Mark Sehestedt - Hand of the Hunter

"Now, girl," he said, "you are going to tell me everything."

"H-h-he… killed him." It all came out in a burst. "Th-that… that thing k-killed Lendri. Ripped… ripped his heart right out of his chest. Oh… holy gods!"

Hweilan vomited. There was little in her stomach, but bile surged up her throat and out. Gleed barely managed to step away in time.

"Mad as a half-drowned songbird," he muttered. "Best get you inside, eh? Then you can tell me everything. You will tell me everything."

He turned away, and the mud holding her collapsed with a splash. She found herself laying face first on the ground, one foot dragging in the river.

She squeezed her eyes shut and let her head fall into the mud. "Please go away."

Something tapped the back of her skull.

"Hey!"

Gleed stood before her, green light still spilling off his staff and upraised hand. "You're going to be difficult, aren't you?"

He nudged her with his staff again, and something about it made her suddenly angry. She slapped it away and glared up at him. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me who you are and where I am and how I got here."

"Have it your way," he said, then broke off into a low incantation.

Hweilan tried to ignore his voice. But then she heard something else: a wet, raspy slithering. She looked up. The nearby foliage-vines, branches, leaves, even roots dripping black mud-twisted and turned, forming a vaguely manlike shape. No head or eyes, but it had two massive arms. Too late she realized they were reaching for her.

The branches and vines entangled her and lifted her up.

She yelled and kicked and thrashed. But the branches only pulled tighter, pinning her arms to her sides and wrapping her legs together, snug as a shroud.

"Struggle all you like," said Gleed. "But I do wish you'd stop the screaming. It might draw attention we don't want. There are far crueler things in these woods than me."

Hweilan screamed louder.

Gleed shrugged, then turned and walked away. Just when the rain and shadows were about to swallow the last of his light, he gestured over his shoulder, and the mass of vines and branches holding Hweilan shambled after him.

The storm passed. Hweilan had stopped screaming-her throat had gone too raw. When she felt the thing carrying her stop, she opened her eyes. The forest ended at the shore of a lake, its flat black surface sparkled here and there with moonlight breaking through silver-limned gashes in the clouds.

In the midst of the lake stood the most decrepit tower Hweilan had ever seen-and she'd grown up in a land dotted with old ruins. Not much taller than a healthy spruce, the tower stood on an island only slightly larger than the base of the building. The tower looked as if it were only being held together by the moss and vines entangling it. Ravens roosted along the crumbling upper turrets, and dozens of bats fluttered over the water, feasting on insects.

The lake was fed by a waterfall that fell over a small ridge a stone's throw to their left. The sound of it made Hweilan shudder. The Nar word for waterfall was kuhunde, which meant "mountain laughter." In Narfell, the snow in the mountains only melted enough to form waterfalls in the height of the hottest summers. To the Nar, the sound of the falls sounded like the mountains laughing for joy at the rare warmth. But this waterfall, coming out of the dark woods to feed the stream that ringed the tower, held no laughter. It sounded more like the growl of some ill-tempered beast, warning her to stay away.

Gleed led them along the shore until they came to a small spit of land that pointed to the tower like a slightly hooked finger. He stood at the water's edge, raised his staff, and muttered an incantation that Hweilan could barely hear over the fluttering of the bats. The water rippled, and a bridge emerged. Parts of it were made from old flagstones held up by the roots of sunken trees, but great lengths of the bridge were formed of the roots themselves, raw bedrock, or soaked water-weeds that squished under Gleed's shoes as he led the way.

As the vine-thing carried Hweilan over the bridge, she heard something else. The whole structure of the tower rattled and tinkled in the breeze. Hanging from every available vine branch, twig, and shoot were hundreds of bells-some large as helmets, others smaller than thimbles. And amongst the bells were bits of chain, chimes, and coins of every shape and size. As they were out of the woods, the moonlight seemed very bright, and by its light Hweilan saw that some of the coins were old and black with tarnish, while others seemed newly minted.

Gleed saw her staring. He gestured around with his staff. "Nasty things haunt these woods. Lots of nasty things. There's power in gold, silver, and iron. Especially iron. These talismans keep all but the nastiest away when I'm not home."

"Demons," Hweilan rasped, and winced at the pain in her throat.

"Eh?" said Gleed. A few bats fluttered around him. He shooed them away with his staff.

Hweilan was no scholar. But she had seen the mad, hungry thing looking out from her Uncle Soran's eyes-and later from Kadrigul's. Nothing could stop them. Not arrows and blades, or even the earth-shattering power of Kunin Gatar's magic. Everything Hweilan, her friends, and her enemies had thrown at the thing had done no good. It just kept coming. Relentless. Until it had faced Nendawen. Only then had it truly faltered. And the scream that had seemed to stab needles into her bones when Nendawen had destroyed it… she could think of no other explanation.

She looked up at the metal-encrusted tower. "Will your talismans keep out demons?"

"No demons here," said Gleed. "This isn't the Abyss, though you may think otherwise in the coming days."

The vine-thing bore Hweilan through a door and down low hallways cut through the black stone of the lakebed. As Gleed led them downward, torches sputtered to life in his wake, flickering blue-green flames that popped and hissed but gave no smoke. Shiny green beetles scuttled out of the light and sought refuge in the cracks between the bricks. Silver spiders-small bodies, with long legs that looked sharp as needles-scuttled out of the shadows and sat in their webs or hung from tiny threads and watched them.

They passed other doors, all shut tight, runes and arcane symbols etched or burned along every board. Beyond, one passage was so utterly black that Hweilan couldn't see anything. But she could hear water dripping inside, and the smell that emanated out of the dark was so utterly rank that Hweilan's jaws locked and her throat constricted.

Not far beyond that, the passageway ended at an archway that filled most of the wall. A few stairs led down to a stout wooden door.

Gleed turned. "Your escort can go no farther. Time to walk."

He snapped his fingers, and the life humming through her bonds burst and seeped away. To Hweilan it felt like an arrow piercing a full wineskin-an instant of collapse, then the contents soaked into the ground and were gone.

Hweilan found herself on the passage floor in a mass of vines, wet roots, and mud.

"Get up and follow me," said Gleed.

Hweilan pushed herself up on legs that felt hollow and brittle. How long since she'd had a good meal? She couldn't remember. Her stomach felt small and shriveled, and her hands trembled as she tore away the vines and slipped out of the roots. When all but a few clinging tendrils lay in a pile at her feet, Gleed turned and started down the stairs.

Seeing him in the torchlight was the first really good look she'd had at him. Hobgoblins and worse filled the mountains west of her home, and she'd seen them a few times-prisoners brought in for questioning or bandits for judgment. They had been larger and much haler-looking than this shriveled old creature, but if he wasn't a goblin, he was certainly close kin to them.