And with dawn, the Outlaw Hunt would be released.
The horror of the thought made him flinch. He would certainly have lost his grip on the unicorn's neck then except for the fact that by now his clenched hands seemed frozen in place.
A low'hanging branch brushed his cheek, and Kellen quickly ducked his head again.
AFTER that, if possible, the terrain over which they rode got even rougher. They seemed to spend as much time going down as up, over territory that would have made a mountain goat think twice. Half the time, Kellen was hanging over the unicorn's shoulder, the other half, trying to keep from sliding off the unicorn's rump. He'd have offered to walk, but there was no way he, a City-bred boy whose only experience in climbing was in climbing stairs and the occasional wall or tree, could have kept up with the unicorn. Their path led them down into deep ravines, into which the unicorn slid as much as galloped, and up the other side, with Kellen dangling from its neck, his whole weight hanging from his aching arms. He tried to wrap his legs around the unicorn's narrow torso, but the slick fur didn't give him much to grip on to.
The unicorn pushed its way through thickets that reopened the crusted scratches on his arms and legs and gouged new ones, and once, leaping some obstacle Kellen couldn't see in the dark, it landed badly, slipping and falling and rolling over and over down a slope covered with the rotting remains of last year's leaves, Kellen tangled up with it and desperately trying to avoid its razor-sharp horn and thrashing hooves.
He thought he'd been in pain before; he realized in that moment that he'd had no idea of how much pain a single person could be in. It felt as if every bone in his body was being systematically broken; he yelped with every impact until the moment when a boulder hit him square in the stomach. He finally rolled free and landed against a rock—hard—gasping in protest as the breath was knocked out of him.
He sat up, blinking and shaking his head, trying to see where they were. He was liberally smeared with mud and last year's rotting leaves; they had a sour smell, like the dregs of cold tea left too long. This was much worse than falling out of the tree back in the garden.
"Come on. Get up," the unicorn said remorselessly. It was standing a few feet away. Kellen could see it, faintly glowing in the darkness exactly as if it were the ghost of a unicorn, but he could see nothing else. If it had been injured at all in the fall, it certainly didn't sound like it.
Kellen shook his head. Stars danced in his vision, and pain lanced through his head and ribs when he moved. In that moment he hated the unicorn, hated magic, hated everyone and everything that had brought him to this place—bruised, aching, and essentially alone in the freezing dark. He didn't know where he was, or what he was doing here, he didn't know how any of this would end—he was cut off from both the future and the past, and he had no way to predict what might happen next.
"Don't tell me you can't," the unicorn said nastily. "If you're still alive, you can."
With a snarl, Kellen used the rock to push himself to his feet. He staggered through the slippery stinking mush of last autumn's leaves toward the unicorn, certain that when he reached it he would use the last of his strength to throttle the life out of the maddening creature. But when he reached it, he was too tired—
So there was nothing to do but drag himself onto its back once more, gasping hollowly with the dull, bone-deep ache of hot new bruises that screamed in agony when he moved and throbbed with pain when he didn't. His muscles shook as he forced his arms around the unicorn's neck once more.
And they were off again.
At that point, in the midst of the pain and the dark and cold, Kellen felt tears prickle at the back of his eyes—not because of the fall, or the pain, but because he knew that somehow he was going to get through all this. Thanks to the unicorn, he was going to live to see the border and beyond. And then he'd be out of City lands, in a whole new world, and—
And then what?
He had no idea. Where would he go? What would he do?
This was all just too much. He couldn't do this, whatever it was. He didn't know what he'd meant to do when he'd faced down his father and the High Council, but it hadn't been this.
The unicorn, paying about as much attention to Kellen's internal turmoil as Lycaelon ever had, kept running.
Kellen's world narrowed to one of utter physical misery, and his mind centered on one thought only: Don't fall off.
Don't fall off, because he knew he couldn't find the strength to mount the unicorn one more time.
Don't fall off, because falling off the unicorn again would hurt more than he could bear.
Don't fall off, because the Outlaw Hunt was somewhere back behind him, and if he fell off, he'd never get to the border.
Everything hurt. And he very much feared that what didn't hurt, didn't work anymore. He closed his eyes and clung on, grinding his teeth with every jolt and leap. Then, finally, there were no jolts and leaps…
After a very long time, Kellen opened his eyes, feeling dull and stupid with pain, and realized two things.
The unicorn had stopped moving.
And the sky was light.
He sat up with a startled gasp, struggling as if he were trying to wake up from a long nightmare, and instantly fell off the unicorn's back.
"Don't get comfortable," the unicorn said tauntingly, looking down at him. "This is just a very brief stop to rest, nothing more. We've still got a long way to go to get out of the lands claimed by your City."
"It isn't my City anymore," Kellen muttered under his breath, getting stiffly to his knees. He blinked and looked around, rubbing his eyes.
It was just dawn. They were at the edge of a stream, and the sound of running water made Kellen's throat convulse with thirst. He knelt over the flow on hands and knees and scooped up palmfuls of the icy water, drinking thirstily before remembering he had a water-bottle with him. Moving a little less stiffly now, he shrugged the backpack off his back— somehow it had managed to survive the night's ride—and pulled out its contents, the leather water-bottle and a loaf of bread. He'd fallen on the bread several times that night, but it was still in pretty good shape, considering. He emptied the water-bottle into the stream—for the water was stale and musty by now, and there was no reason to drink it when there was fresh at hand—and then refilled the bottle and used it to drink from. The water still tasted a bit of boiled leather, but it was faster than using his hands. Downstream, the unicorn was quenching its thirst as well.
He drank and drank until he couldn't hold any more water, then sat back on his heels to look around.
There was no sign of the sun; from the treetops upward, the sky was a uniform shade of pale grey and mist shrouded the tops of the trees and sent little wisps down into the gaps between them. The air was damp and chill, with fog scent in it, and this little stream ran down a long, rocky slope from some point above them. The trees were a great deal taller than the ones in the gardens of the City, they seemed to be mostly conifers, and they had a wilder, gnarled look to them, as if they often had to contend with storm winds.
They were up in the hills—to Kellen, an unimaginable distance from Armethalieh. Everything around them was mist-shrouded, and the nearby pine boughs were thick with heavy dew, turning them green and silver. The boulders of the stream bed were scoured bare, but ones on the banks were heavily covered in moss, with tiny ferns growing between them. All around was the sound of dripping water, interrupted by the occasional clear birdcall.
Kellen stretched and yawned, getting to his feet, working more of the kinks out, and wincing as he discovered new bruises. Now that he wasn't acquiring new lacerations with every passing moment, and now that his arms weren't being jerked from their sockets, he realized that he wasn't— quite—as badly hurt as he'd thought. Though he certainly hurt. And with every movement, he wanted nothing more than to crawl first into a hot bath, and then into a bed. His good clothes and thin leather boots—just fine for a morning of school in Armethalieh—were ruined beyond repai
r. The skin beneath the tattered clothing was covered with scratches and bruises, and the low soft boots were torn completely through in a couple of places. He pulled off the day-pack, then pulled off his overtunic—there wasn't much left of it after the night's ride and the roll down the hillside— and after soaking it in the stream, used the makeshift washcloth to clean away some of the caked dirt and blood from his arms and legs. As he did, he caught sight of the deep livid hand-shaped bruises on his arms where the stone golems had gripped him, and felt a faint weary spark of anger. It seemed a lifetime ago, but the bruises were black and fresh. Rinsing the tattered cloth clean one last time, he washed his face, wincing when he encountered a deep gouge over one eye. He hadn't known that was there! He ran his hands through his hair, dislodging a small shower of leaves and twigs, and felt his ribs experimentally. Nothing grated, and he only aroused the dull pain of bruises, not the sharp one of a broken bone. Things could be worse. They could, most certainly, be better, but they could also be worse.
His stomach rumbled, reminding him he'd missed the last several meals, and he returned to the day-pack. He was a little surprised to find that the bread, though coarse and a little stale by now, was perfectly edible, but then he realized there was actually no reason for it to be otherwise. Most of those involved in his Banishing must have really believed they were preparing him to spend his life as a hunted Outlaw. The Council would certainly have done everything in its power to maintain the fiction of Kellen's possible survival, after all, just as it pretended that every Banishing was merely that—and not murder in disguise.
Though Kellen could cheerfully have eaten twice as much as was there, he carefully divided the loaf in half. For the first time, he thought— really thought—about the unicorn. It had gone through just as much as he had tonight, and more: it had been the one doing the running, and with him on its back, as well.
And it hadn't had to do it, any of it. The unicorn hadn't been Banished from Armethalieh, after all. It had come to save Kellen's life of its own free will, and what had it gotten so far for its trouble? A litany of complaint.
Despite his fear and weariness, Kellen felt his ears burn with shame. He'd thought he was so much better than everyone in Armethalieh, and the moment things got rough, what did he turn into? A spoiled City brat!
Only you aren't a citizen of Armethalieh now, spoiled or otherwise.
"There's food," he said, holding out half the loaf to the unicorn. "And, look, I…"
His voice died in his throat as he turned and took a really good look at his companion for the first time.
If possible, the magical creature looked even more improbable in the daylight than it had by the light of the moon—at one and the same time, ethereal as the mist and as solid and present as the trees. He stared at it in fascination, both self-pity and good resolutions momentarily forgotten, for in all of Armethalieh, known for its magick, he had never seen anything quite so—well—magickal.
Its downy coat was fluffed out against the morning chill, and dew sparkled on its silver-white fur, making it shimmer like the most expensive silk velvet. Its head was as long, proportionately, as a horse's, and the ears were much the same shape as a horse's, but there was more space for intelligence behind the wide speaking eyes, the muzzle smaller and more delicate in comparison. And there all resemblance to a horse ended.
A unicorn. I'm looking at a REAL UNICORN.
It wasn't that Kellen had ever been told that unicorns didn't exist, or anything like that, because they certainly existed in wondertales and were discussed in the history of the City and in his magickal texts. As a Student at the Mage College, he'd studied them, just as he'd studied other creatures of magick and the inferior Other Races that the Light had seen fit to create in his Natural History courses.
But he now suspected that the Natural Histories he'd studied had been written by people who'd never seen one, since they compared unicorns to horses, deer, lions, and even goats! Now that he'd actually seen one, Kellen didn't think you could really compare a unicorn to anything besides another unicorn.
And he suspected that no one in the City had seen one for a very long time.
"No," the unicorn said in answer to his offer, nostrils flaring. "But I thank you for the thought. You should eat it all. You'll need your strength."
Kellen did not need to be told twice. He sat by the stream and wolfed down the rest of the coarse loaf quickly, along with a great deal of stream water, then filled and stoppered the water-bottle for later use, putting it carefully into the knapsack. He'd once heard someone say that hunger made everything taste good, but to tell the truth, he was so busy cramming the bread into his stomach that he didn't taste it at all.
He decided to use the damp remains of his overtunic to make a sort of handhold or collar, so he wouldn't need to cling so tightly to the unicorn's throat. Provided, of course, that the unicorn didn't object…
"Now what, unicorn?" Kellen asked, getting to his feet again and stretching.
"Now, Kellen, we go on," the unicorn answered, picking its way carefully among the moss-covered boulders, so that Kellen could mount once more. "And—since we are bound together in this, you might as well call me by my name. That would be—Shalkan."
NOW that there was light, Kellen could at least see when to duck, and Shalkan was not going nearly as fast as he had been while it was dark. Kellen's makeshift handhold worked fairly well; with the rags of his over-tunic looped around the unicorn's neck, he could hold on to the knotted ends and sit almost upright, instead of lying along Shalkan's back.
"Are you sure we're still in City lands?" Kellen asked tentatively. All he could see in any direction was trees: climbing up the rocky slopes, trailing down them, their tops vanishing into the dawn mist—trees so enormous they'd stifled most of the undergrowth beneath their canopy.
"I'm sure," Shalkan said. "And next you're going to ask me how the Outlaw Hunt can possibly find us all this long way from the City."
"No I'm not," Kellen protested, stung—although that had been the question on the tip of his tongue. "It's enchanted. It has magick. Like bloodhounds, I suppose; the Mages would give it some kind of scent and turn it loose."
"But you have no idea of what it actually is. Have you ever seen an Outlaw Hunt?" Shalkan asked.
"I… no," Kellen admitted sheepishly. He wasn't sure anyone had. He doubted anyone had been Banished from the City in his lifetime. Or—at least, not that he'd heard. There was the matter of the sister he didn't remember… "Have you?" he said boldly.
"Let us say I have a certain experience with the Hunt, just as you are about to, unless we are very lucky." Shalkan shook his head, and the sharp tip of his horn seemed to give off a little more light. "So, allow me to enlighten you. The Hunt is composed of Hounds—stone statues in the shape of hounds, animated by the Mages just as they animate statues of humans to do their bidding."
"Stone golems," Kellen said aloud. He thought of the stone guardians in front of House Tavadon, and shivered.
"Exactly so." Shalkan continued, his voice sounding dispassionate and pitiless. "The Hounds are tireless, relentless, and voiceless. Give them the scent, and they pursue until they catch their prey—or until they reach the borders of the lands claimed by the City. And when—if—they catch you, they will tear you to ribbons." Shalkan cocked his head to look back over his shoulder at his rider. "And me, of course," he added, matter-of-factly. "I'm helping you, after all. They'll kill anything that stands between them and their prey. Your City Mages have gone to a great deal of trouble to ensure that not only do those who have been Banished not survive the experience, but to discourage anyone outside of the City from even considering helping them."
"But of course, it's all out of sight of the Mages who sent them, so their hands and consciences are clean," Kellen added bitterly. He thought about a pack of the same Hounds that guarded the front of House Tavadon running silently along his trail, and winced inwardly. Somehow, knowing exactly what was after him made
it worse. He wondered if somehow he'd always known he was going to end up this way, and that was why he'd particularly hated the mastiffs, then dismissed the thought with a shrug. It couldn't matter now.
But he couldn't help wondering why, if Shalkan knew what was coming, the unicorn was trying to get him to safety… Did Shalkan owe a debt to the Wild Magic? Or was this just another instance of some poor innocent bystander being dragged into his problems?
Like Perulan…
Shalkan flicked an ear back in his direction again and suddenly seemed to quiver all over. "The Hounds have been released," he said abruptly. "They're behind us somewhere, running free. I can feel them. The question is, which of us will reach the border first?"
A few moments later, the unicorn had resumed his headlong bounding gait to the west.
Chapter Nine
Facing the Outlaw Hunt
KELLEN WAS ALMOST used to the way that Shalkan bounded through the forest by now; he was beginning to get the rhythm of it and move with it. They'd left the deep forest behind a few hours before and were now in an area that was—well—mountainous, if the descriptions in the proscribed wondertales he'd seen in the Great Library were anything to go by, with jutting granite outcroppings, sheer drop-offs, and pocket canyons. The mist had either lifted, or they had passed out of the region where it lingered, and the sun shone down on them with a cheer that was all out-of-keeping with the grimness of their situation. Here the trees grew in thickets, easy to avoid, and they rode through bright cloudless daylight. In full sunlight Shalkan was even more dazzling than he had been by moonlight and morning mist: his thick white fur had the same crystalline dazzle as the winter's first fall of snow, and his spiral horn had the prismatic fire of polished crystal. Yet Shalkan was undeniably as much a palpable living creature as Kellen was: real and earthly (though obviously magical), and not an illusion that might vanish at any moment. And not much like that little silver-plated mascot Kellen still carried, except as to general shape. The heat of the day intensified the spicy scent of the unicorn's fur, making Kellen's stomach rumble and causing him to think longingly of bakeshops and plates of fried sweet cakes.
The Outstretched Shadow ou(tom-1 Page 23
