They each lifted a strong, clawed hand to the daggers through their skulls—and yanked them out. Metal rasped on bone.
Only the one with its head now attached by a few tendons remained down. Beheading, then.
Even if it meant getting close enough to do so.
The creature before him smiled in savage delight.
“What are you?” Lorcan ground out.
The two others were now on their feet, the wounds in their heads already healed, bristling with menace.
“We are hunters for His Dark Majesty,” the leader said with a mock bow. “We are the ilken. And we have been sent to retrieve our quarry.”
Those witches had dispatched these beasts for him? Cowards, not to do their own hunting.
The ilken went on, stepping toward him on legs that bent backward. “We were going to let you have a quick death—a gift.” Its broad nostrils flared, scenting the silent forest. “But as you have stood between us and our prey … we will savor your long end.”
Not him. He was not what the wyverns had been stalking these days, what these creatures had come to claim. They had no idea what he bore—who he was.
“What do you want with her?” he asked, monitoring the creeping approach of the three.
“It is none of your concern,” the leader said.
“If there is a reward in it, I will help you.”
Dark, soulless eyes flashed toward him. “You do not protect the girl?”
Lorcan gave a shrug, praying they couldn’t scent his bluff as he bought her more time, bought himself time to work out the puzzle of their power. “I don’t even know her name.”
The three ilken looked at one another, a glance of question and decision. Their leader said, “She is important to our king. Retrieve her, and he will fill you with power far greater than feeble shields.”
Was that the price for the humans they’d once been—magic that was somehow immune to what flowed naturally in this world? Or had the choice been taken from them, as surely as their souls had been stolen, too?
“Why is she important?”
They were now within spitting range. He wondered how long it’d take to replenish the supply of whatever power allowed them to cleave through magic. Perhaps they were buying themselves time, too.
The ilken said, “She is a thief and a murderer. She must be brought to our king for justice.”
Lorcan could have sworn an invisible hand touched his shoulder.
He knew that touch—had trusted it his entire life. It had kept him alive this long.
A touch on his back to go forward, to fight and kill and breathe in death. A touch on his shoulder to instead run. To know that only doom waited ahead, and life lay behind.
The ilken smiled once more, its teeth bright in the gloom of the wood.
As if in answer, a scream shattered from the forest behind him.
Chapter 10
10
Elide Lochan stood before a creature birthed from a dark god’s nightmares.
Across the clearing, it towered over her, its talons digging into the loam of the forest floor. “There you are,” it hissed through teeth sharper than a fish’s. “Come with me, girl, and I will grant you a quick end.”
Lies. She saw how it sized her up, claws curling as if it could already feel them shredding into her soft belly. The thing had appeared in her path as if a cloud of night had dropped it there, and had laughed when she screamed. Her knife shook as she raised it.
It stood like a man—spoke like one. And its eyes … Utterly soulless, yet the shape of them … They were human, too. Monstrous—what terrible mind had dreamed up such a thing?
She knew the answer.
Help. She needed help. But that man from the stream was likely dead at the claws of the other beasts. She wondered how long that magic of his had held out.
The creature stepped toward her, its muscled legs closing the distance too quickly. She backed toward the trees, the direction she’d come from.
“Is your blood as sweet as your face, girl?” Its grayish tongue tasted the air between them.
Think, think, think.
What would Manon do before such a creature?
Manon, she remembered, came equipped with claws and fangs of her own.
But a small voice whispered in her ear, So do you. Use what you have.
There were other weapons than those made of iron and steel.
Though her knees shook, Elide lifted her chin and met the black, human eyes of the creature.
“Careful,” she said, dropping her voice into the purr Manon had so often used to frighten the wits out of everyone. Elide reached into the pocket of her coat, pulling out the shard of stone and clenching it in her fist, willing that otherworldly presence to fill the clearing, the world. She prayed the creature wouldn’t look at her fist, wouldn’t ask what was in it as she drawled, “Do you think the Dark King will be pleased if you harm me?” She looked down her nose at it. Or as best as she could while standing several feet shorter. “I have been sent to look for the girl. Do not interfere.”
The creature seemed to recognize the fighting leathers then.
Seemed to scent that strange, off scent surrounding the rock.
And it hesitated.
Elide kept her face a mask of cold displeasure. “Get out of my sight.”
She almost vomited as she began stalking toward it, toward sure death. But she stomped along, prowling as Manon had so often done. Elide made herself look up into the bat-like, hideous face as she passed. “Tell your brethren that if you interfere again, I will personally oversee what delights you experience upon Morath’s tables.”
Doubt still danced in its eyes—along with real fear. A lucky guess, those words and phrases, based on what she’d overheard. She didn’t let herself consider what had been done to make such a creature quake at the mention.
Elide was five paces from the creature, keenly aware that her spine was now vulnerable to those shredding claws and teeth, when it asked, “Why did you flee at our approach?”
She said without turning, in that cold, vicious voice of Manon Blackbeak, “I do not tolerate the questions of underlings. You have already disrupted my hunt and injured my ankle with your useless attack. Pray that I do not remember your face when I return to the Keep.”
She knew her mistake the moment it sucked in a hissing breath.
Still, she kept her legs moving, back straight.
“What a coincidence,” it mused, “that our prey is similarly lamed.”
Anneith save her. Perhaps it had not noticed the limp until then. Fool. Fool.
Running would do her no good—running would proclaim the creature had won, that it was right. She halted, as if her temper had yanked on its leash, and snapped her face toward the creature. “What is that you’re hissing about?”
Utter conviction, utter rage.
Again the creature paused. One chance—just one chance. It’d learn soon enough that it had been duped.
Elide held its gaze. It was like staring a dead snake in the eyes.
She said with that lethal quiet the witches liked to use, “Do not make me reveal what His Dark Majesty put inside me on that table.”
As if in response, the stone in her hand throbbed, and she could have sworn darkness flickered.
The creature shuddered, backing away a step.
Elide didn’t consider what she held as she sneered one last time and stalked away.
She made it perhaps half a mile before the forest was again full of chittering life.
She fell to her knees and vomited.
Nothing but bile and water came out. She was so busy hurling up her guts with stupid fear and relief that she didn’t notice anyone’s approach until it was too late.