisge
moving with him until he was chest deep. They took his wrists into their mouths and pulled him under, the pain of the bites mingling with the agony in his chest as his lungs fought for air. They held him there until darkness danced before his eyes, until he was fighting to keep his breath, until the need to draw air into his lungs was nearly overwhelming, and then they pulled him up and out of the water.

As he emerged, the chanting began again. The king and the woman were waiting for him. She guided Rob down to the large flat stone by the fire. The Great Altar was swirling with colors, the dark lines carved into its surface alive with movement as power flowed through the stone.
 
He smiled as the warmth from the fire touched him, the fog shifting around the Great Altar and those gathered there. The soft chiming of bells began as those waiting began to dance, skeletal riders with humans, dancing together in the dark night as the fire burned.

He could hear his voice chanting soft words as he lay there. The priestess came and held a silver bowl, the ancient metal nearly worn through in places. The king smiled at her, then down at Rob. “Yes, it is time, it is good,” the king said. “My brother, myself, we begin.”

“My brother, myself, we begin,” Rob repeated the ritual words. His shirt was slit open and he felt the first kiss of the knife, gently tracing a pattern on his chest. The priestess stepped forward and handed the bowl to the king. He reached a fleshless, yet fleshed, hand into the bowl and smeared the paste onto the pattern on Rob’s chest, the fragrant unguent sparking memories of rituals of the ancient past. They laid a wreath of the sacred bough on his chest and the singing got louder.

“My brother, myself, soon, soon the night comes, soon you will end, so my brother, myself, you can begin,” the king said softly.

“My brother, myself, I welcome the night when it comes, I wait for it to begin,” Rob answered.

“The king will soon be dead,” the king said loudly into the night, his voice carrying over the chanting and the ecstatic ringing of bells.

“Long live the king,” Rob’s voice rang out. He let his head drop back down onto the ground, the king bent over him. “Let the night come, my brother, myself,” Rob begged.

“Soon, you must wait, only the first touch of night under these stars,” the king said softly, the ritual playing out gently between the two of them, the words, remembered, ancient, flowing around them like the black water of a flood, caught in a deep pool.