The Hallowed Hunt

'A terrifying dream,' he said, in the most detached voice he could muster.

'I did not fear them. But they split my heart.'

'Were they so pitiful?'

'No—I mean—really. Or not really, but in my dream—I parted my ribs, and reached into my chest, and brought out my beating heart and presented it to the revenant I took to be their captain. He was one of the headless ones—his head, in its helm, was fastened to his broad gold belt, and he bore a standard with its banner tight-furled. He bowed low, and placed my heart upon a stone slab, and cut it in two with the hilt-shard of his broken sword. Half he handed back to me again, with a sign of great respect. The other half, they raised high upon the standard’s point, and they cried out again. I did not understand if it was pledge, or sacrifice, or ransom, or what, until... ' She stopped, swallowed.

Began again. 'Until Wencel said those words last night. Banner-carrier. I had half forgotten the dream, in the press of more recent woes, but at those words the memory of it slammed back, so vivid it was like a blow—I don’t think you know how close I came to fainting.'

'I... no. To me, you just looked interested.'

She gave a relieved nod. 'Good.'

'And so what new thing do you make of your dream as a result?'

'I thought... I think... I think now the dead warriors made me their banner-carrier, that night.' Her right hand rose from her rein to her left breast, and spread there in the sacred gesture; he thought the fingers clutched in a tiny spasm. 'And I was suddenly reminded that the heart is the sign and signifier of the Son of Autumn. The heart for courage. And loyalty. And love.'

Ingrey had tried to wrench their thoughts to shrewd politics, to good, solid, reasonable, practical plans. How had he stepped hip deep into the eerie once again? 'It was but a dream. How long ago?'’

'Some months. The others could not wait to break camp and gallop home, next morning, but I rode slowly, looking back.'

'What did you see?'

'Nothing.' Her brows drew in, as if in remembered pain. 'Nothing but trees. The others feared that country, but it drew my heart. I wanted to return to the woods, alone if no escort would come, and try again to understand. But before I could slip away, I was sent to Earl Horseriver’s household, and, well.' Her glance at him intensified. 'But the Wounded Woods cannot be sold.'

'Surely someone might be found who does not know their local reputation.'

She shook her head. 'You don’t understand.'

'What, are the lands entailed to you?'

'No.'

'Already pledged for debt?'

'No! Nor shall they be. How would I ever redeem them?' She laughed mirthlessly. 'No great marriage, or likely, any marriage, looms in my future now; and I have no other prospects of inheritance.'

'But if it might save your life, Ijada—'

'You don’t understand. Five gods help me, I don’t understand. But... they laid the woods into my charge, the dead men. I cannot lay that charge down until my men are... paid.'

'Paid? What coin can ghosts desire? Or hallucinations, as the case may be,' he added testily.

She grimaced in frustration, and with a little slice of her hand batted down his doubting shot. 'I don’t know. But they wanted something.'

'Then I shall just have to find another way,' Ingrey muttered. Or return to this argument later.

Now it was her turn to stare thoughtfully at him. 'And what plans have you made to seek out the source of your geas?'

'None, yet,' he admitted. 'Though after, um, Red Dike, I think no such thing could be laid upon me again without my seeing it. Resisting it.' Stung by the doubtful quirk of her eyebrows, he added more sternly, 'I plan to be on my guard, and look about me.'

'I did wonder... are you so certain I was its true target? Perhaps, instead of you being a means to destroy me, I was just a means to destroy you. Whom have you offended?'

Ingrey’s frown deepened at this unwelcome thought. 'Many men. It’s my calling. But I always figured an enemy would just send paid bravos.'

'Do you think the average bravo would be inclined to take you on?'

His lips lifted a little at this. 'They might have to raise the price.'

Her lips curved, too. 'Perhaps your unknown enemy is a pinch-purse, then. The bounty for a wild wolf warrior might be too steep for him.'

Ingrey chuckled. 'My reputation is more lurid than my sword arm can sustain, I’m afraid. An adversary has merely to send enough men, or shoot from behind in the dark. Easily enough done. Men alone are not hard to kill, despite our swagger.'

'Indeed,' she murmured bleakly, and Ingrey cursed his careless tongue. After a moment, she added, 'It’s still a good question, though. What would have happened to you if the geas had worked as planned?'

Ingrey shrugged. 'Disgraced. Dismissed from Hetwar’s service. Maybe hanged. Our drowning would have passed as an accident, true. Some several men might have been happy that I’d relieved them of a dilemma, but I should not have looked to them for gratitude.'

'But it would be safe to say you’d have been removed as a force in the capital.'

'I’m no force in the capital. I’m just one of Hetwar’s more dubious servants.'

'Such a charitable man Hetwar is to sponsor you, then.'

Ingrey’s lips opened, closed. 'Mm.'

'When I first saw Wencel’s beast, my mind leapt to him as the possible source of your geas. Still more so, when he revealed its mystery. He as much as said he fancied himself a shaman.'

You thought it, too? Ijada, Ingrey reminded himself, had never known Wencel as a small, slow child. But did that leave her to overestimate, or Ingrey to underestimate, his cousin?

Ijada continued, 'But in that case, I do not understand why we were both allowed to leave his house alive today.'

'That would have been too crude,' said Ingrey. 'A hired assassin is always his own witness, but the geas would have left none. The spell-caster, Wencel or not, desired greater subtlety. Presumably.' He frowned in renewed doubt.

'He was never a comfortable man, but this new Wencel scares me to death.'

'Well, he does not me.' Ingrey’s mouth and mind froze as he was suddenly reminded of how close he’d come to death at his own hand, not twelve hours past. A subtle enough death to pass unquestioned even under Wencel’s roof? It was no geas that time, though. I did it to myself.

After Wencel cried wolf at me...

'Now what makes you grow grim?' Ijada demanded.

'Nothing.'

Her lips twisted in exasperation. 'To be sure.'

After a few more minutes of riding in silence, she added, 'I want to know what else Wencel knows of Bloodfield—or Holytree, as he called it—if he’s such a scholar of the Old Weald as he claims. Tax him on it, if—when—you speak again. But do not tell him of my dream.'

Ingrey nodded agreement. 'Had you ever discussed your legacy with him?'

'Never.'

'With Princess Fara?'

Ijada hesitated. 'Only in terms of its value, or lack of it, as a bride-piece.'

Ingrey drummed his fingers on the thigh of his riding leathers. 'It must have been but a dream. Most souls would have been taken up by the gods at the hour of their deaths, whether your woods were Bloodfield or some lesser Wealding defeat. Any sundered who refused the gods would have blurred to oblivion centuries ago, or so the