Myth-Told Tales

hunting?'

'No. If I'm hungry I know a thousand restaurants a D-hop away. If I'm really stuck out in the boonies I'll kill and eat whatever looks edible, no ceremony involved. The formal stuffs like the guy said, 'the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.'' I glanced at her. She was plucking at the edge of her orange harem pants with uneasy fingers. 'Why don't you take riding lessons from Hugh?'

Massha dropped the filmy cloth and gave me an exasperated expression. 'Aahz, honey, look at me. You've known me for years. Can you see me on a horse?'

'Well, no,' I admitted. Massha had no illusions about her figure, and I cared enough about her as a friend not to pretend I didn't understand. 'But you don't expect me to do the riding, do you? I scare the hell out of horses.'

'Not these,' she assured me hastily. 'They'll handle a Pervect. They're trained to hunt beside dragons.'

Some memory stirred. 'Massha,' I asked warily. 'How'd you get involved with the Wylde Hunt?'

'Princess Gloriannamarjolie is an old pal,' Massha said. 'I was her babysitter for a while on Brakespear. She was a real brat when she was six or seven. No one had ever said 'no' to her before I did. There were some pretty fierce tantrums before she learned her limits. She liked it when I did magik for her, and I thought there was a great girl inside all that spoiled nonsense. We achieved a mutual respect, and we've been corresponding off and on for years. Now she's old enough to lead the hunt, and she asked for my help.'

'She's the quarry? It's a suicide mission!' Unlike the Klahds, who rode horses and followed a pack of dogs after fox-wolves over fields and through forests, a brutal enough sport, Brakespear had a pack of dragons that pursued a wily princess across the landscape. The hunt began at dawn. If the princess kept away from the hunters until sunset she was free. If the dragons caught up with her, well, there usually wasn't much left The mask or ears was awarded to the winning hunter. I was appalled that this was still going on.

Massha read the look on my face. 'Those days are gone. It's only scent-hunting now. Glory's got to keep away from the hounds until sunset. The hunters are judged on style, fair play, riding, control of their dragons, and, if they're lucky, catching up with the princess. She's been training all her life for this. She's ready.'

'But for this well need a dragon for the pack. We haven't got one.'

'Yes, we have,' Massha said, with a little coy smile that should have sent me racing out the door as soon as I saw it. 'I borrowed one.' She opened the back door of the cottage. A sinuous blue form twisted around in its own length at the noise, recognized me, and came streaking toward me. It knocked me over and started licking my face with a long pink tongue and breath that smelled like a volcano's dung heap.

'Gleep!' it carolled joyfully, in between slurps.

'Dammit, get off me!' I roared. Massha put a hand in Gleep's collar and hauled him back. I sat up, wiping the slime off with my sleeve. 'You say you borrowed Gleep? Skeeve's not here?'

'No,' Massha admitted.

'Then who's gonna handle this fool lizard?' I asked. Gleep rolled his large blue eyes at me, wanting to get loose and greet me again.

'I've agreed to undertake the task,' said Nunzio, coming in the same door as the dragon, but at a easier pace. 'We get along pretty well, don't we, boy?'

'Gleep!' Gleep agreed, trotting over to lave the Mob man with the Tongue of Doom.

'So why do you need me?' I asked Massha. Slurp. Gleep trotted back and soaked me again. I wiped the disgusting wetness off with the back of my hand. '... Me, the overgrown newt and Nunzio?' Gleep gave me a look of adoration mingled with reproach, or maybe I was reading too much into his expression. He was still a baby, for all that he was twice as big as any of us except Chumley.

'There's still a prize,' Massha said. 'For the hunter who bags the princess, or, if she's better than they are, earns the highest points, the finest treasure the king has to offer. And I've got to tell you, Aahz, Brakespear has some terrifically hot stuff in the treasury. As crown princess, Glory had the keys to the playground. We used to go down there and try things on. It was enough to give a girl dreams.'

I liked the sound of the treasure, but I was too old a hand to believe in a free lunch for the guy who could stay on his horse the longest. 'What's the catch?' I asked.

'Glory has been out looking over the course every day for the last three months. She's been seeing ... well, shadows or shapes. She's certain someone's following her over the landscape, getting a look at where she's planning to go. She's afraid that whoever it is is out to interfere with the hunt Every once in a while they get protesters who picket the hunt, calling it brutal and outdated. Glory's dad has guards posted around, and they know the signs of an incipient demonstration. Whoever's been out there is more subtle than that. And the king has recently acquired a few terrific goodies for the treasury, a couple of them genuinely magikal. The prize is likely to be one of those. Glory wants her hunt to be fair and square. It's dangerous, you know, hot stuff. People can still get killed, even though it's for fun. If anyone's messing with it, I want it stopped.'

'All right,' I said. 'You've convinced me. Your Princess Glory sounds like she's reading all the signs right'

Massha leaped up and hugged me again. 'So you'll do it?'

'Ill do it,' I gasped out. Joyfully, Gleep sprang over and licked me again. 'Dammit, don't do that!'

The following week found me wearing ridiculous breeches and a jacket that only needed the too-tight sleeves to tie behind my back to make it fit for lunatics. I refused outright to put on the helmetlike hat a bunch of the participants were wearing, preferring to depend upon the toughness of my Pervect skull and save my reputation as a snappy dresser from total ruin. The boots were the only things I liked: shiny black leather with just enough heel to catch the stirrups but wouldn't make me trip while back down on terra firma.

It was the day before the hunt. My borrowed mount, a hiphippohippus named Fireball, came from Gloriannamarjolie's own stables, a buckskin mount like a cross between a horse and a rhinoceros. Its big barrel- like body had one deep, diagonal ridge running from midpoint down to a leg's length beneath the withers. It had delicate legs for its build, with bunched muscles in the shoulders and haunches that would make it a good jumper. The beast's spoon-shaped ears swiveled back and forth as I climbed aboard to try it out for size. The natural saddle ridge was suprisingly comfortable. A harness buckled about his barrel in front of the rider provided reins and stirrups. The grooms on both sides shortened the stirrups considerably until my feet fit into them. Not one adult Brakespearan I saw was my height. All of them were at least a head taller, usually more. When the princess had taken us on a welcome tour of the palace guard I felt like I was walking through a forest.

Gloriannamarjolie herself was a strapping girl; not in Massha's class, of course, but tall and big boned, with a healthy, pink-cheeked outdoorsy complexion, long blond hair, and green eyes similar to the fox-wolves that hunters in other dimensions pursued. Brakespearans resembled Klahds fairly closely, except that their ears were pointed at the top instead of round, and their hands were almost pawlike with short fingers, the fifth digit a cross between a thumb and a dewclaw, and a sixth digit just like it on the opposite side of the palm. Plenty of good manipulative talent, and, by the cording in the sturdy arm attached, the strength to back it up. The carvings that decorated both wooden and stone surfaces would have been considered art anywhere.

'All set?'' the princess asked. She sat towering over me on a white beast with a set of wicked little pointed horns in between its ears. It lifted its lip in a sneer at me. I bared my teeth and growled back. The 'hippus danced out of reach, and I wheeled Fireball around.

'Ready,' I said.

'Then let's move out!'

Massha and Nunzio, the latter holding an eager Gleep on a leash, stepped back. She looped the reins between the dewclaws on either side of her right hand, set her left hand on her hip, and kicked her mount in the sides. 'Come on, Suzicue.' Fireball and I followed.

'Don't fall off, Hot Stuff!' Massha called. Setting my teeth, I clenched my knees around Fireball's sides. We thundered away.

The hunting course was off limits, but Glory led us out on a path in a stretch of woods that ran beside the river that fed the castle moat. A stiff wind beat the water up into mini-whitecaps. I could feel the tips of my ears starting to chill.

'A bracing breeze!' Glory shouted over the gale. 'Open him up and see what he can do!'

My mount was already galloping hard, jarring my rear like a jackhammer. I dug in my heels, and was nearly bowled over the beast's tail as Fireball threw it into overdrive. If I hadn't seen dragons move I would never have believed a creature that big could move so fast. The trees around me blurred into a brown picket fence. Another