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head.
* * * *
They stayed two more days after Aejys and Tamlestari returned from Mt.
Queleyus. Queen Magdarien met her great grandchild and found Tamlestari to be
as stiff necked and willful as her ma'aram and grandmother had been. At
Tamlestari's suggestion, Valdren messengers were sent to their people in
Armaten bidding them be watchful on Laeoli's behalf. And a company of Valdren
rangers assigned themselves to accompany Tamlestari to Rowanslea. Laurelyanne
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prepared to come also.
CHAPTER TWELVE. HUNTING THE HUNTERS
A suggestion of frost gilded the morning mist lying over the streets of
Armaten as guardsmyn wrapped in heavy woolen cloaks shoved open the great
steel banded oaken gates. People, camped outside the walls overnight, waiting
for dawn, stood and gathered their belongings. The sounds of drivers and
hostlers rose with the crack of the reins and the straining creak of wagons
and carts as their horses threw their shoulders forward against their harness
to get them moving. The last of the season's harvest was heading for the
city's granaries. A long merchant caravan, returning home for the winter,
followed the grain carts into the city. A scattering of travelers on foot and
horses moved alongside, around, and behind as they jostled for their chance to
get in without further waiting. Over the next several weeks many would come in
while fewer and fewer would leave. The mountain passes would not close up for
several weeks yet, but freak storms, although rare, were not unheard of. With
five weeks left before solstice, only the hardiest and desperate took chances
with the mountain weather.
Talons re-entered Armaten through the massive stone and heavy oak main gate.
Rumor had been flying for weeks that Wilstryn Hornbow had been slain and
secretly buried by one of her business rivals, a woman with ties to Aejys
Rowan Talons knew where those rumors were coming from since outside of
herself, the Urchins, and her grandsire, only Margren's people knew Wilstryn
was dead. Rumor could kill as easily as a Guildsmon's blade. So the guards
were justifiably startled when Talons stepped through the gates in the guise
of Wilstryn Hornbow. Since the costume and cosmetic illusion would not hold up
to close scrutiny, Talons discretely kept her distance from them.
She turned down the wide main street, striding quickly into the Market
Square, giving everyone a clear glimpse of her. A nervous crowd watched her
warily, many moved from her path to stare. Wilstryn the arms merchant was well
known and, coming on the heels of a series of murders and other suggestions of
gang or factional warfare in Armaten, her sudden return from the dead appeared
as a distinctly dark omen.
Fifteen people had died in a two week period, their bodies left in the center
of the market square, eyes and throats torn out by something or someone with
claws. All of the slain had been from the middle class, the artisans, and
minor merchants without enough rank to demand attention singly, but taken
together more than enough to create panic. The entire city was frightened and
clamoring for action from the city's Baron Annalyn Wrak. But, short of
declaring martial law, there was little the Baron could do.
There had been more deaths than those Talons had left in the square: the
Urchins found the bodies of three of Talons' Guildsmyn while scampering
through the trash heaps in search of random salvage. Talons buried them in the
forest with Birdie, priest-in-training to Dynanna, speaking the rites for the
dead. Talons took out the shifters who had taken their place, but she knew
their deaths had been too recent for their replacements to be the traitor or
traitors she sought. She and Zarim, Birdie's sire, threw the shifters bodies
over the walls into the temple grounds, hoping that a priest would Read them
revealing the Waejontori taint Lizard swore was there. But they dared not go
openly to anyone outside themselves. When no word emerged from the Aroanan
temple, Talons looked for other options.
She had begun keeping one hand under her cloak, claws out, using the runes on
them to pick her victims: She could feel them grow warm and then hot in the
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presence of dark magic.
"Ma'aram!"
Talons glanced at the familiar voice and saw Laeth Hornbow, almost as
storkish as her ma'aram, pushing though the crowd toward her. Talons let her
get closer, felt her claws warm and cursed: had she flexed her claws but once
in Wilstryn's home, Wilstryn would be alive; but she had considered it both
bad manners and bad judgment to bare her weapons without need in a friend's
home. She ducked down an alley, found a spot of deep shadow along the edge of
a back building amid a pile of broken, discarded furniture, and shrouded
herself.
Laeth paused in the alley mouth, dropping a hand to her sword then moving
deeper into the alley. Every few steps she paused still and catlike, seeming
to sniff the air, searching with all her senses for the threat she knew was
there. Her blade slid smoothly from the sheath as Talons slipped silently into
the light.
"You're not Wilstryn," Laeth stated coolly. "Who are you? What game is this?"
Talons smiled, serene, calm and centered. "Who are you?" She shook back her
cloak, summoning both claws. "Traitor!"
The other laughed. A dagger flashed at Talons' midsection. Talons deflected
it casually, stepping in, and then darting to the side, her claws raking the
shifter's dagger hand, leaving pieces of some fingers hanging from strips of
flesh and others severed completely.
The shifter shrieked, a high-pitched animal noise of pain and rage, striking
at Talons like a darting serpent with her blade.
Talons danced away, sensing each move the shifter made, playing with her. She
avoided the blade, letting it come within inches before twisting slightly,
catching Laeth on the back of the hand, shredding it, forcing her weapon from
useless fingers. She kicked Laeth in the side, slamming her against the wall,
and then took her eyes. Laeth dropped into a screaming heap amid the broken
furniture, clutching her shredded, bleeding orbs. Talons straddled her, a knee
hard in her back, jerking Laeth's head back hard by the hair, exposing her
throat. Talons put her claws to Laeth's throat. The runes, burning with
white-hot intensity, seared the shifter's flesh wherever they touched.
"Who are you?" Talons hissed through gritted teeth.
Laeth laughed, a harsh sound that grated on Talons' ears and sent a shiver
prickling over her skin.
One torn hand, bare white bones showing through the shredded skin, gripped
Talons' hand at her throat. Pain seared through the assassin and up her arm as
if reaching for her heart. Her vision grayed, yet she could see the creature's
skin closing over her bones, the wound sealing up as if it had never been
there. Talons felt as if her veins had opened and her life was draining away.
"Sa'necari!" Talons gasped, reeling. She lost her hold on the creature's
hair, the long black locks sliding through fingers that could no longer grip.
She tried first to shove her right claw into the sa'necari's throat and then
to pull free instead, but the grip on her wrist was like iron. The sa'necari's
fangs extended, sinking hard into Talons' wrist. Her claws vanished and her
knees gave. Talons struck the ground and lay still. The sa'necari bent over
her, nuzzling blindly at her throat, her long pointed tongue finding the
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artery. As the sa'necari's fangs entered the favored vein, Talons rallied,
fighting back from the engulfing darkness. She summoned her claws and shoved
instinctively upward with both hands. The rune claws plunged deep in the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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