Hand of the Hunter: Chosen of Nendawen, Book II (39 page)

The cloaked man was staring up at her, obviously considering. He shrugged and said, “I don’t skulk. You kill the chief and your friends will join him.”

“They aren’t my friends,” said Hweilan.

And then Darric heard the growling. Everyone else did too, for every eye turned to look behind the cloaked man. The wolf stood only a few paces beyond the hem of his cloak, its hackles raised and trembling, its black lips pulled back over fangs longer than arrowheads.

“You’ll join them as well,” Hweilan told the cloaked man. “You can all sit on the rim of the Abyss and argue over whose fault it is while I go off to breakfast.”

The man looked back up at Hweilan, then faced his men. “Oh bells of the Hells, this isn’t going how I planned at all. Let them go.”

The hobgoblins cried out in protest.

“Oh, calm down the lot of you. They aren’t going anywhere. Hweilan would never leave an old friend behind. Besides, she’s deep in debt to me.”

“And who are you?” she called down.

The man lowered his cowl and pushed his cloak back over his shoulders. He held no weapon that Darric could see. His armor was very fine—finer than any Darric had ever seen, in fact—a breastplate, spaulders, and tassets made of many layers of fitted metal, that still managed a silvery sheen despite the layer of dust. He wore no gloves against the cold, and even his clothes seemed fitted more for elegance than warmth. He wore no helmet, and his long black hair was an unkempt mess.
His features would have had an almost feminine beauty if not for his strong chin, but there was something disconcerting in the gaze. And then Darric saw it. His eyes had no pupils. An eladrin. Why in the unholy Hells was an eladrin running with a band of mountain goblins?

“My name is Menduarthis,” he said for all to hear. Then he pointed up at Hweilan. “And you still owe me a kiss.”

C
HAPTER
THIRTY

M
ENDUARTHIS,” SAID
H
WEILAN, FOLLOWED BY SOMETHING
in a language Darric could not understand. But he knew a curse when he heard one, and this one sounded impressively foul. The wolf snapped and growled even louder.

“Is that any way to greet an old friend?” said Menduarthis.

Most of the tension had one out of Hweilan’s stance, but she still hadn’t released the hobgoblin chief. “How … how …?”

“Articulate as always, my little flower,” said Menduarthis. “Why don’t you come down?”

Hweilan glanced at Darric and each of his men. Menduarthis caught it.

“As long as they behave themselves, they have nothing to fear from us.” Menduarthis looked to Darric. “You and your men
will
behave, won’t you?”

Darric glared at him.

“Come now,” said Menduarthis. “Things are finally calming down. You don’t want to get everyone all riled up again, do you?”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” said Darric.

“That much is obvious,” said Menduarthis. “I have your word?”

Darric looked to Valsun, who looked down at the steel tickling his throat. He nodded very carefully.

“Jaden?” Darric called.

“Tell me how I’m
not
behaving now?” Jaden called. His voice was muffled because his face was smashed into the dirt, a hobgoblin’s hand pressing down on the back of his head. “I behave any more and I’ll be digging with my teeth!”

“Mandan?”

Mandan didn’t even look at Darric. He snarled at Menduarthis.

“Aren’t you quite finished with this nonsense?” said Menduarthis. His lips curled in a smile, but his gaze had gone cold.

Mandan roared and gave a sudden, hard yank on the ropes tangling his left arm. Caught off guard, the hobgoblins holding the ropes flew off their feet. One at least had the good sense to let go. But the other two held on. Mandan turned his club. The knobby end of it connected with the face of a goblin’s helmet with a loud
clunk
and he drove his boot into the chest of the other, sending him flying backward. Both went down, the former moaning and clutching his head, the latter kicking and struggling to breathe.

But Mandan merely stood straight and wriggled his left arm until the ropes fell away.

“
Now
I’m finished,” he said.

A few of the hobgoblins laughed at that.

Menduarthis spread his arms. “See? All friends now?”

Hweilan released her grip on the chief, who fell to his hands and knees and sighed with relief.

Menduarthis turned to the wolf, causing it to growl anew. “Oh, I know who you are,” said Menduarthis. “Don’t make me twirl my fingers.”

Hweilan and the chief came down together. Blood still stained his chin and cheek, but he had regained his composure, and the blood only served to give him a more savage
look. Hweilan had bow in hand, but her arrows still rode in her quiver. Watching her … Darric stared. She moved with the grace of a panther. Of the fiery little castle girl Darric remembered, nothing remained. Here they were surrounded by mountain hobgoblins, not a one of them without a weapon, led by some sort of eladrin sorcerer, and she showed not a hint of fear.

She stopped several paces from Menduarthis, then said, “What are you doing here?”

Menduarthis raised on eyebrow. “How good to see you again, Menduarthis. Thank you so much for saving my life, Menduarthis. So sorry for leaving you for dead, Menduarthis. How have you been, Menduarthis?” Both eyebrows went up. “No?”

“You and your new friends have been following us for miles. Why?”

“Well, I
did
risk my life for you. Gave up quite a prominent position in a powerful queen’s court. For you. Even risked my life fighting that whatever it was. For you. You owe me.”

“I
owe
you?”

“Most certainly, little flower.”

She watched him a moment. Though she was at least two heads shorter than him, she still managed somehow to look down on him. “And what do I owe you?”

Menduarthis smiled. “I told you already. A kiss.”

She watched him, saying nothing. Several of the hobgoblins chuckled.

“ ‘Get me to Lendri,’ you said, ‘then help us to get out again, and afterward, I will kiss you.’ Your words. And I seem to remember stipulating not one of those how-good-to-see-you-big-brother pecks on the cheek. A
real
kiss. Right here. Right now.”

“And then …?”

Menduarthis shrugged. “I held up my end of the bargain. Time for you to pay up. And then we’re even.”

“Very well.”

“
What?
” The word escaped Darric before he could stop it. All eyes turned to him.

She took off the bone mask and hitched it to her belt. But her face was no less a mask, completely devoid of any emotion. “What’s the harm in it?”

“Oh, sod it!” Jaden called. “If it’ll get these brutes off me,
I’ll
kiss him!”

Menduarthis turned to look where the hobgoblins still held Jaden facedown in the dirt. “Get off the loud fellow. He’s spoiling my moment.” Then he looked to Darric. “And you keep quiet. This doesn’t concern you.”

One of the hobgoblins tousled Jaden’s hair, then he and his companion got off. Jaden pushed up and brushed the worst of the dirt off his clothes and wiped it from his lips.

“Hweilan,” said Darric, “you can’t be serious.”

“Urdu,” Menduarthis called, “if that one speaks again, poke a hole in the old man’s cheek.”

The wolf, still crouched a few paces behind Menduarthis, growled.

“Oh, stop this,” said Hweilan, “the lot of you.”

She stepped forward and grabbed the back of Menduarthis’s head with her free hand, pulled him down to her, and kissed him, long and hard. The man was so caught by surprise that for a moment he simply stood there, wide-eyed and stiff-lipped. But then he closed his eyes and returned the kiss.

The hobgoblins cheered, and Darric felt his face grow hot.

Hweilan pulled away, took one step back, and said in a husky voice, “How was that.”

Menduarthis swallowed and blinked. “That was … quite nice.”

“We’re even?”

“We are.”

Hweilan punched him. She moved so fast that her arm was only a blur of motion. Her gloved fist struck Menduarthis’s face with a
crack
that spun him halfway around before he hit the ground.

The hobgoblins cheered even louder, a few of them even hopping up and down like apes and banging sword or spear on shields.

Menduarthis sat up, rubbing his cheek, and glared up at Hweilan.

“Oh, Menduarthis,” said the war chief, “I like this one!”

The hobgoblins led them farther up into the mountains. After returning weapons to Valsun and Jaden, the hobgoblins mostly ignored them, sparing them only an occasional glance just shy of contempt, like tolerating two stray dogs whom they have decided to feed dinner scraps.

Grunter patted Darric’s arm with surprising gentleness and smiled. His yellow teeth were as big as teacups. “Not broken,” he said. “You good.”

But Mandan the hobgoblins treated like a long-lost relative finally come to visit, clapping him on the back, laughing, and pushing a sloshing skin into his hands.

He scowled in return. “I don’t understand.”

“You fought well,” Menduarthis said. He had stopped rubbing his cheek, but his jaw and the left side of his face were already puffy and beginning to bruise. “You held your own and did not surrender. A true warrior. They like you.”

Mandan’s scowl deepened.

Menduarthis looked at the skin. “You’ll insult them if you refuse.”

The hobgoblins watched expectantly. Mandan looked to Hweilan, who merely shrugged.

“Oh, Hells, I’ll take a drink if he won’t,” said Jaden, and stepped forward.

But the point of a hobgoblin’s dagger at his stomach stopped him. “You get your own drink,
Klarsuf.
”

Jaden backed away from the steel. “Klar what?”

“
Klarsuf,
” said Hweilan. “He’s naming you in Goblin. Means ‘dirt mouth.’ ”

“He’s saying I have a dirty mouth? What’s he? My mother?”

Menduarthis answered, “He’s saying in the fight that you ended up on your face in the dirt. You can get your own drink.”

All eyes returned to Mandan. He looked down at the skin in his hand. “So this is their way of apologizing?”

The hobgoblins laughed.

“More of a salute,” said Menduarthis. “They aren’t sorry for the fight. They
enjoyed
the fight. It’s more their way of saying, ‘Well done.’ ”

Mandan looked down on the nearest hobgoblin. “Even you?”

The hobgoblin had taken off his helmet. He smiled up at Mandan, even as he rubbed his chest. “Aye,” he said. “Good kick.” He nodded at the skin. “Drink.”

Mandan handed his club to the hobgoblin so that he could untie the knot in the skin. He spat the
kanishta
root into one palm then upended the skin into his mouth. Lowering it, he winced and swallowed.

“Gah! That’s … gah!”

The hobgoblins roared with laughter. The one whom Mandan had kicked in the chest took the skin and gulped from it. “Puts hair on your ears,” he said.

And with that, they set off, going back the way they had come for a quarter mile or so, then taking a smaller side trail up into the heights.