The Hallowed Hunt

He looked up to find himself fixed with a fierce blue stare. Jokol’s eyes narrowed; he bent his head for a low-voiced, rapid exchange with his brown-haired comrade. Then he looked up and favored Lewko with an abrupt nod, which he extended to Ingrey. 'Yes. We like this one, eh, Ottovin?' He gave his companion a nudge in the ribs that might have knocked over a lesser man, and marched over to his bear. He picked up the silver chain. 'Come, Fafa.'

The bear whined and shuffled a little, but kept its crouching pose.

Lewko’s hand griped Ingrey’s shoulder; a nearly soundless breath in his ear said, 'Let it up again, Lord Ingrey. I think it is calmer now.'

'I... ' Ingrey stepped nearer to the bear, and scooped up and resheathed his sword. The bear shuffled about some more, pressed its black nose to Ingrey’s boots, and stared up at him piteously. Ingrey swallowed, and tried in a cracked voice: 'Up.'

Nothing happened. The bear whimpered.

He reached down into a deep, deep well within himself, and brought up the word again; but a word given weight, a growling song that made his own bones vibrate. 'Up.'

The great animal seemed to unfold. It lumbered to its master then, and Jokol dropped to his knees and petted the huge beast, big hands ruffling the thick fur of its neck, murmuring soothing endearments in a tongue Ingrey’s ear could not translate. The ice bear rubbed its head on the prince’s embroidered tunic, smearing it with bear spit and white hairs.

'Come, my good friend, Fafa’s friend!' said Jokol, standing up and giving Ingrey an expansive wave of his hand. 'Come share a bowl with me.' He gave the silver chain a shake. His glance swept over the mob arguing in the court, and he gave a sniff of disdain and turned toward the outer doors. Ottovin, his face screwed up, followed loyally after. Ingrey hurried to catch up, keeping Jokol between himself and the bear.

The short, strange parade exited the temple, leaving Learned Lewko to manage the babble and wailing left in their wake. Ingrey heard his crisp voice, addressed to the still-yammering groom and anyone else within earshot, '... then it must have been a trick of the light.' At Ingrey’s last glance over his shoulder, Lewko’s eyes met his, and his lips formed the word Tomorrow. Ingrey found it an un- reassuring but credible promise.

His eyes shone silver, and his voice had a terrible weirding on it... Familiar pain crept over Ingrey, and he realized he had done some most unpleasant things to his still-healing back, as well as to his hand. But the ringing in his ears was new, as was the thick tightening in his raw throat.

His memory returned unbidden to his old torments at Birchgrove. Of his head shoved under the Birchbeck, his lungs pulsing with red pain. Not even screams had been possible in that breathless cold. Of all his trials, that had proved the most effective, and his excited handlers had repeated it often, until his lucidity locked in. The strength of his silence, appallingly grim in a barely-boy, had been forged and quenched in that icy stream: stronger than his tormentors by far, stronger than fear of death.

He shook off the disquieting recollection and attended to guiding the island men back to the docks below Kingstown through the least crowded streets he could find. Lewko’s concerns seemed less a joke when they picked up a tail of excited children, all pointing and chirping at the bear. Jokol grinned at them. Ingrey scowled and waved them off. His intensified senses seemed to be quieting, his heart slowing at last. Jokol and Ottovin spoke to each other in their own dialect, with frequent glances in Ingrey’s direction.

Jokol dropped back beside Ingrey. 'I thank you for helping poor Fafa, Lord, Lord Ingriry. Ingorry?'

'Ingrey.'

Jokol grimaced apologetically. 'I fear I am a very stupid man in your talk. Well, my mouth will get better.'

'You speak Wealdean well,' said Ingrey diplomatically. 'My Darthacan is hardly more fluent, and I do not speak your tongue at all.'

'Ah, Darthacan.' Jokol shrugged. 'That is a hard talk.' His blue gaze narrowed. 'Do you write?'

'Yes.'

'That is good. I cannot.' The big man sighed mournfully. 'All feathers break in these.' He held out one thick hand for Ingrey’s inspection; Ingrey nodded in an attempt at sympathy. He did not doubt Jokol’s assertion in the least.

At the ice bear’s ambling pace, they came at length to the gate in the Kingstown walls that led out to the cut-stone embankment and wooden wharves. A grove of masts and spars made a black tangle against the luminous evening sky. The working riverboats were flat and crude, for the most part, but scattered among them were a few seagoing vessels of light draft, up from the mouth of the Stork. Above Easthome no such ships went, for the rising hills created impassable rapids, although timber and other goods, on rafts or in barrels, were routinely floated down them whenever the water rose high enough.

Jokol’s ship, tied up alongside one outthrusting jetty, proved altogether a different breed. It was easily forty feet long, curved out in the middle as gracefully as a woman’s hips, narrowing on each end to where matching prows curled up, artfully carved with entwined rows of sea birds. It had a single mast, and a single deck; its passengers must presumably suffer the elements when it sailed, although at the moment, a large tent was arranged along the back half.

The ship looked big enough on the river, but to Ingrey’s mind it seemed insanely small for the open seas. It looked even smaller when the bear slouched aboard, snuffling, and flopped down amidships in what was evidently its accustomed place with a great, exhausted sigh. The boat rocked, then settled again, as Jokol snapped the chain to a hook on the mast. Ottovin, with an anxious smile, gestured Ingrey up the wobbly board that served as a gangplank and thumped down to the deck after him. In the twilight, the glow from the lamps set within the tent seemed welcoming, and Ingrey was reminded of the little wooden boats bearing candles that he and his father had released into the Birchbeck for the Son’s Day ceremonies, in happier times, before wolves had eaten their world.

A crew of perhaps two dozen welcomed their prince back gladly, and the bear, if less gladly, at least familiarly. They were all strong-looking men, though none so tall as their leader: most as young, but a few grizzled. Some kept their hair in similar horsetails, some braided, and one had a shaved head, though judging from his pale and mottled scalp, that might have been in some desperate recent attempt to combat an infestation of vermin. None was ill clothed, and, taking a swift count of the weapons neatly stored along the vessel’s sides with the shipped oars, none ill armed. Retainers, warriors, sailors, rowers? All men here did all work, Ingrey suspected; there could be no room for purposeless distinctions on this boat when the seas rose high.

The bear delivered, Ingrey considered escape, but as Hetwar’s man he supposed he’d better accept Prince Jokol’s bowl first, lest he give some offense that might reflect on the sealmaster. He trusted the ritual would be brief. Jokol waved Ingrey into his tent, which made a spacious enough hall. The fabric was wool, made waterproof with fat; Ingrey decided his nose would grow used to its odor soon. Two trestle tables with benches were set up within, and another bench at the side to which his host led Ingrey. Jokol and Ottovin plunked down on either side of him; the other men bustled about, efficiently setting out utensils and food.

A blond young man with a quite valiant reddish ring-beard standing out like a halo around his chin bowed before the three of them and distributed, indeed, wooden bowls. Another man followed with a jug, from which he poured an opaque liquid, first to the guest, then to the prince, then to Ottovin. Wavering vapors arose from the sloshing brew. Ottovin, whose Wealdean was more broken than Jokol’s, gave Ingrey to understand, with various baffling gestures, that it was brewed from mare’s milk, or possibly blood. Or possibly urine, Ingrey reflected after his first taste. If that noise had been meant as a whinny, horses had something to do with it, anyway. He would choke down this one drink for courtesy, then take his leave, Ingrey decided. He could plead his duty to Hetwar and extract himself tactfully.

Beyond the far end of the tent, through an open flap, a brazier and temporary kitchen were set up, and a smell of grilling meat made Ingrey’s mouth abruptly water. 'We will eat much soon,' Jokol assured him, with the smile of a host anxious to please.

Ingrey would have to eat sometime, to be sure; and drinking this pungent brew on an empty stomach seemed a dangerous indulgence just before an interview with the sealmaster. He nodded. Jokol slapped him on the back and grinned.

Jokol’s grin faded as his eye fell on Ingrey’s gory right hand. The prince caught a comrade by the sleeve,