35 – Hunting the Hunters

  Ward crouched low in his makeshift blind, watching the hunting party approach over the boggy ground between the road and the burned grove. His hope that one or two might stay behind with the horses had been short-lived. The party had, indeed, left their mounts by the road but apparently felt confident that they’d be back in time to prevent loss or theft—all eleven were approaching. They’d extinguished their lanterns while still up in the hills, probably around the time they saw the firelight coming from the burned house. Now they crept, weapons drawn, over the boggy ground, making it clear their intentions weren’t peaceful.

  “Two with long barrels. Most have swords or axes. I see a crossbow and several clutching pistols—their barrels are wide, so probably breach loaders or even muzzle loaders. One has a staff; maybe it’s a walking stick?” Ward’s whisper was barely louder than a breath, but Lisa nodded.

  “Can you see Keene?”

  Ward scanned the line of men—and women, he realized, seeing a tall, lanky woman with a knife in each hand—looking for someone who resembled the figure that had been revealed by his spell back in the hotel. “Too tall, too burly, too feminine, hair’s too long, clothes are too ratty, too—There! That’s his pointy goatee sticking out of that fancy hooded cloak. He’s the fourth one from the left, stepping over that log.”

  Lisa squinted where Ward was pointing, but she made a soft, growling, frustrated sound. “I can’t see anything!”

  “Okay,” Ward whispered, “relax. When they go past us, and the light from the fire is on the other side of ‘em, you’ll be able to see their silhouettes. I’ll point him out again.”

  Lisa didn’t respond, but she pulled the collar of Ward’s jacket up, framing her face and ears. Her breath was visible in the frosty air, as was Ward’s, but he felt fine. In fact, the cold air felt good to him. He was in his element, stalking his prey, lying in wait, ready to pounce. He didn’t want the wolf in him to come out, mainly because he was worried about Grace, but he couldn’t deny he was starting to enjoy his awakening bloodline.

  As the approaching hunters reached the edge of the boggy field and stepped onto the firmer soil near the orchard, Ward heard a few hoarsely whispered curses and then, more clearly, the voice of the man from his spell’s vision. “Right, Kelly, take your three go ‘round the backside. Nokkin, you take two and go left—make sure they don’t escape out one of the windows there. Lassie, you, Len, and Rockus are with me. Let’s go, everyone! Keep it quiet and get the place surrounded.”

  Ward watched the figures, clear as day in his lupine vision, spread out and follow the man’s orders. Judging by their trajectory, Keene and his three would pass just about ten yards from where he and Lisa were waiting. He hunkered down and pulled Lisa close, whispering, “Shallow breaths into your sleeve. Don’t let it plume up.”

  She nodded, and he could feel her shivering. He knew it was cold, but it wasn’t that cold. No doubt she had some adrenaline in her system; sitting in the cold dark, getting ready to attack a superior force, was nerve-wracking business. “We got this. You and me, we’re going to take out the four coming close to us. I’ll do three, and you’re going to bring Keene down. Then I’m going to go after the others and help Haley.”

  A muffled curse and a snapping branch brought Ward’s attention away from Lisa, and he saw a big man with a hatchet in one hand and a single-shot pistol in the other. He leaned against a burned tree and bent to work something out of his boot. Keene whispered, “What is it?”

  “Something sharp, goddammit.”

  Keene ignored him and kept walking, keeping pace with the other two nearby, one of whom was the tall, wiry woman with the two knives. Ward watched them progress, relieved when the big man grunted with success and then lumbered after Keene, forcing the man to turn and scold him. “Quiet, you oaf!”

  “Sorry, boss.”

  Ward turned and scanned the area around the cabin, noting that the two other teams Keene had sent off were making better time, closing in on the cabin ahead of these four. He leaned close to Lisa, putting his lips right next to her ear. “Listen, these guys are in the perfect place to jump ‘em without the others having time to react. Any noise we make will give Haley a chance to pick some of them off while they try to come and help. Can you see them yet?”

  She turned and nodded, eyes wide.

  “Keene’s the one with the hood, the shorter guy there near the big asshole.”

  Lisa squinted through the branches of their hiding spot, staring for several long seconds before she turned and nodded. “I see,” she mouthed. Ward wished he could turn off his night vision so that he could get an idea of what she was looking at. She didn’t seem confident, but he supposed he had to trust her. Judging by the stumbling going on and the muffled curses, Lisa wasn’t the only one struggling to see in the dark. It seemed their fears of alchemically enhanced sight had been unfounded.

  Thinking about that, Ward wondered if spells and gunfire were the wrong move. He leaned close to Lisa again. “You watch him. I’m going to try to take some of the others out in the dark. If he runs or if things get noisy, make your move.”

  She looked at him again, blinked in the darkness, but nodded her understanding. She turned back to the gap in the branches and stared. Ward hoped she was staring at the right person. He clutched the hilt of his sword and rose from his knees to a squat, deftly stepping between the broken branches on the ground, winding his way out of their concealing blind. Then he angled toward the left-most of Keene’s men—a stout, leather-clad fellow holding a two-handed cudgel adorned with metal spikes.

  He crouched as he walked, surprised by how easily he found the soft, ash-covered soil without touching any branches or twigs. He stalked through the dark, easily spotting low branches and other obstacles. Meanwhile, the man he hunted kept stopping, kept reaching out to feel in front of him, whispering curses with each branch that scraped his head, each bit of uneven ground he stumbled on. Ward moved so quietly and quickly that he found it effortless to get around behind the fellow. Then, pressing the flat of the blade with a thumb to keep it from ringing, he drew his sword.

  Two steps, and then Ward was in range; he lifted his broadsword high, bringing it down at an angle. Maybe in his old life, he could have hit someone hard enough to kill them with that sword, especially from behind like that, but now it wasn’t even a question. The blade struck home with such force with its freshly honed edge that it bit through the man’s entire neck. As blood fountained and the head rolled to the side, Ward reached out with his left hand and caught the collar of the dead man’s jacket, slowly lowering the corpse to the soft ground.

  He glanced toward Keene and the big man beside him—the next closest hunters—and they were staring his way, but they had questioning looks on their faces. They’d frozen in place, and they stared, clearly listening, so Ward took a noisy step and hoarsely whispered, “Dammit!”

  “Quiet!” Keene hissed over the distance, and then he and his big bodyguard began moving again. Ward knew he was grinning evilly as he hefted his blood-soaked sword and circled the two men, aiming for the woman on their other side. He was like a ghost in the dark, a bulky shadow among shadows, and his progress was nearly silent, especially when masked by the stumbling steps of the three nearby enemies.

  He could see his next target, tall and much quieter than the others, her two knives glinting in the firelight that blazed from the glassless windows of the cottage twenty yards distant. Ward glanced at Lisa’s hiding spot and was sure he could see her eyes peering through a gap in the branches. She ought to be able to see Keene and the other guy now that they’d passed her and were between her and the fire. Nodding, glad she hadn’t been spotted, he crept up on the woman, raised his sword, and brought it down.

  Clang! Somehow, she’d sensed the attack and whirled, bringing her knife up in time to catch Ward’s blow on the crossguard. Even so, he was too strong for her to stop his cut short. The action cost her a knife as Ward’s blow ripped it from her hand, and she danced back, switching her other knife to her right hand. She opened her mouth to scream, and Ward held out his left hand, “Vrakkun khorvek!” he barked, and the spell rolled smoothly off his tongue and into the night air, taking on a jagged, electric sound as it coalesced in the air, forming a ball of mana-charged destruction at Ward’s fingertips.

  The sound was cacophonous to the ears of the hunters, and the woman’s shout of alarm was lost in the spell’s chaos. Ward released the ball of charged mana, sending it streaking at her as she clapped her left hand to her ear. It glowed like a ball of white, iridescent light swirling with destructive power. Ward was only a few feet from the woman, and she only had time to open her eyes wide in surprise and terror before the mana bolt struck her in the chest.

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  It was the first time Ward had cast the spell at a living creature, and it was different than when he’d tested it on a tree. It seemed to consume her leather vest, shredding it to nothing, but then it entered the flesh of her chest. Her eyes glowed with impossible white light, her mouth opened in a wide “O” of shock or pain, her arms flailed, she dropped her dagger, and then she collapsed, utterly still.

  “Vrakkun khorvek!” Lisa’s voice rang through the grove, and Ward looked to see a similar fate befall the big guy who had been walking beside Keene.

  Keene screamed, “Thomas! Here!” Then, he turned and ran to the north, where he’d sent the group meant to circle around to the back of the house.

  “Trahl slenvek!” Lisa cried, coughing wetly immediately afterward. The words hissed around the grove, stirring the shadows and shaking ash from the trees, and then Keene stumbled and fell, unmoving. Ward had no idea what spell she’d just cast, but he hoped it wasn’t lethal.

  “Stay with him,” he barked in her direction, then he charged off to the north—he hoped Haley hadn’t engaged yet, but if she had, he wanted to be there to help. There were still seven hunters in the fight, and they had to have heard the ruckus they’d just made. A lantern flaring to life confirmed his suspicion, and Ward grinned, sniffing the air. There was fear in the air.

  Shouting, gunshots, and torches blazing alight made it clear that the hunters were reacting, or at least they thought they were reacting, to Ward’s attack, but the gunshots didn’t come anywhere near him, and the men and women were tromping in every direction. “Keene,” a woman screamed, “where are you?”

  “Circle back!” a deep voice roared, and Ward reckoned that was one of Keene’s veterans. He focused on that voice and stalked through the darkness, aware that his quarry had further ruined their night vision by lighting torches. He was likely invisible so long as he stayed out of the circle of their lights. As he approached, circling wide, he saw four people in a loose cluster. Where were the other three? Were they on the other side of the house already? Dead? Chasing Haley? Worry got his heart hammering, and he hurried his steps, still gripping his bloody sword.

  The man with the deep voice was ahead, and Ward paused to observe, crouching behind a soot-covered tree bole. He wore a ring-mail vest, a wide-brimmed hat, and a leather cloak. His right hand gripped an axe meant for battle, not cutting or chopping wood. He was formidable—probably two hundred and fifty pounds of broad-shouldered muscle.

  Ward found his grin widening. He stalked around the man, unwilling to fire another mana bolt, at least not yet. He didn’t want to give his position away. His earlier instinct had been to take the big man out, knowing he was one of their leaders, but he saw two other targets alone and likely to be a lot easier to kill.

  He focused on one—a thin man with a short sword—and noiselessly padded through the dark. When he was six feet away, inside the light, but out of his line of sight, Ward leaped, sword held high. Someone screamed, the man whirled in the wrong direction, and Ward brought his sword down on the back side of his shoulder, splitting through leather and cloth, flesh and bone. His sword got stuck, so he kicked the man in the lower back, sending him sprawling where he thrashed weakly, blood pumping out of the terrible wound.

  “Vrahl ignarak!” a voice cracked the night, masculine and powerful, and Ward whirled toward the sound, only to see a roiling ball of flames streaking through the night at him. He bunched his legs to leap away, but it was too late; the caster had launched the spell at his flank, and the missile of flames was almost there by the time he saw it. Even so, something happened when it should have struck him; it veered off course, straight into his sword, sending the runes alight with a blazing red glow.

  Ward cussed and dropped the sword as the handle became too hot to hold, but then he focused on the man who’d thrown the spell, a deep growl rumbling in his chest. It was the one with the staff. His hood was thrown back, a grizzled beard exposing eyes that shone in the darkness as his lips began to move again.

  Ward stretched out his hand and growled, “Vrakkun khorvek!” His voice was deep and raw, guttural almost, and the words didn’t sound quite right, but the act of casting the spell must have depended on releasing it from his mind more than perfect enunciation. Mana coalesced at his fingertips and launched forth.

  Meanwhile, the other sorcerer uttered his own spell, one that hurt Ward’s ears and brought the taste of blood into his mouth. “Grashnal Vrask Thalvek!”

  Several things happened as Ward’s spell streaked through the air and the other man’s words exploded into the night. A large, blackened tree husk between Ward and the other sorcerer burst into a cloud of charred splinters, but they didn’t fly in every direction; they gathered in the air, forming a cloud, and then they whistled and shrieked through the air, directly at Ward—thousands of needle-sharp pieces of wood. Meanwhile, Ward’s spell hit home, slamming into the other man’s chest, sending him dancing with white, ghostly mana flames dancing atop his head like a spectral crown.

  Ward didn’t have time to dodge or even fall to the ground. By the time his dumbstruck mind finished watching the tree explode and saw the splinters gather into a cloud, he barely had time to bury his face behind his arms before the storm of splinters slammed into him. Pain erupted all over Ward’s body. It felt like he’d been dipped in fire as the splinters effortlessly pierced his clothes and buried themselves in his flesh, stabbing him to the bone. He’d hunched forward when he covered his face, which probably saved him from having dozens of the splinters stab into his belly, but it didn’t save him from the blinding pain of them gouging through his scalp, digging into his skull, shoulders, arms, legs, knees, chest—everywhere.

  In his red haze of pain, Ward lost track of the battle. He lost track of the other sorcerer and whether or not his spell had killed him. All he could do was scream his rage as the beast inside him fought to come forth. He fell forward, screaming again as the splinters in his knees drove deeper as he hit the ground. He caught himself on palms mercifully free of the stabbing needles of wood and looked around, panting, his mouth frothing with bloody saliva.

  Somewhere, he heard Lisa utter her words of power again, hopefully killing an attacker. He didn’t see the sorcerer. Had he fallen in one of the irrigation channels? Had he recovered and gone after Lisa? Was he circling Ward about to deliver another deadly spell? Ward growled and pushed himself to his feet, aware that the wolf wanted to come out, but holding him at bay. Every step was agony, but he walked to his sword and picked it up, noting how his sleeve was pinned to his arm with at least twenty charred wooden splinters.

  His sword was still hot, the runes still glowing balefully, but it felt good in his hand as he turned in a slow circle. The hunter he’d cleaved was dead—pale and unmoving. He could hear a ruckus on the other side of the house, so he started walking toward the structure, yanking splinters out of his chest, head, and arms as he went. Every step hurt so badly that he had to pause when he reached the blackened stone building to lean against it and tug more splinters out of his knees and thighs.

  He wondered if a normal person would be dead from the damage he’d taken. He thought so. If nothing else, he doubted his old self could have gotten up and moved around after something like that. Leaning there, panting in pain as he struggled to reach a splinter that had fully embedded itself into his knee, he realized he was losing it; his fingers were tipped with hard, sharp black claws. His vision was brighter, his hearing clearer. The beast in him wanted out. He stopped what he was doing, realizing it was fruitless; it would take tools to get those splinters out.

  Leaning against the stone wall, trying to calm the wolf, he pushed the pain into the background and focused on what his senses told him. First, he scanned in every direction. The orchard was like a landscape painted in grays, but here and there were bright spots of color—men or women that shone like torches in his weird lycanthropic vision. He was fairly sure that he saw Lisa. She was crouched over another glowing, albeit dimmer, form. Ward scanned to his right and saw a bright figure racing toward the road. He stared after it for a moment, but then his ears picked up something else.

  He heard the meaty sound of a fist striking flesh and the soft grunt of a woman exhaling in pain. “Haley,” he growled, afraid his young friend was being beaten. Suddenly, Grace was a little less important, and Ward released the beast, allowing it to strengthen and change him. His joints popped, his body stretched, and his core contracted and released as new strength surged into his hulking, black-furred form. With a guttural growl, he charged around the corner of the house, no longer aware of any pain, and tore over the ground toward the sounds of combat.

  He saw them—three glowing figures. One was on the ground, motionless. The others were circling each other. Ward knew Haley’s figure instinctually—or, maybe, it wasn’t instinct; he could smell her. He veered away from her and leaped at the other figure. When he crashed into him, the man grunted and screamed. He was tall and held a knife in one hand, a knife that he tried to jab into Ward’s side, but it was too late; Ward’s attacks were part of his nature. As he leaped, he raked his claws down the man’s torso, one on his back, one on his chest.

  It took a moment for him to realize it, but the man was dead before he hit the ground—Ward had eviscerated him. Even so, Ward bit his throat out with a snarl, then jumped to his feet and whirled in a circle. “Moaghr?” he growled, and Haley flinched but shook her head.

  “I don’t th-think so—Ward?”

  A horse’s whinny took Ward’s attention, and he remembered the runner. Something in him refused to let one of the hunters escape. Without a second glance at Haley, he leaped into the trees, charging through the orchard in a loping, four-limbed sprint that devoured the distance. When he cleared the trees and saw his prey across the field, scrambling to mount a horse, he couldn’t resist the urge to roar—no, howl, his bloodlust into the night.

  He bunched his legs to charge, and then his ears twitched as a sharp twang pierced the night, and something else, something far sharper than any noise, stabbed into his side. Ward turned toward the sound and saw a hunter with the long leather coat, the one with the crossbow. He sniffed, but all he smelled was something pungent—a weed or some such thing. The man grimly smiled as he placed another bolt into his crossbow and cranked back the handle. Ward’s side was on fire like acid was eating through him. Limping, tasting blood in his mouth, he sidestepped and circled this new threat, a growl rumbling in his throat.

  “Didn’t believe ‘em meself when they said what ya was. Proof’s in the puddin’, as they say.” He lifted the crossbow, and Ward saw the glint of silver on the tip of the bolt. He had time to wonder if that was a thing—if werewolves were truly weak to silver—before his instincts took over, and he tried to dodge the hunter’s second shot.