Throne of Eldraine Page 14

  “Did you kill them?” Will asked, already sure he knew the answer.

  “Oko commanded me to kill the other two.”

  “Murderer,” whispered Cado.

  “Why did you do it?” Will asked.

  “I must obey him.” Rage seethed in him, but now that Cerise had mentioned the curse, Will could not help but see the corruption in his flesh as the root of his fury.

  “Why must you obey him?” Will asked.

  The hunter rubbed his forehead as if that was all the answer he could give. But the gesture reminded Will of the headaches he’d suffered.

  “He hides a secret he can’t tell because of a magical binding, like the one Oko put on Rowan and me,” said Will.

  Cado shook his head. “We can’t trust him, Will. He’s a killer.”

  “A man who kills is a killer, it’s true. But if a person is coerced into acting in a way they would not otherwise act, who is more responsible? The coerced or the coercer?”

  “Do you want to risk our lives on such sophistries?”

  “Cado, look at the animals!”

  They all four looked at the hunter. At how the unicorn waited patiently beside him. At how the fearsome griffin relaxed, staring trustingly at the hunter. By now the three horses, too, had drifted over to stand near the big man. The beasts did not fear him even though he looked so grim, his flesh streaked with dark veins of corruption, his eyes dull and his stance weary. Yet a powerful aura emanated from beneath the smell of dirt, sweat, and grief, a sense of great power smothered beneath a corrosive veil.

  “The animals trust him. If we free him from the binding, we can ask him to help us.”

  “You’re being naïve, Will. He’s a creature of the Wilds. A killer, not an ally.”

  Will lifted his chin. “Indrelon refused this quest to you, Cado. The mirror gave the quest to Rowan and me.”

  Cado’s face grew red but, after a lengthy silence, he nodded reluctantly.

  Will gestured toward the sky, which was growing darker, and the glade where the shadows lengthened as afternoon slid toward the end of the short midwinter day. “We don’t have much time. From what you say, Cerise, it seems like Oko bound him and cursed him by anchoring that stone in his body. If we cut out the stone, we’ll free from him from the binding and the curse. Then he won’t try to stop us when we hack our way out of the vines. Cerise, can you do it?”

  “If he’ll let me,” said Cerise.

  Will now stood a mere arm’s length from the big man, well within range of the axe or the hunter’s massive arms. He met his gaze, seeking the turmoil within. “Will you let us remove the shard? Cerise can cut it out. We want to help you. You can trust her. You can trust us.”

  “What do you demand in exchange, Will Kenrith?” the hunter growled.

  “Help us find and free the stag,” said Rowan instantly.

  Will hissed between his teeth as he shook his head at her. She would ruin everything if she wasn’t willing to work with people, not just slam her way through problems.

  “All right, all right,” she muttered peevishly.

  Composing his own expression, he turned back to the big man. “We ask nothing in exchange. No one should be treated as you’ve been treated, my friend. Stripped of your name, of your memory. Of your freedom. But I admit we could use your help to get out of this cage and rescue our father. I won’t lie about that.”

  “Anyone who can speak can lie.”

  “That’s true. But I’m not lying about our father. He’s a good man and a loyal ruler who works every day for the well-being of the Realm. Everything I have ever needed to know he and our mother taught me.”

  The hunter’s clenched hands relaxed. His gaze sparked, eyes lifting as toward a vision, or a memory, only he could see. “Father…” he whispered.

  “That’s right. We lost our father when Oko turned him into a stag. We want to get him back, to save him from being hunted and killed, which is how Oko intends to start a war.”

  “A war.” The hunter touched his own shoulder, flinched when his fingers brushed close to the enflamed skin. “He told me to hide so they wouldn’t take me to fight their war,” he said in a low voice.

  “Oko told you to hide?” Will asked.

  The hunter shook his head, jaw tight with anger, breathing hard. “Not Oko. I don’t remember. I want to remember.”

  Will reached out until his hand rested a hair’s breadth above the brawny forearm of the hunter. “Let Cerise cut out the shard. If the spell is broken, then you can remember.”

  For the longest time the hunter studied Will, his gaze a well whose depths concealed the worst sort of terrors. Yet Will could not fear him. The animals did not fear him. Didn’t that reveal something about the man? Probably he was being naïve, as Cado said. Yet Will felt a sense of kinship between them he could not comprehend and yet clung to. He breathed evenly. His gaze met the hunter’s without challenge or submission. As friends and comrades might acknowledge each other.

  At last Rowan walked forward to stand next to Cerise. “Will is right,” she said in a soft, soothing tone. “Our father and mother have spent their lives fighting for the Realm and its virtues. What Oko did to you is wrong, despite whatever he claims in his flowery speeches. We will help you, if we can. And if anyone can, Cerise can.”

  The three waited, standing together as they had all their lives, missing only Titus whose ashes now blew through the Wilds, even into the air they breathed.

  The big man said nothing. Cado pursed his lips but did not speak. The griffin closed its eyes drowsily. The horses lowered their heads to graze. Sophos stayed alert, head high, watching the humans with the glamer of a protective spirit born long ago out of the wild wood.

  The hunter set his axe on the ground. He knelt, bowing his head.

  Cerise rubbed the blistered skin of her wrists, then swallowed nervously. Will nodded at her, blushing a little as he always seemed doomed to do these days whenever he interacted with her. It had all seemed so much simpler when they were younger.

  Cerise paid him no mind as she opened her healer’s pack. Magic alone cannot heal. She had deft hands, a keen eye, and a fierce aptitude for mending broken things. She licked her lips before moving to stand at the hunter’s shoulder. He was so tall she didn’t have to lean over.

  “I am going to touch your shoulder. I’ll be wearing my riding gloves so my skin won’t touch your skin. That should protect me from the corruption in your flesh. And I hope it will make you more comfortable. Nod if you hear me and agree.”

  Will held his breath.

  After a pause, the man nodded.

  Cerise placed a gloved hand on the man’s skin to create connection and trust. The hunter flinched but did not pull away.

  Rowan said, “Let me help.”

  She had taken up a station on the man’s other side so she, Will, and Cerise formed a triangle around him. Standing on the other side of the griffin, using Hale’s body to block his actions from the hunter’s sight, Cado unsheathed his javelins from Hale’s saddle and held them ready to throw.

  Working together, the three unbuckled the man’s pauldrons and removed his stained and matted cloak. The veins seen in his skin had a disturbing color, not the pale bluish-green of ordinary veins but more of a black ichor, as if he had been caught midway through a transformation from a red-blooded human into something no longer human, leaving one life to fall into a new one that might be better or might be much, much worse.

  Cerise said, “I’m going to dab wound-ease oil to clean the skin where I intend to cut. This part won’t hurt.”

  “I do not fear pain,” he said.

  “No, I suppose you don’t,” said Rowan. With a glance at Will she shook her head, and he couldn’t tell if she was appalled at how his body seemed to be warping into a monstrous form or admired the man’s ability to withstand pain.

  Cerise probed around the hard lump bulging beneath the skin, wiped around and over it carefully, then brought out a scalpel and f
orceps. She made a dome with the fingers of her right hand, steepled over the lump, and with a single confident cut sliced deep through the flesh. The hunter grunted but otherwise made no sound. Will grabbed the scalpel to get it out of her way. She inserted the tips of the forceps, widened them, and with a firm movement tightened the forceps over the shard and yanked it free.

  The hunter did not move or let out even a gasp.

  Sweat budded on her face as she let out a long exhale. With narrowed eyes she stared at the opaque shard in her hand. The stone—if it was stone—absorbed light like a crater of darkness.

  “What is this?” she said, holding it up.

  The veins on the big man’s arms began to visibly throb. Tendrils of black surged wildly beneath his skin, expanding their reach. He threw back his head and howled. They all slapped their hands over their ears. The horses bolted away from the fierce scream. The griffin woke. Flailing in agony the hunter leaped up. A backward spasm of his arm knocked Cerise off her feet. She flew backward to slam onto the ground with a yelp of pain.

  Rowan and Will scrambled out of reach, but instead of attacking them the hunter staggered toward Cerise, who lay stunned on the ground. Sophos bolted to stand between him and the healer. The unicorn lowered his head, his protective instinct toward Cerise breaking whatever enchantment the hunter held over him. The two faced off in a battle of wills until, slowly, horribly, the unicorn knelt on its front legs and pressed its horn to the dirt.

  With his attention fixed on the unicorn the hunter lost control of the griffin. Hale rustled up with a squawk of agitation. Spreading his wings, he leaped at the hunter’s back. The big man swung around. He was as fast as the griffin, ducking under the stab of its beak and grasping it by the throat. Yet he did not squeeze or tear. He twisted back and forth as if at war within himself, an instinct to protect the beast struggling against the malevolent rage surging through his flesh.

  The black corruption slithered from his bare hands into Hale’s flesh. With a cry of dismay, horrified at what he’d just done, the man released the beast and stumbled backward.

  He clawed at the air as if at a thousand invisible demons swarming him. “Away! Away! Stop whispering! Leave me!”

  Hale bristled, feathers ruffling, and shrieked his hunting call. Shadows ripped through his form as the corruption took hold in his body. The griffin leaped for the nearest horse—Elowen’s gelding—and smashed the animal sideways to the dirt. As the horse screamed, trying to get up, Hale raked open its belly with his talons and began to feed on its entrails. The other horses bolted for the far side of the glade, seeking any path to escape, but there was no escape from the cage of vines.

  They were trapped inside with the curse.

  Will could not figure out what to do. All his life he’d had his father and mother to turn to. They’d solved everything. They were so good at what they did. Not just good but peerless, chosen by the Questing Beast as the best fitted to rule the Realm. What was he? Nothing but their older son, unproved, unexperienced, inept. Helpless when the worst actually happened.

  The big man swayed, pressing hands to his head as he stared at the dying horse and at the contaminated griffin as a miasma crawled through it. He lurched toward the griffin, wrapped his arms around its head, and said in a low, harsh voice, “Find peace, loyal beast.”

  He broke Hale’s neck with a single sharp snap.

  Cado cast a javelin at him, but he caught it and flung it back so hard it hit Cado in the head broadside and sent him tumbling.

  Rowan raced over to kneel beside Cerise. The healer’s right leg was twisted under her, and she cradled her right arm against her chest, breathing in ragged bursts.

  “Can you get up? Take my arm.”

  “I can’t…no. Think shoulder’s broken. Maybe leg too.”

  Rowan stood, raising her sword. Sophos stood next to her, tail flicking nervously, horn glowing. But even the unicorn did not dare charge the hunter.

  Wild-eyed and panting, the man bared his teeth. In a choked voice he said, “Garruk. My father called me Garruk. Once I was a man who hunted monsters. Now I am a monster.”

  Will placed himself between the hunter and Cerise, raising his hands palms out. “We meant no harm. We wanted to help you. We didn’t know….” But words were inadequate when faced with the harrowing curse writhing through the man’s body.

  “You meant no harm,” Garruk muttered, trying out the words as if to feel how much truth they contained. He struggled, twitching as the corruption writhed through him. “But the other one. The Planeswalker.”

  “What is a Planeswalker?” Will asked, keeping his hands raised as if anything he could do would make the slightest bit of difference in the face of this terrible magic.

  “He called me a dog. But that leash is cut. Him I can hunt down and kill.”

  Staggering like a drunken soldier, he reeled toward the fence of vines. When he reached the bristling lacework he pressed his hands against it. His touch withered the vines. As the thick stalks blackened and shriveled, he ripped them apart with a roar and bolted through the gap into the forested ruins beyond.

  13

  Everything had happened so fast Rowan was barely able to take in that they finally had an escape route.

  “Will? Will! We have to go now before the vines can regrow!”

  Will just stood there, staring gape-mouthed and useless at the dead griffin. Cado ran over to the still struggling horse and, face bleak, put an end to its suffering.

  “Will, get Elowen’s gear and bring me her staff and any cloth from her pack. Cado, get the horses!” Rowan knelt by Cerise. “I can splint your leg and shoulder.”

  Cerise’s jaw set, her features ashen and her voice ragged with pain. “I misread that completely. The stone kept the curse in check. I was so arrogant. I thought I knew what I was doing.”

  Rowan’s anger burst in a flood. “We all agreed to cutting out the stone! It’s not your fault. We couldn’t have known.”

  Will found a blanket in Elowen’s pack and sliced it into strips, which he and Rowan used to splint Cerise’s leg to the loremage’s staff. Twice the healer almost fainted, and sweat poured off her skin, but she did not pass out as they bound her shoulder to keep it immobile. He talked all the while, trying to reassure her.

  “He’s remembered his name. So I think he isn’t under Oko’s enchantment any more. Maybe Oko’s not where the rotting curse comes from.”

  “Maybe,” Cerise gasped. “It’s like no magic I’ve heard of. It could devour the Wilds and then the Realm.”

  Will looked at Rowan as if he’d seen a ghost.

  “We’ll get to that after we save Father,” she said with false bravado, but she was relieved to see a flash of his jaunty grin in reply, though it faded fast.

  They helped Cerise up onto the unicorn and, walking on either side of her, started for the edge of the clearing. Cado followed, leading Rowan and Will’s mares. Sprouts already nudged from the earth, weaving a new cage to encircle the glade.

  Cerise swayed. “I can’t ride. Leave me.”

  “We’re not leaving you!” Rowan snapped.

  “We have just enough time to get to the portal before it closes at dusk,” said Cado. He winced as he probed at the bruise blooming on his right eyebrow where the shaft of the javelin had slapped against his old scar. Blood trickled down his cheek. “You children will return to Garenbrig. I’ll take the horses and seek the stag.”

  “No!” Rowan was shaking with a surge of frustrated rage. “This is our quest, not yours.”

  “You aren’t ready to quest alone in the Wilds as this fiasco has proven.” He did not glance back toward Hale’s corpse, but Rowan could guess he blamed them for his beloved griffin’s horrific death.

  For once, Will didn’t back down. “Ro and I aren’t going back. Cerise’s magic doesn’t allow her to heal herself and she needs help to stay in the saddle. So you will get her safely through the portal before dusk cuts you off.”

  “How do
you intend to rescue Algenus, if the stag is indeed him?”

  “Garruk confirmed it.”

  “That creature is a monster. You can’t trust him. He murdered Hale.”

  “He’s a victim of what others have done to him,” said Will in his stubborn voice. “And he isn’t a creature. He’s a man. Cursed, it’s true, but a man nevertheless.”

  What goodness Will saw in the monstrous hunter Rowan could not fathom, but she was too angry at Cado for calling them children to argue with her brother. “Will’s right. Garruk confirmed it. We’ll go to where the midwinter hunt is gathering. Ayara will help us. Father always says truth is the most powerful weapon of all, especially in the Wilds.”

  The sun had reached the tops of the trees. Cado eyed it, blinked away tears and blood, then handed over his bow case with its javelins and his pack. “Very well. You’ll need the extra supplies. I’ll warn Linden as fast as I can get word to her. If it’s not already too late.”

  “We won’t be too late!” Rowan tied the pack to her saddle and shouldered the bow case.

  “Will you be all right?” Will asked Cerise in a low voice.

  She brushed fingers along his cheek. Her touch made him blush. “I believe in you, Will.”

  “What about me?” Rowan asked with a laugh half forced and half ferocious, knowing they were about to ride into the midst of the most feared gathering of elves known to the Wilds.

  “You! I never worry about you, Ro. Not since the day we met.”

  “When we were five years old and stole honey cakes together?

  Cerise smiled through her pain. “Take the shard.”

  Rowan wrapped the crystal in a scrap of cloth, then pointed past the vines to an opening in the trees. “The weathervane marks the path we came on. It should lead back to the bridges.”

  With Cado walking beside the unicorn, bracing Cerise in the saddle, they set off. Will and Rowan rode behind, intending to split off when they came to the fork in the trail. But the path ran straight to the meadow at the river’s bank with its two bridges. On the far shore the mound and its paired obelisks marked the clearing where they’d entered, although from here Rowan couldn’t see the portal. The sun had almost reached the horizon, shining into their faces. Its light obscured Cado and Cerise as they hurried to the bridge. Will’s hands gripped to white on his reins as he stared after them.