The Hunt

by Frost Kay

  “Can I get some help over here? Quick!” he yelled, closing the gap between himself and Tempest as he spoke.

  Her mouth watered and her belly growled. He smelled of bread. “Papa?” Tempest said again. “Where is my papa?” Someone had to know where he was.

  The man who smelled of bread knelt in front of her and smiled kindly, his eyes reminding her of a snowy owl. He stroked her matted hair.

  “Who is your papa, child? What happened to you? Where did you—”

  He paused, bringing a lock of her hair closer to the lantern light. He fingered a patch of her ash-covered, periwinkle blue hair. The man gulped, then glanced behind him as several other villagers reached the two of them.

  “The Hounds,” he said. “Get the Hounds. Now.”

  Hounds? She’d always like puppies. She gaped as more and more people joined them, forming a loose circle. There were so many people. Too many voices. Too many faces. So many colors. Tempest trembled and her skin crawled as too many pairs of eyes watched her. Why was everyone staring at her?

  Her stomach cramped as she inhaled, the scent of burnt flesh clinging to her. It was too much. Tempest bent over and vomited all over the nice man’s shoes. A large hand settled on her back and rubbed in circles.

  “It’s all right, dear. Everything will be all right,” the bread man crooned.

  She began to cry in earnest. He was lying. Nothing would be okay. Her mama was gone. And where was her papa?

  “Somebody clean her up, for Dotae’s sake!” somebody insisted.

  “But she—”

  Thundering hooves against stone rang sharply behind her. Tempest lifted her head weakly. She watched as the crowd parted and a regal man swung down from the biggest horse she’d ever seen. He looked like something out of a fairytale.

  And he had hair like hers.

  Blue hair.

  Special hair.

  “She’s a child,” the blue-haired man announced. His voice was low and booming. He pushed past the crowd with his grey horse in tow and knelt next to her. “Just a scared, hungry child, nothing more. What is your name, lass?” he asked softly.

  Tempest blinked wide eyed at the man before her. His hair was so blue it was almost black in the moonlight, as were his eyes. Though his face was impassive, there was something innately kind about him. She clung to his arm as if her life depended on it—because it did.

  “T-Tempest,” she stuttered.

  “Hello Tempest, I’m Dima,” the man replied.

  “Are you my papa?” she asked, trembling. He had hair like hers. He had to be.

  “No, lass,” he said gently and gestured behind him at several men on horseback who had completely parted the crowd. Each and every one of them had variable shades of blue hair, like Tempest’s. “I’m one of the King’s Hounds, as are these men.” He slowly tugged on one of her dirty blue locks. “We’re your family. Aren’t you lucky we were staying here this evening?” He held his hand out to her. “Let’s get you cleaned up. You must be thirsty. And starving, no doubt. Baker, bring along some bread, if you will?”

  She eyed him and the scary-looking men behind him. They didn’t seem to be bad and she was so tired and hungry. Tempest took his hand and flung herself into his arms. Wasting no time, he picked Tempest up as if she weighed nothing at all and tucked her against his chest.

  Then the man who had first spied Tempest nodded sagely. “My wife just made a fresh pot of soup. I’ll bring some of that, too.”

  She yawned and blinked slowly, the world blurring into utter darkness.

  Tempest

  13 Years Later

  In the blink of an eye everything was gone—the fire, the forest, the screaming, the village—but the smell of smoke lingered upon the air, as if it had somehow managed to travel through Tempest’s dream into the realm of consciousness. It always started the same. The acrid, foul, suffocating scent of smoke choking her.

  Her eyes snapped open and she swung up into a sitting position on her bed, rubbing away the sheen of sweat that had covered her forehead. But the smoke wasn’t a remnant of her memory—it was a signal that breakfast was being prepared in the barracks’ kitchen. Her stomach rumbled, but she didn’t think she could eat a bite.

  Even now, after dreaming about it for what felt like the millionth time, Tempest still couldn’t shake the horror of watching her mum die. It never got easier. She glanced around the long rectangular room, eyeing the peacefully sleeping Hounds in the barracks.

  Lucky bastards.

  Every Hound had his own share of horrors that kept him up at night, but she was the only one who screamed in her sleep, and on occasion wandered from room to room in a panic, scratching at the walls trying to escape a nightmare that only existed in her mind.

  Despite being wide awake, she lay back down and closed her eyes. Her heart began to slow as the effects of the dream wore off, and Tempest forced herself to relax. She couldn’t change the past, but she could control her future.

  Today was the most important day of her life.

  She clenched and unclenched her hands in an attempt to calm the nerves that vibrated like a strummed violin in her chest. There wasn’t anything more she could do. Tempest had trained all her life for this and she wouldn’t let a little thing like a nightmare pull her focus from what was most important.

  Today her future began.

  Today, Tempest would face the Trial, and with it, her fate as the first female Hound would be decided.

  Tempest

  Tempest’s stomach was a lurching, sickening mess of nerves, excitement, and hunger. She'd barely eaten the night before in anticipation of today.

  Tempest's belly released an irate growl.

  She regretted it now; the idea of keeping down any food before her Trial seemed impossible despite the emptiness inside her.

  But she had to eat. Tempest needed all the strength she could get, but first thing was first. She needed to prepare. Food could come later.

  She sniffed her armpit and her nose wrinkled. Scratch that, she needed to bathe first.

  Tempest whistled as she stretched and got out of bed, the cool stones seeping through her thick woolen socks. The sound came out as shaky as she felt at first, but by the time she’d padded over to the wash basin, her voice evened out and her whistle became tuneful. The melody had stuck with her since she was a child. She didn’t know the melody’s origin—perhaps it had been one of her mum’s almost-forgotten lullabies?

  What would her mum think of Tempest’s decision to join the Hounds? Was she making the right choice? The memory of her mum’s cries echoed through her mind, causing Tempest’s eyes to sting with the threat of tears. She pushed away the memory and took a fortifying breath.

  No one had been there to protect her mother from the miscreant. If there had been a Hound there, surely things would have turned out differently. Tempest liked to think that her mum would be proud of the woman her daughter had become; eighteen years old, fully grown, strong and healthy, and ready to take on the world as a Hound.

  She hoped her mother would be proud of her.

  In truth, it wasn’t just her mum’s lullabies Tempest barely remembered, although she could recall her mother’s lifeless form inside the burning cottage, Tempest could not recall what her mother’s face looked like, nor the touch of her hand, nor the sound of her voice.

  Only the sound she’d made as she screamed.

  As if on cue, the soul-wrenching scream began again in her mind.

  “Just stop it, Tempest!” she uttered, disgusted with herself.

  She lifted her head and stared at her distorted reflection in the warped mirror that hung above the wash basin. Now was most certainly not the morning to engage in such dark, macabre thoughts. Tempest scrubbed herself extra hard with the rough-woven washcloth, as if its soap-laden scratchy fibers could somehow wipe her mind clean as well as her body. She knew the only thing that could ultimately stop her dwelling on her dream was to focus on the upcoming Trial. Her rebellious
stomach lurched again as goosebumps pebbled along her arms from the cool air.

  The outcome of today would decide her future.

  Tempest ghosted her way back to her cot and paused at the foot of the bed, staring at the garment bag holding her ceremonial garb from the king. She reached out a hand but paused, not wanting to see what he’d chosen.

  “Go on now, girlie,” Maxim’s deep voice rumbled softly from her left.

  She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and received a sunny smile that twisted the scar across his lips into a gruesome picture—well gruesome to most, anyway. To Tempest, he was one of the dearest men. He slapped a meaty hand against his thigh, which was the size of a tree trunk. Maxim leaned closer, his bed groaning underneath his huge form.

  “Don’t be shy now. Open it,” he urged.

  Tempest steeled her nerves. She was made of sterner stuff than this. It was only an outfit.

  From a king who hates you.

  She ignored the thought and untied the bag. Her breath seized as she got an eyeful of the garment she was expected to wear.

  Dotae, no.

  Quickly, she swiped the bundle from her cot and darted behind the screen her uncles had built for her. They didn’t care for modesty, but they cared for her to be modest. Again, she peeked at the ceremonial garb in the bag. How in the hell did the king expect her to fight in such a thing?

  Under ordinary circumstances, Tempest would don a form-fitting, pale grey shirt made of stiff, thick linen, with bony doe-skin breeches and matching over-the-knee leather boots. Then she’d lace on an armored bodice, guards for her lower arms, elbows, and shoulders, and a belt laden with loops of leather to hold various bags and weapons. The sheath for her favorite dagger would be tied around her right thigh. Lastly, she’d braid her hair and equip herself with a sword, a dagger, her mother’s beloved bow, and a fresh quiver of arrows.

  Simple. Practical.

  But today was not a normal day.

  No, today Tempest’s outfit was far more stately. Decorative. Fashionable, as her best friend Juniper, a maid from the castle, had told her. More womanly.

  Tempest wrinkled her nose at the additions to her armor.

  “It can’t be that bad, girlie,” Maxim called.

  “It can,” she muttered, frowning at the sad excuse for armor.

  Carefully, she lifted the raven-feathered bodice that attached around her neck with a gilded, silver buckle. Tempest twisted the piece back and forth. Where was the damned back to the thing?

  She dropped the article of clothing to the ground and dug out the shoulder guards. Tempest hissed as she got a good look at them. Or rather—a look at it. There was only one, a singular shoulder guard made of overlapping plates of lilac-stained metal on top of silver chainmail, complete with dozens of hanging chains that were present for purely aesthetic reasons.

  Bloody useless reasons.

  With care, she set the damned thing next to its disgrace of a breast plate. She brushed her finger over one of the fine delicate chains. Winters bite. It would be impossible to untangle the chains. If she’d had her way, Tempest would have tossed the shoulder guard across the room.

  Finally, she pulled out the last pieces of her ensemble.

  “Ridiculous,” she snarled quietly.

  She pinched the thigh-skimming black leather skirt that had been cut into ribbons and the deep purple half-cape that, she assumed, was to drape over her bare shoulder.

  “It can’t be that bad,” Dima, another one of her uncles, added softly. “Put on the basics and we’ll help you with the rest.”

  “Basics?” she murmured. They hadn’t given her the basics. Her gaze moved back to the top. One wrong move, and her tits would be shown to all. Tempest held her hand out over the screen. “I need my half corset.”

  A beat of silence, and then rustling.

  Normally, she wasn’t shy. Living with men nearly all her life had taken most of the embarrassment away, but when Maxim’s hand reached over the screen holding her dingy corset, heat scorched her cheeks. Tempest snatched the undergarment from his scarred fingers with a quickly muttered thank you.

  A shiver ran down her spine as she pulled her sleep-shirt off and unwound the band from her breasts. With deft hands, she snapped the corset in place and stepped outside the screen, presenting the room with her back.

  “Could someone lace me?” she asked, her voice just a touch too high.

  “I’ve got you,” Maxim muttered, his tone gentle.

  Tempest stared blankly at the grey wall as her uncle cinched her corset. Of all the things she imagined for Trial day, this wasn’t it.

  “Is that too tight?” her uncle asked, knotting the corset strings.

  She wiggled and then jumped in place. Her breasts didn’t budge, and she could breathe, so that was a plus. “It’s fine.”

  With scalding cheeks, she moved behind the screen and plucked the feathered nightmare from the floor. She clasped the buckle around her neck and waist, securing the raven-feathered bodice. Next, she painstakingly adorned the lilac-stained shoulder guard. Frigid chains slid over the bare skin of her biceps and back. Tempest shuddered and rubbed at her arms, hating the feeling of being so exposed.

  Tempest bent to pick up the skirt and shimmied it over her thighs, settling the high leather waist beneath the bodice. She glared at how much of her legs were on display. She looked like a trollop. How was she supposed to fight in such a state?

  She clenched her jaw and came to a decision that wouldn’t earn her any favors from the king. Tempest would wear his gifts, but she would do it her way. The warrior way.

  “Could you pass me my leather leggings?”

  Someone tossed them over the top of the screen, the leather slapping her in the face.

  “Thanks.”

  Tempest tugged on the familiar pants and sighed as the soft black leather caressed her legs, bringing with it a modicum of calm. She snatched the cape from the floor and kicked the garment bag against the wall. Now all she had to do was leave the sanctuary behind the screen.

  Be brave, Temp. It’s just fabric.

  She blew a periwinkle strand of hair from her face and twisted her lips in distaste. She would also have to wear her hair hanging free. She didn’t like that one bit; it would be a disadvantage in combat to have such free-flowing hair

  “I should have cut it all off,” Tempest muttered before venturing out from behind the screen.

  Silence. Pure silence greeted her as she moved to the trunk at the end of her cot. It was difficult to ignore the looks of her uncles and fellow Hounds as they appraised her outfit.

  “Is he trying to get you killed?” Maxim burst out first.

  Tempest’s mouth popped open in shock. That was treason, and she knew she wouldn’t be the only one to think so.

  Dima’s tall, thin form stepped next to Maxim and he slapped the hulking man on the back of the head. “Are you stupid? You’ll get her killed with your nonsense.”

  Maxim scowled and rubbed at the back of his head and gestured toward Temp. “Do you have eyes? She’s completely vulnerable.”

  Dima turned his calculating gaze on her and cocked his head, his deep blue braids slipping over his shoulders. “Is that all you have?”

  Tempest swallowed hard, her mouth dry. “Among other things.”

  She turned back to her trunk and yanked out her metal gauntlets and pulled one over each of her forearms. Next, she tugged on her boots that she’d shined the night prior. Her stomach rolled as she plucked a comb from the chest and yanked it through her hair. Pain pricked her scalp, but she welcomed it. It helped her focus.

  With a final tug of the comb through her hair, she threw her mother’s bow onto her back and made sure her sword and dagger sheaths were secure. Murmurs followed her as she moved to stand in front of the mirror. Tempest studied her reflection, inspecting her overall outfit with a begrudging sense of admiration. She supposed she did look good. Great, even. But playing up to her femininity—not to me
ntion indulging in the theatrics so beloved by the royal city of Dotae—made Tempest somewhat uncomfortable. She wanted to be judged on her ability to act as a Hound, regardless of gender. Tempest certainly didn’t care she was female, and nor did the rest of the Hounds.

  My uncles.

  She glanced at Maxim and Dima who were whispering heatedly between the two of them. Tempest counted herself lucky to have been raised by them. She crept out of the barracks and strode toward her favorite thinking place.

  The training yard was still empty. The sun was hanging low on the horizon, and morning drills did not start until it had fully risen and the Hounds’ bellies were full. Tempest nimbly jumped onto the fence, swinging her legs below her after she’d settled into a perfectly balanced sitting position on top of the narrow wood. A faint breeze blew her hair around her face, tangling her loose locks together.

  “I really should have cut it,” Tempest whispered, echoing her sentiments from before, though Madrid—the intimidating Head Hound—had ordered her not to. For the Trial, at least. It was clear they thought it important to play up the fact Tempest was a young woman, no matter that she’d been training with the Hounds far longer than most of the other trainees her age.

  “Will you stop complaining about your hair?”

  Tempest stilled for just a moment, then relaxed as the familiar frame of Dima joined her. He leaned against the fence, frowning as he stared straight into the rising sun. The man was as tall, lithe, and thin as he’d been the day he’d found five-year-old Tempest, and his midnight-blue hair was just as dark as it had always been, but there were a few tell-tale lines of ageing around his eyes. Though Dima was quiet and reserved—he rarely showed his emotions on his face—he always seemed to know when Tempest needed somebody either to talk to or to act as a patient ear for her complaints.

  “It’s stupid that I cannot tie it back today,” Tempest said, but even as she spoke, she realized she sounded like a petulant child. For a moment, it seemed as if Dima might smile at her, though Tempest knew that was all but impossible; the man had smiled at her just three times in her entire life.