But it must mean something, because Hyandur was already slowing the mare as they approached it. The mule was only too glad to slacken its pace without any urging on Cilarnen’s part, and both animals passed between the posts at a dead slow walk.
It was snowing on the other side.
Or rather, it
“This is the boundary of the City lands,” Cilarnen said in sudden realization. Or at least, the boundary of the Home Farms.
“Yes.” Hyandur dismounted from the mare and began to walk back and forth with her through the fresh snow, speaking gently to her.
Cilarnen dismounted from the mule, wincing and staggering with stiffness. He rubbed its nose apologetically. He wasn’t sure what to do with mules. But he supposed it couldn’t hurt to treat it like a horse, and so he coiled up the lead-rein that Hyandur had released and began to lead it back and forth, as he had seen the grooms do with horses in his father’s stables.
As he did, he looked back toward the boundary. The snow made it easy to see. The snow just… stopped, as though it had run into an invisible wall.
As it had, of course. A wall of Magecraft. just as Undermage Anigrel had said, the High Council must have extended the boundaries of the City to cover the entire valley once more.
He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. The High Council had reversed its decision. The Home Farms were part of the City Lands once more, just as he and the others had wanted.
He’d ruined his life, caused his father’s death, his family’s disgrace, for nothing.
“You may stop now,” Hyandur told him, breaking into Cilarnen’s chaotic thoughts. “Unsaddle the mule, and build a fire in the brazier. We will rest here before going on.”
Cilarnen stared at him, too shocked to react. The Elf was giving him orders?
Hyandur regarded him for a long moment.
“If you cannot do that, then go to the well and draw water for the animals. They are rested enough to be ready to drink. The well lies over there.” He pointed in the direction of a snowy cylinder of rock.
Cilarnen hesitated, but the mule nudged at his shoulder, then lowered its head to mouth at the snow, obviously wanting water. There was no reason for the animals to suffer just because they belonged to an Elf. Reluctantly, Cilarnen trudged off in that direction, tucking his hands into his armpits to warm them.
He had never seen a well in his life, but it was a simple mechanical design, with a crank and gears to raise and lower a bucket on a rope, and after a few tries, he managed to get the cover off, find the bucket, and fill the trough at the well’s foot with water.
If he’d had his Magegift and Wand, he could simply have Called the water up out of the well. As it was, it was at least a chime before he managed to fill the watering-trough, and he was sweating and damp—and very irritated with the Elf—at the end of it. If this was servants’ work, then the servants in House Volpiril had not had as soft a life as he’d imagined.
But as he turned back to collect the horse and the mule, he forgot all his lesser problems.
Racing toward him, along the last patch of open ground between the woods and the marker-posts, was a pack of Stone Hounds.
They looked just like the pair outside the Arch-Mage’s house, yet these were horribly animate, their fanged jaws opening and closing with soundless barking. There were almost a dozen of them, perfect in every detail from the spiked collars around their necks to the curved nails upon their feet. Every aspect of their manner spoke of murderous threat.
There was no Mage with them.
He ran back toward Hyandur and the animals—thinking he might be able to save the mare, at least—but before he could reach them, the Outlaw Hunt reached the invisible border between the lands claimed by the City and the world beyond.
They stopped as if they had run into a wall.
But even then they did not retreat.
Like any hunting pack frustrated and kept from taking its prey, they milled back and forth on the far side of
