The Last Huntsman: A Snow White Retelling

by Page Morgan

  Mara sat forward and covered my fist with her hand.

  “He will take your head for betraying him. You must stay here with me, in Pendrak. I can keep you safe.”

  I snaked my hand out from under hers.

  “He won’t take my head,” I said, sinking even lower toward the ground. “I have to return to Morvansk as quickly as I can to protect my family.”

  New horror brightened her eyes. She understood. “I owe you my life, Huntsman.” Mara wiped one wet cheek and wobbled onto her feet. “You know, I don’t even know your real name. Won’t you tell me what it—”

  The purr of a dagger whistled toward us, less than a second before its impact lifted Mara from her feet and threw her backward.

  “No!” I screamed as another dagger cut the air above me, the wind from it kissing the crown of my head.

  I clambered through the tall grass toward the twitching lump of amethyst taffeta and the sound of panicked gurgling. Her bloody hands slipped weakly over the gilded cross hilt, the blade embedded in her throat.

  “Princess,” I rasped, pulling her hands away from the dagger, feeling their warm stickiness in mine. Blood spattered her face all the way to her hairline, and stained the lace collar a wet, vivid red. Mara’s eyes rolled back, showing small slits of white.

  I squeezed her hand. She’d been safe. I’d been her threat, and I’d let her go. My eyes scorched inside my head. Blood, trapped in my veins, pounded through my ears. I looked closer at the blood-spattered dagger’s hilt, where a double-headed lynx had been stamped into the gold. Another of Prince Orin’s daggers; identical to the one I’d just thrown aside.

  Mara lay still at last, her lips splashed with her own life, spilled from her even though I’d tried…

  Grass rustled a half-dozen yards behind me. My hand shot to my left boot and gripped the knife hidden inside it. I didn’t know what was happening or who was watching, but someone with fine aim and honed skill had thrown both of those daggers. Someone trained, like me. And the person who’d killed the princess wanted me dead next.

  I crawled low to the ground, away from Mara’s body, forgetting for the time being that she was dead. Odd calm slowed my breathing as a patch of brown approached through the green blades. I’d lain in wait for deer to visit their favorite forest clearing, for rabbits to poke their heads up from their burrows, and for quail to take flight from their protective rushes. The game hunter in me understood the importance of hitting a target with stealth and precision, before it could dart away in a panic.

  I hurled the knife at the same moment I leaped from the grasses. Rage colored the glade around me red as blood. His fingers—I’d slice each one off. I’d have his eyes too, for waiting until the princess stood up from the grass.

  I came upon him; his hulking body curled itself around my blade, lodged in the center of his stomach. He grasped the handle, but didn’t pull it free. There was no coming back from a blade to the gut. That death was slow and painful. I’d chosen it for a reason.

  “Who are you?” I kneeled beside him and hurled a crossbow he’d dropped farther into the grass. The man, his face contorted with a look of pure torture, managed a mocking grin.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he answered, then coughed. Blood-laced spit trickled from his mouth.

  I grabbed the handle of the knife and pulled it out a quarter of an inch. The man screamed, knowing as well as I did that taking out the blade would kill him faster. It also hurt like hell.

  “Why did you kill the princess?” I shouted. With the same dagger Frederic wanted me to use.

  The man looked up at me. “Why didn’t you?”

  He smiled his anguished smile again as I stared at him in bewilderment. “He had an inkling you”—the man gasped for air—“wouldn’t be able to do it.”

  He laughed again. More blood spurted from his mouth and down his chin.

  “If I were you, boy, I’d scurry back.” He hacked up more blood. “Back to Morvansk…before the other one gets there.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “What ‘other one’?”

  He shook his head. “You don’t know a thing about the emperor, do you, boy? You think you’ve done all your kills alone, with no one watching to make sure you done them right. Done them at all. Frederic safeguards each assignment three men deep. You, me, and—”

  I yanked the knife from his stomach the rest of the way. A gush of blood followed the sickening wet rip. I slit the man’s throat, and a spray of crimson narrowly missed my face as I sprang up. I wiped the Klaven blade on the man’s pant leg and tossed it aside, sheathing my own blade back inside my boot.

  That bastard. He’d been sending others to watch, to report, to finish if I failed. Like I had today. I scanned the glade and the trees surrounding it, but saw no sign of the third man. “Before the other one gets there.” He’d already left. He’d probably left the moment I’d thrown Mara and the dagger aside.

  The moment I’d chosen her over my family.

  I ran back to Mara’s lifeless form. The tartness of her blood rose on the humid air. Her limp hand, fingers so graceful, weighed nothing in my own.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. Odd blurs edged into my vision.

  Returning to Pendrak’s fortress was out of the question. I needed to get to Yort, and fast. Feeling as if I might vomit for doing it, I turned Mara’s skirt pocket inside out. Finding nothing, I pulled down the ruffles around her waist, revealing a leather pouch tied around her middle.

  “Forgive me,” I told her unhearing ears as I took it. The rounds of silver and gold Klaven storgs might be necessary.

  My eyes caught on the string of freshwater pearls around her wrist. The three-tiered strand held gray, black, and cream-colored pearls. If I could get to my family first, we’d have to run. The pearls would be worth something. I could hock them for food or shelter as we made our way into another empire. So I slipped the bracelet from her wrist, starting to say sorry again. But I stopped. It was over. Done.

  And now I had hell to catch up to before it broke loose over my family.

  8

  Tobin

  I spent the first night along the Pendrak Road in a broken sprint, determined to catch up to the third assassin. I needed a horse, but there hadn’t been a single lonely traveler along the road, only men and women in groups. So I moved on foot through the thick woods, parallel to the main road. The lower half of the moon hung like a smile in the starry sky, and I wanted to stab it.

  My mind spun with thoughts of Frederic, the unknown assassin, the third man making his way to Yort, my family, completely unaware of any danger…and Mara. Exhaustion and hunger didn’t slow me down, and thirst was easy to remedy with a pull off the water skin strung across my chest.

  I burned with impatience.

  Dawn bled through the trees by the time my legs lost all feeling. They were liquid beneath me, sinking into the forest floor. My head ached, my throat felt thick. Rocks and divots tripped me again and again. Stop, my body begged. Go, my mind argued.

  The third man would need to stop for rest, for water and food, too. A quarter-hour of rest wouldn’t cost me much. I could then speed up and get back on track. Just a quarter hour.

  The waking trill of birds replaced my heavy panting as I crouched, fell back against a tree trunk, and stretched out my legs. My body shivered, each muscle overworked, eyes burning. I closed them. A few minutes, that’s all I’d take.

  I opened my eyes.

  The light had changed. Shadows were long, the sunlight dappled. And I was on my side.

  No.

  I shot up and stumbled forward, disoriented. No! It was afternoon, and judging by the slant of light through the trees, the hour was closer to dusk than midday. Tears of frustration bit at my eyes as I launched forward. How stupid and selfish could I possibly be? Was sleep more important than protecting my family?

  The forest turned dusky purple within an hour and clouds eddied across the sky. Running in the woods would be slow and haza
rdous, so I slid down the banking and into the road. I didn’t care about the thieves that might rush me. Let them come. I’d slit their throats and not even stop running.

  My sides cramped, and my breathing turned ragged as I coursed down the Pendrak Road through the oncoming dark. I forced myself to walk a few times, but then I’d think of how much time I’d wasted and would launch into another sprint. I’d failed Mara. Failing my mother, Lael, and Kinn was not an option. It could not happen. If the emperor reached them first…if the third man delivered the news before I arrived in Yort…

  Sweat plastered the deerskin breeches to my thighs and chaffed by the time the stone spires of Yort came into view. Sweat stung my eyes—sweat and something else. Smoke. A plume of gray rose past the low village. It billowed above the trees, bullying the waking sky back toward midnight. For the first time in hours, I came to a halt.

  The smoke was coming from the heights.

  I ran through a waist-high field toward the trees where the arms of the forest scraped my face. The bite of burnt wood and thatch grew stronger as I hurdled over rocks, splashed through a creek, slid down a ravine, and fell forward onto my hands as a tree root caught my toes. I stumbled up, ready to keep running. But stopped.

  Around me, the world slowed.

  Dark shapes hurried in front of the tree line, tossing water from buckets onto the low flames of a burnt-out home. The crackle of the remaining fire, tired and spent, filled the gaps of silence between voices saying words like destroyed and everything and gone. The front window was shattered, its diamond-lattice pattern broken and melted. Blackened grass fringed the brick walk. The front door was reduced to a gaping threshold.

  My home.

  I grasped a tree trunk, a shout for my family dying in my throat when my eyes fell to the base of the gnarled climbing tree. A large, shapeless lump had been covered carelessly by blankets. The bare, blackened soles of a small pair of feet stuck out from the edge of one blanket.

  My knees hit the ground. My stomach and chest and throat coiled and clambered for release through my mouth, open in a silent scream. Sound would not come. Neither would air. The blanket-covered figures spun in and out of sight, the bare heels close together, the small toes spread apart. Those feet were all I could see.

  I reached out to them, but my hands came down onto the slope of the ravine. My fingers grabbed at rock and mud and moss, and I was climbing, away from my home, away from the three shrouded figures. On my hands and knees, I crawled, sobbing into the earth, the ragged hole in my chest spreading and gnawing, swallowing me whole.

  At the top of the ravine, I slugged onto my feet. And ran.

  I opened my eyes and knew I wasn’t dead. I should have been. I wanted to be. But the wet sod cushioning my cheek and stinking of manure assured me I was very much alive.

  Something hard nudged me between my shoulder blades.

  “Has he expired?” a voice grumbled.

  “Idiot. Can’t you see him breathing?” The nudge against my back sharpened. “Get up, then.”

  For all I knew, I could have been facedown on Yort’s center common, or in the glade where Mara died, or on the dirt lane winding through the heights…

  I closed my eyes and tried to turn my cheek deeper into the sod, ready to suffocate, unable to breathe.

  “I said get up.” A foot buried itself into my side.

  Heavy and plodding, I rose to all fours, squeezing back the bite of tears. One of the men bent at the waist to look at me.

  “What’re you crying for?” he asked, his beard and moustache knotted and coarse with dirt.

  “He’s afraid we’re gonna kill him,” the other man said.

  Hanging back behind these two were three others; they lounged beneath a rotted out tree in the middle of a giant field. I had no memory of coming here.

  I swayed to my feet. “Do it.”

  The two men had a short chuckle—and then fell silent. They’d realized I meant it.

  “Do it,” I said, louder.

  They glanced toward the others at the tree, and then cocked their heads toward me.

  “I don’t know why you insist on dying,” the bearded man said. “But you’ve plenty of steel to do the job yourself, if you want it bad enough.”

  He nodded to the daggers hanging from my coat sleeves. The rigged springs must have come loose at some point. This man was right. I had the skill to do it myself. Why shouldn’t I? My family was gone. I was no longer Frederic’s huntsman. There was no point in anything anymore.

  I freed the dagger from the loosed spring, and the two men edged back. There would be more pain if I plunged it into my heart, but it was an easier thrust. Drawing the blade across my throat with enough pressure to slice the jugular would hurt less, but would require more commitment. Thinking of my death in levels of pain and dedication made it easier to consider. Mara had not been given that choice. Neither had my family. Their deaths had been painful and drawn out, and it was my fault. But I was only part of the reason, really. Frederic owned all of this death. Frederic deserved the worst death of us all.

  The blade cooled the steaming pulse at my throat. The men standing in awe before me wanted to see me kill myself. They’d gone stone silent with the promise of it. A swift jerk with a firm hand, and my blood would spill. I’d be unrivaled fodder for their campfire stories. They’d leave my body and move on, never understanding why. No one would understand, and no one would care. And what Frederic had done would fade away, lost and forgotten. Just like me.

  He truly did deserve the worst death of us all. Who would ensure it, if not me? He’d had me trained for this, to be the hand of punishment. My solitary purpose had been to square with those who had wronged Morvansk, and now, the emperor himself had betrayed his people. His own family.

  I let the dagger’s tip drop from my throat. The men grunted.

  “Well then, if you’re not going to slay yourself, you can hand me that purse you’re carrying there.” The bearded man’s eyes flicked to the small bulge of Mara’s suede string pouch in my coat pocket.

  “It’s all I have.” My throat burned like hot glass being pulled and twisted.

  “In my experience, any man who says that is sure to have something more on him,” he replied, skimming the dull side of his knife up his neck to relieve an itch.

  I reached into my coat pocket and drew out the pouch. There wasn’t much challenge in these two standing before me. One held a crossbow, indolently bouncing it against his thigh. The other seemed to employ his knife as a scratching prod more than as a weapon. The others at the hollowed out tree might be more of a test, but once I had the crossbow in my possession, I would prevail. It didn’t matter. I handed the bearded man Mara’s purse.

  He took it, and then with his knife, made a grab for my other pocket, the one with the pearl bracelet inside.

  “And now what about in—”

  I swept his hand away and locked it behind his back, then brought my dagger beneath his jaw. His mate jumped and raised the crossbow with shaky hands. The tree gang leaped to attention.

  “What’s in this pocket is worthless to you,” I breathed into the bearded man’s grimy ear.

  I no longer needed to hock the bracelet in order to move my family into another empire. But it had belonged to the princess, and I didn’t want this man’s filthy hands on it.

  I released him and he stumbled back, working out the awkward twist of his arm. He waved down his mate’s shaking crossbow.

  “Which direction are you headed?” he asked.

  “Away from Yort,” I answered. I needed to hide. Frederic very well may have already sent other huntsmen to track me down. I knew too much about his dealings. And that he’d ordered Mara’s murder.

  The bearded man sheathed his knife and held out an arm, in the direction of the setting sun. I must have been unconscious for hours.

  “Walk that way, then.” He signaled to his men. They advanced, and the two men merged back with their group, headed in the opposite
direction.

  “Where will it lead?” I asked as they walked away.

  None of them turned, but someone answered, “The border,” and then, “Rooks Hollow.”

  9

  Ever

  An overnight rain left the barn loft damp and musty. The miserable weather was not what Rooks Hollow, or any corner of Klaven, needed. We were all on edge and uncertain. Princess Mara’s murder hung over us like a shroud. There had been endless speculation in Volk’s Tavern the last few nights regarding who killed her—certainly not Prince Orin. Klaven wanted an alliance with Morvansk, not a war. And there would be one now, unquestionably. Emperor Frederic would be enraged. He’d send his army here. Father would collapse from worry, and I’d have to find a way to calm him. Either that, or make my way into the Silent Ranges.

  I’d already asked my mirror to show me who killed the princess, but as it did whenever I asked to see my mother, the surface remained a slowly churning, slate-colored fog. It didn’t matter, I supposed. What would I have done with the information anyhow? Who could I have told? No one, not even my father, who’d certainly find the mirror and take a hammer to the glass surface.

  Even the animals seemed nervous that damp morning; the morning of the annual hound hunt in Rooks Hollow. Nessa bellowed an extra long moan when she saw me, and Hilda blew snorting whinnies, one right after the other.

  “Neither of you,” I said as I climbed to the loft, “are making me feel any better.”

  The village mood had rallied a little at dawn as the men arrived on the square. They avoided talk of the murder, and instead bragged about their previous hunts and showed off their weapons and their hounds. Father was not a hunter and had remained in his bed, snoring, while I pulled a keg of ale to the square on a wagon and tapped it. Drinking before the hunt didn’t seem a particularly good idea to me, but it was the way of things, and soon after, the prized hounds were turned loose, their masters hurrying behind them, into the forest.