by Jon Etter
Ginch and the Professor skipped happily ahead. Shade followed, not as energetically but definitely relieved to walk on level ground and to see the sky overhead.
That relief was unfortunately short-lived. Not long into their walk, they heard a desperate yelping from the woods nearby followed by a woman’s voice calling for help. From the trees raced a creature that looked like a small fox but pure white, its fur shimmering slightly as it raced toward them, its amethyst eyes wide with terror. It bounded toward the trio and reared up, placing its soft front paws on the Professor’s shoulders. Its tongue lolled out as it panted with exhaustion.
Shade looked to the woods where it had come from. “Who was yelling?”
“Please,” the fox-creature pleaded, its voice a soft, silky, feminine one, “you have to help me! I’ve been chased for weeks! First the knight! Now a wild hunt! They’ll kill me! You have to help!”
The Professor nodded and looked to Shade, eyes wide, clearly hoping that she had some idea to help the creature.
“What are you? What’s going—?” Shade started to ask but stopped. From somewhere nearby she heard the sound of hooves and harsh voices calling “The beast went that way!” and “Get it! Kill it!” She whipped off her backpack, unstrapped the thin briefcase Chauncey had given her, and opened it. “In here! Quick!”
The creature looked puzzled. “In there? But I’ll never fit. I—”
Before the creature could finish, the Professor grabbed her and shoved her into the valise. When she had disappeared inside, the Professor looked at the bottom of the suitcase quizzically, smiled, gave Shade a thumbs-up, then slammed it shut and tucked it under his arm.
Just then a wild-eyed pony vaulted out from the forest ahead and galloped toward them, followed by four more, snorting and whinnying. Now when I say “pony,” I don’t mean the kindly sort that patiently gives little children safe (but quite dull) rides and ignores sticky fingers and tugs on its mane, like the one you rode at your friend Parvathi’s birthday party when you were six. No, these were fierce fairy war ponies, bred and trained for combat. Come near one of them with sticky fingers, and it might well bite them off before stomping you to death.
Even more fearsome than the ponies were their riders. They were clad in black leather and dark bronze, swords clattering at their sides and long spears with wicked, barbed points clutched in their hands. Most unnerving of all were their helmets: each one was fashioned to look like the snarling, vicious face of a predator—wolf, bobcat, wolverine, bear. The leader of the hunt, helmet shaped like a shrieking hawk and armor covered in studs and spikes, reined her pony in front of Shade, and waved her spear in a circle. The other hunters slowed their ponies and came to a rest in a ring around the three.
The hawk-helmed hunter’s spear tilted downward, stopping inches from Ginch’s face. “We seek a rare and precious beast,” the hunter said, voice echoey and muffled by the helmet. “You saw where it went.”
“We see it, eh?” Ginch asked. “About this high? White-a the fur? Look-a like the fox but talk-a like the lady?”
“Yes!”
Ginch shook his head. “We no see it.”
“Thistleprick,” Shade groaned, covering her face with her hand.
The leader of the hunt slowly climbed down from the saddle and stepped forward, removing the hawk helmet. Underneath was an elven face, its luminous white skin framed by long silvery hair. It would have been an extremely beautiful face except for the angry red scar that began at her left ear and ran to the corner of her mouth, splitting the skin of her cheek and creating a perpetual sneer that exposed her perfect ivory teeth. “Fenris!” she called, her pale blue eyes fixed on Shade. “Catch the scent.”
The hunter in the wolf helmet took it off to reveal an actual gray wolf’s head. The goblin sniffed at the air. “It passed this way, milady.”
“I know that!” the elf snapped. “Tell me exactly which way it went!”
Fenris climbed down and sniffed and snuffed. While he searched, the elf stepped closer and placed a leather-clad finger under Shade’s chin, tilting Shade’s head up. The elf’s cruel face looked down at hers, studying it intently. “You . . . remind me of someone, little sprite. Extend your wings.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Extend. Your. Wings.”
Memories of childhood taunts flooded Shade’s mind. Blotchy, blotchy mud-wing! Ugly, ugly owl-back! Ugly-ugly owl-back! Her face burned, and without thinking she actually did slap away the hand. “Get your hands off me, you maggot-skinned goon!”
The elf grabbed Shade by the lapels of her coat, yanking her off her feet. “You vile little insect! You dare lay hands on the Duchess of Sighs, leader of the Wild Hunt!”
The Wild Hunt! Shade had been too surprised by a talking white fox for those words to register before, but they did now. Shade had read of the tradition of the Wild Hunt, where members of the Sluagh performed a magic ritual then rode out to find and slaughter a rare and beautiful animal and absorb its spirit. Those who interfered with the hunt rarely lived to tell the tale. This is bad, Shade thought. This is really, really bad!
The wolf-headed goblin cleared his throat. “Lady Perchta, the scent and all other signs of the beast end here in the middle of the road.”
“Where did it go?” she hissed at Shade.
Shade shook her head. “No idea.”
“What’s in that?” asked the bear-helmed hunter, pointing his spear at the valise, which the Professor held behind his back. The Professor turned and looked over one shoulder then the other then shook his head.
“No, there! Behind your back!”
The Professor again looked over both shoulders and shook his head.
“The case in your hands!” the goblin roared, stabbing his spear in the dirt at the pixie’s feet.
The Professor cocked an eyebrow and slowly brought forward the case. He pointed at it and acted surprised.
“Yes! That case! What’s in it, you stupid pixie?”
The Professor held up a finger then plunged his free hand into his pants. He pulled and strained several times, grimacing as he did so, until finally there was a ripping sound, and he pulled out a pair of green underpants covered in red polka dots. He thumped them against the valise then tossed them up onto the goblin’s helmet.
The goblin coughed and gagged as he swatted them off. “Great guts! When did you last wash those?”
The Professor shrugged.
“Enough!” Lady Perchta shouted. She glared at Shade. “We are the Wild Hunt. What we do . . . is hunt.”
“And state the obvious, apparently,” Shade said.
The elf flung Shade from her with all her might. Shade involuntarily flexed her wings just before crashing into Ginch.
“The Great Owl!” the elf murmured as she looked, wide-eyed, at Shade’s wings. Her mouth twisted into a savage, sneering smile. “I had heard rumors of a family, but . . . Well, this will be even more gratifying than I expected.”
Shade and Ginch clambered to their feet. “Why did you call me ‘the Great Owl’?” Shade asked.
Lady Perchta shook her head. “I didn’t.”
“You did. I heard you say—”
“What I said,” Lady Perchta interrupted, “is of little consequence. All that matters once a Wild Hunt is begun is the hunt. And since you prevent us from pursuing our chosen quarry, we will just have to amuse ourselves for a little while—a very little while—by hunting . . . you.”
In which the wisdom of Stinkletoe
Radishbottom is once again put to
the test . . .
The other members of the hunt laughed at the elf’s suggestion. “Should make for a fun few minutes,” the wolf-headed Fenris chuckled as he climbed back into the saddle. “Trophies? I call fingers.”
“Toesies,” hissed the wolverine.
“Nosies,” called the bear.
“Tongues,” said the bobcat.
“Ears,” L
ady Perchta declared, smirking at the three fairies as they gaped in terror at her. “Don’t worry—we’ll play fair. How does sixty seconds head start before we hunt you to your deaths sound?”
“How’s about sixty years?” Ginch asked.
“No.”
“It would really build-a up the suspense.”
“No.”
“Then how’s about sixty hours?”
“No.”
“I tell-a you what—how’s about we play-a the cards instead?” he suggested as the Professor began shuffling a deck. The elf sent them flying with a hard slap of the back of her hand. “Well, you no say-a the ‘no,’ so how’s about we start-a with a round of Poke-a the Púca with twos, threes, and one-eyed Jacks wild?”
Lady Perchta grinned, which made the scarred cheek gap more and show more of her sharp, savage teeth. “One . . . two . . . three . . .”
“I no think we’re-a gonna play-a the cards,” Ginch said, grabbing Shade by the elbow. “C’mon, little Sprootshade—we gots to skeedeedle!”
Shade’s first instinct was to do as the brownie said and run, but something nagged at the back of her mind. “No.”
“Whatta you mean, ‘no’?! We gots to skeedeedle! The Professor and I are very, very attached to our ears, fingers, noses, and toeses!” The Professor stuck out his tongue. “Yeah! Those too!”
“Nine . . . ten . . . eleven . . .” Lady Perchta continued.
“Stop and think a minute,” Shade said, undoing the straps on her backpack. “How far will we get if we run?”
“Farther than if-a we no run!”
“But we’d never get away!”
“Sixteen . . . seventeen... eighteen . . .”
Shade yanked out Radishbottom’s book and frantically flipped through the pages, sweat beading on her forehead.
“What-a you do? You try to find-a the cooking suggestions for them?”
“I know I read something important about the Wild Hunt but I can’t—”
“You read-a something!” Ginch threw up his hands, and the Professor covered his face with his. “That’s-a great! We stand-a here and get-a shishkibibbled because you wanna read—”
What if he’s right? she worried. The book has been wrong before. Am I dooming us all? But what other chance do we have?
“Twenty-two . . . twenty-three . . . twenty-four . . .”
Shade’s stomach tied itself in knots as she desperately scanned page after page. “Look, we have no chance of getting away if we just run, and I know there’s something in here that might help!”
“Fatcha-coota-matchca, sproot!” Ginch cried. “Because the books, they have-a been the big, big help so far!”
“Twenty-nine . . . thirty . . . thirty-one . . .”
“They’ve helped some, which is more than you’re doing right now!” Shade shouted, hoping somehow that she was right, both to save their lives and for the satisfaction of proving Ginch wrong. “You two distract her while I look for something to save our dingle-dangle derrieres.”
“Thirty-five . . . thirty-six . . . thirty-seven . . .”
The Professor and Ginch looked at each other for a moment, then shrugged. The Professor pulled a penny whistle out of his jacket and began playing a bouncy but shrill tune—“Tweet-twa-tweet-twa-toot!”—as he skipped in a circle around Lady Perchta. She frowned and continued counting.
“Forty-one . . . forty-two . . . forty-three . . .”
Shade continued her desperate search of Radishbottom’s book. Please let me be right! she silently prayed. I don’t want to die here! And I don’t want Ginch and the Professor to die here because I was wrong!
“We’re-a no gonna be ready,” Ginch said to Lady Perchta, “so I call-a the do-over. You start again.”
“Tweet-twa-tweet-twa-toot!” whistled the Professor.
“Forty-seven . . . forty-eight . . . forty-nine . . .”
Here! Shade spied a section entitled, “The Wild Hunt and other Dangers of Forest Travel.”
“Fifty-one . . . fifty-two . . . fifty-three . . .”
“You wanna hunt, eh? Well, hows about you hunt-a the biggest game: the bargain!” Ginch pulled out a necklace and swung it in front of Lady Perchta’s face. “I give-a you a good price on-a this if-a you decide to skip-a the hunting and the trophying and—”
“Tweet-twa-tweet-twa-toot!”
Shade skimmed information about origins of the Wild Hunt, historical accounts, Sluagh cultural significance—
“Fifty-five . . . Fifty-six . . .”
“Nine!” Ginch shouted. “Twenty-three! Eighty-sixteen!”
“Tweet-twa-tweet-twa-toot!”
Shade gave a little squeak, jabbed her finger on the page, and read: Travelers who run afoul of Sluagh on a Wild Hunt should remember that those in the hunting party are magically bound to continue the hunt until an untamed beast has been slaughtered in the wild. Because of this, their ability to seriously injure or kill anyone or anything is limited solely to uncivilized areas.
“Fifty-eight . . .”
“Umpteen! Sleven!”
“Tweet-twa-tweet-twa-toot!”
To protect yourself, take refuge in civilized areas like villages . . .
“Fifty-nine . . .”
“Eleventy-three!”
“Tweet-twa-tweet-twa-toot!”
. . . goblin markets, or on . . .
“Sixty!”
“The King’s Highway!” Shade shouted. “Don’t move! Stay here on the King’s Highway!”
“Kill them!” Lady Perchta shouted.
Ginch swore, jumped into the Professor’s arms, and closed his eyes. Shade screamed and covered her face with her hands as the goblin henchmen hurled their spears. There were four dull thuds that made the three fairies wince. After a second, all three opened their eyes to see four spears with their points buried in the dirt next to them.
“That . . . was a warning,” Lady Perchta said slowly. “Now run or we’ll—”
“Do absolutely nothing to us,” Shade said confidently, crossing her arms. “Until you complete your hunt, you can’t hurt us as long as we stay on this road.”
“That’s-a what the book say?” Ginch asked.
“Yep.”
He took the book from her hand and kissed the cover. The Professor put his elbow up on Shade’s shoulder and snapped his finger toward Lady Perchta and her hunters. “I think that means ‘scram,’ you grub-sucking dungballs,” Shade said.
Lady Perchta drew her sword and swung it at Shade, who flinched as the point halted a hair’s breadth from her nose. “I think not,” the elf hissed. “Perhaps we’ll just follow the three of you for a while. Perhaps we’ll reach the end of the road together. Perhaps your food will run out along the way. Eventually, regardless of the reason, each of you will leave the King’s Highway. And as soon as you take one single step off this road, I—”
“Will be far, far from here,” declared a deep voice from the trees. Out stepped a human wearing chainmail armor topped by a royal blue surcoat with a golden lion’s head embroidered on the chest. His long, curly black hair and beard were streaked with gray. He squinted his dark eyes and drew a long steel sword from the scabbard at his hip. “That is, unless thou would like the right side of thy face to match the left.”
The hunters drew their swords and circled their ponies around the man. “Feel free to try, Sir Justinian,” Lady Perchta said. “And speaking of symmetry, I’ve always preferred matching pairs in my collection. I appreciate you helping me to complete the set.”
Sir Justinian gave her a grim smile. “Not today thou won’t. For, while thy actions may be bound by the magic of the Wild Hunt, mine are not. And while thy bronze blade may cut me, my iron one will do far worse to thee.”
Saying this, the knight swung his blade in a great circle. The riders all did their best to duck, dodge, or parry the blade, but the bobcat helmed goblin was too slow. The blade slashed through the leather cov
ering its arm, drawing blood. The goblin immediately started clawing at the wound and shrieking in agony, which frightened its pony so that it reared up, throwing off the goblin, whose foot became entangled in one of its stirrups. The pony bolted into the woods dragging the screaming goblin behind it.
The elf leapt up onto the back of her war pony. “It is by luck alone that you and these curs survive this day, Sir Justinian. When next we meet, you will not be so lucky,” Lady Perchta growled. Then she looked directly at Shade. “And make no mistake, we will meet again. Yah!”
She dug her spurs into her pony and raced off into the trees, the rest of the Wild Hunt following close behind. The knight watched them go then turned to face Shade, Ginch, and the Professor.
“And now what, pray tell, are we to do with you lot?” the knight asked, his sword still in hand and now pointed directly at the three.
In which we spend some time with
a proper hero and then, of course,
bid him farewell (sigh . . .)
“Um, you could maybe start by not pointing that sword at us,” Shade suggested.
“Excuse me?” the knight said.
“The sword you’re pointing at us—could you maybe . . . not be doing that?”
“Oh!” The knight seemed genuinely surprised by the sword in his hand. He sheathed it in the scabbard strapped to his hip and grinned sheepishly. “Terribly sorry. You know how it is—you get a sword in your hand and after a few passes, you completely forget that you’re holding the lovely thing.”
Shade, Ginch, and the Professor all shook their heads. “No.”
“Really? Huh.” The knight shrugged. “Well, anyway, you’re lucky that I, Sir Justinian du Bilgewater, formerly a knight in the service of the honorable King Oberon and Queen Titania, came along when I did. And now that I’ve saved your lives—”
Shade held up a finger. “Actually, she was on a Wild Hunt, so she couldn’t—”
“—in the proud tradition of chivalry, may I also offer you my hospitality and invite you to dine with me?” Sir Justinian continued, oblivious to Shade’s words. “My squire, a superlative cook, has thrown together a tasty stew.”
