Empire of Night

Chapter Six

Spirits and Broken Glass

“Livelier than I expected,” Inerys said.

Reining Milo to a halt, she watched the flickering windows of the tavern with an air of hesitation. Even from outside, she could tell the main commons were near capacity, as if the resounding clamor within weren’t evidence enough. She bit her lip. And here she was, foolish enough to believe it would be a quiet evening. She had half a mind to turn around and go home. Were it not for Alaric, she likely would have.

“Someone must have had quite the hunt,” he said, stepping down from his saddle.

“I wonder who,” she said, surveying the tavern’s exterior.

Of the two dozen or so horses tethered outside, there were only three she didn’t recognize. Their auburn hides stood in stark contrast to the smokey greys of the Endari Surefoots around them. They weren’t plow horses, by any means, but they certainly had no business trodding around in the forests. She supposed she was making assumptions, though. Travelers from other city-states were rare this time of year, but not unheard of.

“Passing merchant?” Alaric said, then offered, “Or a minstrel, given the rabble.”

“Could be,” she sighed, easing herself down from the saddle.

“Hungry?”

“Starving,” she groaned.

“You know, if you’d eaten something of actual substance today, you wouldn’t be so miserable.”

“I ate plenty,” she said defensively.

“Honey cakes don’t count.”

“Yes they - wait, how did you know?”

“Because you still have honey on your cheek,” he cooed, taking Milo’s reins and tethering both horses nearby.

Hesitantly, she raised her hand to check her face. He was teasing her, he had to be. Soren must have ratted her out, it was the only explanation. Until, to her own mortification, her fingers brushed the tacky patch of remnant honey. Her cheeks burned.

“You could have told me sooner,” she grumbled, licking her thumb and wiping away the offending evidence.

“Now where's the fun in that?” he asked, waggling his brow as he held the door open for her passage.

A gust of warm air rushed out to meet them, carrying with it the scent of ale and a burning hearth. The mist around them recoiled and curled in on itself around the edges of the eves. Mercifully, its reign ended where the commons began and Inerys was quick to slip inside.

Lowering her hood, she sought an open table while fluffing her hair. The yellow-brown curls had grown damp on the ride over, kissed by the same mists that lurked beyond the windows. There were plenty of familiar faces among the evening crowd, which offered her a certain comfort she hadn’t realized she missed. Where the strangers of the morning markets had all but frayed her nerves, the company of her fellow Hounds soothed her. Her prior apprehension melted away. These people were practically family.

A few looked up and tipped their mugs in greeting while others waved she and Alaric over to exchange stories. As always, conversation came easily among Hounds and for a time, they laughed and boasted of particularly fruitful hunts from months prior. Inevitably, though, more troubling topics arose.

“I’m telling you, there’s been a shift in the forest,” one of the men, Dravas, said.

He was an older man with the first hints of grey flecking his dark hair and beard. Among the forest-hunting Hounds, he was a veteran. One of the few who remained unclaimed by the deepwoods. The fact alone warranted respect, but the man had more than earned it on more than one occasion in Inerys’ eyes. He had taken her under his wing for a time after she’d lost her mother to the deepwoods.

His admission garnered its fair share of concern and the unspoken truth was, they had all felt the shift. Whatever extra sensory awareness they’d inherited from their Adai forebears granted Hounds an inherent link to the world around them. They shared an intimacy with the forest no pureblood could ever dream of. When one Hound sensed something amiss, chances were, they all did.

“Must’ve happened in the last few days,” another man, Kardin, said, “during my last outing, I felt it. One day, everything was fine. The next . . . it’s like the forest was waiting for something.”

“The migration’s slowed too,” said a man at the far end of the table, “At least in the west. The damn trees refuse to move, aside from a few stragglers.”

“Do you think it’s the whole of the forest?” Alaric asked.

The others looked to Dravas, who shook his head.

“No. Whatever it is, it's spreading down from the northwest. The villages to the east and south have yet to report any change,” he said.

“I bet it has something to do with the purebloods they’ve let pillage our forests,” Kardin spat.

“From what I’ve heard, the Guild to the south was the first to authorize open hunting,” Alaric said, his brow knit in thought. “I think this might be something else.”

Dravas nodded his agreement. “The forest preys on the humans, it doesn’t fear them.”

“Do you think the sorcerers are running more of their strange experiments?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe. Who knows what they get up to in those towers of theirs.”

“Nothing good.”

Another man huffed his agreement.

“Either way, those purebloods are becoming a problem. The Fringe has been picked clean.”

Inerys was inclined to agree and offered her own input. “There’s hardly anything left. The herb patches have been ransacked and there’s hardly any prey left to track. I’ve had to cross into the deepwoods more times than I’d care to admit just to turn a profit.”

A few of the men nodded.

“Purebloods or no, something has to be done.”

“I’m not sure there’s anything we can do,” she said.

The city magisteres wouldn’t do anything about it and she was fairly certain the Guild wouldn’t either. They had been trying to rid themselves of her and her kin for generations. As far as they were concerned, those who chose to live beyond the city-states were a lost cause. They only humored her kin so long as they continued to supply the guild with their precious resources. Now, it seemed, that time was drawing to an end.

“Those pureblood bastards don’t have what it takes to hunt the forest and we all know it. Once enough of them die out in those woods, it’s only a matter of time until the Guilds come crawling back to us,” one of their table mates said, slurring every third word.

Inerys frowned into her own half empty cup of mead, then glanced off across the commons when she sensed an unwelcome pair of eyes. A few tables away, she noticed a group of men she’d never seen before, all but glaring daggers at her and her companions. Her lips thinned. With their raised hoods, it was difficult to see their ears, yet their softer, rounder features were enough to raise the hair along the back of her neck. Sometimes it was difficult to tell purebloods from mundanes, but she had the distinct impression these men were the former.

She recalled the horses tethered outside and shuddered.

There were close to half a dozen men seated at the table, so either a few had walked, or more had arrived since she and Alaric had. Considering how long the two had been engaged in conversation with their fellow Hounds, it wouldn’t surprise her. She shifted her shoulders and quickly looked away. All the while, her sense stirred and a slow, steady knot began to form in her chest.

“We may want to keep it down,” she warned, her voice low.

Most at her table looked to her in confusion, until a choice glance from Dravas directed their attention to the group of outsiders. A few of the men grumbled, while some merely glared back at the men as they took another swig from their mugs. A muscle feathered along Alaric’s jaw, but he said nothing.

Then, the man seated beside Dravas slammed his mug back onto the table and stood up with such force, his chair clattered backward.

“I’ll be dead before I allow myself to be chased off by some pureblood bastards!”

Alaric tensed, but it was Dravas who rose and said, “Sit down, Kardin. And keep that mouth of yours in check or I’ll do it for you.”

Across the commons, the men began to whistle and laugh.

One yelled. “Know your place, dog!”

Color rose anew into Kardin’s already flush face. “You should run back to your pretty walls while you still have the chance. The woods are no place for gentle folk.”

By this point, the whole of the commons had fallen silent. The men at the other table rose as well and Inerys’ intuition flared. Some of the strangers began to wander over, all but itching for a fight, by the look of it. With the rising tension in the room all but palpable, it was only a matter of time before someone snapped. She shared a concerned expression with Alaric, who remained calm, but alert, at her side.

“Afraid we’ll run you out, eh?”

“Leave it be, gents,” Alaric said, “We’re only here for a few drinks, same as you.”

“Yeah? That friend of yours should learn to bite his tongue. Might get him into trouble one day.”

“Keep at it and we’ll have trouble here and now,” Dravas warned.

The older man fixed the purebloods with a hard glare, his jaw set. This time, the rest of the table stood with him, including Alaric. Inerys had never been much of a fighter, but with little choice, she rose as well. If things went south, the best she could do was watch Alaric’s back.

“You think we’re afraid of a few stray dogs?”

“Walk away boy,” Dravas said, gaze unwavering.

The man, who Inerys assumed must have been the leader, given his vocalness, smirked. He was a tall, lanky man with sandy brown hair peeking out from beneath his hood with a matching, patchy beard. He couldn’t have been much older than twenty.

“You know, I don’t think I will. It’s about time someone muzzled you lot.”

Kardin was growing more red by the second.

Inerys’ skin prickled. Biting her lip, she lowered her hood and moved to place herself between the two groups. Someone had to be the voice of reason, and it was clear no one else was going to step in.

“I think we can all agree we’ve all had a bit more to drink than we ought to,” she said, sure to make eye contact with all involved, “there’s no point in starting trouble. After all, we’re all hunters now, yeah? One way or another, we’re going to have to figure out how to get along.”

For a moment, she’d actually been foolish enough to think they’d all stopped to consider. However, it seemed their old grudges ran deep. There was a tense pause before one of the purebloods grabbed her wrist and tugged her toward his chest.

“We’ll start with this one,” he said, his breath wreaking of stale ale and Wild’s knew what else.

Inerys tried to pull away, gritting her teeth. “Let go, or-”

The man’s nose crunched.

Within the span of a breath, Alaric was on top of the man and the pair fell together. The table behind them buckled under their combined weight and Inerys found herself flat on her rear before she had a moment to fully process what had happened. She sat, blinking, until a man fell with a heavy thud behind her. The sudden thump to her back snapped her back to reality and she scrambled away and onto her feet.

While the whole of the tavern was in a sudden uproar, the bulk of the fighting had been localized around their table. Kardin had leapt over the table at some point, judging by his current position halfway across the room and both Dravas and his companion were wrestling with two other men upon the ground. A number of the surrounding patrons made themselves scarce, others watched on, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. A pair of men that had been seated nearby, both Hounds, had decided to join the melee in defense of their kin.

Glass shattered to her right and Inerys nearly jumped out of her own skin. One of the purebloods lunged for Alaric’s exposed back, brandishing half a smashed bottle in one hand. The jagged glass caught the light, marking the razor points in uneven patches. On instinct, Inerys sprang to Alaric’s defense. She rammed her shoulder into the man’s side, earning a grunt as he was knocked off center. He floundered to one side in an effort to catch his balance, yet refused to drop his ramshackle bottle.

As he stumbled, he lashed out with his make-shift weapon, catching Inerys across the back of her right forearm when she raised her hands in defense. Her sleeve tore open with ease and she faintly registered the sting lancing down through her fingers. She fumbled for the nearest object - a heavy wooden mug - and brought it down on the man’s hand with all her strength. The resulting wet smack sent a sickening shiver through her gut, for the bottle wasn’t the only thing that gave way in the wake of her strike.

The man screamed and sank to the floor. He cradled his shaking, ruined hand. Amid the blood and rent flesh, jagged bits of green glass bejeweled his fingers and palm. His first two fingers were popped at the base joint and Inerys was fairly certain she saw a sliver of white bone poking out of his middle finger at an odd angle. Her gut twisted at the sight and she nearly lost her dinner right there on the floor.

Her own hand felt warm and sticky, but all she could do was stare at what she’d done. The mug slipped from her fingers, clattering to the floor, but she didn’t so much as flinch. She simply stared.

Evidently, his screams were enough to garner the attention of the other patrons. The brawling paused long enough for the others to sober up and fully piece together the situation. Though there were plenty of glares and shoving once the initial confusion wore off, the interruption gave onlookers a chance to pry the men off of one another. The purebloods were left largely alone to tend their own, under the careful supervision of a few Hounds, including the tavern owner, while Inerys’ companions were granted an opportunity to do the same.

All the while, she continued to stare at the man’s hand. She felt oddly numb inside, despite her anger and panic moments ago. She couldn’t believe what she’d done. This wasn’t the first time she’d drawn blood, she was a huntress after all, but she only ever shot to kill. And never had she harmed another Hound, let alone a pureblood.

Alaric knelt beside her with a curse, his beaded brow furrowing. One eye was already beginning to swell along the apex of his cheek and blood still oozed from his split lip. Her first instinct was to tend his wounds, but the moment his fingers graced her arm, she recoiled. Pain shot up her arm and when she backed away, she finally noticed the blood. Her blood. It trickled down her hand, dripping from her fingertips to join that of her victim’s upon the floor.

The glass bottle had opened the back of her forearm nearly from elbow to wrist, leaving a deep, ragged split in its wake. Blood welled freely, soaking her torn sleeve as well as her pant leg. Her thoughts were painfully slow in those moments, though she had the presence of mind to grit her teeth and try to stem the bleeding. She clapped her freehand over the worst of the wound as Alaric guided her back into a chair.

“Careful now,” he said.

Grimacing, she answered, “I’m fine.”

He cast her a withering glare that dissolved into concern as quickly as it had arrived.

“Come, Let me see.”

Arm trembling, she raised it for his inspection. It was an effort not to whimper when she bent her elbow, but she managed. He carefully pulled back the ribbons of her sleeve, his lips going thin. A bit of color leached from his face as her companions gathered around her.

“Hmph. We’re going to need to stitch that,” Dravas said.