Page 32 of Rogue Familiar

Nodding crisply, she strode back toward the library doors. Paused. Turned back. “Gabriel?”

“Yes, my heart?” he asked bemused.

“Deal with getting those water wizards trained and out the door, would you?”

Though she phrased it as a question, it wasn’t one. “As my love commands.”

She simpered, fluttering her lashes, then blowing him a kiss. “Back at you, Wizard.”

~10~

If riding belly-down over Vale’s back, every bone in his body broken, jabbing into organs he never knew he had, injured worse than he’d ever been in his entire, wound-riddled lifetime and going at a painstakingly slow walk had been agonizing, then there were no words for the mind-melting experience of doing same at a full gallop.

And that was on top of the knowledge that their headlong flight through the crappy little forest was leaving Seliah behind to be captured by hunters. Or remain a captive of the Hanneil border guard. Which was worse—the cooking pot or the campfire?

Answer: both sucked for the one trapped in either.

Jadren tried to fling himself off Vale’s back, in order to 1) stop the jouncing agony at all costs, 2) get back to Seliah and help, somehow, some way, and 3) get himself back in control of his stupid life. Not necessarily in that order.

This, however, was where riding a highly trained warhorse worked against one’s best interests. Vale cagily managed to balance Jadren in place, even as the gelding ran at top speed through whipping branches and thornily clinging underbrush. Of course, it didn’t help that Jadren’s efforts to dislodge himself resembled those of a gutted fish left to uselessly flap its gills in fingernail-deep water. Apparently losing most of your body mass left one unable to do stuff an infant could do, like lift their own head.

Finally, Vale came to a halt. By dint of much wriggling and flopping, Jadren managed to slither off Vale—fortunately feet-first—and slumped into a briary thicket of some sort. Vale’s good manners came in handy in that the horse didn’t step on him, which took a bit of fancy footwork, and returned immediately to nuzzle Jadren’s face in equine concern.

At which point Jadren fully processed his foolishness. He couldn’t extract his own sorry self from said briary thicket, let alone go back and help Seliah. However… he could send her more able assistance than his. “Go get Seliah,” he told the horse, which came out sounding like “hunh hent shshlah,” given the fact that a prickly set of leaves had thrust itself into his mouth and couldn’t be dislodged.

And then he passed out.

Seliah faced the lead hunter warily. Why hadn’t the enchanted arrow melted the creature like it had with the others? Was the hunter immune to only the arrows tipped with Gabriel’s special formulation of moonsilver or all the enchanted silver weapons? One thing was certain: she would not climb down from her safe perch to find out.

She only hoped that Vale had gotten Jadren clear. No sense contemplating other possibilities. The Hanneil wizards were all dead and so were all but one hunter and her. If she could dispatch this remaining hunter, even if it killed her in the process, that would be better than leaving it capable of tracking Jadren.

There was also the option of complying with its demand to go quietly. That might work equally well to lure it away from Jadren. Then she could be the one nobly sacrificing herself for him and let’s see how much he liked it. It occurred to her that exacting revenge on Jadren by destroying her own life might be self-defeating, but hey—a win was a win, right?

She was starting to sound like Jadren.

“Lady Ssseliah Phel,” the hunter hissed again, “you will come peasssefully with me.”

“To go where?” she called down, readying another arrow. Maybe that one arrow was a dud.

“My employersss identity doesss not consssern you, Familiar. You will come peasssefully with me.”

“I don’t think so.” She let the bolt fly, embedding it in the thing’s eye as it looked up at her. Shadows had deepened with encroaching night, but she still hit the mark.

It didn’t even flinch. Instead it actually tutted at her. “I sssaid you would not find me ssso easssy to dissspatch.” It advanced toward the tree, patient as a stalking feline, apparently unbothered by the arrows sticking out of it. “You will come peasssefully with me.”

“Not a brilliant conversationalist, are you?” Seliah scanned the tree above her, quelling the urge to flee higher as the thing advanced. Her previous sangfroid during the battle had melted and now dribbled away, leaving panic behind. Above her perch, the branches rapidly thinned, the trees in this region not very tall and less robust than the ones she knew back home. No likely candidates to leap to laterally, either. She was as treed as a wild cat from the western marshes.

Making herself think past the panic, she clipped the bow back into place on her shoulder harness, stowing the couple of arrows in her hand back in their quiver. She still had a good supply of them and they’d no doubt come in handy in the future, hunter-melting qualities or not.

“My wordsss ssserve my purpossse,” the hunter replied, pausing at the base of the tree and gazing up along the trunk. “Come down peasssefully.”

“Or what?” she taunted. “Seems to me that we’re at an impasse. You’re too scrawny to carry me out of this tree and I am not coming down, peacefully or otherwise.”

It appeared to consider, though hunters weren’t known to have much ability to think. This one was different in any number of ways. How could it be immune to the enchanted silver? She tried to recall Nic’s lessons. There had been a lot of information crammed into very few days. She knew enough to understand that working magic involved a lot of methodical problem-solving. Thus wizards had their arcaniums for working up new magic and perfecting old spells. The wizard minions of House Phel had the big workshop to practice in. She’d been in there a couple of times, seen the set up where Jadren and Gabriel had collaborated to enchant the weapons condensed of moon magic, to make them able to defeat any enemy.

Hmm.

“I can sssimply wait you out,” the hunter said. “Without food or water, you will die.”

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