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The midnight-black horses thundered along the forest road. To Orielle’s eye, they moved slowly, muscles bunching and stretching gently, manes drifting in the cold night air, their speed a deceptive glide over the ground. Yet moon-silvered trees passed in a blur. The road sped by beneath the enchanted horses’ hoofs.
The Lady’s Moon rose quickly in the velvet-dark sky.
She rode on Lord Skull’s left. Mounted on his snow-white steed, the knight Sangrior rode to the Kyrgy Lord’s right, the place of honor. Ever wary, Grim followed. Lord Skull’s knights and dames came after.
A russet hart with a weighty rack of antlers leapt across the road. As it fled into the trees, Lord Skull reined in his horse. He flung up a hand to stop the following riders. Then he stared into the trees, tracking the hart’s long run until it vanished in the deeper forest. “Magnificent.”
“Worthy of a Hunt,” Sangrior commented.
“Not this Hunt. We seek foul sorcery. Not-Wizard, you ride well.”
Orielle patted her night-black mount. They had ridden for miles, but the horse wasn’t blown. “Thank you, my Lord, but I prefer the name Solsken.”
The Kyrgy Lord chuckled, which Lady Bone would never have done. “Not-Wizard is what you are. Solsken is when you are.” He fixed her with his black-on-black eyes. His horse stood calm while hers shifted, as if the Lord’s gaze burdened it. “I do not know who you are. I am not certain you know yourself.”
“I am no more and no less than Orielle of Galfrons Clan of the Enclave, a Not-Wizard named Aiwaz Solsken by a Kyrgy knight.”
Sangrior smiled at her use of the name he’d given her. That smile revealed his recently sharpened teeth in that marble-white skin, a statue who lived and acted and reacted.
She shifted in her saddle to look behind, meeting Grim’s cautious gaze. “More than friend,” she added, “to Grim Holtson, a Rhoghieri.”
“More than friend?” Lord Skull glanced at the Rho. When he again faced forward, the rising moon glinted on his Fae-scrolled armor. “Grim Holtson is only more than a friend? You have not shared your true names?”
“We look forward to becoming more.” Grim sounded firm, and he returned her smile. “We have had little time, my lord. Wyre and gobbers—.”
“And wraiths,” she added.
“Have prevented the more.”
“Kyrgy know” was Lord Skull’s only comment. “Come. We ride on. Wyre and sorcery are at the end of our Hunt.” Yet he didn’t set the thundering pace of before.
Orielle dared not ask questions. Lady Bone could be capricious. Both the Lady and her brother were dangerous Dark Fae. She hadn’t found the limits of their tolerance, and she didn’t wish to.
At this cantering pace, she glimpsed more than passing trees. A twinkling nest of sprites flickered in the distant forest. With wizard-sight, she spotted mundane creatures scurrying away from the road, fleeing the Hunt’s passage. Dark bulks with silver glints and the occasional flash of red eyes helped her see them as they dove into tangled undergrowth or they scurried up tree trunks. The little animals were safe, too small to tempt the riders into pursuit.
After they crossed a ridge, Lord Skull slowed the ride, walking the horses down. A knight rode forward, jostling Sangrior to the road’s verge. Skull didn’t acknowledge him. The knight took the lead. He paused at a distant bend of the road and drew his sword. The dark steel winked in the silvery light of Lady’s Moon.
When the Hunt reached the bend, Orielle heard rushing water, but the trees blocked any view of the river. She didn’t know if the shore they neared was where they had battled the wyre and the sorceress. Was it where she and Grim alone had defeated wyre? Or was it yet another rushing stream that emptied into the main tributary that poured into the Lowlands?
The knight waited by a dense tangle of withy undergrowth that spilled down the steep-climbing mountainside. Farther along, the road descended between banks of trees, an old wagon trace. The knight pointed to the tangle with his sword. “Here. The entrance is here.”
Lord Skull rode closer, and Orielle remained at his side. Sangrior came as well and drew his sword, the steel glinting ice-blue. He was Lady Bone’s knight, lent to her brother while the consort knight Volk and Sir Kristofin remained at the Lady’s side, not on this ride.
Grim drew up on her left. His sword was drawn, ready, Fae bright where the riders’ weapons were dark steel.
Hands crossed on his saddle pommel, Lord Skull waited. The lead knight dismounted. He threw his reins to Sangrior. Sword leading the way, he ducked into the writhe of woodbine and disappeared into the thicket against the mountainside.
“What is it?” she asked Sangrior.
“Old lair. Lord Skull thought the wyre would have returned to it.”
“Did they not camp on the shore?”
“This lair is older, from years ago.”
Grim inhaled sharply. “Aye, I thought I recognized it. Three years old.”
“The wyre who attacked the Haven? Before you left for the Citadel?”
“Aye. Nothing should be here except bones. The bones of the last wyre we killed.”
“Unless the other wyre did use it for shelter.”
“How would they find it?” Grim countered the kyrgy knight. “None survived. Any scent is old, weathered to nothing.”
Orielle didn’t care about their argument. “Would the wyre with the sorceress have created a lair? Or found a cave for shelter? Or did they just camp on the shore?”
“They left their dead on the shore,” Sangrior said with a dogmatic assurance. “They left their dead for gobbers and scavengers to feed on.”
“Lady Bone’s knights and dames, those who were killed? Were they also left on the shore?”
“The Lady scattered their ashes, giving them back to the sun at its zenith.”
How did Sangrior know? He’d been with her in the Haven throughout the day. Did he have some connection to the Lady, so that he knew what she wanted him to know? Orielle remembered that blinding transition from place to place, which shifted her and Sangrior from the glade where the Lady had healed Volk and to the Haven. They had also shifted back to another glade where they’d met her and Lord Skull ... and begun this ride.
The fight against the sorceress and her wyre had decimated Lady Bone’s riders—although Sangrior showed no grief for his fellow knights and dames. Only the two consort knights and one other had survived, Volk gravely wounded. If he had not been wounded, would the Lady have continued the fight? When Volk had staggered under the attack of two shifted wyre, the Lady gathered him and her two remaining knights, the betraying Saircuista, and Orielle ... then they fled, transitioning from the shore to that starlit meadow surrounded by old-growth trees.
From there, Sangrior returned with her to the Haven. Then he fought at her side against wraiths and a Fire mentor allied to the sorceress. Since he remained with me, how does he know what Lady Bone did with the dead riders? How does he know the sorceress abandoned her dead wyre and the three mundane swordsmen?
Skull’s knight reappeared, his sword advancing first through the tangle. He bowed. “No one, my Lord. Cold fire. Days old. No taint of sorcery.”
“Used, though?” Skull leaned over his pommel. “The wyre did choose to return here. Where have they gone?” He contemplated the forest surrounding them, ahead where the land steeply rose on both sides of the forest road and the tangle of undergrowth that grew round the old-growth trees. His eyes narrowed as he tracked deeper into the forest.
What does he see with his Fae eyes? Wizard-sight painted the nocturnal world in silver of varying hues, from ghostly pale rocks to the black trunks of virgin trees, glimmering creatures that cowered in the undergrowth and charcoal masses of bushes heaped over with woodbine. Orielle saw nothing more than what any mundane would see in sunlight. Did Kyrgy eyes see the lingering traces of life essence? Did Skull distinguish mundane from magical, wizardry from sorcery, powered from weirded?
He saw something, for he spurred his horse forward on the road. Sangrior followed him. Orielle wanted to drop back with Grim. The Kyrgy lord drew his horse up short. It snorted and tossed its head, the white mane lifting then falling over the black hide. “Stay with me, Solsken.”
Pleased that he used her preferred name, she urged her horse to his shield side. She prayed Skull did not think she was his shield against the sorceress.
The road descended between the rising land. It worked through a cleft that funneled them two abreast. Orielle dropped back, as did Sangrior. The Kyrgy’s knight took shield-side to his lord. Like an old wagon trace, beat down by the passage of heavy cargo, the road descended, a foot, three feet, five feet, the height of the horses and riders, and more. The trees towered on both sides, joining their branches to block out the Crone Moon.
The passage squeezed tighter and muddied from a seeping spring. Ice rimed the edge of the puddle. A wagon would barely scrape through. The deepness of the road, the denseness of the trees, both muffled the hoot of an owl winging by. The horses’ hoofs clicked over exposed rocks. The bridles jingled like silver chimes.
An animal leaped down to the descending road. Wolf. No, wyre, for the eldritch green transformation gleamed in its eyes. The wyre bared his fangs and snarled. Ruffled pale blonde fur increased its size.
Skull halted. Then he laughed. “Is that all, little wyre?”
A flash to the left, then a dark shape leaped upon the knight riding beside Skull. It growled as it struck, knocking the knight out of the saddle and to the muddy ground. The wyre followed the knight down, landing between the horses. Then it latched onto the rider’s neck and choked off his shout.
The close confines of the narrowed road crowded the horses together. Man and wyre grappled beneath the horses.
Skull whipped out his sword when the wyre struck, but he couldn’t strike down to help, not without seriously wounding his man. He used the flattened blade to drive the man’s horse forward. It leaped ahead, straight for the snarling wyre athwart the road. That wyre jumped away then raced after the running horse.
With the horse fled, the Lord struck. Skull’s blade flashed downward. The wyre yelped but didn’t open his jaws. The man lay limp beneath him. Skull struck again. The wyre flattened onto the man. He whimpered. Skull struck a third time, and the whimpering stopped.
Sangrior and Grim had drawn their swords. Orielle quickly scanned the banks on either side, watching for another ambush.
Sword black with blood, the Kyrgy looked around. “Trap.”
Sangrior scanned around them, alert for ambush. Grim and the riders behind him were equally alert. Their party was stuffed into the cleft, unable to move forward unless Skull did, able to retreat only one at a time after they turned their horses.
“I can follow the escaped wyre,” Sangrior offered. “What would you, my Lord?”
“Do not follow. Ride ahead and guard. You, Rhoghieri, stand with him. We will hold this space.” He rode a few paces forward, opening a way past his downed rider and the dead wyre that had killed him.
Orielle had to follow Sangrior past the rider and wyre so Grim could also pass. Skull leaned out and caught her reins as she edged by. With Sangrior and Grim going on, he pulled her horse around to fetch up against him, so close their legs butted against each other. He tossed her his reins then dismounted.
Two of his knights had ridden forward and also dismounted. The others remained mounted, alert, swords drawn. The last two riders had faced about, guarding the rear.
The Kyrgy prodded the wyre with the blood-black point of his sword. Then he wedged the blade underneath the inert furred body and flipped it off his man and to the side of the road, against the wall of earth. He knelt beside his rider. Blood covered the man’s face and clenched hands, locked into a futile defense by death. The wyre had torn out his throat.
Skull closed the man’s staring eyes. He didn’t wipe the blood from his fingers. Resting his hand on the rider’s chest, he bowed his head and murmured.
Orielle couldn’t hear, but she sensed the energy drawn by the Kyrgy lord. It rushed past her, a drawing on all the elements. Crackling with Fire, weighty with Earth, dampening her chilled cheeks with more than tears, ruffling her hair and skirts and her horse’s mane as the Air swirled. Even dark Chaos whorled around Lord Skull, stiffening, coalescing, until it obscured him and the dead knight.
Then the elements faded. The Fire winked out. The Earth trembled then quieted. The Water dried. Air drifted away. And Chaos vanished. All the elements dissipating as if never evoked for use.
Skull alone remained on the road, still kneeling with bowed head beside where his rider lay covered by a black cloak. The wyre lay lifeless at the base of the ascending earth.
He straightened. Face blank of expression, he looked past her to his riders then to Sangrior and Grim. With an equal lack of expression, he scanned the elevated ground. Then he flicked his hefty sword, an easy gesture, as if the weapon was weightless. The blood that blackened the blade flicked off.
Sword aloft, he met Orielle’s gaze. “We fight wyre, Not-Wizard. Do you still Hunt with us?”
Does he think I am appalled at battle? I am appalled, but killing the sorceress and her wyre must happen. “As I vowed to do, Lord Skull.”
“The Hunt continues.” He didn’t have to lift his voice. A spell carried the words, sparkling with energy, past her and to his riders, back to Grim and Sangrior, guarding the road ahead. “They hunted the hunters. Time to hunt them down.”
His knights lifted an ululating cry, throat and tongues giving cry. Orielle shivered as the eerie sound lasted and lasted before it faded as echoes.
Skull vaulted into the saddle. The mud hadn’t clung to his leathers or armor. He lifted a hand. Two riders broke past her. They saluted their Lord then passed Grim and Sangrior, breaking into a trot when they reached clear road.
With his still-bloody hand, the Kyrgy lord grabbed energy out of the air. He shaped it into an orb then flung it ahead. The orb lit the road like a weak, unnatural sun. It raced past Grim and Sangrior, past his riders, and on ahead, guiding the way.
“Solsken, stay with me.”
Orielle spurred her horse to remain close to Skull.
For the Hunt was on, tracking the wyre that had escaped.
