“Yes.” In the faint glimmer, Amethea could see that the massive, fallen sarsens were lichen-free. Faintly, they hummed in the deepening dusk. Her skin shivered.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” Oddly, the hum held a sense of patience – as though the whole Monument had simply settled to rest. “Maybe it once was some celebration, some ancient elemental temple; maybe the stones just observed the Count of Time. Maybe it was a memorial, or a tomb. I heard once that the hill we’re standing on is a great passage grave, commemorating some lord or hero.” Catching Feren’s expression, she smiled and made an effort to speak normally. “Maybe it’s all rubbish. Come on, you, we’re losing the light.”
“Aye...” He didn’t move.
“Feren.”
“Coming.”
She turned her chearl, listening for him to follow.
Still, he didn’t move.
“Feren?”
“Thea.” His tone was flat, ice-cold. “Wait.”
“What?” She twisted in her saddle.
“Horsemen, coming this way.” His hand rested on the knife hilt. “They bear no light.”
A chill shivered her shoulders. For Feren’s sake she said, “Vilsara said the Patrols do come here; they’re probably checking to see we’re not chiselling the names of old lovers into the stones.”
But she turned her beast to look.
Surprisingly close and coming fast – fast – up the other side of the hill were three mounted riders. In the almost-dark, they were barely more than shadows – the hauntings of the Kartiah brought to life. The glimmering of the Monument hampered her ability to see. She blinked and tapped heels to her chearl to move forwards.
Behind her now, Feren said, “That’s not a Patrol...”
The riders were swift and silent. They showed no signs of slowing as they came closer. Moonlight glinted from smoothly flowing horse muscles and –
Goddess.
As they came towards the top of the hill, she saw them clearly and she realised...
They weren’t riders.
They were attached.
Too stunned to move, her placid chearl ever-unworried beneath her, Amethea gawked. In the failing light, they were all but on top of her before she could understand that what she saw was real – those were horses all right, big ones, heavy legged and strong...
...but they had no heads.
No heads!
From their equine shoulders came the upper bodies of people – as smoothly muscled and powerful as the horse bodies beneath. The creature in front was larger than the other two; he bore a longbow as thick as his wrist and fully as tall as Amethea’s chearl.
He was fast. Between her realisation and her very next heartbeat, he was before her and looming over her – chearl mounted as she was! – he was close enough for her to feel his breath.
For the briefest of moments, she met his eyes, human eyes, gleaming in the Monument’s light. Stupidly, her mind told her he was beautiful, wild haired and potent, the blood in his skin pounding with outrage. As he opened his mouth, she saw long incisors glitter.
He screamed down at her, a sound of pure fury.
Shocked out of her disbelief, she was trying to back up and turn her beast, slamming her heels into its shoulders, shouting at Feren to do the same. Hopelessness laughed at her. Big as they were, chearl couldn’t outrun a good horse on a short distance and that... thing... was bigger than any horse she’d ever seen. Fear hammering in her chest, she leaned back against the saddle support as he gathered his legs to turn and run.
Feren, too – she caught a flash of his ghost-white face as she passed him – was turning his beast to flee. Perhaps he prayed. She screamed at him to run, run.
The first fletchless shaft hit his chearl’s hindquarters.
It squealed, skidded, lurched sideways and kept moving. Feren cursed, his voice high with fear. Amethea paused to wait for him, and dark shapes flickered past on either side of her. And stopped.
Trying to trap them.
“Fe-ren!”
He looked, but his fear-crazed eyes went straight through her.
A second shaft hit his beast’s other side. It skidded again, its back legs faltering. With an inarticulate shriek, Feren crashed sideways to the ground, the rein still in his hand.
“Don’t let it drag – !” Amethea called. The height of the fall tore his hand free. Instinctively, she stopped.
But what could she do?
In the emptiness of the plainland night, she turned her beast to face the creature. Lost in the grasses beside her, Feren moved, fear and pain spilling from his mouth. With a faint feeling of ludicrousness, she drew her own belt-knife.
“I’m a healer, I belong to the Hospice in Xenok – what do you want?” Her defiance was shrill, blade and voice shook. Did this thing of madness even understand?
“Little lady.”
What had she expected? Not this masculine elegance; this sensually perfect voice that shivered her ears. Her chearl watched the mighty creature, his head up and ears cocked forwards.
“We only came for the taer...”
“The taer is mine!” His flare of passion made her jump. “The grass is mine, the great stones are mine. Creature-created I may be – but I am crafted to mastery, to leadership. I am better than these stupid beasts that let you sit upon them. They, too, are now mine.”
Crafted to what? Knife forgotten, she stared. Behind her, there was a flurry of movement and a high, skin-crawling scream. Something big struggled, coughed liquid and fell. Feren’s chearl?
“Please...” This was crazed. “...I’m an apothecary, a healer –”
The creature glowered at her, his predator’s teeth flashing, the light shining from his smooth skin. “Heal and Harm, little lady, the oldest rule. Apothecary or alchemist, you must obey. Do you understand?” One foreleg raked, tearing the grass. She saw that it was tipped, not in a hoof, but in a huge, three-toed claw.
“None can learn one without learning the other.” It was a child’s lesson. “But – alchemist? What made you, what – ?”
“The craft is found,” he said to her. He paced forwards until he was almost close enough to touch. His presence was stifling, even flattened against the high back of her saddle, she could feel the heat of his skin. Her chearl whickered at him, bizarrely unafraid. “We return. But do you know what it means?”
“It means...” Overpowered, she wanted only to back away, but did not dare move. “No, I don’t...”
“I am alive!” Rage burned from him like madness. “Creature-created, I am, crafted for perfection – better than these foolish beasts. And it makes my life more important that yours.”
What...? She did not find the opportunity to articulate the thought.
His voice dropped to a thrum. “Have you saved a life, little lady?”
Barely a whisper. “Yes.”
“Have you taken a life?”
She had hunted creatures for food, much as anyone. “...Yes.”
He laughed at her, cavernous and chillingly perceptive.
“Can you wield that little blade you bear? Yes – or you would not be out here alone.” Stepping back, he crossed muscled arms over his chest. “Take the life of the young male that cowers beside you.”
“No.” Her reaction was immediate and without question. Feren was struggling to stand, his face white. Behind them, the other two creatures closed in.
“It is weak and injured, it serves no purpose.” The creature nocked a huge, flightless arrow and began to bend the limbs of his longbow. “It pollutes the whole. Its life is mine and I say it is done.”
“Thea...” She found Feren’s hand on her leg and covered it with her own. He was shaking, sweating. Dimly, she understood that the fall had injured him – yet, somewhere, her fear and disbelief were starting to smoulder into anger. “Maybe... I was right... about the mountains...”