Gabriel pointed his chin at the several recurve bows he’d asked his hunters to lend for the cause.“One of those should work for you.”
Han had, meanwhile, selected a sword and short dagger and was testing them with a martial form that Jadren eyed with mixed envy and irritation.Gabriel distributed the remaining enchanted weapons to the assembly of volunteers—a mix of wizards, familiars, and nonmagical folk—explaining to all how the enchantment worked.
“Han and Iliana will be the bait,” he told the group.“They’ll appear to be trying to escape through the orchard, where we can hide ourselves in the trees.Once the hunters encircle these two, we’ll surround them in turn and take them out.”
“I don’t think Iliana needs to be there,” Han said with hard-jawed defiance.“Not on the ground.Let her hide in a tree with the bow and arrows, and I’ll play bait alone.You don’t need both of us.”
“I amnotleaving you alone to face the hunters,” Iliana retorted with ferocity, her color high.“What if something goes wrong?”
“Exactly!”Han shot back.“If something goes wrong, I want you well away from the fighting.”
“I’m not helpless, Han.”Iliana waved the bow at him.“And I didn’t defy the Convocation for you to sit idly by while you risk your life.”
“Same.”Han returned her glare, then opened his arms.Iliana flung herself against him with a sob, and he held her close, stroking her long red curls.He met Gabriel’s gaze over her shoulder.“Lord Phel will protect us.”He made it a question and a demand, and Gabriel nodded slowly.A promise.
“The hunters grow closer,” he told the group.“It’s time to set our ambush and banish these abominations.”
Jadren whistled a jaunty tune.“This will be fun.”
The orchard he’dselected to set their trap was the most mature in the vicinity of House Phel, with the tallest trees and densest foliage, but Gabriel still felt exposed.He didn’t much care for sitting idly by while Iliana and Han pretended to be collapsed in exhaustion in plain sight below, even if itwashis plan.Waiting, never his favorite activity, wore on him with slow drips of rising restless anxiety.
Worse, sitting in silence, with nothing to occupy his thoughts, meant that he couldn’t suppress thoughts about Nic and what she might be enduring at Convocation Center.When she’d been taken, no one had been sure whether Gabriel would ever wake.Could she feel that he was alive, awake, and healthy?Did she have faith that he’d rescue her, or was she facing the despair of captivity and grief that she’d lost him?
He had to believe that she was holding strong.She was the most courageous, clever, and indomitable person he’d ever met.She’d find a way to survive this, he had to believe in that.But with every minute, every hour, every day that trickled by, he knew her chances of emerging unscathed dwindled.He chomped at the bit to race after her, to bring her home and begin the process of healing.
No other alternative bore contemplating.
Gabriel never thought he’d be happy to see hunters, but the strong, stinking sense of their imminent presence came as a relief.He whistled like one of the songbirds that frequented the orchard, three times in a row, their agreed signal.Alise’s pet spirits scuttled through the branches, a second warning, in case anyone missed the first.
Iliana did an impressive job of appearing surprised and terrified to see the hunters loping toward her.She leapt to her feet, screaming shrilly, and began dashing away between the straight row of trees.Han jumped up, too, from his feigned sleep, squaring off with his sword in one hand and the dagger in the other.“Run, Iliana!”he shouted, their third and final signal, in case someone had managed to miss the rest.
Some of the hunters encircled Han, who turned warily, making a show of fighting panic, trying to keep an eye on them all at once.The rest sprinted after Iliana.With the herd of hunters duly separated, she stopped running, putting her back to a tree and nocking an arrow.Drawing her bow, she tremulously told them to stay away.
Holding himself in place, Gabriel counted, hunters and seconds.Reports from those who’d witnessed House Sammael’s arrival and abduction of Nic had varied, some claiming there had been a dozen or more hunters, others insisting there’d been no more than nine.Or ten.People under strain tended not to remember details clearly, especially those unused to battle or facing any kind of intimidating enemy.Most everyone there had been too focused on trying to make sense of the existence of hunters in the first place, with little wit left over to count them.
Five hunters circled Han, and four formed a loose arc around Iliana.She trembled violently enough to be visibly shaking from this distance, her fear not faked now as she tried to choose a target.Just a moment or two more,Gabriel thought at her.Hold steady.He really didn’t want to risk having extra hunters come up behind them.He also didn’t want to betray their secret weapon too soon.
Hunters weren’t terribly bright, but they weren’t complete fools either.
Gabriel had about decided that was all of them and was on the verge of giving the signal to attack when two more hunters strolled out of the trees from the sides, each carrying one of the loathsome iron collars that seemed part of their standard package for capturing and humiliating familiars.Eleven total.One loped in a tripod gallop, on two legs and one hand, toward Iliana, while the other walked upright toward Han, right below Gabriel’s perch.Gabriel vibrated with the restrained impulse to kill it immediately.
“Familiar Haniel,” the hissed, extending the collar.“You mussst be returned to the Convocation.Come quietly, and you will not be harmed.”
“If I agree, will you let her go?”Han demanded.The hunter turned to look at Iliana—and Gabriel dropped on top of him.
It almost went too fast for his bloodthirst.Gabriel used the momentum of his controlled fall to hammer the enchanted broad-bladed hunting knife into the thing’s back.The sudden collapse of his opponent turning to goo dropped him to the ground rather ignominiously—and fortuitously, as one of Iliana’s arrows whizzed past where his head had been andthunkedinto a tree trunk.Iliana screamed, no pretense in it, and Han shouted her name, charging in her direction.Notin the plan, curse it.
One hunter down.Ten to go.
That left Gabriel, Jadren, and a couple of others facing off four hunters.Jadren looked determined, at least holding his sword at the correct angle this time, but he’d yet to dispose of any of the beasts.
One of the hunters skirted around Gabriel warily, staying out of reach of his sword, canine jaws lolling open, canting its head to study him with one yellow eye.“Lord Phel, I presssume,” it said, sounding incongruously pleased.“Your reputation pressseedess you.You will turn over the familiarss to me.”
“How about you die instead?”Gabriel invited, and lunged.
The hunter skipped back, fisted something, and hurled it like an invisible ball at Gabriel.The compulsion spell hit him, numbing his limbs, and the hunter laughed with feral glee.But Gabriel was no longer the ignorant country bumpkin he’d been when the hunters deployed that trick on him before.Though he’d promised Asa he’d conserve his magic and not use it in this fight, when he saw the spell coming, he had to react.He pulled reflective moon magic around himself at the last moment, bouncing it back at the hunter.The creature froze in place, almost comically, with its jaws parted and tongue hanging out.
One down, one immobilized.Nine to go.