by Maggie Furey
‘Excellent,’ Hellorin said. ‘Have the horses brought immediately.’ He turned to his assembled subjects. ‘Come, my children. Our sport awaits us.’
Tiolani was very proud of her own horse. He was a recent acquisition - a birthday gift from her brother - and the fastest, most spirited mount she had ever ridden. His coat was dark bay in colour: a deep, burnished reddish-brown, with a black mane and tail, and legs black to the knees, as though he had been wading in midnight. He moved like a dancing flame. His eyes were bright and brimming with curiosity and mischief, and a white star blazed on his forehead. She called him Asharal. Spirited and fiery, he was not the easiest of rides, but to Tiolani’s prejudiced eyes he was utterly perfect. She was very surprised, therefore, when there was no sign of him among the horses being led out. Instead, Aelwen approached her, leading Maiglan, her father’s old mare.
There was no mistake. The Horsemistress stopped in front of her and smiled. ‘Here we are, my Lady. Your mount awaits.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Tiolani demanded. ‘That’s not my horse. Where is Asharal?’
Aelwen was unfazed by the girl’s imperious manner. Such was Hellorin’s love of the unique Phaerie steeds that he considered his Horsemistress the most important member of his court, after his family. Furthermore, she had been not only Estrelle’s best friend, but also her half-sister. Aelwen was a Hemifae, one of the many Phaerie with human blood in her veins, sharing the same father as Hellorin’s consort but borne by a mortal mother. Phaerie women found it difficult and dangerous to give birth, and sometimes a couple, unable or unwilling to take the risk, would use a mortal woman to bear children for them. Though these half-bloods were accepted as Phaerie in almost every way, everyone was tacitly aware of the difference.
Over the ages, the Hemifae had tended to become the travellers, the traders, the innovators and the artisans, who were prepared to journey to the world outside to expand their knowledge or improve their fortunes. In the meantime, the full-blooded members of Hellorin’s race had become an aristocracy, devoting their time to magic, to their martial skills, to their pleasures - and, of course, to the Hunt. Only they could become members of Hellorin’s court. Though Aelwen had been nominally admitted to that select body long ago, she had used the concession little since her beloved sister’s death, despising the formality, the ridiculous, overly elaborate fashions and the sneering asides of the courtiers towards the half-breed in their midst. The dubious privilege had been granted her partly due to her skill with Hellorin’s precious horses, but mainly because of her close kinship with Estrelle. The two of them had even looked similar - or so most folk said. Aelwen had glowing copper hair, a much darker shade than that of Estrelle, but her eyes were that same glorious gold. She still looked young and beautiful, as did all the immortal Phaerie-folk, but her face had that indefinable cast that denoted maturity, and the expression in her eyes was kindly, shrewd and wise as she addressed the scowling girl. ‘I’m afraid you won’t be riding Asharal tonight, my dear.’
‘Why? What’s wrong?’ Tiolani demanded. ‘Is he lame? What have those idiot grooms of yours done to him?’
A stab of anger wiped the pleasant expression from Aelwen’s face. How dare Hellorin’s pampered brat of a daughter criticise the running of my stable, she thought. I’ve devoted my life to these animals. What she knows about their care wouldn’t fill a thimble. ‘There is nothing wrong with him,’ she replied. ‘Asharal is in my charge, and as you are well aware, he receives the best of care. Or were you implying otherwise?’
Tiolani had the grace to blush. ‘No, no, of course not,’ she said hastily. ‘But why have you not brought him out?’
‘I am acting on your father’s orders,’ Aelwen told her. ‘He says you’ll have enough to cope with on your first Hunt without trying to ride a horse as untried as yourself. Instead, he’s lending you his own horse, Maiglan.’
‘What? That old thing? Well, I won’t do it. I refuse to have all the members of this court sniggering up their sleeves at me.’
Aelwen shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’ She called to one of her grooms, who had just left his charge with its owner. ‘Siglon, will you take Maiglan back to the stable, please? The Lady Tiolani won’t be riding tonight.’ From the corner of her eye she saw Hellorin, alerted by the commotion, looking their way, and smiled to herself.
Evidently Tiolani had noticed her father, too. ‘No, wait. Stop.’ Clearly determined to make one last effort, she turned pleading eyes on her aunt. ‘Aelwen, please?’ she wheedled. ‘You know how Father respects your judgement. Surely if you said it was all right for me to ride Asharal, he’d reconsider—’
‘Tiolani, forget it. You’re about to embark on a very risky undertaking. Your safety is Hellorin’s primary concern, and he’s right. On your first Hunt it would be madness to ride such an inexperienced, hot-blooded animal. Take it as an honour that your father trusts you with his precious Maiglan, and let her look after you on your first few Hunts. After that, you’ll have the experience to teach Asharal all he needs to know.’
Tiolani sighed. ‘All right,’ she grumbled. ‘Arvain will never stop teasing me, but if it’s the only way I can join the Hunt, I suppose I’ll have to ride father’s decrepit cast-off.’
‘Your brother won’t tease you. He learned to hunt on an experienced old horse just as you are doing.’ Aelwen smiled to herself, and stroked the mare’s bowed neck. ‘As for Maiglan, I think she may surprise you.’
‘And those stupid humans will sprout wings and fly,’ Tiolani muttered ungraciously as she mounted the mare and, without a word of thanks to Aelwen, rode off to join her father and brother.
The Horsemistress looked around the gathering, checking that all was well with her precious charges. Everything was going smoothly. The throngs of brightly clad Phaerie were all mounted now, and drinking stirrup-cups of mulled wine served by slaves in the palace livery. As a Hemifae, Aelwen was not permitted to join the Hunt, though she owned a splendid black stallion from Hellorin’s best stock, and her happiest hours were spent on horseback. Yet she had never had the slightest urge to join the hunters - perhaps because of what had happened to Estrelle?
Or because of the unwelcome, uncomfortable knowledge that the blood of their victims also ran in her veins?
Tonight, however, she wished that just this once she could have gone with Tiolani. In the excitement of the Hunt, there was no way that the girl’s father and brother, despite their best intentions, would be able to keep an eye on her. It needed someone with a clear head to do that, someone who was not participating in the Hunt. Someone whose thoughts were not fogged by excitement and bloodlust. In other words, herself. Though Tiolani was so spoilt that sometimes Aelwen itched to slap her, she was still Estrelle’s daughter, and as such the Horsemistress felt a deep sense of responsibility that would have been most unwelcome to the recipient, had she known about it.
Aelwen’s common sense, however, would not let her indulge in misplaced concern for long. You fool, she told herself. An accident like the one that killed Estrelle is a rare occurrence, and Maiglan is an old hand at this business. She’ll keep Tiolani out of trouble, and the girl will be fine, as well you know. It’s high time she started taking some responsibility, even if it is just for herself and her own safety. She knew it was true. In reality, she was far more concerned that Hellorin’s daughter was living a life in which she was constantly pampered, protected and indulged. All of Tiolani’s potential was going to waste. The girl should be allowed a chance to develop some backbone, or she’d be nothing but a useless, self-centred, feather-headed ornament to Hellorin’s court for the rest of her life. That was no existence, Aelwen thought, for the daughter of Estrelle, who had been such a competent, capable, generous and intelligent woman. Am I failing the girl in some way? she wondered. Yet what could she do when Tiolani’s father and brother spoilt and cosseted her to such an extent?
Tiolani, despite being mounted on the despised Maiglan, was standing beside Hellori
n and Arvain. Her face was flushed, her eyes were sparkling, and her sulks had clearly been forgotten in the excitement of the moment. Aelwen loved her with all her heart, and would never wish any harm to her, and yet... ‘If only something would happen to throw a few challenges into the girl’s life,’ she murmured to herself. ‘That’s the only way Tiolani will ever develop the strength of character that she so badly needs.’
She had no idea, then, that before the sun came up she would bitterly regret those words.
2
INITIATION
Though Tiolani was disappointed about Asharal, she tried to do as Aelwen said, and appreciate that her father was doing her an honour in letting her ride his own horse. The silver-white mare bore her years lightly, and still had more than sufficient stamina, speed and spirit to serve a novice huntress well on her first Wild Hunt. From her pricked ears and the brightness of her eyes, it was plain that she was delighted to be hunting again. She snorted and stamped as they waited in the courtyard, as impatient to be off as any of the younger animals. Hellorin, in the meantime, had mounted his new mare, Maiglan’s daughter; a much darker, dappled grey with a black mane and tail. The creature was far more fiery and wilful than Asharal, Tiolani thought with a tinge of resentment. He had called her Corisand, an ancient Phaerie word for a tempest, and ever since she’d been a foal, she had lived up to the name.
The Forest Lord blew on a silver horn, and suddenly the courtyard fell silent save for the baying of the great grey fellhounds. He flung up his arm in a skyward gesture, and the magic of his flying spell streamed from his fingers in glittering trails that drifted down like snow to cover the riders of the Hunt, their mounts and the pack of hounds in a cloak of scintillating light.
Gwylan gave the signal to loose the fellhounds. The pack leapt forward as one, streaming across the courtyard, but before they reached the gates they were in the air and climbing fast, the shimmer of the flying spell leaving a trail of sparks beneath their feet. Hellorin’s dappled mare bounded forward, diamond starbursts appearing beneath her hooves as the spell took hold. She sprang into the air and simply kept on going, running easily as though ascending a gentle slope, with every stride taking her further aloft. Arvain, holding in his own chestnut stallion with difficulty, turned to Tiolani. ‘Come on, Monster. Follow me.’
Tiolani gathered her reins and urged Maiglan on. She felt the lurch as the mare leapt forward and they took off in their skyward leap just a stride behind Arvain. As she climbed, the frosty night air swept past her, burning chill against her face and hands, and whipping away the crystalline clouds of her breath. Beneath her, she glimpsed a dizzying whirl of rooftops; then, as she gained more height, the entire city stretched out beneath her. At the top of the eminence on which Eliorand stood was Hellorin’s palace, a cluster of elegant towers with a complex of other buildings grouped round them that contained everything from banqueting halls and state chambers right down to the palace kitchens, and the workshops and living quarters of those whose sole work it was to maintain the royal abode in all its beauty and splendour. Like all structures in Eliorand, the buildings were fashioned from polished wood and stone with the flowing, organic lines that the Phaerie loved so well, so that they seemed to spring naturally out of the hillside. Close to the palace in magnificent dwellings lived the true Phaerie, the members of Hellorin’s court. On the lower slopes were the homes of the Hemifae, as well as markets, workshops and beautiful gardens and parks.
‘Watch where you’re going, you stupid little . . .’
Tiolani, whose attention had all been on the city below instead of on her fellow members of the Hunt, wrenched her horse out of the impending collision almost by instinct. The other rider did the same and veered away, cursing all idiots who didn’t know enough to keep their wits about them in the sky. In the heat of the moment, he had never even noticed who had so nearly run into him, and Tiolani was glad of that. She had been gawking like some mooncalf at the view, while so many other horses were moving at speed in the sky around her. Her heart hammered at the thought of what would have happened if she or the other rider had been unseated in a collision. A fall from this height meant certain death. How could she have been so inattentive, knowing as she did that Ferimon’s father, drunk and careless, had caused just such an accident which had taken the life of her mother?
The entire court was now in motion, rising into the night skies to add their glittering presence to the glory of the stars. They were an awe-inspiring sight, terrifying in their splendour, their robes of shimmering, many-hued luminescence trailing behind them in sparkling drifts like comet-tails. The horses were caparisoned in the same glistening fabric, and their reins gleamed with pure white light. As the riders swept low above the treetops, following the baying hounds, everything that their trailing vestments touched took on the mysterious radiance, to be limned in frosty rainbow sparkles that spread from branch to branch, outlining the boughs and leaves in delicate traceries of lustre.
When Tiolani looked down at herself, she saw the visual component of her father’s spell glittering on her own skin and clothing. The gold she had chosen for her costume not only suited her colouring and looked suitably regal for her rank, it would make her easily visible to Hellorin who, annoyingly but not unnaturally, wanted to keep an eye on her this first time. Though the Phaerie seemed to approach it in a light-hearted spirit, the Hunt was dangerous. With horses plunging down from the skies and hurtling through the forest in pursuit of their quarry, collisions could, and occasionally did, happen: with trees and other obstacles, or between the horses themselves. Sometimes the prey would fight back, and the thrust of a well-aimed weapon could slay one of the Phaerie as easily as it could kill one of their slaves.
At the thought of these dangers, Tiolani felt a hollow sensation in her stomach. ‘It’s nothing but excitement,’ she told herself firmly. ‘I’m an excellent rider, I know how to use a weapon. Nothing can possibly go wrong.’ She flexed her shoulders against the comforting weight of the bow that was slung across her back. She could have used a sword with equal facility; indeed she carried one and had been well trained in the use of both weapons. Tonight, however, she had decided that it would be better to keep a certain distance between herself and her quarry. Though she had been sparring for years with her tutors and various opponents, she had never actually killed a living creature with her sword. Somehow, she was reluctant to see the spurt of blood as blade bit into flesh, and hear the crunch of metal biting through bone. Not this first time. She would have enough to think about, without that.
Hellorin laughed aloud for sheer joy and urged his mount higher, and Corisand, for once, did not resist him. Viewed through a horse’s eyes, the Phaerie did not present such a brave and beautiful sight, for they could clearly be seen as the predators they were. Feral, cold and pitiless, their eyes glittered with a savage light, and the miasma of blood-lust hung around them like a dark and reeking cloud. On this special night, however, Corisand was untroubled by the ruthless and barbaric side of her masters’ nature. She too was caught up in the exhilaration of the soaring climb towards the stars, and the thrill of the wild chase through the crisp night air. Unlike Tiolani, she was not looking forward to the sport the night might bring, or concerned about the dangers involved. She only knew that for once she was free to run, and to revel in the smooth play of healthy muscles as they bunched and stretched in powerful motion. The vision of an equine, with her eyes set to the sides of her head, meant that she could see almost all the way around herself, so she was aware of her fellow horses on every side, before and behind, and could lose herself in the elation of running with the herd.
Tiolani, in the meantime, was following her father and brother, her heart beating fast with excitement, the icy wind stinging her face and pulling her long hair out of its braids to unravel into a wild banner that streamed out behind her. The lights of Eliorand, twinkling like earthbound stars on their hill, fell away quickly, to be replaced by the dark, mysterious tangle of the fores
t, with here and there the shining line of a stream or river threading its way through the gloom. Tiolani wished she could silence all the sounds around her and lose herself in the wonder of the night. Yet the huffing exhalations of the horses, the wild music of the horns, the baying of fellhounds and the excited voices of the Phaerie Court, calling to one another as they raced across the void, were so much a part of the night’s magic that it would be wrong, somehow, to lose them.
The Hunt galloped on, streaking across the skies, eating up the miles as the forest sped by below them, sounding their silver horns and singing songs of bloodshed and slaughter. When they reached the broad river that marked the border between their own realm and the lands of the Wizards, they ignored the treaty that existed between themselves and the Wizardfolk and continued onwards as before - but now Gwylan the Huntsman led the fellhounds spiralling down among the trees, bringing them back to earth to seek the scent of humans.
There were two sorts of humans at large in the forest. The first had been seeded there by Hellorin himself in previous centuries, so that they could breed in the wildwood to provide his hunters with a ready quarry. The remainder had escaped from servitude, either to the Phaerie or the Wizards. Though the mortal servants of both Wizards and Phaerie were bred to be nothing but slaves, it was only natural that some would grow weary of their lot, and escapes were inevitable. Most of the fleeing slaves were rounded up quickly as their masters used the powers of scrying to learn of their whereabouts, but others had survived over the years to breed, and now groups of wild or feral humans were scattered throughout the forest. The little band that were to be hunted tonight were slaves; escaped from the Wizards, they had fled far indeed from their masters, taking shelter many miles to the north of Nexis, the settlement that lay closest to the border of Hellorin’s kingdom. So far, no one had bothered to come looking for them and against all odds, they were managing to survive the winter. A pitiful encampment of roughly built huts, their roofs white with frost, were clustered in a forest clearing as if seeking protection in numbers from the terrors that lurked in the dark and the wilderness - but there was no protection from the predators that sought the humans this time.