The Hallowed Hunt

Ingrey glanced to the pile of packs, spotted a flaccid waterskin, and brought it to the tale-teller. Wencel tilted his head back and drank deep, indifferent to the musty staleness of it. He then sighed and propped himself on one hand, as though the burden of this telling was slowly driving him into the earth.

'It was the royal banner-carrier’s duty, upon the death of his lord, to capture and hold the hallow kingship itself, until time to transfer it back to the ordained heir. And so this greatest of native Wealding magics was passed down from generation to generation, from times lost in time until... now.'

'Lord Stagthorne—the late king—had no banner-carrier when he died, day before yesterday,' Ingrey observed suddenly. 'Was this your doing?'

'One of several necessary yet not sufficient arrangements, yes,' murmured Wencel. 'If true interregnums were easy to come by, more would have occurred by chance ere now, I assure you. Or by design.'

He grimaced and drew breath, continuing: 'The royal banner-carrier, by tradition and profound necessity, had several qualities. He—or she'—his glance at Fara sharpened—'was usually of the same kin, close-tied by shared high blood, though not always the heir. Chosen by the king, bound to the task by the royal shaman—the king himself if he was one—acclaimed by the spirit warriors assembled in the kin meeting. And so we have all here that is needed to make another such, if in miniature. Though ceremony, likewise, shall be lacking. Not in song but in silence, shall the last royal banner-carrier of the Old Weald ride at her beloved lord’s side.' His side glance at Fara was blackly ironic.

Her gritted teeth shifted for speech, but Wencel raised a hand; his lips moved in an unvoiced Voice. This time, Ingrey could feel it when the geas wrapped itself around Fara like a gag, held knotted by her own fear and anger. Her lips moved, closed, pressed tight; but her eyes burned.

'To what purpose?' whispered Ingrey. For he does not tutor us for no reason, of that I am certain. Horseriver had been instructing him for days, he realized in retrospect.

Wencel crouched, hesitated, pushed himself up with a pained grunt. He turned his head and spat a gobbet of blood into the gloom. The iron tang smote Ingrey’s nostrils. The earl stared into the gathering twilight where the grooms had finished with the horses and were diffidently approaching. 'We must have a fire. And food, I suppose. I hope they brought enough. Purpose? You’ll see soon enough.'

'Should I expect to survive it?' Ingrey glanced at Fara. Either of us?

Wencel’s lips curved, briefly. 'You may.' He walked off into the resin-scented shadows.

Ingrey wasn’t sure if that last was meant as prediction or permission.

INGREY WAS AWAKENED IN THE DARK BEFORE DAWN BY HORSERIVER himself, tossing wood on the fire to build it up to a bright flare. They had all slept in yesterday’s riding clothes, and the grooms, it seemed, were to be left to break camp and ride the spent horses home. So there was little for Ingrey or Fara to do to prepare beyond sitting up, pulling on their boots, and eating the stale bread, cheese, and blessedly hot drinks shoved into their hands.

The cobby horses were lightly burdened also, Ingrey noticed. Food for a day was packed into the saddlebags, including measures of grain for the mounts, but most of the spare clothing and amenities, largely for Fara, were stripped out; neither were the bedrolls or other camping gear added. The implication of these lacks disturbed Ingrey, an unease he did not confide to the voiceless princess.

Through the night fog that had risen from the forest, creating a dripping hush, gray light began to filter. Fara shivered in the cold and damp as Ingrey boosted her aboard her horse, a sturdy little black with a hogged mane and white socks. Horseriver disposed his banner pole rather awkwardly along his horse’s off side, tied beneath the stirrup flap to ride under his leg. He mounted and motioned them forward with a wave of his arm: as he had promised, in silence. Ingrey glanced back at the grooms. The elder stood at attention, looking worried; the younger was already climbing back into an abandoned bedroll to steal some extra warmth and sleep.

Horseriver led them up into a gap in the hills, first on a trail, then on a path, then on deer paths. Ingrey, bringing up the rear, ducked swinging branches. Gray twigs scraped on his leathers like clawing fingernails as the way narrowed. The horses’ hooves crunched through the fallen leaves, and slid, sometimes, on last year’s black rot beneath the drifts, sending up a musty dank smell.

The brightening day drew up the soft curtain of mist, and the boles of the beeches stood out in sharp relief at last, as though the fog had clotted into firm gray bark. Then, beneath the pale blue bowl of sky, it grew hot. Biting black flies found the riders and their mounts, so that to the heave and plunge of the horses over the uneven terrain was added the occasional squeal and buck as the insects tormented them. When Horseriver led them into a ravine that ended in a cleft, with no way out but back the way they’d climbed in, Ingrey grew aware that however well Horseriver had known this land once, it had changed even beyond his recognition. How long... ? They backtracked and scrambled up an opposite ridge instead.

Horseriver pushed on slowly but relentlessly. Hours into the trek, with the sun high overhead, they stopped at a clear spring to feed, water, and rest the horses and themselves. Yellow leaves fluttered down in the filtered light like breaking promises to clutter the glassy surface of the pool. Not all the leaves had fallen yet, and the view around the site was still half-obscured; Horseriver climbed up to a higher point and stared out for a time. Whatever he saw apparently satisfied him, for he returned and commanded them aboard their horses once more.

We are in Ijada’s country, Ingrey realized. He was not sure at what point they had crossed into her dower gift: possibly as far back as the campsite. The scene took on a sudden new interest, and he was almost prepared to forgive even the black flies. Broad lands did not precisely convey their mood, though if they could be rolled out flat, Ingrey thought, they would equal a small earldom. Instead they were crimped into something difficult, stony, and wild; beauty that arrested rather than soothed. Yes, that is Ijada.

He felt in his mind for her absence, like a tongue probing the wounded socket of a drawn tooth. All he could find was the hot infection of Horseriver. Alone together, this taciturn royal procession of three seemed to him. Godsforsaken.

The sun was sinking toward the western horizon when they clambered up through another gap, angled left, and came out upon a sudden promontory. They pulled up their horses and stared.

Two steep-sided, undulating ridges embraced a valley about two miles wide and four miles long, then curved around again to enclose the far end like a wall. The valley floor was as flat as the surface of a lake. On the near end, beneath their feet, lay a stretch of dun grasses and yellowing reeds, a half-dried marsh. Beyond it, a few twisted oak trees stood out like sentinels, then a dark and dense oak wood crouched. Even with half the leaves down, backlit by the setting sun, its shadows were impenetrable to Ingrey’s eye. His head jerked back at the miasma of woe that seemed, even from here, to arise from the trees.

He drew in his breath in sharp dismay, then tore his gaze away to find Horseriver looking at him.

'Feel it, do you?' the earl inquired, as if lightly.

'Aye.' What? What do I feel? If Ingrey had possessed a back ridge, all the fur along it would be rising in a ragged line right now, he thought.

Horseriver dismounted and untied his banner pole from under his saddle flap. He stared briefly and without pleasure at his wife for a moment; Fara stared back wide-eyed, her shoulders bowing in, then dropped her gaze and shuddered. Horseriver shook his head in something that, had it more heart, would have been disgust, and strolled over and handed the pole to Ingrey.

'Bear this for a time. I don’t want it dropped.'

Ingrey’s left stirrup included the small metal cup of a spear rest. He swung the pole up and seated it, and took up his reins with his right hand. His horse was far too tired by now to give him trouble. Horseriver remounted, swung his animal around, and motioned for them to follow.

They descended from the promontory in a zigzag through a thinning woods. At the bottom, Ingrey was compelled to dismount, hand the banner back to Horseriver, draw his sword, and hack a path for them all through a head-high hedge of brittle brambles that seemed not just thorny, but fanged. A few whipping backlashes pierced even his leathers, and the punctures and scratches bled flying drops as he fought his way in. On the other side, at the edge of the dried marsh, Horseriver dismounted again and unwrapped his banner at last.

The desiccated twine parted with faint puffs of powder as his knife touched it, and the brittle canvas cracked away. A discolored nettle-silk banner unfolded, bearing the device of his house, the running white stallion