The Hallowed Hunt

her.

'I offered to take her to where Symark and the divines’ servants wait, but she refused. She says she wants to bear witness.'

'She has earned that.' And it would make her the one person besides Ingrey who had seen all of Horseriver’s actions from her father’s death to... whatever the end of this night brought. If he survived, that could be important. And if I don’t survive, it could be even more important.

'The most here will be yours, I suspect,' Ingrey told Biast. 'The old kings had two tasks: to lead their men to battle and to lead them home again. Horseriver lost sight of the second, I think, in his black madness and despair. These warriors of the Old Weald—their duty to their king is done; there remains only their king’s duty to them. It’s going to be'—Ingrey sighed—'a long night.'

Biast swallowed, and nodded shortly. 'Go on.'

Ingrey looked around at the apprehensive revenants, pressing close again, and raised his voice, though he was not sure he needed to; within the bounds of Bloodfield, his voice carried. 'Fear no stinting, kinsmen! I will not end my watch till your long watch is done.'

A blond-bearded young man knelt, first of a long string of such youths, many desperately mutilated. Ingrey released creature after creature: boar and bear, horse and wolf, stag and lynx, hawk and badger. Biast studied each man, as they passed through his hands, as though looking in some disquieting mirror.

It had taken a cadre of Audar’s troops two days to slay all these here; Ingrey did not see how he was to release them all in a night, but something odd seemed to be happening to time in this woods. He was not sure if it was a variant upon what happened to his flow of perception in his battle madness—a shaman skill—or if the gods had lent some element of Their god-time, by which They attended to all souls in the world both simultaneously and equally. Ingrey only knew that each warrior was owed a moment at least of his hallow king’s full regard; and if the debt had not been Ingrey’s to contract, it had still fallen to him to pay. Heir indeed.

Then he wondered which he would come to the end of first, his warriors or himself. Perhaps they would end together, in perfect balance.

The Darthacan archers came forward midway through the night. Ingrey puzzled mightily over them, for they bore no spirit beasts for him to release. In what backwash of the uncanny their souls had been caught up, by what concatenation of disrupted magic, god-gift, night battle and bloody sacrifice they had been imprisoned here, he could not imagine. He signed them in his blood all the same, they thanked him with their eyes all the same, and he handed them off to their waiting gods, all the same.

The Wolfcliff woman with the gold wolf’s head arm rings gave him a kiss upon the brow in return for his blessing of blood, then, apparently in a moment of pure self-indulgence, a kiss upon the lips, before she turned to Hallana. His lips stiffened with the chill of her mouth, but her lips warmed to a faint color, like a memory of happiness, so he thought it a fair trade.

It was in the dark before dawn, the stars and the waning half-moon shuttered behind deep clouds, when he came to the bitter end of his task. Some two dozen or so ghosts hung back, turning their wan faces from the gods.

Ingrey turned to Oswin. 'Learned, what shall I do with these?' He gestured to the revenants: unable to flee him, unwilling to come to him.

Oswin took a deep breath and said reluctantly, as if reciting an old lesson, 'Heaven weeps, but free will is sacred. The meaning of yes is created by the ability to say no. As a forced marriage is no marriage, but instead the crime of rape. The gods either will not or cannot rape our souls; in any case, They do not. To my knowledge,' the meticulous scholar in him added.

These, too, died at Bloodfield; my duty to them does not change. All the same. Ingrey unlocked his voice and ordered each dark despairing revenant forward, and gave them their little gift of blood, and freed their spirit beasts. And let them go. Most unraveled, fading into utter nothingness, before they even reached the trees.

Two left now: the marshal-warrior, who had stood all night with Ijada and the royal Wolfcliff banner; and the being beside whom—for whom—he had once died at Bloodfield. It took most of Ingrey’s remaining strength to compel Horseriver forward to face him; they both ended on their knees.

This one is not the same. Horseriver’s spirit horse was gone, his kingship rescinded, but the concatenation of souls remained, generations of Horserivers still churning through his anguished form. Tentatively, Ingrey reached for the shreds of Wencel in the mass, and whispered, 'Come.' And, louder, 'Come!' A shudder ran through the being in front of him, but no individual soul peeled out. Ingrey wondered if he’d made a tactical mistake; if he had attempted Horseriver first, before he’d been exhausted by this night, could he have taken apart what Horseriver’s long curse had welded together? Or was this simply not within his earthly powers? He was almost certain it was not. Almost.

Some of Horseriver’s faces, rising to the surface of that dreadful skull, looked longingly toward the gates of the gods, the five ill-assorted persons who now leaned on each other in a fatigue that nearly matched Ingrey’s. Others looked away, with all of Horseriver’s bitterness and rage and endless agony in their devastating eyes.

'What is your whole desire?' Ingrey asked it. 'Lost centuries are not within my gift. The revenge of sundering these other souls from the gods I have denied you, for that was not the right of your hallow kingship, but its betrayal. What then is left? I would give you mercy if you would take it.' The gods would give you rivers of it.

'Mercy,' whispered some of the voices of Horseriver, looking to the gates, and 'Mercy,' whispered the rest, looking away. One word, encompassing opposite and exclusive boons. Could Ingrey, by any physical or magical strength, wrestle this divided being to any altar? Should he try?

Time had lingered for Ingrey this night, but time was running out. If dawn came without a decision, what would happen? And if he waited for dawn to carry the choice away from him, was that not itself the same decision? If Ingrey fell into his judgment out of sheer weariness, well, he would not be the first man or king to do so. He had thought leading men into battle against impossible odds to be the most fearsome task of a king, but this new impossibility enlightened him vastly. He stared at Horseriver and thought, He must have been a great- souled man, once, for the gods to desire him still, here in his uttermost ruin.

He looked around at the witnesses: three Temple divines, two princes, a princess, and the two royal banner-carriers, the quick and the dead. Biast’s earlier little flash of princely jealousy was entirely drained from his face now. Not even he wanted the hallow kingship in this moment. The marshal-warrior’s watching face was without expression.

Ingrey squeezed his aching right hand till the blood ran down his fingers, and dribbled a thick line all around the tortured revenant’s head. And drew a long inhalation of the foggy night air, and breathed out, 'Mercy.' And let Horseriver go.

Slowly, like thick smoke rising up from a pyre, Horseriver dissipated, until soul-haze could not be told from the hanging fog. The marshal-warrior’s dead eyes closed, for a moment, as if it would spare him the knowledge with the sight. Of all here, he was the only one Ingrey was sure understood the choice. All the choices. The clearing was very silent.

Ingrey tried to stand up, failed, and tried again. He stood a moment with his hands on his knees, dizzy and faint. He did not think he had lost enough blood this night to kill him, but the amount strewn about on the ground and down his leathers was impressive nonetheless. It always looks like more when it’s spread around like that. Finally, he straightened his back and looked at the last revenant, and at Ijada, still holding up the wolf’s head standard. High upon its steel point, a shadow-heart still pulsed.

He bowed to the marshal-warrior. 'I would ask one gift of you in return, my lord bannerman. One moment more of your time.'

The marshal-warrior opened a hand in curious permission. All my time now is your gift, sire, his eyes seemed to say.

Ingrey stepped forward and closed his hand around Ijada’s shoulder; she smiled wearily at him, her face pale and dirt-streaked and luminous. Ingrey looked over the five of the sacred band. Yes... 'Learned Oswin, Learned Hallana, would you come here a moment?'