Sworn To Raise: Courtlight #1 (17 page)

The general turned, “This is Corporal SaBarnaren.”

Ciardis was surprised. The man was General Barnaren’s son – his bastard son. In the kingdom all children born out of wedlock were given one of two names upon birth – Algardien, if they weren’t being cared for by their parents and were a ward of the state, or the prefix of ‘Sa’ next to their birth parent’s name. Corporal SaBarnaren was one of those children borne from an unmarried union.

As he introduced his bastard son, Ciardis’s face betrayed no emotion. She offered her hand in greeting. “A pleasure to meet you, Corporal SaBarnaren,” Ciardis said with mischief in her brown eyes as she met SaBarnaren’s gaze. She would not hold his heritage against her. Being a gypsy in the vale had given her as much or more grief as a person born a bastard.

Raising a smooth eyebrow, he responded with a mocking half-smile, “The pleasure is mine, Mistress Weathervane.”

As she shook his hand, she felt the electric shock of his power on her skin. Ah, things had just gotten interesting. Bastards were fine; mage bastards were another thing entirely. He hadn’t presented a threat before, but now that she knew of his power it would be dangerous to ignore. She needed to talk to Serena as soon as possible

Stepping away from the two gentlemen, she turned to contemplate the riding party they had brought with them while gathering her thoughts. The laws of the land were clear – Corporal SaBarnaren stood to inherit the Barnaren lands via magical inheritance rights as long as a child of legal birthright and magical ability didn’t supersede his claim. If she accepted General Barnaren’s proposal and agreed to have his child, SaBarnaren could pose a threat to that child’s life, as it would be the only person that stood between him and inheritance. People had started wars for less.

In deep thought Ciardis gathered her cloak around her, and the general called out in a loud baritone, “All riders mount! The hunt begins!”

After saddling up, they advanced to the crest of the hill, and Ciardis took in the lands that spread out in front of the hunting party. After a small dip in the hillside, a flat grassland spread out west and east, as far as the eye could see. Perhaps a hundred yards ahead, a dark forest brooded. As the filly snorted and danced a little to the side, eager to begin the race, Ciardis reined her back and whispered, “Soon, my pet, soon.”

She turned her gaze on the forest ahead. It was a deep, dark wood, a suitable habitat for the fabled whitehart elk they hunted today. The white fur of the elk was prized for its beauty and the softness, as well as its ability to repel water and snow. The elk only came this far south into the warm lands during breeding season—a three-week period when th elk wandered the forest in plentiful numbers.

Beside her Damias whispered, “There will be many elk throughout this forest but we want a elk with a wrack that spans the sky for the General. Remember that.”

Underneath her, the filly shifted impatiently, waiting for the signal to move. Ciardis checked the heft of her spear. She was a bit nervous; just because the elks tended to be solitary didn’t mean this would be an easy hunt. Hunting those huge herbivores was never
easy. Male and female alike bore huge antlers on their heads for defense and rutting challenges, and of course their fur repelled not only the weather, but also most mundane weapons, including arrows and hunting spears not laced with the sedative verbane
.
Moreover, they were able to blend into the forest with great skill; it would be especially easy for them to hide in a forest alive with green magic.

They could be wounded with lesser weapons, but the only way to kill a whitehart elk was to direct a magical attack to the heart or slash its throat with a sword. Ciardis momentarily closed her eyes as she imagined wielding the blade that would kill one of the mighty elk. In her vision, the great beast’s blood spilled onto the dark forest loam, the bright red standing out against the animal’s white fur, and it bellowed its last breath.

She would have no choice but to kill it; the general would expect no less.

It wasn’t that she was squeamish; she’d killed and skinned her own dinner many a time back in Vaneis. But that didn’t mean she enjoyed killing for sport.

Damias was on her right. He reached for her hand and gripped it as he quietly said, “Enjoy the hunt, my dear, but not the kill. And above all, smile for your Patron. If he enjoys this, then so will you.”

A strange blend of eagerness, anticipation, and wariness stirred within Ciardis, and she replied, “Of course.”

“Mason, come forward and have your dogs lead us to the nearest beast’s lair,” he called. A young man with auburn hair urged his horse forward. Jostling around his steed were six nose hounds, all clearly straining for the scent and eager to be loosed. Jumping down from his horse into the middle of the pack, Mason took a white patch of fur out of one coat pocket and passed it under the nose of each of his hounds, careful to make sure they all got a whiff. At his signal, they put their noses to the ground, searching for a trail. When it became clear that they wanted to continue north, he mounted his horse and gave the general his news.

“Very well,” the general replied, satisfied. “Let us ride, then.”

They hunted the scent of the elk through the thick woods and down to the riverside, across a ford, and back through into denser foliage. The woods became so dense with low-hanging branches and underbrush that the riders had to dismount after a time in order to continue. Soon enough dirt coated her boats and branches caught in her hair. Ciardis decided to walk her mare off to the right where the path looked a little clearer, not far from the general’s side, but behind him.

She was worried. They’d been hunting for two hours so far with not an elk to be seen. And she couldn’t stay out here forever. She needed to impress Barnaren with enough time left to return home to prepare for the first ball that evening.
I’m lucky that none of my other prospective patrons elected to join us on this Hunt
, she thought with amusement.
It’s difficult enough impressing one with briars in my hair and mud on my boots.

A piercing whisper came from the northwest. Ciardis looked up to see the huntsmaster raising and lowering his right arm to signal the hunting party to go to ground. Sighing in irritation she lay down, trying to wipe her face on the only clean spot left her tunic and then pick a briar out of her curls.

A voice interrupted her thoughts with a droll observation. “If you want to impress my father, it’s best to forget about pretty dresses and jewelry and face paint. He wants a woman who can start a campfire, prepare a warrior’s armor, and nock an arrow with the speed of a trained bowman.”

Ciardis rose from where she was crouched at the base of a tall tree. She’d been there since the hunt master had given the all-quiet signal—an order for everyone to melt into the forest as best they could. Even the horses stood silent. She turned to Corporal SaBarnaren with an insincere smile on her lips and said, “Well, milord, it sounds as if your father seeks a squire, when I heard that what he actually needs is a wife.”

“Address me as Evan, please,” Corporal SaBarnaren said. “And what do you know about being a wife?”

“A bit more than you would,” she murmured. The horn sounded once more, signaling the parties to move forward.

SaBarnaren dipped his head in acknowledgement, looking genuinely amused as the group began moving north.

Ciardis decided she would rather not run into him again, and elected to maneuver a bit to the northeast, circling around to catch up with the hunting party that rode west. Shading her eyes as she looked up, she saw a jagged piece of rock rising above the trees ahead of her. She thought,
Perhaps I can catch a glimpse of one of those fabled elk from that bluff.

The filly wouldn’t make it up the steep slope, though, so she left her reins looped to a branch. Ciardis climbed the ridge carefully, trying to grab handholds in the rock and clutching the edge of the rim tightly until she could hoist herself onto the ridge. After dusting herself off, she paused to catch her breath, grimacing at a pain in her leg where she’d banged it on the cliff.

As she crept to the front of the upward-sloping ledge, she made sure to maintain her footing. No sense in making it all the way to the top only to take an undignified tumble. As she reached the far ledge, she lay flat on her belly and eased forward to the edge.

As she poked her head over the cliffside, her loose chestnut curls cascaded over her eyes, and she pushed the curls back behind her ears in irritation. She saw that her earlier suspicions were correct – she could get a good view here. Looking down she was right above a small glade scattered with beautiful trees and a dark pool of water. Small, winged creatures flitted around in the pillars of sunlight that pierced the canopy of leaves above. It looked too perfect to be real, so Ciardis decided to investigate this further.

She slipped over the crest of the hill and ventured down into the shade of the trees. As she reached the far edge of her cover, she saw it—or, rather, him. A whitehart elk stag stood alone in the shade near the pool.

The animal was far grander than anything that had previously been described to her. He stood a magnificent sixteen hands high, with white fur that shone like moonlight on still water. If they had stood face-to-face, his muzzle would have come to the top of her forehead; his rack of tines, with at least a dozen points spread toward the sky, reached two feet higher.

As he came forward into the sunlight of the grove, his hooves lightly disturbed the ground so that faint clouds of dust and pollen rose up around his feet. She couldn’t help but think how beautiful he was. At the lake’s edge, he paused and looked right at her, his breath misting in the afternoon sun, eyes like a starless midnight.

Ciardis had nothing but a bow and quiver of arrows on her, both of which were strapped to her back at the moment. If she unlimbered the bow and knocked the arrow too slowly, he might charge her, or run far enough into the forest that he’d be out of range. Her spear—the only handheld weapon she was capable of handling, according to Damias—was back with her filly. And even if it was here, she wasn’t certain she could throw it with enough force.

Quietly, she rose out of her hiding place and stepped forward, afraid of startling the elk. But he stood calm and majestic before her, occasionally pawing the ground. She was filled with wonder as she continued to approach him – wary that he would spook at any moment. He lowered his head to nuzzle her face with a wet nose, and Ciardis laughed in delight. Raising her hand hesitantly, she stroked the soft white fur on his cheek. When he didn’t flinch away, she trailed her hand up his neck and then down to his shoulder.

She knew that she should send some sort of signal to the other hunters—Evan, at least, seemed able to hear her thoughts—but she just couldn’t.

“You’re gorgeous,” she whispered. “A true king of the forest. Why are you here? You must know that hunters stalk these woods. Run away!”

The great white elk snorted.

As she rested her hand on his cheek, she felt a magical disturbance, as if someone else were brushing at her mind. Hesitantly, she lowered the mental barriers to her mind. She’d worked hard with Damias to be able to feel when a telepath was reading her thoughts and how to block their intrusions. Dropping those mental barriers and letting someone in intentionally left her concerned and wary. The general’s commanding voice flowed into her mind:
I’m coming up on your left. No, do not look. Stay still. Stay silent.

Ciardis’s breath caught, but she had no time to wonder at his telepathic abilities. She looked up into the beast’s eyes, heartsick about what was about to happen. The whitehart elk saw the apology in her eyes, and understood. He backed away and reared up on his hind legs. An arrow came out of the sky from Barnaren’s direction and pierced the elk’s chest. Ciardis stumbled back, falling to the ground before the rearing elk.