The Dreaming Hunt (37 page)

“I guess.”

“Tell him the healer lady in white says to write her a letter care of the Heart. Can you remember that?”

“O' course,” the boy replied scornfully.

“Your goat is all healed up and none the worse for wear,” she announced. “And here. Take this loaf of bread and sneak it back into your mother's bread box for me, will you? It was supposed to be your breakfast in the morn, was it not?”

The boy looked at the loaf dubiously. “Aye. But she paid you wit' that.”

“All the payment I need is the information you just gave me. It's worth all the gold in Dupree.”

“I dunno. That be a lot of gold.” He grinned, reminding her sharply of her childhood sweetheart, Justin, of a sudden.

She ruffled his hair and picked her way through the muck, grateful for the sturdy boots Hyland had given her shortly before his death. Bypassing the cottage, she made her way back to the road. Rynn waited for her in the shadow of a mulberry bush.

“I did not know you were an animal physician, as well,” he said low.

She shrugged, able to look up at him comfortably because the shadows hid most of his shocking beauty. “Keeping the animals healthy means the children of the house eat. And if they eat, they do not sicken so easily.”

“Practical as well as gifted, the lady is.”

“I do what I must.”

“I have met several of your kind in my day, but never have I seen one heal a goat.”

“Really? Huh.” They walked a little, and she added, “I'm not going to stop healing goats now that I've figured out how to do it. Where have you met other White Heart members? I've only ever met one, and he's a touch mad.”

“Koth, mostly. More of your kind roam there than anywhere else.”

“You've been to Koth?” she breathed. “What was it like?”

“Much like here, albeit more thickly settled and more … tamed.”

“The Empire rules more heavily than this, then?”

“You misunderstand my meaning. The land itself is tamed. Wild forests are few, and only those creatures known and managed by the foresters are allowed to roam free. Farms and roads and villages occupy much more space than here.”

She tried to imagine a world without wilderness and mostly failed.

“But in answer to your question, yes, the Empire rules more heavily there. Most people are blindly loyal to Koth and do not even think to question its rule. They have no memory of freedom and do not dream of anything … different.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. His words were treasonous in the extreme.

“Do I shock you with my criticism of Koth?”

“How did you stay alive on Koth itself?”

She caught a flash of white teeth in the darkness. “By being exceedingly circumspect. And by not staying long.”

“You were visiting, then? What could induce one such as you to beard the lion in its den like that?”

“Aurelius warned me that you are an inquisitive child. And I see now what he means when he says you do not ask a child's questions.”

“I have had my seventeenth birthday,” she retorted. “In my race, I am past the age when girls first marry and start raising families.”

He shook his head. “You short-lived races. Always in such a hurry to do things.”

“You would live fast too if you only had a single century to accomplish your life's work and make your mark.”

“Is that what you aspire to do? Make a mark upon the world?”

Raina subsided, unwilling to admit to any secret ambition. Finally, she murmured, “My lot is cast. I am White Heart.”

Rynn laughed under his breath. “You will never be merely a healer, Raina of Tyrel. Your destiny is much grander than that, I do believe.”

“Are you a seer, then? Tell me my future.”

Rynn reached for the inn's door, pausing just long enough to grin down at her and murmur, “Saved by the door.”

*   *   *

Endellian frowned at the storm copper helm the court messenger presented on one knee to her father. She'd thought Maximillian had successfully stamped out all knowledge of storm copper long ago. A piece of the rare metal hadn't surfaced in many years. Until now.

“I want the name of every single person who has seen that helm you hold,” her father declared sternly. “From the moment it was uncovered until this very second. Its finder, every person its finder showed it to, the soldiers who took it for the Empire, anyone they passed it to, anyone who even looked at it. Understood?”

The messenger bowed deeply, albeit awkwardly with the bulky piece in his arms. “So shall it be, Your Most Resplendent and Magnificent Majesty.”

“And leave that here.” Maximillian gestured at the helm. “I shall add it to my private collection.”

The fellow bowed his way out of the throne room and rushed away to do the Emperor's bidding. She wondered idly if the messenger knew that, as soon as the list was compiled, everyone on it, including the messenger himself, would be put to permanent death.

*   *   *

Raina scowled at Rynn's muscular back as they slipped inside the inn. Which was why she noticed the fractional tightening across his shoulders as he surveyed the common room. Peering around him, she noticed several new travelers had arrived in their absence. One, an avarian, sat on the near side of the hearth, and two humans dressed like warriors, or soldiers minus the insignia, sat on the far side, ensconced in a pair of deep armchairs in quiet conversation.

Rynn moved unobtrusively toward the stairs, pausing only when he was mostly hidden from view and tucked deep into a shadow. Curious to see what had made Rynn so tense, she wandered over to the humans first, noting that Sha'Li and Eben appeared to have already retired for the night. Only Will and Rosana still sat at the table in the corner.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Raina murmured politely. “You were not here earlier when I arrived. May I offer either of you healing?”

“Thanks be, White Heart. I do have a wound partly healed upon my arm that could use a bit of work,” one of the men declared. The accent was formal. Educated. Certainly not the rough cadence of traders from these uncivilized lands.

The fellow rolled back his sleeve to reveal three deep, side-by-side gashes.

“An animal attacked you?” she asked conversationally.

“Nay. Just a cursed magical hound. Nasty creature.”

Alarm sluiced through her. No normal hound had made these marks. She'd seen wounds from bear claws, and they were not much more widely spaced nor much deeper than these. She detected a fair bit of ale flowing through this man's blood. Perhaps it had loosened his tongue and she could get him to tell her more. “Hereabouts? Should I be worried for my safety?”

“Nay. Beast got me on the ship on the way over here. Recently come from Koth, we are,” the man bragged.

She made a sound that she hoped passed for being mightily impressed. “You've ridden on a Black Ship, then?”

“Yup, me and a whole company of handpicked men.”

Company?
This man was an Imperial soldier? Why the civilian clothes? A secret mission of some kind? Her alarm notched up even higher. “Well, I'm glad to know you're not going to be hunting the creature that gave you these,” she murmured, trickling healing into the cuts as slowly as she could to draw out the conversation.

“Nay. 'Tis a man we hunt. A jann fugitive. And I don't care what Kodo says, we'll beat those hounds who are coming for him and find the bastard first.”

“Silence,” the man's companion hissed.

Raina smiled gently at him. “You've no need to be worried on my account. I'll carry no tales. After all, the Heart and the Empire enjoy a close relationship and always have.”

The security-conscious soldier subsided and whether she wished it so or not, the other man's triple gashes were now merely a set of red marks upon his whole and healthy flesh.

“Nicely done, White Heart. I hardly felt that one bit.”

And well he shouldn't have. She could not have healed a screaming baby any more slowly or gently. “Safe travels to you, gentlemen.”

“And to you, White Heart.”

She was vividly aware of Rynn waiting for her in the corner. He needed to get out of here before one of the Imperial soldiers spotted him and took notice of the eye obscured underneath his headband. But knowing him, he would stay to watch over her until she left. He seemed to take his bodyguard duties for their little party extremely seriously.

As she neared him, Rynn muttered, “Eat. They will notice if you do not.”

“They” must be the disguised Imperial soldiers.

Will and Rosana were whispering and smiling together, and it did not take any great skill to guess at what they spoke of. Although now that she took a closer look, there was a certain brittle quality to their posture. As if they, too, had figured out the identity of the soldiers and now merely posed as lovers to keep an eye on the Imperial men.

She sat down beside them and reached for a meat pie off the platter on the table. The door opened just as she was finishing it, and a big man smelling of wet dog blustered into the room.

The Imperial soldiers groaned. “What are you doing here, Jameson?” one of them asked the newcomer in tones of round disgust.

“Same thing you are, I expect. Hunting.”

“The hunter and his hounds with you?”

Raina gulped.

“Him and his beasties are running the Circle Road. They should be back in a day or two. But I caught myself a miserable ague and came in from the hunt to find a bed, hot food, and some rest.” To punctuate his statement, he let out a juicy, painful-sounding cough from deep in his chest.

“You're in luck, man. Yon sits a right talented White Heart healer. She'll fix you up, won't you, White Heart?”

She choked on the remnant of crust suddenly stuck in her throat. “Umm, of course.” Cursing mentally, she rose to her feet. The soldiers had called their jann quarry a fugitive, which ruled out Eben as their target—she hoped. Hyland
had
cleared up the confusion over Eben's short-lived enslavement from last spring, hadn't he?

If not, and she healed this bounty hunter to full strength, she might very well be sealing Eben's doom. Sacrifice Eben: sacrifice this man's health. How was she to choose within the confines of her White Heart oath?

Reluctantly, she pushed to her feet and moved toward the man who'd collapsed onto a bench after the coughing fit. She laid both her hands on his back, high, over his lungs, and began trickling healing into him.

Being careful to keep her tone light and conversational, she asked, “Are you the one racing your friends to catch a jann?”

“Those two hunt a jann fugitive,” he declared scornfully. “My quarry, however, is not a jann, but rather a paxan.”

Great. She stopped herself from glancing over at Rynn in the shadows.

“You White Heart types get around a lot. Ever meet or hear of a paxan named Olar? Open-eyed type. Middle-aged. Comes from Mindor. Might be talking about breeding psionic creatures.”

“Wouldn't breeding psionic beasts be illegal?” she asked.

“Gor, yes. Breaks all kinds of Imperial laws. I hear it even breaks a bunch of paxan laws, too.”

“What kind of Imperial laws does it break?”

“Only person allowed to breed psionic creatures is the High Lord Hunter himself. Of course, he's pretty much the only person who can control the Great Mastiff of Canute.”

“Great Mastiff?” she echoed, pitching her voice to sound impressed.

The soldier's rib cage swelled importantly under her hands. “Aye. One of the Great Beasts of Koth. Captured by the Empire and bred for our uses now. His pups are the very same Imperial hounds we're running here.”

“Can I pet one?”

The fellow laughed until he dissolved into another coughing fit. When he finally regained his breath, he lifted his chin toward the Imperial soldiers. “Ask yon fool how well it goes to pet an Imperial hound.”

Ahh. The great gouges on the soldier's arm that she had finished healing. Speaking of healing, she was quickly reaching a decision point where she could leave this fellow sick enough to be abed for a few days, or she could finish healing him. “Do you hunt only this Olar fellow, or any open-eyed paxan?”

“Why do you ask?”

She distracted the hunter by sending a surge of healing into him that should be painful enough to gain his full attention. The burst of magic also cleared out the last of his lung infection. “There. That should do it. Get yourself a hot meal, sleep in late tomorrow, and you should be fine when you arise.”

The hunter drew an experimental breath. The sound of it was deep and full. “That's better! I am in your debt, White Heart.”

“Promise me you will travel at a more temperate pace. Sleep more and eat better. You cannot keep up your strength if you are forever racing around the countryside.”

He snorted. “Do not cluck and fuss over me, child. 'Tis the nature of the work. The hunter runs his hounds, and we follow.”

She had a sinking feeling that she and her friends were about to be the ones running. She glanced into the corner where Rynn had been. He was gone.

*   *   *

The First rubbed his thumb thoughtfully across the ancient patina of the copper bracer in his hand. He looked up at the gray-bearded dwarf shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other before him as if his joints ached. “Sit, friend.”

The dwarf dropped heavily into a chair, sighed with relief, and took a long pull from a horn of the same dwarven ale he'd just delivered to the First's chambers.

Only then did the First ask, “Do you know what this is?”

“Aye. A bent and broken old bracer. Copper.”

He eyed the Octavium Pendant around the dwarf's throat with satisfaction. “It is much more than that. This is storm copper. It was made by an ancient race of dwarves called the rokken. They have been all but eradicated from Urth by the Kothite Empire. The metal is forged in rain and lightning and captures the awful power of nature's fury within it.”