Blood Red (9781101637890) Read Online Free PDF Page A

valley that held the village. Down there, not a single light shone, and a damp, cool breeze with a hint of rain on it made her glad of her cloak. It was late, and these village folk were all abed by now. She sought, and found, a rabbit, quivering beneath a bush nearby, and “borrowed” its nose, smelling what it smelled, and immediately was struck with the scent of the thing that made the rabbit shiver. There was no doubt; what she sought was down in the village itself, its scent mingling with the myriad scents of the humans and their living. The scent of the thing held the effluvia of stale blood and age and evil, and she readied her crossbow, wondering briefly how Hans was faring, back at the ruins.
    Hans is an Earth Master and experienced. He has been on many, many Hunts, as well you know,
she scolded herself.
Let Hans tend to his Hunt, and you tend to yours.
    The scent was everywhere in that little valley now, although those poor villagers down below with their blunted, human senses would not even detect a trace of it, not unless the thing was atop them and breathing coldly into their faces.
    Now that she was this close, she felt that familiar mix of excitement and fear starting to build. She needed both. Fear, to keep her sharp—excitement, to make her fast.
    She slipped carefully among the trees, glad the moon was down, but aware that the thing she hunted had means of its own to see by dark. Still . . . it was without allies, now that it had left its servant behind. And she . . . was not.
    At the edge of the village, she put her hand to the ground.
Oh, my friends, my little friends, please give me your wisdom. Where is the hunter, the slayer-by-night?
she asked silently. She waited patiently. The creatures of Earth did not move quickly, nor trust easily. But she was fairly certain which of the many sorts would answer her first.
    Sure enough, after a while, she felt a tugging on her sleeve. She looked down. Glowing a little with a healthy golden energy was one of the little
alvar,
anxiously pulling on the button at her wrist. She smiled down at it, thought her thanks at it as hard as she could.
    This one had an acorn-cap for a hat, a round head not unlike an acorn, but a spindly little body and spidery legs and arms, all encased in a garment that seemed to be made of moss. When it saw her looking down at it, it let go of her sleeve, and gestured, then scuttled away. She followed.
    Here the life-energy faded to almost nothing, what with the streets being pounded earth, the houses being dead wood and stone, and only the outline of the few growing things and the patches of the gardens to give her anything to see by. The village was not very big, smaller than Holzdorf. Just two main streets, crossing the road. The little creature moved like a leaf blown by the wind, down one of them, its faintly glowing body barely visible in the darkness. She followed, staying close to the buildings, using what protection they offered her, keeping herself as close to the walls as possible, although she always ducked beneath any windows she passed. It might be very dark, but she had not gotten as far as she had as a hunter by being incautious. What good would it do to have tracked her quarry all the way to this village if it was alerted because some wakeful villager struck a light, saw a shadow cross the window and raised an alarm?
    She caught up with the
alvar.
It was huddling against the wall of a goat shed, and when she reached it, it pointed with a trembling arm down toward the water mill. There, outside the village proper, there were grass and growing things to give her light to see by again. The creature stood out blackly against the faint glow of Earth energies given off by the grass around the mill . . . in fact, it emanated its own sort of anti-life energy, an aura that pulsed hungrily.
    She immediately saw why the creature had taken up a post at the mill. The sound of the millrace and the