Ghostwalker - Erik Scott De Bie [48]
Walker shrugged, as if to demonstrate that it did not truly matter.
Gylther'yel's face was impassive, but her eyes burned.
"You have not come here to upbraid me," he said. "There is something else."
A hint of a smile played on her golden face.
Walker narrowed his eyes. He knew enough to be wary when Gylther'yel was angered. "Where have you been these last days?" he asked carefully.
"Where you should have been," the druid said. "Watching over my woods."
Walker's brows furrowed. He knew of her spies-almost every bird and forest animal within miles. They watched for her, and she did little. Unless…
"What does that mean?" he asked.
"I have decided my student needs a lesson in inspiring terror," she said coldly. "Three miles east of here, hunters come for you." She held up a ragged piece of leather that bore the Whistling Stag sigil of Quaervarr. "I will teach them the penalty for trespassing into my woods."
"Who are they?" Walker asked, reaching for the cloth.
The sun elf shook her head. She dropped the torn bit to the ground. "I have spent the last fifteen years teaching you to avoid such irrelevant questions," Gylther'yel said.
The sun elf grew and her face extended. She fell to all fours as her limbs shortened and she grew the sleek fur of a ghostly, golden fox. As her body shifted into that of the animal, Gylther'yel faded out of his physical sight and into the Ethereal.
The ghostly fox flashed him a fanged grin and bounded off into the trees, heading east. Walker turned to run after her, but then he remembered the discarded leather scrap.
Tentatively, for he knew the pain that this could bring, he stooped low and picked it up between gloved fingers. It was a ragged piece, torn from the hauberk of a suit of hunting leathers. Slowly, gently, Walker drew his black leather glove off, revealing a pale, long-fingered hand.
Hesitantly, he rested his fingers on the leather in his other hand and closed his eyes. Images flowed into him then, along with an emotional swell that blew the breath from his body. The psychic resonance of the piece carried whisperings of memories and visions, hopes and fears. He hated this power, which would manifest whenever his bare fingers touched something not his own, but it was necessary at times.
A round-faced woman, cheeks rosy from the morning chill… two little boys, playing at rangers and orcs with wooden swords…
Sweat dripped down Walker's forehead and his body burned with phantom pain, but he gritted his teeth and held on. The resonance was not strong, but it could overwhelm him if he lost control.
A soldier, not heroic but strong of heart…
The visions faded as Walker dropped the leather to the ground.
He dived into shadows, racing his mistress. Leaping along in the Shadow Fringe, Walker ran faster than any mere mortal could. Ghosts flitted past his peripheral vision and reached out imploring arms to slow him, but Walker was firm in his cause. He gripped the hilt of his shatterspike and prayed he would not need it.
* * * * *
The distance was not great, covered in almost no time through the shadows, but it was only by luck that he found the hunters. Under a darkening sky, with clouds rolling across the sun, the shadows were dissipating, but he could make it. Walker leaped to a shadow near a giant of a man he had fought before. Then he dispelled his shadowalk and stepped out within a sword's length of the captain.
"Leave these woods now," Walker warned.
" 'Ware!" Unddreth shouted. A mighty warhammer came around at Walker. "He's here!"
The ghostwalker ducked the swing and stepped inside Unddreth's reach. He grasped the hammer arm in both hands and stared into the genasi's eyes with the full weight of his gaze. "Fools," he said. "You must leave now."
Unddreth strained against the grip but could not break it. He puffed himself up as large as he could, refusing to be intimidated. Walker swore inwardly.
"Let the captain go!" came a shout from behind him.
A dozen guards were all around Walker, swords drawn and crossbows trained on his face.
Walker ignored the threat.