The Sacred Hunt Duology (34 page)

“No!” Gilliam shouted. “Get out of the way!”

Stephen's bond with Gilliam was strong enough that his shouted warning was unnecessary; he was already flying through the air with the force of his leap.

But Lady Cynthia did what a normal person would do in the face of just such a command. She spun around to see where the danger lay, her hand already falling to a well-adorned hip, and a lovely, functional dagger.

The hedge-wall erupted.

• • •

She would never laugh at Stephen again. It was absolutely clear, from the moment the strangers burst into the maze-heart, that they weren't mage-born. They weren't even human. Shreds and scraps of dark clothing barely clung to their arms and legs; their faces, in all their dark glory, were obsidian, ugly masks. But the teeth that rimmed their lips like serpent fangs were white and gleaming.

The demon-kin were children's games and children's fears. Cynthia was suddenly a child again. But not a foolish one. Her knees bent into a roll; her shoulders and upper thighs provided the necessary momentum. The long, plush skirts she wore were heavy and impeding, but she didn't take the time to fuss with them.

“CYNTHIA!”

• • •

Gilliam, Lord Elseth, had his dagger to hand in the shadows. His breath was harsh and heavy; he had pushed the Hunter's trance almost to its upper limits, and once his endurance flagged, not even the benefit of consciousness would be left.

He knew it; he even considered it on an instinctive level. But he showed no sign of doubt or hesitation as he leaped forward, dagger extended like a claw. He had pushed himself to survive to reach the center of the maze; he pushed harder, finding new strength. He was terrified, yes—terrified that it would not be enough.

The first of the demons touched earth, slamming its hands into the ground;
catching folds of velvet and embedding them in the dirt. Lady Cynthia jerked, hard, to a stop; the demon's obsidian hands came up.

Cynthia raised her pale hands to her face; they were white in the moonlight and shadows. A ring glinted as her fingers trembled. She opened her mouth; her lips parted as if in a scream. But the scream held a word, and the word held command.

“Sanctuary!”

The demon's hand sliced down in the darkness; Gilliam cried out, a rush of air against a raw throat. But before the lethal blow could cut across Lady Cynthia's face, another shadow met the first, snarling in dark fury.

• • •

Stephen had his dagger as well; he gripped it tightly, his fingers almost molding themselves to the bound twine of its hilt. He had no words at all, and very little breath; his knees were weak with momentary relief as the dirty, wild girl—somehow at the heart of this conflict—hurled herself at the demon who stood, like a death, over Cynthia's fallen body.

He was four feet from her spilled, torn skirts, but the distance seemed immense, uncoverable. Whatever anger or pain he had felt at the beginning of the evening was gone, a victim of the fear of her death. He ran, his free hand outstretched.

He was not gentle as he pulled her to her feet; even less so as he shoved her, hard, toward the statue in the maze's center. If he'd had voice or time, he might have broken all etiquette and commanded her to hide—but he had none. Gilliam's sudden terror, bright and clear, hit his throat through the Hunter's bond. He jumped, wheeling, and felt a sharp sting at his back.

Without thought, he struck out, his dagger only an extension of his hand.

Against hope, the demon growled. Stephen drew back. In the dim light the moon cast—if it was dim; it seemed now, to his eyes, bright and luminescent—he could see the trail of dark liquid that ran the runnels of his knife.

What he knew, Gilliam knew; in danger, their bond had always been strongest. He did not need to shout or gesture or otherwise catch his Hunter's attention. Instead, he began his dance across the grass and the flower beds, his pale eyes narrowed, his attention upon the demon.

But if the demon was somehow vulnerable now, it had not lost its great speed; lunging in, in off-step to Gilliam's attack, all concentration bent upon his opponent, Stephen almost lost his arm.

He screamed as something wide and sharp scraped bone.

• • •

Even had she been so inclined, Cynthia could not hide; the cry that Stephen uttered, his voice barely recognizable, pulled her forward. She saw him fall; saw it clearly, as she saw all things in the Hunter's Hallow. She saw Gilliam's desperate lunge; heard his low-throated, guttural snarl, and saw his dagger deflected.

Demon-kin.
She took a breath, trembling. Let her eyes flicker off the second
demon. He was shadow, tall and narrow, to the red-tinged back of the wild child who attacked him. She, too, growled—like a Hunter boy, too new to his pack, gone feral. There was none of Gilliam's control or concentration about her—yet somehow, she still stood.

Somehow.

Slowly, the shock began to drain out of Cynthia. She took a deep breath, and leaned back, gripping the pedestal of the Hallow's single statue in tight white fingers.

She was the heir to the Maubreche demesne, with its country preserves and its near-legendary labyrinth in the very heart of the King's City. And although she had never been given to the care of a weaponsmaster, never run or linked with a pack of Hunter dogs, never faced the truth of the Hunter's Death and all its implications—she had nonetheless learned to fight.

But her voice was thin and young and vulnerable as she began to speak.

“I am of Maubreche,” she whispered, her voice slowly gathering strength, “and I am of your line. We have kept this garden and this maze and this mystery that is the Hunter's Hallow.”

Stephen cried out again, and sudden tears welled up in her eyes, filming their surface without falling. Her throat grew tight. She struggled with the words, won, and continued to speak. But she closed her eyes, flinching and turning from his cries; she could no longer watch.

“We have kept our pledge and our word, and now I turn to you, Keeper and Lord of the Covenant. Grant me your Sanctuary!”

• • •

Stephen heard her pale, trembling words; heard them above the din of his own pain and his own cries. He looked up weakly, his eyes seeking hers in the shadows, as her words rippled through him with the force of an oath made, an oath kept. What she had said sunk roots and became planted in memory. He would not forget it.

Only twice before had he felt so.

But never so strongly and so completely. Dawn came to the clearing, springing like life into the heart of the labyrinth. A nimbus of light touched leaf and branch and bent, sticky blades of grass, spreading outward. He felt it along his upturned face, and his lips turned in a smile of sudden, inexplicable jubilation.

And the demon-kin screamed, both at once, their fight momentarily forgotten. Stephen rolled, almost drunkenly, to his feet, clutching his wounded arm, his shredded jacket. He glanced up, and up again, to the very height of the skies; they were dark and clear.

The dawn that prevailed in the Hunter's Hallow had nothing to do with the turning. His eyes followed the light as it grew stronger and clearer, and at last his eyes found its source: the statue at the center of the maze.

No light this bright should be easily viewed, and Stephen raised his hands automatically to shield his eyes, before he realized that he felt no pain, saw no searing intensity. As the demons screamed, and the dark smoke of burning flesh reached his nose, Stephen gazed into the stone face of an angry God.

Angry? No. Or rather, not angry alone.

Stephen stumbled forward, staring now and trying to understand what his eyes saw. Before him, upon a perfect pedestal, surrounded by the greenery of the maze and the broken silence of night, stone robes seemed to flow in the wind. A man—no, the very God—stood, one hand held fast to a Hunter's spear, and the other, palm slightly extended, as if in welcome. And then stone
moved.
The lips of the God formed near-silent words.

Help us.

He felt each one as a blow, and his knees collapsed, first the right and then the left, beneath him. He reached out with one hand, palm up, as if he could somehow bridge the distance between them. But even Stephen could not say, at that moment, whether his gesture was one of supplication or comfort.

• • •

Lady Cynthia of Maubreche squared her shoulders. The stone at her palms felt warm, almost living; the light at her back shone like a beacon and haloed her stiff form, growing stronger. She wanted to turn, then, and study the face of the God; but some instinct stopped her motion, and instead, she watched the demons as if from a great distance.

They burned. Just as the hedges had burned, shriveling and dying as the breeze blew their scent across the whole of the maze. It was hard to imagine, as they writhed and shrank in on themselves, that they had ever been a danger.

The wild girl, her lips black and wet, stood snarling as her enemy burned; she seemed leashed somehow. Cynthia heard the growl that came from this stranger's lips and shivered. Had she been in any other place, she might have felt fear—but under the watchful eye of the God, she had none to offer.

And then Cynthia saw Stephen, and even the deaths of her enemies were forgotten. She left the comfort of warm stone and crossed the grass quickly toward him, wondering why he knelt, frozen in position, upon the grass.

The look on his face was more than she could bear, and without a second thought, she lifted her overskirt, pulling both her dagger and a swath of thick cotton from her petticoats. These, she cut into long, wide strips.

Gilliam appeared at her side; it was clear that he, too, had suffered—but none of his wounds were as dangerous as the one Stephen had taken.

“How is it?” Lord Elseth asked bluntly.

“Take these,” she murmured, handing him her newly made bandages. “Wash them in the fountain basin and bring them back. Quickly.”

He followed her orders; she had known he would. Kneeling, she touched
Stephen's face, one palm to either cheek, as she had never dared do before. He was cold; ice had settled beneath his skin. She closed her eyes, suddenly unable to look at the expression on his face.

“Stephen,” she whispered, and then, pulling him out of his kneel and toward her shoulder, “
Stephen.
”

He came, as if suddenly released, a heavy weight. His arms, both the injured one and the whole, found her shoulders and held them, convulsively; his face, he buried in the side of her pale, white neck.

He was shaking. She rocked him gently, wondering how the minutes could stretch so unbearably. At last she heard movement across the grass and pulled her head up, turning it in the direction of the noise. Stephen would not let go.

Instead of Gilliam, she saw the girl. This close, the blackness at her lips resolved itself into more than just liquid. Even Cynthia, raised on the unmaking of the Hunter's kill, flinched. The girl did not seem to notice. Instead, she shuffled in, her head forward, her nostrils flared.

Like a dog.

“Not now,” Cynthia said, her voice quavering slightly.

Stephen raised his head.

“Stephen?” Cynthia turned, forgetting the girl. But Stephen's eyes, wide and round, caught and distorted that feral child's expression. The girl darted forward suddenly, butting Stephen's shoulder with her head. He bit his lip on a cry and winced; the arm she had struck was the injured one.

“Go away!” Cynthia shouted.

The girl came forward again and began to nuzzle Stephen; there really wasn't another word for it. Cynthia, caught by Stephen's arms, nonetheless tried to physically shove the girl backward.

“What's wrong?” Gilliam said, and then, as he saw the three of them huddled upon the ground, “No.” It was to the girl that he spoke. She looked up at him, guileless, and then began to whimper.

That whimper stretched out into a full whine.

Gilliam did not look away from the open darkness of her eyes. “Cynthia,” he said, holding out the dampened strips of cloth.

She took them and eased herself out of Stephen's grip. “Who is she?” Her voice was soft; she did not look up at Gilliam.

“I don't know,” he answered, each word measured.

“What is she?”

“I don't know.”

But she heard, as she began to bind Stephen's wound as tightly as possible, the quiver in Gilliam's voice. Had she been in the seat of judgment, she would have called him forward and asked for the truth. She did not.

Instead, she worked in silence, aware that Gilliam had not turned or wavered
at all. The girl's whine grew higher and sharper, but at least the girl was somehow contained, for she did not approach Stephen again.

“It's all right,” Stephen said softly.

“Shhhh.” She touched his fingers with her lips. “Lord Elseth, will you aid me? I do not think Stephen will be able to walk.”

“I can walk,” he said, ever so faintly. He started to prop himself up on one elbow. “I can walk; I will walk for you, Lord.” His eyes were wide, almost glassy; Cynthia knew, as she stared at his face, that they did not see her. She paled.

Gilliam was at her side at once.

“What is it?” she asked him, grabbing his arm and holding it tight, as if to somehow shake the answer out of Gilliam. “What is he feeling?”

Gilliam pulled himself out of Cynthia's grip and bent down, placing a hand under each of Stephen's shoulders.

“Gilliam!”

He looked at her, over the pale thatch of Stephen's hair. “I can't answer that,” he replied evenly. “He'll tell you himself, if he wants to.”

Lady Cynthia, heir to the Maubreche responsibilities, was a very tired young woman. Her hair, carefully coiffed and secured at the evening's start, had come loose from combs and pins, and curled in darkness around her dirt-stained face. Her gowns were askew, and the very lip of her undergarments, cut so jaggedly with her personal dagger, hung loosely at her feet. Her body ached; her head felt so heavy, it hung with the weight of exhaustion.