Mercedes Lackey - Lamma's Night (anthology)

"Oh, this is so good," he went on, and I realized that he spoke as much from relief at having companionship as from a need to explain. "One watches; one sleeps. Rest, my... lady. You are weary from the passage between worlds."

A howl from outside our fragile keep had waked me, the wizard's fingers at my lips lest I cry out, betraying us both. Now, my companion rested, his face turned toward me.

"Forgive me if I stare. It has been so long since I have seen another face," he apologized. Gradually, he drifted into sleep. The lines of strain, the lines of craft smoothed out until the sleeping man, his head so close to my knees, might have been a young scholar or fighting man. If he were such a man and I a weaver, say, or a broidress, or even a real lady... I sighed.

His eyes opened again, and he smiled. Then he flung an arm over his face—disappointed at the sight of me rather than another, or reminded of our danger? A silver bracelet gleamed on his wrist, where my wrist was braceleted with scars.

He reached for a covered vessel and offered me water in which herbs had steeped. I wrinkled my nose at the unfamiliar scent. How long could I go without drinking? Sighing, he exchanged the container for another, this one of clear water.

"We must get you back," he said. "There is a fane, less than half the night's travel from here. I found it when I escaped. It is near a river... near, too, to where the Master holds his court."

"Is there danger in venturing so close?"

"Lady, this land teems with danger! I was mad to venture here, madder still to draw another after me. We shall get you home."

"We? And then?" I hated myself for asking, as if I taunted him with the preservation of his life and soul.

"Perhaps by then I shall prove that you can trust me." He shrugged off what meant his return home and bent to scoop up dried pine needles. He crouched, shaping them into a small map of the land we must cross; we studied it, illumined by our own silvery life force.

We took the blanket-cloak with us when we left the tree, but left all else behind, silently aware that, come success or defeat, we would not pass that way again. I had Cup and Blade tucked into my belt. He had a club to which he had bound a sharp-edged stone that looked like flint.

The silver cords—mine vivid, his diminished by his long stay in this place—that marked our lives glowed about us.

And ultimately, they were what betrayed us to the Hunt.

We crept to the edge of the forest and crouched side by side, staring out into the clearing where shadows stalked and leapt as if about a central core. The moon was waxing now as if days had passed during the time we hid in the tree.

The mage shuddered. " He is there." He shaped the words without sound. I could imagine how he would know the Master of the Hunt from the time he had been his captive. I would have rested my head against his shoulder, but the Master of the Hunt's threat to use us to breed magelings still heated my cheeks. I pressed chilled hands to my glowing face.

"Was he not there before when he called out to us?" I asked.

"When you translated yourself to this place, the use of power drew his attention. Now, he has come to hunt us himself. I could do without the honor."

Even as a stranger in this strange land, I knew we could not remain where we were until dawn or our enemies caught us. He had resisted, had escaped, but could I? I had scarcely resisted the temptation to betray myself into another mage's hands and bore the scars of it, and I had succumbed to this man's entreaties. I did not think I would be able to withstand the Master of the Hunt.

And, in any case, could either of us stand to see harm done to the other? No: we must keep safe.

We started to withdraw into the slightly greater safety of the forest, when a howling went up. I gasped and glanced back. Shadows, the shadow creatures knew to ignore. But even the faintest glimmer of our life force, straying in its mere abundance into the clearing was enough to alert them—enemy, invader, prey !

"That's done it!" the mage whispered.

We ran, heedless of cracking twigs or scattered rocks. The time for stealth had ceased. Once, in what seemed like an earlier life, I had ridden with a man I had thought I had every reason to trust. I had heard horns being blown, but in my innocence—I was but newly released from Schola Magium—did not recognize hunters signalling the Mort. I had begged my companion to intervene, but he had not only laughed at my tenderheartedness, he had drawn me along to gloat at the death.

This time, I was the quarry. I drew breaths that felt like spears piercing heart and lungs, but I ran and did not stumble.

Light erupted behind us, light and smoke and a reek of burning pitch.

"They found my tree," he muttered.

Would they burn down the entire forest to take or loll us? I had dwelt at the edge of a great woods and knew how swiftly such fires spread. One could dig a trench the fire might not leap, or retreat to the center of a clearing, or to the middle of a river. Any hope of safety led to exposure—which might lead to death or worse.

"They herd us," I gasped.

"Aye, unless... lady, are you resolved?"

I had the Blade, sharp enough to give us escape if all hope failed. I drew it. Faint moon-and starlight, much filtered by leaves and pine needles made it glow the silver of the lives it might have to drink.

"Now?" I asked. "There is strait payment for whose who end their lives before they exhaust every hope."

The other mage's eyes lit. "Honor to your courage, lady. I do not counsel death, but a great risk. Not far from here lies a gate. I do not know where it would take us, or even if it would work for us but..."

"Then we risk it!" I gasped. The reek of smoke grew stronger. Soon, we would have to leave the forests in any case.

The fire behind us cast a semblance of false dawn. Our shadows fled with us, silver light dancing with them, as we turned back to the clearing. To save time and our lives, if the fire spread, say, by a tree when its sap exploded, we must head for open space. I was greatly tempted to beg my companion to stop and guard me while I cast the circle that would take us back to our world, but I still feared that as much as I feared the Master of the Hunt.

The clearing stretched out before us. I headed for it. I heard only the crackle of the fire, closer now, frighteningly close. Those hunting us had ceased their cries.

"Along this path!"

Imprudent to flee across the clearing when a perfectly good way lay before us through a stand of trees into a barren spot. In its center stood two standing stones, topped with another. To each side, trees stretched out behind the stones. My vision could not pierce the darkness that lay between them.

But I could not miss the creatures, half hounds, half other, that raced toward the clearing, or the figure with its horned crown that urged them onward.

"Run for it!" The mage gave me a push. I ran, hearing him come after me.

Then they were upon us. I heard the hounds yelp and scream as he swung his rough-made club. Hot blood splashed upon my Blade, coating it to the hilt. It burnt my hand, but I forced myself to go on fighting, to force myself forward. I could hear my companion's voice chanting words of protection. His voice grew ragged, then more distant.

We were almost at the gate when he cried out in pain and fear.

Before the gate loomed the Master of the Hunt, the shadows from his horned crown falling upon us like dungeon bars. I cast the blanket-cloak from off my shoulders onto the hounds, entangling them.

The mage's blows should have been deadly, but they recoiled from the Master. At a gesture from him, as if the Master grew tired of a child's repeated attempts to play with him, the club snapped. The despair in the mage's face struck me to the heart.