Mark Sehestedt - Hand of the Hunter

Hweilan made her decision between one breath and the next. She turned and ran, going back the way they had come. Weak and hungry as she was, she knew that little creature stood no chance of catching her-if she could get out of the range of whatever dark arts he had at his command.

Behind, she heard him curse, but she kept going, past the room of dripping rankness and the dozen doorways, around the bend and up the stairs into moonlight.

Her foot was on the topmost stair when she saw him. She stopped so suddenly that she almost fell.

Lendri stood naked at the water's edge, one hand hanging limply at his side, the other grasping at the ruin of his chest, trying to hold in the heart that still beat there. He fell to his knees.

"All dead," he said. "Your family, Scith… me." His voice took on the timbre of a snarl. There had always been something of the beast in Lendri. But this was rabid. "All dead. Because of you. Because you-"

Hweilan heard the cawing of ravens.

Wolves in the distance.

And then the darkness took her.

She could hear a crackle and the low hum of coals breathing and she felt herself surrounded in the warmth of blankets soft as rabbit fur. A rich earthy aroma filled her head, and her ears caught the soft clink and scrape of a spoon stirred inside a kettle. She lay there, for one brief moment thinking she was home again, spring on the wane, and any moment one of the handmaidens would come through her bedroom door, telling her if she didn't get up and wash soon, she'd have no time for breakfast before today's lessons.

But then she opened her eyes.

A fire burned in a stone hearth, a black iron kettle set over the flames, and Gleed hunched over it, sipping from a silver spoon.

"Awake at last, eh?" he said, and turned to her.

He no longer wore the thick cloak and hood in which she'd first seen him in the woods. His feet and arms were bare, and he wore clothes of simply cut brown canvas, a long vest closed by a belt rope, the ends of which dangled to his knees. A dozen or more necklaces hung around his neck-fine chains, braided leather, and others no more than fraying thread. Hanging from every one were tiny jewels, bits of bone, black feathers, and medallions-some round and gleaming like silver coins, others that looked to have been crafted from iron nails twisted into intricate shapes.

Seeing his ruddy, leathery skin, the too-wide mouth, tiny nose framed by huge, round eyes-one orange the other milky and blind-and the pointed, erect ears, and there was no longer any doubt.

"You're a goblin," she said.

He smirked. "Oh, you are a bright one."

She looked around, her eyes skittish as a bird who has returned to her nest to find a viper coiled around her eggs. She lay in a nest of pillows, blankets, and rugs. Beyond was a chamber-so low-ceilinged that she would knock her head on the cobwebbed rafters if she stood to her full height. A bed and low table took up one wall. No chairs-the table was low enough that one obviously sat on the floor. Other than the doorway and hearth, every bit of spare wall space was filled with shelves holding tomes, scrolls, the reconstructed skeletons of small animals, and dozens and dozens of bottles of colored glass, wood, and clay. Not a single window. It looked more like the room of an eccentric old scholar than a wrinkled old goblin.

"Why am I here?" said Hweilan. Her eyes seemed drawn to the kettle bubbling over the fire, and she remembered every story about goblins she'd ever heard.

Gleed chuckled. "You're far too big to fit into my pot-and I stopped eating girls a long time ago."

She couldn't tell if he was serious or not. He used the spoon to pull the kettle from its hook and set it away from the fire to cool.

"Usually I have a whole speech prepared," he said. " 'My name is Gleed. The Master has sent you to me.' Then I give them a demeaning name to keep them in their place. But you, little girl, you seem to have broken the pattern." He made a sound that was part laugh and part cough. "I've been teaching your kind since before your grandmother's grandmother caught her man. But in all my years, you are the first to come to me knowing who you are. Before, my charges came with their memories wiped clean-their hearts new iron, ready to be honed according to the Master's will. But you… you know who you are… Hweilan. How can this be?"

"I don't know," she rasped.

Gleed's eyes narrowed and he watched her, obviously disbelieving. "Tell me what you remember," he said.

She tried to swallow. Her throat felt rough as baked boot leather-from her screaming earlier. And how long since she had last taken a drink?

"Water," she said.

Gleed shambled off, then returned with a silver goblet that looked very large in his hands. His other hand crumbled something and sprinkled it into the contents of the goblet, then he handed it to her.

She took it and stared at the pinkish contents. "What-?"

"No poison," he said. "If I wanted you dead, I'd have left you in the creek to drown. Just a bit of wine and water with a few special herbs. They'll soothe your throat and settle your stomach so that you don't wretch all over my floor after you eat."

She took a tentative sip. Both wine and herbs were very bitter, but the concoction seemed more water than anything. She drank it all in three swallows, each hurting a bit less than the last.

Gleed retrieved his staff from the nearest shelf and leaned on it. He fixed her with his one good eye.

"Where is Menduarthis?" she asked.

"Who?"

"He… he helped me escape from… that thing."

The old goblin chucked. "Well then, I'd say he did a poor job of it. I do not know this Menduarthis or what might have happened to him."

"He was hurt." He might have been more than hurt. Might be dead. The last Hweilan had seen of him, he'd been lying senseless on the ground, bleeding profusely from his head.

"I've told you I know nothing of him, girl. Now, speak. Tell me of Hweilan and how she came to be here."

She gave him no intimate details. Nothing of her childhood or family. Just "Creel killed my family" and then picking up where she'd met Lendri in the foothills. Gleed grinned as she told of Kunin Gatar and how she, Lendri, and Menduarthis had escaped. Her breath caught as she came to Lendri's death-not so much at seeing him killed as at the memory of his ghost in the moonlight outside. She told how the thing that had killed Lendri had been about to kill her.

"And then he appeared," she said, her eyes closed, her breath scarcely above a whisper. A figure, taller than any man Hweilan had ever seen. Moonlight glinted off pale scars that ribboned his muscled frame. His left hand dripped blood. In his right he gripped a spear, its black head barbed and cruel. Antlers sprouted from his skull.

"The Master," said Gleed, and in his voice Hweilan heard… not reverence. Ecstasy. The voice of a drunk long denied his drink who is suddenly given a priceless vintage.

"The… Master?" she said.

"Nendawen to those mortals who knew him best," he said. "Master of the Hunt, lord of this realm. He saved you, yes?"

Eyes still squeezed shut, Hweilan nodded.

She heard Gleed chuckle. But there was no humor in it. It was the laugh of a little boy dangling a mouse over the cat.

"He… filled you, yes? Spirit and mind. Heart and soul. The Master sifted you, scraped you, immersed you in his holy will."

She didn't know about that. Remembering it, she thought it had seemed more of a violation than a blessing. She certainly hadn't been willing. She'd heard priests speak of communion with the divine, comparing it with the passion of a lover. Hweilan had never been with a man, so she had no comparison in that regard. But what Nendawen had done to her mind had not been the ecstasy of lovers. More like consumption-the terror a deer might feel when it knows it will still be alive when the wolves start to feed.