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

Faces flashed before her eyes. Bishop. Her father. Dax. Esmeralda. Angela Cross. Even the faces of people she barely knew winked across her vision. She saw creatures wandering the streets of Pernrith. She saw Soto and the Underlings in the market. She saw Niui waddling around his low-ceilinged kitchen. She would never see any of them again.

  Then the unstoppable maw opened and sucked her in. She fell, and she wouldn’t stop falling. She slithered over the side grabbing handfuls of dirt that did nothing to check her fall. Her arms whipped over the edge, and she plummeted into open space.

  At the last second, something caught her around the ankle. Her own momentum swung her around, and her head smashed into the solid rock wall. Fireworks exploded in front of her eyes, and she knew no more.

  When she next opened her eyes, the light from the sky blinded her so she clamped them shut once again. Bishop’s voice touched her ears. “Raleigh? Can you hear me?”

  She squinted one eye open. His face hung before her eyes. His hair hung around his cheeks, and his beard covered his lip. His eyes searched her face for any sign of recognition. “Can you hear me?”

  She tried to nod, but her head ached so bad she couldn’t move. Her voice wouldn’t work when she tried to speak. A confused tussle of different voices rippled over Bishop’s shoulders. “She’s okay.” “Stand back.” “Give her room.” “Will you stop shoving?” “I’m trying to see.” “You’re standing on my toe.”

  She heard Bishop’s voice one more time, and she clung to it for all she was worth. “It’s all right now, Raleigh. You took a hard knock on the head. Don’t try to move. I’m going to pick you up and carry you somewhere you’ll be safe.”

  More voices argued back and forth. Raleigh made one more heroic effort to open her eyes and immediately closed them again. Dozens of creatures surrounded her on all sides. Some she recognized from Pernrith. Others she never wanted to see again as long as she lived. Still, others looked like a combination between humans and something unrecognizable.

  Powerful arms lifted her off the ground. She smelled Bishop’s smell, and she let her aching head fall on his chest. He held her close. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She swooned into unconsciousness more than once before he put her down. She had no idea where she was. She never wanted to open her eyes again.

  He laid her down on something soft, and his strong hand stroked her forehead. “Are you all right, Raleigh?”

  She nodded, but she still didn’t open her eyes.

  “Look at me,” he murmured. “I need to see your pupils.”

  She couldn’t ignore that voice. She fought to open her eyelids, and when she did, she beheld his face right in front of her. As much as her head hurt, she could look at him. She could take comfort just looking at him.

  He studied her eyes. “They look all right. Just rest now. You’re safe, and we’re among friends.”

  “Where are we?”

  “We’re in the mountains. We’re with the people I told you about. They migrate around in these temporary villages, but we can stay here until you’re ready to move.”

  She let her eyes drift closed again. She could let go of her fear and exhaustion now. She could rest. Bishop got up. He moved toward the door of whatever little place they were in. Daylight streaming in from outside lit up his face.

  Just before her eyes closed, a small figure rushed through the door and collided with Bishop. He caught hold of it, and it drew back to look up at him. Raleigh stared at a woman so shriveled and worn Raleigh thought she must be very old. When the woman started speaking, however, Raleigh realized she was really very young, maybe even younger than Raleigh herself.

  The woman fought against Bishop’s restraining hands. “Where is he? Where is my baby? Is he all right? Tell me he’s all right.”

  Bishop gritted his teeth and cast a sidelong glance at Raleigh. When he saw her eyes open, he understood. It was too late. Raleigh heard and understood. Bishop sighed. He didn’t have to keep the secret anymore. “He’s just fine. He’s a fine strong young man now, and he’s fine. You don’t have to worry about him.”

  The woman collapsed sobbing against Bishop’s chest. “I only want to see him again—just once.”

  Bishop pushed her back and guided her through the door. They both disappeared and left Raleigh alone, but Raleigh knew the truth now. That woman was Dax’s mother. Dax came from here, or at least, he came from somewhere connected with here.

  Maybe Bishop found the mother and baby somewhere under the Guild’s control. He took the baby and left the mother here. Some tragic tale of heartbreak and loss surrounded this pair, and the stout, strong young man Raleigh loved back home was the result.

  Somewhere out there, in the outcasts’ camp, Bishop was explaining to that distraught mother how Dax lived in Bishop’s own house, how he worked for Bishop and enjoyed good wholesome food instead of scrounging around these mountains for whatever rough livelihood these people pursued.

  Raleigh fell asleep again, but Bishop’s words came back to her. He couldn’t help everybody, and neither could she. He could only save one person at a time. She would do well to take a lesson from him and do the same.

  She had a job to do, and she didn’t have a nice house with servants and good food to which she could take suffering strangers. She could give her love and her efforts to Dax. She would do her best for the people she could help. The others would have to take care of themselves.

  Sometime during the next night, Raleigh woke up feeling much better. Her head still hurt, but she opened her eyes and looked about her with no trouble. A single candle burned near her head, and a young teenaged girl sat up regarding her.

  Raleigh stared at her. The girl looked perfectly human except for a faint shimmer of starshine glittering on her cheeks. Her eyes gleamed bright shimmering purple, and her hair pointed straight out from her head in spikes.

  The girl’s warm smile banished any misgivings Raleigh might have about talking to someone…not human. Just for an instant, Raleigh thought the words less than human, but she shoved those thoughts aside. None of these people were less than. They might be other. Then again, they might be just as human as herself, just as human as Dax.

  The girl smiled. “How do you feel now?”

  “I feel fine.”

  “You had us worried for a little while,” the girl told her. “I can see you’re better now. Are you hungry?”

  “Famished.”

  The girl handed her a bowl of hot broiled meat. “We’ve been keeping this ready for when you woke up.”

  Raleigh lifted out a chunk of meat and tasted it. The juice almost made her pass out again. “Where’s Bishop?”

  The girl waved her hand to one side, and Raleigh caught sight of Bishop. He stretched out on the floor near Raleigh’s pallet. His chest rose and fell in the gentle tide of sleep. “He couldn’t stay awake a second longer. He told me to wake him up the instant you opened your eyes, but I think we should let him sleep a little longer, don’t you?”

  Raleigh nodded, but she couldn’t talk with her mouth full.

  The girl wouldn’t stop smiling. “Don’t try to talk. I’ll do all the talking for you.”

  Raleigh pushed the meat to one side of her mouth with her tongue. “Thank you for helping me. We were trying to escape the Guild…”

  The girl closed her eyes and held up her hand. “Don’t say it. Everyone who enters these mountains is trying to escape the Guild. That’s why we stay so close to Hallbreck, even though the Guild is hunting us, too. We want to help anybody who needs it, and if we can help Bishop, so much the better.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “Bishop? Everybody knows Bishop.”

  Raleigh snorted. “Yeah, I know that. Did he help you, too? Is that how you know him?”

  The girl shrugged. “Half the people in this band are here because Bishop helped them. He’s our avenging angel. He flutters around pecking the Guild around the borders and snatching peop
le out of their clutches. He’s always showing up here with some poor soul in pieces. One of these days, he’s going to steal so many people from the Guild we’ll have to start our own city. Then Hallbreck better watch out.”

  Raleigh had to smile, but she couldn’t help gazing at the sleeping figure across the floor. So he lied about what he was doing. He made it out that he could only help a few people here and there, a Yafik or a Dax, but never more.

  All the while, he was working behind the scenes. He helped anyone he could, wherever he could, and he brought them all here, to these mountains where he knew they would be safe and surrounded by others of their kind.

  “You know him, don’t you?” the girl asked.

  “Know who?”

  “Cassandra’s baby. You know where he is and who he is.”

  “Do you mean that woman who came in here crying and begging Bishop to tell her where her baby was? Yeah, I know where he is.”

  The girl stared up at her with wide eyes. “What can you tell us about him?”

  Raleigh put down her bowl and settled back on her bed. “His name is Dax. He’s a tall, strong, handsome young man. He’s healthy and beautiful and kind. He’s every inch the man Bishop is. He’s a man his mother would be proud of.”

  The girl sighed and laid her hands on her heart. “You don’t know how we all worried when Bishop took him away.”

  “What can you tell me about him and his mother? Where did they come from?”

  “No one knows that. Cassandra won’t talk about it. Bishop showed up here one day with her and the baby. Then he left and took the baby with him, and Cassandra hasn’t stopped crying from that day to this. No one knows anything except Cassandra and Bishop.”

  Raleigh turned her gaze on the girl. “What about you? Did you suffer from the Guild, too?”

  The girl cast her eyes down at her hands in her lap. “Me? No, I never suffered from the Guild, but my parents did. Bishop freed them from the Guild when my mother was pregnant with me, but the journey was too arduous and they suffered too much. My father died on the trip, and my mother died giving birth to me when she got here.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Raleigh breathed.

  The girl gave her a bright smile. “You don’t have to be sorry for me. I’ve been happy and loved and taken care of my whole life. Another family raised me with their own children. I couldn’t be happier.”

  Bishop turned over in his sleep, and his eyes fluttered open. He bolted upright when he saw Raleigh awake, and he rubbed his eyes. “I told you to wake me if Raleigh came to, Petunia.”

  “It’s all right,” Raleigh told him. “We were just talking, and we wanted you to sleep.”

  Bishop frowned at her. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right. You can go back to sleep now.”

  Bishop frowned even deeper. He glared at Raleigh and at Petunia. Then his iron frame collapsed in on itself. “I need the sleep, but I won’t sleep alone with you here.”

  He scooted across the floor and curled under her blankets. He snuggled into her arms, closed his eyes, and let out a heavy sigh. He sank into sleep once more.

  Just before she closed her eyes, too, Raleigh caught Petunia smiling at her. Petunia bent over and blew out the candle before she slipped away into the dark.

  Raleigh drifted on a torrent of thoughts and impressions, but as long as she held Bishop in her arms, nothing could harm her. Dax, too, was far away and safe at home, far from whatever threatened him in the first place.

  Only the gravest danger could induce Bishop to take a baby from its mother to live far away among strangers. Bishop gave the baby into the McDermott family’s care, and Dax lived there for the rest of his childhood, never knowing the first thing about his origins.

  How did Bishop contrive to get Dax working for him—or maybe Dax sought out Bishop instead. Maybe the same instinctive pull that drew Dax to Hinterland brought him to Bishop’s door. Maybe Bishop never wanted to see Dax again after he gave the baby into Mrs. McDermott’s care.

  Then along comes Dax as a young kid, turning up on Bishop’s doorstep wanting to work for him and maybe train as a slayer. Raleigh smiled into Bishop’s hair in the dark. That would be Bishop’s worst nightmare, and now Dax was turning into a slayer against all Bishop’s best efforts. No wonder he got so mad when Raleigh trained Dax.

  What species of creature was Dax’s father? Maybe he didn’t have one. Maybe the Guild injected his mother with some substance that got her pregnant with alien seed. Maybe that’s why Bishop stole the baby. Maybe Dax represented the pinnacle of the Guild’s breeding efforts and they would do anything to get him back alive.

  Chapter 13

  Raleigh and Bishop crouched behind a low hummock of land. They peered down on huge tidal pools stretching away into the distance. The ponds covered the floor of a large valley tucked into the mountains four day’s travel from the outcasts’ camp.

  Bishop frowned. “Where do you say they keep their records?”

  A blue-skinned man with a long drooping trunk for a nose slithered his snake-whip arm over the rise. “Over there, in that grass hut. You see where that man is coming in and out? He’s the manager. He keeps all his paperwork in that hut. You’ll find what you’re looking for in there.”

  Bishop surveyed the ponds on both sides. “I don’t see any guards.”

  A tiny bird fluttered down from the trees and perched on Bishop’s shoulder. It twittered in his ear until the song broke into intelligible words. “They stay hidden. You won’t see them until they kill you.”

  “So how do you say we break in and steal the records?” Raleigh asked.

  “You have to wait until after dark,” the bird replied. “Visibility will be reduced then, and the turtle hybrids who care for the mussels will dive down to sleep in the mud. If you’re careful, you can skirt around the other side of the farm without being seen. You can get into the hut and find what records you want.”

  “How will we do that without a light? The minute we turned one on to check which papers we’re stealing, the guards would be on us.”

  The bird broke into gales of twittering. It launched itself off Bishop’s shoulder and flew away into the trees.

  “You’re right,” the blue man replied. “You won’t be able to use a light.”

  Bishop pursed his lips. “I don’t like it, Tino. I don’t like it one bit.”

  The blue man cracked a grin. “I’m glad I’m not going with you on this one.”

  Bishop flipped over and lay down on his back behind the hummock. “I wish I wasn’t.”

  “Come on,” Raleigh chided. “How hard can it be? We just have to use our brains and figure out how to get the records out.”

  “What do you suggest?” Bishop asked.

  Raleigh scanned the mussel farm. “The only hard part is seeing the records before we take them, but that’s only a problem if we sneak in at night.”

  “We won’t be able to sneak in any other time without the guards seeing us.”

  “What if the guards could see us and didn’t realize we were outsiders? There might be a way we could disguise ourselves so the guards would let us through. If we succeeded, we could walk right in in broad daylight. We could read whatever records we wanted and walk out again.”

  Bishop and the blue man turned to regard each other. A curious smile spread over their two faces, and they both spoke the same word at the same time. “Cassandra!”

  “What are you talking about?” Raleigh asked. “What about Cassandra?”

  Bishop seized Raleigh’s sleeve and hauled her away from the rise. “You’re brilliant, Raleigh. You always have been. Come on. We’re going back to the camp.”

  “But that’s days away!” she protested. “You want to go all the way back? What for?”

  “For your disguise,” Bishop called over his shoulder. “Cassandra is a shape-shifter. She can take the form of anything or anyone she chooses.�
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  “The hard part,” Tino added, “will be convincing her to go through with this. She hasn’t shifted since you brought her out from…”

  Bishop silenced him with a warning finger. “Don’t say it. We’ll just have to convince her.”

  “She’ll do anything for you, Bishop, but she might not do this.”

  Bishop walked away. “She’ll do it. You leave her to me.”

  Four days’ long trekking back to the outcasts camp, and they dragged their weary feet to their own hut at sundown. Raleigh collapsed by the door and kicked off her boots. She wiggled her bare toes in the dirt.

  Bishop walked right past her and between the other huts. Raleigh called out to him. “Where are you going?”

  He didn’t turn around. She started to get up to follow him when Petunia appeared carrying a basket on her head. The girl sat down next to Raleigh and set the basket aside. “What’s Bishop doing, going into Cassandra’s hut.”

  Raleigh settled back down. So that’s what he was doing. “He’s talking to her about helping us with our investigation.”

  “What’s your investigation?” Petunia closed her eyes. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

  “No, you don’t. I don’t want to know, either.”

  “You and Bishop are really close. How long have you worked with him?”

  Raleigh laughed. “Not long, actually. I came to work as his apprentice, and it just sort of ballooned out of control. Now we’re more like partners—in more ways than one.”

  Petunia gave her a kind smile. She moved a basket around in front of her to position it between her knees. “Let’s get dinner ready.”

  Raleigh glanced across the camp. “Shouldn’t we wait for Bishop?”

  “I wouldn’t bother. He’ll be at Cassandra’s for a while.”

  “How do you know?”

  Petunia shrugged. “Just a guess. That’s the way Bishop is.”

  Raleigh cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

  “Only that you shouldn’t wait around for him to come back from whatever he’s doing. He always gets absorbed in whatever he’s doing so he doesn’t notice how long he’s been gone. It never works to tell him, either. It’s best just to keep letting him do whatever he’s doing until he finishes. That’s the best way to deal with him.”