[Hinterland 02] - The Wolf's Quarry Read online

  She couldn’t move. She stood rooted to the spot. She stared at the young Guildsman who first noticed her. She couldn’t force her mind to accept what was happening right in front of her eyes. She opened her mouth more than once before she got her voice to work. Even then, the word came out in a whisper. “Ethan!”

  He didn’t move, either. He stood still beyond the railing and locked his eyes on her face, but he showed no sign of surprise, only recognition. They would recognize each other anywhere, no matter the circumstances. Maybe he expected her to come seeking him here someday. She couldn’t understand how he got here, but here he was. He was a member of the Guild of Martial Arts.

  No wonder her father never told her what happened to her brother. He couldn’t. He would have to explain all about Hinterland, and she wasn’t ready for that. Ethan! Ethan was here!

  Dax seized her by the arm, and this time he didn’t give her a friendly tug. He yanked her off her feet. “Come on!”

  The pain of his fingers digging into her flesh woke her up. She raced after him. They floundered over the curtains, but the Guildsmen got the jump on them. By the time they cleared the obstruction, the Guildsmen bore down on them so they couldn’t get away.

  Dax hauled her toward the stairs, but Raleigh jerked out of his grasp. “No time! This way!” She headed for the battle scene.

  “Are you nuts?” he screeched back. “We’re not going over there.”

  “We have to get rid of them. We have to divert them. It’s the only way.”

  He didn’t argue. They couldn’t talk running so fast. Raleigh pulled her cube weapon and fired over her shoulder as she ran, but the Guildsmen fired back with their own weapons. The first shot clipped Raleigh’s shoulder. A blast of lightning ripped her breastplate and the shirt underneath it. It seared her skin and scared her out of her wits.

  She lost track of where she was in the building. She dodged right and left, but this couldn’t continue. Those Guildsmen knew their own headquarters. They would cut her and Dax off sooner or later. Now that word spread the intruders stole the twen, the Guild would hem them in and cut them down. She had to find a way out.

  The noise of battle got louder. Screams and roars rose above the general chaos. Raleigh would give anything for some sound to indicate Bishop was still alive down there, but she couldn’t think about him right now. She had to keep herself and Dax alive.

  She fired her weapons as fast as she could at the men coming behind her. She heard the splatter of lightning and glanced over to see Dax firing on the run, too. He held a cube in one hand. With the other, he rummaged in his pocket and took out one of his new grenades. He squeezed it in his fingers. Then he tossed it at the Guildsmen.

  Raleigh ducked her head against the inevitable concussion, but Dax already took out another grenade. Whenever the Guildsmen got within range, he pitched his grenades at them. He did it with such natural fluidity that Raleigh started to understand Bishop’s warnings about him. Dax was the most dangerous slayer around. He just didn’t know it. He didn’t know half his abilities—not yet.

  All of a sudden, Dax skidded sideways. He dashed down a side passage. “This way!”

  She didn’t argue, but ran after him. He wasn’t a helpless kid, and she wasn’t responsible for him anymore. They were equals. Maybe his mind took a photographic imprint of the building map. Maybe he memorized it in his ponderings, and now he knew how to get out. She wouldn’t put it past him.

  The noise rumbling behind them ascended to a fevered pitch. Dax threw one last grenade, and no more Guildsmen ran behind them. Dax pulled Raleigh into a forgotten room and slammed the door.

  Chapter 26

  Dax and Raleigh slid to the floor side by side against the door. They gasped for breath, and Raleigh buried her head on her knees.

  Dax looked around. They were in an empty room. One window overlooked the square outside. “We can’t stay here. They’ll send more fighters after us.”

  “Can you remember anything about this building? Can you remember any other way we can get out of here?”

  “I can remember lots of ways to get out of here. It’s just a question of finding one where they won’t cut off our escape. Have you still got the twen?”

  She touched her chest and nodded. It was still there. Then she had an idea. “Look, Dax. The window. Let’s go through the window.”

  He looked and nodded. “Good idea.”

  He coughed once and approached the window. Raleigh struggled to her feet and came up behind him, but when he put out his hand to touch the glass, a force beyond imagination exploded out of the frame and blew into his face. His weight knocked her back.

  At exactly that moment, another earth-shattering concussion rocked Raleigh’s senses. She barely had time to think before the side wall next to them burst into a plume of choking dust.

  She hit the floor on her back and rolled onto her side, but Dax already took hold of her vest and dragged her across the floor. A platoon of Guildsmen charged into the room through the broken wall from the room next door.

  Dax flipped over on his back. He fired his cube weapon over Raleigh’s head at the oncoming enemy while he scrambled backward toward the door. With the windows boobytrapped, the door was the only way out of the room.

  They crawled through the door and stumbled to their feet. They both set off running down the long passage. “Now where?” Raleigh screamed.

  “You’re right,” he shouted back. “We have to get to the battle. It’s the only sure way out of here.”

  She didn’t argue. She aimed her cube over her shoulder and cut down three Guildsmen with one sweep. Was Ethan among them? She couldn’t see well enough to know, and she didn’t take the time to aim. They swarmed so thickly back there she didn’t have to look. She just pointed and shot.

  Dax threw a grenade. “That’s my last one. You’ll have to use yours.”

  She put her free hand into her pocket, but at that moment, something flew out of the air from her right side. It struck her on the side of the head, and her cube fell out of her hand. Her vision went dark and she staggered, but Dax lifted her up and set her on her feet again. “Run!”

  She obeyed, but she couldn’t face these Guildsmen empty-handed. She patted her other pockets for her spare cube, but when she looked back over her shoulder, she saw the foremost Guildsmen bend down and scoop up her dropped weapon. He never stopped running. He swept it up and aimed it at her.

  She stiffened for the impact, but the moment he pressed the button, the cube exploded in his hand. A burst of metal fragments hit him in the face, and a ragged bloody stump stuck out from his chest where his arm used to be.

  Dozens more Guildsmen flowed all around him to take his place. Raleigh didn’t hesitate. She barreled after Dax while she fished out her other cube with one hand and a grenade with the other. She squeezed her grenade and threw it. It blew up behind her, and screams answered.

  Dax steered her toward the stairs. They had to get down to the battle, and fast. With any luck, they could pick up Bishop and escape while the Guild contended with the hammaslahti. Dax raced ahead, but he waited for her at the first winding while she threw another grenade. He fired his cube over her shoulders to give her time to put some distance between herself and the Guildsmen.

  They pounded down the first flight of stairs and turned onto the second. Raleigh’s heart soared. They were doing it. They were gaining. They would make it out of here, and she still had the twen tucked against her breast where it would stay safe.

  She put out her hand just as Dax put his hand back. Their fingers entwined. They were together, running for their lives against the clock. His touch gave her such hope as she never dared imagine.

  She caught sight of the battle two floors below. They were almost home. At that moment, another sickening shudder shook the building to its foundation. Right in front of Dax, the whole staircase disintegrated to nothing. Raleigh tried to check her flight, but it was too late. She an
d Dax ran off the splintered end of the stairs into thin air.

  Dax weighed more, so he fell faster. His hand clutching hers dragged her down, and gravity yanked his fingers from her grasp. She screamed out loud. Her spare cube fell out of her hand. Her instinct made her clasp both empty hands over the twen’s box, and she curled into a ball to protect it and herself.

  Dax plunged downward, past more stairs and more halls and more white marble walls. They zipped upward. Raleigh couldn’t think. Only one notion penetrated her brain. She braced herself for the moment she landed on solid ground again.

  Dax crashed to the stone floor far below. He only had time to grunt once before Raleigh landed right on top of him. He groaned again, and a shattering sensation collapsed against her ribs. The hand holding his cube got caught between them and the cube broke.

  Raleigh rolled off him onto her knees. The twen was safe, but that meant nothing now. She lifted her head to see hammaslahti raging through the central halls of the Guild of Martial Arts. They butted their heads into walls and bannisters. They smashed everything in sight. Hundreds of Guildsmen fought them from every direction. They fired their cubes and guns. They stabbed with swords and clubbed the hammaslahti with maces.

  Raleigh laid her hands on Dax and turned him on his side. He coughed and wretched onto the floor. “Can you stand? Can you get out of here?”

  He didn’t answer beyond a nod. He let her help him up onto his knees at her side. Raleigh scanned the battle for any sign of the way out when she saw Bishop. He stood in front of the breach and brandished a long rod in both hands. He swung it this way and that around his shoulders and faced off against the biggest hammaslahti of them all.

  He stabbed the rod’s end into the hammaslahti’s face. The rod touched between the creature’s horns, and a crackle of sparks danced over the monster’s skin. The hammaslahti reared away from the hit, and its screams tore the place apart. It lunged forward to snap its jaws in Bishop’s face, but he struck, again and again, to drive the creature back.

  Raleigh launched herself to her feet. “Bishop!” She rushed forward to get to him, and Dax jumped up to follow her.

  They got halfway to the breach when a solitary Guildsman strode out of the melee. He moved with casual ease into the center of the foyer, where he stopped to set a large object on the floor. He did something with it Raleigh couldn’t see.

  She ran up to him. “Ethan!”

  He turned on her with a hideous leer. She stumbled to a stop. She was so surprised she couldn’t run away, though that disgusting face made her want to head for the hills. This couldn’t be her brother. This couldn’t be the same young man who sheltered her and taught her and told her stories on winter nights. This was some demon, some murderous fiend.

  He bent over and poked his finger at the object again. She couldn’t see what it was. She couldn’t take her eyes off his horrible face. Whatever he was doing, he meant destruction and blood and death. She had to get away from him.

  Dax saw the same thing. He pulled her away from Ethan and murmured in her ear. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”

  Ethan put back his head and laughed in their faces. Something clicked in that object at his feet, and Raleigh understood. It would go off somehow. It would destroy all the Guild’s enemies in one fell swoop. He took a step away, somewhere else. He would leave all that destruction behind him and get away.

  She moved back in the direction Dax pulled her, toward the breach. They would get Bishop and get as far away from this place as they could before that thing detonated.

  She picked up speed, but before she took five paces, the hammaslahti charged Bishop. Bishop made another jab with his rod, but the hammaslahti knocked it out of his hands with the horn on its forehead. Quicker than thought, it snapped up Bishop in its jaws.

  Raleigh screamed, “Bishop!” She rocketed forward, but she couldn’t reach him in time. The hammaslahti reared back on its hind legs and shook its head from side to side. Bishop whipped back and forth between those vicious fangs. His arms and legs slapped around the creature’s head, and guttural growls came out of the thing’s throat.

  Raleigh couldn’t control her limbs. She catapulted straight for the thing. She had to help Bishop. She had to free him and take him with her when they left this deathtrap. Nothing else mattered.

  She put her hand down to draw a weapon, but her hand closed around her throwing blade. Of course! That was the only way to disable the hammaslahti and get it to drop Bishop before it did him any serious damage. She unhooked it from her belt and pulled back her arm to throw when the creature turned around to face her. Its bulk blocked the whole breach, and it shook Bishop harder than ever.

  “Bishop!” she screamed. “Bishop!”

  Dax’s footsteps came to a stop behind her. At that moment, Bishop turned his head and shouted down, “Get out! Get out!” He wasn’t looking at Raleigh, though. He was talking to Dax.

  Dax ran up behind her. He tried to pull her backward. How long did they have before Ethan’s device blasted this whole place apart? She couldn’t think about that. She had to get Bishop. She couldn’t leave here without him. She couldn’t live without him.

  Instead of running away, she rushed forward. She aimed her blade at the monster’s head again when powerful arms grappled her hands to her sides. She kicked and fought to free herself. “Bishop! No!”

  The hammaslahti swung its head to the side again. This time, it smashed Bishop’s flopping body into the wall. The wall creaked, and a long crack jagged down to the floor. The creature raved and bellowed. It hit Bishop against every surface it could find, but it didn’t leave the breach. Its body blocked any avenue of escape. They weren’t getting out that way.

  Still, Raleigh refused to leave. Dax strapped his powerful arms around her body and hauled her back by main strength. She butted her head into his face. She kicked him in the groin and gouged her fingers into his face. She had to get away from him. She had to help Bishop. She couldn’t stop screaming his name until her throat ached. “Bishop! Bishop!”

  Dax carried her back, away from that strange device on the floor. As he passed it, Raleigh heard it clicking faster. They didn’t have much time left. The hammaslahti took one menacing step to follow them, and Dax redoubled his efforts. He slung Raleigh under his arm and turned to run.

  Raleigh waved her hands, but she couldn’t get free. “Bishop!”

  She saw the whole scene unfold in slow motion behind Dax’s back. Bishop cast one last pained glance her way before the hammaslahti whipped him away again. His spine cracked this way and that. His arms and legs waved like a rag doll.

  Dax broke into a run. Guildsmen hurried away in all directions. They no longer paid the intruders or the hammaslahti any attention. Ethan crunched through the debris on his way to some hidden exit when the hammaslahti took another step into the foyer. It brought its foot down in one quick motion.

  Ethan heard the thunderous bellow and turned to look, but he waited just a fraction of an instant too long. The hammaslahti brought down its great foot right on top of him, and Raleigh lost sight of him. The hammaslahti didn’t even notice it stepped on something. It went on shaking Bishop to pieces. It let go of him at the end of one hard shake, and his inert body flew across the foyer to slam into the opposite wall.

  Raleigh screamed louder than ever. “Bishop! Ethan, no! Bishop! Bishop!”

  Dax never let her go. He must have been ten times stronger than she ever realized. He raced down the hall until he turned a corner and out through a door into the square. The door banged shut, but a tiny puff of air rushed through it heading inward.

  At that moment, an almighty shock wave hit Raleigh in the face. Dax pitched forward onto his chest and bumped Raleigh’s legs underneath him. Raleigh shut her eyes, and a catastrophic explosion blasted her hair off her forehead. Her arms flew up to protect her face, and gravel and stones peppered her skin.

  Dax’s fall whipped her body forward, and s
he hit the ground hard. She lost consciousness for just a moment. When she opened her eyes, she beheld Dax’s long body stretched out next to her. His eyes remained closed. He could have been asleep except for the powdery dust covering his skin and hair.

  Raleigh raised her head. Every particle of her being ached. Her throat hurt something awful from screaming, but the deepest pain rested in her heart. She sat up and looked around.

  The wide square spread all around her. All the other buildings of Pernrith stood in their usual places, but where the Guild of Martial Arts used to be, a giant crater extended down into the ground. Shards of the marble paving stones stuck out into space, and sulphury smoke billowed out of the gaping hole.

  Chapter 27

  Raleigh hugged her knees against her chest and rocked back and forth. A ragged moan came out of her chest. She couldn’t think. She could only stare into space. Bishop was gone, and she would never get him back. Not only that, Ethan was dead in that explosion, too. His own maniacal destruction snatched him from her fingers just when she found him again after so many long years without him.

  Dax paced around her. His eyes scanned the surrounding buildings where she sat on a bench in front of the Guild of Musicology, but Raleigh didn’t see him. She didn’t see anything but Bishop’s body flying out of that hammaslahti’s mouth and hitting the wall. She relived over and over again, the horrible moment when the hammaslahti’s foot crushed Ethan to the floor, never to rise again.

  Dax’s face appeared in front of her. “Raleigh! Raleigh! You have to pull yourself together. We have to get out of here. We have to get the twen back to the house. Have you still got the twen with you? Is it all right?”

  She opened her mouth. Another broken sob came out of her, and she hugged her legs tighter. She couldn’t survive this agony. She would curl up here and die. At least then she would be with Bishop, wherever he was.