The Sacred Hunt Duology (9 page)

“He's—he's called trance.” Stephen opened one eye, testing his vision. It held, and he took a tentative step forward. Light flashed; color diminished. Images flickered by before he could properly identify them.

“Yes.”

“But—” His vision altered and flipped again. “He's moving around all over the place; I can't even tell how many dogs he's trying to see with.”

“It's too new to him. Remember what you were taught,” Norn said again. “Or you'll pay the same price he does, and you won't be in any position to take care of him.”

Remember?
Oh, yes. Blocking. Stephen winced.

“You don't have to block everything,” Norn said. “But block the vision well.”

Very carefully, Stephen did as he was told. It was almost as if, in the darkness, he had to struggle to find each of a multiple set of open eyes and firmly pull the lids shut. But it eased the confusion and the tingling that he felt with each successive move.

“They can hunt like that?” he asked Norn, the lines of his brow bunched together.

“No.” Norn shook his head. “But they've all tried it, and Gilliam won't be an exception.” He shook his head as Stephen's expression changed. “You can try to talk him out of it if you want, but you'd have as much luck trying to talk Corwel out of eating his portion of the kill. Gil's
with
the dogs.”

“I know,” Stephen said, almost sadly. Although his visual link was gone, the emotional one remained. “He's—he's happy. It's like—”

Norn waited for five minutes and then looked at his pensive companion. “It's as if he's suddenly discovered that he's been alone all his life—and he never has to be
alone again.” The older man began to walk again. “They don't forget us, Stephen; they never will.

“But never try to compete with the dogs,” Norn added. “The dogs are the hunt; they and your brother were born and bred to it, and they cannot be separated.”

• • •

There were eight hounds in total; Corwel, Absynt, Terwel, Vellas, Sanfel, Tannes, Solsha, and Browin. They had been wet down, dried, and brushed, and the sheen of their fur caught the sun and slanted it along ripples of gray and brown. Corwel alone was white with his black bandit's mask, but he would have stood out anyway; he was a full hand taller than the next largest dog and his carriage was almost regal.

Of the eight, Corwel was the oldest, and he relied on his experience and wit to keep his place in the pack. Corwel had found extreme favor in Lord Elseth's eyes, but not even Soredon would interfere with the instinctive natural laws his dogs obeyed. The hounds were the Hunter's method of pitting nature against nature, and there were some things that not even a Hunter Lord could judge as wisely, or as harshly, as was necessary.

These eight stood on the edge of the great, greening forests of early spring. Elseth Lords hunted here, for practice, pleasure, and duty. The ground was wet, almost too much so, and the trees were only beginning to show their leaves.

Both Gilliam and Soredon were quiet, which was usual. Norn and Stephen were also quiet, which was less so. Eight dogs was the minimum that was ever taken out for a proper hunt.

Gilliam's forehead was creased in a frown of concentration mingled with a little unease. In this, the first of his trance-run hunts, he was not the leader of his pack, not the Lord; he was Soredon's son, and a distant second to him. Only with Soredon's word and interior voice behind him did the dogs deign to obey Gilliam's commands, and they obeyed with obvious reluctance.

Get used to it, Gil
, Stephen thought.
You'll hunt the full season with your father's dogs, and they'll always be your father's. Period.
He didn't say it out loud because he didn't want to embarrass Gilliam in front of his father and Norn, but also because he'd already said it at least ten times.

“Yes,” Gilliam had said. “But at the end of this season, I'll be a Hunter Lord, and I'll have dogs loyal to me for the rest of my life.” The implication that he would never give the key to
his
pack to anyone, son or no, was obvious.

Corwel suddenly moved, a restless lunge that ended with a distinct snapping of strong jaws.

“Gil,” Soredon said, softly and sternly, “better control.”

Gilliam nodded, lowering his chin slowly until his eyes were on a level with the pack's leader. “Will they do this to me?”

“Your own dogs?”

A fierce nod of dark, sweaty hair.

“Oh, aye. And more: If you don't exert your control from time to time, they'll test you—and they might win.”

“And if they win?”

“They'll lead, Gilliam. You never want that to happen.” He dropped a hand to Corwel's head. “If you're injured, they'll protect you; if you're fighting, they'll guard you. If you are upset, they will not leave your side unless you send them away. In all things, they will do as you say—but they
must
know that you are master.” Soredon's sudden smile was a gleam of teeth; he looked not unlike Corwel. “And of
these
dogs, I am master. But you do well enough.”

Stephen was surprised. In his life at Elseth, he hadn't heard Soredon say so many words at one interval. Gilliam, however, was not impressed or surprised. His eyes appeared to be all pupil, all blackness, as he swung his head to face the forest.

Absynt, a stately, fine gleam of gray, trotted forward. He met Gil's eyes, growled softly—and very, very quietly—and began to follow an invisible scent that a well-trained
lymer
could practically see.

Gilliam's lips moved, although he gave no voice to the command, and Absynt was swallowed by the Elseth forests. Gilliam of Elseth nodded curtly to his hunt-brother, and Stephen bent down to the doubled leads. He raised a brow in Gilliam's direction, but Gil didn't seem to notice.

“Should I uncouple them?” Stephen's hands hovered above the eyelets of chain that held Terwel and Vellas together.

“Wait for his command,” Norn replied.

“What if he doesn't give it?”

Norn shrugged. “The Hunt is hard; it's best he learns it now, rather than at the King's call.”

Gilliam did not forget. But the dogs were more disarrayed than Stephen had ever seen them when they finally moved in on the chosen stag's trail. Gilliam was already pale and breathing heavily from exertion when he disappeared from view.

Stephen was glad that he had placed no bets. He tightened his belt, securing water and dagger, and then nodded formally to both Norn and Soredon. It was time to join his brother in the hunt.

• • •

The first thing Stephen heard was the baying of the dogs. It was a bad sign; the Hunter's call should have been sounded first. He raised his own horn to his lips, knowing the Hunter's refrain. Both he and Gilliam had practiced calls with their silvered horns since they had reached the age of eleven.

• • •

“Late,” Norn said, as the horn's triple notes—two long and one short—faded.

“And not,” Soredon added grimly, “called by Gilliam.”

Gilliam ran with his father's pack, almost as one of it; it was impossible for
Soredon not to know who did what, and how, during the hunt's course. Norn felt something akin to sympathy for the cocky young man who was as much a son to him as he was to Soredon.

• • •

After fifteen minutes, Stephen thought he needn't be too concerned for Gil. It was obvious that Gilliam had called the second measure of the trance; Stephen could see, in the spring earth, the sudden widening of Gilliam's stride. He had been taught the art of tracking by Norn, and now understood why it was necessary. The dogs at full run, with Gilliam in trance, left him behind, and he didn't dare follow with a similar burst of speed. It would exhaust him before the hunt was properly finished.

He felt a sudden surge of panic—Gilliam's, not his own—followed by a sharp determination.

Oh, no. Gil, don't do anything stupid, please.
But even if Gilliam could have heard it, he wouldn't have listened. Stephen's jog picked up incautious speed. A jog, even a quick one, could be maintained for hours if necessary; running just so, Stephen could find his stride—the perfect combination of footwork and breathing—and when he did, he was certain he could run forever.

But breathing was control and rhythm; Stephen lost track of both it and the even, steady pace of his feet when he felt Gilliam's sudden despair.

• • •

He found Gilliam and the dogs across a stream so swollen with the last of winter's runoff that it was almost a river. There were stones and fallen trees that made passage possible, but Stephen ignored them; they took time to navigate, and too much caution.

He plunged into the stream, wading up to the far bank and pulling himself out of water and mud with the aid of an exposed tree root.

The dogs were trembling, their sides heaving. Almost as one creature, their faces were turned toward the woods, and Stephen could see the evenly spaced hoofprints that were imprinted into the dirt. He didn't have to search for them. Gilliam's fallen body, his outstretched arm, lay in a perfect line with their retreat. An unhindered line. The hunted had escaped the hunter.

He ran the rest of the way, and then crouched down, unmindful of the dirt, to touch his brother's throat. The pulse was far too rapid, but it was there.

“Gil?”

Gilliam didn't stir.

“Gilliam!” He turned his hunter over and tried to lift him. Corwel suddenly came to life with a loud series of barks. “Shut up, Corwel!”

“No,” another voice said.

Lord Elseth came up from the stream's bank. He gestured, and Solsha broke away from the pack, heading back over the trail he had made. “Gil's fine, Stephen.”

“He's not even conscious.”

“Well, no. And he's barely fine. But he stopped in time.” He walked over to his son and held out his arms.

Stephen met his eyes squarely.
He's my Hunter
, he wanted to say; his arms tightened around Gilliam's limp, dead weight.

“Yes, he is,” Soredon replied, although Stephen had not spoken. “And you ran a good hunt until the end. You were slow.” But he didn't really look at Stephen as he spoke; his eyes were on Gilliam's closed lids and flushed cheeks. “Norn will be coming; let's get Gilliam home.”

• • •

Soredon waited, quiet, at his son's side. It had been hard to pry Stephen from it, which was as it should be, but irritating nonetheless. Sunlight tinged pink came in through the uncurtained window. Gilliam had still not stirred. Nor would he for at least the next eight hours. The Hunter's trance granted speed, endurance, rapidity of reflex—but it demanded its due when the Hunt was over. If the hunt were extraordinarily long, and the Hunter Lord weakened by some previous injury or illness, it could demand that due during the Hunt when the Lord's body couldn't answer it. Only a few had died this way, but they were lesson enough.

I never thought you would make it this far. You will be a Hunter Lord who will do Elseth proud.

Smile turned to grimace; he knew that Gilliam would be sick for the better part of a week. But that sickness was natural, part of the history of the Hunter. Very, very few had come as close as Gilliam had to owning that title proper on his first hunt. Pride made Soredon gentle, where very little else could.

You truly are my son.

The thought gave him a peace that not even the annoyance of the waiting pack could quell.

• • •

Gilliam was a good patient for the first three days of his convalescence only because he slept through it. He managed to retain a grip on alertness for long enough to eat before sliding back into sleep and dream. Stephen, Norn, and Lady Elseth took turns watching over him. Soredon, with duties to the Hunter title and its quotas, came in the evenings but did not tarry long.

On the fourth day, Gilliam woke in a quiet mood, and on the fifth, that mood turned sour. He hated being confined to bed, and his thoughts were not only with the dogs, but within them as well. Lord Elseth made clear to his sole heir how pleased he was with the hunt's progress, but the taint of failure clung to the whole venture and as Gilliam's memories of his first hunt were a patchwork of motley scenes at best, he wanted to be up at once and leading the pack again. This time, he swore, he would do much better.

Lady Elseth kept him confined for a full week, and Stephen was certain that
had she been able to tolerate more of her son's surly behavior, it would have been longer. Stephen wished it so, but Stephen's temper was easily the better of the two brothers', and in the end Gilliam won out.

Suddenly, all of the duties of the huntbrother took on their full, and often irksome, meaning. No longer was Stephen allowed to spend time in his beloved libraries, learning the intricacies of history and language that had become his love. Instead, he was called to hold couples, and the hounds, in the forested lands. Months stretched to winter, and the busy Lady Elseth lost her evening reading with Stephen to the demands of the mill and the farmers of her demesne.

But the hunts, of course, never ended—and Stephen was obliged to follow Norn, Soredon, and Gilliam wherever it was that the season dragged them in search of food and prey. In the winter, they would spend days or even weeks away from Elseth Manor.

Stephen hated the cold. The dangers of winter had been ingrained by childhood into his reactions, and even though he was bundled in warm clothing with a hat, scarves, mittens, boots, and layers of sweaters and furs, none of these made up for the comfort of his own bed and the security of a place that was home.

But he had made his oath, and some small part of him—one that was firmly committed to silence—found satisfaction in tending both the dogs and Gilliam when they returned from their long hunts, exhausted and weary. Sometimes they succeeded, and sometimes they failed, but Stephen usually didn't move quickly enough to catch the hunt's end—or Hunt's glory, as Lord Elseth called it.