Tylar quickly returned, hopping on his good leg. He had overheard Brant’s words. “Don’t be so quick to accept death. Do that and you’ll have one foot in your grave already.”
Rogger crossed to them and held out his hand. A piece of yellowed bone rested in his palm. “Before we fled, I stole a sliver of the skull. Mayhap it still contains enough Dark Grace to break the seersong’s hold with that black stone of yours.”
Brant stared at the skull, touched the stone at his throat, and slowly shook his head. “I feel the smallest tingle or warmth, nothing more.”
Rogger frowned. “I was afraid of that.”
In his heart, Brant was relieved. He wanted nothing more to do with the skull.
“Still, keep it safe for now,” Tylar ordered the man, then nodded toward the approaching hunters. “We dare tarry no longer.”
In short order, their two parties split. Harp led the others toward the higher pass, guarded by Krevan and Malthumalbaen. Tylar headed back down the small deer path. He hobbled heavily on one side, lost in his own thoughts.
Brant followed. “You have some plan?” he asked.
“I do.”
Brant waited for him to elaborate, but the regent remained silent, marching onward, descending toward the dark river below. A view opened briefly. The leading edge of hunters neared the fringe of forest below, running ahead of the Huntress. Her scouts would reach the jungle first.
Brant tired of Tylar’s cryptic silence. “So am I part of this plan?” he asked, a bit harshly.
“A big part.” Tylar glanced back to Brant. “You’re the worm on the hook.”
Dart climbed beside Malthumalbaen. The giant looked back as often as Dart. Both were worried for Brant…for Tylar. While they climbed toward safety, the others descended toward certain doom.
“Master Brant knows how to take care of himself,” the giant said.
Pupp also kept her company, lagging at her heels.
Ahead, Krevan slipped into and out of shadow, sword drawn. Calla and Lorr followed behind with a handful of Harp’s young hunters. Farther ahead, Rogger marched with Harp. Spread around and between them were the other ragged survivors, the last small handful.
Boys in torn leathers, some bootless. Elders with crooked staffs to help their steps over uneven rock. One young girl carried a babe in her arms, though barely more than a babe herself. All looked gaunt and hollow.
There was no joy in their survival.
Even if they cleared the Divide, they were headed into the hinterlands.
Rounding a steep jog in the track, they heard a horn sound ahead. A commotion jarred through the group, starting near the front and flowing downslope.
From both sides, hunters appeared, dressed in leaves to match the jungle, faces painted black. They bore spears, poison-tipped for sure. Their party was herded closer together, forced up the slope to a jungle dell with a creek trickling over rock. Moss lay thick over all surfaces, turning the small glade emerald green.
It was too bright and handsome a place for the horror here.
To either side knelt the party that had left earlier. Their hands were tied behind their backs. Many looked beaten. One old woman lay on her side, face bloody, unmoving.
But worst of all, a body lay near the creek, seeping blood into the water, swirling it crimson.
Headless.
Standing over the body was a familiar figure, baring the filed points of his teeth, feral and blood-maddened. His arms and chest were drenched in the fresh flow of his kill, lifeblood steaming on his skin.
“Marron…” Harp moaned.
To the hunter’s side, a fierce fire had been stoked with smoky greenwood. Another of the hunters charred the end of a long pole, sharpened at both ends in the flames. At his leader’s signal, he pulled the pole out of the fire and jammed the cool end deep into the mossy loam.
“Don’t,” Harp said.
He was ignored.
Marron bent and lifted the head of the corpse at his feet. Holding it between his palms, he raised it high, then jammed it atop the hot stake. Blood sizzled. Smoke issued from the gaping mouth and nose.
Dart recognized the naked head, tattooed with disciplines.
Master Sheershym.
Dart turned away, hiding her face. Across the creek, more hunters knelt with sharp blades, straddling long branches, shaving them to points.
More stakes, already sharpened, lay piled nearby.
Marron stepped to a young girl who knelt at his feet. He twisted a fistful of her hair and cruelly bared her neck. In his other hand, he carried one of the same blades used to cut the stakes.
The giant reached out and covered Dart’s eyes.
But she could still hear.
Down by the hardened river of black rock, Brant allowed himself to be roughly searched. Hands dug over his body. Finally he was shoved forward to join Tylar at the edge of the black river of steaming rock.
Tylar studied his toes. He had already been searched, even stripped of his shadowcloak. He shifted a full step to one side, more than necessary, as if he were avoiding Brant’s company.
Out on the river, the Huntress had stood waiting. Only now did she come forward, striding through the steam, her skin shining with sweat and Grace. Her hair had been unbraided, giving her a wild look that stirred Brant in unpleasant ways.
Brant and Tylar were forced to their knees, spearpoints at their backs. Tylar, hobbled by his bad leg, fell to one hand.
Ignoring him, the Huntress crossed immediately to Brant. She held out her palm, her eyes bright with desire. There was no need to ask what she wanted.
Brant reached to his neck and pulled out the twisted cord from which the rock hung. It was bound tight. The Huntress motioned with her other hand. The spearpoint was shifted from his back and cut the cord. The stone fell free, into Brant’s palm.
She studied it, lifting her chin and staring down her nose. “It appears such a dull thing-but he was always clever. Sometimes too clever for his own good. Like entrusting it to an equally dull boy.”
She paced one step to the side, then back again, plainly hesitant with the prize so close. “I think I knew, back when you were brought before me. That was why I banished you-but afterward, I couldn’t remember why. The dark whispers filled my head again and I knew I wasn’t in the correct turn of mind to take its responsibility.” A bit of madness crackled. “But now I must be. Why else have you returned? It must be a sign, surely!”
Brant sensed she was trying to goad herself into taking it but was plainly fearful at the same time. He could almost sense the tidal pull and push warring inside her.
Beside him, Tylar remained crouched, his face down, leaning heavily on his one arm. But Brant noted a certain tautness to his shoulders. The way his toe shifted ever so slightly, catching a purchase on a lip of stone, like a climber firming his hold.
“The time must be ripe!” the Huntress cried out. “A plain sign!”
Brant held his breath.
Everything happened too fast.
The god lunged for the stone in his palm and grabbed it. At the same time, Tylar shoved off his good leg, away from the spear at his back, and pulled out a bladeless gold hilt that had been hidden beneath a flat yellow stone.
Rivenscryr.
Here was what Tylar had sent ahead, borne by one of Harp’s fleet-footed runners, to be planted in secret at the river’s edge. Bladeless, it had been easy to hide, easy to miss.
Rising now, Tylar spun off his good leg. Glass tinkled in his other hand, revealing a tiny repostilary hidden under his wraps. A splash of crimson spilled and struck a silver blade that shimmered into existence with the touch of blood.
Still turning, Tylar swung the freshly whetted sword for the Huntress’s neck, ready to take her head clean off-but while all this happened in a blink, Brant’s eyes had truly never left the Huntress’s face.
As her fingers closed on the stone, he saw something rise in her eyes.
His heart clenched.