One of the men laughed. “You won’t use that,” he said with certainty, and the young woman strained her ears, hoping desperately to hear the sound of running footsteps, of rescuers. But she only heard the steady rain, and realized that it must have covered the sound of her cries.
The servants of the Inhuman marched toward her warily. They were almost upon her. Lightning flashed above them, gleaming off their swords.
They think I can’t use the knife, she considered, and she stood up straight and tall, knowing what she must do. She reached up quickly and slashed her own throat from ear to ear.
The searing pain was exquisite, shocking, and she felt the hairs on her head stand on end in reaction. Her heart thumped wildly, kicking in her chest, and hot blood spattered down between her breasts, a seeming river pouring out of her. She staggered back against the wall, felt the poison doing its work, numbing her jaw and neck. She tried to remain standing for a moment, but the knife slipped from her hands, and she slid down the wall.
Suddenly the three servants of the Inhuman were upon her, and one of them, a man with a dark red moustache and crazed eyes, grabbed her by the head and shouted in her face. His voice was a roaring watery echo in her ears, the voice of a waterfall or a storm rushing through trees. “You think you can escape us so easily? You think you can hide in a temporary death? When you next take a body, we will hunt you again! We will not give up so easily!”
And then he let her hair go, and she was falling, falling into pain and darkness, and the cold rain sizzling on the stones was the only sound as she silently gulped, crying as she died.
A woman’s voice, Everynne’s voice, rang in Gallen’s ears, but he did not see her image, only a gray light in the distance. “Gallen, these are the memories taken from Ceravanne, a Tharrin who somehow managed to stay alive on Tremonthin for the past sixty years. When last I saw you, I told you that I would call upon you again for service. Her clone has been infused with all her memories but the last. I charge you to go to Tremonthin and protect her. I charge you with becoming Lord Protector of the planet for now, and as part of that charge, you must seek out and destroy the Inhuman.”
* * *
Chapter 4
Thomas Flynn bolted the worn wooden latch to his room at Mahoney’s Inn, then sat on the plump feather bolster, tasting the scent of a cold room that had been closed too long. It was a simple room-a chest of drawers with a small brass oil lamp on it, along with a white ceramic basin and pitcher of water should he want to wash off the dust from the road. He looked out the window with its old wavy glass, past the few small house-trees and sheds to the mountains beyond.
Everything in Clere seemed so normal, so restful. Yet he was the only guest at the inn this night-the only person brave enough to have stayed here in the past two weeks, so rumor said.
But Thomas Flynn knew a bit about people. Rumors of demons might keep folks away, but a demon itself wouldn’t-not if it was safely stored in a jar of brine. Thomas had seen oddities displayed that way-a cat with two heads, a midget child. And he wondered if he might be able to preserve something as large as one of these demons in such a fashion.
Thomas could imagine how the sign out front might read: Thomas Flynn’s Curious Inn. Aye, people were afraid to come around now, but in a couple weeks, he might have them pounding the doors.
Thomas had never believed in demons or angels, but something had frightened these people, and if a battle had been waged, then there would be corpses about.
It was early afternoon, but he had several good hours of daylight. He rested on the bed for a while, feeling his brain swim around in his skull from too much rum, then went downstairs to the common room. It had begun to fill up nicely. A good thirty men lounged about.
He managed to warm himself another bit of rum without falling into the fire, then drank it and clattered the empty cup against the bricks of the fireplace to get attention. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’m after finding myself the corpse of a demon. I imagine they should be in the woods about, and I’m offering a bounty. I’ll pay twenty pounds to the first man who brings me one!”
One customer had been drinking, and he began coughing his beer up through his nostrils. Another had been leaning in his chair, and he barely saved himself from falling over backward.
“Uh,” one lanky woodsman said, “talk to Gallen. He’s the only one who goes about these days. He’s in the woods now. Some say he’s still hunting the last of the demons down!”
“Hunting demons, is he, eh?” Thomas shook his head.
Thomas looked out over the crowd. There were some stout men in the group, but none of them were eager to take him up on the offer. They stood drinking, studiously ignoring him.
“All right, fifty pounds, then!” Thomas said.
No one stirred, and frankly, he could go no higher.
“Man, you don’t have to kill the buggers, mind you!” Thomas said. “If I understand right, they should already be dead.” But no one budged.
“Och, there must be a trapper hereabouts, someone with the need and gumption to hike the woods?”
Several men shook their heads, and Thomas was a bit amazed at their lack of spine. “Then come outside and point the way to Geata na Chruinne for me. I’ll go myself!”
A couple of men led Thomas outside, pointed down to the ridge of a nearby mountain. “At the foot of the ridge is the gate. If you wander around enough, you’ll find it in a dark hollow there. It’s about four miles by foot, and no man in his right mind would get caught off the road there after dark. The wights are thick in Coille Sidhe.”
Several onlookers stopped to see what Thomas was up to, and Thomas said loudly, “Oh, sure I’ll be back by sundown. I plan to have a word with the man that wants to marry my Maggie.”
Thomas went to his wagon, got out his walking stick and half a skin of stale water. His joints felt loose, and his head was a bit foggy. And he found himself watching the gray woods, wishing that Gallen was here now. The men of town were spooked, sure enough, and he convinced himself that was good news, for it meant that perhaps there was something for him to find out in those woods. Perhaps he’d find more than he could handle.
He headed north, walking to the edge of the forest, and a shout went up from some of the boys. Soon there were forty people walking behind him, children and women, curious fold, but most of them stopped at the edge of the wood, frightened to go in.
Thomas turned and addressed them. “If any of you older boys have a mind to come with me, I’ve a mind to go and collect some artifacts. I’ll be looking for the skulls of demons or angels, any of their clothing or weapons. I’ll pay a pound for each boy that comes with me to pack the bounty out.”
Many of the boys looked around a bit as if trying to think what business they might have elsewhere, but one young lad stepped forward on shaky legs, a tough-looking boy with a broad chest and intelligent eyes. “I’ll help, for five pounds.”
“Five pounds then, if we find anything,” Thomas said.
The boy nodded in agreement.
“Good lad,” Thomas said, and he turned, leading the way. The boy rushed across the street, grabbed a hatchet from the doorstep of a house-tree where someone had been chopping kindling, then hurried up, walking right at Thomas’s heel, gripping the hatchet in white fingers.
They walked under the pines for a hundred yards, until the limbs of the tall trees began to block the sun. The humus was thick and held a print, and in no time at all, they came upon a trail that held stunningly odd prints: some of the tracks came from booted feet that couldn’t have been less than eighteen inches long and ten wide. Other tracks were handprints of some creature with a span of twenty inches, but the monster had only four fingers.