The Sacred Hunt Duology (29 page)

And suddenly, the mist unraveled and fell away from his eyes like gauze too thin to trap sight. He saw
her
, and she him. Hair, so dark a black that ebony would seem faded beside it, flowed around her thin, long face and past her shoulders. She was not tall, but height made no difference to her; she was majesty, a royalty that only the other gods could contest.

Upon her shoulder perched a raven, wings glossy black, beak pale orange. At her feet, where her flowing cape parted, a small, dark shape curled around her ankles and stared out through unlidded eyes.

“You are no longer Kallatin.”

He bowed.

“But I know of your wyrd. I have not . . . forgiven you, little son. But I have not ordered your death either. I have heard your dance, and I accept it, although you have killed your brother, who served me truly.” She stepped forward. “No, do not offer me your tears or your sorrow; they are not finished yet.”

So saying, she lifted one hand, and her fingers curled up in calling. Estravim's pale eyes blinked open, the white sheen of lashes resting against dark, slack circles.

“I heard the music,” Estravim said softly, and made to rise. His arms, weak and suddenly thin, would not move from the points of the star. Kallandras touched his forehead, which was still wet and sticky from the challenge. His fingers came away reddened, and he looked at them a moment before he knelt, taking care not to leave the points of the star that his feet formed. He placed his hands beneath Estravim's shoulders and concentrated.

Very slowly, Estravim rose out of his body. His face took on the color and the vibrancy of life that the corpse would never again have. But he did not look back to see who aided him.

“Have you come to give me back my name?” he said quietly to the Lady who waited.

“Yes,” she answered. “You will find your strength soon; do not be concerned. When we walk, I shall guide you and protect your path. You are Estravim nee Soldaris Corasin. You have served me well.”

He caught her hand, and with her help gained his footing. Before she could speak again, he was on one knee in front of her. Her smile was dark, but not cold, and her own hand rested gently upon his forehead as her pale, pale fingers stroked his hair. “Rise.”

He did. And then he turned to see which of his brothers had danced his death, called the Lady, and lifted him from his prison.

“You.” There was no anger in the word; only confusion lingered behind his otherworld eyes. “Why?” Before Kallandras could answer, he spun around to face his Lady. “Why did you come at his call?”

“Do you question me already?” She asked, but not harshly. “Very well. I hold his name still.”

Estravim's smile was grim. “Then he will be trapped fully when he dies; none will call you to release him.”

“It may be so,” she answered quietly. “Come.”

“Wait!”

They both turned to see Kallandras standing perfectly still. “What I saw—Lady, what I saw was truth.”

“A truth.” But she heard what lay beneath the words and the perfectly controlled tone. She nodded, ever the regal monarch.

“If I had killed her, we would have perished in time—each of my brothers, each of my teachers. Only for love of them could I make my choice; I have been as true to my Order as any. And I have lost all.” He hated to plead.

“All?” One slim line of frosted black rose over a dark eye. What he left unsaid, she knew. Her expression grew remote as she stood, hand upon one of her chosen. “I have not forgiven you, bard. But you served me in your time, and I am not without compassion.

“Estravim of my Kovaschaii, this bard who was once Kallatin spoke the truth
that he believes—yet even so, his actions were a betrayal of his oath. You have done me nothing but honor; therefore I will leave your response at your discretion. Recognize him, or not, as you choose. I will make no judgment.”

Estravim turned with eyes of death and looked long at the bard.

The bard stared back, unblinking, his face a mixture of apprehension, longing, and bitterness. He opened his mouth and lifted his hand, as if to start another explanation; silence fell as he bit it back. It was not his choice—it was Estravim's, brother, and lost.

“I could not have made your decision,” Estravim said at last. “Truth or no. The loss would have been too great. I loved none but the Kovaschaii, and none but the Kovaschaii have mattered to me, save the Lady.

“You danced my death,” he bowed. “None among us could dance a death so perfectly. We all know it, even though we do not speak your name. I thank you. You have honored me, Kallatin.” Stiffly, as if movement were no longer natural, Estravim touched his forehead and fell to one knee.

“Thank you,” the bard whispered; the name that was lost lingered in the air. “It is I who am honored.” As the mists faded and the half-world went with the Lady, the tears rolled down Kallandras' cheeks. He reached out blindly and ran his fingers across Estravim's face; it was still warm.

• • •

Stephen did not know the exact moment when he regained control of his feet, but he thought it was when he heard the dogs baying. The tenor of their voices, the precision of their cacophony, drove away all images of the bard save one: the way he knelt, heedless of mud, to cradle the body of the strange, pale man.

Stephen was near the end of his running breath, his throat raw and dry. The bardic voice had left him little choice but to sprint full out up the trail.

Please, please, please
, he thought, when his breath refused him even a whisper,
finish the Hunt, Gil.
The baying stopped suddenly. The sides of his throat clung together. He gagged, but kept moving.

This one moment was safest for worry, fear, and anger. Gilliam was with the dogs—so completely given over to the hunt that his huntbrother's voice was the slightest of tickles in his inner ear.

Don't let the dogs eat, Gil. Don't please please please don't join them.
He'd seen that once, and it was an ugly, horrible sight. Soredon had thought it funny, and even Norn had worn a grim, tired smile as they had pulled Gilliam away from the carcass of the boar he'd been hunting. But not even the smell of roasting flesh and boiling broth at the end of the long, cool day could entice Stephen to eat any meat that night—or for weeks afterward.

The ground at his feet became a blur of gathered tracks and gouged mud; he was close.

Gilliam, please, please
—

The call of a horn answered his frantic litany. Nine notes, nine perfect, fully winded notes, came back to him, carried downwind by a faint breeze. Hunt's end had been called. He pulled out his horn and leaned his back against the smooth bark of the nearest tree. His hand shook as he carried the horn to his mouth and blew back the proper response. It sounded like a strangling duck. On any other Hunt, he would have laughed at the pathetic noise the horn made.

He started to cry.

“Stephen?”

“What?” He wiped viciously at his eyes with the cuff of his jacket.

“I heard it.” Gilliam looked exhausted but content; sweat ran down his forehead, matting thin dark curls to his face. “Come on, we're waiting for you.”

“You didn't let the dogs—”

“No.” Gil held out a hand, and after a moment, Stephen took it and crushed it as hard as he could. Gilliam grunted and returned the grip, and they stood that way a moment before Stephen suddenly surrendered and let his hand go limp.

“You fell behind,” the young Hunter said as they started to walk.

“I'm sorry,” Stephen answered. “Someone tried to kill me.”

• • •

It took the better part of half an hour to convince Gilliam that the danger was past, and even convinced, the young Hunter wanted his enemy's blood. Stephen thought it the aftereffects of being so long at the Hunt, and did his best to put out the odd, reddish light in Gilliam's eyes. Only afterward did he realize that the tone of voice and the simplicity of repetitive words he had chosen to use with Gilliam were like those he would speak to the dogs.

They had made the initial cut the length of the stag's proud throat with a blade that Gilliam pulled from a long pouch at his back, one carried for only this purpose. The flaps of wet, supple skin were pulled back almost to the neck, and the dogs were given their reward for the baying of the hart—a few mouthfuls of flesh and blood that had not yet cooled.

Stephen coupled the hounds, treading with care around the muddy ground. The hounds' tails whapped against his thighs, and the occasional dog tried to knock him over with a none-too-subtle shoulder-check—but he was used to this.

While Stephen worked, Gilliam played out the nine again, slowly and surely calling a triumphant close to his first Sacred Hunt. The sun was not yet upon the horizon, and the day not yet too cold. He carried the last note with what little breath remained in his lungs. The dogs looked up at this and joined him in their own fashion.

Stephen knew that Gilliam would make—and break—the last trance-connection with each of his hunting dogs. He would praise them and feed their animal egos before he set the horn aside and began the onerous task of carrying the stag back to the Queen's pavilion.

Carrying? Stephen grunted as he tied the front and back legs of the carcass together. Dragging, more like. At any other Hunt, there would be aides to help with the task of returning the kill. But, no, on the one day when the Hunter was most at risk, everything had to be done “independently.” He grunted as he pulled.

Gilliam came to help him, and the dogs, tired from their run and satisfied with their master's praise, obeyed his terse commands. They followed at heel, and only occasionally got into the little territorial scrapes that so annoyed their master.

The Hunter Lord only called a stop once as they followed their trail backward, but the ground was clear and marked only by the many feet of the passing animals and their human masters. Stephen could not find the body of his would-be killer anywhere. He knew that he hadn't gone mad because the dogs found the scent—but even Absynt thought it weak and almost directionless, more like the scent of a place than like the trail of any living quarry.

“The thing I don't understand,” Gilliam said between grunts, “is why anyone'd want to kill you.”

“How should I—Terwel!—know?”

“Maybe he thought you were someone else.” Gilliam stopped long enough to kick Terwel in the shoulder with the flat of his boot. Terwel whined and rolled over, and Gilliam started to lug again. “I mean, we're all dressed the same.”

“I think he knew what he was doing.”

“Oh. Maybe we should just ask Kallandras.”

Kallandras had knelt by the body and gently cradled the corpse. There had been no anger in his eyes, in fact, no expression at all upon his face. But Stephen had had much experience with masking emotion, and he knew the sorrow the bard's stooped shoulders had spoken of. He felt that they were somehow cohorts in a very strange crime, and he didn't want to expose Kallandras to anyone else. Yet. “I will.”

“We will.”

“I will.”

“Look, you're my huntbrother, and it's my responsibility to protect you.
We
talk to him.”

“
I
talk to him.”

“Oh right,” Gilliam said, dropping the legs of the stag. “So you talk to him, and maybe someone else tries to kill you, and no one else is around to help. Forget it. I forbid it.”

“If someone else tries to kill me, Kallandras'll probably handle him the same bloody way.” Stephen's arms crossed his chest as his jaw tightened. “And what the hell do you mean, ‘forbid it'?”

“
I'm
the Hunter Lord.”

“You're an idiot!”

“An idiot. Right.” Gilliam's shoulders tensed. “Idiot enough to finish the Hunt on my own.”

Stephen drew breath sharp enough to cut his tongue; it meant he didn't have to bite it.
How dare you?
He thought, his face flushing.
You know damn well why I missed the last leg!
Red-faced, he spoke with anger's voice and anger's words. “What's the matter, Gil? Are you upset that Kallandras was a better protector than you'll ever be?”

Bull's-eye. Stephen had just enough time to recognize the hit before Gilliam answered anger with anger. Of course, Gilliam didn't answer with words, and the dogs watched in curious concern as their master and his closest ally began to roll around in the dirt, shouting, spitting, and punching each other with the happy abandon of sibling fury.

They were both so enraged that Stephen didn't stop to think about what Lady Elseth would say, which was just as well.

• • •

An hour later, they emerged from the King's preserve. The dogs, even Terwel, were quiet as they followed Gilliam's terse commands, walking to heel so perfectly that there was hardly any need for leads. Stephen's left eye was blackened, and his lip was swollen. Gilliam's lip was split and smeared with dried blood. Both of the young men were covered with dirt and the remnants of the previous year's fall; the careful crafted green velvet of Hunter's cloaks looked entirely brown at a distance. Blond hair and brown hair were a mass of knots and wild tangles, but at least the Elseth Hunters had come back successful.

Lord Maubreche, Lord Valentin, and Lord William of Valentin approached them in silence; the bare head of the eldest lord, framed in a ring of white tufts of hair, bent low. His huntbrother, Andrew, came to his aid, and together they lifted and dragged the carcass away to the center of the King's impromptu court—it would be unmade there, according to all of the proper rituals.

Lord Valentin bowed low; his peppered hair fell forward around his thin, lined cheeks. “Your Hunt,” he said gravely. His huntbrother, rounder and shorter than he, also bowed. Michaele was not known for polite deference to either Hunters or huntbrothers, although he was still quite capable when it came to the politics of the Ladies.