Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six) (13 page)

“This is the place. Backs to the wall like I promised.”

“That’s right, no choppah.”

The great hound gave a sigh and stretched himself out on the grass, paws in front, sphinxlike, and kept his eyes scanning the horizon.

Much worse
, I agreed, though this time I spoke mind-to-mind. If this was to be my final sunrise, I wanted to appreciate the soundtrack without my voice stomping on it.

I petted Oberon and he let me do it, but I noted that he didn’t wag his tail even a little bit.

Oberon said as we waited.

What would be pie?

What are you talking about?

Shakespeare had a hog-mounted monkey cavalry? In which play?

You mean, “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war” from
Julius Caesar
?

I think you might have been hungry when you heard it, Oberon
.

A clipped puff of wind was echoed by another, and in another few seconds these could be recognized as the distant barking of hounds. A horn, much clearer than before, rode the air behind it. The huntresses were approaching the bounds of the park, with their pack leading the way. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting the pack, but it was necessary if we wanted to have a shot at Artemis and Diana. And these weren’t going to be cute little snuggly-wuggly puppies. They’d be trained killers. If I didn’t treat them as such, I’d be dinner.

If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t have minded some help either—some more modern, realistic help than what Oberon wanted. U.S. Marines, for example. I’d say, “Sorry, fellas, but these enemy combatants, Artemis
and Diana, happen to be immortal. They can’t be killed.” The Marines would exchange glances, and then their platoon leader—who would be a nice young gentleman from the South, totally polite and unable to drink legally—would say, “Well, miss, we respectfully doubt their immortality, because they have yet to meet the applied force we can bring to bear. Semper Fi.”

I sighed and banished the nice deadly Marines from my head. Atticus told me once that people never survive battle because they wish it. They survive because of their actions, the actions of their allies, or the inaction of their enemies. That is all.

I cast camouflage on Oberon and invisibility on myself. I gave us both the same speed and strength bindings. Oberon took point and I set myself up behind him, back against the tiny cliff. He’d break the charge, and if any of them got past and tried to turn and snap at him from behind, I’d be there to brain them with my staff. I had a throwing knife ready, though, and two more resting in the holster I’d strapped to my thigh. That would do for some of them.

I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to dog breeds. The hounds given to Artemis and Diana in ancient days would probably not conform to any modern breed anyway. I wondered if these were the original hounds, kept eternally youthful like Oberon, or if they were descendants of the originals. When they appeared, I saw that they weren’t bloodhounds with big floppy ears. They were more like big spaniels or retrievers and of varying coat colors. They were all smaller than Oberon, anyway, but there were fourteen of them and two of us.

Their inability to see us gave us a significant advantage, I must admit. All they could do was smell us. The first one ran into Oberon, and it went about as well for him as charging into a brick wall. All forward momentum
ceased abruptly as Oberon batted him down with a paw and then followed up with his jaws. I threw two knives and they found their marks, then the pack flowed around us and it was all teeth and a whirling staff until they were still and we remained.

You okay, Oberon?
I asked.

The same. We need to move to one side now, away from the bodies, and keep low until it’s time to pounce. They’re going to be mad and pour some arrows in here, I bet
.

I guess so. Pick one and jump on her back. I’ll try to make sure she stays down, as much as any of the Olympians can stay down. You have to watch out. They’ll have knives and they’re going to be super-fast
.

Gods, Oberon
. This time, when the tears came, I had proper eyes to let them loose, and I wiped them furiously from my cheeks.
You need to think strategically instead of suicidally. If Atticus were here, he’d kill me for even allowing you to risk yourself this much
.

Oberon gave a soft whine.

I reached for something positive to say but couldn’t lay hold of a single word. I knew exactly what he meant. For all its manifold beauties, the world is never so fine once someone you love leaves it; instead, there is only the bleak prospect of loneliness and might-have-beens.

Look, the killer virgins are going to live through this and we won’t
, I said,
but I want them to feel ambushed. When it’s over, I want them to shudder and realize that we would have owned them if they were mortal
.

We didn’t have long to wait. Two golden chariots pulled by teams of stags glided over the heather as the sun crested the horizon in the east. Once they saw the bodies of their hounds, the goddesses reined the stags in and leapt out, each with a bow in hand and an arrow nocked and ready to go.

It was my first real good look at them. They’d been quite a distance away back in Romania, and the Morrigan had blocked my view before I had time to study them.

Based on my experience with Hermes and Mercury, I was pretty sure that Artemis was the paler of the two. Neither was dressed in bedsheets or the flowing skimpy dresses one sees so often in fantasy art—and they weren’t rocking the hooded-elf look either. Lean and wiry, dark hair queued and gathered in golden circlets, Artemis wore a sleeveless, pale green tunic gathered at the waist with a broad belt. She had black pants tucked into some of those calf-high boots that looked like moccasins—but none of it was leather. All polyester and other synthetic materials. And the circlets in her hair weren’t gold—they were plastic. I knew because I tried to create a binding between them and the earth, which would effectively pull her to the ground by her hair, but it didn’t work. Same thing with her belt buckle, and her bow and arrows were man-made composites too. I had no doubt that the knife strapped to her thigh was a composite as well.

Artemis was a sharp and stringy sort, jaw like a hatchet blade and muscles in her forearms rippling like piano wires. She didn’t head straight for the pile of hound corpses but circled to her right, where Oberon and I were hiding. She approached in a crouching step, eyes flicking around for signs of us. Diana circled the other way in a similar gait.

The Roman goddess was a bit softer around the edges
than her Greek counterpart, and she had made a bit more effort to find clothing that echoed her ancient origins. She was wearing one of those armor skirts centurions used to wear, except hers was made of black pleather or some other unholy creation of fabric science. She had some black greaves on over her sandals too. Like Mercury, her skin was bronzed and seemed to glow as if she’d been waxed and polished in a detail shop. She was hot, to a degree that was rather unfair.

They took very different approaches to their famous virginity: Artemis’s complete lack of attention to her personal appearance meant she couldn’t care less what men thought of her, while Diana appreciated the tease of looking desirable yet untouchable. I used to admire them both when they were simply myths, for they represented two of the world’s earliest memos to men that women could get along quite well without them and enjoy a full measure of happiness besides, thank you very much. It was more difficult to admire them now that they were hunting me, however.

Artemis looked as if she might wind up stepping on us at one point, and that would have been dangerous when she had a bow ready to fire, but she changed her path to draw nearer to the hounds. I saw that in a few moments she’d be presenting her back to us.

Get to your feet silently once she passes us and jump on her back
, I said to Oberon.

I should have stopped him right there because he jinxed it. But he rose to his feet silently, as did I, gathered himself, and sprang at her back when she was no more than two yards away. And though I had granted Oberon extraordinary speed, Artemis was still faster. Sensing the attack somehow, she dropped her bow and arrow, raised her left arm, leaned to her right, and caught Oberon in a choke hold.

He tried to wrestle loose, but Artemis held fast and drew her knife. She held it up to his neck and said in English, “Be still. I can’t see you properly, so be sure you don’t cut your own throat.” That prevented me from sweeping her legs, as I’d planned. The situation had changed. I began to sidestep to the left, still behind her but away from her knife hand. If she wanted to take it away from his throat and throw it in my direction, she’d have to do it across her body. But she was counting on her partner to keep me at bay, and I was all too aware that Diana was the more dangerous in this scenario. She still had a bow and could skewer me quickly if she sussed out my position.

Do it, Oberon. Don’t struggle
.

I don’t know
, I said, and wished that I did. I wasn’t as good at strategy and tactics as Atticus was. This entire scheme had been ill advised from the start, and I’d been stupid to think I could outwit two immortal huntresses.

Thirty yards away, Diana’s eyes searched for me. They didn’t fall precisely on my position, but they were close. I tried to move as quietly as I could but felt I had to keep moving. If she got a fix on my position, there would be no time to dodge.

“Your master is dead, young Druid, but you need not follow him,” Diana called. It occurred to me to wonder how precisely they knew Atticus was dead. Did they find where I’d buried him and dig him up? Had someone told them? Or were they able to communicate with their hounds, like Druids could, and learned from them that they’d lost one of their prey? I answered my own question with my next thought: If it hadn’t been one of the Olympians, then dryads had probably told them, or some other spirits of nature. We’d no doubt passed our
share during our run. “Release Bacchus and we will spare you.”

“And the hound?” I said, moving as I did so.

“Since you have killed all of mine, I think your hound should die too,” Artemis answered, “but I will be generous if you bargain in good faith now. This is not simply a hound to you, is it? This is a friend.”

“Yes, he is. If you kill him—or harm him in any way—you’ll get nothing from me. Bacchus will be lost forever.” Diana was doing her best to zero in on my voice, her head slightly cocked but her eyes tracking me accurately now.

“I understand,” she said. “Bacchus is a friend of ours. Release our friend and we will release yours. Everyone lives. Everyone goes home unbruised. Our quarrel was never with you.”

“And yet you’ve hunted me for many miles,” I said.

“Only to recover Bacchus,” Diana replied. She was inching closer, bow at the ready. “We never sought your death.”

“If you wish to talk, then talk,” I said. “Stop moving and drop your bow, Diana, or I might begin to suspect you do seek my death after all.”

Diana gave a tiny smile and stopped advancing but didn’t drop her bow. “Very well, mortal. If you’re willing to be reasonable, we can talk.”

“Diana, wait,” Artemis said. “I don’t think we’re alone—”