A horn rang out, and the deep baying of hounds echoed through the trees. The pack had found their quarry. Like falling stars, the Hunt came hurtling down out of the sky, and Tiolani heard the sudden thunder of hooves as the horses’ feet hit the ground and galloped on without breaking stride, throwing up clots of mud and dead leaves as they ran. Maiglan landed in the midst of the others with a jolt that rattled her rider’s teeth, then the mare was bounding forward. Tiolani held on tightly, flinging an arm up to protect her face as they went crashing through bushes and dodging between tree trunks at breakneck speed. At first she was in terror of slamming into an obstacle or another rider, but presently she realised that Maiglan, despite her speed, was sure-footed, alert for any hazards and careful to avoid them. Suddenly she was fervently glad that her father had insisted she ride an experienced horse. But where, in all this confusion, was the quarry? Up ahead she could hear yells and screams and the clamour of the dogs, but at first her view was obstructed by the other riders. These soon began to scatter, however, peeling away to pursue their individual victims, and Tiolani finally caught her first sight of her prey.
The Phaerie whooped with excitement and howled with bloodlust as they hunted their victims down one by one with the huge grey dogs, closing on the helpless humans who darted this way and that between the trees in a futile attempt to escape. Great teeth seized and tore, scattering bloody chunks of flesh. Blades glittered in the starlight, whining as they clove the air, shearing through muscle and sinew, crunching into bone. The frosty leaves that coated the forest floor were darkened with spreading pools of gore, and the screams of the dying rent the night.
Her palms slippery with sweat, Tiolani took a tighter grip on the reins and swallowed hard, forcing back the nausea that was rising in her throat. She was Hellorin’s daughter - she was damned if she’d disgrace herself in front of the entire court. ‘Get hold of yourself,’ she muttered. It helped to remember what her father always said about these particular mortals. Feral humans were vermin, no better than rats. They bred like rats too, and if left unchecked would outnumber Phaerie and Magefolk in no time. Their extermination did the world a favour.
Tiolani felt better at the thought, and ashamed of her squeamishness. Never mind, she told herself. Many people feel that way on their first Hunt. Just concentrate on getting one of these humans. Then the worst will be over, and your honour will be satisfied.
The Hunt had drifted away from her through the forest. It wasn’t far - she only had to follow the sound of the Phaerie crying out to one another, and the screams of the mortals. Coming upon a knot of hunters and hunted in a clearing, she singled out a victim, a short stocky male with greying hair. He was clad, like the others, in nothing but dirt and a tatter of rags and animal skins that made him look bestial indeed: a far cry from the clean and neatly turned-out slaves in her father’s palace. Somehow, that made it easier for Tiolani to see him as prey. He darted to one side, and the experienced Maiglan turned to follow the fleeing figure as it dodged between the trees. Looping her reins around the pommel of the saddle, Tiolani reached for her bow and, within an instant, had an arrow in place. She had been hitting moving targets from horseback since she was ten, so this should present no great challenge. She sighted, fired - and in that very instant another rider darted out from between the trees and took the quarry’s head off with a single swiping sword-blow. Tiolani’s arrow flew over the top of the victim and embedded itself in a tree. The body stumbled on for a step or two, then fell to the ground, twitching and spraying blood, while the head bounced and rolled right under the feet of Maiglan, who snorted and sidestepped, causing her rider to lurch in the saddle.
‘Hey,’ Tiolani yelled. ‘How dare you take my--’ She faltered into silence as the other rider turned, and she recognised Varna - but a Varna she had never seen before. In place of the amusing, deferential lady-in-waiting she had always known, there was a wild-haired demon whose eyes blazed with a savage light in a blood-spattered face. ‘My quarry,’ Varna snarled. ‘Find your own.’ She wheeled her horse and was gone.
Shocked, Tiolani hesitated for a moment - then she realised that the Hunt was leaving her behind once more. Muttering a curse, she swung Maiglan around and set off in pursuit. By all Creation, this was more difficult than it looked.
Dael would have given anything to be able to change places with one of his hunters. He was an outcast among outcasts, and death surrounded him on all sides. He ran through the forest, praying he could keep one step ahead of the Phaerie; hoping he would not run into one of his fellow human escapees, who would think nothing of betraying his whereabouts to save their own hides. If he should be caught, he could expect little quarter from either race. His father, Lamus, had been the leader of the outcasts until, sick of his evil temper, brutality and violence, the others had banded together and clubbed him to death only a few days ago. Though Dael had been just as much a victim of his father’s bullying as the others, and bore the scars and bruises to prove it, his blood had been tainted in their eyes. They had spared his life, but banished him from their little community and driven him away into the forest, where he had been facing the prospect of slow death by cold and starvation, before the Forest Lord’s hunters had arrived to alter his fate.
Somehow, he had never expected the sight of the Wild Hunt to be so terrifying. Throughout his life, Dael had heard all the tales. ‘Be a good child, or the Phaerie will come for you,’ was a ploy used frequently by human mothers. But no matter how bloodcurdling the stories had been, nothing could have prepared him for the real thing. His only warning had been the distant belling of hounds, then the flame-eyed pack came streaming through the skies, with the Phaerie following in their wake like a shower of shooting stars: a heart-stopping sight in their glowing robes. Dael gave a moan of terror. It was just his luck that it had to happen now, when he was frozen, half-starved and all alone in the world without a soul to care whether he lived or died.
There had been little time to act. The best he could manage was to push himself into some bushes, in the hope that he would not be seen, and the fellhounds would find other victims. But one of the hunters, a girl about his own age, had spotted him and fired at him with her bow. Luckily for him, she had turned out to be an awful shot and the arrow had thudded into the ground just beside him. Dael hadn’t given her time for a second attempt. Springing to his feet, he ran blindly through the trees, finding strength and speed from sheer desperation, even in his cold and starving state. But it had all been pointless. Behind him he heard the crack of breaking twigs and the crunch of fallen leaves being crushed under heavy hooves. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him that another group of Phaerie were after him.
As hard as Dael could run, his pursuers could close the distance faster. A blast of magic hit him, knocking him off his feet. Even as he stumbled and rolled, he felt the spell penetrating deeper into his body to freeze his nerves and liquefy his muscles. He hit the ground hard, stark-eyed, terrified and gasping for breath. There was a blur of movement at the edge of his vision, then a shadow engulfed him and a horrible, clinging weight fell on him, wrapping itself around his body. For an instant, blinded by sheer panic, he did not understand what had happened - then he realised that he was buried beneath the silvery meshes of a net, and could only lie there, helpless, and wait for them to come.
Would the cold-eyed hunters finish him with an arrow or a sword? Or would he be torn to pieces in the jaws of the ravening hounds? It flashed through his mind that twenty years of slavery wasn’t much to call a life, and for an instant his fear was lost in anger at the sheer unfairness of it all. Then the Phaerie were upon him, and his fear returned tenfold as he waited for the blow to fall. Instead he heard laughter. ‘Call that a cast, Ferimon?’ a female voice said. ‘You’re supposed to net them then bespell them, you fool.’
Three Phaerie, two men and a woman, stood over him. ‘He took me by surprise,’ Ferimon protested. ‘What is he doing here, so far from the others? Anyway, how could I
have made a decent cast when the wretched trees were in my way? You take the net next time, if you’re so clever.’
‘Never mind.’ Clearly the third hunter was set on keeping the peace. ‘It doesn’t really matter as long as we have him. He looks like a nice, sturdy young specimen, and capable of a good day’s work. Come on, roll him over and wrap him properly, and we’ll take him back.’
Take him back? Dael’s first sensation was one of overwhelming relief. They weren’t going to kill him. The close proximity of death proved how precious even a life of slavery could be.
Working together, the Phaerie bundled him securely into the net, then fastened it to the saddles of all three horses, taking the weight between them. For a moment, as the horses started to move, Dael was bounced and dragged through mud and rotting leaves. Then suddenly he was airborne, his stomach lurching as the net swung far above the ground, and his body in its thin tatters of clothing was pierced by the cold night air.
By now, the initial relief of his reprieve was fading, leaving behind a sinking sense of dread as he thought of the future. He looked up at his Phaerie captors, laughing and bickering good-naturedly as they rode home in triumph. They wouldn’t be so cheerful and confident if they knew what he knew about the madness his fellow escapees were planning. Mortals would not be the only ones to die in the forest tonight. Then would come the vengeance of the Phaerie. Despite the fact that Dael had escaped death in the Wild Hunt itself, he knew that, before the night was done, not a single one of the slaves who had taken refuge in the forest would be left alive.
Tiolani was wondering just how a bunch of runaway slaves could manage to make themselves scarce. She urged Maiglan into a gallop and sped through the trees with reckless speed, hoping to catch up with the rest of the Hunt before it was too late. This time, she came upon a different group of her fellows, and discovered to her surprise that not all of the Phaerie were there to kill. She watched the net-casters, open-mouthed. Why had no one ever told her about this? Then the answer came to her. It was of great importance that Hellorin’s daughter should kill on her first Wild Hunt. Until she had done that, she had no business getting distracted by any other possibilities. Still, this sort of hunting looked like more fun than the carnage Tiolani had witnessed, but she could see that it must take a great deal of skill and practice. Tomorrow, when she got home, she might ask her father if she could look for a group to join, but tonight she still had her first Hunt to get through.
She rode on through the trees, looking anxiously about her, hoping to catch a glimpse of a fleeing human figure. Was she too late? Had the Hunt already run out of victims? Then ahead she saw someone making a pitiful attempt to hide in a clump of scrubby bushes. A young man, probably a little younger than herself, she thought. He huddled down low, shaking with terror, his eyes closed tightly. Tiolani grinned. Why, surely she couldn’t miss this one. He hadn’t even seen her. Raising her bow, she took careful aim. There would be no failure this time - but as she loosed the arrow her arm seemed to jerk of its own volition, sending the shot wide. The arrow thudded into the ground within inches of the young man’s leg. He leapt up with a howl and ran off between the trees - only to be captured by a group of net-bearers, who felled him with a blast of magic and scooped him neatly from the ground, carrying him away between them over the treetops.
Tiolani slammed her fist into her thigh, disgusted with herself. What in Creation had happened? She’d had the shot perfectly lined up: how could she possibly have missed? To make matters worse, it wouldn’t take the Hunt long to deal with one small colony of feral humans. As time went on, her chances of making a kill were growing less and less, and how would she bear the humiliation if she failed?
Hearing voices and the baying of fellhounds to her left, she set off in that direction. All at once, a figure came swerving out of the undergrowth, almost beneath her horse’s hooves. Without thinking, she raised her bow and fired, and this time there was no mistake. The figure jerked, staggered and collapsed as the arrow thudded into its back. Punching her fist into the air, Tiolani gave a cry of triumph. ‘I did it, I did it!’ As she dismounted for a closer look at her prey, the hound that had been in pursuit burst out of the bushes and seized the twitching body by one arm, worrying and jerking at it, and pulling it over onto its back. Tiolani saw the face of a girl no older than herself. Her pretty features were contorted in agony; stained with the blood that had gushed from her nose and mouth. Her blue eyes stared, wide and unseeing, at her killer.
Tiolani bolted into the bushes and was violently sick. As she emerged, wiping her mouth on her kerchief, she came face to face with Arvain. ‘Well done, little sister.’ His face glowed with pride. ‘That was a superb shot.’
Unhooking her water flask from her saddle, Tiolani rinsed out her mouth. ‘You saw me,’ she said, when she could speak again.
‘From the other side of the clearing,’ her brother told her. ‘Your first kill. How proud Father will be. I called to him in mindspeech and told him: he is on his way.’
‘Arvain, you won’t tell anyone I—’
‘Never fear, a lot of folk throw up the first time - myself included.’ He grinned. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’
Then, almost before she knew what was happening, her father was there, with Varna and a crowd of others, all thronging around to congratulate her. Her father, beaming with pride, dipped his fingers in the blood of the dead human and marked Tiolani’s cheeks and forehead. ‘All praise to my daughter, the Lady Tiolani,’ he announced. ‘On this night she has killed her first quarry and thereby reached her maturity. She now belongs fully to the Wild Hunt of the Phaerie Court.’
Tiolani tried not to shudder at the touch of the sticky gore on her face. She longed to rub it off, but that would have to wait until she got home. Instead she forced a smile, and accepted the cheers and compliments with good grace. Soon, having entered into the spirit of the occasion, she found that she actually did feel proud of her achievement. Just so long as she didn’t have to look into those dead, blue eyes, everything was fine.
3
POINT OF NO RETURN
The horses were the first to sense that something was wrong. Corisand, standing together with Maiglan and Valir, pricked up her ears at the muted hiss of whispers and the scuffling of furtive movement in the surrounding bushes. The reek of anger and fear came to her, strongly overlaid by the smell of humans. She threw up her head and stamped restlessly, aware that the other horses were also fidgeting as the current of unease flowed through their ranks.
The Phaerie were crammed into the clearing; talking, laughing, completely unaware that anything was wrong as they clustered around Hellorin’s daughter to congratulate her on her success. The attack came without warning. Suddenly the air was thick with arrows. Screams echoed as Phaerie and horses alike were mown down by the deadly rain. Arvain, standing next to his sister, was hurled backwards by the force of the arrow that pierced his throat. As he fell, he grabbed Tiolani and pulled her down with him. He was dead before he hit the ground, but his corpse was sprawled half on top of her, and his fingers, constricting in a rictus of death, remained tightly locked around her arm, preventing her from rising. A number of shafts pierced Hellorin’s body, followed by another hail as the bowmen reloaded. Clearly, he was their chief target. He staggered and sank to his knees, and at the fall of their Lord, the Phaerie still standing were overcome with confusion and dismay. Only a handful seemed able to put up any coherent defence. Though a few of their attackers had fallen to their bows, the renegade slaves were picking the others off one by one.
Many of the horses were running, terrified by the arrows, the screams and the stench of blood and death, only to be shot or captured. Just as Corisand turned to flee, an arrow whistled past her, missing her by a hair’s breadth, and buried itself in Valir. The chestnut stallion went down, thrashing in agony. Before she could move, he had drawn his last breath.
Nothing could have prepared her for what happened next. As Valir died, kno
wledge exploded through Corisand’s mind. In one astounding instant she knew her people’s history and her own identity. Her world, her life, her reality were all smashed into a million pieces, and reassembled in an entirely new pattern. Shock turned her muscles to water, and before she knew what was happening, she too was down on the muddy, bloody ground beside her dead companion. All this time, he had been Windeye of the Xandim - and now his mantle had passed to her.