Wide-eyed, panting, his heart still hammering, Darric looked around. Mandan was several paces away, club still raised, looking back at him. Valsun was a ways behind him, standing over two dead Nar. As near as Darric could tell, none of the blood on Valsun was his own. Just beyond him was one of the sellswords Darric had hired. He thought the man's name was Jaden, but he couldn't be sure. Darric suspected the man might be more cutpurse than sellsword, but he fought well.
The rest of the Damarans and hired blades lay unmoving. Hureleth lay closest to Darric. His body sprouted two arrows, and it looked as if someone had given him several good blows with a sword, just to be sure. His open wounds steamed in the cold night air.
For several moments, the survivors just looked at one another, the only sounds that of their labored breathing and the fire consuming the tree. For his part, Darric was almost overwhelmed by two conflicting feelings-horror and disgust at what had just happened, and heartfelt gratitude that he and his two dearest comrades were still standing.
"There!" Valsun pointed with his sword.
Something in the darkness moved.
A shape emerged from the shadows and into the flickering orange light cast by the burning tree. The figure stepped with such grace that its footsteps made not a sound. Darric could tell by the body's curves that it was a woman. She held a bow that was almost as tall as she was. She wore dark, fitted clothes that seemed to drink in the darkness, but her face…
There was no face. Darric instinctively tried to gasp, but it came out more of a strangled choke. No face!
Two bright eyes, wide with a feral glee, stared out from a face of bone. But as the woman stepped fully into the light, Darric saw that, horrible as it was, the mask was just that-a mask made from the skull of some animal. Not old and ivory white. Still fresh and slick, so that the firelight wavering off it made it seem almost the color of fresh blood, and the eyes looking out from the deep sockets watched them with something very close to…
He knew not what. But Darric shivered.
From the distant dark came an agonized scream. Darric looked nervously in the direction, and the other men did the same as they sat up.
"Don't mind them," said the woman. "It's just Uncle taking care of any lingerers."
"Uncle?" said Darric. "Who is Uncle? And who are you?"
The woman looked at Darric and said, "My name is Hweilan."
Darric's jaw dropped.
He heard Valsun gasp.
Mandan gaped at her and said, "Shar's sullied shit."
Jaden looked at them all in turn, then said, "What in the smoking Hells is going on?"
The woman picked up one of the larger rocks that the Damarans had used as a campfire ring, then she walked over to the dead man with the arrow through his head and kneeled beside him. Without looking at any of them she said, "Do I know you?"
Darric said, "My name is Darric."
Mandan said, "He came to find you."
At the same time Valsun cried, "What are you doing?"
The woman brought the rock down sharply on the dead man's skull. It didn't crack so much as crunch.
"Holy gods," said Jaden, then turned on his hands and knees and was violently sick.
Hweilan smashed the dead man's skull twice more then tossed the rock aside.
"What are you doing?" said Mandan, more curious than horrified.
"Retrieving my arrow," she said. "Can't cut through bone, so I have to break it out. A good arrow is hard to make, so I'd much rather break a dead man's skull than my arrow."
She pulled the arrow out of the broken wreck of the dead Nar's head and proceeded to clean it on his clothes. Once satisfied, she slid it back into the quiver on her back, then walked over to the corpse holding her arrow in his chest. She looked down, and Darric heard her murmur, "Damn. Going to ruin the fletching."
She kneeled, turned the corpse on its side and grasped the haft of the arrow where it was protruding from the Nar's back. Holding it in a firm grip, she twisted and pulled, dragging the fletching through the chest cavity. It emerged bloody and featherless.
"I don't know anyone named Darric," she said as she used the dead man's clothes to clean the arrow.
"If you are Hweilan of Highwatch," Darric said, "daughter of Ardan and Merah, granddaughter of Vandalar, High Warden, then you do know me."
She looked at him. When he'd first seen those eyes, he'd seen a feral glee in them. There was no glee now. Just pure ferocity. More like an animal's eyes than a woman's. Darric could not look away. His mouth opened and shut once, then again, but he could not think of a thing to say.
"Tell me how you know those names," she said.
Silence held them for a long time, the only sound that of the fire.
Mandan spoke up at last, "Forgive my brother's lack of eloquence. He is indeed Darric, heir of Duke Vittamar of Soravia, and he has come-"
"We heard of Highwatch." Darric found his voice at last. He gave Valsun and Mandan a sharp look, hoping they saw it and divined its meaning. "That it had fallen. To Nar. No one believed it, of course. But when our messenger hawks did not return… we came to find the truth for ourselves, and offer what aid we could."
Mandan smirked and said, "He came to find you."
"Be silent, Brother!"
Hweilan looked at Mandan. And Darric saw it-her nostrils widened as she scented the air, and then her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. She studied Mandan a moment, then looked back at Darric. He could see her considering, and he thoughtShe knows. I don't know how, but she knows. I'd bet my inheritance on it.
"Brother?" she said at last and looked at Darric.
Mandan tensed and raised his club. A moment later, Darric saw why.
The wolf padded out of the darkness, silent as a ghost. In the dim torchlight, Darric could not tell if it was white or a very pale gray, but he was quite certain that the dark wetness staining its muzzle almost up to its eyes was blood.
"Beware!" said Mandan. He ran forward, grabbed Hweilan, and tried to pull her behind him.
Instead, the woman twisted in his grasp, used Mandan's own weight and momentum against him, and the much-bigger man found himself flat on his back, looking up at the woman and the wolf, who stood calmly beside her, licking the blood from his muzzle.
"Darric of Soravia," said the woman, and she looked around at the others, "and company, meet Uncle."
Darric could take no more, so he said, "Hweilan, what in the Hells happened to you?"
PART TWO
THE FEYWILD
CHAPTER TWO
"Oh, no."
The small figure scrambled and slid down the slope. The dark did not bother him, and the thick canopy of the forest held back the worst of the rain. But the runoff flowing down the hill made footing treacherous and swelled the already swift valley stream well past its banks.
The body lay half in the stream-her legs on the bank, her hips and everything above them all the way in the water. The current undulated her hair, and her left hand bobbed and waved in the current. At least she was on her back, her face just out of the water. That was some small mercy. But her eyes…
Her eyes were open to the storm. Sightless. Water dripping off the branches rained down on her, some of it right into her empty gaze, and she didn't blink. Didn't even flinch.
"Dead," he said as he dropped his staff in the mud and jumped into the water. "Still the bells and sod the Hells. Oh, gods she's dead and he'll kill-me-kill-me-kill-me."
He dropped to his knees, lifted her head out of the water, and cradled it in his lap. She was shivering.
All breath left him in one long hiss. Alive! She was alive!
He patted her cheek, softly at first, then once with a hard smack. Nothing. He shook her. "Hey! Hey, girl!"