Hunting Read online

  "She might be harder. And wasn't the point to not kill her?"

  "That's the hurdle."

  Ash took advantage of the Rhoi's reward for the first time, and ventured into the largest collection of books she'd ever seen. The librarian was happy to point her toward works that dealt with skarl and shifters, but Ash didn't learn much of use, other than there was no reason to presume that the shapeshifter wouldn't be as difficult to deal with as a real skarl. The skarl of Naggol, 'cursed' like most of that large island's fauna with strange mutations and powers, could not be damaged – or even touched – by ordinary weapons. They were part shadow, insubstantial at will.

  Accepting that the books were not going to provide an easy solution, Ash decided she might as well take the opportunity to start her original library project. First, she unrolled a detailed map of Aremal. It was a huge Rhoimarch, more than four times Montmoth's size, and she almost decided that Pembury didn't exist, but eventually located a tiny notation southwest of the capital.

  She tapped the map thoughtfully, and then turned to genealogies and histories. Thornaster's mother was a cousin of Aremal's Rhoi, or so he'd claimed. That was probably true, since he had the abilities of Luin and Astenar's bloodline.

  The Estarrels were of such importance that even Montmoth kept a detailed family tree. The current Aremish Rhoi, Vorlan Estarrel, and his wife Kintairy, were listed at the bottom of the enormous sheet of heavy paper, their three children – Romar, Cenaria and Morrion – mere notations below. Above, hundreds upon hundreds of names in minute script. The Rhoi had two first cousins, both male, three second cousins and a number of more distant connections, then a host who could claim extremely tenuous relations. None of the women were named Thornaster, or had married a man named Thornaster. Ash skimmed through the entire genealogy and could not find the name Thornaster anywhere.

  Had he lied? He had sounded sincere when he'd assured her that he was the Visel of Pembury. Staring at the closely written sheet, Ash suddenly laughed, spotting an obvious subterfuge. But surely someone had worked this out before her? The rolled sheet had been suspiciously clean of dust.

  The discovery made her decision more difficult. He had lied to her, told her he was Rion Thornaster, Visel of Pembury, and she had not been able to spot the lie. Dare she trust him? More to the point, did he trust her? Playing an impish teen had its disadvantages, and the response to the plan she'd spent the last day considering was too likely to be "the Guard will take over." Ash could not gamble this chance to capture Genevieve's killer on Thornaster's opinion of her.

  He had allowed her to ride Arth.

  This was probably not a solid basis for an important decision, but it settled Ash's mind, at least enough to postpone the question and engage properly in the afternoon's session at the Mern. After a discussion on why Luinsels should not excessively purify water, she even found positive aspects to swordplay.

  "Lauren didn't come at me immediately, just because I was holding a sword," she told Thornaster as they walked back to his apartment. "It would give me time to put a knife in him."

  "You could just use the sword, stripling. Though a knife in reserve is not a bad idea. So you've decided that I'm not totally wasting your time with my lessons, have you?"

  "I never thought they were a total waste of time."

  "You have some talent for the sword, you know."

  She looked at him with patent disbelief, and he laughed.

  "I have never met anyone so inclined to doubt my word, Ash. With a little, no, to be honest, several years of instruction, you would be a competent enough swordsman. You have the reflexes and the coordination for it. If, perhaps, not the eager attitude I am used to."

  "Would you like me to fawn a little?"

  "You mean you know how?"

  "I expect I could pick it up after a demonstration or two." She grinned at the thought, but, as he opened the door to his rooms, added: "I need to talk to you seriously."

  A quick glance, then he led her into his new study and sat down. "Very well."

  "The mage is in the Shambles. There's been word of a skarl in there, so I had it checked out last night. It's her all right. They saw her change."

  Thornaster straightened, but she couldn't follow the expressions that flickered across his face. "Can you lead us to where she was sighted?"

  "No."

  Black eyes narrowed, studying her. "Why not?"

  "The Guard doesn't know the Shambles. It's a maze, too ruined for them to risk. We only get by because we use the roofs. There's no way the Guard could catch her. But we could. We've done it before."

  "'We' being your street gang?" There was a silky edge to Thornaster's voice that she hadn't encountered before, and didn't particularly like.

  "The Shambles is one of our...haunts. We hunted out a skarl a couple of years ago. Killed it. Rowan is their bane, and we had staves of it made up specially. But it was a difficult kill. Most weapons can't touch one at all."

  "You've been deciding whether or not to tell me this, haven't you?" A cross between disbelief and chagrin.

  Ash nodded.

  "What did you imagine you would do with a group of untrained boys against this killer?" He was not quite angry: more outraged.

  "That's what I've been working over. If it was just a skarl – well, we've done that. It's dangerous, but possible. But a skarl which is really a mage-assassin? Maybe if I was just out to kill her, yes. But capturing...that's something else altogether." An admission of defeat. Ash didn't like not being able to do things.

  "It is indeed. This is far enough, Ash. If you think Verel or I will place a group of children at risk, you are sadly mistaken. You will tell me the location of this skarl, now." All the haughty arrogance of which his face was capable came to the fore. It was a very stern, commanding man who gave her that order.

  "I thought you had more sense," she said, caught between anger and sorrow.

  She had misjudged him. Or was just impossibly trapped by her own disguise, the badinage and impish mien hardly the thing to inspire confidence in her leadership. This was the price she paid for running away from herself.

  "There's no way the Guard can capture the skarl when it's in the Shambles. If you go in there on foot, she will escape. Easily. And I'll wager you anything you please Investigator Verel couldn't raise a force who not only knows the Shambles of old, but has driven a skarl through it."

  They stared at each other. Ash, pulse pounding, hated herself for the misstep, and struggled to set her mind to finding a solution that did not include Thornaster.

  But then Thornaster flicked back the shining dark wings of his hair, and the moment passed. "Stripling, you are an implacable force. And I would do well to remember how close this is to your heart. We will see what Verel says to your plans – if you can convince her, I have no grounds for objection."

  She let out a relieved breath, and a wry smile touched his lips.

  "Though in future, Ash Lenthard, I would appreciate it if you'd tell me what you learn as you learn it. Not after you've decided whether I would be useful."

  "I'll think about it," she promised, and he shook his head.

  "I shall be interested to see if and how you convince Investigator Verel."

  But the Investigator was surprisingly reasonable, especially after Ash had laid out the method they had used previously to corner and kill a skarl, and what she thought necessary to capture this one.

  And so Ash went to call her Huntsmen to the chase.

  Chapter Twenty

  Three rooms, once an attic. A portion of the long roof had collapsed, blocking the stairs to the building below, but the remainder was intact and seemed solid, for all it was only accessible from the roofs. That made it an ideal meeting spot for the Huntsmen, a dry and completely private place to gather.

  Ash, having finished laying out the plan, stressed the dangers involved, and watched her friends' excited, determined faces. She always gave them an opportunity to refuse, though she knew none woul
d this time. Too many people owed Genevieve. She could have asked them to brave all the Beasts of Naggol for Genevieve. And for Ash.

  The loyalty, trust and friendship that surrounded her here was a complete contrast to the wary tolerance she'd now achieved at the Mern. But then, Larkin's group of friends had been anything but accepting of "that little pest" when she'd first arrived in their neighbourhood. She had proved herself to them, as she still might do to the Kinsel. And she knew the Huntsmen would not follow her half so readily if they knew who she really was – she had faced and settled that question years ago, when they were arguing over whether Bitty and Kate would be allowed to join. She led them thanks to a limit on her trust.

  But tonight she didn't care. These were her Huntsmen, her sky-runners. This would be their last hunt together.

  "It's time," Melar said, as the valley passed from the long halflight when the Sun was blocked by the mountains into true night.

  Ash nodded and gave them one last survey. It was obvious that Sim and Carl were barely restraining exuberance, that few of them were as daunted as they should be.

  "This one isn't a game," she said, quiet because that would make them listen. "This isn't an animal. Nor is it one of the idiots we bag and deliver to the nearest Watch House. This is the woman who killed Genevieve. Stop having fun, and start thinking of all the years stolen from her, and how you absolutely can't be the scut who lets her killer get away. The first one of you who breaks from the plan, I'll stuff down a chimney."

  She nodded at Lark to take his group out first, then followed with the other half into a night where both Cuinefaer and slumbering, broken Yurefaer coloured the shadows. Dressed dark, each holding a distinct, light-coloured staff of stripped rowan longer than they were tall, the Huntsmen aimed for speed and quiet. Many of them wore boots purchased specifically for their thin, supple soles, and claimed they could feel the buildings breathe beneath them as they ran between sagging slopes of tiles, following safe routes discovered through years of testing. Run soft and avoid unshuttered windows, and the ever-present danger of a loose tile, a weak support, a slippery patch of wet or grease.

  Despite the circumstances, Ash could not help but enjoy herself. Sky-running – the air cool and crisp, the high moons, the sheer challenge of moving over a house full of people who had no notion that their roof had become a highway. She set her staff and arced across a blackly cavernous street, hearing only the faintest audible echoes. It was a different world up here, away from the dark, torturous and frankly smelly lower reaches of the Shambles. Where a ground traveller would be led astray by back-winding streets and gates rusted shut, their way obstructed by abandoned temporary dwellings, and the occasional deliberate barricade, sky-runners soared unhindered.

  Mockhold Valley had once been the best address in Luinhall, when the area immediately around the Milk had begun to fill and the attractively broad western valley had offered a perfect location for spacious houses. It had prospered in the centuries after the Breaking, but then the southern passes had been reopened, making travel into Montmoth easy during the warm months. With the travellers came stories of Montmoth's waters, and both the glacial Milk and Luinhall's hot springs acquired fame as waters of youth, blessed by Luin. For a brief time, Luinhall faced summer crowds greater than the city could handle, and responded with cheap, dangerous, firetrap construction to accommodate them. By the time the stories were finally deemed exaggeration, and the crowds died away, Mockhold had tipped well over the edge of a long slide to the blot it was today: an eyesore, a fire waiting to happen.

  At night, moonlit, its crazed architecture became the city's jewel.

  Ash slowed her progress to a crawl as they neared the centre of the Shambles. These tight-packed roofs were less than stable, and ahead was The Pile, a cluster of buildings that had leaned together into total collapse a decade ago.

  They prowled closer, poling only rarely out above the streets now that they were in their prey's territory. Ash broke her group into two sets of three, and took one set ahead to settle at the location where Larkin had originally sighted the skarl. Larkin's group were south of her, staking the other street a creature like a skarl was likely to use to exit the tangle of fallen houses.

  Sim, least able to keep quiet for extended periods of time, had been sent to the peak of a roof between the two ambush sites. He would relay any signal from Larkin with gestures, so there was no possibility of the skarl detecting their usual whistle-talk. Scent should not be a major issue, with so many in the buildings beneath them, but without calm there was too much chance of detection.

  Seating herself against the canted wall of a second story, Ash looked over her group, and then nodded. No one in a position that would cramp them or be visible from the ground. She leaned back, wrinkling her nose as the breeze wafted fetid stench out of the tangle of tumbled buildings, then fixed her gaze on the street.

  Ever active, her mind immediately wandered to that day's lecture on water purification. She'd noticed a distinct change in Marriston's attitude. Not the "he saved the Veirhoi but I don't know how to apologise" hesitancy of most of the seruilisi, but...anticipation. Marriston would be the type who responded with petty vengeance to being proved wrong. She wondered what it would be. A quick scuffle in a deserted part of the palace? No, too open to consequences. If she were out for revenge, she'd work out a way to make Marriston make a fool of himself with the maximum audience. There was a garden party and a banquet coming up, where the seruilisi would stand about in the full scrutiny of half the Landsmeet. Did Marriston have the skill – the subtlety – to bring off anything worth caring about?

  Irritably she rubbed the hilt of her knife, which Thornaster had returned without comment. The Mern still felt like a distraction, especially while the Veirhoi kept to his sickbed. Carlyon was better positioned to play investigator among the Kinsel. But, after tonight, her role as gutter seruilis may no longer be an issue. If they uncovered the identity of the assassin's employer.

  A flicker of movement caught her eye.

  With effort Ash kept her breathing even, letting out no telltale gasp. Time to loose the hounds.

  Lifting a hand, Ash watched for Sim's reaction. She could see him only as a silhouette, one that turned and crossed its arms over its head. Once she was sure he had seen, Ash turned her head and met the eyes of each of her group of Huntsmen as the skarl padded into sight. Her hand signal was now a command to hold. It would not do to give themselves away and send the beast skittering back to her lair.

  Not that the skarl seemed at all inclined to skitter. Trotting confidently down the centre of the little street, a lean animal made large by coarse, shaggy black hair, bringing shadow in its wake. A cursed wolf of Naggol. Ash trembled as her target passed beneath her – the creature that had come into her home, and cut the throat of the person Ash loved most.

  She waited until the shapeshifter reached the end of the street, and then closed her hand into a fist, rising silently to her feet as she did so. Gesturing to Carl and Bitty to indicate that they were to move ahead, Ash ran with swift, light steps along the roof's edge. As she came within range, she chose a strong-looking gutter and dropped, clutching the rim and hanging down to swing her long, rowan staff, striking the animal hard across the rump.

  The skarl screamed.

  Ash bared her teeth. Rowan was the bane of many magical animals, and had been the key to the first skarl hunt. It could not only touch the shadow-cursed, it caused pain. Excruciating pain.

  Swinging back to solid footing, Ash hurried after her Huntsmen as the skarl headed toward the first junction. It turned the wrong way at the corner, but half of Lark's group were waiting, and a second keening yelp rose over triumphant human voices. Bitty struck as the four-footed assassin went past, and the hunt was engaged in full.

  The plan was the same as their previous hunt in the Shambles. To drive the animal into a prepared trap, directing her with goads of rowan, never letting her have a chance to stop or turn or think. Racing
in frantic leapfrog moves to block street after street with crossed staves, to strike again and again, to keep the pain and confusion and noise at maximum pitch, so that a human woman in the form of a skarl would not have time enough for any thought beyond RUN.

  "Get off the street!"

  Startled by Bitty's yell, Ash almost lost her footing, dropping a pace behind. Someone had strayed onto the carefully chosen route, and Ash cursed them, trying to judge the distance. Would they be able to get whoever it was out of the way in time?

  "Mad dog!" Melar yelled, not too far away, his voice cracking. "Mad dog!!"

  The cry was taken up by other Huntsmen, and must have been effective because Ash, panting as the pace began to tax her, passed a wholly confused and frightened man, who almost took a nose-dive back into the street when she leapt around him.

  The skarl tried to turn and Dest caught her across the lower jaw with an upswing. Ash joined him and a hail of blows of varying strength beat the shapeshifter into continuing on her way. The creature tried a different tactic, putting on a stunning burst of speed which no human could keep pace with, but she was defeated by the Shambles. Although Ash had chosen a relatively clear path, it was still incredibly twisted, and the Huntsmen only managed to keep pace through a combination of knowledge and practiced skill. A stitch in her side impeding her almost as much as her burning lungs, Ash thanked Astenar that she had not placed the trap too far away.

  The skarl burst into what had once been a market square and immediately a jury-rigged gate fell into place behind her, leaving the shapeshifter trapped in a hastily fashioned but solid cage. Ash, driven by her momentum, almost fell into the enclosure with the skarl, which would have been as embarrassing as it was fatal. Gasping for breath, she dropped to her knees on the corner of the building as Investigator Verel, standing on the far side of the makeshift cage, said something loud and incomprehensible which made the hotchpotch collection of doors, broken wagons, gates and rubble shimmer with an only partially visible blue light.