6. Song in the Night #6
"Hab's— Argh!" Pain cries followed. Pasaru flapped twice, and his mage heaved him into the air to join the Hunt.
Commotion ahead of him, the sound of running cattle, and he vaulted the fence.
The two Hunters had cornered their prey.
One of the two lay on the ground, rolling and moaning, as his partner tried to stab something without getting injured himself.
Pasaru stooped, talons out, slashing at the thing's eyes. He struck home.
The beast staggered, then flopped, paws on eyes, blood pouring from its head. It rolled, revealing a pale belly. "Now, now Hunter," the harrier called. The young Hunter stabbed with his sword, then darted back as black flowed out. Black faded to red and the thing went still.
Jude went to the side of the wounded Hunter.
His entire body shook, convulsing. Sweat poured down his face.
Needles filled one palm and poked out of his lower left leg, as if he'd grappled with an infernal porcupine.
"Come unto me," Jude whispered, drawing from his ring focus and surrounding the needles.
They had no barbs, thanks be to the Lady, and came free.
"Be cleansed," gray-green-silver flowed over them, removing their venom. He set them aside.
Blue-green fire flared, and he closed his magic sight. He did not curse. Pasaru landed beside him. "Brother?"
The thrashing had eased, but not ended. The other Hunter crouched, set his sword in the grass. "Johann?" he whispered, worry in his voice.
Jude shifted back to seeing magic and looked at the Hunter as he would the land. Tendrils of poison remained, working along the youngster's hand and leg toward his heart. He checked the pulse. It faded, faint even by non-Hunter standards. Lady help me, what do I do? He wasn't a Healer.
Johann's body shuddered as another seizure gripped him. His pulse faded a little more. Jude whispered, "St. Luke, hear my plea, give me wisdom. Lady of Night, have mercy on your servant Hunters." He had no choice but to try.
Jude drew magic from himself, his Familiar, and a little from the night.
He hummed, then sang under his breath, "Oh, Jesus my Savior,/ my song in the night.
" The old folk hymn carried the healing magic, flowing it out and around the young Hunter's wounds.
The corrupt purple-green power resisted, clinging like toxic tar, then lifted away from his leg, hand, and—his long blade? Jude ignored that for now.
The night had lost all chill and sweat stung his eyes.
He ignored it, shutting out the youngster's twitches and moans.
Eyes narrow with concentration, he shifted his draw, now from Pasaru alone, and cleansed the abyssal power before releasing that magic back to the night.
The injured Hunter's tremors grew smaller, then ceased. His breathing sounded less harsh.
"You're done, brother," Pasaru rasped.
"I am." He sat back from the youngster. Hunting his way across Devon County took less out of him. He hurt all the way to his core. Eyes closed, he scooted farther on the damp grass, found Shoim's second box in the rucksack by touch, and opened it. The devouring sounds made his head hurt worse.
"Maistru, allow me, please." He sensed someone moving the bag. "There is a can beside your right hand, Maistru."
"Gratse." He opened it, cringing from the crack of sound, and drank.
It helped, but his magic still hurt. He heard the sound of paper, and discovered the bakery sack beside his hand as well.
He ate the very firm sausage kolache first, then chased it with more pop, and a Danish with too much ...
He chewed carefully. Anise? No, but something that should not be in a cheese Danish.
Oh, this was one of the ones that got a bit of the special-request filling instead of the proper kind. No, it did not work in a sweet pastry.
"What happened?" Johann whispered. "Defender hear my words, I hurt."
Bartolomej murmured, "The beast's spines poisoned you with magic. I help you sit."
Jude ignored the pair, drinking water and gathering his strength. He got to his knee, then his feet. The world rocked fore and aft, then steadied. Food box into bag, clean up trash, gather Familiar, that was all he had brain to do. Shoim stepped onto his wrist. He needed shelter, rest, now.
They'd reached the hidden cellar near the slouching house on the northern Hubner farm before Shoim spoke. "Brother, go to ground." He sounded a little worried.
"I will." He tried to draw a little power for Shoim's perch, and failed. "Ow."
"There's enough reflected light for me. Go to ground now." Pure worry filled his Familiar's voice. "Jude, brother, get shelter now." He lifted his wings. Jude extended his arm and the harrier took flight.
Jude found the edge of the concealed door, opened it, and almost fell down the stairs. He moved, bent double, until he found the trough-like shelf with the old ground pad and sleeping bag on it. He slipped off his rucksack, and his boots, and lay down. "Lady of Night, be with Your Ser—"
He woke in silent darkness. The air tasted ...
not stale, but not as it usually did. He sat with care, pulled on his boots, and extended his senses.
The trickle of good magic flowed as always, silver and pure, through the ground along the northern wall of the old cellar.
He pulled on the rucksack, tidied things by feel, and went up the steps. He pushed against the door.
It did not move. He pushed once more, harder. It gave the tiniest bit, or did it? "Great God have mercy, what happened?" He turned around, braced his back against it, and shoved with back, legs, and will.
Thumpf. Snow cascaded down onto him, and onto the cellar steps. He winced from the painful glare and retreated back into the cellar. Dark glasses now on face, he ventured out once more.
"Benes. I won't have to dig you out," Shoim informed him from just out of snowball range. "Call Lucy before she panics, please."
He did.
"Love?" He heard pure fear in the word, even though the phone. "Are you all right?"
"Shoim and I are fine. I'm north of the house, and will be home as quickly as I safely can."
"Gott sei Dank! I was about to call someone to start looking for you."
He closed his eyes against guilt. "I was too tired to try and come home last night. I'm on the way now. And I will be very, very careful." The snow came to his knee, almost.
"Please? I'll have food for you and Shoim when you get here. Stay far off the state highways, if you can. They're bad, according to the sheriff. School's cancelled for today."
"I will do that. I love you, and I'm on the way."
"Love you too." She ended the call. He closed the cellar door and muddled snow over it. He slipped the karabela into the rucksack as best he could and cast a little "ignore me" illusion over it. His head pulsed once as he pulled on the right gauntlet.
Shoim landed on his wrist and they started south.
"This wasn't supposed to be so thick," the harrier observed after half a mile or so.
It had started softening from below, but the sound-swallowing blanket muffled everything around them.
Clouds softened the glare from unbearable to ache-inducing, even with the dark glasses.
"I didn't think it was supposed to be at all. Thanks be there wasn't much wind. Was there?"
"Nah, it came straight down." He waved one wing. "You couldn't have gotten home in it, though."
"No, not as tired as I was. How do you feel?"
The other wing waved. "Eighty percent." He settled once more. "You?"
"My magic feels sore, as if I pulled it? Save that it not correct, but I lack the proper words."
"Anno. You twisted your magic to lift corruption that way and it doesn't like going that direction."
"Ne glumish" no joke. A half mile farther down the road, he said, slowly. "Could we do that because the poison and corruption came from something opposed to the land?"
Silence, then the faint scraping of a distant shovel on pavement, then silence. At last Shoim said, in English, "I cannot answer that."
Unable as he lacked knowledge, or not permitted? His mage mulled, then shrugged. It had been done. "The youngsters need boar spears." Or shotguns and silver, but that remained impossible, like as not.
"They do, and I suspect they will have them the next time they Hunt." Shoim sounded most certain. "If not, may I thrash them, please?"
Jude bared the tips of his teeth. "Yes, and I will assist. Then make them milk by hand."
"Yeah. You think you hurt? They have fifty cows that had to be milked by six, and fed, and one of the watering systems needs repair, or so I overheard Bartolomej telling one of the guys at the co-op gas station." He sounded almost gleeful.
Hunts came and went, but cows respected no one, Hunter or otherwise.
Rrrroooaaaaarrr! Speaking of no respect— Jude vaulted the gate as an enormous lifted pickup roared towards them, rear end sliding a little in the snow.
The crimson behemoth raced past, using all the road and part of a farm drive.
Only when quiet returned did Jude climb with more care over the gate and resume walking.
"If we hear a crunch, I am not looking," he warned.
"No. Interfering with justice by tree is not a Hunter's calling. Car karma is its own reward." A bit of quiet, then, "I do not want a pickup with that mod. Too top heavy."
After a quarter mile or so farther, he said, "I fly." Jude extended his arm, wincing as his shoulder called him a bad name. Four hearty flaps and the harrier lifted off, a dark dot in the painfully white sky. "Behold, I am death, the destroyer of squirrels!" Shoim misquoted.
Jude did not sigh, or moan, or weep. Instead he walked in the pickup's tracks, hearing the snow squeak even as it softened. Harvest was ended, winter had come.