Chapter One
Full Moon
copyright © 1999 by Linda Reames Fox and Joyce Cottrell
The woman pulled the coarse folds of her homespun cloak around her and huddled in the meager protection that the few remaining stones of the ruined villa provided.
This has to work, she thought. If the Wild Hunt could put a king on the throne and start her troubles, they could mend them as well. If there was a Wild Hunt and not just wild rumors. Where could she turn if there was not?
She'd soon find out. The light was nearly faded from the sky and the forest below was black, alive with the first sounds of nocturnal animals. The moon hung low on the horizon. Must she wait till it was high? The stories she had heard of the Hunt didn't say.
A wolf howled in the darkness. She shivered and groped in the folds of her cloak for her flint and steel. She crawled across the cold fragments of tessellated pavement to the niche in the southern wall. Peter had told her that the niche had been a shrine for the household goddess back in Rensel times. How long ago that had been. He had shown her this secret place, his eyrie, and they had lounged on the sun-warmed pavement and like soaring hawks watched the villagers scuttling like field mice distant and far below.
Her eyes filled with tears and she wiped her sleeve across her face. Tears were no help. She pulled her pouch from her belt and dumped the leaves and twigs it contained in front of the niche. It needn't be a big fire. It only had to burn long enough to say some words. She sat back on her heels and spread the cloak to shield her kindling from the night wind. She struck flint against steel and watched the sparks fly. Were her hands too shaky to aim aright? No, a curl of smoke showed that a spark had fallen true and quickly the fire blazed orange.
"By Enath." The words caught in her throat.
This was no time for fear. Go through with it.
She took a deep breath and said quickly. "By Enath, I summon you. By Elun, I summon you. By Anchytel, I summon you."
The world did not change. The fire burned. The niche remained empty.
Then a voice behind her said, "By Enath, Elun, Anchytel, we have come. Who are you and for what do you summon us?"
She scrambled to her feet and faced the shadowy mass of horsemen. Instinct screamed at her to run, but she held her ground. Surely she would have heard earthly horsemen and these men were mounted on horses that shone with the moon's pale light. She raised her chin and said, "My name is Marda Trefsdottir and I will that you put my son safe in my arms again."
The middle-aged, brown-haired, lead rider asked in the same voice she had heard before, "And why is your son not safe and with you?"
"He was carried off by the Sueve five days ago when they burned my village."
A horse shifted abruptly, its saddle-fittings jingling. Marda looked toward the noise and locked eyes with the horse's rider. He was black-haired, stocky, with an arrogant, high cheek boned face--a Sueve. She stepped back, tensed to run.
The leader said quickly, "Ulick is one of the Hunt. He is as bound by your command as any of us. You need not fear him."
But she did. She started to shake.
The leader leaned down to her. "Is there shelter near?"
"No."
He reached down and swung her up to sit before him. "Then show us the way to your village."
* * * * * * *
The road which had served the decrepit Rensel villa where they had been summoned was gone a thousand years and more and the hillside the woman had climbed was too steep for the horses.
Not, Ulick thought, that there was any danger to the horses or the riders--only to the woman named Marda who rode with Walter. She must be kept alive till the next full moon so that her son could be returned to her. Her words made that imperative; the others had told him often enough of the fate that would befall them if they did not heed the letter of her command.
A lost child? A fine reason to put men's souls in jeopardy. He counted off the Huntsmen he had seen in the moonlight--Walter, Hamon, Ellis, Thomas, Michel, Payne, Reynard, Justin, Bertz, Garrett and himself.
Two less than last time. It was true then, Alesander and Brian had been held; had escaped the curse.
The freed men were fortunate. If the men still cursed failed, eight of them would burn, body and soul, and Justin would lead the Wild Hunt. Aye, and fail again they would if that happened--Justin had too much love for his wineskin and too much hate for himself to be trusted. Not that it would matter to Ulick for he had been cursed before Justin--he would burn. Only the three newest Huntsmen would survive.
A child taken by Sueve. That meant they were near home--he didn't recognize the area, they were still in the forested hills that formed the boundary between Sueve grazing lands and the Kingdom of Tarsia. But the steppe lay beyond and free riding. He could find his way easily enough.
Would Walter have the wit to give him more than the usual menial tasks? Walter was wise in many things but Ulick had seen him misjudge his men from habit a time or two. And that could be fatal.
As if in answer to his thoughts he felt a nudge in his mind; Walter wanted him to come forward, out of his place in the line of Huntsmen. Ulick guided his horse past the men who had been cursed before him. But he didn't go too near; he stayed a little back and remained silent, hoping Marda hadn't noticed his advance.
"What happened when your son was captured?" Walter asked, "How long ago?"
"Five days ago. I was in the meadow looking for a strayed lamb when I saw the smoke from the village. I ran to the river and saw people running away. I hid among the reeds. I thought Robin would be safe--that Sella would have gotten him safe away with her children." Marda's voice caught in her throat, "But the Sueve rode along the far bank and I could see Robin slung over one of the horses. I couldn't do anything."
Better for her she hadn't.
"You're sure it was your son you saw?"
"His hair--so red--I couldn't mistake it."
That would explain why the child had been taken. Red hair made for a fierce warrior; they wouldn't harm him. Didn't she understand that?
"Do you know their tribe?"
"They were Sueve."
That, apparently, was all she knew. Further questioning elicited no more. She'd seen nothing that could identify them.
"Has there been trouble over grazing?" Walter asked.
They might be able to identify a tribe who felt their territory had been violated.
"No. We farm where we have always farmed."
Why attack dirt-turners if their land was no use for herding?
"Where is the child's father?"
"Dead, they tell me."
"How?"
Had the woman lost man as well as son to Sueve? She asked no blood-price for that.
"Four years ago. In the Duke's war against the King." Her voice was angry. Why? Men went to war. Sometimes they didn't return.
"Which King did your Duke fight?"
"The new one. The one you made." No need to strain to hear her anger now.
"The one we made?" Walter paused, "King Alesander?"
"Yes."
Ulick heard the sharp intake of breath from at least one of his companions.
"How long has he been king?"
Alesander should have taken the throne soon after their last summoning. How long had the Wild Hunt slumbered this time? Not as long as the three centuries between the previous summonings, certainly.
"A year before Peter left. Five years maybe."
Not so very long. He looked to his right where rains had collapsed the hillside he could see rolling farmland beyond. Beyond that would be the plain.
Suddenly he wanted to cut free of the others, to see if the centuries he had been told were long sped had truly passed. The time reckonings of the other Huntsmen made little sense. Were his sons and their sons and sons' sons long ago dust and memories? Nothing left but cairns too long forgotten to be honored?
He had buried the other questions, the other mysteries that would never have answers. He'd learned to leave them long ago, except when, like Justin, he succumbed to drink.
Walter still questioned the woman and Ulick forced himself to listen.
"Did you go to the authorities for help?"
Marda snorted. "Yes, and got no good of it. The governor doesn't want trouble stirred up with the Sueve."
"How did you know to summon us?"
"The men who returned after the Duke's defeat told us stories. They said you killed the old King and made the new."
Ulick could guess the cause of Walter's silence. He did not like the Hunt to be conspicuous and too many people who had seen Sir Walter Martling then could now guess he was Walter of Jacin. Far as they were from the Tarsean capital where that moon had been spent he might be recognized.
Walter rarely ran out of questions, but that last answer seemed to have left him with little taste for more. The Hunt rode in silence, picking its way down toward the fields.
End Chapter One