‘They’re gone, boy, easy now.’ Luw patted Bann’s neck to quieten his growling. ‘He kept his word.’
How long that word would hold… well, that would have to be seen. However long it took the Enkindled to crush Crofan Tarbeard, he supposed, but he had bought the forest some small time yet. Probably he should have argued for more, for some kind of oath to spare the trees the axe, supposing Aodhamar would honour even that. Promises mean little to those with power enough to break them and shrug at the consequences.
Still, whatever happened, the look on the face of that boorish oaf, Náith, when the Fomonán King had fallen dead before him… that alone made the hunt and the indignity of Aodhamar’s whispering court worthwhile. A price cannot be put upon the misfortunes of an enemy.
Luw allowed himself a heartbeat to wallow in the memory before he rose from his hiding place. ‘Come on, Bann,’ he said, shouldering his spear. ‘Time to go home.’ The wolfgazer followed him, barking as Luw made his way through the undergrowth, treading the forest’s forgotten paths.
Bann’s growling prodded Luw from his slumber. He sat up among the piled furs of his bed, rubbing a lingering dream from his eyes. Darkness engulfed his small home. The faintest trickle of moonlight framed the door, a silver dusting upon Bann’s muzzle, snuffling at the threshold. The wolfgazer gave a deep-throated bark, growling low.
Luw groaned, rubbing at sandy eyes. ‘Enough, Bann.’ The hound barked again, snarling louder. Luw sighed. Pottering over to his window, he unlatched the shutter and peered through stinging moonlight at the forest outside. Black trunks and knotted limbs swayed across the small glade around his home, leaf, frond and petal dappled silver. Nothing moved, save for grass and meadowflower shifting in the night’s breeze.
Luw squinted through sleep’s bleariness, breathed deep the night air. Churned soil, rotcaps oozing upon the trunk of a long-fallen bheitheal tree, and… ah. ‘It’s a Gol Boar,’ Luw yawned, latching the shutters and retreating to his furs. The air was laced with the beast’s stink, no wonder the daft old mutt was growling. ‘Hush, Bann. Too late for hunting. Back to sleep.’
The wolfgazer snarled a challenge at something past the door, clawing at the threshold. Luw sat back up, whistled. ‘Bann! Enough! Sleep, boy!’ The hound barked viciously, fangs gleaming like shards of steel in the dark, his mane bristling against the moonlight. ‘Enough, Bann!’ Luw cried, rising from his bed. He paused, sniffed the air. The smell of boar was growing stronger, creeping through the shuttered window. Something else lay beneath it, smothered by its stench. The faint crunch of grass came from beyond the door.
‘Bann! Get back!’
The door and its wall exploded as Luw leapt for his spear, and Bann vanished with a yelp beneath the debris. A terrible gale tore through from outside, its force slamming Luw into the back wall, white sparks scattering across his vision.
‘Knock, knock, dandy-boy!’
Fucking Náith!
A storm of wild laughter rang from what walls of Luw’s home were still standing. The warrior’s shadow loomed against the moonlit forest, his towering blade driven into the earth beside him.
‘Rise and shine, spear-licker!’ Náith hooted. ‘The moon’s good and high! Perfect time for an arse-kicking!’ He ripped his sword from the earth.
Luw lunged to the side, snatched up his spear from beside the hearth as Náith roared and swung, wood shattering beneath the blow. The hearth’s stones tumbled as Luw cowered against it, spilling cold ash and cinders over his shoulders. Luw scrabbled to his feet as the beam at his side cracked, leaping through the remnants of the back wall as the roof came crashing down.
Náith was laughing as Luw spun about and faced him, wreckage crunching beneath his feet. ‘Bit of a shithole you got yourself here, spear-boy!’ the fat prick guffawed, shouldering his blade. ‘Not what I imagined for the one who killed Sreng!’ The shadows across his face deepened. ‘Nor the one who’s been fucking Síle while my back is turned.’
Luw wasn’t listening, his eyes were roving the pile of splintered wood that had been his home, desperately seeking any sign of Bann. Nothing stirred amongst the debris, no trace of the wolfgazer. Luw’s heart fell still, ice creeping through his veins.
‘Did you hear me, you antlered little shit? I know you’ve been fucking Síle!’ Náith roared, scattering fragments of wood and shaking the trees. Luw’s head snapped up at those words, his heart kicking poison through him, thawing grief into black fury.
‘Síle,’ he uttered, spear turning in his hands. ‘Is that what this is truly about, you fat, petty prick?’
Náith barked a laugh to the night sky, swung the point of his sword toward Luw. ‘Petty. That’s a good one, spear-shiner, especially after what you pulled at Crath Gulfáil. But enough of this,’ he sneered. Moonlight bounced from the blade, making a pale ghoul of the warrior. He was covered head to toe in something, smirked as Luw noticed and the smell hit him. ‘I didn’t smother myself in boar shit just to bandy words with a spear-swallower. Let’s have it, you horned rat!’
The ruins of Luw’s house shattered again as Náith launched himself across them, parting them like flesh beneath his blade. That monstrous sword struck earth as Luw leapt to the side, the glade and its trees shuddering beneath the blow. Luw slipped into the shadows of the forest as Náith’s blade ripped free and torn earth showered the glade. The warrior spun about with a snarl, glaring at the forest’s darkness, a stout shield suddenly upon one arm.
‘Coward, Luw,’ Náith snarled, stomping over the scattered ruins, shield raised. ‘You’re no warrior! You’re a lurker! A throat-slitter!’
Luw circled about through the undergrowth as Náith ranted, staring into every shadow that crossed the glade. ‘You’ve bollocks enough to fuck my woman!’ the warrior roared. ‘You’ve the bollocks to stand before me and die!’ He shot forward into a patch of shadow at the opposite end of the glade, the flash of his sword splitting the night as he shredded bramble and shrub. Náith roared his frustration, its devastating noise resonating through the earth.
Luw slipped from beneath the trees in a low run, silent beneath the warrior’s baying. He sprang over the ruins of his home, spear plunging toward Náith’s back. The warrior spun, swatted Luw from the air with his shield and sent him spinning across the glade. Luw’s hands bit earth, fingers tearing rents ten feet long before he ground to a halt, swallowing down the pain in his spear-arm. Luw broke into a sprint, snarling as he snatched up his fallen weapon and charged through the razor-edged barrage of Náith’s laughter.
The warrior swung low as Luw came in range. Luw leapt over the blade and jabbed, his spear tearing through the leather of Náith’s shield. He ducked a backhand cut, spun back just out of range of Náith’s bludgeoning shield, answering with a swift counter-thrust at the warrior’s exposed side. Náith’s sword crashed down, chopping bright splinters from the haft and knocking it off target so its blade traced a red line across the warrior’s muscled thigh.
Náith stepped back with a snarl, the shadows across his face twisting viciously as he glanced at the wound. ‘About time you acted like a fucking man!’
‘One of us has to,’ Luw spat.
He pivoted to the left as Náith shot in, sword ripping air. His spear struck out, snaking past the warrior’s shield to split his ribs. Náith twisted away from it in a foul burst of speed and trapped it worthlessly beneath his sword arm.
Crack!
Náith’s shield snapped the spear’s haft three feet behind the blade, cleaving through it like a blunt axe and spilling Luw forward off balance. Náith’s sword shot out, a streak of silver against the darkness wreathing the glade. Luw pitched himself to the side and dived beneath it, rolling back onto his feet and ramming the broken stave into the side of the warrior’s thigh. Náith roared, jagged wood punching through sweating flesh. The warrior turned, ripping the stave from his hands, and white shards spat across the night as Náith’s fist crunched into his cheekbone.
Luw found himse
lf on his back, staring at the moon, its disc congealing from swimming, mercurial blobs. Náith’s shadow fell over him, stinking of sweat, blood and boar shit. Luw tried to roll away, off to the side, but he was sluggish, dazed, and Náith’s foot shoved him back down to the ground. ‘Oh, how I’ve waited for this, dandy-boy,’ the warrior breathed, shrugging off his shield and driving his sword into ground. He gripped the spear stave stuck through his thigh, wrenched it free with a grunt and the wet shluck of torn flesh, dark blood spilling down his leg.
‘That one fucking hurt, I’ll give you that, you stick-fiddling fairy,’ Náith chuckled, dropping to his knees astride Luw and pinning him to the ground. A fist ploughed into Luw’s nose and shattered the moon into a dozen pieces, reforming in time for him to see the next punch as it fell. The moon shattered again, pulled back together behind Náith’s raised fist, the warrior’s blood-drunk grin gleaming silver. Luw hawked and spat the blood pooling at the back of his throat in Náith’s eyes, brought his knee up as the warrior recoiled, snarling, and slammed it into the back of his bollocks.
Náith lurched forward, a high scream leaving him as he clutched at his groin. Luw wriggled out from beneath him, put a foot to his chest and kicked the warrior away. He turned over, coughed blood as he crawled away from Náith’s wordless threats, making for the undergrowth at the glade’s edge. The struggle behind him, every bit of agony came searing through Luw’s flesh at once. His head was heavy, his face felt as though it had been stuck through with splintered glass, blood dripping down his chin. The bone of his nose pushing sidelong against his skin, the recently healed break screaming once again.
A horrid weight crashed down between Luw’s shoulders, crushed him into the earth and tore a gasp from him. Hands seized the base of his antlers, yanked his head back against the boot planted between his shoulders. ‘I’m not done with you, you scrawny shit!’ Náith roared. Luw’s back cracked as the warrior sank down atop him, his cry silenced as the broken stave of his spear slid along his throat. He managed to get a hand in the way as Náith hauled on it to choke him, a knee pressed into his back.
‘Fight all you want,’ Náith hissed, ‘this is the end for you, Luw.’ He squeezed tighter, muscled arms trembling against the strength in Luw’s shoulders. ‘I won’t let this be quick,’ uttered Náith. He pulled harder on the stave. ‘Not only do you take my kill, my honour, and reduce me to an exile… you take my fucking woman.’
Luw strained against the stave, against his own trapped, crushing hand. Darkness was pressing down, squeezing the moon’s feeble light. He hissed blood between clenched teeth. ‘She… she was… never yours.’
‘She wasn’t yours either, spear-squatter,’ snarled Náith. The stave pressed tighter, angled so as to give Luw a few more moments of suffering. ‘Ever since you reared that horned head of yours, you’ve fucked with my life. You’ve taken everything I had and shit on it. But I am Náith, Champion of the Enkindled King, greatest warrior in Luah Fáil.’ The stave tightened again, just barely. ‘And I let no man fuck with me. Tomorrow, I’ll leave your corpse before Aodhamar’s throne.’
Movement in the corner of his eye, the last shreds of his Hunter’s instinct drawing Luw’s stare. The ruins of his home stirred, shattered planks shifting.
‘Bollock naked,’ Náith sneered, ‘your head ripped off and your face shoved into the cheeks of your fucking arse.’ He jerked the stave, made Luw spit blood. ‘How’s that sound, you little cunt? Sound like a good present for your new master?’
A shape pulled itself from the wreckage, shaking splinters from its blood-matted fur. Bann’s eyes cut through the dark toward him like pale stars. Not here. Not now! Luw waved a feeble hand at the wolfgazer. Run. Get away. Run, boy! Don’t watch this! He tried to force the words past the stave. Choked, dribbled blood. Numbness spread, his arm falling limp. Náith bellowed out a fit of laughter.
‘I think I’ll just pop your head off right here and now, fanny-boy! Pop it off like a –’
Náith’s scream was a thunderclap beside Luw’s ear, swallowed in moments by the feral snarling of a wolfgazer and the sound of tearing flesh.
Luw hit the ground, sucked down air in shrieking breaths as consciousness hurtled back through him and set the glade spinning. He made it to his palms, squinting through a storm of swirling shadows to where Náith stood spinning and screaming in the moonlight. Bann was latched onto him, the hound’s dire jaws worrying at the meat of the warrior’s shoulder, claws tearing at his back.
Náith howled like a wounded beast – swatting, thumping, clawing at the hound savaging him, trying to sink its fangs into his throat. Dark blood was spilling down Náith’s chest, down his legs. He stumbled, cried out as he went to his knees beneath Bann’s mauling. Náith reached over his head, and screamed as he hurled Bann back into the wreckage of Luw’s home, a strip of red flesh trailing from the hound’s maw.
Luw croaked wordlessly as Bann struck wood, the wolfgazer’s yelp running cold nails down his heart. Run you idiot! Run! Run! He collapsed trying to crawl toward him, lay clutching at his wounded throat, watching, horrified, as Náith found his feet again.
‘Half-breed mutt!’ The warrior clasped a hand to the wound on his shoulder, moon-black blood welling between his fingers. ‘I’ll rip that hide from your flesh and make a fucking rug!’ Bann was snarling, bloodied mane bristling as he picked himself up. Náith staggered off to the side, lurching across the glade. Bann tore toward him with a wild snarl, claws tearing the glade to shreds.
Horror pierced Luw as he saw what was about to happen. He croaked, reached out and collapsed as Bann leapt for Náith, his snarling maw streaming blood and drool. The warrior stumbled, gripped his sword as his knees hit and sprang back to his feet, turning and ripping the blade free in a shower of dark earth.
There was a wet thud – the sound of steel parting flesh, cartilage and bone. Náith’s swing carried him back around to his knees, the sword burying itself in the earth again. Bann crashed to the ground behind him, the wolfgazer’s body tearing a furrow through the earth, head trailing blood as it bounced alongside it.
It was as if a hole was gouged through the world in that moment – as though some malign claw had carved out a hungering, consuming void, drinking down what dregs were left of Luw. He went limp, caught as if falling, unable to tear his stare from the fading light in Bann’s eyes, even as Náith’s shadow loomed over the hound’s twitching body.
The warrior’s laughter boomed across the glade, distant thunder as that cold void sunk deep hooks into Luw’s soul. ‘Foolish bloody things, hounds,’ laughed Náith, stepping over Bann’s corpse so that the moonlight glistened across his bloody chest. ‘They so blindly follow the weak. And never do they realise…’ He stooped, gripped Bann’s severed head by its blood-matted mane and stared into its vacant, lolling face. ‘… they’re destined to be nothing but a trophy.’
That last shattered Luw’s bubble of grief, frigid bile welling in his crushed throat. ‘No!’ He tried to throw himself forward, flopping onto his front and swiping pitifully at Náith’s bloody leg.
‘Pathetic,’ the warrior snarled, pulling the limb out of reach as if stepping out the way of a turd on the roadside.
‘Not taking him,’ Luw wheezed, making it to his knees to reach toward Bann’s severed head. Warm blood spattered the back of his hand, dripping from its cloven neck. ‘You’re not… taking him!’
‘Get fucked.’ Náith’s boot thumped him in the chest, pitched Luw croaking and weeping on his back. ‘This thing’ll look too good on my wall, spear-charmer.’ He raised the wolfgazer’s head up high, so the moon’s rays painted its slack features pale and terrible. ‘I came here to take a head, and a head I have taken. Whatever is left of your miserable life, Luw, look back on this day and remember what your prick cost you. The head of your hound and the life of a friend.’ He shook Bann’s head, its tongue lolling vacantly over bloodstained teeth. ‘Go and cry your misery to the fucking trees.’
Luw flung hi
mself onto his front again as Náith’s shadow stalked away, Bann’s head still dripping in the warrior’s hand. He was gone before Luw made it to his knees, the undergrowth whispering of his passing as the forest grew still once more.
Grief, sorrow – their void came spilling back, swallowing everything as Luw crawled to Bann’s body. He collapsed atop it, fingers knotted among the hound’s still-warm fur. His shoulders shook as he cradled it, burying his face in the ghost of its old comfort, now soiled and stinking of blood. ‘I’m sorry,’ Luw uttered through a broken throat, tears burning the cuts on his face. ‘I’m sorry, boy.’
Chapter 11
Valediction
Bann had been a yapping little thing when Luw had found him near the forest’s edge, all fuzz and fur, standing his ground, surrounded by a pack of other wolfgazers. Starved, scrawny as a Nuankin street-mutt, but no less fierce for it as he hollered and snapped at the hounds pacing about him. They’d scattered when Luw dropped from the trees, fled the forest with tails between their legs and whimpers in their throats. The beasts of the wild knew to fear the Horned Hunter and his biting spear, and yet the scruffy little thing had still bloodied Luw’s fingers as he’d tried to scoop it up.
‘Bann. A warrior’s name, for a warrior-hound. Braver even than the old hero himself.’
Luw pushed earth over the bloody bundle of Bann’s remains, pausing to scrape a tear from his cheek. His hand came away with a red-brown smear on it, old blood still thick on his face. He ignored it, scraping another heap of earth over the wolfgazer’s body. Those hounds had probably been Bann’s own pack, thinking back on it. They were notorious for turning on runts in the wild, and Bann had always been small for a wolfgazer.
Horns of the Hunter: Tales of Luah Fáil Book 1 Page 8