After the initial shock, he had insisted it must be him that went. His jaw tightened as he recalled the looks of scathing contempt upon their faces, as all of the old doubts and suspicions were dredged to the fore. How costly that one mistake amid a lifetime of service! But he had been resolute, and in the end, they had relented and sent him.
He closed his eyes and reached out with other, less restricted senses. It was difficult, here in the presence of the Gate. Though it boosted his strength, it also clamored with signals of its own and gave rise to or attracted other disruptive elements, interfering with such delicate efforts. After several minutes he sighed and opened his eyes. Even with the raucous tumult assailing his senses here, he was certain; the force he sought was nowhere to be found, concealed once more. The magnitude and signature of that first bright signal had been unmistakable, however. His quarry was alive, on this world, and somewhere to the west of this very Gate.
He ground his teeth. He refused to return now, abashed, bearing the same inadequate answer as before. His masters had not bothered to state the obvious, that anything less than resounding success this time would be the end of him. In fact, he wondered how long he had before they sent another to assume his mission and dispose of him as well. There was no room for failure in empire. He sighed. He would wait then, here on this pathetic excuse for a world, and pray that this time his quarry could not remain hidden from him for so long.
Magic on that scale always left a trail of some kind. Sooner or later, he would track it to its source.
He gathered power to him, drawing in more and more, holding it until it burned at his core. A fierce, exultant smile spread across his aquiline features. He considered giving reign to his anger and shattering these paltry ruins further, leveling the place-except of course for the Gate and its platform-and scorching its slinking inhabitants. But no, even this petty pleasure was denied him, for he could not be certain how sensitive were the defenses of the one he sought, and he had no wish to alert his quarry to his presence with such a display.
With a pang of regret, he let most of the power slip from him, keeping only a red-hot ember within that burned as hot as his hatred. He strode from the platform and began the long descent down the wide stairs, hoping that some dark creature from the mist below would be foolish enough to linger in his path.
CHAPTER 14
The huntress surged to her feet, her narrowed green gaze striving against the distance and the gloom of late evening. For long seconds she stood thus, poised upon the hillside, camouflaged both by the fading light and the thick outcropping of scrub grasses behind her which matched her buckskin leathers in hue.
Then she whirled away, snatched up her recurve bow and bounded down the slope like a gazelle.
As she went, she was careful to put the rounded ridge of the hillock between her and her quarry so as not to risk being seen, however slight the risk might be at this distance. She hissed a soft whistle, and her black mare dutifully wheeled from where she grazed and trotted to meet her. She stroked Shien’s glossy neck and whispered to her as she led her up the steep, shifting trail and into the cave. The animal quivered, and her velvet ears flicked as she sensed the tense excitement in her mistress’s words.
When the huntress reappeared at the mouth of the cave, having quieted the mare deep within its recesses, the cowl of her cloak was drawn up and she wore the dark veil across her features, exposing only her eyes. Her knuckles whitened around the handle of her bow as she scanned the hillside. She had been waiting for days, and doubt had become her companion during the long vigil. His party might have perished within the forest, and while she could not believe it would claim one such as him, such an occurrence might free him to travel by less mundane means and thus rob her of the chance to intercept. Or perhaps the party had already emerged by some other route and slipped by her.
Even if they did return the way they had come, as she deemed most likely, this location-while the best she had found-was a poor location for her ambush. The rough foothills around the cave offered some cover, but were too far back from the road to offer a sure shot, and the ground between here and the road was too exposed. If they had returned in the full light of day, they would have no reason to stop here, and she would likely be forced to trail them again and seek another opportunity.
Now, however, all the factors were coming together in her favor. Her prey was returning this way on the verge of nightfall, such that she could still spot them breaking from the trees. Furthermore, it would be fully dark by the time they drew abreast of the cave, and their previous camping spot would beckon against the hazardous prospect of traveling the road under the shroud of night.
She could scarcely credit her good fortune. Perhaps chance favored the just in the end, after all.
Her eyes raked over the cave mouth and the mantle of rock that swept back from it on either side, though in truth she had studied it all so often in the past few days that she had committed every detail to memory. As she had already done a hundred times, she weighed and rejected a dozen perches from which to take the one shot she needed. She cast one more hasty look around, and back again toward the distant tree line, though it was a futile gesture; it had already grown too dark to see such a distance. She melted back into the deep shadows of the cave entrance, partially shielded from view by the dried brush still piled together from when her quarry had camped there a handful of nights ago, and settled in for the wait.
It would have to be a perfect shot, she knew, and it had to be fast. His sight was as keen in utter darkness as that of a mortal man in the comforting illumination of midday. Step from the cave, draw a bead on him and fire, all in one smooth motion. It would be perfect, because it had to be.
The minutes slid by, teasing at the frayed edges of her patience. She stood unmoving, letting her eyes adjust to the gathering dark, and kept her breathing shallow and all but inaudible.
When the first noise came to her from down the hill, she suppressed a start. It seemed too early, unless they had ridden very hard to reach this point, but she knew how lying in wait with pulse pounding in one’s ears could distort one’s sense of time. She strained for every sound. Several footsteps, a small shower of pebbles, the scuff of foot against stone. There were a handful of them as expected, making little attempt to mask their approach, and they were on the winding trail below the cave. The huntress took slow, shallow breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, praying that Shien would not choose this moment to fidget deep within the cave. But no, the mare was well trained, as disciplined as her mistress; she would not betray their trap.
Her fingers brushed the fletching of the black arrow as she reassured herself every few seconds that she had selected the right missile in the darkness. She listened to the sounds drawing near, and tried to gauge her timing; he had a tendency to hang back, to let others risk themselves, and she needed him within range without allowing those in front to interfere with her shot.
As she tensed to leap from the cave, the noises came to a sudden stop.
She froze. Had they spotted her tracks on the rocky trail? It seemed impossible, as she had been so careful. Were their senses impossibly sharp, that they had heard some telltale sign from her? She chewed on silent, sulfurous curses as she wondered what had given her away. Shuffling steps and scrapes floated up to her, receding now but strangely unhurried, as if the group had merely lost interest in the cave for some reason.