The Hallowed Hunt

sundering during the god-touched rites of his funeral, as Boleso’s had been. Up to a point. But the sundering soon grew irrevocable, the soul, in that last refusal, self-doomed to fade. That period of uncertain grace had been prolonged for these, not for days or weeks, but for centuries. With their link to the Wounded Woods now broken, they would not linger long, Ingrey thought. Hours? Minutes?

Ijada started to rise to go to Fara, but then gasped and sank back down. Her hand touched her left breast, then her forehead; her lips moved in surprise, then pinched in pain. Ingrey’s whines redoubled.

The mob of ghosts shuffled aside once more, and a great-limbed warrior strode forward. He wore a broad gold belt, and bore a spearhead-tipped banner staff, its furled flag stippled in grass green, white, and blue. His head hung from the gold belt, tied on by its own grayed-yellow braids. The grizzled head’s gaze flicked up to Horseriver, who started in surprised recognition, and raised his hand to return a salute that had not, in fact, been given; the gesture faded at the end as Horseriver belatedly realized this. The warrior knelt by Ijada, bending over her in concern, his hand touching her shoulder.

Ingrey danced anxiously around the pair, his wolf’s head lowering to the warrior’s eye level. The warrior stared across at him in some silent query. Ijada’s spine bent, and her grip on Ingrey’s bloody hand grew limp; it slipped from her grasp, and her own white hand fell atop it. 'Oh,' she breathed, her eyes wide and dark. She was growing still more pale, almost greenish; when wolf-Ingrey licked her face now, she did not respond.

Ingrey backed away and looked up. Then rose on his hind limbs, resting one forepaw on the warrior’s shoulder for balance, sniffing; the man stiffened to support him. Something was skewered up there on the narrow, willow-leaf-shaped spear point. A beating heart... no, half a heart. But its rhythm was slowing.

He bowed low, Ijada had said. And placed my heart on a stone slab, and cut it in two with the hilt-shard of his broken sword... . The other half, they raised high upon a spearpoint. I did not understand if it was pledge, or sacrifice, or ransom...

All three, thought Ingrey. All three.

He did not know what, on this eerie ground, his actions all meant. But even with his voice muzzled, they were not without power. He was not without power. I brought down Horseriver’s horse, and it is gone. Maybe I can do more. Horseriver plainly thought him spent, his task over, his use used up. Meant to just leave him, perhaps, in this disarray of body and spirit, to die alone upon the ground when the ghosts and all their magic drained away. And in and of himself, lone wolf, he did not think Horseriver was mistaken. But I am not alone, am I? Not now. She said it, so it must be so. Truthsayer. How was it that I came to love the truth above all things?

'Shall I die of love, then?' murmured Ijada, sinking onto Ingrey’s chest. 'I always thought that was a figure of speech. Together, then? No! My Lord of Autumn, in this Your season, help us... !'

There are no gods here.

But Ingrey was here. Try something else. Try anything. Maybe the revenant captain had some power here as well; he carried a banner, after all, Old Weald sacred sign of rescues beyond death and the death of all other hopes. Ingrey whined, danced around the man, scratched at his booted leg with one paw, then crouched and nudged his long nose repeatedly at the scabbard hung on the gold belt on the opposite side from his head. Would the revenant understand his plea? The man swiveled his hips to regard him, his sandy gray brows rising in surprise. He stood and drew the hilt shard. Yes! Ingrey nudged the hand some more, and turned to bite at his own side.

The man could not nod, but he half bowed. He knelt, and Ingrey lay down with his paws waving ridiculously in the air, his belly exposed. If this can save her... The sharp shard entered his chest in a long sweep.

Ijada didn’t say this had hurt! Ingrey strangled a yelp and controlled a twisting jerk away. The ghostly hand descended into the gaping gash in his wolf-chest and emerged dripping red. The shard edge sliced across a slippery object in the warrior’s palm, and then the warrior tossed something skyward. The bloody fist descended once more, and Ingrey’s wolf-self seemed to breathe again as the hand withdrew emptied and the gash closed up in a long red line. Ingrey scrambled upright on his paws once more.

High on the spear tip, a whole heart beat, picking up the pulse.

Ijada inhaled sharply and sat up, blinking around. Her eyes met Ingrey’s wolf-gaze, and widened in astonishment and recognition. 'There you are!' Her head swiveled, as she took in the mob of agitated ghosts who had crowded up around this strange operation. 'There you all are! You!' She struggled to her feet and curtseyed to the bannerman, signing the Five. 'I was looking for you, my lord marshal, but I could not see.'

The ghost bowed back in deep respect. Ijada’s hand curled in Ingrey’s neck ruff, clutching and stroking the thick fur. He pushed up into the caress. She looked down at him—not very far down, for his big head came nearly to her chest. 'How came you to be all apart like this? What is happening here?' Her gaze traveled around the clearing till it caught on the multifaced Horseriver. 'Oh.' She flinched a little, but then her back straightened. 'So that’s what you look like, out of the shadow. What are you doing on my land?'

Horseriver had composed himself in an attitude of utter indifference, but this last jerked him into rage. 'Your land! This is Holytree!'

'I know,' said Ijada coolly. 'It is my inheritance. For you are finished with it, are you not?'

The form of Horseriver stiffened, and the ironic mouth murmured, 'Indeed, we go. Alas that you shall find your enjoyment of your legacy... brief.' That mouth smiled nastily, and Ingrey growled in response. Ijada’s hand tightened in his fur.

'And these?' Ijada glanced up at the gold-belted marshal, and gestured at the gathered revenants.

'I am their last true hallow king. Follow me, they must.'

'Into oblivion?' she demanded indignantly. 'Shall they die for you twice? What kind of king are you?'

'I owe you nothing. Not even explanation.'

'You owe them everything!'

He could not, exactly, turn away, with the faces chasing each other around his skull, but he turned his shoulders from her. 'It is done. It is long past done.'

'It is not.'

He whipped back, and snarled, 'They will follow me down to darkness, and the gods who denied us will be denied in turn. Oblivion and revenge. They have made me, and you cannot unmake me.'

'I cannot... ' She hesitated, and gestured at the banner pole upon which the marshal-warrior now leaned, listening. Raising her face, she pointed to the mound where Wencel’s body lay huddled and Fara knelt silent and staring. 'You died, I think. Death lays a kingship down, along with all else a life accumulates in the world of matter. We go to the gods naked and equal, as in any other birth, but for our souls and what we’ve made of them. Then the kin meeting makes the king again.' She stared around at the ghosts, challengingly. 'Do you not?'

An odd rustle ran through the revenants. The marshal-warrior was watching with a most peculiar expression on his face, an amalgam of sorrow and unholy joy. It dawned on Ingrey then that this man must have been the very first Horseriver hallow king’s royal banner-carrier, who had died by his lord’s side at Bloodfield. His body was doubtless buried in this same pit, for Horseriver had said his banner had been broken and thrown in atop him. And this warrior would never have given it up alive. The royal bannerman should have received the hallow kingship in trust, to carry as steward to the next kin meeting, to be surrendered in turn to the new king—but for the great, disrupted spell, that had carried it instead into this far, unfriendly future.

'You died,' insisted Ijada. 'This is an Old Weald kin meeting, the last of all time. They can make another king, one who will not betray them beyond death.'

Horseriver snorted. 'There is no other.'

The rustle grew, racing around the mob like fire, then back to the beginning. The marshal-warrior stood up straight, then saluted Ijada with that eccentric looping sign of the Five. The ghostly lips turned up in a smile. He let