Blood Magic

 

Some things aren’t real.

But should be.

 


Up, high up, in the folded arms of the treacherous granite mountains, there is a spring.

 

Rich with minerals and sparkling like liquid diamond, the spring bubbles up from deep within the stone and flows down over bare rock to fill a small pool, a crystal cistern that swirls and churns like a bubbling cauldron.

 

There is a tribe of Slatehoof that live around this spring, a source too insignificant to have a trade name, rely on it for their water and the best growth of greens, but our story does not lie with them.

 

Latch on to the leaf of a mountain aspen, set aflame by the changing of the season, as it falls. The turbulent waters of the natural basin swirls it through two rough orbits before it is carried over a worn stone lip and down along the rope-thick strand of the burn.

 

In but a few months, and the fourth and final turning of the seasons, this narrow rill will have shrunk further, until it could not carry a hazelnut shell any distance, and our leaf still may not make the journey, even with the fodder of the autumnal rains to swell the race. But on this occasion we are lucky, and soon more lucent rivulets dance over the rocks from their respective wellsprings to join the watercourse. It skips from rock to rock like a carefree young lamb, unaware and uncaring of its destination.

 

Like all things in these mountains, they themselves almost crumbling under the weight of their legacy, the quickwater’s heading has many names. It’s trade name, an amalgamation of the most common translations of these, is the Voice. Some quirk of geology has formed a deep, strange shaped cave behind the silver cascade that echoes with an intensity that seems almost godlike. A small community, of various creatures, has built up around the Voice and its weird, half-deaf augur, an old Slatehoof ewe whose babblings are awaited with awe and trepidation. But our story does not lie with them.

 

From then on, our brook with it’s tumbling, lonely aspen leaf is known as the Song, for no reason other than the legacy of its previous destination. Joined by several other tributaries with less glorious histories, it grows to something that can truly be called a stream, possibly even approaching a small river. Winding its way through the grassy valley between two peaks, this little creek, flanked in stunted saplings and mossy rocks, seems strangely alone. More than one tiny community should have sprung up in a sheltered glade near the source of clean water. There is some reason for the mysterious lack of life, for the burnt out husks of buildings overgrown with weeds and lichen, but it will have to wait. Our river still runs fast and turbulent, and there is one last, sudden drop to go.

 

It is known, far and wide, unlike the Voice, and feared. No augur lurks behind it, yet there is a community, a sizeable town, and the horror of the Cobwebbed Castle.

 

Centre point of the second largest and most powerful of the Human Provinces, the granite construction clings to a flat, sloping section of mountainside like a fishing jaguar to a riverside boulder. And close, so close, close enough that from a few windows you can reach out and catch droplets on your hands, drops the fabled Foammane Falls. Originally, it was named for the fabulous river horses that swam and played in the huge, comma shaped plunge pool that foams and bubbles at the base of the falls, over eighty feet high, but all those horses are gone. The few that have survived the holocaust of their kind are kept in a large, lily filled pond in the centre of Cobwebbed Castle’s elegant gardens, and languish, sickening without the moving water and freshly caught fish they need to survive. The rest of these beautiful, powerful, and above all intelligent creatures were captured, killed, and served up at the royal table as delicacies.

 

This was not the only atrocity the Humans have committed, and it is no small wonder this place is feared.

 

A face, a single face, peers out of one of the highest windows, so close that the deluge speckles her fine dresses with moisture. But our story does not lie here, not just yet. For the river continues.

 

From here on, the Song becomes Pookha River, home of the mysterious river demon, although one has not been sighted in over a century and many believe them extinct. It is joined by many tributaries as it winds its way through the second largest and most powerful Human Province, our golden aspen leaf unaware of the toil of the non-human serfs, the greed and cruelty of their hairless masters, the brutal hunts in search of new slaves on the troubled lands, the edge lands, the broad band of trackless forest in between what can truly be called the Province and the free cities of those who still think themselves safe. By now, Pookha River and it’s cargo of a single, precious leaf is a broad, smooth, swift flowing current, so deep it can only be crossed at one of few, treacherous fords, and thick with the debris of the Province.

 

It goes on, flowing through several towns and more than one city, even winding it’s way through the northern reaches of the Dryad lands, until Pookha River becomes the White Horse Delta, surrounded by tidal salt marsh and the occasional fishing village, on the north-eastern coast of Atlantis. But our story does not lie there.

 

Our story lies with our little yellow aspen leaf, run aground at one of the river’s few shallow, sandy beaches, smoothed flat by rushing water against the pitch black hoof of a finely built warhorse, mane streaming over her shell-like ears and delicately boned head to flicker like little fishes on the surface as she drinks. Her rider swings out of the saddle, crouching down to cup the glistening liquid in her long fingered hands and bring it to her lips. She notices the leaf and peels it away from her mount’s hoof with a thoughtful expression.

 

“Mountain aspen.” She tells her disinterested mount, twirling it between claw tipped fingers. “You’ve come a long way.”

 

With a long sigh, the warrioress gets to her feet and grabs the saddle horn, swinging onto the horse’s back as the capricious mare flings up her head and keeping her seat as they wheel completely around.

“Stop fussing, Fastidia, we’ll try a little further downstream.”

 

For no particular reason, the woman tucks the aspen leaf into her pocket. Curious things amuse her because she is, herself, a curious thing.

 

Her name is Alice Icetiger.


Chapter One

 

In the darkness, the candle is lit. The half-melted tallow pillar flickers, gutters, and then steadies, casting strange ripples on the bowl of ruby fluid before it.

 

The man who lit the candle ignores those around him, clustered close and impatient, or tries to, as he runs the tips of his fingers over the razor edge of the bloodied blade in his hand. Letting the trickles break the smooth surface inside the silver and moss-stone bowl, he mutters, half under his breath, in a tongue he barely understands and mispronounces…

“Riso’mir’kaku’va yrr’tanna’ona’kakata so’mona’pa’fena aro’ye’ki…”

 

The ford is deep, but here, at least, Pookha River has decided to slow down. The water is alive not with the splashing of water birds and the fishes they hunt but with men, wading in to their waists, pulling at the bridles of heavy draft horses, of work oxen, and of stranger creatures, harnessed to sizeable wagons. None of the sentient beings there are human.

 

The image fades, and, cursing, the priest redoubles his chanting, gashing open his arm.

“Car’soto’mura ka’rono’riso’mir vura’yrr’ona mona’kakata’aro’fena…”

The flow of blood breaks the smoothness of the scrying pool into ripples, and when they settle, a vague window has been opened, but as though viewed through a crimson gauze…

 

There are more carts and their beasts waiting to cross, and some waiting on the other side. It is a sizeable caravan. A few mounted figures, mostly on horse-like mounts but one riding a weird, almost bullish creature, stand along the riverbank, occasionally trotting up or down a fair way before returning. They are guards. One, riding a black beast, spurs their mount into the foam to grab the bridle of a chestnut carthorse that has balked, and is holding the rest up.

 

Again, the inconsistent vision breaks apart. The pale-faced human is now visibly sweating, trying to regain the link. There is some muffled swearing from those around him, and he exclaims,

“I can’t hold it any longer!”

And faints dead. In the resultant hush, and muted grumbling, as a few peer down on his face, there is a highly audible sigh of exasperation.

 

Another man, younger, hooks one finger under the edge of the divining vessel and almost upends it, spilling the blood over the pedestal, the floor and the robes of a few of those surrounding him, extinguishing the candle. In the darkness, all that can be heard of him is the soft hiss of Spinnerchild silk robes and faint footfalls as he moves, then the splash of ice-cold water as he dips the bowl into a stone cistern in one corner of the chamber. The bowl is cleaned, filled, and carried back again, under the blank, surprised, and above all outraged stares of the unseeing priests.

 

A match is put to a different candle, this one a fine, un-burnt beeswax taper with a clean light, and the contrast between the bald-headed, bloodstained priests and this young man, dressed in black with long, corn silk hair, can be seen. He reaches inside his robes, produces a small bottle, uncorks it and drops a little of the black liquid into the bowl of seeing. Cupping his hands around the vessel, he stares down onto the surface and forgets the irate men around him. His voice is barely a whisper. It doesn’t need to be any stronger.

“Show me.”

 

* * * * *

 

They had rigged up four parallel ropes over the river, between the strongest trees they could find. Ropes were passed under the bellies of the beasts and under the axels of the wagons, fastened to the overhead guidelines with loose loops that would move with the vehicles and tighten if anything shifted too far. The very best swimmers of the caravan, including a whole family of sleek furred Riverdogs, humanoid otters standing near enough to six feet tall, were waiting just a little way downriver, to dive after any man or beast who slipped the lines.

 

The carts belonged to various merchants, banding together for strength against the human raids, and were drawn by everything from shaggy donkeys and stubborn mules, through their larger cousins, both ponies and huge, feathered horses, and the ever present cattle, to the heavier varieties of s’ruth, weird crosses between a bullock and a lizard, and even a pair of massive Gaullish targa, ram-horned heads swinging from side to side as they ambled along.

 

And, of course, there were guards. These mercenaries, some depressingly young, others simply depressed, for it took a very unusual character, a surplus of inexperience, or a death wish to take on a contract passing through the edge lands, mostly kept themselves out of the way and crossed whenever they got fed up of the view on one side of the river. Only a few paid any attention to the merchant caravans, and only one was being any kind of use.

 

Another pair of kine baulked at the water coming up to their chests, and started to low, shaking their horned heads from side to side and backing into the dray. Again, the black horse, free flowing mane tinged with auburn and a trickle of milk down her face, plunged into the froth so her long limbed rider could help. Unlike the horses, oxen were easily persuaded to move forward; a knotted rope, heavy with stream water, was dexterously flicked through the air and collided with a satisfyingly loud noise, a louder bellow, and that, coupled with the mare’s ears going back and her head lunging forward to sink her teeth into the hindquarters of the nearest ox, managed to get the beasts moving again. Soon they were being unhooked from the ropes and the next cart loaded onto the line.

 

Alice spurred Fastidia towards shore again, bounding out of the water with a spray of foam and a jingle of metal fittings. Turning her around again tightly, she took up a vigil on the bank, watching the s’ruth snort and blow as they sloshed through the crossing.

 

Alice was not human. Neither was she Riverdog or Treejumper or Jeweleye or Sharpnose or any of the other creatures around her, although her form carried something reminiscent of the humanoid foxes. In fact, almost nobody could put a species to her, which was probably just as well. The whispered legends of her heritage were common enough for her liking.

 

Humanoid, yet strikingly non-human. Alice’s head had something of the canine, something wolf or fox-like in the set of her brow and eyes, a little more of the whippet and the gun dog in the muzzle, too smoothly shaped around the nose and lips for the former, too long for the latter. Her lower canines, thin and pointed like the needles of a snake, gleaming, ivory white, and half again as long as her upper teeth, protruded a little over her lip, her fangs slightly less. The nose set above her thin lips was fur covered, not bare, for Alice is not a dog. The thick fur running over most of her body is pure white, soaked close to her skin in a sleek, almost waterproof pelt, and banded with aquamarine stripes like sword cuts. These stripes pass over her eyelids and down onto her cheekbones, breaking where her short lashed eyes open to reveal large, almost luminescent orbs coloured with crystalline violet from edge to edge; there is no white. The thin slits of her pupils do not expand, no matter what the lighting conditions, for she has other ways of seeing in the dark. Even in the dull light of dusk, her already dazzling optics glow faintly with an amethyst light that seems to wax and wane with her moods.

 

Behind these peculiar details sit a pair of ears more suited to a dragon than the leggy, athletic form of this warrioress. Fine skin like the webbing of a bat’s wings, vermilion fading to orange at the edges, is strung between four slender spindles of skin and bone and snow coloured fur. The left hand ear is pierced with a golden ring that has been crimped closed, never to be removed, suspiciously like the rings worn by pirates both of the sea and the air. Above these ears is a pair of horns much like those of some kind of gazelle, narrow to begin with and tapering to a fine point. The sunset gradient of her ears is repeated here. Sprouting around these delicate antlers is the beginnings of a long mane, a lacquered black so deep it projects a veneer of blue highlights, held back with a simple leather thong and falling to the middle of her back, the colour echoed by the thick plume on the tip of her heavy, almost crocodilian tail.

 

Along Alice’s throat, running up along her jowl, chin and bottom lip, and down over her breast, stomach, and the underside of her tail, are scales, banded like the belly of a snake or the abdomen of a dragon, titian bleeding into burnt tawny. Hanging around her neck is a thin cord, dark hairs twisted and waxed until they hold a tiny token carved of creamy jade suspended over her heart. Her broad-shouldered, athletic frame is wrapped in a thin shirt of cream coloured silk, loose sleeves falling to her bony elbows, and then a sleeveless jerkin of woven leather, scarred here and there with nicks and patches of repair. Her slender forearms are covered in bracers of a similar make, although her flexible wrists and long, slender hands, scaled on the palm, are bare. Fingers that, on another beast, could have belonged to a talented artist or musician are tipped with blue-black claws that extend a full quarter inch from the end of the digit when at rest, and can extend up to half an inch further for combat. On her right hand, the middle finger bears a thin antique silver ring with a small moonstone worn smooth by rubbing. Her long, toned legs, making up more of her six and a half foot height than would be proportionate on any other creature, are wrapped in loose, khaki coloured slacks bound tightly with clean strips of some black fabric. She wears no boots, for no boots could ever fit her; Alice’s feet are something like those of a lizard, something like a vulture or other bird or prey, something of the dinosaur, and resemble nothing so much as the hind claws of a dragon. Long, with three toes in front and one behind, they are clearly to be used as weapons, scaled soles giving way to hard horn under the tips of the digits. These polished blue-black surfaces arch upwards to form wicked claws whose upper surfaces flow back not to the root of the nail but past it, to a second point somewhere above the joint and a weird, almost triangular form.

 

Finally, around her waist, a broad black sash is bound smooth, holding a pair of weapons, edge up in their lacquer scabbards, against her side. The first, shorter, a foot and a half in length, and the second, longer, over two feet, bearing the same pattern of ginkgo leaves on the scabbards, the same tawny cord bindings, the same oval guards, the same black silk and grey ray skin hilts, and the same nine-tailed fox embossed on the buttcap. A few would scoff at the slender appearance of the blades, the strange finish to the folded steel, but those who knew of them, who had witnessed this kind of weapon and the kind of warrior who carried them in battle, spoke of them in awed whispers and, especially if they had been on the opposing side, frequently sought to crawl inside a bottle for a very long time, begging the memories to let them be.

 

Her name is Alice Icetiger. It would take far too long to tell all there is to be told about this one, particularly special mercenary. A name will have to be enough.

 

“Oi! Alice!”

 

Her reverie was broken by the sudden arrival of an overly exuberant Treejumper archer who seemed to be dogging the warioress’s steps lately. She knew better than to rebuff the young male, since those who would even approach her were few, but still, he could be a little… tiring…

 

“Wotcha, Alice!” Sloke, a s’ruth built along lighter lines than those pulling some of the wagons, scrambled up the slope and managed, after some effort of his rider, to swing around and stand beside the finicky Fastidia. The warhorse snorted, tossing her head, and indicating exactly what she thought of the weird beast.

“How are you, Pennion?” Although Alice’s tone carried the suggestion she’d rather not know, the red squirrel not quite five feet tall knew she was teasing.

“Wishing we was out of these edge lands.” He shivered, although it was mostly theatrics. “Anyways, Alice, what I was meaning to say to you, y’know, while everyone’s busy like, is… have, ah, y’know, have you got any plans for tonight?”

The fine bands of flesh that served as Alice’s eyebrows disappeared into her bangs, although she diplomatically kept her face turned away from Pennion’s eager brown eyes.

“Well, I’ve my exercises, you know.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah.” The Treejumper fiddled with one of the leaves plaited badly into his russet coloured mane. His entire body was covered with greenery, sewn onto the rough, natural fabrics of his clothes, plastered over his quiver, ground to earthy pastes and smeared over every visible piece of fur as a kind of camouflage. Alice had to admit it worked, but still, the first time she had met him Pennion had looked like a walking hedgerow. Now, he looked like a walking hedgerow in autumn. The man knew his colours. “But after, y’know, I was wondering…”

“I think Jular,” Alice waved one hand in the assumed direction of the Honeyclaw caravan master, “Mentioned something about roasting that one ox they lost before I organised the ropes. I imagine the booze will flow ‘til midnight. Of course, you’re more than welcome to sit next to me, if you want…”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that. But, um, I was thinking, y’know, of something a little more…”

Alice’s heliotrope eye had finally fallen on the nervous twiddling of the foliage-adorned braid, and remembered something.

“Pennion… do you know what this is?”

He glanced at the yellow-gold leaf held out to him.

“Hmm. Mountain aspen, I think. They only grow high up. Where’d you find it?”

“Just floating in the river.”

“Come a long way.”

“I know.”

“Anyways, Alice, like I was saying…”

 

At that moment, much to her relief, a chocolate coloured mule on a line of un-ridden mounts and unused beasts began panicking, and the eager Fastidia was in the water before Alice had even consciously reacted. The rope holding the creatures together broke, and most dove for the closest shore, where they were quickly caught. A few floundered, entangled in their guide ropes until the many drovers in the water with them snagged their leads and dragged them towards the destination bank. Only one calmly removed herself from her safety line with her teeth and sloshed through the rush of Pookha River to touch noses with her sister.

“Shymauner!” Alice barked, although there was no malice in her tone. Grabbing the line dangling from the iron-grey mare’s halter, she pulled the beast, fully a hand taller than dark Fastidia and with considerably more bulk, both heavier bone and bulkier muscle, towards the bank.

 

The young mage dismissed the image. “You know the place?”

“I do.” The head priest replied stiffly, glancing at those trying to revive the unconscious man on the floor. “If that image can be trusted. What potion did you use?”

He laughed, flicking a long, golden braid off his shoulder as he emptied the scrying bowl onto the floor with no regard for the carefully maintained encrustation of gore.

“Black ink. Clear water and black ink. You should try that some time, Kershaun, instead of half-trained priestlings and weak blood.”

“I will.” He muttered, barely disguised contempt filtering through his half-shut eyes.

“You had better have them saddle your horses. Another night and you won’t catch them. A pity…” He glanced back at the bowl. “I would have liked to see you try and fight the Icetiger.”

“Oh, my dear Sianmur, but you will.” The priest’s bloodstained teeth glimmered through his thin lips. “Did I not tell you? This time, you are coming with us. So you better have that black demon of yours saddled, if she doesn’t kill the stable boy first.”

“I prefer to saddle Tanzamia myself.” Sianmur waved the notion aside with one elegant hand. “And now, at least, I may actually get to study the Icetiger when she is captured.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“Because now, she actually will be captured. Good day, Kershaun.”


Chapter Two

 

“Well, well, well. Who’s been a naughty girl, Quoya?”

 

That was wrong. The word was wrong. How could anyone pronounce that name wrong? Everybody knew it was ‘U-wo-ja’, not ‘Kwo-ya’. Everyone who wasn’t exceptionally stupid.

 

“Running away? Didn’t get very far, did you? Such a stupid idea.”

 

Everyone who was a Dryad knew how that name was pronounced.

 

There were two people in the room. Two. She was pretty sure. The speaker, and Quoya. The speaker, she couldn’t see, didn’t want to see. Male, probably, no other details than that. They were shrouded in a mindfog. They were bad, very bad! They’d hurt me! Hurt us! Hurt us bad! Don’t let them hurt me again! Please!

 

Quoya had been hurt. And because Quoya had been hurt, they all hurt. By the sacred mother, how she hated it when this happened… how could you ever sleep when you most needed it, when the root of your brain wouldn’t let you rest? How could they be so selfish?

 

Because they had to.

 

“I bet you’re regretting it now, aren’t you? After Belladonna and Midnight are finished with you, I don’t think your pretty little friend will fancy you much. Not that she’d be able to see you, no… she’d need eyes for that…”

 

Anger. Pure fury. They could do what they liked to her, anything they liked, but how dare they touch my Jaya! How dare they hurt her? She’s mine, you bastard, mine! MINE! I’ll kill you!

 

“Ah… did I touch a nerve? She suffers because you were so stupid. What could be worse? She’s more fun that you are, you know. She screams.”

 

BASTARD!

 

“No point in trying to swear at me, you know. You haven’t got a tongue anymore. In fact, you haven’t got a lot of things… you’re a little low on fingers, toes, teeth… missing an eye… and I don’t think you’ve got a whole lot of skin either. My, Belladonna has been thorough. But don’t worry, Quoya, you’re not so ugly… I can still have some fun with you…”

 

No. Mother of oaks, no. Not again. Not that. Not that! Please! Please, can nobody hear me? Please don’t let him touch me! PLEASE!

 

“Lets see if you can still scream without a tongue or any teeth left, shall we? Your little whore could. I wonder if you can?”

 

Pain. Pain wherever his fingers touched, from nerves exposed by stripped skin. Pain inside. He’d hurt Jaya… hurt Jaya… my Jaya…my Jaya… pain as his fingers dug into her flesh… did it matter anymore? Did she even want to live?

 

“And when I’m finished, sweetheart, I think I’ll make you watch while I kill your precious little Jaya. How does that sound to you?”

 

PLEASE MOTHER LET ME DIE!

 

 

 

 

Arya flung herself bolt upright in bed.

 

“Oh, ma’am, I am sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you so…”

It was a couple of seconds before her brain actually engaged. The room swam into focus, along with the nervous looking Cat maid holding a single, flickering candle.

She backed away slightly. It was a few seconds before Arya realised she was clutching the knife she’d hidden under her pillow.

“Oh.” Glancing down at the steel blade, and at her fully clothed form, Arya tried to focus her wandering mind. “Um. Sorry.”

“Not a worry, ma’am.” Her voice told a different story to the words she spoke. The Dryad carefully slipped the dagger under the feather bolster again.

“Um. What time is it?”

“Ten past eleven, ma’am. Like I said, I’m so sorry to wake you, but you’re meeting with the Inquisition at midnight and I didn’t want you to miss your appointment…”

Something clicked inside Arya’s mind as she swung her legs off the bed, rubbing her eyes. She glanced up, fixing on the feline’s liquid eyes.

“I locked the door.”

“I’ve got a key, ma’am, and I am sorry, I just…”

“Don’t worry about it.” They give the servants a key to my door? It was hardly an injustice; no slight in anyone’s eyes, but slowly, Arya was beginning to feel she was more than a little unwelcome here.

 

“Are you wanting me to help you get ready, ma’am?” The Cat, a dark tabby in colour, hovered as Arya got to her feet. Even though the dryad stood only a few inches over six feet, she seemed so much taller, felt so much taller, than the maid whose tufted ears were nearly at eyelevel. It was a most peculiar experience, as though the girl had learnt how to be small.

“Get ready?” Arya ran her fingers through her auburn hair, glancing at the mirror that stood over the ornate dressing table. A tall, well-built woman, looking not a day over thirty, stared back at her.

 

Arya wasn’t quite pretty. You could call her attractive, maybe even handsome, but somehow her features, although reasonably perfect, stopped short of pretty. Smooth skin with a light tan on a strong, well sculpted face, large eyes coloured hazelnut brown rimmed with thick lashes and a neat mouth with full lips would all, alone, have made her rather alluring, but something about the set of that mouth, the coolness of those eyes, and the strange lack of extreme emotion in that face made her appear standoffish. Her tangled curls were on the darker side of red-brown, falling any old how, and reaching just to her shoulders, which were broader than is normal in women. Long limbs and strong lines typified her form; broad palmed hands with long fingers and short nails, an undefined waist flowing into a slight but smooth curve over her hips, toned legs and well formed biceps.

 

A pair of well worn and mud splattered breeches were tucked into knee high riding boots made from tough horsehide leather, fastened with a plaited belt and a brass sycamore leaf buckle. On each hip hung an elegantly tooled leather pistol holster, each finished with a twisting design of leafy vines and galloping horses. They were empty, the elaborate six-chamber guns themselves left, oiled, loaded and ready, on her bedside table, beside a slightly tarnished pair of reading glasses, a dog-eared, roughly bound novel of some strange, paper-like substance, a plain bookmark holding her place, and the watertight leather wallet it usually resided in.

 

Arya’s shirt, comfortably loose without being excessive and a rich mahogany colour, had a few small darns in a few places that showed clearly that whoever owned it was not a terribly accomplished seamstress. Over that a long coat of a nondescript brown, unbuttoned, slit at the back for riding, with a pair of leather gloves shoved into one breast pocket and the collar turned up against weather that she’d left outside hours ago. The right epaulette bore seven uncomplicated loops of rust coloured braid under plain brass buttons that hadn’t been polished in a while. Her hat, mottled horsehair felt, had fallen off onto the pillow; it’s low crown and broad brim slightly crumpled against the crisp white cotton. The dryad suddenly felt slightly guilty about the fact that she’d wrinkled the bedclothes quite badly.

 

“Yes, ma’am. Get ready. You are going to get ready, aren’t you?” the maid raised her eyebrows in a way that, if Arya had been at all aware of it, would have been considered cheeky. But she was suddenly preoccupied with her reflection.

“There’s something wrong with how I’m dressed now?”

“Oh, no, ma’am… nothing wrong, exactly, but you couldn’t go talk to the Inquis-”

“Why not?” Arya turned to glare at the Cat, who shrank back, aware she might have crossed the line.

“If you’ll pardon me saying, ma’am… you want to make a good impression… all the Hunters dress up in their best for the Meets… well, except…”

“Except?” the woman prompted, folding her arms when the maid’s explanation faltered.

“Well, except for old Crow, ma’am, but he only gets away with it because…”

“Because?”

“Because… well, because…”

“Spit it out, girl.”

Glancing around, one paw at her throat, the tabby muttered.

“Because he’s old and lost his mind, ma’am, but that’s just what everyone else says!”

Arya glanced at herself in the mirror again. She was beginning to feel like she was out of her depth.

“Oh.”

“So do you want me to…?”

“Um. Yes. All right. Um. Where do we start?”

“Do you have a nice dress, ma’am?”

 

The Cat shrank back again when Arya sent a withering glance her way.

“I am an officer, you know. Only politicians wear dresses.”

Someone unfamiliar with the dryad ecology would have found the amount of spite that could be crushed into one word, even if it was a word with four syllables, rather peculiar. The confused maid turned the sentence around in her head until it made some sort of sense to her.

“Officer? Oh! You’re in the army.”

“Dryad Army, yes.”

“Dress uniform?” Was the timid suggestion.

“Left it at home. Didn’t think I’d need it.” Feeling like perhaps she should venture something more helpful, Arya added, “But I think I’ve got a decent shirt somewhere. Um. It’s blue. And my second best pair of boots haven’t been worn in a while.”

The tabby maid glanced at the saddlebags slung over the end of the four-poster bed’s footboard.

“It’ll need ironing.” She interjected mournfully. Arya snorted, moving over to root through the bags.

“Not if I’ve packed it right.” She dumped an armful of random small bags and bundles, containing everything from soap, a comb and toothbrush to the makings of a fire to bullets, onto the bed and hauled out the shirt in question. The maid was rather surprised. It wasn’t quite pristine, since it had been crushed at the bottom of a bag that had been thrown on and off a horse for goodness knows how long, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that despite the fact that everything the dryad was currently wearing was brown; the shirt was a brilliant peacock blue.

“Hang on, I’ve got my smart black trousers too. I didn’t think I packed those…”

“Oh, that’s good, ma’am. But you’ll need another coat…”

“I’ve only got this one.”

“Well, it’ll need a pretty brisk brush down and the buttons polished…”

“It’ll be alright if you get the majority of the mud off.” Arya waved that aside, scraping her hair back from her face with one hand.

“I’ll give it a good go. And I’ll polish those boots for you.” The Cat had finally worked out that nothing was going to be even reasonably clean unless she pushed for it. “I’ll take them and do that, and in the mean time you can have a wash and sort your hair…”

“What’s wrong with my hair?”

“It’s full of knots.” The maid had run out of patience for this woman that didn’t understand presentation. Arya ran her hand through it again and noted the number of snags.

“Point taken. I’ve got a comb.”

“You need a brush.”

“I don’t have one. I’ve got a comb. It’ll have to do. You just clean my coat… be careful with my insignia. That braid comes up really well with a bit of soap and water.” The dryad slipped out of the garment in question, dropping across her arms. She dropped the second best pair of boots, slightly darker in colour but considerably cleaner, on top. “Run along now.”

“I’ll have one of the boys bring up a pitcher of water in just a moment.” The Cat replied, manoeuvring through the door with her arms full. Arya closed it behind her and peered at herself in the mirror yet again.

 

How many days had she been in this land of churches and bureaucracy? Since she arrived in Gaul, probably, a good month. A month. Up until now it’d been alright, admittedly there had been a slight language barrier and she’d had to sleep with a knife under her pillow at all times, but the people in the little inns and taverns she’d stayed in had been her kind of people. They worked hard at jobs they knew how to do every day, understood the values of a good horse and a good hound and good dark ale, and wanted nothing more than a hot meal and a drink at the end of the day. But here… here… here she had to meet with a sinister theocracy in the silent hours of the night and deal with well-dressed nobles who should, in theory, not be so different from herself… but they were. And she couldn’t understand them anymore than they could understand her.

 

It was all a bit too much. She wished she could go down and visit Jaskey, her warhorse, and her lovely dogs… they’d pine without her. She wished she could at least go back to sleep and talk to these damn Hunters in the light of day, where she knew who she was and what she was doing.

 

Digging the comb out of her sparse luggage, Arya sat down at the dressing table and began working through the tangles with a frown on her usually untroubled face.

 

* * * * *

 

“We shouldn’t be doing this…”

“Shut up, Scarlet. You’re enjoying yourself, admit it.”

“We are senior hunters. We shouldn’t be behaving like children!

“You want to see her, don’t you?”

“She’s got a point, Scarlet. Know thine enemy.”

“She’s not an enemy, she’s a client.”

“A client? We’re not an upmarket boutique!”

“Good as.”

“Apocrypha! I wish you wouldn’t act so…”

“Common? Live with it.”

“You’re not common.”

“No, Scarlet, I’m bloody gentry. What joy. I can act however I fucking like.”

“You’re just like some of those young upstarts, you know…”

What? Pan, if I didn’t know you so well I’d be outraged.”

“That’s just it! You’ll fight like a dragon at the drop of a hat. Nobody would know you’re one of the most famous Hunters on the planet…”

“Oh, stop it, you’re flattering me!”

“Do be quiet. It’s not meant to be a compliment!”

“What? I don’t remember asking anyone to act special because I just happen to have murdered-”

“It’s not murder. It’s not murder. That’s the reason they won’t invite you to the Meets, you know, you keep talking about them like they’re alive…

“They are.”

“They were.

“You ever bothered looking in their eyes before you sliced their heads off? Don’t tell me they’re not alive. Don’t give me that crap about them not feeling pain or the rest of it…”

“That’s blasphemy, Apocrypha.”

“Do I fucking care? Now do you want to look at this damn girl or not?”

“Well, I’m not going to. I only came to talk you two out of it.”

“Fine, Scarlet. Pan?”

“No. Scarlet’s right, we shouldn’t be spying on the poor thing.”

“Fine. You two can walk back alone then.”

“Shh! She’ll hear us!”

“Damn.”

“What?”

“She’s cute.”

“You what?

“You heard me! She’s cute.”

“How cute?”

“Well, I wouldn’t kick her out of bed.”

“Apocrypha, there probably isn’t a sentient creature on the planet you would kick out of bed.”

“Depends how good they were.”

“You are bad.”

“Thank you.”

“So… cute how, exactly?”

“On the handsome side. Nice lips. Eyes are a bit big, though.”

“Let me see.”

“Oh, now you want to see…”

“Apocrypha!”

“Yes Pan?”

“Let me see.”

“Oh, fine. But if she takes her shirt off you’ve got to let me have another look.”

“Apocrypha!”

“I must object…”

“Shut up, Scarlet!”

“I thought you were on my side!”

“Yes, but…”

“But?”

“Apocrypha’s right, she is rather good looking…”

“Pretty?”

“Not really. But good looking. Do you want a look?”

“No.”

“Knew you preferred men, anyway.”

“That’s below the belt.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t want me there.”

“You have a disgusting mind, Apocrypha.”

“Why don’t you just call me a slut and be done with it?”

“Because I’m not you, Apocrypha.”

“And what are you saying by that? Let me have another look.”

“If you like.”

“I’m not rude, crude or possessing of your unique disregard for society, that’s what I’m saying.”

“I’d argue but you’re right. Do you think she’s staying long?”

“No. There are only about three visitors at the moment and they’ve all got audiences this week. Why do you want to know, anyway? Plotting how to get into her bedroom?”

“Well, of course. When did she arrive?”

“Today, early afternoon.”

“She won’t be tonight’s, then.”

“I don’t know. Word is she’s from some state in Atlantis and it’s fairly urgent.”

“Atlantis? Ah.”

“Any experience of the place?”

“No. Never been.”

“None of us have. It’s outside our jurisdiction. We can’t go there. Poor girl might as well go home again.”

“Not before I’ve paid her a visit.”

“Apocrypha!”

“I don’t agree with all this jurisdiction crap. If there are vampires we go kill them. End of story.”

“You want to take on New Amsterdam?”

“It’d be fun while it lasted.”

“Before you died, you mean?”

“Oh, they wouldn’t kill me.”

“What do you think they would do to you?”

“What do you think?”

“They wouldn’t.”

“They would. I know more about their minds than you do, Pan, trust me, they’d do it. Stupid bastards, I’d still kill them. Damn it, why do these girls insist on wearing underwear?”

“You who keeps going on about them being alive. What kind of underwear?”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t kill them. Just means we can’t bloody well be flippant about it.”

“You’re being hypocritical.”

“Hypocrisy does not invalidate an argument.”

“It bloody well does.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Some sort of short sleeved shirt thing. No corset, though. Pity.”

“You like corsets?”

“I’m wearing one.”

“They’re too damn hard to get off.”

“You don’t have to take them off.”

“My Lady, Pan, are you actually speaking from experience?”

“Oh, be quiet. Just because you’ve had more practice.”

“Shut up. Anyway, I’d go to Atlantis.”

“I hope you do. I hope Enigma offers help so you can go. Do you some good being among peasants again.”

“Do you honestly think I care what Enigma says? Oh, for the love of the Lady, will you just take your camisole off?”

“I’m not wearing a camisole.”

“Not you, you idiot, her.

“You can’t go against Enigma… not again. Please, Apocrypha, don’t do something rash.”

“Again? Oh ho, let me guess. The old blood angel is still stuck up about Copenhagen, is she?”

“Apocrypha?”

“Yes?”

“Please don’t bring up Copenhagen like that again.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Crow, that’s why not.”

“Ah.”

“Yes.”

“I take your point.”

“Everyone knows he’s gone half mad anyway, anything could set him off-”

Excuse me? Crow is as sharp as the day those damned bloodsuckers stole his leg, his looks, and his eye.”

“They also stole his mind.”

“He’s not crazy.”

“He is, Apocrypha. Look, I know you served beside him and I know you liked him-”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Look. Did you fuck him or not?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Because you don’t seem to grasp the fact that he’s not right in the head!”

“Shut up! She’ll hear you!”

“He’s not crazy. He’s tormented and oblivious to a lot that goes on around him and he’s damn near lost the will to live, but he’s not insane. Not by a long shot. You put a gun in his hand and vampire in front of him and he’s good as he ever was.”

“That’s not what counts.”

“Then what does, Scarlet, what does?”

 

* * * * *

 

Arya marched down the stairs after the young footman, trying to find her footing in the dim light from the candelabra he carried. The young maid had been quite surprised when she’d come back from cleaning the coat and boots (The boots had been polished to a high cedar wood finish, the brass buttons and buckles of the coat literally gleaming, and the horsehair braid back to it’s original liver chestnut) to find the dryad looking more polished than she’d thought possible. The peacock blue shirt was perfectly tailored, although it was in traditional dryad style, with tight cuffs, full sleeves and an upstanding collar, and the silky black trousers fitted smoothly around the thigh and hung strait, trailing slightly on the floor. Arya had even remembered how to plait her hair in the proper formal style, a complicated series of four stranded plaits running from hairline to crown, blending together and splitting apart, wrapped around the base of a high, loose ponytail. She’d tried to explain that she’d only been able to do the simplest kind of braid, because she’d never got the hang of the seven stranded ones accorded to her rank (The Cat had been astounded that the dryads didn’t know how to do three stranded plaits, and utterly mystified by the concept that the very highest ranking dryads wore nine, eleven, and thirteen stranded plaits, or a complicated kind of twist that could only be done with two people), that this style of trousers ought really to be worn with high heeled, embroidered slippers or slip on ankle boots (The first and second best pair were both knee high, and laced) and that she didn’t have the fingerless beaded gloves or the thick lace-up neck bands usually worn with this kind of a uniform. The maid hadn’t much cared. She’d scurried off for a few minutes, while Arya put on her boots and coat, fussed over her hair a bit more, and lamented that she had no way of painting her nails or face (Another thing that had amazed the little Cat, the fact that dryads didn’t tint their cheeks or darken their eyelashes but coloured their nails and lips black, blue, green, chocolate brown or creamy white, sometimes even with fake nails make from hoof horn, and painted on pale stars, stripes and blazes between their eyes, like the markings on a horse). When the Cat had reappeared, she had a thick band of black silk called a cravat and a pin to hold it in place, and a pair of white silk overshoes called spats. Arya had liked the spats, explaining that some dryads wore one or two white gloves, or had one or both of their trouser legs finished in a band of white material, or wore one or two white slippers (Or all three), for the same reason as they painted on stars and blazes, because white feet and white markings on horses were considered lucky. Arya had always been considered especially lucky because Jaskey, her warhorse, was a rich chestnut skewbald with more than half his face covered in white and stockings extending all the way up all four legs.

 

And now she was ready.

 

The footman, a slightly alarming Newt Spirit in half-form, humanoid but touched with the most distinct characteristics of the animal form, in this case large, dark, watery eyes, pallid grey skin mottled with black and brown on the backs of his hands, cheeks and forehead, webbed fingers and a frilled tail (Arya was not used to dealing with so many people with tails, and was slightly afraid that she’d tread on it while walking behind him), lead her across an entrance hall that was cavernous compared even to her spacious bedroom, utterly lightless, and totally quiet except for the click of their shoes. Carefully placing the three-flamed candelabra on a small table, the footman opened a huge wooden door into a room so full of sound and light it cut a broad swath of gold across the icy marble floor of the hallway, the dryad’s shadow streaming behind her like an oak tree, and slashed the silence like a knife. The Newt stood aside, still holding the door, and bowed.

 

Arya took a deep breath, to quell the rising butterflies, and stepped into noise and golden candlelight.

 

* * * * *

 

Apocrypha lounged in a cherry wood armchair upholstered in violet brocade. Nobody could lounge quite like the elegant blond-haired elf, and the fact that she’d chosen a chair that not only commanded an excellent view of the whole room but also perfectly complimented her outfit probably said a lot more about Apocrypha than speaking to her for half an hour would.

 

The elves of the Emerald Isles, and indeed, all Argentom, were far removed from the High Elves of The White and The Wild, the two Faerie Courts; little more than omnipresent grace and beauty (And pointed ears, but few who valued their lives would mention the pointy ears) separating them from the common humans and the humanoid forms of Spirits with which they interbred so easily. A few racial trends remained, but they were insignificant compared to the few select clans of elves that could claim a stronger tie to The White or The Wild; the Myhaer, the Ryvhaer, the Woad, the unspeakable Dark Elves, and so on. Most elves of Argentom were pale skinned and blond or black haired, rarely auburn. Generations of interbreeding with other species (Now, thankfully, no longer allowable) had given rise to darker blonds beyond the white, silver and gold, brunettes lighter than pitch black, but extremes were not common. Mostly the hairs were perfectly strait, perfectly waved or perfect ringlets, but more and more often slight kinks and curls, or even truly curled hair, turned up. Similarly, brown irises appeared quite frequently, and grey, hazel, or cornflower blue touched the brilliant emerald and sapphire that had previously been so common, plainer colours almost eliminating the rich shades of purple, pale gold and mirror-like silver that the High often bore. And of course, in a world where the sun rose every day to warm the bone and scorch the skin, pigments became darker, although actual tan was quite beyond them. The closer an elf seemed to resemble one of his or her High cousins, the more attractive (And subsequently, more eligible) they were held to be.

 

Apocrypha would have been considered no great beauty, despite her own charms. Her face was elegant and sculpted, yet possessing of a healthy, realistic radiance and flawless skin like pale buttermilk. Almond shaped, hooded eyes were a rich, earthy green and the hair that had been brushed back into a gold and amethyst clasp was dark blond, loose and renegade corkscrew curls that hung just between her shoulder blades. Her entire body was lithe, athletic, and toned, the slightest movement of the lit cigar in one hand or the twirling of a silver-topped cane in the other perfect in grace and strength. Even with the handsome beauty of her face, the plucked eyebrows, the artificially darkened lashes and pursed, rouged lips, the perfectly manicured nails and the undeniably curved outline of breast and waist that spoke of fairly severe upholstery underneath, any beast or being would have had to think twice before referring to Apocrypha as female. Any that prized their lives would still not have used the word or any of its synonyms.

 

Apocrypha was a Hunter, and Hunters are never women.

 

Her shirt and breeches were perfect, spotless cream cotton, her waistcoat cream and lavender brocade. Lavender, too, was the folded handkerchief tucked into the pocket of her lilac jacket, perfectly matched to the silk cravat around her throat, pinned with a simple gold bar. Her gloves were the palest kid leather, the same as the beautifully tailored riding boots. The coat and top hat she still wore, despite being inside and more than a little warm, were rich violet finished and pointed in cream and lavender.

 

The rest of the chairs in the cluster, two other armchairs, a low couch and a beautiful chaise longue, were also occupied, but it was subtly obvious that Apocrypha was the unofficial head of this little congregation.

 

To her right there was a little polished oak table, on which sat a crystal ashtray, an engraved silver cigarette case, a similar container for matches, a pale blue handkerchief, a white silk top hat and a mahogany tray carrying half a dozen crystal glasses and a tall decanter of port. Just past that was another armchair, this one rich polished oak upholstered in dark, moody forest green velvet, and of course the chair’s occupant, engaged in an idle discussion of merchant politics, who in no way complimented his resting place as Apocrypha did. The tall man of no immediately obvious species had thrown his calico-coloured duster over the back of the chair and the hat on the table at his elbow was obviously his, for his head was bare. It was easy, then, to notice the braided mane of feather-like blue hair that marked him as a Jay Spirit, interwoven with brilliantly clashing black and red ribbons, even though he chose not to take the half-form more common in Argentom. His jacket and trousers were black, but not quite matched, the trousers being newer than their counterparts, which were starting to fray on the right cuff. Under this was a well-starched white shirt with a thin black bowtie that flopped to brush the highest, carefully polished button of the bright scarlet waistcoat, a watch tucked into the left hand pocket.

The chaise longue to his right was of buttercup coloured silk, and reclining apon it, illustrating their pointed comments with the exaggerated theatrical gestures of a delicate black cigarette holder issuing pale smoke, was the only one of the group, and one of very few around the room, to be wearing a dress. It would be wrong, however, to conclude from this that the rather well built young human was of lower rank, or indeed, female.

 

The face was elegant and defined, but rather androgenus, with a pointed chin and strong cheekbones, and wore more paint and colour than would be proper for any other lady. Auburn ringlets were tied into two high bunches with red ribbons, a style some hundred or so years out of date, as was the almost garish red and white dress of slightly worn velvet and less than new silk. The neck was cut square, not so low as it could have been, and the bodice neat over the creaking of whalebone under slightly too much strain, the sleeves hung with lace around the high wrist and a little puffed at the shoulder. A pair of high-heeled red leather button boots poked out from under a froth of white petticoats, occasionally twitching as their owner laughed at some wry comment.

 

Opposite, on a low couch of deep puce and cream striped silk, two more companions were seated, but the pair could not be more different. On the left, sitting closest to Apocrypha, was her absolute opposite, who, as opposites do, had turned out to be not so different after all. The lithe elf, her long legs flung out in front of her, would have topped six feet if she had stood; a good seven inches above her medium sized counterpart, who fell in the rare middle of the elven height range that leant towards the towering and the petite. Her face and spider-like hands, of which the one that held her cigar was the only animated part of her apart from the eyes and the mouth, were bloodless and the colour of bleached white paper. The effect was heightened by the pure red of her lips, the depth and intensity of her dark violet eye behind the gold-rimmed monocle, and the purplish scar that lanced across the other socket, digging deep into a vivid tattoo on her cheekbone, the Ace of Spades in almost the same shade of ruby as her lips. Silk-like hair, the colour of gold thread and immaculately strait, hung down loose around her face, brushing her black-clad shoulders and falling a little way down between them. Without the scar, she would have been a beauty among the aristocracy, despite the thin, angular look to her body. Unlike many of those around her, she chose simplicity; her jacket, casually hung on the arm of the chair (She had worn no coat, nor a hat), was black, as was her tailored waistcoat and the dead strait trousers that brushed her pointed black patent boots, the only feminine thing about her. Her shirt was a white not far from the colour of her skin, broken only by jet cufflinks and a dead black cravat pinned with a tiny crimson enamel emblem; a heart, like that from a pack of cards. This, and the blood red handkerchief folded and tucked into the breast pocket of her jacket, was the only spots of colour about her. Even her watch chain was a strange, blackened metal. She was elegant, like a raven, and perfectly at ease in her surroundings.

 

Her companion was not quite so comfortable, sitting bolt upright with his shoulders hunched forward like a brooding rook, and generally avoiding the conversation of those around him. The young man’s dark eyes darted back and forth constantly under a tatty mop of grey black hair, a white velvet top hat with a definite smudge of grey dust and a strand or two of cobweb jammed low on his head. What once must have been a fairly impressive looking white opera cape was pulled so tightly around his timid form that hardly anything could have been seen, apart from a pair of scuffed and muddy white kidskin boots, except that it was so torn and tattered, streaked with dust and daubed in mud, that it revealed a froth of equally mistreated fabrics; every shade of grey from iron to Payne’s, the occasional other white, and every so often a flash of clear, sapphire blue. Anyone who stared for long enough was liable to notice that he was rocking slightly, back and forward, with a subdued but erratic anxiety.

 

The final member of the little communion, sitting primly in a low backed chair of dark umber leather, was a riot of colour beside the black and white. The beautifully tailored jacket of deep forest coloured linen matched an emerald pinned cravat, blending into a waistcoat of intricate, almost forest like brocade touched with gold thread, a pale green shirt and riding breaches, and dark riding boots. A green oilcloth so dark it was not far from black made his long duster, although the hat on his lap was a little paler in colour. Above all this, however, the handsome face was framed with jaw length waves of almost ivy coloured hair, and the bright, sparkling eyes changed like sunlight on the woodland floor. A tassel-topped cane twirled between nimble fingers as the conversation floated around it.

 

Someone was in full flow on the current state of affairs concerning the Free Port of Calais, although Apocrypha wasn’t paying much attention, and someone else was commenting on the stock options of the aforementioned, which she was completely ignoring, when she spotted her.

 

“And of course, last month’s heat wave on the channel has been spoiling the fish cargo. That’s an industry on the road to being crippled overnight. Usually the pirates would leap on an opportunity this big, but how can a Cete catch fish?”

“Unless we all develop a taste for the flying kind.”

“Don’t say such silly things, Mask. I’d wondered why the stock had dropped so quickly. A good time for buying, if the market recovers, that is.”

 

Timid, like a stalked doe. Easy bait. She looked so different in blue and black, little ringlets hanging down around her oval face from the elegant hairstyle. So unlike everyone around her!

 

“The wizards seem to think the temperature will drop soon.”

“That’s right; drop right into winter snows and jeopardise the North Sea fishing.”

“So the market might not recover? I’d better look into that… see if I can weasel a decent report out of the weather bureau.”

“They’ll run off something short term and stretch it out for a few months. That’s what they always do.”

“Not to me, they don’t. I always tell them I’ll be handing it over to the papers when I’m finished.”

 

She sauntered into the room with a kind of weird nonchalance, ignoring the strange stares she was receiving but glancing around for some point of recognition. Not such a doe after all; more like a mother boar. Her Hunter’s instincts twitched familiarly as she watched the graceful movement of the long, well muscled limbs.

 

“I bet that makes them jump.”

“Oh, it does.”

“Hurrah for the media, proof that the country is indeed governed by the dullest section of the proletariat!”

“You do talk such rubbish, Mask.”

“Exactly. What do you think, Jack?”

The elf took a long drag on her cigar before answering, in a slow, rather bored voice.

“I think,” She examined the fingernails on her free hand with lacklustre interest. “That we should stop talking about bloody fish.”

 

Our Lady, she was beautiful! None of this insipid, pinched, s-curved couture that was so damn popular at the moment. There was a brain under those dark auburn plaits, muscle under the flowing lines of that azure shirt, and a line in those eyes that could put six bullets into a square not more than two inches across.

 

In the ensuing laughter, Apocrypha stretched in a distinctly feline manner and got to her feet, shrugging off her coat and hat as she did so. The abashed young man with the jade hair, smiling at his own seriousness, glanced up at the graceful Hunter.

“Where are you off to, then, Apocrypha?”

She clapped a hand on his shoulder as she passed him, stooping slightly so her coy statement would not be overheard.

“I’m going to go be hospitable to our guest.”

 

The rest of the congregation watched her go, a mixture of curiosity and tantalising suspicion on their faces. The red-waistcoated Jay Spirit made a small noise of realisation as he spotted the Dryad at the back of the room.

“Ahhh… I see.”

“What do you see?” the red and white dress sat up sharply, scanning the room in a most indiscreet manner. The Jay pulled him back by the shoulder, nodding his head slightly in the direction of the door. Jack smiled in a slightly intimidating manner, the first emotion she’d shown all evening.

“Ten guineas says Apocrypha doesn’t get her before six o’clock tomorrow morning.”

 

There was a brief pause.

 

“I’ll take that bet.”

“Call if fifteen.”

 

* * * * *

 

“So… you must be the young lady from the Dryad delegation.”

Arya turned quickly to face the person who had addressed her. Apocrypha bowed fluidly, then offered her hand. The dryad shook it, a little stunned.

“Lord Apocrypha, at your service.”

“Major Arya Beech, very pleased to meet you.” Arya went a little pink when she realised that she was a good six inches taller than the elf, even with the Hunter’s high heeled riding boots. Apocrypha only smiled slightly.

“I’d like to say I’ve heard all about you, but I’m afraid the Council has kept you quite secret. Do come over and have a glass of brandy, won’t you?”

“Thank you. I could use a drink.” Apocrypha smiled and nodded, then turned gracefully and sauntered back towards the little cluster of chairs. She glanced over her shoulder only once to make sure Arya was keeping up. The dryad’s gaze moved slowly from the left and right slowly as she followed, not enough to seem wary or nervous, but enough to show the seasoned Hunter that she was on her guard and uncomfortable in the sprawling meeting room.

 

The elegant young gentleman in green got to his feet as they approached. Nodding to Apocrypha, he bowed low to the dryad, who returned the gesture with a slight nod. She still hadn’t learnt to predict the actions of the mysterious Hunters, and thus everything they did kept her a little off balance.

“Good evening, miss-?” He paused, and it took a moment for Arya to work out what was expected of her.

“Major Arya Beech,” She half stammered, cursing her own clumsy words. “And you?”

“Sir Pan.”

“Pleased to meet you.” She offered her hand, and he shook it with a slight smile.

“The pleasure’s all mine. Allow me to introduce you-”

 

As the jade haired young man turned to the rest of the party, his hand on Arya’s elbow to guide her forward, the red and white dress sat up immediately and held out their hand.

“How d’you do, Major? I’m Mask-”

“Who is a little impatient when it comes to strangers.” Pan interrupted with a touch of contempt. Arya, however, smiled honestly, shaking the outstretched hand, which thankfully wasn’t the one twirling the cigarette holder.

“Pleased to meet you, Mask.”

“And this is Sir Scarlet,” The Jay spirit inclined his head, a gesture which the Major returned, “Sir Jack, and Sir Sapphire.” The elegant elf only moved her eyes onto the dryad with a calculating expression, the tattered young man reacting not at all. “I believe you have made the acquaintance of Lord Apocrypha already?”

“Only just.” Arya replied. Mask swivelled his feet off the end of the chaise longue, patting the buttercup silk as Pan returned to his chair, and the dryad took the seat a little uneasily.

 

“Do tell us about yourself!” Mask twittered, “We’ve heard nothing at all and we do so like to gossip-”

“Or at least some of us do.” Scarlet muttered. The corner of Arya’s mouth twitched.

“Where are your companions? How on earth did you get them to hold a Meet so quickly? Oh, but you’ll have a glass of port?”

“I-” Arya paused, confused, and latched onto the last question as Scarlet was already pouring out glasses of the dark liquor. “Yes, please, thank you. You’re very kind.” She accepted the small crystal flute gingerly, unused to such small, delicate objects, and continued. “And I’m the only one. I came alone. We couldn’t spare the men, even I’ve got to be headed back tomorrow, which sort of answers the second question.”

“It’s serious, then? You’ll have to forgive me,” Pan shifted in his chair so he could speak to her more easily. “But we’ve heard nothing at all about why you’ve come. Most unusual.”

“Well… it’s simple, really. And serious. Very serious. There’s always been the war on the northeastern borders, but about a year ago… strange things started happening.”

“A war? Between who?” Mask frowned. Arya caught herself.

“Oh, sorry, you won’t know the situation in Atlantis. Basically there’s the continent,” Arya’s hands described a shape in the air. “With the Alchemist Provinces to the north and the east and the free lands to the west and the southeast. The southwest here is us. Everything else is the Human Provinces, and hence the trouble.”

“I’ve heard the Humans are quite aggressively expansionist.” Scarlet mused, meaning only to move the conversation forward. Arya nodded.

“We used to share borders with sixteen, of varying sizes. If it isn’t one of them, it’s another. We beat one Province into submission, another one gets time to build an army together. About nine of them were only big enough that we had to fend off the occasional raid and stop them from poaching our land, but the remaining seven thought they were tough enough to try and actively increase their holdings. Not enough natural boundaries, that’s our major issue. The problem at the moment is that one of them, one with a nasty reputation at that, has absorbed five minor and three larger Provinces, negotiated treaties with most others it borders and really got it’s act together. We’re now facing one Province that is actively trying to destroy us, and another ten that are supporting it with trade and mercenaries. At least six of those are minor or not so minor holdings that, because of what mountains and rivers we do have, are almost impossible to attack. The remaining four are now protected by the fact that our borders have been pushed back about a day and a half’s ride. We don’t have the troops or the horses to keep this up, much as we try. If we can regain that ground we’re in with a fighting chance, but if we can’t… it’s soft hills down to flat grassland all the way to Sh’han T’hau. There’s nothing to stop them eradicating us except our troops, which are being decimated…”

“And… our involvement?” Apocrypha was lounging in her chair, not touching her port and watching the woman through hooded eyes. Arya paused, eyes slightly unfocussed as she took a large swallow from her glass.

 

“This Province is using vampires as shock troops.”

There was a deadly silence, the murmur of restrained speech from the rest of the room washing over the little congregation. Mask blew a smoke ring thoughtfully.

“How many?”

“We don’t know. It doesn’t matter, anyway, because there’s always more by the next morning. They haven’t managed to turn any of our own troops, yet, but we…” Arya closed her eyes for a moment, swallowing on a throat suddenly dry, yet her voice didn’t waver. “We sometimes find the bodies from where they’ve tried. They know our tactics, our vulnerabilities, and we have few ways of fighting them. The Province seems happy to sacrifice it’s own soldiers to them, and why shouldn’t they? They’re getting back stronger, faster, more deadly fighters in return. We don’t have much of a hope unless we can get rid of the vampires. In fact, we don’t have a hope at all.”

 

Again, that silence, only this time it was the silence of each Hunter making his or her own private calculations. Finally, it was Jack who reacted, tapping the ash of her cigar into a silver ashtray.

“At least two parties, eight or nine experienced Hunters a piece.” She stated, in her cold, languorous voice. Scarlet let out a long, low whistle.

“I was thinking more towards if it would be possible with ten or eleven total, Enigma has always refused to commit anymore than that to a single cause…”

“Enigma be damned.” Apocrypha snapped, electing mixed responses of embarrassment and… was it fear? “Jack’s right, at least two lots of sixteen, if not three.”

“Excuse me… how did you make two eights into two sixteens?” Arya’s head was starting to whirl. Mask, ever the fountain of useless information, twirled his cigarette holder pointlessly.

“Eight or nine experienced Hunters, about half of which will have apprentices, and about two thirds of that total number of newly accepted Hunters, of which you’d be surprised just how many we’ve got lying around.”

“Half of whom, not half of which. Honestly, Mask…”

“Oh, leave me alone, Pan.”

“Newly accepted?” Arya blinked. “So in other words totally inexperienced?”

“We find inexperienced Hunters often become experienced Hunters very fast.” Apocrypha replied with an air of quiet satisfaction. The dryad raised an eyebrow.

“Or?”

“Or they don’t.” Was Jack’s deadpan reply.

“But the votes…” Pan made a gesture of hopelessness. “It’ll never get through. It’s outside our jurisdiction…”

“A force like that, though, will soon start to encroach on Europe. Remember to bring that up, if you can.” Scarlet finished with an aside to Arya, who was more than a little confused.

 

Pan was transparent enough, although she wasn’t at all sure she liked him. He, she was almost certain, was the kind of man who would shrug and explain that it was beyond his control, honestly, and with sadness, but never daring to question the authority of those above him. Scarlet, who was a little closer to Arya’s own temperament, or at least from what she’d seen, was doing his best to find a way to do what was right without stepping on the toes of his superiors. Poor Mask, likeable enough, wasn’t the brightest candle of the lot and offered nothing once the conversation turned serious. Jack, who Arya was quite sure she didn’t like but respected none-the-less, was the calculating one – in but a few moments, she’d worked out, with an accuracy that the dryad couldn’t speculate on but that the others obviously trusted unerringly, the number of men needed to do the job. Sapphire was quite clearly out of his mind.

 

And Apocrypha…?

 

Too many questions. Too many mysteries. Why did she speak of Enigma, whoever that was, with such contempt, when the others obviously did not dare speak ill of them? They had all reacted to her dismissive comment; Mask, Pan and Scarlet glancing over their shoulders as though expecting to find Enigma lurking there, listening to them, Jack’s eyes darting with a nervous speed that she had not previously exhibited, and even Sapphire had jumped. The elf was so direct in her speech, not wasting words, inserting whatever phrases necessary into the conversation to see that it yielded the information she wanted, yet for that always elegant, always well spoken. The others obviously deferred to her in no small way, yet she seemed to have no official authority. Or did she? After all, it was ‘Lord’ Apocrypha.

 

“Excuse me, but no one’s explained to me exactly how this works… who votes?”

“Oh my, you poor thing, nobody’s told you what’s done?” Mask clapped one hand over a non-existent bosom in shock. “What happens, see, is that you’ll take the floor first and make your case.”

“You’ll be called up by Enigma after she’s opened the Meet. The centre of the floor, in front of the high table, is normally the best place to stand – there’s nothing to say you have to, but it’s usually a good idea. And thank Enigma – just ‘Sir’ is sufficient. It might not do any good but it’s better to stay on Enigma’s good side.” Pan interrupted quickly. Arya nodded as Mask launched off into an extensive explanation.

“And then Enigma or someone from the high table will call on anyone who wants to speak in response. Normally they just catch their eye or something, but sometimes Enigma just asks people. Probably one or two idiots will say something about Atlantis not being our responsibility, but some one is sure to speak up in favour as well… quite possibly a fair few people. Bear in mind that the high table – that’s Enigma and a few other bigwigs – can question you or any other speaker at any time, but nobody else can. And at some point someone will ask Jack to speak, because they always do, and she’ll tell them how many Hunters she reckons it’ll take-”

“Jack trained as a computer with the Army before she became a Hunter. You put the facts in, you get a number out, and it’s usually extremely accurate.” Pan added, although Jack herself didn’t seem to be listening.

“And then Enigma will call a vote. Those in favour stand, those not in favour stand, and so on. Although it’s only the Hunters that vote, not the apprentices, but they sit separate anyway so that doesn’t really matter. And that’s really just so the high table can get an idea of what the general feeling on the matter is, because then the high table vote in favour or not in favour and that’s what counts. Enigma doesn’t technically vote, but she says whether or not she agrees with the feelings of the Hunters and the high table’s verdict, which sometimes affects how they vote. And she’s got power of veto, so although sometimes she’ll let a ruling she disagrees with slip by, she’s quite happy to overrule the whole body if she has to.”

“That… sounds rather complicated.” Arya admitted, a little stunned. Mask shrugged.

“That’s democracy. Don’t you have democracy where you come from?”

A little sourly, the dryad replied, “Sh’han T’hau’s government is based on the fact that any group bigger than three people can’t ever make it’s mind up.”

She wasn’t sure, but Arya was almost certain Apocrypha chuckled softly at this.

 

“I… ah, we’re being called in.” Pan glanced over to the other side of the room, where a set of double doors had opened and people were slowly filtering through. Arya got to her feet as the others did, draining her port glass nervously and setting it down on the little table. She caught Apocrypha looking back at her strangely, and took a few steps, making to follow the Hunter…

 

… and stopped abruptly.

 

Glancing down, Arya realised that Sapphire (Who hadn’t risen when the others did) had lunged for her sleeve when she moved past him and was now clinging to it with both hands, rubbing his cheek against her arm and purring softly.

 

Carefully untwining his fingers from the fabric, Arya half bowed apologetically. “I’m very sorry, I have to go now.” He made a whining noise in the back of his throat as she moved away, and she muttered over her shoulder. “After this, you can have it. I doubt I’ll be going to many more social functions.”

 

Again, she wasn’t totally sure. But this time Arya was convinced Apocrypha smiled slightly.

 

“You look somewhat nervous.” The blond Hunter muttered as the dryad drew level.

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“Quite.” Glancing around inconspicuously, Apocrypha muttered. “Enigma hasn’t authorised a single expedition in months. She is going to do every damn thing in her power to veto it, you know. You mustn’t let that happen.”

“And how exactly do you suppose I do that?” Arya snapped, trying to keep her voice low as they hung back, letting the others go before them.

“We’ll be behind you. She can’t fight us all. She can try, but she’ll have a mutiny on her hands.”

“What, you six?” Raising an eyebrow, the elf wedged her top hat low over her eyes.

“Not just my little retinue, no.” Her plump mouth twitched in something that could have been mirth. “All of us. The Hunters.”

“And how d’you know that?” Arya’s voice was getting tenser and tenser as there were fewer and fewer people before them left to file through the doors and down a broad flight of stairs.

“Trust me. Oh, we may look and act like refined and well bred young gentlemen – and some of us might even believe that we are.” She made a face somewhere between a knowing smile and a slight scowl. “But we are killers, after all. We’ve been cooped up since last January, almost like she’s punishing us for that little… incident.”

“Little incident?”

“I’ll explain later, if I get a chance.”

“So you’re going to help my people just because you’re desperate to kill something?” Arya glanced sideways in disgust. Apocrypha smiled that mysterious smile again, and the dryad became aware of the creeping sensation that despite her air of sophistication the elf was, perhaps, more than a little unhinged.

“Have you ever seen a fox hunt, Major?” The last few Hunters had slipped through the doors and now Apocrypha, a hand on the dryad’s shoulder guiding her forward, followed them at a brisk pace.

“No, but I think it’s basically the same as how we hunt. Horses and dogs.” Arya allowed herself to be led, glancing around her nervously. The décor had changed sharply – the walls bare stone illuminated by torches, not lamps, the steps beneath their feet cold flagstone and the corridor more of a tunnel.

“It’s no accident we use the same terminology. The only true Hunters are the High Table, and Enigma is the Master of the Hunt – we are just the hounds. Enigma chooses the quarry, we chase it, and the High Table follows and reaps the glory.” Apocrypha now no longer bothered to keep her voice low, but the pace was increasing as they hurried down the long steps.

“Then how can you have any influence?”

“You’ve dogs of your own I hear, Major.” The Hunter grinned, this time actually grinned with a wicked kind of pleasure, and Arya became convinced that the woman was quite insane. “You know what they’re like when you haven’t let them out for a few days? Imagine what they’d be like after a year and a half.”

 

Arya swallowed nervously as they came to an abrupt halt. The corridor bottlenecked into a narrow doorway, through which the massed Hunters were filing. Before, the multicoloured throng had seemed almost comical, certainly harmless, and she’d wondered why she’d been sent several hundred miles to ask these… these gentlemen for help. But now, after Apocrypha’s sinister missive, the dryad could see them in a different light… there a slight limp, here a hand cocked to the hilt of a sword that wasn’t there, there a young man (Or was it a woman?) with the right side of their face a mess of scar tissue. Two beautiful women with sharp eyes and sharper teeth and hair almost down to their feet, wet and tangled with seaweed and pearls, the hems of their skirts soaked and brushed with sand and mud. A Starling spirit in a powder blue duster, one hand broken and twisted and healed into a nearly useless kind of claw. A heavyset centaur with shod hooves and the pale lines of whip scars across his hindquarters who had to bend low from the waist, hat in hand, to enter the far chamber. Claws and teeth and the catlike grace of trained killers. Not all of them, of course, the real horror shows were dotted in amongst people so normal that Arya wouldn’t have looked twice at them, people she couldn’t imagine with a gun in their hands…

 

And by the sacred Oak, even Apocrypha and her little band of lackeys! Jack was missing an eye, Sapphire was mad as the proverbial hatter, the elf herself… dangerous. And here she was, almost trusting her. Again… dangerous.

 

“One last thing.” Apocrypha muttered out of the corner of her mouth. “Don’t be taken in by Enigma. Don’t anger her. Avoid meeting her eyes. And whatever you do, for the love of the Lady, don’t let her scare you.”

“Who is this Enigma? Why the hell is she so important?” Arya snapped back, struggling to keep her voice low. The Hunter’s eyes twinkled.

“What, the old Blood Angel? I told you. She’s in charge. She…” And here the elf’s mouth twisted in disgust. “…Was the first.”

 

“Blood Angel?” Arya muttered, frowning, but Apocrypha had already stepped away.

“A moment, Ascot!” The centaur that had just paused through the narrow doorway paused, glancing back, as the other Hunters stepped aside to let Apocrypha through, the gentle hum of conversation ebbing slightly as she passed by. “I was just wondering if you’d seen Hermes lately?”

“Hermes? Yes, not two weeks ago. He was up at the New Forest last I heard…”

 

And so, abandoned, Arya entered the inner sanctum of the Hunter’s world alone.

 


Chapter Three

 

Alice gazed heavenward, basking in the glow of a thousand stars.

 

She had always felt a little uncomfortable sleeping under the stars. It wasn’t the temperature; her body was more than capable of handling such occurrences as waking up to find her eyelids frozen shut without any ill effects. Cloud cover, even if it brought rain, allowed her to drift into sleep almost the moment she wished to. The sun and the moon posed no problems. It was only the stars.

 

The stars tugged at some forgotten instinct in her soul, an urge to reach out to them, draw their light into every line and become as huge as the sky…

 

Because she could never surrender to that instinct, not after what had happened on that fateful night long ago, she didn’t like to sleep under the stars. Just in case the impulse rose while she dreamt.

 

“Alice! Oi, Alice!”

Sighing heavily, she turned her attention away from the heavens. “Yes, Pennion?”

“Grubs up!”

“Now that’s more like it!” Rising smoothly from her kneeling position, Alice skipped lightly down the narrow barely-a-pathway in the rock to land in front of the Tree Jumper. He glanced up at the high tor she’d chosen as a perch, and shook his head despairingly.

“Okay, I like heights and the view from that rock would make me head swim.”

“Stop being such a wuss. Lets go get something to eat before Jular snags all the best bits.”

“Agreed. Once Old Tubbs gets his claws into something he doesn’t let go too easily.”

“You shouldn’t call him that, Pennion…” Alice brushed a slender tree branch out of the way, ducking under a slightly heavier one. Walking through an overgrown forest when just over six foot six was not the easiest of tasks. The squirrel, of course, had no problems.

“Aw, c’mon, you know it’s true.” Scratching his cheek, Pennion snagged a fern unlucky enough to be in his path and started idly stripping the leaves away. “Anyways, Alice, like I was saying earlier…”

“Pennion, you’re being awfully earnest about something and managing to completely skirt the issue every single time.” She replied with an air of exasperation. “Will you just make up your mind about what you’re… going to…” Her words trailing off, Alice scanned the forest with a frown, her delicate looking ears twitching. Pennion managed to crush the fern stem into a small green mess as he stared at his toe claws.

I like you.”

“Can you hear that?” Alice glanced around the forest again, her frown deepening as she honed in on the strange noises. “That sounds like horses. Does that sound like horses?”

“I… uh…” Looking around with a baffled expression, Pennion half expected to see a horse burst out of a nearby thicket. Alice’s hearing was frequently just that good. “I can’t really hear anythi-”

 

A crippling explosion, the distant blast stripping a few leaves from the saplings around them and painting the evening sky with a stream of smoke and fire, interrupted his words. Alice swore in a foreign language, her sword appearing in her hand as if by magic.

“Damn it! That’s one of the gunpowder carriages! It must be raiders!” Alice nearly bolted, but remembered the stunned squirrel before she’d gone more than a few steps. Hurrying back to his side, she half bowed apologetically.

“I’m so sorry, Pennion, I didn’t hear you. Were you saying something important?”

“No.” He replied, in a melancholy tone, as the warrioress grabbed his wrist and dragged him behind her as she ran towards the campsite under attack.

 

* * * * *

 

The black horse and her rider were silhouetted against the blaze of the burning carts and the screams of the dieing.

 

The horse was not still. The fire and the noise didn’t affect her, but she was restless, shifting constantly so her feet never rested in the same place twice, her head shaking and tossing, firelight rimming her wide eyes in a demonic glowing red. Every so often she would tuck her heavy front hooves neatly under her chest and half rear. If she made any sounds, they were soft, concealed under the noise of the battle. It was almost as if she was dancing.

 

The rider in black almost blended into the sable coat of his steed. A heavy cowl covered his head completely, so that only a suggestion of a face could be made out when the dancing of the black horse happened to bring him to face into the light of the fires. He sat as though turned to stone in the saddle, completely unresponsive to the movements of his mount, yet somehow exerting enough subtle control over her to keep the nervous beast from straying too far from that one spot, and completely in balance with her erratic movements.

 

It was almost as if they weren’t real.

 

The campsite was chaos. Bodies, their allegiance undeterminable, lay broken and bloody on the trampled sward. The dead slowly blackened and burned in the creeping, hungry fires while the dying added their voices to the cacophony of battle. The smell of death, of soot and scorched flesh and sickly burning fur, of used gunpowder and crushed grass and the metallic tang of blood, was like a physical assault. The glare of the inferno, punctuated by explosions as the tendrils of flame reached casks of gunpowder, turned the whole world into a zoetrope of contrast, black orange black orange black orange black orange black orange black…

 

And it was into this nightmare that the Icetiger strode like a goddess of destruction, sword in hand and the glimmer-glow of her purple eyes blazing between narrowed lids, as the world assumed the slow motion flicker of battle rage.

 

Her sword almost sang, sharp enough to part the air, as it bit through flesh and skeleton and emerged unblemished on the other side. Blood sprayed in fine arcs, droplets scattering like scarlet rains. Teeth closed around throats, crushing cartilage like eggshells and drowning lungs in their own blood. Talons ripped and tore like they met with paper and silk, not soft tissue and solid bone. Reason was surrendered to instinct and training. It was like a poetry of death.

 

Sharp and subtle as a cut from a blade of grass, it all became real.

 

Alice swung her katana upwards with both hands tight on the hilt, splitting a man from groin to hip and ignoring the shockwave that rattled down the bones of her arm, using the momentum to tilt her body and snake out a back foot, her talons finding the gap in her other assailant’s defence and splitting his stomach open like a gutted animal, blood and entrails spilling on the ground. Then she twisted, more instinct than intuition, as one of Pennion’s arrows sped past her midriff and into the belly of the warrior stood behind her.

 

A horse screamed, it’s back arching to breaking point, as it charged onto a pike set against it and impaled itself through the chest, going down in a gout of blood and fur and flailing iron-shod hooves and clots of mud and grass. A canine howl rung out like a brazen bell until it ended in a gurgle of blood, whether it’s own or someone else’s. The second armaments cart was torched in a blistering detonation that spread blindness in the form of eye-scorching after-image silhouettes and a ringing in the ears.

 

Alice, who relied on neither eyes nor ears solely in her battles, used the stunning effect of the explosion to her advantage, laying low another fighter with a devastating slack across the back of his knees. Snapping his neck under her foot, she dodged another arrow, this time an enemies, and hissed aloud as the distraction allowed a hardened warrior to close faster than she’d anticipated and nick her ribs, opening up a narrow wound no deeper than a scratch. She rolled with the thrust and decapitated him at the completion of the movement.

 

A massive targa, a spear deep in it’s right eye and crippled in one leg, lay sprawled on it’s side, the huge blades mounted on it’s limbs making it’s thrashing too dangerous for anyone to get close and put the bellowing beast out of it’s misery. A bloodied Riverdog, an axe in either hand and a murderous glint in the reflected firelight of it’s eyes, stood over the body of it’s mate and dismembering any who came too close. An order halfway between an affirmative shout and a desperate scream was punctuated by a rally of rifle fire, bringing another wave of dying howls.

 

Slamming her katana deep into the stomach of her attacker, Alice ripped it free upwards through his ribcage, turning and dropping sharply into a crouch as another of Pennion’s swift arrows shot over her head and into the running man that was his target. Allowing the impaled body to tumble over her, she swept the feet of his companion out from under him as he passed by her stooped form, exploding upwards and bringing her sword down in an overhand swing to separate his hips from his chest. An opportunist charged her, pickaxe in hand, and she only just wrenched her katana free from the earth in time to block his attack. Fighting the other warrior who inched the point of the pick towards her jugular, she slammed her knee into his groin, forcing the curved blade away from her chest and opening a deep slash across her shoulder in the process. Ears flattened, her head darted forward and her needle-sharp teeth found the pulse in the man’s throat, crushing his windpipe before shoving him away like a rag doll, ripping her mouthful free. Spitting the flesh away with a snarl, she twirled immediately to cut a deep slash across another fighter’s chest, dropping into a defensive stance as he turned away, screaming at the blood pouring down his chest.

 

Smoke and soot slipstreamed over the feathers of those who were capable of getting airborne like water instead of air, the night sky crisscrossed by the lightning shots of bullets and the almost lazy trails of arrows. The howls and screams were either of pain or of anger, or of both, but no one could tell which. A Treejumper archer camouflaged with autumnal leaves took another bullet, this time opening up his shoulder in a spray of blood, the arrow from his bow falling not three feet away as he slumped into the braches of the tree he had hidden in, their frail fingers giving way like tiny gunshots as he crashed down to the forest floor below.

 

Alice’s high, keening cry sank into a guttural growl as the momentary stab of sorrow at her companion’s fall turned into feral fury. Opening her attacker’s mouth from ear to ear with the razor edge of her sword, she turned to slam her elbow into the throat of another fighter, ignoring the icy pain as his sword came down clumsily onto her forearm as he fell, clutching his throat, and tore open her fur with a rush of blood. Like a bolt of lightning her katana fell on a warrior’s head as he readied a pistol, tarnishing crimson in the cold air after eating through his body from crown to thigh. Unable to follow the movement through fast enough, Alice kicked out instead, but the cunning assailant sidestepped the hasty attack and slammed the haft of his spear down onto her ankle with a sick crack of wood or bone, no one was sure which. Off balanced, Alice dropped onto her back, kicking upwards, her foot snapping his head back hard enough to crush vertebrae, his tongue lolling out as her spur claw opened up the underside of his throat.

 

The massed chanting of the small gang of bloodstained priests faltered and broke as a stray bullet picked off one of their number, their horses panicking and throwing more than one to the ground. A pair of Stripedigger cubs cried out in their sharp, barking voices, clinging to each other as they were dragged across the rough ground, entangled in a slaver’s net. The Icetiger sprang to her feet and ran for the trees where the Treejumper had fallen. The black horse reared upright before exploding forward, long feathered limbs eating up the battlefield before her as she and her cloaked rider honed in on their prey.

 

Alice was free of the melee, and not a hundred yards from the trees where Pennion had been, when she felt the horse closing behind her. Wheeling, she raised her katana to swing at the rider only to find she’d underestimated the charger’s speed, the black mare’s shoulder slamming into her side and spinning the warrioress like a top as she galloped past. Claws scrabbling at leather from instinct more than sense, Alice found a grip on some part of the horse’s tackle and suddenly her feet were stolen from her and she was dragged alongside the thundering hooves. Slashing upwards with her katana and with no real aim, the Icetiger’s ears went back when a gloved hand grabbed her sword arm, fingers digging painfully into her wound, and she lunged forward to sink her teeth into the leather gauntlet. She blindly felt his fingers tangle in her hair, almost ripping a handful free, before she let go of the mare and grabbed a handful of her enemies’ cloak instead, their combined weight dragging him from the saddle and tumbling the pair of them across the ground.

 

He ended up on top, Alice’s blade dangerously close to his face, and slammed her skull into the ground until she relinquished the grip on his wrist. Wrenching her sword arm across with his right hand, he reached round to the back of his belt for a knife or pistol with his left, but Alice dug her claws hard into his side, slamming her elbow into his cheek when his grip slackened. Rolling again, Alice grabbed a handful of his hair, twisting to try and bring her sword to bear at such close quarters. He brought his knee up hard between her legs, the heel of his hand smashing into her jawbone as he scrabbled backwards, the recoil from his assault setting the kneeling warrioress back on her heels and allowing him to get his legs free. She snatched at his ankle, but he kicked out with his other foot, taking the katana out of her hand and sending it flying. Abandoning all sense, Alice turned and lunged for the weapon, but her assailant pounced, dragging her backwards by her belt and then trying to use his bodyweight to pin her upper body down. Jerking her head back, the Icetiger gashed open his shoulder with her slender horns, and he rolled off her with a soft gasp of pain, scrambling away. Slithering forwards, she clutched at the katana’s hilt and stumbled to her feet.

 

Not more than eight feet apart, the two adversaries eyed each other up, both panting hard, swords in hand, while the noise and smoke of battle rolled over them like a cloudbank.

 

Alice’s fur was streaked with several shades of blood, and the dull ache of more than one injury was slowly creeping into her nerves. Her eyelids were wet and matted, her glowing violet eyes streaming from the smoke and dust of battle, and her breath hissed between bloodied teeth. But the katana was steady, and her balance was perfect as she eyed up her opponent.

 

The hood had fallen from his head, and she could see that he was human, and gave the impression of looking young for his age, whatever that age might be. His face was elegant and finely boned, his golden blond hair down to his waist and untangling from its plait, but despite this there was no innocence in his look, only a cold, calculated absence of emotion. He was well dressed – good leather gloves and boots, a floor length black cloak lined in fur, black riding breeches, black shirt, forest green sleeveless tunic – but not too well dressed, like he had money enough for quality but experience enough to choose his apparel wisely. It was difficult to tell how badly she had wounded him, as he did not favour any particular limb or joint in his swordsman’s stance, and he carried his Gaullish longsword with an air of familiarity.

 

They did not speak. They only waited, swords at the ready.

 

The moment when an attack should have come stretched out for an age in a split second, and died.

 

He moved first, lunging forward with an overhead swing that Alice sidestepped, countering with a slash at jugular level that he blocked swiftly. Their swords sang as they cut the air, rang out as they clashed, parried, thrust, defended, attacked, bit at skin and flesh, sought out blood like hungry animals. After a few frenzied seconds that lasted a lifetime, they broke apart, circling like hunting wolves. There would be no catching of breath this time. There were a few more injuries – Alice had scored two slashes with her claws across his brow and cheekbone, although she’d missed the eye, and the human swordsman had also taken a gash to his knee; Alice herself had a wound halfway between a nick and a puncture on her left hip and a scrape over her exposed collarbone. Neither had scored a serious hit, and although Alice was more badly injured she was quickly levelling the playing field. Both assailants were tiring; the fight was unlikely to last much longer, and they both knew it.

 

This time Alice was on the offensive, attacking with a slash and a stab, trying to bring her greater reach to bear. The human fended off two of her attacks skilfully, lashing out wildly only to put the warrioress on the defensive, locking swords then kicking her bruising ankle hard, sending them both tumbling to the trampled sward again. Alice lost her grip on the katana, groping above her head for the weapon, but the human discarded his own sword and rolled them away from both swiftly, pinning her to the ground again. She lunged out with her teeth as he seized her hands, snapping and biting, but he slammed her head into the grass, holding her jaw so her forehead was flat on the ground and her nose was pressed into the earth. She growled as he rested his forehead against her throat, breathing hard.

 

“I suppose you’re not keen on the idea of surrender, are you?” The human had a rich, clean and cultured voice, his tradespeak immaculate with a cultivated accent. Alice’s response was to slam her knee into his crotch, hissing with satisfaction when he grunted softly in pain.

“Then I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt a lot.”

 

Before she could fathom what he meant, Alice’s eyes went wide in surprise and confusion. The human had leant down and, his lips soft against skin and scale, kissed her on the throat. She didn’t even notice that he’d released her hands.

 

She only vaguely felt the sting of the dagger as he stabbed her flank, the blade sliding into soft flesh like butter, for the moment her skin was broken a dizziness overtook her and her eyelids drooped closed over luminescent eyes with a strange sense of finality.

 

The black mare, who had returned to her master’s side the moment she’d realised he had fallen, picked her way across ground churned by the battle between the two swordsmen. She nuzzled her human’s hand as he got to his feet, sighing softly and limping over to her side, scanning the area for soldiers as he unpacked the blanket tied behind the saddle. Draping the rough woollen weave over the Icetiger’s body, he moved quickly to wrap her slim frame so her pale fur and distinctive features would not give her away.

 

“This,” He muttered, as he lifted the slender body across the black horse’s saddle. “Is going to be interesting.”

 


Chapter Four

 

The second she stepped into the cavernous, gothic-styled underground chamber, everything clicked into place for Arya.

 

The size of the stone hall, more like a crypt than any building of the living with it’s vaulted ceilings fading into gloom and oily smoke, only lit by spluttering torches, did not impact much on a person used to the vast promenades of the living Mother Oak, Sh’han T’hau. The massed Hunters in all their finery, seated at tiered wooden benches much like a cross between a courtroom and a church but with the splendour of neither, were not new to her. And even the high table – draped in white linen as well laced and embroidered as an altar cloth with the emblem of the Hunters, a silver cross edged in black, proudly displayed on a red velvet runner at the centre, and wrought iron candle holders standing as tall as a man at either end, dripping tallow like greedy dragons – did little to phase her. Even the four secondary members of the high table, three men and one woman, two elves, one spirit of some horned animal, and one whose species she could not identify but who was strange and radiant, barely registered in her mind.

 

All attention was, as always, on the Blood Angel.

 

Enigma looked young, but matured – maybe early thirties if she were human, late forties if a dryad or an elf. She had a well formed, yet athletic figure – long, toned legs in tight fitting black leggings and thigh high riding boots of the blackest leather, a thick black belt on her narrow waist, and a thin white shirt several sizes too big, unbuttoned at the cuffs and open to halfway down her breastbone. She wore nothing underneath it. Her hair was thick and lustrously black, like polished onyx, and wavy, snagged back into a loose ponytail with a red ribbon. Her nails were long and coloured a red so dark it was nearly black. She was, by anyone’s standards, exceptionally beautiful, her lips plump and perfectly shaped and naturally a dark rouge, her skin flawless and ghostly pale, her face heart shaped and her eyes deep and dark and hooded, surrounded by smoky lashes. Eyes that were like pits of night, that you could fall into and drift silently within for all eternity.

 

And, folded on her back, was a pair of blood red, feathered wings, their black dusted pinion feathers trailing on the stony floor behind her.

 

Arya thought she looked rather a bit like Apocrypha, and swore she saw the Blood Angel’s immaculate black eyebrows shift a little in what could possibly have been annoyance.

 

Or, she though again, it could be that Apocrypha had put a lot of effort into looking like her.

 

Oh, fuck. The more sensible part of Arya’s brain kicked in as she dragged her eyes to the cuff of her shirt, on the pretence of adjusting it. I don’t think that was me. I think she read my mind.

 

As the man-elf at the High Table called for order (Not that there was much need) Arya’s sense of indignation took over, all but banishing the sense of spellbound rapture Enigma has inspired. Reading minds wasn’t bloody fair.

 

“Major Arya Beech, of the dryad army of Sh’han T’hau, Atlantis, has come requesting our aid.” The horned Hunter sat to Enigma’s left announced. “The floor is yours, Major.”

“Thank you, gentlemen.” Arya replied, walking forward, and bowed slightly to the high table as she reached the centre of the floor. It was a gamble, thanking all of them and not simply Enigma as she had been instructed, and she was certain that the Blood Angel’s eyebrows twitched in annoyance again, but one or two of the high table looked slightly pleased and she was almost certain that Apocrypha, seated high on the benches in the corner of her eye, hid a smile behind a gloved hand. This was not going to be Enigma’s circus.

 

She paused for a moment, her mind racing. Public speaking wasn’t exactly her weakness – she wouldn’t have been sent if it was – but she was more nervous than she’d expected to be. Okay. Start with the basics – judging by Apocrypha’s lot most of them don’t have a bloody clue what’s going on in Atlantis anyway.

 

“I hope those of you who are aware of the situation in Atlantis won’t mind me going into details for those who aren’t.” She started, half turning as she spoke. Arya remembered just in time that they were funny, here in Argentom, about turning your back on a figure of importance. It had struck her as very odd, as the tradition had no equivalent in the militarised dryad culture, but she wasn’t in Sh’han T’hau and it wouldn’t pay to annoy the dark eyed Blood Angel.

 

Who is shockingly underdressed given the circumstances and should get herself some decent underwear, Arya thought very hard as her eyes skimmed the high table for the second time, just in case, although she didn’t dare meet Enigma’s eyes again to see if she’d had an effect.

 

“Until eleven months ago, our lands were bordered to the south-west and the north-east by free lands, and along the west and north by sixteen human provinces. Eleven months ago, one of the provinces set out to conquer as much of the continent as possible – within five months they had taken five of the minor provinces and three of the major. The remaining provinces moved outwards, so the size of the free lands has shrunk and more of our borders were controlled by the human settlers.”

 

That was a good one, Arya felt, as without directly implying anything she had worked in the fact that the only reason the humans were there is because they had been effectively exiled from Argentom.

 

“Five months ago it became obvious that the humans were preparing for another offensive, and within two weeks it was clear that the target was us. This is fairly common – our lands lack natural boundaries and days we aren’t fighting humans are outnumbered by the days we are.