Vengeance Page 3

  Chapter Two

  “It’s them!”

  Rigan guessed the bounty hunters knew about the back road because two men on horseback came galloping from beneath the shadow of a stand of trees outside the village. Both wore swords, and one sent a crossbow quarrel flying far too close for comfort as Rigan and Corran pushed their horses as fast as they could run.

  Corran cursed. “You think the pub owner set us up?”

  “Nah. I think they were smart enough to know there’d be more than one road.”

  They had a lead on the bounty hunters, enough for now to stay beyond the range of their quarrels.

  “Can you blast them?” Corran asked, as he crouched low over his mount’s neck and urged the gelding faster.

  “Not while I’m riding and trying to aim at the same time. I’m pretty spent, after what we did back there,” Rigan admitted. He knew he didn’t have the magic right now to do anything powerful enough to stop their pursuers, and neither of them was in much shape for an all-out fight after the battle with the capcaun. Worse, they had no way of knowing whether the two ruffians behind them had allies and whether more attackers might be waiting up ahead.

  “We can’t outrun them forever.”

  This road wasn’t as wide or as well kept as the main road leading into the village. Rigan guessed few aside from local farmers and peddlers came this way. Old trees with thick, tangled branches overhung the roadway, casting the length in shadows. The sun had almost set, and twilight made it difficult to see.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Rigan said. He eyed a large tree with heavy, twisting limbs that sprawled almost from one side of the road to the other.

  The bounty hunters’ faster horses let them gain on Corran and Rigan. The one with the bow nocked another arrow. He would be in range in seconds, and at this distance, he couldn’t miss.

  Rigan sank his power into the land around them and fixed his attention on the huge old tree. He pulled with all the magic he had remaining and felt the trunk move. The ground at its base gave way, ripping up the roots, and the whole thing came crashing down, so close on their heels that the smallest branches whipped Rigan’s back like a flail. The crack and thud of the falling tree mingled with the cries of the bounty hunters and the screams of their terrified horses.

  “Ride!” Rigan gasped, falling forward and clinging to the reins and his horse’s mane to steady himself.

  Rigan’s head spun, and it took full concentration not to fall from his horse. It wasn’t just dispelling the ghosts of Annie and her fellow victims and dispatching the capcaun that drained him. They had hunted too often without enough rest, and Rigan was finally feeling the aftermath. Corran had nagged at him to take more time to recover, but the situations always seemed urgent and they needed the money to get by, so Rigan kept on pushing until he had finally pushed too hard.

  “Godsdamn it!” Corran growled. “There are more men ahead.”

  “I’m done in,” Rigan panted. “Go cross country. I’ll distract them.”

  “To the gods with that,” Corran muttered, grabbing the reins of Rigan’s horse. “We go, we go together. Hold on.”

  A wagon turned sideways blocked the road ahead, and four heavily armed men waited for their quarry to ride into the ambush. Corran dug his heels into his mount’s sides and snapped the reins, leaping a ditch and taking off across a meadow.

  Rigan held on with his hands and knees, feeling every jolt as they covered the ground at a pace that could only end with a lame horse and a thrown rider. It took their pursuers a few minutes to mount up and come after them, but Rigan knew their horses, sweat-soaked and foam-flecked, could not go much longer.

  Corran changed course abruptly, and Rigan wondered what had caught his eye. Then he spied a tall oak standing alone in the middle of a clearing surrounded by crude markers, and understood.

  He felt Corran’s grave magic rise around them, as his brother began to chant. Rigan sent what little power he could muster, as Corran slowed their horses to a stop on the far side of the small graveyard.

  Rigan was the one to confess ghosts and summon unwilling spirits; Corran usually only helped to banish them. Together, they could offer the dead something rare and precious out here, far from the city and the Guilds. Undertakers in the farm country were few and expensive, so many bodies went without the proper rites that sped their souls to the After. Most would eventually find their way, while others became lost and eventually, vengeful. Now, Corran called to those restless spirits, offering them proper passage, if only they would send the bad men away.

  The ghosts came, old and young, more than Rigan guessed the burying yard held. Soldiers from a long-forgotten battle stood next to farmers and elderly women. The temperature fell, and the wind picked up, sending leaves and dust flying. Without Corran and Rigan’s magic, the ghosts might not have been able to manifest so clearly, but now they stood as a gray, shimmering line between the bounty hunters and their prey.

  Then, without warning, the ghosts swept down the meadow toward the ruffians, and the wind howled along with them, strong enough to send a man reeling. The bounty hunters shouted curses as rocks and sticks pelted them, then turned and fled as the angry spirits pursued them nearly to the edge of the road. The ghosts did not vanish until the brigands had turned their wagon and ridden off, then they winked out from their spot near the highway and reappeared once more beneath the oak.

  “Thank you,” Corran said. He dismounted and laid a hand on Rigan’s shoulder to indicate he should stay where he was. Corran looked drawn and tired, his face streaked with sweat, dirt, and the capcaun’s blood. He walked out into the midst of the ghosts and raised his hands in benediction.

  One of the ghosts pointed toward the far side of the clearing, where Rigan could barely make out a break in the trees that might have been a farm road. Corran nodded, and Rigan realized the spirit had provided them with an escape route that led away from the bounty hunters.

  They had none of the usual materials a proper burial required, but these were not bodies to be prepared, just ghosts long overdue for their rest. Corran withdrew four wooden stakes from his saddlebags, each marked in woad, ochre, chalk, or soot with one of the sigils they used to send the dead on to the After.

  Corran pushed the stakes into the ground in a straight line, leading toward the horizon where the last glow of the setting sun lingered. He raised his voice once more in the passing over ritual, joined by Rigan’s ragged whisper. The sigils glowed, and the ghosts moved like marchers at the end of a long trek, walking shoulder to shoulder toward the place where the shadows deepened, and the brothers’ grave magic opened a portal to the After. Singly or in pairs, the ghosts passed beyond, until the wind stilled, the shadows lightened, and Corran and Rigan were alone once more in the quiet of the night.

  “When we get home, you’re going to heal and rest if I have to lock you in your room or have Aiden knock you out and keep you unconscious,” Corran grumbled, checking on Rigan to assure he hadn’t gotten worse.

  “There’s been too much going on—” Rigan protested, though his voice barely rose above a whisper.

  Corran helped Rigan on to his horse, and then swung up to his saddle and took both their reins once more. “Forget that. Let Ross or Trent or Calfon take the next job and the job after that. And once you’re better, we’re going to talk about this ‘drain myself dry for a good cause’ approach to magic,” Corran growled. “We didn’t come through everything just to bury you because you don’t know your limits.”

  “I know them,” Rigan said.

  “Yeah, and you go right past them until you fall down,” Corran snapped. “No more. You can protect people without making yourself a godsdamn sacrifice.”

  Too tired to argue, Rigan let Corran vent. Corran had a point, and Rigan felt a twinge of guilt as he looked at the situation from his brother’s perspective. Rigan’s magic, still not fully trained, remained both a weapon and a danger to himself. And while Corran rarely hesitated to throw himself in h
arm’s way in a physical fight, he disliked Rigan doing the same where it involved magic.

  Later he would argue again with Corran and try to bring him around. Tomorrow, or maybe the next day, depending on when the pounding in his head finally stopped.

  By the time they returned to the abandoned monastery, Rigan had recovered enough to take back his reins and sit up, though more out of stubbornness than from a second wind. Both Rigan and Corran felt the day’s injuries and the hard ride. They stabled their horses and limped up the broken stone steps, winding through the ruined entranceway and front rooms, a familiar path that seemed longer than usual today.

  Rigan felt for the clasp that unlocked the hidden door to the monastery’s lower levels. He leaned heavily on the railing as he staggered down the stairway. Corran’s uneven gait told him without looking that his brother was feeling every impact from the attack. Rigan would not be surprised if they were both bruised all over. His aching body felt like it.

  “Did you get her?” Calfon, one of their fellow hunter-exiles, looked up as they entered the large open room at the bottom of the steps.

  Rigan nodded wearily. “Turns out there was a lot more to the story than anyone knew.” He sagged into a chair, and Corran found a seat next to him.

  “You look like you got your asses handed to you.” Mir, another of their hunter friends, glanced at them from where he sat sharpening a collection of knives and swords that covered an entire table. Back in Ravenwood City, Mir had been a blacksmith, and it showed in every line of his body. Even now, he took care of shoeing their horses and mending tools, and the times when he fired up a forge and worked hot iron were when Rigan thought he seemed free of the loss that seemed to shadow him.

  “Feels like it, too,” Corran agreed ruefully, running his hand back through his blond hair. Since they fled the city, he had grown his hair long enough for curls to brush his collar. Rigan pushed a strand of his dark hair from his eyes. Rigan and Corran bore a family resemblance most strongly in the shade and shape of their blue eyes. Rigan took after their mother, tall, thin, and angular with chestnut brown hair, while Corran favored their father with ash blond hair and a stockier build. Corran stood half a head taller, too.

  “All right, let’s see how bad the damage was this time.” Aiden bustled out from one of the back rooms with Elinor close on his heels. He stopped in front of the brothers, giving them an appraising look.

  “Fix Corran first,” Rigan said, unable to hide the weariness in his voice. “He’s hurt worse than I am.”

  “You hit the wall awfully hard,” Corran protested.

  “You’re bleeding,” Rigan countered.

  Aiden glared at them. “If you’re well enough to fight, I’m not worried either of you is close to death,” he observed drily. Elinor chuckled in agreement.

  “How about I start with the bloody one and Rigan can tell us about the adventure,” Aiden said, opening the bag he carried with him. By the time Aiden and Elinor finished cleaning and treating Corran’s wounds, Rigan had filled the others in on the hunt.

  “Your turn,” Aiden said to Corran as Rigan fell silent. Elinor gave Rigan’s hand an affectionate squeeze, then watched everything Aiden did, taking her apprenticeship to the healer seriously. Rigan felt their magic as they worked on him, sensing it in their touch as the cleaned gashes and smoothed liniment over aching muscles. Aiden’s magic was as strong in its own way as Rigan’s, and Elinor’s subtle abilities had grown more powerful now that exile meant their lives depended almost daily on their wits and skills.

  “So you went for a ghost and ended up with a completely different sort of monster,” Mir observed, never breaking the rhythm of steel against whetstone.

  “Do you think it was natural or summoned?” Calfon asked. He still had the look of a stonemason, with muscular arms and a back broadened by heavy loads. The sun had bleached his short sandy hair and tanned his skin from days spent outdoors.

  “Natural,” Rigan replied as Aiden passed cups of whiskey to both him and Corran. He took a sip, and let it burn down his throat. “The capcaun is smarter than the ghouls and beasts the blood witches controlled. Creatures like it have probably been around forever, long before the mages started tampering with nature.”

  Calfon’s expression darkened. “We need to have more of a plan,” he said. “It’s too damn close too many times. We didn’t even know you were heading out until—”

  “I’m not going to ask permission.” Corran’s flat tone made it clear he wasn’t up to rehashing the old argument.

  “It’s not permission, it’s… organization,” Calfon snapped. “Not having you two go one way and Ross go haring off on one of his damn jaunts—”

  “We coordinate when we need to work together,” Corran argued. “This was supposed to be a simple haunting. Something Rigan and I did before we ever started hunting monsters. When have we ever taken more than two of us after a ghost?”

  “You’re missing the point,” Calfon said, pushing away from the table in anger and turning his back.

  “It’s not like it was back in Ravenwood City,” Corran said quietly. “Everything had to be tightly structured to keep from getting caught because we were trying to hide in plain sight, in a crowded city, with guards everywhere. And you led us well. You’re still a good leader,” he coaxed with more patience than Rigan could tell he felt. “But things are different out here. We’re different. It’s not going to work the old way.”

  “And look how well it works doing it the new way,” Calfon said before he strode from the kitchen and slammed the door behind him.

  “That went smoothly,” Mir muttered, rolling his eyes.

  “He’ll cool down,” Rigan said, too tired for the same old pissing match. Calfon had led the hunters before Corran joined, but the dynamics shifted when they fled Below for their lives and both brothers—and magic—came into the fight. Corran had no desire to be in charge of anything, but he had a level head and kept his temper better than Calfon. Rigan’s powers, and their shared grave magic, often put the two of them at the forefront when a fight needed both a witch and a warrior. Maybe Calfon liked giving orders, or maybe he felt at a loss out here beyond the city walls, without a trade. Rigan did not doubt Calfon’s friendship, but the ongoing friction got old, especially when they shared tight quarters and had little time away from one another.

  “Did they pay you?” Polly broke the mood with her question. She stepped out of a doorway on the other side of the room; her red hair tucked up under a cap. From the sheen of sweat on her face and the traces of flour on her apron, Rigan guessed she had been cooking over the hearth in a back room.

  “Better than they originally intended,” Rigan replied with a tired laugh. “After we found the five victims and a monster the mayor didn’t want to admit knowing about. Although there were a few complications.”

  “Have you heard from Trent and Ross? Shouldn’t they be back by now?” Corran asked with a glance toward Mir, worry clear in his tone. “That son of a bitch mayor sold us out to bounty hunters. Probably figured that if we did find anything out about the capcaun and the real reason the children went missing, we wouldn’t be able to tell anyone about it, and he wouldn’t have to pay us.”

  Mir shrugged. “You know what a hunt is like. They all look simple until you’re in the thick of it.” Worry haunted his dark eyes. “Did you kill the bounty hunters?”

  Corran shook his head. “We were both hurt, and there ended up being at least six of them. Rigan knocked over a tree, and we ran.”

  “I hate knowing they’re circling out there, like buzzards,” Mir replied.

  Whatever Corran might have said in response went unspoken as Polly came to the doorway once again. “Dinner’s ready. Get your ungrateful asses in here before the food goes cold,” she added with a grin. “I’ll make a plate for Calfon. I’m not going to chase him down when he’s in a snit.”

  Lanterns lit the underground rooms of the secret basement. Soot streaked the whitewashed plas
ter and blackened the ceilings. The old monks and their builders had been clever, bringing in fresh air with ducts that led to hidden vents outside, providing fresh water with cisterns, and taking pains to build chimneys that hid the smoke from the fireplaces.

  Despite the warmth of the cook fire and the close space of the kitchen, Rigan shivered. He caught Corran’s worried glance and shook his head tiredly.

  “Nothing’s wrong. It just reminds me of Below down here.”

  “Yeah, except Below was a lot bigger,” Aiden replied, overhearing his comment. “More like a city where it was always night. This basement feels like… a basement.”

  Rigan and the others had taken refuge Below before the final battle against the Lord Mayor. Below was a warren of paved-over and forgotten streets beneath Ravenwood City. People went there to lose themselves and to stay lost. The hunters and rogue mages had fit right in.

  Polly tapped her wooden spoon against the table, hurrying them to their places. She was nearly fifteen, a spitfire of a girl, and her time as a tavern server gave her a tart tongue and a well-honed survival instinct. “Come on, come on. Slaved over a fire down here in the dark, the least you could do is eat while it’s hot,” she teased.

  “It really does smell good,” Elinor said, taking the seat next to Rigan. “I’m amazed at what you can do with the provisions we’ve been able to gather.” Underneath the table, Rigan reached over and took her hand, giving it a squeeze.

  “Onions, salt, cabbage, and butter go a long way,” Polly replied, sitting down only after the others were settled. “Those chickens you brought in cooked up real nice.”

  Rigan watched Polly and had to look away as a lump formed in his throat. Corran and Rigan’s younger brother, Kell, had been sweet on Polly, and Rigan did not doubt they would have made a remarkable pair. That dream ended the night the Lord Mayor’s guards and monsters killed Kell—when he had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Corran bumped his elbow as if guessing his thoughts. Rigan managed a wan smile and went back to his food. “You going to save any for Trent and Ross?” Corran asked.