by Tom Deitz
“And what has he found?”
“Beasts we can ride. Swift beasts. Beasts bred not to tire.”
And then they were riding again.
Yet little time had passed at all when the captain swung his stallion sharp right and off the Track. To Aikin, it looked as though he simply swerved between two pines and disappeared. But then his own mount followed suit—and the instant its legs cleared the Track, reality changed. He saw the pines flash by, glimpsed a fallen third lying between them. His horse leapt. He held on for dear life—
—And touched down in a meadow.
Maybe a mile wide, it was, and brightly lit, though not by any obvious sun, in contrast to the twilight of the Tracks. A forest of immense trees—conifers, they appeared, possibly sequoias—surrounded that meadow, and beyond it mountains lifted bare jagged peaks to the skies. Aikin got a sense of wildness, of a World untouched by either man or magic.
—Until he glimpsed the tower that rose above the trees in a slender fountain of pure white stone, its summit a filigree of arches that shouted to the soft warm wind that Power had wrought that thing.
And then he saw what shared the meadow, and forgot all else.
Deer.
Cervids, rather, for it was not proper to call these beasts that raised attentive but unconcerned heads above the knee-high grass deer any more than it was proper to apply that term to a moose. Deer implied delicacy and furtiveness and wary grace, coupled with odd starts and spontaneous bursts of leaping speed. It did not imply majesty. It did not imply shoulders higher than his head and palmate racks easily four yards wide.
“I’ll be a son of a bitch!” he gasped, as he followed the captain toward the nearest: an impressive stag a hundred paces distant. “That’s a goddamned Irish elk!”
“Is that what your folk call them?” Rigantana wondered, as she joined him.
“Well, I’m supposed to call ’em Megaloceros giganteus—that’s the scientific name. But yeah, you got it.”
The captain stared at him. “You have a name for them?”
“They’re from our World—or their kinfolks are. Were, rather,” he corrected. “They’re extinct now. The last ones died in the Crimea ten thousand years ago.”
“But not before some came here,” the captain mused.
Something occurred to Aikin then, which made him slightly sick with fear—and giddy with wonder and awe. “We’re…not gonna ride these guys, are we?”
The captain eyed him askance. “We must, if we are to fulfill Lugh’s command. They are bred to ride and are swifter than horses.”
“But those racks… Won’t they get tangled up? I mean, the Tracks are awfully narrow…”
“They have not so far,” the captain retorted, as he leapt down from his stallion.
“We have no saddles for these,” someone called.
“Do you need one?”
Aikin, who followed close in the captain’s wake, eyed the elk dubiously. “I…think I do.”
The captain whirled on him, eyes aflame with irritation. “You were a fool to have come with us, and we were fools to have brought you!”
“But he is here,” another countered—and reached into his saddlebag. He fumbled there for a moment, then produced a square of red fabric the size of a handkerchief, and two smaller ones. These he passed to Aikin. “When you mount, slip the larger inside your thighs and wrap the smaller about your hands. They will stick to anything unless you will it otherwise.”
“They had better,” the captain grumbled, “for we have wasted much time already.” And with that he whistled a certain tone, and eight of the largest elk obediently trotted forward, to stand in a semicircle before the Faery knights. Aikin felt a thrill such as he had never known: not so much from magic-reared beasts confronting his mundane self, however, as from the old order facing the new. He was staring straight at the Pleistocene: at something none of his classmates nor learned professors would ever get to witness.
But he had no time to glory in that realization, for already the knights were mounting. The captain had claimed the largest, and Aikin suddenly found himself alone save for one other rider—facing a beast whose back was higher than his head—and he was a good six inches shorter than any male present; shorter, even, than Rigantana.
But just as he was trying to contrive something involving the three red squares, unexpectedly strong arms grabbed him from behind, swept him into the air, and the next thing he knew he was seated. He had barely sense enough to stuff the larger square beneath him and wrap the others around the hands he slapped on the juncture of neck and shoulder—and they were off again.
And if the last ride had been fast, this was faster.
One moment they were careening over the meadow; the next they were leaping what looked on one side like a fence, and as they crossed it like a fallen tree; and then they were back on the Tracks—moving faster than Aikin ever dared imagine an animal could move at any sustained clip.
Probably it was just as well the elks had such huge antlers, he decided, because they blocked much of the view ahead. And they cut off the wind as well, like the cowling on a motorcycle, so that he was actually less buffeted than before.
And then the wonder of it all caught up with him, and for a long time he simply rode, reveling in the knowledge that while many of his friends had ridden horses, he was unique among mortal men in having bestridden an Irish elk. So taken was he with this notion, in fact, that he was actually disappointed when the company slowed as they approached a fork in the Track. No, not a fork, he discovered when they reached it: a narrow X-intersection where another Track angled into theirs from the left.
The captain called a rest and all halted. To Aikin’s surprise, none of the elks’ racks struck another, which—given there was close to a hundred linear feet of nerveless bone sweeping around a close-grown space—was pretty amazing. He watched curiously as the captain dismounted and examined both arms of the V ahead. The man was scowling when he returned.
“Rhiannon’s troop, without a doubt,” he announced. “They came up the Track that joins this—a dozen of them, or I’m a babe. But here they split, and half went left and half right.”
“Why?” someone wondered.
“Because my mother is no fool,” Rigantana snorted. “She knew there might be pursuit, and so she sought to confound us.”
“Still, they are not far ahead,” the captain observed, “for we have made up a great deal of time. Yet it is obvious we must divide our strength, and that may not be good, for already Rhiannon’s host outnumbers ours.”
“Three and three?” a blond knight suggested. “And a…guest goes with each?”
“Perhaps,” the captain grunted. “But we know who else rides the Tracks tonight, and something tells me he is near.”
“You are under my protection,” Rigantana noted.
“But you cannot protect two groups,” a red-haired fellow retorted.
“And both these routes lead where we would go,” the captain concluded. “One way is long, one short, but we do not know which band has the oracular stone—nor which one He will follow.”
“If he does.”
“He will.”
“So Rigantana’s host should be larger and take the longer path,” the lone female knight suggested, “since it will be at risk longer.”
“And the lad?”
Anger flared in Aikin at that. Lad indeed! He was tired of being talked about as though he wasn’t present, tired of being treated as so much baggage. Tired—
“Oh shit,” he blurted out all at once. “I’ve got an idea!” Seven sets of eyes turned toward him. Most were less than friendly.
“You guys are afraid of the Hunt, right?” he blundered on breathlessly. “Well, he’s already hunted me tonight—twice, in fact. And he said himself he never hunts a quarry more than once in his own skin.”
The captain’s eyes narrowed. “So you do not have to ride with Rigantana?”
“I…guess not.”
&
nbsp; “But you cannot ride alone! The short Track leads where we would go without trouble. But what would you do if you were first to locate our quarry? Would you confront Rhiannon’s knights alone?”
Aikin shrugged. “Never thought of that,” he admitted dully.
The captain gnawed his lip. “I will ride with you,” he said at last. “I have more Power than any among our host save Rigantana, and likely more than Rhiannon’s knights as well. This way we cover both options, and both parties have protection.”
“You will have none,” someone observed.
“I will have the fastest mount, the shortest road, and the sharpest sword,” the captain shot back. “And something tells me the ‘lad’ is less a fool than we supposed.”
Silence, followed by mumbled assent.
“Luck,” Rigantana cried, as she moved into the vanguard of the host to the right.
“Luck,” Aikin called back, as he followed the captain onto the remaining Track.
*
Thank God, Aikin thought, there were no more pines. Yet swamps full of gold-toned cypress hung with spun-silver Spanish moss through which the Track ran on a sort of nebulous causeway were little better to look at, and less comforting to contemplate—especially when he discovered he could often see the gleam of water beneath the Track that passed steadily beneath the elk’s cloven hooves.
“Eellar,” the captain declared at some point, his voice clear for all the whipping wind. “My name is Eellar.”
“Aikin,” Aikin yelled back. “Aikin Daniels.”
“You are brave for a mortal.”
“Maybe,” Aikin hedged. “Or maybe I’m just really dumb.”
“Sometimes it is hard to judge the two,” the Faery knight acknowledged. “I feel rather foolish myself, just now. This is my first command: the first Rade in which I have ridden vanguard. Nothing was supposed to occur.”
“Maybe nothing will,” Aikin told him.
Eellar glanced over his shoulder. “Something already has,” he groaned.
Aikin shuddered for no reason, but then he did have reason, for in spite of their pace, the wind had shifted around behind them and had bound other sounds within its own: the pounding of hooves and the baying of hounds, and the bray of a hunting horn whose notes could chill the bone.
And when Aikin finally dared look around, he could see them.
The Wild Hunt: hard on their heels.
“Ride!” Eellar spat. “Ride, for your life, if not mine!”
But for the first time their mounts failed them. Forests they had managed easily, but the swamp growth had grown thicker as they progressed, and tendrils of not-quite Spanish moss hung everywhere like glittering curtains dewed with silver and pearls. They were strong as metal too, apparently; for they caught at the elks’ antlers as the pine branches on the last stretch of Track had not—and not only caught, they dragged, slowing their headlong rush. Aikin saw Eellar draw his sword and slash about him, cutting at the parasitic plants. Droplets of wet red fire flashed into the gloomy air. Aikin preferred not to think of them as blood.
And the Hunt, unencumbered by monstrous antlers, came thundering on.
—Yet it did not actually catch them, though it obviously could have. Instead, Aikin got the odd sense it was holding back.
Sound wasn’t, however: the pounding of hooves, the rasping of canine breath—and now, above all, the wild shrill laughter of a woman who was obviously insane. Aikin wanted badly to plug his ears so as to shut out that last, yet dared not move his hands from his steed’s shoulders. And so those tones reached him and played with his mind, and all at once the swamp was no longer void of animate life; all at once skulls rose from the water: skulls wearing helms of antique design he vaguely associated with the Spanish explorers who’d tried to build outposts on the coast of mundane Georgia. They didn’t move, but they watched: eye sockets black and…hungry.
And then something sang past his ear, so close he felt pain crease the lobe. “Shit!” he yipped. Then, “Oh fuck!”—as he saw the crimson-fletched shaft that had buried itself in the juncture of Eellar’s neck and shoulder an inch to the right of the spine, and precisely in the one place bare flesh showed between cuirass and cap helm.
The Faery captain promptly slumped forward: conscious still—Aikin hoped—but obviously fading. And then he toppled from his mount and tumbled to the side of the Track: a jumble of silver mail and white velvet buried half in glimmering golden light, half in stinking slime-gray mud.
Eellar’s elk danced to a halt a dozen yards farther on, its antlers effectively blocking the width of the Track. Aikin’s mount stumbled to a stop almost atop the fallen knight, even as the Huntsman’s horn rang louder yet behind. Aikin slammed his fists over his ears to shut out that blast, but as he did, something sharp probed the small of his back.
“Three’s the charm, they say in your World,” came a too-familiar voice. Himself. The Huntsman. Herne. Cernunnos. He who wore man’s shape and stag’s antlers. “You may be the one mortal in eternity to have been hunted by me thrice in one night—in two different shapes, and three Worlds.”
Aikin was too numb with fear to reply.
“Cleverness saved you once,” the Huntsman went on, still with what was probably a spear point poking Aikin’s back. “Rigantana saved you a second time, and my own word saves you now—but you should move aside, for you stand between me and my quarry.”
“W-what’re you gonna do to him?” Aikin managed, not daring to move lest he collapse in blind panic. He wished that bitch would stop gibbering.
“Why, kill him, of course! What good is a hunt without a kill?”
“And then?”
“We hunt again.”
“Where?” Aikin demanded suddenly, as a ghost of a plan took form despite the insidious peals of insane laughter.
“Back up this Track. Nothing worthwhile runs past here. And courtesy precludes my hunting Rigantana’s company on the other fork.”
“What if I told you where other…prey is?” Aikin dared shakily, wondering where that notion had come from.
“What prey?”
“The guys we’re after.”
The spear probed deeper. Pain slid into Aikin’s flesh. Godalmighty, that thing was sharp! Magically sharp, probably. Sharp enough to skewer him through before he was even aware of it.
“There were other prints,” someone shouted from farther back. Aikin strained to follow the ensuing murmur, but the voices had shifted away from English—if they’d ever been that. And then something thrust against his foot, and before he could stop himself, he looked down—where the blackest dog he’d ever seen bared gleaming white teeth at him, the eyes above that inky muzzle red as coals.
“Lugh would consider it a favor,” Aikin called over his shoulder.
“We do not need Lugh’s favors!” someone—not the Huntsman—yelled back.
“I am mad,” the Huntsman snorted, his voice as rough as the bark of his hounds, “but I am no fool. A favor here, a favor there: thus is balance maintained.” A pause, then: “What might this favor be?”
Aikin told him.
“Those would be Rhiannon’s men,” a woman complained. “They would claim her protection.”
“I swore only to preserve those of the royal house of Ys, and those they protect,” the Huntsman snarled back. “Rhiannon’s guard are never of her house, and her protection prevails only in her presence or that of her blood kin, else she could shield all of Ys from me.”
“But—”
“Silence!” the Huntsman roared. “I will do this thing! The small fey flee Tir-Nan-Og, for a land that lies beyond Ys, and thus beyond Faerie. If they reach there, I cannot hunt them. And I like to hunt them. They fight better than the Sidhe; there are few repercussions if they are slain—and their souls, my spear tells me, are tastier.”
Aikin was trying very hard not to think of wolves and cougars that killed many more rabbits, squirrels, and groundhogs than cattle, sheep, or deer; only hunting the
latter when the rest became too scarce.
“We ride, then!” the Huntsman bellowed—and with that the pain in Aikin’s back vanished. A crackling swish was the spear sweeping away.
“But my…friend,” Aikin ventured.
“He will heal or not,” the Huntsman growled. “We will not harm him, but you would be wise to leave him where he lies—for I seem to have come to like you, and you would be safer with us than otherwise. This swamp dislikes things that move and are…alive.”
“But—”
“Follow or stay,” the Huntsman snapped. “We are gone!” And with that he winded his horn, and reality shattered into noise.
Aikin shut his eyes and deliberately refused to watch as, with a roar like a hurricane, the Wild Hunt swept by. A few hounds loitered, one of which was nosing the motionless Eellar when Aikin finally dared open his eyes. “Git!” he yelled, as though he commanded one of his dad’s ’coon hounds.
To his surprise, the beast responded, though it continued to stare at him with crazed, accusing eyes.
“You go too,” Eellar hissed through gritted teeth, his handsome face tight with pain. “I will not die, though I may hurt for a time. When you may, send someone in search of me.”
“You could ride with me…”
“It would not be wise.”
“I—”
But Eellar muttered a Word that sounded different from any Aikin had ever heard, and the stag surged forward. “Here!” Eellar called as he passed, and somehow found strength to toss Aikin his sword.
Aikin caught it, courtesy of the red rags that bound his hands, and managed to fumble it into his belt beside the one he’d received from Alec, and then was off again. Of Eellar’s elk there was no sign.
He didn’t know how long he rode.
*
Aikin had heard of soldiers who could sleep in the saddle, but had never expected to be one. He had a pretty good idea he had been cutting at least tentative Zs, though, when something cold slapped his face and roused him several levels of consciousness—to see the last of the glittering moss sweep past the stag’s rack. And reveal a field of carnage.
