terrified quarry. Tristan angrily spurred Shallot into a desperate, thundering gallop, urging the powerful stallion up the steep slope. The High King's surroundings had ceased to matter; he knew only the scent of blood in his nostrils, the imminent fate of his quarry before him.
Cresting the low ridge, he saw the stag splash through a wide, shallow stream below. Still howling, the dogs leaped into the water, bounding through the streambed, their slavering jaws snapping after the bounding form of the great deer.
Shallot plunged down the following slope with admirable courage, the stallion's powerful forelegs bearing the brunt of the rapid descent. The war-horse carried the king around the most tangled thickets, past the more precipitous dropoffs, retaining his balance on treacherous terrain, springing downward as if he sensed his rider's need to complete this hunt with his own arm, his own steel.
The stag plunged into a wide meadow of lush greenery and blazing flowers, but then water gleamed to either side, flying outward in shimmering curtains of spray. The animal's mindless flight carried it farther into a marsh, and as it slowed, the huge hounds sprang into the mire in pursuit.
The stag lunged and kicked, reaching with desperate fore-hooves for solid ground but finding only bottomless muck. Splashing and thrashing, the creature pressed ahead, but now the howling dogs closed in steadily. The stag located a low hummock of mud, perilous fundament amid the morass but the only dry ground within reach. Scrambling out of the water, the cornered beast turned its impressive rack of antlers toward the bounding, wailing hounds.
'Hold!' cried Tristan as Shallot reached the edge of the mire and plunged in without a moment's delay. The dogs, well disciplined to their master's command, froze immediately. They barked and snapped at their quarry, but did not close to bite.
The king spurred his plunging horse, trying to drive Shallot to greater efforts as the huge stallion labored through the clutching mud of the swamp. Here was his chance! Tristan raised his lance, leveling the gleaming steel tip at the trapped stag and kicking the stallion into even greater efforts to charge. Then a strange urge held his hand. He thrust the lance into the mud and instead drew his longsword, feeling a flush of impending victory at the satisfying weight of the blade.
The five dogs snapped and snarled, but obeyed his command not to attack. As Shallot carried Tristan onto the hummock of mud, however, the stallion reared back in fright. Clutching his sword, Tristan stared in shock as gray, skulking figures emerged from the brush beyond. Leaping forward with sleek grace and quick, animal power, a pack of lean wolves gathered in a protective circle around the frightened deer. More and more of the lupine forms, nearly as big as his hounds, pounced forward, forming a ring of bristling fangs and raised hackles surrounding the panting, exhausted stag.
The baying of the hounds rose to a furious pitch as the five dogs confronted the wolf pack. A strange kind of equilibrium seemed to hold them in place, only a few paces apart. Ranthal, leading the hounds, stepped forward, stiff-legged and snarling, but the largest of the wolves moved forward from the pack to meet him.
The wild animal's yellow eyes stared, unblinking, at the huge hound. Unconsciously Tristan held his breath. He felt certain that Ranthal would hurl himself at the wolf unless a command from the king held him back. But so powerfully did the hunting song pulse through Tristan's veins that he gave no thought to restraint, never even considered telling his dog to hold.
Yet, surprisingly, Ranthal did not attack. In fact, after a few moments confronting the wolf's baleful glare, the great moorhound crept backward, rejoining his four packmates with almost palpable relief. The wolves, meanwhile, made no aggressive move, instead holding firm in their protective ring. Any attack against the stag would have necessitated a charge through their bristling fangs.
Astonished, Tristan held his sword before him, angled toward the ground, and considered the merits of a short, deliberate charge. Shallot could carry him through the wolves with little danger, and he knew that the hounds would protect the flanks of the great war-horse. Yet still something held his hand-he didn't know what the cause-as the bloodlust of the hunt slowly drained away. He felt as if he awakened from some kind of dream, not entirely certain how he had come to be where he was. Carefully he lowered his sword, no longer wishing to drive it into the flesh of his quarry.
'Greetings, King of Callidyrr, Monarch of the Ffolk, Uniter of the Moonshaes, and Slayer of Giant-kin!' The voice, heavy with irony, nearly knocked Tristan from his saddle with raw surprise, for the words had come from the great wolf!
'Who-who are you?' he demanded.
'Who am I?' The wolf sounded amused. 'Rather, ask yourself who are you, High King Tristan Kendrick!'
'You've answered that question yourself!' he retorted, still shaken by the unusual speaker. He knew insolence when he heard it, and it wasn't an attitude he was used to or accepting of.
'Have I? Or is there more to it than that?'
The creature's irritating responses, meeting a question with another question, grated on the king's nerves. Growing angry, he raised the tip of his sword again. 'I tire of your word games. Explain your reasons for blocking me from my game!'
If the wolf had heard the king's demand, he gave no indication. Instead, the lanky form sat on its haunches and regarded Tristan with those two impossibly bright eyes.
'Answer me, beast!' snapped the High King, yet even as his anger built, he felt a swirling sense of confusion enclosing him. This wasn't right, he knew-and not just because a wolf spoke to him with a human voice. No, the protection the wolves offered to the stag, that was certainly unnatural, and the carefully neutral way they regarded his own dogs both combined to give the man a sense of caution.
'Tell me, human king'-the way the wolf said the word sounded as if humans made a very low grade of king indeed-'what great cause brings you to Myrloch Vale? Why do you ride here, frightening the animals and terrorizing the Earthmother's own deer?'
'What business-' For a moment, outrage wrenched the words from Tristan's mouth, but his brain, although it worked a little more slowly than his jaws, suddenly focused on the wolf's question. Why indeed was he here?
With a quick look at the sun, he saw that his chase of the stag had carried him far to the west of his planned route. He had lost several hours in the exuberant chase, not to mention the time needed to retrace his steps and rest his weary horse.
'I ride against the enemies of the goddess!' he declared, as if to remind himself at the same time as he informed his questioner. He no longer thought of it as a mere beast of the forest. 'Firbolgs and trolls have broken the peace of the vale, marching against their neighbors for war and plunder. My mission is nothing less than the restoration of the Balance in Myrloch Vale!'
'An interesting tactic,' murmured the wolf, the golden eyes taking on a sly cast. 'This stag, for instance-he represents a great threat to the Balance, does he?'
Tristan flushed. 'No! I was hunting. I grew tired of trail fare and desired fresh meat.'
The wolf cast an amused, skeptical eye at the great deer.
The animal stood nearly as tall as Shallot, with a rack of antlers spreading farther to the sides than a tall man's armspan. Finally the barrel chest had ceased its heaving, and the stag seemed to listen attentively, watching the exchange between the wolf and the rider.
'You must be very hungry,' noted the great lupine, after completing his comparison.
Shaking his head in annoyance, Tristan was about to retort that he didn't intend to eat the whole stag when a cautious voice urged him to hold his tongue. Suddenly he understood the wolf's point. 'My hounds must eat as well,' he finished lamely.
'Of course-all things must eat! This is the way of the Balance. But I will tell you something, King of the Ffolk: You were chasing a lord of Myrloch Vale, one who has ruled over his domain for as long as you have held sway in your own. It is a domain that has been free from humans, except for such as honor the vale and its life. Now, is it the purpose of this great animal's life, the purpose of the Balance, that he should feed a human trespasser and his dogs?'
Suddenly Tristan felt an appalling sense of sadness. The wolf was right, of course-the wolf, or whoever this was speaking to him.
Consumed by the force, the magic, of the hunt, he had all but forgotten the threat of the firbolg army, the monsters that even now menaced his subjects to the north. For a moment, he remembered the urgency that had seized him upon the first notion of his grand quest. He had delayed no more than an hour before taking to the trail.
