Surfacing Ch. 21

Mourn's yellow, reptilian eyes narrowed slightly in thought as I said this and his gaze switched from me to Tamuril to Jael. The subtle nod I thought was a thank you for the heads up.

Tamuril handed my cloth back to me and replaced her glove; she looked a bit sad and did not want to discuss my theory. She looked overhead, probably to better sense Pilla, and looked to Mourn. "We are ready."

The half-blood nodded once and shifted his appearance to resemble one of Reprisal as a healthy, Noiri Man wearing a cloak, black pants, and no shirt, with bare feet. His webbing and his weapons were still visible and he remained taller than each of us, but he no longer looked like a Dragon's son. The Druid's eyes widened as she watched him but I noticed that she accepted it very quickly; she could perform a similar feat.

"We should move as quick and quiet as we can," he murmured. "No telling how long Divigna will be on the field in the West."

We nodded and Tamuril moved ahead at first. Once she could not see our hands moving, Jael scowled at us as she signed, *So what is the deal with the ring?*

*Mate bond finger,* he replied.

*What?*

Mourn's pale lips pursed as he clearly did not have a word in our sign language for what he meant, although I thought I figured it out.

"Marriage?" I whispered at my Underdark level.

Mourn smiled. *Exactly. Gold ring, left hand, fourth next to the pinky. It is a sign to many humans that a female is mate-bonded to one male.*

Jael and I probably had a very similar expression: one? How fucking boring.

*The Pale Elf is not Human and Godblood knows she is not bonded,* I signed as we moved without breaking stride.

The hybrid shrugged. *Druid dislikes misleading symbols, she is wise to do this away from Templar eyes.*

Fair enough. Although I only put it on my left hand because it was less likely to get caught as I did many things with my right, and I had selected my middle finger because it was largest second only to my thumb. It just felt more balanced that way.

It was time to still our hands and focus on our surroundings as we spread out and moved through the trees well far back from the wall. We headed East, in the direction of that unsprung trap that Gavin and Krithannia had found the night before, as well as to locate Night-mare now that we knew she could be vulnerable to the Hellhounds.

Gavin would be very busy creating and acclimating to his top-quality minions, testing their limits and whatnot, but he had told us that the mare still roamed free for the moment, and she had seen a few Hellhounds at a time when they could not have been present on the field with Divigna so we knew there were a few separated from the larger whole we could target. Now the mare's orders were to stay well away from them, except that Gavin also gave us permission to use her to spring that trap and kill off those Hellhounds separated from their group.

Krithannia stayed behind with Gavin and Isboern, still able to communicate with Mourn, while Reprisal and Vigor remained outside to give plenty of warning should the bunker be approached by the enemy. Team Lung was out here as our support, gaining information and sending it back our way. Tamuril had not been required to go, but she had asked and Mourn accepted for her scouting instincts as well as a refined view from the Sky.

It was late afternoon and the cloud cover had returned to make it easier on our eyes and not quite as hot, though the humidity and the smell of death and carnage never lifted. The hills surrounding Manalar would have kept our view short except for the ancient falcon that flew overhead. We could focus on anything suspicious left behind or ambush points we wanted to circle, yet we could be certain that we grew ever closer to Gavin's mare and that our enemy never got too close.

The trap we sought was based at one of the main sources of water for the city, a stone harvester close to the city wall but not inside it, built on a higher elevation to collect rain and snow melt and keep it underground. It was filtered through sand, I was told, and an underground system allowed the water flow down a natural grade to serve the entire Northeast quadrant of the city. It may or may not have been fouled; it was possible that the Hellhounds were using it as a source themselves, though any public well that it fed could be poisoned by itself. A clean cistern in the upper East portion of the city did not mean we could be careless.

Gavin and Krithannia had found a tempting entrance into the city near the water collector. There was a covered walkway that not only had once protected the tenders of this important resource from the elements going back and forth between harvester, but also in itself collected rain and snow and fed it back into the supply where it would do the most good. It was intact and allowed one to get close to the wall and follow it for some distance without worrying about any attack from above. In the dark, the shadows would be very deep as well.

Isboern had told us that the pathway leads through the wall and to a storage area before spilling out on a quiet street with indirect alleys and pathways that would, at Gavin's question, lead us closer to the city butcher market without being out in the open on the wider streets. Regardless we were not planning to enter the city quite yet; we wanted to see about an opportunity to take out those Hellhounds and, after retreating, what kind of guard response there may be afterward. Mourn said it would tell him something about possible tactics the Ma'ab commander might use.

Meanwhile I had in my possession another carved-bone talisman from Gavin, similar to the one that had protected me from the rift's opening surge inside the Temple. This one, he had said, would allow some basic instruction to be given to his mare, such as "come closer" or "go away," as well as some thoughtless understanding that the one holding the talisman could ride on her back.

"When did you think to make this?" I had asked him in tremendous surprise back at the bunker.

"When you announced you would join us," he replied. "You have been a passenger of hers for months. On some level she does recognize your life aura and you are accustomed to giving magical animals mental instructions. She may be useful to you."

"Not to mention she can also help make sure your mare doesn't fall into the Hellhound hands," Jael said with a smirk, crossing her arms.

Gavin had nodded. "That as well. I will not be able to concentrate on where she is or what she is seeing while I raise new servants, and Sirana does not tend to waste her resources."

I found myself thinking about my spiders at the time, or even Pilla and Graul. "What happens to you should she be destroyed? Given that I will do what I can to prevent that."

The grey mage shrugged. "Nothing I can't recover from. I may remake her or make another, given the opportunity and materials."

My eyes had shifted down to his waist and the pouch that I knew contained the petite hand of a female Ma'ab, that of the sorceress who had once controlled Vesram. Gavin's previous crawler had been larger, chopped from a male Witch Hunter and had been ripped apart within the portal after breaking Sarilis's black vial. Given materials and opportunity, indeed.

I had nodded and we had moved out very soon after.

Our non-Human team of four now stood perhaps a quarter hour away from the trap and Mourn indicated it was time to draw Night-mare forward. It was no coincidence that I kept the talisman in the same pouch with my two remaining spiders; not only would it be easy for me to remember exactly where it was at all times, but my guardians offered an extra layer of protection against anyone else getting hold of the bone talisman while I had it.

I slid my gloved hand very carefully into my pouch and my spiders crawled out onto my hand for a breath of fresh air while I fisted the bone. Unlike either the soft chime of my eight-legged babies or the harsh, gleeful whisper of Soul Drinker, what I sensed now after commanding a very simple, "Come to me," was a deathly quiet coalescing into a still point which, though it was not physically cold, seemed to draw out any warmth from my palm and absorb it into the talisman.

I could not say exactly why I knew that she had heard me and obeyed, there was no sound inside my head; perhaps it was the complete lack of all life signs I was capable of recognizing, and that void seemed to be getting closer.

We heard her hooves long before we saw her and each of us had taken up a position to watch a different direction in case the weight of the undead animal was enough to draw attention too early. The grey clouds above seemed more swollen now and the daylight dimming yet more as the afternoon wore on. I saw a purely black shadow, vaguely horse -shaped, coming through the trees at a steady trot, head halfway down to avoid low hanging branches.

We finally got a very good look at her when she came up directly to me and stopped. Again, no prancing, no stamping of the feet or blowing or burring. She was truly exceptional for our task here. Gavin had kept her sturdy saddlebags secured in place rather than leave them way back at the cave where they would do no good. He had replaced the frayed, troublesome bridal and reigns which may get caught in shrubs or trees, with a lead-less halter. It gave the right impression from far away that she was a riderless mount wandering an abandoned battlefield.

She also looked alive; she had eaten enough meat that she looked like a normal horse, any rents in her hide from moving through the forest at night sealed up by the intake of replacement flesh. The only thing that gave her away was the smell of a carnivore on my glove after I touched her muzzle and checked her teeth. It helped that she did not breathe in my face and that she tended to keep her lips closed, but those teeth she had grown were more than suitable for the best scavengers of the land.

*Very good,* Mourn signed. *Divigna is still on the west side of the city, now we will see how the ambushers view this mare.*

Tamuril frowned, clearly understanding she was the one out, but I just pointed at Night-mare and leaned close to her ear. "Good bait."

The unsprung trap in question was essentially an ambush in that we knew there were at least two Hellhounds watching, but it included several well-hidden snares and trip lines that would catch anyone who approached the water harvester unaware, leaving them alive but severely crippled. Tamuril knew this, we had all been debriefed before leaving, and she gave the three of us a reproachful look as she looked at the horse and back. Mourn understood a bit more quickly than either me or my Sister and showed a bit of fang as he smiled and shook his head once.

"Distraction, not bait," he murmured.

I realized the blonde had thought we were going to use the mare to set off the traps. That would certainly be a large waste of a resource, and I was a bit insulted that she assumed I would push a creature into a known grinder simply to watch the puncturing of flesh and crushing a bone, especially when it was a borrowed creature I had not been told was expendable.

In any case, these were traps that we could easily go around; we knew they were there thanks to Krithannia, and if we managed to kill the Hellhounds quickly, if we had the time, we planned to disassemble those traps. Tamuril knew this as well.

I gave the Druid a similar look to the one I gave her last night. "Trust or no?"

She closed her eyes and held them shut for a moment or two before opening them again and slowly, quietly letting out a breath. She nodded once.

Yes. Alright, then.

Tamuril would hang back to be our eyes and our sniper; Mourn and Jael would steal their way carefully through the trapped area to set up vantage points which the Hellhounds should be cautious to approach, knowing the location of their own traps. I was to go the long way around, to come from the North side with Night-mare, and try to tease them out of hiding by controlling the undead mount remotely from out of view. If they were interested in the animal either as a tool or as a meal, it would tell us yet more about our unknown enemies.

What happened next should they approach the mare would probably have to happen fast and hard.

Bits of deep golden light poked through the clouds now and then as I climbed upward with decent cover and a stubborn horse; she was behind me a good twenty paces, instructed to follow me like a duckling. I may have put her in front but I was crawling low to the ground and I didn't want to be dodging a stone kicked out from her feet every few steps. It was already likely the Hellhounds heard the mare somewhere deep in the thick shrubbery and stunted trees, but it would take me long enough to come around and approach them nearer to the wall from the North that they would just have to wonder if it had been something el –

I froze in place, my hand gripping a solid stone as I leaned on the steep incline, looking up and ahead of me. First I caught a whiff which turned my stomach, and my ears heard it immediately after, even over the horse's clopping feet. The movement was jerky and stumbling, disoriented but not knowing enough to lie down. Then the shadow moved and confirmed what I already knew. I had seen plenty of this already, but at the time it had been fresh and had not spent three days rotting and exposed to the elements. That short time ago, the body had belonged to a male peasant.

*Mourn, hungry dead in front of me.*

We had been warned they might still be here, a few of them who did not make it back into the rift and would wander Manalar looking for food until something stronger came along to put them down. It was in the Ma'ab's favor to destroy them all, but perhaps the Hellhounds had simply missed a few stragglers.

*Do you have a clear shot?* he asked, referencing my hand crossbow. *You must pierce the eye and strike the brain.*

*Too difficult from here. Soul Drinker would take it quickly, but I must get closer.*

*Those things scream, it will give you away the moment it senses you.*

Yes, it heard beating hearts, it sensed the warm blood of the living which sent it into a feeding frenzy. Mourn and I were not concerned with whether I could put down the creature, but how quickly and quietly I could do it. I regretted there wasn't a way to attach my dagger to Gavin's mare, as she could probably walk right up to the walking corpse without it showing much interest in her. Would Soul Drinker be too insulted being carried between the mare's carnivorous teeth? Probably.

Still. I could ask.

I touched the hilt. *You are to help me survive. Correct?*

*Alllwaaayss...*

*You took down hungry dead before.*

*Yeeesss...*

*What if you approached it in the mouth of an undead mare?*

I expected the shrill laughter, even the glee; I smirked myself again picturing this somewhat ridiculous idea. What I did not expect was the too-eager acceptance.

*Give usss...to the mare. Sssee what happensss...*

Okay, bad idea.

*Nooo! Pleassse, do...!*

*Sorry, not my horse.*

*We know...*

*Be still or the only thing I use you for is peeling roots for our dinner.*

The dagger resorted to name-calling before I removed my hand and resolutely ignored it.

The hungry dead on the slope above me still shifted around clumsily, kicking rocks with soggy, muddy boots, and I had to allow more than a handful of the smaller pebbles to strike me without moving. By luck clearly not my own, it drifted closer and I could not wait here forever for something to happen.

I realized quickly that I had never told Night-mare to stop; she still tramped her way up the steep slope and could stomp right over me in the next dozen strides. I switched my touch and my focus to the knucklebone carved and stained with black blood.

*Walk left.* I paused. *Walk right. Now walk straight.*

I remained still and low on my belly as Night-mare plodded tirelessly past me. I watched carefully and gave her tiny nudges as my guess proved correct: the hungry dead did not even acknowledge the horse. It did not seem able to do more than plod as well, arms dangling at its sides as I caught the scent of pus and gritted my teeth, determined to keep my stomach in place. I would not be as sick as I had been on the boat; there was no time for that.

When the horse filled most of what must count as its field of vision, it turned to stand dumbly facing her direction. I could not even begin to guess why, what it might do given enough chance, but I did not waste opportunity myself.

*Bite through the neck.*

Gavin's mare tilted her head and opened her jaws as she walked right into the standing corpse; she caught hold of the throat and worked a couple more powerful bites to draw in more securely as if she would strangle one who drew no breath. I was impressed how wide she was able to open her mouth.

There might've been a scream in another moment except that I heard the crunch of bone as Night-mare's jaws clamped and locked like that of a hunting pack animal and not the grazer she had been born. Several more cracks sounded as the body thrashed and the head twisted in unnatural positions. I watched what seemed to be strong and healthy muscles bunch and flex in the horse's haunches, shoulders, and in her neck as she braced herself for the strongest possible hold with moving prey. Now she reminded me a little of a mountain cat simply allowing her prey to struggle helplessly as she waited patiently and confidently for it to suffocate.

The black horse stood still with greenish-black blood dripping from her muzzle as the body dropped and the head bounced randomly down the slope. I stared for several seconds before I remembered that Mourn was waiting for an update.

*Hungry dead neutralized. Goddess, it worked!*

*What worked, Sirana?*

*The mare can approach the hungry dead, she does not threaten them. And she can bite.*

*Yes, we have seen the teeth.*

*She beheaded it.*

The hybrid did not reply immediately. *Did you tell her to?*

*Yes.*

*I'm relieved. No activity near the harvester, I do not believe they are aware of you, although Jael and I could hear the movement and the bit of scuffle.*

*I still bet your ears are better than theirs.*

*Likely, but unconfirmed.*

*Shall I continue?*

*Please.*

I decided to keep the mare out in front of me from that point, as it was not very long that I followed behind her before we arced our way closer to the wall. The trees and the best cover would be gone before I was near, but I could still instruct our undead beast out into the open to see what happened, maybe cause that distraction Mourn hoped for.

Night-mare had to be kept back until I could at least be able to see the wall and any shadows that may or may not pop up from the top. I tried to remember to instruct her to move her head around side to side, to dip it down and nibble at the grass, and to stamp her feet once or twice as I caught up. What else was I missing? Swatting flies away with her tail, twisting her ears as she listened...

To make things easier I shifted the knucklebone to the inside of my glove where it would constantly rest in my palm. I honestly wondered if the experience was as awkwardly puppet -like for Gavin as it was for me? I never had to remind my spiders how to act like spiders, but I knew I must put in this effort to delay the illusion being revealed if the Hellhounds were watching, because they were far from stupid. I could believe that simply because they had been smart enough to keep Kurn out of their ranks.

The dark mare – complete with empty saddle, saddlebags, and halter – wandered out through tree and shrub, her hooves clopping against the stone and dirt as vegetation fell away before the rise of the city wall easily four times her height in this area. I concentrated quite a lot on letting her wander closer to the water, as if she smelled it and was thirsty, and I pressed down my own desire to take a swig from my waterskin. I tried a few times to get her to snort out of her nose, thinking if I could manage that much I might even get a whinny out of her, but the attempt sounded so unnatural that I let her fall silent again and focused on moving the visible parts.