James West - Crown of the Setting Sun

“Sandros,” the woman said, feigning shock even as she sauntered closer, “are threats anyway to meet old friends?”

“You are no friend, Zera,” the Hunter said, pivoting a little in her direction. “And neither, Pathil, are you. That you have come together troubles me all the more.”

“Oh, come now!” Pathil said, jamming his sword into the scabbard hanging at his waist. “Enough posturing. Let us spend this night under a common roof, and take pleasure in our company.”

“As I remember it,” the Hunter said, “the last time we shared a roof, I awoke with you trying to poke that sword of yours through my heart.”

“A youthful blunder. Surely you do not still hold that against me-it is not as though I succeeded in marring even a single hair on your head.”

“Only because I broke your arm,” the Hunter said.

“And his nose,” Zera laughed, sheathing her own blade. “And nearly his neck.”

“See there?” Pathil said, his good humor sounding forced at the reminder. “You have nothing to fear. Besides, we all know you are and have ever been the best of us … maybe even the greatest Hunter ever to stride Geldain. Even against me and Zera, were we of a mind to attack you, I dare say you would shame us.”

Leitos listened to the odd banter, but suspected that what he was hearing was secondary to what was truly going on. “All men are liars,” the Hunter had said, and from another conversation, “They sent word to all their spies and Hunters to keep an eye out for a fleeing slave boy, and offered a fair reward to anyone who captured you.”

Zera glanced at Leitos, a bare shifting of her hooded head. Though he could not see them, he felt her eyes on him, a prolonged, invasive study. “Is this the boy the Alon’mahk’lar seek?” she purred. “Do not bother denying it,” she added, before the Hunter could do just that.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Pathil edged closer, coming abreast of Zera and passing her by, before halting no more than five paces from the Hunter. Like Zera, he moved with an unnerving grace.

Unaccountably, the Hunter seemed to take no notice, and went so far as to tuck his knife away. “Very well,” he said, visibly relaxing. He dropped a heavy hand on Leitos’s shoulder “It appears we will have guests this night.” He eyed Pathil and Zera. “I trust you have something to eat?”

Zera nodded. “The best fare to be had in Zuladah.”

“Which,” Pathil snorted, “is not so grand, but surely better than those boney, sun-cooked lizards we all ate together south of Loe-Sati.”

The Hunter’s abrupt laughter startled Leitos. In the next moment, the foursome were walking together, all outward hints of danger fading like water sinking into burning sand. Where the three Hunters chatted, Leitos coiled within himself, forced to accept that no matter what happened, he would not gain his freedom this night. Killing Sandros now, with the presence of two other Hunters, would be impossible.

It took little time to reach a large, domed building with a columned portico set upon the highest point in the center of the bone-town. Leitos suspected the decrepit palace had not been the Hunter’s original destination, as his previous hideaways had been uninviting and nearly undetectable. The place they entered stood out, an obvious beacon to anyone seeking shelter.

With unvoiced caution, they crept into the halls of the palace, passing a dozen or more partial skeletons, most of which had been scattered by scavengers many years gone by. They came to a vast and shadowed inner chamber, over which curved the palace’s cracked dome. Through a large gap, Leitos made out the light of a few stars, and wished he was out on the open desert, instead of trapped within the confines of what amounted to a massive tomb.

The Hunter laid a fire from previously gathered barrel staves, broken crates, and smashed furnishings. Whether the palace had been his destination or not, the Hunter’s familiarity of the place and its stores suggested he had been there before.

While the fire labored to push back the gloom and the night’s coming chill, the foursome dragged once plush chairs near the flames. Zera and Pathil shrugged off their hooded cloaks, hued in the same drab, desert tones as the Hunter’s garb, and Leitos momentarily forgot all his anxieties.

Rooting through a satchel similar to the Hunter’s, Pathil’s easy grin was made all the whiter by his smooth, sable skin. Black, close-cropped hair capped his head in small, tight curls. Where the Hunter was a large man, Pathil was slender. His corded arms poking out of his close-fitting, sleeveless tunic spoke of a quick, deadly strength. Leitos had a rough understanding of Pathil’s ancestry from Adham’s favorable stories of the races of southern Geldain who, before the Upheaval, had commonly produced companies of skilled mercenaries called Asra a’Shah.

As interesting as Leitos found Pathil, he considered Zera all the more so. Where her voice had stirred something unfamiliar and dangerously exciting within him, her olive-toned features held him captive. Of course, he had never seen a woman, but judging by Pathil’s and the Hunter’s frequent, admiring glances in her direction, he supposed Zera must be counted as attractive.

Like Pathil, Zera’s lithe arms held an uncommon strength, but they moved with far more natural and lethal grace as she drew a large round loaf of bread from her satchel, followed by a skin bloated by some sloshing liquid. Completely indifferent to the furtive looks of the other three, she turned away. Where Pathil wore a simple tunic and loose trousers, Zera’s clothing, a mix of cloth and leather, snugged against her body like a second skin. Besides her hands, neck, and face, no other part of her was uncovered. Leitos did not know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

He focused on her hair to avoid looking at the rest of her, noting that she had woven it into a long, glossy black braid. In a deft movement he nearly missed, she brought her palm to her lips, as if sneaking a bite of food, then spun around, catching Pathil and the Hunter off guard. They hastily looked away, avoiding her eyes, which flashed and glimmered in the firelight. She placed the loaf and the skin on her chair, then went back to digging in her satchel.

Leitos barely noticed her movements now. He stared into the flames, his mind fixated on the vision of her eyes. He had never seen such color, a liquid, shimmering green flecked with gold around the pupils….

All at once Leitos felt a lingering pressure upon him, and he glanced up to find the Hunter and Pathil looking his way. At his blush, they laughed aloud. Zera’s attention locked on Leitos. His lower jaw, dangling loosely, sprang shut hard enough that his teeth clicked. For the barest moment, her eyes narrowed. In the next, they softened. Her lips parted in an open, inviting smile. It was then that he realized she could be no more than a handful of years older than he, if that. Leitos fell into a state of near panic under her prolonged scrutiny, but in the back of his mind he wondered how such a young woman could have become a Hunter.

“Were your people not so few and far-flung, Zera,” Pathil said with a rueful shake of his head, “I dare say they could compel the hearts of men the world over to join in battle against the Faceless One.”

“Perhaps one day we will make the attempt anyway,” she said quietly, making it sound like a promise. Whether or not there was truth in her words, or merely some suppressed hope, Leitos breathed easier now that her attention had turned from him.

“No one will ever stand against the Faceless One,” the Hunter said firmly. “He is too strong.”

“Not to mention,” Pathil said with a mirthless smirk, “he has plenty of Hunters and spies to make sure the seeds of such a rebellion never land in fertile soil.”