Hunters Unlucky

by Abigail Hilton

  “Telshee!” screamed Marakis as he saw them. “Telshee, telshee!”

  Six of the eight animals with Roup turned and bolted. Lyndi—fresh after her rest at the last trailhead—hesitated. Rickle fixed his eyes on Roup, as though awaiting an order.

  Roup wavered, concentrating. It had been a long time. Still… “That’s not a telshee.” He gave one ear-splitting rally cry, and then he was running for the trailhead, Lyndi and Rickle right behind him.

  Roup was annoyed. He was also impressed. He realized, in that moment, that he’d been holding back…just a little. His clutter were tired—surely not as tired as Storm, but still exhausted from two days of watching and hunting and a night spent by the sea after the confirmed presence of telshees. Their nerves were stretched to breaking. And meanwhile, he’d been methodically testing this foal. No more. This ends now, one way or the other.

  Roup tore up the cliff trail in the bright, morning sunlight. He was a predator, and he could see his prey—not too far ahead and above him, running hard for the cliff top. From somewhere below, Roup heard the calls of his clutter as they converged on the trailhead—letting him know that they had realized their error and were on their way. Lyndi and Rickle would be even nearer, but Roup didn’t worry about any of them. He focused on Storm.

  By the time he reached the top, Roup knew Storm must be nearly spent, because he was. He’d gained on the ferryshaft in the ascent, and Roup caught sight of him again as soon as he reached the crest. Storm had turned north. Strangely, he’d not gone into the trees. He was running along the cliff top in full view.

  Roup wondered whether Storm even had a plan anymore. He seemed to be running at a wasteful, desperate speed—the way a deer runs just before the hunters drag it down. So be it. Roup took off after him, feeling the ache in his own muscles as he pushed them for that last bit of energy.

  Then Storm seemed to vanish on what Roup assumed to be a downward slope. Roup did not slow down, and it almost cost him his life.

  He came upon the fiord so suddenly that he sat down, flipped over, and ended with his back legs scrabbling off the edge. Gulping for air, heart hammering, Roup clawed his way back to solid ground. He saw that Lyndi and Rickle had almost reached him, bristling with alarm, probably for his safety.

  Roup turned back to the cliff where he’d almost fallen. The rift was just wide enough that a cat could not jump it, and Roup was certain that Storm could not. Cautiously, he approached the edge again and looked down. The tide was out, and he could see plainly the white sand and rocks below. Storm’s body should have been visible. It was not. Roup looked for a ledge where Storm might have landed, but the walls of the cliff were sheer and smooth.

  Discounting nothing, Roup sent Lyndi and Rickle sniffing around the edges of the crevasse. Maybe he really did jump it…or run along the edge where I couldn’t see him. But they found nothing.

  At that moment, the rest of the clutter came running into view, sheepish expressions on their faces. Roup did not lecture them. He sent two back down the trail to investigate the crevasse from below and make certain that an injured Storm had not dragged himself beneath an overhang or into the rocks to die.

  However, Roup was growing increasingly certain that they would not find anything. Roup watched his exhausted clutter as they sniffed fruitlessly around the edges of the fiord. I guess Storm didn’t need me to hold back after all.

  * * * *

  Arcove was among his hot springs on a foggy evening. The fog and the steam rolled around him in absolute silence. He walked, expecting to encounter a familiar tree or rock or riverbank, but nothing looked familiar.

  He thought he heard the swish of fur over stone. He bristled. Surely, nothing could be stalking him here, among his own hot springs.

  Something moved in the fog ahead, but when he reached the spot, it was gone. He heard a muffled laugh. “Show yourself!” he snarled. “If you want a fight I’m ready!”

  “But I’m not,” whispered a voice as smooth as honey.

  Arcove took deep breaths, turning in slow circles.

  “When I am, you’ll know it,” continued the voice. “Someday, when you think you’re safe…I will come and take everything.”

  Arcove blinked. He’d heard those words before. But not here. This is a dream. Wake up!

  “Wake up.”

  Arcove opened his eyes. “Roup,” he managed, and removed his splayed claws from his lieutenant’s shoulder. “You’re back.”

  * * * *

  “You drove him onto the beach?” snarled Halvery. “Were you trying to introduce him to the telshees, Roup?”

  “You have divined my intent exactly,” said Roup, but Halvery was not to be detoured with sarcasm.

  “This fiord where he supposedly escaped—you didn’t even figure out how he did it? He just vanished into the air?”

  Roup cocked his head. “If I could have found him, I’d probably still be chasing him.”

  “He did the same sort of thing when I chased him,” muttered Ariand.

  “Sounds like he’s gotten better at falling down cliffs and walking away,” said Treace.

  “And he’s widening his knowledge of the territory,” said Sharmel. “Arcove, we’ve tried.”

  Arcove looked around at them. “I gather that none of you will take it as an insult to your positions as officers if I personally hunt down this foal?”

  “I’d like to come along,” rumbled Halvery. “I’d like to tear off a piece of him!”

  Arcove chuffed. “You’ll all come. Bring ten of your best cats, and meet me here in three nights. Storm has challenged the creasia. He’s about to learn what that means.”

  Chapter 19. Experiments

  “Well, it wasn’t really a very good telshee,” said Storm, although he couldn’t stop the silly grin that crossed his face at the way Valla was beaming at him.

  “Sounds like it was good enough,” said Kelsy.

  “They ran away like newborn foals at their first creasia raid,” cackled Sauny, who was now a year old, and so had nothing but disdain for “newborn” foals. Her actual behavior did little to support her position. As they talked, she was splashing in a tiny pool, pretending to pounce on minnows. They were lounging on the edge of the plain among scattered rocks and lush spring grass. Small trees gave shade around the pool, and a stream ran tinkling away into the boulders.

  Itsa stretched languorously amid the grass. “Perhaps we should all learn telshee songs.”

  “Perhaps,” muttered Storm. He’d told them about Shaw, but his friends had dismissed the telshee’s words immediately as a cunning trick. Storm wasn’t so sure. He kept playing the incident over in his head. He hadn’t told anyone how he’d ultimately escaped. I need a few secrets.

  “Storm?” He looked up in surprise at the sound of Tracer’s voice.

  “Do I know you?” he asked politely.

  Tracer made a face.

  “Well, you don’t know me,” said the ferryshaft beside him. Storm struggled to remember her name.

  “Mia?” he ventured.

  She actually capered. Storm decided that Tracer had found the right mate. “I have been begging Tracer to introduce us,” she enthused. “Here I find that he grew up with the most notorious ferryshaft in the herd, and he won’t even let me say hello!”

  Tracer looked uncomfortable. “Well, I never stopped you from saying—”

  “Oh, but without an introduction? That would just be awkward. So, Storm, tell me all about yourself. I want to hear everything. And tell me all about Tracer, too, particularly anything stupid or silly he may have done as a foal.”

  Storm was laughing.

  “Technically, he still is a foal,” Kelsy pointed out.

  “You’re right!” said Mia. “That does explain so many things.”

  Tracer shoved her with his nose. “Storm, I just wanted to say congratulations on your continued success. I heard something about your imitating a telshee this last time, and I really do want to hear the story. I’
m sorry I’ve been…not around much.”

  Storm smiled, then forgot what he was going to say as two more ferryshaft came out from among the rocks and approached them. He stood up. “Tollee?”

  She stopped and looked uncertain for a moment, but then came on into the clearing. Tracer rolled his eyes. Storm ignored him. “Is everything alright?” he asked.

  Tollee gave him an annoyed look. “Does anything have to be wrong for me to visit?”

  Storm realized that he was behaving oddly, and everyone was looking at him. He sat down. “No, of course not.”

  From behind her, Leep’s sarcastic voice chimed, “Well, hello, Leep! So good to see you.”

  Storm quirked a smile. “I thought you were just a shadow.” Leep’s spring coat was glossy black, showing off his elegant build to perfection. Storm noticed, with a pang, that Leep had not brought his mate. Afraid to let your loved ones get too close to me?

  Tollee sat down awkwardly on the far side of the group, and Leep joined her. “I heard something about a telshee,” said Tollee.

  “News travels fast,” said Storm. He forced himself not to ask about Mylo.

  “Before you tell the telshee story for the hundredth time,” said Kelsy, “I’d like to talk about something I discussed with your mate and your sister while you were off playing games with the creasia.” Storm tried not to wince when Kelsy referred to Valla as his mate. No one else seemed to notice.

  To the group at large, Kelsy said, “We were all going to meet for a little sparing practice—”

  “Kelsy was going to teach everyone how to fight,” interjected Sauny, still hock-deep in the pool.

  Leep let out a snort of laughter. “Everyone…being who?”

  Kelsy took this in stride. “Well, initially, just Storm, but he sent Valla and Sauny instead. I thought he was having a joke, but I figured, why not? We ended up talking for a long time about how a ferryshaft might fight a creasia.”

  Out of the corners of his eyes, Storm watched the group. This was a forbidden subject—something that could get them in trouble with the elders, perhaps even exiled from the herd, if anyone repeated it. Leep and Tracer looked uncomfortable, but nobody left.

  “We figured,” continued Kelsy, “that it wouldn’t be too different from Sauny or Valla fighting with me, so we tried some things. Here’s what we realized: if a ferryshaft is exceptionally quick and he catches a creasia by surprise, he might have a chance.”

  “He?” interrupted Sauny.

  Kelsy flipped his tail. “He or she. If our hypothetical ferryshaft happens to be large, she has a better chance. However, under normal circumstances, no single ferryshaft will ever be a serious threat to creasia.”

  “Tell us something we don’t know,” muttered Leep.

  “Alright, I will,” said Kelsy. “With a little training, Valla and Sauny together could probably kill me.”

  That surprised everyone. “We don’t fight that way,” continued Kelsy. “For lots of reasons, we don’t tolerate unfair fights. They don’t mean anything. They don’t prove strength or status. But war with another species is different. It’s not about being fair. It’s about winning.”

  “You’re saying that a team of ferryshaft could kill a cat,” said Tollee quietly.

  “Absolutely,” said Kelsy. “It wouldn’t even have to be a very big team. If we outnumbered a group of creasia by two or three to one, I think we could kill them. It would depend on a lot of things, of course, but we’re not that much smaller than a cat. Watch this.”

  He stepped into the center of the group, and Sauny and Valla bounded forward. They circled him, Kelsy striking out with hooves and teeth as they dodged nimbly away. Storm saw Tollee’s eyes narrow. She was watching every move. Each time Kelsy tried to focus on one opponent, the other leapt in to distract him. If they’d been biting hard, Kelsy would have been badly injured. At one point, Storm was certain that Valla would have hamstrung him if she’d been trying. His reflexive kick landed with a solid thud. Valla rolled with the blow and bounced back up. Storm was impressed.

  At last, Sauny—the smallest of the two—leapt onto Kelsy’s back. If she’d been trying, her teeth would have fastened around his spine or the back of his neck. He bucked hard to dislodge her, throwing his head back. At the same time, Valla streaked in and fastened her teeth around his throat. They went down in a lashing tangle of hooves and fur. Valla must have been over-excited, because Storm heard Kelsy wheeze, “Alright, alright! We’ve made our point! Let go!”

  Valla rose primly, tail high, and pranced off, ruffled and bristling. Storm thought she looked as proud as he’d ever seen her.

  “Bravo!” called Itsa. “I’ll have to teach Remy and Faralee for next time Kelsy misbehaves!”

  Everyone was talking and laughing and cheering.

  When they’d quieted, Kelsy said, “You see? It’s not unlike the way a group of ferryshaft harry a cornered sheep. A little trickier, because you’re dealing with an intelligent animal, but still not that different. Here’s something else to think about: I believe we naturally out-breed the creasia. I think that they kill us to keep our numbers artificially low so that we cannot challenge them. If we could get beyond their reach for a few years, we would soon have a herd large enough to come back here and crush them.”

  Everyone went silent at that. Storm watched Tollee. She had an expression on her face that he could not read. Tracer shook himself. “Well, that certainly gives us something to consider. Now, about this telshee…”

  * * * *

  Ever since Roup’s chase, Storm had taken to sleeping in inaccessible places. At first, he decided that he would sleep only in caves along sheep trails, but Valla kept trying to follow him. “You teach Sauny to walk on the sheep trails,” she observed reasonably, but Storm could already tell that Valla did not have the knack for it.

  “If you fall, I will never be able to live with myself,” he told her and tried not to see the way it made her smile.

  In the end, Storm settled for caves too small for creasia. He was very selective. The cave must have two entrances, and he reserved one entrance only for emergencies, so that his scent would not betray its location. He found four such caves in the region of the spring feeding grounds and rotated through them, never spending two nights in a row in the same place.

  Valla obviously thought this over-cautious, but she said nothing. Storm was tempted to tell her about Roup’s visit so that she would understand. However, something stopped him. Because I don’t understand it myself? Because I’m afraid someone will tell me that Roup was only toying with me for information? That he probably lied? That I’m really nobody special?

  The possibility that he might be a relative of the mysterious Coden filled Storm with secret pride. His lack of status in the herd had been his bane ever since he’d been born. So-fet’s confession about his father had not improved his view of things. Alaran was likely a bully who’d chosen his mother because she was young and defenseless. But Coden… Coden was a hero, the only ferryshaft whom the creasia appeared to fear. Storm wished that he could have met him. Just once.

  * * * *

  Arcove did not hurry on his way to hunt Storm. The journey from Leeshwood to the spring feeding grounds of the ferryshaft herd could be made in two nights—a night and a day if a clutter pushed hard. Arcove took six.

  Roup knew that Treace—and even Ariand—found the pace frustrating, but Arcove kept them busy with long scouting expeditions across the plain. He sent them all the way to the lake and back at several different points. “Remind yourselves where the dips are,” he told them. “Familiarize yourself with the height of the grass and the lay of the plain, even the woods by Chelby Lake.”

  Roup knew very well that a few of Treace and Ariand’s cats could not be “reminded” because they had never known. In all their lives, they’d come north only to raid and then only at the foot of the cliffs in the area where the ferryshaft wintered. Arcove knew it, too, Roup was sure. His king did nothing by halves. A
rcove will not lose Storm simply because the foal knows the land better than we do.

  Halvery was more circumspect than Treace and Ariand. He would have liked to travel faster, but he was a seasoned fighter who trusted Arcove’s judgment and could appreciate what he was doing. Arcove sent Halvery and his clutter up and over the cliff, scouting out the trails and the belt of wood on top. When a cat had the nerve to complain that he’d been there recently, Halvery snapped, “Well, now you’ll have been there even more recently.”

  “I do not want this hunt to land on the beach,” Arcove told them. “In order to keep that from happening, we need to know the ways up and down the cliff—not as they were five years ago, or last year, or this winter. I want you to know what they are now.”

  To Sharmel’s older clutter, Arcove gave the job of scouting the boulder mazes themselves. All of Sharmel’s cats had come this way many times before, so they needed only to note recent changes and details.

  Arcove kept Roup’s clutter with him, sending them as messengers when needed. If there was a problem anywhere, he would send them as reinforcements. This had always been his preferred way of using Roup’s small, but effective group of cats.

  Arcove himself had no clutter, as was the custom. All of Leeshwood was his clutter. This way, it could not be claimed that he gave special favors to his own cats. Roup knew that Halvery would have liked to complain that Roup’s clutter might as well have been Arcove’s. But he doesn’t say it, because he doesn’t want to fight with Arcove…just with me.

  So they traveled at a leisurely pace through the nights and often into early morning. Creasia felt most alert at dawn and dusk, and Arcove saw no reason to change their normal rhythms. “We raid in the daytime because that is when ferryshaft are awake, and we want them to see us,” he told the clutters. “We are not going to raid this time. We are going to hunt Storm. We will probably attack at dusk.”

  Arcove himself chose to move along the top of the cliff for most of the journey, where he could keep an eye on the activities of the various clutters below and make his own assessments of the terrain. He came down into the boulders if he saw anything interesting and often during the day to sleep. Roup’s clutter hunted small game and sheep. They slept fitfully outside their own territory, but the sunny rocks were pleasant.