Chapter Nine
The wind running in from the north was not just cool, but cold. The circumpolar sea was one hundred and fifty leagues away, but there was nothing to block the frigid gusts it sent down the length of the Plain of Grehar. Yet another reason the locals call it the Graveyard, Druadaen reflected as his mount’s flank rippled at the chill. And with the midday skies growing increasingly gray, the augur of rain made the prospect of a second night upon the flatlands not merely unwelcome but potentially dangerous.
Between the isolation, the cold, and the lack of wood for a fire that would have marked his location anyway, the previous night had been one of the most miserable Druadaen could recall. He was well acquainted with all those conditions, but not all at once, and not alone upon the doorstep of the Bent. Their burrows were still distant, dozens of leagues to the west, but they were among the least predictable of humanity’s foes, often ranging far away from their havens.
Indeed, Druadaen’s most pressing concern regarding distance was not knowing how many more miles he had to travel before reaching the bountiers’ blockhouse. The directions and crude map which he’d been given had proven increasingly insufficient for navigating the flat and essentially featureless Plain of Grehar. Had Druadaen not spent years as a Courier, learning to navigate by the stars alone, he would have had no idea where he was. This way, he did have some idea of his location—but it was certainly vague, if not utterly wrong. In which case, the weather was a far greater threat than either the wolves he had been able to detect and avoid, or the Bent, of whom he had seen no sign.
However, as he surveyed the horizon from the back of his horse, he caught sight of black specks in the sky to the north. Birds. Circling lazily. Almost certainly vultures. Since they were still aloft, they were either waiting for their intended meal to become helpless or for an ongoing struggle to conclude. Either way, it was the sort of situation that most riders would wisely avoid.
However, part of an Outrider’s training was to recognize when certain risks made survival more likely rather than less. And in this case, the risk of meeting potential foes beneath the circling birds was worth the possibility of an encounter that might either help him locate the bountiers quickly or lead to some other opportunity for shelter. Because the alternative was wandering uncertainly northward on a trackless steppe with lethal cold threatening.
He drew his sabre and tugged his mount’s reins in that direction.
* * *
Slight rises and dips passed for notable terrain features on the windy Plain of Grehar, one of which obstructed Druadaen’s view of the vulture-marked area. Until, that is, he came over a long, low hump of grassland—and discovered a savage melee in progress. He spurred his horse into a gallop.
Six humans had gained the upper hand over what he could only assume was a small party of Bent. Three of the heavily-built beings were already sprawled in the low grass. The last one standing was doing an impressive job of parrying the swords of two attackers with an axe, a feat that Druadaen would have considered impossible.
However, one of the two bow-armed bountiers had maneuvered to the flank of the fight. He drew a bead, waited a moment, and then loosed.
The long arrow hit just under the Bent’s right armpit as it raised that elbow to control the completion of its axe’s swing to the right. The big hunting point made a hard thock! as it penetrated the armor there: cured hide of some kind. The Bent warrior staggered but did not fall, despite having almost half a foot of shaft embedded in its right lung.
But that momentary break in its action and awareness was the opening the two humans had been looking for. They cut, slashed, and stabbed with their swords. Several hits and the axe flew away. The next blow, a heavy cut to the left leg, dropped the humanoid. The small battleground was motionless, except for the charge of Druadaen’s sod-pounding horse…
…and one of the fallen Bent who rose swiftly to one knee, right arm cocking back to throw a hatchet at the bountiers.
The humans turned, saw both. One pointed at Druadaen, another at the Bent, a third hastily tried to nock another arrow.
But before any of them could react, the sound of Druadaen’s charging horse brought the Bent’s head around in surprise. He turned, tried to shift his aim—but not before Druadaen rode past, just to his right, sword sweeping high through an uppercut.
In the same instant that Druadaen realized how badly his arm had been jarred, the reason for that impact tumbled through his field of vision: a severed hand. He pulled the horse into a tight caracole for another pass.
The shrieking humanoid recovered from the blow, tried rising and running despite a freely streaming chest wound, deeply gashed thigh, and missing hand—but went down before he’d taken a step, an arrow sticking up from between his shoulder blades.
Two of the bountiers trotted over a moment later, one stopping to smile up at Druadaen as the other leaned over to check the much-mauled Bent, dagger at the ready.
“Didn’t expect to see another hunter out here,” said the one who’d approached Druadaen, “but we’re glad you happened by when you did.”
“Not if he wants a share,” muttered the other, who had pulled up the lolling head of the humanoid. “This one’s done,” he shouted over his shoulder at the other four bountiers.
Druadaen had been in enough engagements so that they did not exactly terrify him, but just put him on edge, mind focused and blood pumping. But he was not prepared for what he saw when he looked back at the other bountiers. The big humanoid that had taken the arrow in the lung was still not dead, so the youngest of them casually hacked at the side of its head. Druadaen started as bright red blood jetted out: until that moment and the color contrast, he had not realized that the Bent’s skin was not just green but bright green. Like sweetgrass in summer.
The second, and even greater surprise, was the reaction of the oldest of the humans: “Piss and porridge, lookit yeh done, ye gob! Ruined the ear, and they only take pairs. Now we’ll need the thumbs, instead.” Swearing in a language Druadaen did not recognize, he set about the necessary butchery with a dagger. When the Bent stirred, he muttered, “Ah, be done, you!” and paused long enough to push his dagger through the fallen creature’s eye.
Swallowing, Druadaen realized that, regardless of what the books said about the Bent—the savagery, the atrocities, the millennia of mutual loathing—the body lying dead on the sourgrass had too many features in common with his own to think of it as a creature ever again. It was a being, ugliness and brutality notwithstanding.
The grizzled veteran looked up from his work. “’Ere, now, rider; what’re ye staring at?”
Druadaen started. “The color—the skin. It’s so…bright.”
The hunters looked at him. Their leader screwed up his face. “Bright?”
“The skin. The green, I mean. Much brighter than I expected.”
The hunters didn’t change their positions or even their expressions, but something in their eyes changed, all in the same moment. “So,” mused the leader, rising, and passing two dripping thumbs to one of the other hunters, “first time you’ve killed pekt?”
Druadaen frowned. “Killed what?”
A few smirks, a few eyerolls. The leader tried a different term. “Urzhen?”
“Oh! Yes…but no; this is the first time I have fought them.”
“More like the first time he’s seen them,” added the one who’d been the clear target of the Bent whose hand Druadaen had lopped off. “Urzhen: isn’t that what the scribes call them?”
Druadaen nodded. “Yes.” He considered. “Most of them.”
“Well, we’re not scribes and no one else actually calls them that”—he paused, studying Druadaen more closely—“Dunarran.” He didn’t quite say it as he would an epithet. More disconcerting was the ease and speed with which the man had identified his origins.
The leader was frowning at the fellow. “’Ere now, you greedy southern bastard, mind yer tongue.” He shook his head, came toward Druadaen. “Don’t mind ’im; they’ve no manners in Sanâllea, apparently.”
Druadaen shrugged. “My experiences led me to conclude otherwise.”
The voice of the Sanâllean was more interested, but also more wary. “You know Sanâllea?”
Druadaen nodded. “Not well, but enough to appreciate that its people are very gracious and polite, unless they’ve decided you’re a person who cannot be trusted.”
“Like you?”
The leader bristled, but Druadaen drifted a stilling hand in his direction. “I was speaking of the Silvallashan agent we helped bring to justice.” He shifted into Sanâllean. “It was our pleasure to be of service to King Truciero on that day.”
The Sanâllean bountier’s eyes widened but he said nothing.
The leader laughed, glanced at him as he hooked a thumb toward Druadaen. “This feller sounds almost like you when you start spouting that southern gabble.”
The Sanâllean muttered something inaudible but clearly resentful.
Druadaen sheathed his sword, dismounted, drew his composite bow from its scabbard. Seeing their puzzled looks, he explained. “There were wolves following me. For several hours. They’ll be here soon.”
The archer who’d taken down the big urzh shrugged. “No, they’ll wait until we leave.”
Druadaen looked at the corpses of the urzhen. Of course: there was no way to burn them, no time to bury them…and he had the distinct impression that the bountiers would have laughed at the idea. “So, the wolves, eh, dispose of the bodies you leave behind?”
“Down to the last bit of gristle,” the leader assured him. “Of course, if we ever wind up like them, I’m sure we’d get the same treatment. Now, since you’re obviously not out here to hunt urzhen, why are you riding in the Graveyard?”
“I am here on a mission.”
The Sanâllean scoffed. “Like I said: he’s a Dunarran. They’re all on missions.”
“Gradda!” the archer barked at him. “You mind your slimy tongue.”
The leader smiled as though no harsh words had been uttered. “And what mission would that be?”
“To seek word of another Dunarran: the Outrider Garasan. Possibly to help him finish assessing the Bent population.”
Looks were exchanged among the humans. It was the archer who looked away first. “Well, I suspect he certainly achieved that.”
Druadaen was glad they seemed familiar with the Outrider’s name, but the archer’s tone seemed bleak. “What do you mean?”
The leader stepped forward, put a hand on Druadaen’s shoulder. “Come along and have a cuppa at our base. Better to talk there.”
“Safer, too,” the slim Sanâllean muttered. He jerked his head at the earless corpses of the Bent. “Let’s make away before we find out if these pekt had friends in hollering distance.”