The Hunt
1476 Words
The Hunt~
Isobel Callan
Glenayre, Aleron
Isobel woke to the familiar stamp, stomp of Seth setting his heels in his boots. The click of buckles came next in his morning routine. She rolled to her side and watched him button his cuffs.
If she wanted to persuade him before he left, she needed to speak up now. It did no harm to ask. He hadn’t denied her any request yet. His list of things women did not do was considerably shorter than Dowan’s.
“Good morning,” she said. She couldn’t stifle a yawn.
Seth twisted in surprise. “I thought you’d sleep late. You aren’t an early riser after a bit of wine.”
“No need to remind me.” She scratched Rusty’s ears as the collie yawned at the foot of their bed. “You’re supposed to keep better count. Isn’t that on some list of husbandly duties?”
“If it is, I’m glad I failed. Might have missed your singing,” he said with a wink. “We’ll be in the yard for an hour or so. Come see us off later.”
“Seth, about the hunt.”
“Hmm?” He was looking for his gloves. He tended not to put things back where they belonged.
“I want to go with you.”
“You want to go deer hunting?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever been deer hunting?”
“Well, no,” she admitted. “I don’t actually want to hunt, just go along for the company. Your gloves are on the mantle.”
“How’d they get there?” he said. He snagged the gloves and tucked them in his belt. “You’ll be disappointed. And bored. Deer hunting is a lot of sitting still and keeping quiet.”
“Then I’ll be bored along with the rest of you.”
“All right,” he shrugged. “Wear your breeches and strap on the dagger I gave you. If we’re shaking up your brother’s sensibilities, may as well do it right.”
# # #
A chilly morning had even the men donning longcoats and layering breeches under their tunics. Jonquil’s breath misted as she descended the mountain with surefooted ease. Of all the horses in Glenayre’s stable, Seth had chosen the gentle mare especially for her. Isobel discovered a freedom in riding she’d never known before. After a few months of practice, she’d grown comfortable riding even the steepest paths.
Seth had agreed to let her come, but he’d insisted Ashlon bring an extra guard to watch over her. She wasn’t sure if she found that endearing or insulting, but she didn’t argue the matter. At least she was going.
She rode between Ashlon and Derry, an older man with a wheat-colored beard and a belly suggesting a fondness for ale. His coats always had nicely polished brass buttons, though.
Calum and Seth conversed easily as they rode ahead, with none of the awkward lulls she’d feared. Calum told him about an attack on Iverach tenants while he’d been away. He called it more of Lothor Camran’s mischief. No one was hurt, but they’d burned a cottage to the ground. Calum took a flock of Camran sheep to compensate his tenants and sent Taw to lodge a grievance in Jorendon. Seth assured him there’d been no such trouble near Glenayre, but thanked him for the warning.
“There’s a glade where the east branch of the Jess meets the River Alsa,” said Seth. “Deer favor it as a watering spot.”
The Jess was her favorite of Glenayre’s treasures. The river’s twin forks tumbled down the mountain in rapids and waterfalls. In her early days here, when nightmares woke her in the night, the softly rushing waters lulled her back to sleep.
“There’s an outcrop over the glade. Twenty feet or so above the river. Hasn’t failed me yet.”
“Sounds like the ideal spot,” said Calum.
Seth reined in beneath a sprawling oak. “Derry, wait here with Lady Isobel.”
“But I don’t want to wait here,” she said. “I want to see the glade.”
Seth shook his head and waved the others on. Isobel realized what she’d done, arguing with him in front of the other men. She braced for the inevitable scolding.
“It isn’t a hard climb from this side, but once you’re up there, it’s cold hard rock. We might not see any deer at all.”
He wasn’t angry.
“But I admit, even Ashlon’s a better conversationalist than Derry. Maybe you could nap until we get back.”
He was letting her choose.
She knew he wanted her to say she would stay. Wanting to please him wrestled with disappointment at being left behind, but she was no longer the timid girl from the haunted halls of Monaughty.
“I won’t complain once. I promise.” She dipped her chin and batted her lashes. “Please, I want to go.”
“That’s not fair. That thing you do with your eyes.” He shifted in his saddle. “Come on, then. I’ll wake you if I happen to see a deer.”
They rejoined the others. Isobel slid off Jonquil before anyone could step up to help her. Seth shook his head at her again.
“We’re all going,” he said. “Derry, see Lady Isobel doesn’t fall on the climb up.”
Calum and Ashlon were biting back grins. She turned away before they could draw her into their amusement. Seth ignored them all and led the way through a pine copse.
A short distance beyond the trees, they reached a rocky bluff. It was steeper than she’d expected, but she couldn’t back down now. Determined to climb on her own, she followed Captain Lyn up with Derry behind her. She managed to make it to the top without embarrassing herself.
“What in hell’s gates?” Seth and Rusty had already made out onto the ledge.
The others reached him, but no one said a word. Isobel edged up and peered down to see what had them all so serious. Someone had made camp by the river below. Smoke from a smoldering cooking fire wafted up. Pots, bags, and bedrolls were strewn about as if someone had picked up the glade and given it a good hard shake.
Her eyes stopped on a young man, perhaps still a boy, sprawled on his back beyond the campfire. b****y cuts raked his face. One of his legs bent at an impossible angle. An ugly crimson mess spilled from where his belly should have been. She stifled a scream.
“Quiet, my lady,” said Captain Lyn. “We don’t want to draw the attention of whoever or whatever did that.”
“Derry, stay with her,” Seth said without looking her way. “Stay,” he commanded Rusty in the same tone.
He started down the bluff’s steeper side, making his way down to the ramshackle camp. Ashlon followed on his heels, and Calum and Captain Lyn close behind them. Loose rocks skittered ahead of their boots and clattered down to the empty glade.
Isobel edged farther out on the ledge. Derry moved to stop her, but she shot him a glare that dared him to hold her back.
Seth drew his sword and made straight for the mutilated body. All four men wore the bows they brought for the hunt, but they went to their swords first in danger. Seth knelt beside the boy for a moment then shot back to his feet. The noise that had alerted him reached her a heartbeat later.
Horses bolted from the woods beyond the glen, their riders yelling and waving swords.
“Who are they? Why are they shouting?”
“The boy must’ve been with them,” Derry said. “They figure we killed him.”
“But we didn’t.” She watched the men, her men, brace for a fight. “We have to tell them. We didn’t hurt the boy.”
“M’lady, we need to get ye back to the horses.”
Derry’s stout arm pulled her away. Angry shouts and the clang of swords rose from below. Isobel could no longer see what was happening. A horse screamed. A man howled in pain.
“No,” Isobel twisted and kicked. “I’m not leaving them.”
“We got to go now. Lord Seth will catch up to ye when he’s done here.”
Derry tightened his hold and carried her back the way they came. The c***k of a gunshot reverberated from the glade. The swords scraped, and another man’s shout became a gurgle.
“Let me go!” She wrenched free of Derry’s grasp and scrambled back up the bluff.
Down in the woods, horses whinnied in panic. Brush cracked beneath anxious hooves. Rusty barked as a mound of earth-colored muscle and fur moved up the rocks. A paw larger than Derry’s head pulled his leg from underneath him. Derry screamed as a vise of yellow teeth crunched bone and flesh.
Isobel froze as the bear shook its massive jaws, and Derry went limp. Rusty barked and snapped at the creature’s legs. Isobel fumbled for the dagger at her belt. Her eyes fixed on the beast as she inched backward.
The bear huffed and raised up on its hind legs, towering over Derry’s crumpled body. Rusty dodged a massive forepaw swipe and darted in again. Isobel’s heels reached the bluff’s edge. The bear lowered its head to charge.
“To me, Isobel. Now. Jump now.”
She didn’t have time to question whether jumping was wise. A rock gave way. Her heel slipped. She went flailing backward. Strong arms broke her fall and shouldered her into a rolling tumble. When the world stopped spinning, she was flat on her back.
“You heard me.” Captain Ashlon’s yellow eyes stared down inches from her own.
“You told me to jump,” she said. “It was more falling than jumping, but—”
She heard Rusty’s yelp and the unmistakable twang of arrows that followed. A guttural roar brought the twang of more arrows. Many more arrows.
“You can hear me still.”
“Of course I hear you,” she said. “You’re on top of me.”
Ashlon’s face lit with a slow smile.
“My lady, I waited a long time for this moment.”
Chapter 40
- Writer
