by Chris Turner
She drew back, looked him up and down in contempt. Jerking to her feet, she pulled loose of his weasely grip. “Frankly, my lord, I’d rather bed down with the goats out in yon yard.”
Mygar’s face went red despite his drunken mood and his teeth rattled in his mouth. He snatched at her wrist and painfully pulled her back down beside him.
Risgan lurched to his feet and Lokbur was at his heels. Risgan reared in and smelled the grog on the huntsman’s breath. “You’re drunk, Mygar. Go back to your quarters rather than regret doing something foolish in the morning.”
Mygar gave a raspy chuckle. “Oh, is that right? Get away from me, you puppy.” He slapped Risgan back and shoved Lokbur aside.
Risgan drew his club. “I’ll not stand by and see a maid’s honour sullied by a conceited boor.”
“You won’t will you?”
A dozen figures appeared out of the shadows—all Caerlin men bearing swords and bows.
“Very touching,” said Mygar. “Get out of my way, relic hunter, or you’ll regret it.” He drew his knife in one hand and his sword in the other. “The wench’s mine. Her father’s promised me, and she’ll learn respect, by Wülv!”
Svengar stepped in, his eyes darting over the grim gathering. “Come, my lord. Not the time for a squabble in our drunken states.” He grabbed the chief by the arm.
“Hands off, you mangy dog.”
Svengar swore. “Let it go, Mygar, none of us are in the mood for drunken rows tonight. Tomorrow we’ll spill blood, and plenty of it.”
“Piss on tomorrow!” Mygar spat. He imitated Svengar’s whiny voice, “Blood I’ll spill any time, Svengar, anywhere. You’re a damned sissy.” He swept off his nephew’s arm and hefted his blade. “I’ll go when I damn well feel it. Or do you want to play chief now?”
Svengar’s shoulders drooped. Yet Risgan could see the rage etched in the scarred face and his fingers clenching on his sword with the urge to smack sense into his drunken uncle.
Moeze twitched his nose and held his silver disc close. In the blink of an eye, Mygar’s face became suddenly very furry and rosy as if he had sprouted a new beard. The chief scratched his cheeks like a hound with fleas and began to bay like a dog.
Arcadia began to laugh. “My lord, I didn’t know you were auditioning for the comedy hour at our wedding.”
This earned chuckles amongst the Caerlineans as Svengar dragged the cursing, scratching Mygar away.
Risgan shook his head and patted Moeze on the back. “Good riddance, Moeze. Always a new surprise with you.”
The magician smiled. “Sometimes spells can come in handy, can’t they?”
“They surely can,”
Risgan’s cheer was shortlived. He dreaded the wrath of the chief in the morning when he was sober.
3: The Last Hunt
The final hunt of the season was on and Risgan and his men were only seven stags away from fulfilling their indenture. All five trudged ahead through the green and silver trees, clutching bows, swords or knives while Svengar and eleven of his mounted hunters took up the rear. Moeze and Hape accompanied Risgan and the others this time, dragging their heels and grumbling. Risgan had appealed to Vardot, stressing the need to work as a team, without which they were losing out on capturing stags. It was stretch of truth, but they had a better chance in numbers at escape and Risgan had a plan.
No freshly-slain stags slumped over Svengar’s or the other huntsmen’s mounts. Mygar, mercifully, was absent. Only his right hand man rode with the group, the brute Svengar with the scar down his left cheek, and bared muscles with tattoos despite the chill air. The plan was to meet up with Mygar’s team later that afternoon.
“Pick up your feet,” Svengar growled, “we’ve got many miles to cover and the stags aren’t going to catch themselves.”
Risgan kept walking without a backward glance. His throat was parched and his belly groaned with hunger from lack of proper breakfast. All of them woke up a little too late to get full fare and somewhere lady luck had failed to give them leftovers. Somewhere there had to be some good news in all this. In the huntsmen’s eyes, Risgan saw only resentment, that they couldn’t ride free and full out to catch the stags.
Moeze sighed. “Even my cursory magic is failing to flush out these crafty stags.” He gave a weary frown. “Why is it that every time I try to help out you people someone always grabs my shoulder and cautions me, or says, ‘hey, Moeze, please relax and don’t strain yourself?”
Risgan spoke in a casual tone. “Your magic is too profound, Moeze. A master mage is not to be enlisted in such plebeian applications as this. Even that trick with the beard last evening was beneath you. You should be saving kingdoms and rescuing princesses from fierce dragons!”
Moeze straightened his back. “Yes, right, Risgan! How could I forget, and I’m glad somebody recognizes the fact.”
Jurna tried hard not to cough.
Arcadia came pounding out of the brush on her grey mount after some mysterious venture.
Svengar turned and swore at her as she came reining in. “Woman, you should be back with the others! There’s no solo excursions allowed. You heard Mygar, unless you wish to directly confront your future lord.”
“I wish to confront no one. Unless it’s only a stupid policy—I’ll ride free where I wish.” She fixed him a glare. “Besides, it’s dull riding with you and others—my ‘betrothed’, for example, is a dreadful bore. All he talks about is halters and arrows and bows and swords and how much fresh meat they’re going to take and how much ale he can gorge at the next campfire feast. I’d rather go off on my own. I urge you to show some respect. Being a chieftain’s bride can have its perks—or can rebound on you should you displease me.”
He laughed at that. “You’re Mygar’s whore, nothing more. Or soon will be. You’ll have no status once you’re under his heel.”
She grimaced at the prospect. Risgan took pity on the maid. If it were him, he’d run away before marrying that lowlife, Mygar.
Ominous black dots roved high in the skies well out of range.
“Isks,” groused Kahel. “There can be no doubt what’s on their mind.”
“Aye, scavengers,” hissed Svengar. “What else is new? Why do they wait?”
“They fear our arrows, lord.” One of his henchman lifted his sword. “When we are most vulnerable, they will strike.”
“I know that, dolt. I just didn’t give them the benefit of that much intelligence.” He grunted. “Curse the thief who took the magic arrow. Now we have no surefire protection against the beasts. If they swoop all at once, we’re doomed. One of us will likely die. I’d skewer the whole lot of those miserable predators with that arrow.”
“Pretty boast there, Svengar,” said Risgan. “Can you back it up though?”
“Quell your tongue. Let’s get this hunt over. A sour feeling brews in my stomach. I like not the taste of it.”
“Nor I being downwind of you,” muttered Kahel. One of Mygar’s hunters laughed.
The hunters spurred on their mounts, forcing Risgan and his band to lope along at a faster pace. Before long they were huffing and puffing like whipped cattle. Arcadia looked on with heartfelt sympathy. “Give them some slack!”
Svengar gave his head a stubborn shake. “Mygar told me to work them hard after last night’s escapades. What is that extra quiver you carry on your back, lady?” He tipped his head in an insolent way. “Surely you don’t plan on bagging a hundred stags today?” He laughed.
She examined him with cold grace. “Perhaps I will, Svengar.”
One of the black-toothed men next to him hissed. “Svengar, there.” He pointed—it was the same unicorn from the glade on the first day. Its slick white pelt was smeared with old blood from the isk attack. A magnificent creature, with its sleek flanks brimming with health and a golden corn proud and true on its head and wild, blazing blue eyes. The crafty beast stopped just short of bowshot as if it were goading them. Risgan gazed at it with an air of uncertainty.
All eyes turned to the slender shape poised at the edge of the woods. They were downwind of the unicorn so it hadn’t detected them yet.
“That animal’ll land us a pretty prize,” said Svengar, “its hide and head nailed to Mygar’s door.”
The hunters grumbled their agreement.
Svengar gave a cruel leer and lifted bow and took aim, but Arcadia spurred her horse to intercept, a shriek on her lips. She knocked his bow arm, fouling his aim. The unicorn skipped away to the copse ahead unharmed.
“Foolish witch!” he cried as his arrow slammed harmlessly against an exposed rock.
Wheeling his horse around, he tucked bow in his saddle and snatched at his sword. “You’ll pay for that insolence. How dare you?” He charged after her but she spurred her grey mare on through the woods and bolted for the open ground after the unicorn. “Ride, Spinifex, ride!” She laughed at Svengar’s feeble attempts to catch her. Her mastery of a horse far outweighed his.
Svengar gnashed his teeth. “Don’t just stand there, you fools! After her! I want the wench caught!”
The horsemen reined in their mounts and crashed through the underbrush. Kahel took opportunity to charge into the thickets in the opposite direction. A grunt of satisfaction rumbled on his thick lips. Risgan and Jurna took to their heels on diagonal paths with Hape and Moeze splitting between the two.
“Get them!” Svengar roared. He spurred his horse and kicked out at the huntsman’s beast next to him. “Nastra, after those ragbags.”
“Haha, lost your wards, have you?” crowed Arcadia back at him. “Mygar’s going to skin you alive.” She brandished her blade as she galloped on. “Won’t be just me he beats silly,” she yelled. “Which is it going to be, Svengar, the outlanders, or the unicorn?”
Risgan continued to crash through the underbrush, Jurna not far behind. The sound of whinnies and men’s curses echoed on their heels. What to do? So many variables. Risgan’s brain spun.
He dodged around the tree trunks, scratched by many brambles and thorn. Leaves slapped at his face. Gradually the shouts and the horse hooves faded away and he began to hope that maybe they’d win free.
Round up the others. A voice spoke to him. There was safety in numbers.
“Moeze.” He hissed at a moving shape deep in the thickets. “Quiet down.” He gathered the shivering magician to his side.
“An arrow missed me by an inch,” Moeze quavered.
“Don’t worry, you’re alive. Where’s Hape?”
“Back there.” He pointed to the dark tangle of trees.
Risgan winced. He tugged the youth along. If only Hape didn’t wander too far. There was a hunched brown-robed shape shouldering his way through the trees. They hurried toward him. He was unharmed, a fierce and pale look of triumph on his face though at his new found freedom.
Kahel and Jurna stalked out between two ancient massive twitch oaks, whose roots clung to the leaf-covered soil. They wielded their swords and bow. Jurna had no difficulty tracking Risgan and the others.
“Good, we’re all here.” Kahel patted Risgan on the shoulder. “For once, I’m happy to see you, relic hunter. Let’s make as much of this as we can. Starting with as much distance as we can get between Svengar and his goons.”
“What of Arcadia?” asked Risgan.
“What of her?”
“We should hunt for her. They’ll harm her.”
Jurna barked out a laugh. “They’ll never catch that wild one—nor us, if we’re crafty.”
So they wandered through the mysterious elder woods until Arcadia’s fierce mare broke out of the underbrush. Her face was flushed and a glow of triumph burned in her cheeks. She had doubled back and managed to outflank Svengar and his men.
She drew beside them. “Quick! Follow me, if you wish to be free of those rogues. They’ll be coming for you and they’re not far away.”
Risgan broke out in a wild grin. He scrambled after Arcadia with the others on his heels. He gestured to Hape. “Come on, Hape! Move your butt.”
“I’m coming, Risgan—as fast as I can.”
Arcadia ploughed ahead through the thickets, over brooks, fallen logs, hills, dells, brackish pools, hollows, across untouched glades, through forests older than time, ever stranger and more enchanted, always far ahead of them, and she seemed to be following something.
At last, they came to a glade deep in the forest. Risgan estimated they’d wandered for an hour or more. Only it was not a glade. Risgan peeled back a screen of vines to peer on a vast ruin of shattered pillars and a great dome-shaped building in the middle. A temple appeared somewhere out of time: a hundred feet high, four hundred feet long. Riddled with spires and crusted gems. But the stone walls were blackened with age and infested with ivy. Shrubs grew from the cracked courtyard leading up to its main entrance where a black gap spoke of a ruined portal.
The huntress drew them no farther and she sat atop her mount, staring in mystified silence. Out of breath, Risgan turned back to gaze upon her. “How did you find us?”
“The unicorn,” she said in a breathless voice. “I followed it here. Why I don’t know.”
Risgan choked out a startled cry. “The unicorn? How?”
“None of us will know.” She lifted a trembling hand. “There, that’s the temple of Driadis.” Her voice faded to a whisper.
“How do you know?”
“The legends speak of it. Lost. A fable.” She blinked, her eyes full of wonder. A small tear glistened down her cheek. “None of our clan has ever seen it. The unicorn led us here. Our twistings and turnings so far from our hunting grounds must have led us here.”
“Where is this unicorn?” said Kahel. “I’ve not seen hide nor hair of the animal since Svengar chased us.”
The weather had begun to shift. A cold wind blew and with it, a freak rainstorm. Hail came thundering down from the grey skies, pounding on their heads, driving them to shelter under the trees.
Unusual for this time of year and the ragged company grumbled.
The sound of hooves clattered on shattered rock. “Down!” hissed Risgan.
Arcadia checked her horse and she scrambled to duck beside them. She clicked her tongue; dutifully her horse backed behind the thickets out of sight. They crawled behind a rubble of stone, some ruined outbuilding where a cover of twisted branches blocked the force of the rain and hail. The temple lurked a few hundred feet away.
The forms of three mounted riders rose from the rain mist and ice pellets.
“Of all the wretched luck,” Risgan muttered. They’d tracked the unicorn or followed the huntress. Or perhaps she’d followed them here.
“I seem to have underestimated that louse Svengar’s tracking skills,” mumbled Arcadia, ducking lower in the dead leaves.
The horsemen drew nearer. The echo of voices sounded over the patter of rain. “Curse this falling ice,” one railed. “The black wolf Wülv speaks. The gods are angry with us, Svengar. Angry.”
“To Douran’s tits with your fear and superstition, you fools. There’s no ‘wrath’ of the gods. You’ve been duped by those pious druids. What gibberish has that priest Dodonis been feeding you?”
“They fled this way,” growled the third horsemen. On Svengar’s signal, they moved out of earshot.
Arcadia peered out upon the ruined courtyard and lifted a hand. “That unicorn,” she hissed.
Risgan risked a glance and saw the graceful creature poised at the black gap leading to the massive domed temple. It sniffed the entrance, one hoof raised, then turned about, flashed them a queer glance before venturing into the dark gap. Why did it do that?
Arcadia’s jaw dropped and she rose to gather her mount.
“Where are you going?” Risgan hissed at her.
“To draw the hunters away.”
“Why? Wait here.”
“No. Remember, I have a mount, and you don’t.”
She cut him off, hopped on her horse, and clicking her tongue, urged Spinifex out in the rain, a short c
anter in the ruined courtyard.
Risgan shook his head. He saw the horseman clacking closer. “Stupid girl. She’ll get herself killed.”
“If she wants to sacrifice herself—”
Risgan waved Kahel to silence.
The voices drew nearer.
“They came along this side path. There’s somebody lurking about,” grunted one of Svengar’s horsemen.
“I can see that, monkey-brains. Their mud prints are plain, but there’s a jumble of them that disappear in various directions. But they seem to lead to—Look! Well, I’ll be a flying monkey. That vixen bitch huntress. After her!”
Risgan squinted through the screen of vine-covered trees and caught in the daze of the moment, he watched Arcadia clatter over on Spinifex and disappear into the ruined temple. Svengar and three of his horsemen whipped their horses hard and Risgan groaned in dismay. They waited tensely, expecting her to come out of the side, but saw no movement. All was dead still, everything too uncannily quiet here in the lonely wilds.
Risgan swore. “A trap. She’s trapped! I know it. We can’t let her fight them alone, Jurna. Svengar’s in a murderous rage. He’ll kill her. You saw, she lost him his prize, the unicorn.”
“He’s right,” murmured Jurna.
The freak hail storm had changed to drizzle. They clambered after her, like weasels, through the wind and rain, across the courtyard of stones and weeds poking up through the cracks, the witch shrub with wild purple flowers. Kahel shook his head, wondering aloud at the folly of women.
Jurna ducked inside the jagged black gap, then Risgan. Hape clambered in next. Moeze gripped his silver disc and Kahel shouldered him aside, moving into the half darkness like a thief in the night.
A thin, watery light streamed down from broken casements, notched squares cut in the stone. Even in the dimness, Risgan perceived the presence of spirits here beyond the ken of human understanding. The place was overgrown with weeds and choke vine. Tendrils had broken through the floor and curled up the walls.
