Bardin removed the stopper and emptied half the contents. "Ahh!" He smacked and wiped his lips. "Wine, my old companion, how I have missed thee!"

  "Don't get much these days, eh?"

  Bardin grinned. "The House of Need is generous with its bread and water, but their goodwill rarely extends to spirits."

  A pleasant warmth spread through the Hunter. The world whirled around him in a curious fashion, and Bardin's face swam in and out of focus.

  So this is what it's like to be drunk.

  He had never suffered the temptation of spirits. When he did drink, the effects were mild at best. He reveled in the feeling. He knew he should be anxious about something, but what? He couldn't remember. Gone were the worries and cares, along with the voice in his head. He had nothing to do but lie here and bask in the sensations.

  "Tell me, Bardin, do you believe in the gods?" His tongue felt thick and clumsy, and the words tumbled from his mouth beyond his control.

  "Of course." Bardin tipped up the wineskin to drain the last drops. "Don't you?"

  "I…don't know. There are things in this world I can't explain, but does that mean the gods exist? I can't be sure."

  "I've never had cause to doubt." Bardin sounded strangely lucid, and he met the Hunter's unfocused gaze without wavering.

  "What about divine gifts? Do you think the gods can really imbue their followers and priests with special abilities?"

  Bardin nodded. "Absolutely!"

  The Hunter sat up, the world spinning. "Are you sure? I'd bet I can prove you wrong!"

  Bardin eyed him with a curious expression. "Go on."

  "I'll tell you, but first I need more wine."

  He fished a wineskin from within the satchel and emptied half the contents before passing it to Bardin.

  "Now, let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a man. This man left behind everything he knew to escape pain and loss, and he traveled the open road in search of answers."

  The Hunter slumped back against the crates, too unsteady to remain upright.

  "This man encountered two knights in service to the Beggar God. After he saved them from bandits, he made the foolish decision to travel with them. He knew they could be a danger, but he didn't care."

  "Why would the knights be dangerous to this man?"

  "Don't interrupt the story!" The Hunter wagged a numb finger at Bardin. He stared at his hands for a moment, flexing them. He felt nothing. The wine had dulled the pains and aches of his body, and he floated in an insensate haze.

  "Rell, the story?"

  The Hunter's head jerked, his eye snapping open. "Of course! Where was I?"

  "The man and the knights."

  "Right." He burped and wiped his mouth with a filthy hand. "One of the knights claimed to have a gift from the gods. She told the man she could see the truth of his heart. She actually called him a good man."

  Bardin nodded. "There are those who receive such a gift."

  The Hunter leaned closer. "But the gift is a lie! If she could actually see into the man's heart, why would she call him good?"

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because the man was actually a bad man. He was a killer, an assassin!"

  Bardin's eyes widened. "Really?"

  The Hunter nodded, which set his head spinning again. "But wait! The story isn't over."

  Bardin tipped up the skin of wine and gestured for him to continue.

  "Well, in the course of their journey, they were attacked by bandits again. The man saved the knights from death, and what do they do to thank him? They poison him, stab him, and throw his body into the Chasm of the Lost." He slumped back against the crates. "Now tell me, why would the knights do that? If the man really was good as they said, why would they try to kill him?"

  Bardin regarded him with a steady, unclouded expression. "I-I don't know."

  "Aha!" The Hunter waved his hand in triumph. "I have decided that there are two reasons for that to happen. One, the knight only thought she had a divine gift from her gods, but she was wrong and there is no such thing."

  "What's the other?"

  The Hunter fumbled for the wineskin. "The other what?" He tipped the skin up to his lips. Empty.

  "The other reason."

  "Reason for what?"

  "Reason for the knight to say the man was good, then try to kill him. If the knight was right and there are divine gifts, what is the other reason?"

  "I-I…" The Hunter stared wide-eyed at the man, his numb mind struggling to remember. "Ah yesh, I remember."

  He leaned forward, belched, and swayed, a slight slur to his words. "The godsh are playing a cruel joke on me."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Why elsh would h-her god tell her I was good, then trick her into trying to kill me? Was it all a lie? Was it a ploy to get me to drop my guard? Or was it a ploy of the Destroyer to torment me?"

  Bardin's eyes went wide. "The Destroyer? What does Kharna have to do with the knights of the Beggar God?"

  The Hunter hiccuped. "Didn't…didn't you know? A small part of the Destroyer lives in the Beggar God's mind. And he's trying to come back to the world!"

  "And you think the knights are part of some great plan?"

  The Hunter shook his head, his hands waving wildly. Suddenly serious, his speech no longer slurred. "No! Aren't you listening to anything I'm saying? The knights are supposed to have power from the Beggar God. But if that is true, then the power comes from the Destroyer, and the Destroyer is playing a cruel joke on me."

  "So you're the man in the story?"

  The Hunter's eye widened. "Me? Of course not! What makes you say that?"

  Bardin shook his head. "You just said—"

  "I was telling you a story, and you think it's about me? You, my friend, are too drunk!"

  Bardin grinned. "Perhaps."

  The Hunter lay back and closed his eye, but that only made the whirling worse.

  "Bardin, can I tell you a secret?"

  Bardin nodded. "Of course, Rell. You can tell me anything."

  The Hunter giggled. "My name isn't actually Hardwell."

  "Of course not. It's Rell."

  The giggles turned to drunken laughter. "Rell! What a silly name!" He snorted and hiccuped. "No, my name isn't Rell either."

  Bardin narrowed his eyes. "Then what is your name?"

  The Hunter leaned close, whispering, sotto voce. "I don't really know."

  "What do you mean you don't know?"

  He burst into uproarious laughter, which ended in a loud belch. "I can't remember. I can't remember anything from more than forty or fifty years ago."

  "Fifty years? You can't possibly be that old."

  "You have no idea, my friend. I'm a lot older than you." The Hunter scratched at his matted beard. "Or at least, I think."

  "It's not humanly possible, Rell."

  "Human?" The Hunter snorted and dissolved into drunken giggles. "What a funny word. If only you knew..."

  "What are you saying, Rell?"

  The Hunter belched, and vomit rose to his throat. He swallowed and wiped his mouth. "Nothing. I can't tell you. I can't tell anyone."

  "Why not?"

  "Because they'll try to kill me!"

  "Who will?"

  The Hunter waved a drunken hand. "Everyone! Everyone is afraid of me because of what I am, and what I do."

  "What are you, Rell?"

  "I-I…"

  Could he tell Bardin his secret? What would the man do if he knew?

  "I'm a killer. An assassin."

  "Why?"

  "Why what?"

  "Why are you a killer, an assassin?"

  The question puzzled the Hunter. He stared at the man open-mouthed. "How did you know I'm an assassin? Who told you?" He fumbled in his cloak for the dagger, but only got himself tangled in his robes.

  "You did."

  "Of course I didn't! I'd never tell you that. You'd be afraid of me and drive me away."

  Bardin shook his head. "No, I wouldn't. Out in the world, there are things much worse than being a killer."

  The Hunter gaped. "B-but…"

  "What matters is why you do it."

  "Do what?"

  "Kill."

  "To shut the voice up." He tapped his temple. "The voice in here."

  Bardin nodded. "I know what you mean."

  "No, you don't!" The Hunter was angry now. "You don't know anything! You don't have the voice of a demon shouting in your mind all the time, forcing you to kill. You have no idea how hard it is to fight back the voice."

  Bardin shrugged. "We all have our inner demons, Rell."

  "But is yours a real demon? Mine is!"

  Bardin patted him on the shoulder. "Of course it is."

  The Hunter shoved the hand away. "It is! He drives me to kill, telling me it's what I was born to do."

  "So you kill because of this demon in your head? Is that the only reason?"

  It wasn't. The power rushing through his veins was a sensation beyond anything he could describe. He did it because he needed that feeling. But he couldn't admit that to himself, much less tell Bardin.

  The Hunter shrugged. "It's my only skill. I don't know of anything else to do."

  "What made you decide to kill for a living?"

  "I don't know."

  The Hunter's sluggish, alcohol-soaked mind struggled to drudge up memories. He remembered walking through the city gates of Voramis, walking aimless through the streets, and…

  "Once, a long time ago, I saw someone hurting someone else. The voice in my head told me to kill. It wouldn't leave me alone until I did. So I killed him."

  He relived the memory, as vivid and clear as it had been on that day long ago.

  "He stared into my eyes as he died, and the expression was…horrible." He shuddered. "I still see his face, you know. I see all their faces."

  "But that doesn't explain why you still do it."

  The Hunter shrugged. "The other man, the one who was being beaten, he thanked me and gave me a coin out of gratitude. It just kind of went from there. I found more people willing to pay me to kill. Soon, I realized people would pay a fortune for me to take care of their problems."

  "So you did it to protect someone?"

  "What?"

  "The first time you killed, it wasn't the man who was being beaten, the victim. Instead, you killed the tormentor."

  The Hunter wrestled with the statement, his thoughts sluggish. "I-I guess."

  "So you did it, in a way, to protect the man."

  The Hunter shook his head. "No. It was to silence the demon's voice."

  Bardin nodded. "True, but who would have been easier to kill? The tormentor, or the one being tormented?"

  "The weakling, of course."

  "So why not kill him? Why kill the bigger, stronger man."

  "I-I…" The Hunter couldn't think for the spinning in his head. "I don't know."

  "Perhaps the knight was right about you. There may be more good in you than you realize."

  The Hunter shook his head. "Not possible. If only you knew the truth, you'd—"

  Bardin grasped his shoulders and stared at him through eyes more lucid than his own. "No man is evil, Rell. There is good and bad in all of us. In the end, it all comes down to our choices."

  The Hunter returned Bardin's gaze, his vision unsteady, his world spinning. His gorge rose to his throat, and he lurched from the tent.

  "Don't go! The wizards—"

  He emptied the contents of his stomach on the alley wall. The sound of his retching drowned out Bardin's warning cries. The reek of vomit, wine, and digested food flooded his nostrils, amplifying his nausea.

  Sound swirled around him. He closed his eye and allowed himself to be carried along on the rhythm. Here, the rustle of debris kicked up by the wind. There, the squelch, squelch of feet tramping through the muck of the alley. In the distance, a trio of angry voices shouting words the Hunter couldn't understand. Somewhere else, the hacking of lungs filled with phlegm.

  He leaned against the wall to steady himself. His world still spun and whirled, but not as violently as before. He took long, deep breaths, wincing at the burn in the back of this throat and the taste of vomit.

  A horrible, piercing howl rent the night.

  Chapter Eleven

  The single shrieking note echoed through the alley. The Hunter's hackles rose, and a dread chill filled him.

  The Hunter snapped upright, still reeling from the intoxicating effects of the wine. His stomach lurched and gurgled, but he fought down his vomit. His hand fumbled for the dagger in his cloak.

  Bardin's shriek of terror rang out from the tent, but the Hunter ignored it. The alcohol had silenced the rational part of his mind. He stumbled toward the mouth of the alley, gutting knife in hand. He was not afraid.

  More wails answered the call, a chorus of lupine voices keening in the stillness of the night.

  The Hunter's breath caught, his wounded eye throbbing painfully. The voices sounded far too loud to come from the throats of earthly creatures.

  A horrified thought wobbled through his alcohol-soaked mind. Had the wizards summoned creatures from the hells to do their bidding, as Bardin feared?

  The shelters made it difficult to move through the alley after dark. The wine didn't help. He nearly stumbled and fell more than once, splashing through puddles of muck and stagnant water. None of the obstacles stopped him; they only deterred him and increased his frustration.

  He slowed just paces away from the main avenue. Blood rushed in his ears, and he panted with excitement.

  Where are they?

  His solitary eye roamed the darkness, searching for…what? Nothing moved in the street, save for bits of debris kicked up by the wind. The stars cast faint light on the street. Shadow encased the world, and all was dark and still.

  Then he saw it.

  The creature was huge. Its bright yellow eyes were on a level with the Hunter's, and massive muscles rippled along its flanks and back. Lupine fangs shone bright in the dim light. The beast raised its muzzle, sniffing the air, then another horrible howl tore from its throat. The cry ripped through the silence of the night, and even the Hunter found his hands trembling.

  By the gods!

  The weak starlight did little to illuminate the night, but the creature shone with a brilliance all its own. Crimson whorls and waves of white covered its body like eerie tattoos, blending with the blue light emanating from its skin.

  Frozen hell! How is this possible? The Hunter leaned against the wall for support, gripping the knife tighter. Was this another hallucination, or the effects of the wine? The thing before him looked ghostly and ethereal, yet its howling sounded all too real.

  The massive wolf-thing loped along at an easy pace, yet it covered ground at astonishing speed. It moved toward him, padding down the street with the silent step of a predator. Three more joined it a heartbeat later.

  They are far too large to be common wolves, and those markings...he understood Bardin's terror. They looked like they belonged to some forgotten hell, yet there they were, right before his eye.

  The lead wolf paused abreast of the alleyway, sniffing the air. The Hunter shrank back against the shadows of the wall, instinct finally penetrating the numbness in his mind. Yet it was useless. Predators had a keen sense of smell—he knew it all too well.

  If they detect my scent, they'll hunt me down and take me away.

  He tightened his grip on the gutting knife. Ignoring the pounding of his heart, he filled his nostrils with the massive beast's scent.

  Blood, raw meat, and…garlic? The pungent odor struck him as odd. He had encountered wolves before; none had smelled of aromatic vegetables.

  The creature turned yellow eyes toward the Hunter, its gaze seeming to pierce the shadows. The Hunter held perfectly still, unblinking, returning its scrutiny unwaveringly. For long moments, the thing just stared.

  Then the eyes turned away and the beast continued its silent padding down the street. A howl tore from its throat, joined by the rest of the pack.

  Frozen, mind reeling, the Hunter watched the creatures loping down the street, not willing to move until they disappeared around a corner.

  He snapped from his trance. The streets were dark and empty, as always. Had it all been real, or had it been the wine?

  A long, echoing wail proved the wolves had been more than his imagination.

  * * *

  Bardin's eyes went wide at the sight of the Hunter. "Rell! You're alive! The wizards' pets didn’t…?"

  The Hunter slumped onto his pile of blankets. "Yes, I'm still alive. Those…things have gone."

  "You're sure?" Bardin's trembling fingers clutched at his pendant.

  The Hunter nodded, which set his head spinning again. He closed his eye and lay back, willing his stomach to be still.

  "You saw them? And they didn't devour you? The power of the Illusionist himself must have hidden you from the eyes of those foul beasts!"

  "Whatever. They're gone."

  The world refused to cease its whirling, forcing the Hunter to sit up and open his eye.

  Bardin rubbed his hands together, a look of mixed curiosity and terror on his face. "Tell me, lad, what did they look like? Are they not as hideous as I told you?"

  "They looked like wolves. The size of bears." Something about the creatures nagged at him, but his mind couldn't put the odd detail into place.

  "Wolves! Horrible, ravenous beasts." Bardin shuddered and caressed the pendant. "You say as big as bears?"

  The Hunter nodded.

  "Never heard of them growing that large." Bardin muttered to himself now, his eyes darting around the tent. "Can't be natural, that. What manner of hell did they come from? The Beastmaster General must be alerted to their presence, else they'll—"

  Rolling his eye, the Hunter stopped trying to follow the bald man's mumbling. He was tired, and short on patience for the man's oddities. The sound of Bardin's muttering faded, replaced by the shuffling of papers.

  Crazy bastard is back at “work”, whatever that is. Bardin had made a big affair of his task, claiming it was highly secret and important. If I don't miss my guess, that pile of papers is little more than a jumble of nonsensical scribbles.

 

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