The fall of Highwatch

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Dozens of tendrils of vine and thorns still clung to Menduarthis, but once he could move again, they were on their feet and running. He picked at the tighter creepers and smaller thorns around his hands as they ran.

Hweilan looked back.

A huge wolf snapped at the pale warrior, raking at his legs then bounding away. Each time the warrior would pursue, the wolf bounded off. The warrior would break off the chase and continue after Hweilan, and the wolf would charge in again.

"Go! Toward the river!" said Menduarthis. "Once we're away, he'll follow."

Knowing Menduarthis was right, Hweilan turned and ran. She was utterly exhausted. When had she last slept? In the Feywild, and that hadn't been a rest so much as a mental pummeling by the queen. But her fear and desperation lent strength to her limbs. She knew in her heart that the thing didn't care for Lendri in the least. The wolf was only an obstacle in his way. The best thing she could do to help Lendri right now was to get away.

But just before they crossed a bend in the hill, she heard the wolf let out a yelp of pain. She turned. Less than a quarter mile away, the pale warrior was headed straight for her. The wolf lay motionless on the frost-covered rocks behind him.

"Lendri!" she screamed. "No!"

"Run!" Menduarthis pulled her along.

They did, rounding the bend in the trail and losing sight of the pale warrior. They kept going, and when the thing next came in sight, he was much closer. Despite the broken spear shaft still protruding from his midsection and the gaping sword wound in his ribs, he was running.

"Up here!" said Menduarthis, and he tried to pull Hweilan up a narrow trail. She saw that it wound up the arm of the mountain to a cliff overlooking their present trail.

"No!" she pulled back. "That isn't the way."

He grabbed her again and shoved her before him. "I know. I have an idea."

Their path ended at the cliff. Before them an old rockslide had collapsed the rest of the trail into the valley, which was a dizzying distance below them.

"A wonderful idea you had," said Hweilan.

She looked back. The pale warrior was still coming. He'd be on them in moments. She gripped her bow tight and pulled Lendri's knife.

"None of that," said Menduarthis, and he pulled her to him in a tight embrace.

She struggled and pounded his chest with the handle of her knife. "What are you-?"

"No one likes a coward. Trust me."

And then she knew what he had in mind.

"Oh, gods," she said.

The air hit them, swirling tighter and tighter, taking them in an embrace of storm that drowned out all other sound. Hweilan squeezed her eyes shut.

"Mind the blade!" said Menduarthis, and an instant later they lifted in the air, shot away from the cliff, and down.

Near the end, it was more fall than flight. They landed in a thick bank of snow crusted by ice. It was soft enough, but Menduarthis ended up on top of her.

She shook her head and spat snow. "You need to work on your landings."

He grinned. "Seems fine from my vantage point."

She pushed him off. They stood and looked up to the cliff where they had just been. The pale warrior was standing there, sword in hand, looking down on them. Hweilan saw the glimmer of red in his empty eyes. What had become of the Soran-thing, why it was now Kadrigul, she didn't know. But she knew that gaze.

Kadrigul jumped.

She heard Menduarthis gasp, then the pale warrior hit the ground in a racket of tumbling stones and cracking bones.

Kadrigul pushed himself to his feet. Broken bone protruded above and below his left shoulder and above his left knee. Part of his skull had caved in, and Hweilan could see shattered ribs poking under his clothes. He raised his right fist. The sword had broken just above the hilt, and he tossed it aside.

"Hm," said Menduarthis. He winced at the pain from his torn fingers as he began twirling them.

Hweilan heard air rushing, and she saw Kadrigul's cheeks puff and flutter. She remembered how Menduarthis had threatened to kill Roakh. Have you ever seen an old wineskin filled with too much wine? Imagine what would happen if the air in your wretched frame did the same thing.

Kadrigul stopped and looked down at his expanding chest. It only took a moment, then Hweilan heard a distinctive pop! of tearing tissue as his chest deflated in a rush. She even saw a fine blast of fluid shoot out of both Kadrigul's ears. Then he looked up and kept coming.

"Well, I'm out of ideas," said Menduarthis, and she heard real fear in his voice. "Back to running now."

They turned to do just that. Menduarthis made it three steps. Hweilan heard clonk, and then he dropped like a torn pennant. She screamed and looked down in time to see the rock fall away. Blood gushed from his scalp. He was still breathing, but she knew she'd never revive him before Kadrigul was on top of them.

"Alone," said Kadrigul, his voice a broken rasp. She looked to him. The red in his eyes blazed. "Just you… and me. Come. I will… end it quick. Join… your family."

For a brief instant, two beats of her heart at most, Hweilan was tempted. Exhaustion pulled at her. She knew it wouldn't be long before she gave out entirely. It would be easy to stop running. To stop the pain and struggle. See her family again. See Scith.

That decided her.

She knew that even if she did stand before Scith in the next life, if she stood before him a victim, come before him in defeat, she would see the disappointment in his eyes.

Hweilan raised her knife. "You first."

The thing in Kadrigul smiled, a horrid pulling back of dead lips over broken teeth. "Good," he said, and lurched toward her.

She side-stepped quickly, testing whether he would follow her. She had to know he'd leave Menduarthis alone. He did.

"You're going to kill me?" she said, walking backward.

"I'm going… to eat… your heart."

"Catch me first," she said, then turned and ran.

The Kadrigul-thing shrieked. Remembering how he had felled Menduarthis, she ducked and swerved as she ran. Stones skipped off the ground around her, and one bounced off her back. Only her thick clothes saved her a broken bone. The pain was incredible. Her vision darkened for a moment.

But she kept going.

She remembered Lendri's words.

"North," she panted as she ran. "Over the rise. Next valley. Frozen river."

When she came to areas of open ground, she'd look back. She had managed to put a good deal of distance between her and Kadrigul, but he was still coming, lurching along on his shattered leg. As the late afternoon sky darkened toward the deep blue of evening, his eyes seemed all the brighter, two points of red fire gazing at her from that dead white face.

The pounding in her head was so strong that she could barely think. Still she ran.

She came to the woods where the Ujaiyen had captured them. Shadows lay thick in the dusk light. She half hoped and half feared to see the ravens and wolves again, but the wood was empty, silent save for the sounds of her own ragged breathing and footfalls.

The land climbed again, the trees gave out, and she crossed into the next valley.

There, below her, she could see the river. Only slightly wider than the path through Highwatch's main gate and frozen solid. It looked no different from hundreds of other streams she'd seen in her life, but something about it made her bones itch. Something beyond that river watched.

She stumbled down into the valley, her muscles burning with exhaustion. Every step was an effort. Her knees trembled, and she had to focus all her attention on forcing one foot in front of the other.

She came to the bottom, wove through the ice-slick rocks that lined the bank, then fell, her hands striking the frozen river. A pulse seemed to radiate outward, just beyond her hearing.

Hweilan pushed herself up, crossed the river, then collapsed on the other side. Dark pines, ages old, leaned over, covering her in their shadow.

"Safe," she said. Lendri had said so. Once you cross the river you should be safe.

She rolled over on the bank and looked back. Evening was giving way to night. The brightest stars were out, but shadows clung thick among the rocks of the far side. Amid those dark shadows, something pale moved.

Kadrigul.

Hweilan watched, her ragged breathing calming, but her heart beating faster than ever.

The pale warrior stopped on the opposite bank and looked down. She heard him snarl.

Safe, she thought. I'm safe.

A small laugh-no more than a cough of air-escaped her, and the Kadrigul-thing looked up, its red eyes blazing in the growing dark.

He stepped onto the river. His snarl choked off, as if he were in pain, and his gait slowed, as if he were wading through onrushing water. But he kept coming, step by lurching step, dragging his broken leg behind him.

"No," said Hweilan, and it came out half a whimper.

She didn't have the strength to get to her feet, but she crawled backward as best as she could. She made it perhaps a dozen feet before the bank became too steep, and she slid back down a ways until her foot caught on the exposed root of one of the old pines.

Kadrigul stepped onto the bank.

Her heart was beating so hard that it drowned out all other sounds. She couldn't even hear his footfall as he came toward her, his hands reaching out.

A snarling shadow bowled into him, and they both hit the ground.

Wide-eyed, Hweilan watched. It was Lendri, back in elf form, though the growls coming from him were all wolf.

The Kadrigul-thing screamed-more in fury than pain, Hweilan knew-and stood, Lendri's jaws locked around his throat. Kadrigul grabbed his hair with one hand and lower jaw with the other, then wrenched the elf off. With one hand around Lendri's throat, he held the elf at arm's length. Lendri screamed, clawing at Kadrigul's torso with his feet, his fingers-now tipped with claws-raking at his face and eyes.

Kadrigul smiled, even as Lendri tore his eyes away, leaving only the red fire behind.

"I know your stink," said Kadrigul. He breathed in deep through his nose. "I remember now. I killed your mother. Ate her heart."

Lendri managed one last shriek of defiance, then Kadrigul struck with his other hand, punching through Lendri's gut, up and into his chest cavity, breaking through muscle and bone. He yanked and pulled out the dark, dripping mass of Lendri's heart. Lendri's arms and legs went limp, a final shudder passed through him, and then Kadrigul dropped his lifeless body.

Tears froze on Hweilan's cheeks.

Kadrigul dropped the heart into the snow. Those red eyes turned to her. "Now, to the main course."

A curtain of light, pale and cold, washed over them, and a ripple of something passed through the ground and air.

When Hweilan was a little girl, she had once sneaked into her parents' bedchamber very early one morning, coming forward on tiptoes over the thick rug. Her father lay nearest, eyes closed, breathing deep and steady. She had said, "Father?" His eyes remained closed, but something had changed. Between one breath and the next, some indefinable something told Hweilan that her father was awake.

That same feeling filled her now. Something had woken.

She turned to see where the light was coming from and saw the first pale rim of the moon climbing over the black horizon. Full and fat. With so much snow on the ground, once the moon rose high, it would be almost bright as day even at midnight. The Hunter's Moon.

Howling filled the air. But like no howling Hweilan had ever heard. This was a call of thunders.

The red light in the Kadrigul-thing's eyes flickered and dimmed.

"No." He gasped and lurched backward. But then his gaze fixed on Hweilan, and the fire blazed again. "No!"

He came at her, arms outstretched, and a storm of ravens struck him, wings flapping as they pecked and tore at him. He stumbled, righted himself, then fell as a black wolf ran in and sank its jaws into his good leg.

A shriek cut through the night air, and Hweilan knew it did not come from the animated corpse before her, but from the dark will inside it.

The Kadrigul-thing fought its way to its feet. Orange flames had broken out along the surface of the pale skin. It caught in the feathers of the ravens, setting them alight. The wolf shrieked in pain and fled.

Dead ravens, still smoldering, fell to the snow. Hweilan could not look away. Torn flesh hung off bones. The remaining clothes had burned away, and still the flames grew. He took one step toward Hweilan.

And something landed between them. A huge figure, taller than any man Hweilan had ever seen. Moonlight glinted off pale scars that ribboned his muscled frame. His left hand dripped blood. In his right he gripped a long spear, its black head barbed and cruel. Antlers sprouted from his skull.

It was the shape that had haunted her dreams.

Nendawen had come.

A green eldritch light sparked around the barbed point of Nendawen's spear.

The thing of flame shrieked. Defiance, agony, and futility. The spirit fled the remains of Kadrigul's body and shot across the river, like flames borne by storm winds. Nendawen took one step forward and threw his spear. The light crackled around the shaft as it flew. It struck the heart of the flames, and in the resulting maelstrom of darkness and light, Hweilan knew-knew in the deepest well of her heart-that something wild and hungry ate the fiery spirit. Swallowed it whole.

The fire went out.

Nendawen turned. A mask of bone hid his face, but behind the empty sockets glowed the same green light that bathed his spear.

Why have you come? It was a growl in her mind, but she understood the meaning.

She looked into those eyes and saw that what Menduarthis had told her was true. There was no malice there. Nothing so petty. But something far stronger. Far older. Primal. There was no word for it, for it had been born long before there were such things as words in the tongues of men.

"I come to hunt," she said.

Good. And who are you?

"Uh…" She searched for the words. Could Lendri have been wrong? Worse, could Menduarthis have been right in telling her not to trust him?" I was told-"

Who are you?

He took a step toward her, and the green light began to glow around his hands. They curled into sharp claws. "H-Hweilan," she said. "My name is Hweilan." Do you know the covenant, Hweilan?

"Uh… I…"

To come without sacrifice means death.

Lendri had told her much the same thing, had he not? Just earlier that day. To come without sacrifice, without blood… it is death. Lendri…

She looked down at his lifeless, ravaged body. Her gorge rose. But looking down on him, it stoked her anger again.

"There." She pointed. "There is my sacrifice."

Ukhnar Kurhan slew that one.

"He was my friend. He died protecting me."

Nendawen looked down. He stared at her a long time, as if considering. Finally he said, Then the sacrifice was his. Not yours. To come without sacrifice means death.

Hweilan's breath caught. She felt her chest constrict. After all she'd lost… to have come so far…

Death.

A small part of her wondered, Why fight it? After all she'd lost, after all she'd ever wanted had been taken from her… why fight? Would death really be that bad? But that was the little girl in her talking. Wanting the simple way out. Wanting her way or nothing. And the little girl was almost gone.

The larger part of her, louder, was just plain angry. Furious in fact. She might die, yes, but not without a fight.

"My family," she said. "My father. My mother. Their fathers and mothers. All dead! Everyone I loved. Everyone who loved me. They died that I might come here. To you. If that isn't enough… then to the hells with you! I have nothing more to give."

Nendawen's eyes blazed, and a thousand howls filled the night. A storm of raucous cries rained down from the boughs overhead.

Hweilan looked up.

Hundreds of ravens looked down on her, their black eyes reflecting the moonlight. Yellow wolves' eyes watched her from the shadows under the trees.

Nothing more to give? said Nendawen. You are wrong. There is you. You are mine, Hweilan. You were always mine.

He took off his mask.

Hweilan screamed.