James West - Crown of the Setting Sun

Leitos’s arms fell, and his eyes rolled. A presence loomed above him, clad in dripping rags colored after the hues of the desert, all of browns, dirty reds, and fawn. In a lurching gait, the bulky figure brought him to higher ground, then tossed him down.

Still unable to draw a breath, the blessed darkness began to fall again over Leitos. He let it, for in death he had known absolute peace, and he desired to know that nothingness again. As if alerted to Leitos’s thoughts and finding them unacceptable, the man turned, his face lost in the shadow of a deep, drooping hood. Without preamble, he jammed a sandaled foot onto Leitos’s chest and stomped down. Leitos’s eyes bulged at the offending pressure, and a gout of water sprayed past his teeth. The ragged figure mercilessly trounced him once, twice, again. Each time, more of the river surged from Leitos’s lungs, until no more came.

A rattling wheeze assailed Leitos’s ears as his body, indifferent to the will of his heart, drew breath. Fresh air flowed, but after the gritty river water it burned worse than going without, leaving him coughing and retching. The agonizing fit went on until he was sure he had ruptured something.

In time, his labored breathing evened out, and the fierce blaze in his chest subsided. When his coughing finally dwindled to nothing, everything inside him felt raw and abused.

Leitos’s eyes fluttered open on a roiling expanse of clouds, their mottled gray-and-black underbellies torn by flicking tongues of white fire. The rainfall had begun to taper off. Head wobbling, he cast about and found that the walls of the gorge had fallen away to reveal a familiar desert landscape. At the river’s edge, thickets of lush green rushes bowed their heads away from the press of the wind. Farther up the bank, a few spindly trees swayed back and forth.

Leitos rolled to his side to avoid looking into the depths of his savior’s hood. He closed his eyes on the world, his chest occasionally hitching with a weak cough.

The dark figure hovered motionless, silent, ominous. “You will live,” the man growled.

“Why did you save me?” Leitos asked weakly.

The man cocked his hooded head. He remained silent for a time, then spoke words that sent a chill through Leitos. “I suppose one like you, an escaped slave, would rather die. No such luck, boy. You are worth more alive than dead.”

“A Hunter ,” Leitos gasped. On the rarest occasion a slave escaped the Alon’mahk’lar . When that happened, they employed Hunters, men renowned as much for their tracking abilities as their unfeeling treachery against their own kind. Being human, such men roved without suspicion, seeking and finding those they pursued. Often, they worked hand-in-hand with slavers who brought fresh captives to the mines. Adham had hated Hunters worse than he hated the Alon’mahk’lar, or even the Faceless One. “There are few betrayals worse than men hunting their own at the command of demon-spawn,” he had often said, always spitting on the ground to emphasize his contempt. “Nothing can ever redeem the soul of such a despicable creature.”

Looking askance at his captor, Leitos collected himself and sat up, muscles quivering uncontrollably. He felt cold and gray-fleshed, like something dead. All that mattered was getting his wits and strength back, then planning his escape. He could not let himself be given again into the hands of the Alon’mahk’lar .

The Hunter squatted on his haunches, his face still lost in the darkness of his hood. Nevertheless, the weight of his unseen eyes pressed against Leitos. He said nothing, only looked. What he saw besides a sopping and disheveled youth, Leitos could only guess. That continued study made him more uncomfortable by the moment. He imagined a mouse must feel the same, when facing an adder.

The Hunter kept up his silent vigil so long that Leitos began to wonder if the Hunter really was a man. Adham had told that Mahk’lar , before they began breeding to humankind, and thus transferring their essence into a human womb, had gone about possessing men, women, and even children, transforming them into walking horrors. Such abominations did not last long, for with the loss of its true soul, the inhabited flesh perished and began to rot. Usually within a few days, the Mahk’lar would burst free, seeking new flesh to control and destroy. Although a long generation had passed since the emergence of the vile Alon’mahk’lar race, Leitos supposed it possible that stray Mahk’lar could still roam the world. I have to get away!

“I can see your mind working, boy,” the man said, as if sensing Leitos’s last thought, “but you will not escape me. I can track a lizard up a bare stone cliff, even a soaring bird. It is not the tracks the lizard leaves, boy, or the feathers that fall from the bird’s wings, but the reek of fear they leave when they know they are sought. I can smell that fear on all creatures, great and small … and I can smell it on you, even in this damnable rain.”

“And you smell like the piss of a leprous goat,” Leitos snapped with a flare of irrepressible malice.

The back of the man’s rough hand crashed into Leitos’s cheek before he registered movement. His head rocked back, and a warm trickle of blood mingled with cold raindrops on his cheek. Dazed, Leitos righted himself. He peered at the man with narrowed eyes, a smoldering hatred searing away his entrenched humility, daring to imagine that someday he would seek out such despicable men, as well as all Alon’mahk’lar , delivering upon them the bloody justice they had earned-

The Hunter struck him again. The blow, harder by far than the first, knocked Leitos sprawling. Stunned, he floundered about, eyelids fluttering. He did not know how long he wallowed in the gritty mud of the riverbank, but eventually his head cleared. Cunning , he thought. You must use your wits .

Storing away that precious tidbit, schooling his features to meekness, he pushed himself up and bowed his head in a show of surrender. The Hunter laughed, a deep mocking rumble that made Leitos’s stomach clench.

“You cannot fool me so easily as that,” the Hunter drawled. “I can smell defiance as well as fear-and the first is fairly dripping off your skin … at least for now. By the time I return you to your masters, you will be timid as a suckling babe.”

“Where are they,” Leitos asked, “my masters?” He needed time to plan, and if any Alon’mahk’lar were close, time would be all the more precious.

The Hunter lashed out again. Leitos made a show of trembling before the man, even as the tip of his tongue ran over his split lower lip. If the abuse kept up, he might have to act sooner than he would like, which could only be to his disadvantage.

“First lesson, runt,” the Hunter said, “is to speak only when I give you leave to do so. The second lesson is that you do what I tell you, when I tell you to do it. Stand up.”

Leitos got to his feet. Falling into the role of the compliant slave was easier than he liked, but he would use that to his advantage … somehow he must. His cheek and jaw throbbed from the Hunter’s blows, but those pains were the least of his concerns. What mattered was getting far away from the man, and the Alon’mahk’lar that he served.

The Hunter stood as well, towering half a pace over Leitos, a creature of menacing power with broad shoulders, a deep chest, and fists seemingly carved from stone. The dark hollow of his hood turned slowly. Leitos felt as if he were looking into a yawning mineshaft that delighted in destroying anyone foolish enough to enter. This man was as dangerous, maybe more so, than any Alon’mahk’lar he had ever encountered.