Dart’s heart clenched in her chest. “Pupp…no! Stay back!”
Too late.
He reached forward and nosed the skull. As with all items potent in Grace, the contact pulled Pupp into substance. He bloomed with solidity on the planks of the balcony. His form glowed ruddy and bright, melting and churning, a bronze statue upon a forge.
Marron noted Pupp’s fiery appearance. Though dazed, the hunter finally found something upon which to focus, to vent his confusion. He scrambled to free his bow, arm pointed.
“Daemon!” he screamed. “They bring daemons!”
Pupp lifted his head, drawn by the cry. With the contact broken, his form wisped away, a candle gutted, visible only to Dart now.
Marron searched vainly, stumbling in a wary circle-until returning to what still rested upon the planks.
“The skull!” he screamed. “It is cursed! Births daemons!”
Brant’s efforts to pull the roots of seersong from the Huntress had an unwanted ripple. It also freed Marron to act, to shed his indecisiveness.
The hunter sprang forward. His booted leg held high. He brought his heel crashing down on the crown of the skull, smashing the ancient bones to skittering fragments. One piece struck Dart’s knee.
Next to her, Brant gasped and arched back as if lashed. His feeble song died on his lips.
“Bring oil!” Marron yelled, grinding bone under his heel. “Burn the foul thing to ash!”
The other hunters responded to their leader, needing some guidance to fill the void left by the Huntress’s absence. Krevan attempted to lunge forward, but an arrow sped past his ear, warning him back. They were surrounded again. Lamps and torches appeared, rushed forward by others.
The fragments were doused and set to flame.
Rogger managed to collect the piece near Dart’s knee, scooping it away into a rag, then into a pocket. The rest burnt in pools of oil.
Brant wobbled back to his feet. “The stone-it’s gone cold again.”
The Huntress also pushed from her sprawl. Her face was still bloody, but her wounds were already healing, sealing up with the fire of her own Grace. Her eyes continued to roll as she fought to focus.
“I’ve lost her,” Brant said, stumbling back. “The song still holds firm, rooted deep. I could feel it.”
A malignancy spread again among the hunters. More bowmen and spears poured up from below, drawn by the commotion, silently summoned by the command of the god.
The Huntress sank back into her madness, almost gratefully, with no fight. She gained her feet, too, though not without wobbling. She stared across at the surrounded party. Eyes shone with Grace and malice. Her voice remained whispery and weak.
“Kill…” She pointed at Brant. “Kill the boy.”
Only one heard her, the closest to her side.
Marron had his bow already in hand. He drew a long pull.
“Wait!” Tylar called, billowing out his cloak protectively. But his hobbled knee stumbled him.
The arrow pierced his shadowcloth and sailed past.
Brant suddenly sat down hard upon the planks next to Dart. He stared down at his chest. A feathered bolt protruded from his ribs. Dart saw the poisoned point poking out the back of his shoulder.
The Huntress tottered, but her voice grew firmer.
“He has a stone… the stone. Bring it to me.”
Dart kept her gaze on Brant. She saw the color drain, his face go slack. She reached a hand-but he fell away from her touch, his face lifted toward the ravens in the trees.
Just as dead.
Lorr had known when the seersong weakened its hold on both the Huntress and her hunters. He read it in the sudden bewilderment of their guards: the sway of limb, the lowering of weapons, the squint of confusion.
One of the hunters swung away and suddenly emptied his stomach into a bush. Another ran off, dropping his bow, stepping on his own arrow, and stabbing himself. He ran four steps, then dropped like a felled deer.
Lorr collected the dead hunter’s weapon, even the offending arrow.
The loam-giant smashed a fist into the face of the man who tried to stop him, crushing bone and knocking him flat. Shaking his fist, Malthumalbaen turned back to Lorr.
“Grab our weapons,” Lorr said and pointed. “Especially the regent’s swords.”
The giant obeyed, gathering an armful. “What now?”
“We get lost in the wood.”
Lorr didn’t know how long this respite would last. Even if the others succeeded, it would be easy to get grazed by a panicked arrow in the meantime. Better to be lost. So he led the way. In the chaos, it was not hard to vanish out of the clearing and into the denser forest.
Or usually it wouldn’t be.
The tracker winced at the crashing progress of the giant behind him. For a creature born of loam, the fellow seemed to be pounding at the very soil that had given birth to him. Twigs snapped, branches broke, and tangles of vines ripped with every other step. They were leaving a trail behind that a blind man could track.
He hissed at the giant behind him. “Can you tread a little lighter?”
“As soon as you suck that big nose back into your head,” he countered. “Where are we going, anyway? I won’t leave Master Brant behind.”
Lorr rolled his eyes. “We can’t mount a rescue unless we’re free. I need to scout the immediate area, secure more weapons, but first I have to find some hollow tree to plant your wide arse. You’re not exactly built for sneaking.”
But apparently others were.
Lorr pushed past a heavy branch and found himself facing a circle of hunters. Spears bristled, arrows waited. An ambush. Lorr immediately judged the others, weighing the threat. They were dressed in woodland greens and blacks, but their clothes were ripped and ill-fitted. They appeared no more than boys, wild-eyed but grim. The two parties eyed each other for a wary breath.
Neither sure of the other.
Friend or foe.
But Lorr noted one hopeful sign.
These hunters’ lips were unstained.
“Who are you?” Lorr asked. “Whom do you follow?”
One of the hunters merely pointed up.
Up toward the castillion.
Where the Huntress ruled.
As the hunters circled tighter around them, Tylar backed the others behind him, hobbling on his bad knee. He fed shadows into his cloak, along with his anger and certainty. If the Huntress wanted a war, so be it.
“Brant!” Dart sobbed behind him.
Krevan closed on their other side, protecting the dead boy and the girl. Calla closed on his left flank, Rogger on the other. But they had no weapons.
Or rather only one.
Tylar grabbed his barely healed finger. He would bring god against god, his naethryn against the Huntress. If necessary, they would burn bone from flesh and forge a path out of this tree.
Determined, Tylar snapped his finger straight back, refracturing the new bone with a starry flash of pain. He braced for the agony to spread, to break more bones, to release the naethryn from its bony cage. But nothing happened. A rib snapped in his chest like a weak echo of his cracked finger-but nothing more.
He gasped between clenched teeth, staring down at his throbbing hand. He leaned away from the side with the broken rib.
Something was wrong.
He felt the naethryn stir behind his breastbone, still trapped.
Like all of them.
Rogger glanced over to him. “Maybe that finger hadn’t set completely. You have nine others. I suggest you pick one right quick.”
Tylar lifted his head.
The Huntress had paused after Marron’s arrow killed Brant, perhaps gloating, perhaps even juggling a bit of regret. How firmly had the seersong re-rooted? Was there any residual grief that still panged? Impossible to say. Her face remained impassive.
Either way, Tylar was past trying to talk her back from the ravening edge. All it had done was get the boy killed. He grabbed his next finger, stirring afresh the pain in his hand.