Hand of the Hunter

CHAPTER FOUR

The shivering dragged Hweilan back to consciousness. When she heard the loud rattling, she gasped and sat up, fearing some huge insect was scuttling near her face, then realized it was only the chattering of her own teeth.

She opened her eyes.

Gleed, the tower, the lake…

Gone. She was alone in the pathless forest. She remembered Gleed yammering on, feeding her some stew that was surprisingly good, then more of the herbed water. One moment she'd been listening to him extol the wonders of the Master, the next…

"That little toad put something in the drink," she said to herself.

She looked down and saw that she was dressed only in a strange sort of cloak. More like a knee-length blanket with a hole in the middle for her head. Compared to frigid Narfell, the air seemed balmy, but it was still cool enough that her breath steamed, and the thought of the old goblin taking her clothes gave her a sick feeling in her stomach.

She sat in a bed of old leaves, made sodden from last night's rain, surrounded by the roots of a massive oak. At least she thought it was an oak. The leaves were the right shape, but just one of them was larger than both her outstretched hands. And though the bark was the right texture-even encrusted in lichen as an old oak ought to be-the color was just a wisp lighter than black.

Hweilan had grown up in a land nestled between mountains and steppe, where most of the moisture fell as snow and clung as ice for six months out of the year. What few woods there were clung to the foothills and mountain valleys-mostly pine and spruce, trees that could survive the harsh cold. The forest she'd seen in the realms of Kunin Gatar had been dense. But nothing like what surrounded her.

Nothing but trees and brush in every direction. Trunks and branches turned and twisted, almost as if they'd been dancing and had frozen in place at the sight of the strange girl blinking at them. Never had she seen such monsters as these trees. Some of the leaves were big as shields. The sky lay hid beneath the ceiling of the leaves, and Hweilan could only guess at the trees' height. A hundred feet? More? No way to know. They might climb all the way to tickle the moon for all she could tell.

But the faces…

As a child enjoying Narfell's brief summers, she had often lain in the tall grass of the steppe and seen shapes in the clouds or the profile of a face on some crag. But the knots and holes in the trees around her…

The trunks had knots that looked much too much like eyes, and they seemed to watch her. A broken branch looked very much like a nose. And the cracked and split bark in the trunks stretched like mouths. Some seemed almost sad, or frozen in a scream. But far too many held a malicious glee.

Hweilan stood. She had no idea where she was, had no idea what time of day it was-the wood seemed caught in a perpetual twilight; enough light to see, but plenty of shadows in which anything could be hiding. She knew she wanted to be anywhere but there.

Leaves rustled far overhead as the upper boughs caught a slight breeze, but down below the air was still. She could hear the chirps of birds, but they stayed hidden in the upper branches. There was no sound of the waterfall. She was obviously far away from Gleed's tower but had no memory of how she'd come here. What had that little beast put in her drink?

Hweilan started walking. She had no idea where she was or where she was going, so she simply went down the slope. Other than her bath and bed, Hweilan had never gone shoeless in her life. To do so in Narfell would be folly. But here, the floor of wet leaves was soft and easy on her feet. Still, it was cool, and even after walking briskly for what seemed a mile or more, she couldn't stop shivering.

Once, she thought she heard singing in the distance-childlike voices, though raucous. But when she stopped and held her breath to listen, there was only the sound of the breeze in the highest boughs. Down here, the air was deathly still. Black moths and dark blue butterflies flitted around her now and then, and once a dragonfly shot past her so fast that her first thought was that someone had loosed an arrow at her.

Which brought Gleed's words from the night before fresh to her mind.

There are far crueler things in these woods than me.

Almost as if summoned by the thought, she heard something approaching from her right, crashing through the brush.

Hweilan stopped and held her breath. A few of the black moths fluttered around. But nothing more. She looked for a weapon. Nothing. Not even a sizeable rock or broken branch.

Then she saw it-a flash of red. A fox bounded out of the brush, its back almost arrow straight as it ran. It saw her, stopped, then bounded off again, disappearing as quickly as it had come.

Hweilan let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Her heart beat so fiercely that she could feel her face pulsing like the skin of a drum.

"Only a fox." It came out a whisper, but still seemed very loud in the silence of the forest.

Hweilan kept going, following the lee of the hill. It was getting steeper the farther she went, and the light dimmer.

The trees grew even larger, and some of their roots broke out of the ground, forming arches under which she walked. Spiderwebs draped the low branches, and although the few spiders she saw were no bigger than her smallest fingernail, still she walked around the webs rather than through them.

The hill was getting steep enough that Hweilan was beginning to slip and had to lean against one hand as she walked. But she could hear the rush of water again and thought she might be getting close to the lake and Gleed's tower.

Ahead of her a particularly massive root broke out of the side of the hill and arched over her path before seeking ground again. Sitting atop it, watching her, was the fox. Its golden eyes seemed very bright in the gloom.

Hweilan's feet slipped out from under her. She went down and caught hold of a sapling before she slid down the hill. Lying there in the cold, wet leaves, she looked up and saw that the fox was gone.

In its place atop the gnarled root, a woman crouched. Like Hweilan, the woman's feet were bare, but she was dressed in an array of stitched skins and leathers. She had the look of an elf-lean, angular build, a face of sharp angles, canted eyes, and ears that topped in sharp tips. Crouched as she was, her hair, thick as a pelt, hung past her shins, and in the gloom of the wood it seemed just a shade above black. Her skin was even darker than Scith's, and black designs-whorls, waves, and vinelike twists sprouting thorns-decorated her hands, bare arms, and face. Seeing someone, if not human, then at least more familiar than Gleed, almost put Hweilan at ease. But then she saw that the woman's eyes were a golden yellow, very bright in the gloom, and split by vertical pupils. And her toes and fingers ended in claws. A dark, wet something ran out of the corner of the woman's mouth-that can't be blood, Hweilan thought-and then the woman licked it away.

Gleed's words sprang to her mind-Tomorrow you will meet Kesh Naan. Kesh Naan will give you the Lore.

Hweilan swallowed, took a deep breath, and said, "A-are you K-Kesh Naan?"

The woman canted her head to one side, expressing something between curiosity and amusement. " 'A-are you K-Kesh Naan?' " she said, in perfect imitation of Hweilan's own voice. She licked her lips again, as if tasting the words, then shook her head, left shoulder to right shoulder, very slowly, and said, "No."

"Who are you?" said Hweilan.

The woman's lips peeled back, revealing sharp, yellow-white teeth.

Hweilan almost screamed, but her breath caught in her throat. She pushed herself carefully to her feet.

The woman jumped down, landed a few feet in front of Hweilan, then slowly stood and said, "I am…" She paused, as if searching for the word, then finished, "… hungry."

Hweilan turned and ran.

She made it perhaps five or six strides, then a weight hit her square in the back and two arms wrapped around her-one around her neck, the other under her arm. Claws bit through the cloak and into her skin.

Hweilan fell, the full weight of the woman coming down atop her, knocking all the breath from her body. But they kept moving. The slope was steep and they slid, gaining speed, crashing through bushes, over roots, breaking through young saplings and bouncing off bigger ones.

A snarl, and then Hweilan felt sharp teeth sink into her shoulder. She screamed, and an instant later they slammed into the trunk of a tree. The rough bark scraped a swath of skin off Hweilan's arm, then they were moving again.

Hitting the tree had weakened the woman's grip around Hweilan. The next broke it altogether. But it also knocked all the air out of Hweilan, and she thought she felt a rib crack.

She kept going down the hill, the world tumbling around her, branches and rocks scraping and gouging her skin. Hweilan could hear the other woman crashing just behind her, but all she could see was a blur of green and brown as the world shot past.

And then there was nothing. No grasping arms. No roots scraping her back or trees slamming into her ribs. Just open air washing past her. She had time to take in an agonized breath as she went over the cliff.

Hitting the water felt like slamming through a wall. But this wall had a current. Hweilan scraped along a rocky bottom that tore away the cloak she'd been wearing. Panic seized her. Hweilan had just enough rational thought left to clench her jaw shut. Terror pushed her to scream, but she knew that if she did the river would fill her lungs and she would die down in the cold gloom.

Hweilan pushed off the riverbed. Her head broke the surface just as the river crashed down a steep slope over boulders in a series of rapids. She had only an instant to take a breath, then she went under again.

This time she tumbled. She lost the light, had no idea which way was up, and could no longer see the bottom. Hweilan clenched her jaw shut, fighting the reflex to breathe.

I'm dying, she thought. A moment of panic, so fierce it shut out all other thought, then a strange sort of peace settled over her. The pain in her chest was beyond agony, and her head felt as if it were about to burst. She knew that no matter how hard she tried, she wouldn't be able to hold her breath much longer.

Then her foot scraped along the bottom.

Her body reacted instinctively, and when she pushed, half her body shot out of the water, and she filled her lungs with sweet air.

She had never learned to swim. In Narfell, the only water were the shallow streams that thawed in summer. At Highwatch, the deepest water she'd ever seen was her bathtub. But the river wasn't deep-not much above her head. Hweilan sank, pushed off the bottom to breach the surface, took a breath, sank, pushed off the bottom, breached, took a breath… again and again and again.

The initial panic subsided, but she knew she couldn't keep this up. Already her limbs were aching, and she knew all it would take was one cramp to put her under the water forever.

On her next breach, she took a look around. She was in the middle of the river, and the shores on either side were at least fifty feet away-and both were sheer rock walls, slick and mossy. Upstream and behind her was only the river-no sign of the woman that had attacked her. Downstream…

Panic seized her again at what she saw.

Nothingness.

A hundred yards or so, and the river just ended in a mist. She'd grown up in mountains. She knew what that meant. She was headed for a waterfall. It might only be a few feet, or it might be a thousand. No way to tell from her vantage.

She went down again-and this time she went deep. Her feet could not find the bottom. The constant roar of the river deepened, strengthened, filling her so that her entire body thrummed with it-and by that she knew the fall before her was no slope of a few feet. She was about to go over a cliff.

Hweilan scrambled and kicked and thrashed, desperate to find the bottom. Nothing. Only water, flowing faster and faster by the moment. Her lungs, wanting air, began to ache. She gave up trying to find the bottom and began to try to claw and thrash her way to the surface. But for every foot she gained, the current pushed her down another two.

Hweilan clamped her jaw shut, but her body betrayed her. Try as she might, pure instinct took over, and she inhaled, filling her lungs with water.

The water's roar became an explosion. For a moment she felt herself going down and down, water above crushing her, and then…

Hweilan sat up and retched so hard that her ears popped. Water and bile poured out her mouth and both nostrils, splattering the ground in front of her. She took in a ragged breath, then retched some more. Again and again, until she fell over on her side, her eyes closed, panting like a dog.

Never had she felt so wretched. Every fiber and pore of her body, inside and out, pulsed with pain. But she was alive, and every ragged breath filled her body with air. She lay there a long time, listening to her own hammering heart and labored breathing. Before, up on the hill, she'd been shivering from the cold. But suddenly, she was shaking so hard that she could feel her flesh bruising against the rocks. But she couldn't muster the strength to move.

After the fall, after drowning…

She didn't know. Had no idea how she'd come here. Come… where?

Hweilan opened her eyes. She lay on a bed of stones-gravel really, though each one was round and smooth as river stones. Lifting her head, she saw that a black pool lapped the shore just beyond her toes.

Hweilan rolled over onto her stomach, forced herself to her hands and knees, then fell into another coughing fit that tinged the world red. When she was able to breathe again, she raised her head and looked through the wet lanks of her hair.

The red tinge hadn't been just brought on by her coughing. She was in a cavern. Stalactites large as temple columns hung from the ceiling above. Some had melded with similar columns springing from the floor and formed pillars of rock that glistened in the red light. Roots poked out from the ceiling, some twisting around the stalactites in thick braids. Long strings of lichen and spiderwebs dangled between the stone like thin curtains. They waved back and forth slowly, almost as if the cave were breathing.

Hweilan looked around, searching for the source of the light. It wasn't red like fire or late sunset, but it completely filled the far side of the cavern away from the pool. She could find no direct source. Even the columns of stone cast no shadow. It was almost as if the rock itself glowed.

Hweilan pushed herself to her feet. Her legs felt hollow and brittle. Looking down, she saw that under her right breast a swath of skin wider than her palms had been raked away, and blood oozed down flesh that was already turning an angry purple. She could feel more blood running down her shoulder from where the woman had bitten her, and the rest of her naked body was a latticework of shallow scratches and deeper cuts, oozing blood.

From somewhere in the distant dark beyond the water, she thought she heard a voice. She almost caught the words. Just enough to stoke the memory of what Gleed had told her.

Tomorrow you will meet Kesh Naan, and it will be most dangerous if she smells blood on you.

And here she was, smeared in her own blood and leaking more with every heartbeat.

Hweilan looked around. No one in sight. The cavern had no real walls. The ceiling simply lowered and the floor rose until they met, forming a great domed chamber. But across from her, framed by two of the columns, a cave broke through the rock. The red glow of the cavern did not penetrate there.

She couldn't bring herself to brave the water again, and there didn't seem to be any other way to go. She took a step forward.

And then she heard singing.

At first she thought it was just a trick of her mind, but when she stopped and listened, she heard it even clearer. A woman's voice, coming from the darkness of the cave. There were words in the music, but in no tongue she'd ever heard before. Still, something in the cadence and melody reminded her of the songs her mother had sung to her when she was small. It called to her and repulsed her at the same time. She imagined that was how a moth must feel at the sight of the candle's flame.

"Wh-who's there?" she called. Hearing the tremor in her voice, Hweilan realized she was shivering again.

"Alet, kweshta."

Hweilan gasped. Those words she knew from her mother. Come here, dear one in the tongue of the Vil Adanrath.

The singing had stopped, but the voice called again, "Alet…" followed by a long string of words that Hweilan could not understand.

Hweilan's skin seemed to tighten around her, and every hair stood on end. There was a tone to the voice now that she didn't trust. No malevolence or threat, but somethingCoaxing.

"Alet, kweshta. Alet."

A woman emerged from the cave. At first, she was nothing more than a pale something amidst the darkness, then she stepped fully into the light of the cavern.

She was tall, elf lithe, her skin pale as old bone, her face ageless. Her nose was little more than a slight bump on her face with two slits of nostrils to either side. Her eyes, both browless, had no whites, but seemed to swirl with a half-dozen colors, like a thin sheen of oil over black water. Silver hair hung past her waist, and she dressed in a gown of what Hweilan first thought was black silk. But as the woman moved, threads of it floated in the air around her, finer than pollen on summer breezes.

"Hweilan, is it?" said the woman. "She who knows her name." The woman's voice held no warmth, but neither was it particularly cold. Simply dryly curious.

"Yes," said Hweilan, and she found herself taking a step back for every step the woman took toward her until her heel touched the edge of the water. She stopped. "Are you… Kesh Naan?"

The woman gave a tight smile, revealing no teeth, just a curve of her lips. "And you know my name."

Hweilan didn't understand, so she said, "Gleed sent me."

The woman's smile melted away and she stopped a few paces in front of Hweilan. She watched Hweilan a long time. Hweilan was suddenly very conscious of her nakedness, though she no longer felt cold. On the contrary, the blood suddenly felt very hot under her skin.

Kesh Naan closed her eyes, bent her head back, and took in a deep breath through her open mouth, almost as if she were tasting the air.

It would be most dangerous if she smells blood on you.

Gleed's words. Hweilan looked down and saw the blood streaking her side, running down her hip and leg to mix with the mud.

Kesh Naan lowered her head, and when she opened her eyes, the look in them had changed. She had the gaze of a hungry beast, the leader of the wolf pack who has just caught sight of the straggler in the herd.

Hweilan swallowed and said, "I-"

Kesh Naan struck, a lunge so swift that there was nothing Hweilan could have done had she tried. The pale woman seized her. Kicking and clawing and screaming, Hweilan could not break free, could not even loosen the woman's steel grip. Kesh Naan pulled her in close. A black tongue emerged from between her pale lips, and Hweilan felt the cold flesh slide along the wounds on her shoulder, licking at the blood.

Hweilan screamed.

Kesh Naan held her at arm's length and sighed, like a destitute drunkard enjoying his first taste of a truly fine wine. But then, as Hweilan watched, the look froze on Kesh Naan's face. Her upper lip curled into a snarl, and Kesh Naan threw Hweilan away-so hard that she flew across the cavern, slammed into one of the stone columns, then hit the ground, dirt and grit raining down upon her.

She heard Kesh Naan spitting. "Blood burns and bites-gah!"

Almost paralyzed with fear and confusion, Hweilan managed to look up. Kesh Naan was staring at her-studying her-through eyes narrow as the slash of a razor. Very slowly, she wiped her lips with the back of one hand.

"What are you?" Kesh Naan said.

"I… I-"

"What are you?" Kesh Naan's voice came out more the roar of a beast than that of a woman. Each word brought her a step closer.

"I-"

"What are you, girl?" This last came out a whisper, but she was so close that Hweilan could feel her breath against her cheek.

Hweilan squeezed her eyes shut and tried to crawl away. But she came up against the stone column and could go no farther. She felt the strong hands grab her again, lift her, and when she dared to open her eyes, all was darkness. They were in the cave.

Blind panic seized Hweilan. She knew they were moving, could feel the steady rhythm of Kesh Naan's tread and the slight movement of air against her bare skin. Kesh Naan had a grip like steel chains, and one arm held her chest so tight that it was all she could do to draw shallow breath after shallow breath. The dark was utter and complete. The only sound that of Kesh Naan's heavy breathing and the slap of her feet against the tunnel floor.

Hweilan bucked and thrashed, but Kesh Naan only held her tighter. Hweilan tried to scream, but Kesh Naan's grip was too tight. Every movement made seemed to find the crack in her rib and grind it. She could not gather breath. Lights danced before her eyes.

Just when the play of light and darkness was about to overwhelm her senses, she heard Kesh Naan scream-almost in disgust, she thought-and the crushing grip was gone. Hweilan felt cool air rushing over her naked skin and knew she was again flying through the air.

She landed on one shoulder, then tumbled and slid across gritty stone. For a long while she could do nothing but lay there, desperate for air, each breath sending a lance of agony through her side.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that the lights were still there-but farther away. She was in a huge cavern, far larger than the one from which she'd come. It was devoid of any sun- or starlight, yet it sparkled with a thousand colors. Lying on her back, she watched them. Thousands had been too timid an estimate. By far. Looking up, she saw what were probably millions of tiny lights, all constantly on the move, some on a ceiling that sloped into a deeper darkness where the lights would not go, some scuttling across the walls and floor, and some hanging in midair-a few close enough that had she reached out she could have touched them.

They were tiny spiders, transparent as crystal, their plump bodies pulsing with colors-reds, greens, blues, yellows, silver, gold, and purples of every shade. The lights they cast sparkled off webs strung around the cavern. Terrified as she was, every breath a stab of pain, still Hweilan could not help but feel overwhelmed at the beauty of it all.

As her heart began to slow and her breathing to calm, Hweilan could hear them moving-the susurrus of millions of minuscule legs moving over stone and soil and each other. It sounded like the rustle of a summer breeze on the grass of the high steppe. Soothing. One of the spiders dropped from its web and landed on her shoulder. It felt soft as goosedown.

But then she heard something else. Something scuttling in that impenetrable darkness far above. No, not something. Some things. Her eyes were adjusting to the new light, and she saw that amidst the millions of small spiders, dozens of larger spiders moved. She hadn't seen them at first, because unlike their smaller cousins, they were black as moonless night, visible only because of the other lights reflecting off their hard carapaces.

"K-Kesh Naan?" she tried to call out, but it sounded no more than a whisper. Hweilan swallowed, winced as she gathered a full breath, then tried again, louder. "Kesh Naan?"

The black spiders dropped, a dozen or more striking the ground around her. The smallest of them was big as a cat, and the largest was almost the size of a hound. They turned to face her, the mandibles on their faces click-click-clicking together, in a horrible rhythm. Something about the sound seemed on the verge of forming words.

Hweilan forced herself to her feet, but the spiders surrounded her. She didn't dare try to rush between them, and she knew she wasn't strong enough to leap over.

"Kesh Naan!" she screamed. Her side screamed at the movement, but she bit back a scream and forced herself to stay put. "Please. Gleed sent me to you."

A sharp hiss from the nearest and largest spider. Nothing remotely human in it. Hweilan swallowed and decided to try another tactic.

"The Master sent me," she said.

Hweilan held her breath. Silence.

"You must teach me!"

The spiders surged into movement, so quickly that Hweilan screamed. But they weren't coming for her. All of the giant black monsters leaped onto each other, their legs scrambling in a writhing mass, faster and faster until they blurred together into a swirl of blackness. Before her eyes, the blackness took shape.

Kesh Naan stood before her, clothed in the gossamer-fine threads of darkness. "You wish to Know, girl?" she said.

Had Kesh Naan moved toward her, Hweilan might have scrambled away. But the woman just stood there, looking at her, the slightest curve of a smile on her lips.

"You desire… en-light-en-ment?" She broke the last word into pieces, emphasizing each syllable. "You ask for Lore. Ahwen in the sacred speech. Say it."

"Ahwen."

"And why do you desire this?"

Truth be told, Hweilan didn't. The only thing she desired at this moment was to be far away. Even Gleed's dank tower seemed a paradise compared to this nightmare. So she said the only thing she could think of. "Th-the Master sent me. Nendawen."

"Yes," said Kesh Naan. "But why are you here?"

"I… I don't know."

Kesh Naan smiled-fully this time, revealing gums pale as her skin and teeth black as onyx. She raised both hands, palm outward. "I smell the lie in that, girl."

"I-"

"Truth now. Has fear so clouded your mind that you forget? Let me help you. What is the one thing you desire most? If you could have only one thing right now, what would that be?"

"Vengeance," she said it without thinking.

"Truth at last. But know this: The Master is not one to bargain. You do not make demands of the Master of the Hunt. Obey him, or do not. There is no middle ground."

"My family-"

"Vengeance will not bring them back. It will not ease your pain."

"Jagun Ghen killed my family!"

"Ah," said Kesh Naan. "Now we come to it. Jagun Ghen killed your family. Do you know why?"

Hweilan could not look away. The woman's eyes… depthless. But they held her. Hweilan opened her mouth, but before she could speak" The truth now," said Kesh Naan. "Only the truth."

And so she spoke the truth: "I don't know."

"You will," said Kesh Naan. She clapped her hands. Just once, but it filled the air like the crack of a whip.

And the spiders came. Thousands of them. Millions. Dropping from the ceiling and running across the floor, covering Hweilan's skin, crawling into her ears and nose. She rolled and thrashed, crushing hundreds, desperate to shake them off. But for every dozen she managed to smash or shake loose, a hundred more took their place. Their tiny legs did no more than tickle, but their fangsThey bit, again and again and again. One of them surely would have done no harm, been no more than an irritation. But thousands biting her at onceHweilan screamed.

Spiders swarmed into her mouth, biting and biting and biting…

Lights exploded in Hweilan's mind. Each tiny bite bringing a spark, every flicker its own unique color, every one trying to swallow all her other senses.

She let them.