Purplish, predawn light had started to filter through the tree branches. Another night wasted. Mist lay heavy on the field beyond the grove, glimmering in a soft, silvery lavender, punctuated here and there by the larger, lumpy shapes of sleeping sheep.
Even the livestock had better living arrangements. Below me, Valerija’s head was nodding forward. Cory’s bow rested across her knees. Phil had scooted until she faced away from Lino, and had her arms crossed and her chin held high. Ilesha was picking at her split ends. Grace was meditating in full lotus.
At once, we all snapped to attention. A unicorn.
“What?” Lino hissed. He looked through his binoculars, but it was too light now for the night vision setting to work well.
Phil motioned him to silence with her hand. The creature wasn’t visible yet, but we could all feel it. I realized now that I had probably felt the zhi that night when I was babysitting, too—I just hadn’t known what the sensation meant at the time. My senses aflame, I forced my limbs to stay still, forced myself to keep from leaping off my perch and stalking the animal down. Phil could argue against the morality of the hunt until her voice was hoarse, but this fire didn’t burn only in my veins. The treetops shivered as their occupants narrowed their focus on the presence in the woods beyond.
Minutes passed. If we could all feel it, could it feel us? Could it feel how many of us there were? Would that spook the unicorn or draw it in?
With aching slowness, I crept into a crouch and lifted my bow. The unicorn was coming from the north, from behind the trees where Phil, Lino, and Grace sat. It was still too dark to see much farther than the next tree over. I strained to peer through the branches. Even if it was closer to them, they wouldn’t get a good shot from their side. Then again, the angle would be bad for me as well. The unicorn would approach me from below. Its head and neck might block a clean shot into its torso.
The sensation was stronger than ever now, but I still saw nothing, not even the telltale shifting of shadow that had tipped me off to the presence of a kirin that first night with Giovanni. As my companions silently scanned the forest floor, I closed my eyes and listened. Last time, I could hear it breathe. Last time, I could smell it. If it was a kirin, in the dappled forest night, we’d never be able to see it. Perhaps it had already passed.
And as soon as I thought it, I knew it was true. It had passed. It was probably even now in the pasture, picking out its prey. I unhooked my harness from the trunk restraint and half-climbed, half dropped to the ground.
Valerija, earphones still in place, jumped as I landed in the moss at her side.
“It’s in the field,” I whispered in a voice little more than a breath. It had ignored the hunters entirely in search of more sheep. Perhaps it knew the sheep wouldn’t fight back if it decided on mutton for breakfast.
I motioned to the hunters still in the trees, who were peeking over their platforms in confusion. A moment later, we all heard it, the muffled, bleating cry.
Valerija and I broke into a sprint. When we reached the edge of the field, I hopped the low wooden fence and kept running, hoping the others were behind me, compelled by the lingering vision in my mind’s eye of the unicorn sneaking up behind the slumbering sheep. Lack of sleep had apparently given me a particularly vivid imagination.
Ahead, I saw movement, a mass of sheep swarming in no particular direction, pressing against one another in their terror. Beyond them, moving shadow, a flash of blood. I was right!
I slowed, sliding in the dew. The kirin had an animal impaled on his horn and was tossing it around. Blood spattered over the backs of the stampeding sheep, and they came right toward us.
“Get out of the way!” I heard Phil scream from far away and I jumped aside, shoving into Valerija as the sheep swept past. The ground rumbled beneath us and for a moment, everything was wool and noise and sliding in the muck. We scrambled to our feet once more.
The kirin had disgorged the sheep from its horn by this point. I hoped the animal was dead. I saw it twitch for a moment on the ground, then go still, a fuzzy red lump of flesh.
Valerija made a sound like a curse as the kirin turned in our direction and lowered its head to charge. It was smaller than the one I’d seen before, barely more than a yearling, yet every bit as deadly. I froze, forgetting all Lino’s archery lessons as the monster stared me down with its glowing, golden eyes.
“Back up!” Phil was shouting now. “Get back!”
“What is it?” I heard Lino’s voice. “I see nothing.”
Valerija grabbed my arm and started to pull, and I retreated toward the fence, scattering sheep in my path. Grace flew by as I reached the other hunters, her black hair streaming behind her. I looked over my shoulder and saw her stop dead at less than twenty yards, nock her arrow, draw, and release.
There was an empty, hollow thunk, and the unicorn roared.
Grace shouted in delight and pumped her bow in the air. The unicorn was on two legs now, cloven hooves flying, dark blood spurting from the arrow that lay lodged in its shoulder.
“She hit it!” Lino cried, incredulous, but then recovered. “Dai! Quick! Another shot! You must make the fatal wound!”
But Grace was having trouble drawing her bow—from fear or adrenaline, I couldn’t tell. Her hands shook as she nocked her next arrow, and she twice tried to draw the string back and failed. A moment later, she knelt and rested the bow against the ground. The unicorn was tearing at the arrow with its teeth now, now lowering its head and charging.
I ran forward and dragged Grace to her feet. “Run. Now!” But it was like her legs were rubber and she collapsed against me. The kirin moved closer, swinging its head from side to side like its horn was a scimitar. The smell of flames and rot burned in my throat.
Another snap of string on my right and an arrow glanced off the unicorn’s flanks. Ilesha. She drew again, then checked the distance between the unicorn and us and paused. “Get down!” she cried. But it was too late. The kirin was upon us.
Again, time slowed. The kirin’s head, at the far side of its swing, faced us broadside, ready to slice us both down with one giant sweep. I grabbed Grace’s abandoned arrow from the ground and plunged it into the animal’s neck, right under its jawbone. The aluminum bent and broke beneath my hand as the kirin wrenched away, almost ripping my arm from its socket.
We ducked as it reared again, falling hard against the wet ground. Grace regained her faculties and skittered out from beneath the flailing hooves as the unicorn turned tail and galloped away across the field.
“Where is it?” Lino asked. He was looking around wildly. He had his bow out, but he didn’t even seem to know which way to aim.
“Um, across the field?” Phil said. “Didn’t you see it turn around and run?”
His mouth dropped and he shook his head. “No. It…go away.” He looked so confused. “You all see it? Go get it!”
Not one of us moved. Grace and I were covered in blood, mud, and wet grass. Ilesha had curled into a ball on the ground, head tucked between knees, shoulders shaking as she wept. Phil was staring at us in revulsion, and Cory stood by Lino on the other side of the fence, her face as gray as the dawn while the unicorn’s screams echoed across the field.
“Go!” Lino shouted again.
“No!” Phil said. “Not without a plan.”
I bent down to check out a deep scrape on Grace’s brow, but she pushed me away.
“It heals as we stand here!” Valerija said, gesturing into the field with her knife. “And now it is angry.”
Ilesha sniffled and shook her head.
“Another rogue kirin,” Cory said in wonderment. “They are supposed to travel in herds.”
“Packs, you mean.” I rubbed my shoulder. “They aren’t deer. They’re wolves.” And wolves had loners, too. Usually adolescent males who hadn’t become dominant enough to form their own pack. That’s what this was, I realized. A young lone unicorn with no pack to teach him to stay the hell away from hunters like us.
In the distance, the unicorn bellowed.
Lino clearly heard that. “Go now!” Lino said again. “This is an order.”
“Shut up!” Phil screamed at him. “You want this unicorn, you go kill it.”
Lino stared at her for a moment, fury raging in his eyes, but said nothing. Phil seemed to grow an inch or two as we stood there, all of us shivering from fear and cold and weariness. She was right; he couldn’t hunt it down. Both Lino and the unicorn, and all the sheep in the field, were at our mercy. If we didn’t obey, there’d be no dead unicorn for Gordian to play with tonight.
Lino turned away from the group for a moment and stared out at the breaking dawn. I wondered what he saw when he looked at the kirin. Giovanni had barely been able to glimpse it in the alley that night. What did non-hunters see? What had Lino witnessed just now? A bunch of girls and sheep sliding around in the muck while a deadly shadow flitted among us?
Grace stood and brushed off the worst of the grass. “I will follow it.” She hefted her bow and checked her quiver. “I drew first blood. This kill is mine.”
She stalked off into the mist, blood still seeping from the cut on her forehead.
“She cannot go alone,” Valerija said.
“Why not?” asked Cory. “You killed a kirin alone.” But the other girl had already followed Grace.
I looked at Phil. “Please,” I said. “She’s hurt, and it almost killed us with one swipe. This isn’t some rite of passage.”
Phil gave a big sigh and shouldered her bow. “Fine. Let’s go. But I’m only going to protect Grace. I don’t believe in this.” She looked at Lino. “You stay here, where it’s safe, and bark more orders. You were so helpful last time.”
“Stop it,” I said. “He’s trying to train us as best he knows how.”
Phil bit her lip and cast him a long look. Then she crawled over the fence and joined me. “Don’t get me started on you. For the love of God, Astrid, stop chasing unicorns. For someone who doesn’t want to be here, you’re certainly acting like an obedient little huntress.”
I flicked mud from my pants leg.
“What about Ilesha and me?” Cory called from the fence line.
“Come or don’t,” Phil called back without turning around. She lowered her voice again. “Nothing to say?”
“I’m sorry. I heard the sheep and—” And what? Had a vision of death? That sounded nice and crazy.
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about earlier. Why don’t you ever take my side? You say you want things to change, but then you just stand there with a bow and keep your mouth shut whenever I try to make it happen.”
“Tell me what to do to make a difference and I’ll do it,” I said. Cory and Ilesha had clearly opted against following us to the kirin. “So far all I’ve seen is that you argue and they ignore you.”
“Because I’m the only one. But, come on. You’ve seen what emphasis they place on the fact that we’re Llewelyns. If both of us rebelled against the status quo—”
The sound of barking dogs stopped us short, accompanied by bellowing, and then a girl’s scream. We broke into a run.
A hundred yards on, we saw them. Valerija lay facedown in the grass, motionless. I saw two sheepdogs keeping their distance and barking their heads off, while a third limped around, holding one leg in the air and whimpering. Whatever had happened to the poor thing, it didn’t look like alicorn venom.
Grace and the kirin were facing off. She had her bow raised but not drawn, and he pointed his horn at her chest, pawing the ground and snorting hard. Blood still dripped down the broken arrow protruding from his jaw, dark black blood that blended with his midnight-brindled coat.
“Grace,” Phil called. “Move away. We’ve got your back.”
“Don’t you dare,” she replied, her voice almost toneless. “This is my kill.” Her hands shook as she attempted to draw back the string again.
I sidestepped over to Valerija, and knelt in the grass. “Are you okay?” I rolled her over. There was a puncture wound near her shoulder, perhaps an inch or two deep, from the look of it. I pulled down the edge of the hoodie to see the skin.
“Burns,” she gasped. I remembered that part. But it bled little, and as I watched, the wound seemed to knit together, growing shallower and narrower by the second. Valerija writhed in pain on the ground, but she’d live. Was this what had happened to my arm after I’d been thrown off the kirin? It looked like Brandt’s leg after we’d treated it with the Remedy.
I glanced up at Phil, who held her own bow, nocked arrow at full draw. The unicorn glared at her. Phil had a far better shot. “Grace,” she said again, not taking her eyes off the kirin. “Back off.”
“You back off,” the other girl hissed. “This one is mine.” And then she released.
The unicorn leaped, but not quickly enough, and Grace’s arrow pierced its gut. He screamed again, a horrid, desperate sound, and landed hard on both hooves. Then he charged his attacker.
I barely had time to flinch before I saw Grace’s body tossed in the air. She flew several feet, then landed in a heap as the unicorn charged again, horn lowered, teeth bared, at the crumpled figure on the ground.
Phil let her arrow fly as the animal quartered away. Another hollow thunk into the unicorn, just behind the left shoulder. But did it go far enough in to pierce the lungs? The beast turned and galloped back toward Phil, who dove out of the way as he careened by.
After it passed, the unicorn turned once more, then dropped to his knees. Grace still wasn’t moving. I grabbed Valerija’s knife and slid it across the wet grass toward my cousin. She grasped it by the handle and stood.
The kirin was grunting now, prostrate on the grass, each labored breath punctuated by wheezing shrieks I’d remember for the rest of my life. His eyes were wide with terror, rolling in his head like yellow pinballs, as Phil slowly approached. He barely moved as she stood above his broken body, breathing every bit as hard as the dying animal. She raised the knife high.
Do it. Oh, God, just do it. I squeezed my eyes shut.
Squish. Squish. Squish.
When I looked again, it was over, and Philippa Llewelyn was drenched in unicorn blood.
14
WHEREIN ASTRID RECOVERS
“HELLO, MOM?”
“Astrid! It’s two in the morning.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I just…had to call.”
“Are you all right?”
“No.” I was covered in mud and blood, and Grace was getting stitches in her forehead by Gordian technicians in the room next door. “I want to come home.”
There was a long silence on the line.
“Mom, are you there?”
“I’m here, Astrid. I’m just trying to understand. You’re not fighting with the other girls, are you?”
“No.”
“And they are treating you well?”
“Yes.” They weren’t beating me, or anything.
“Then what’s bringing this little episode on?”
“It’s the hunting, Mom. I don’t like it.”
“Have you been hurt?”
“No. I’m maybe the only one who wasn’t.”
“Good for you! I’m so proud!”
“No, don’t be proud! I hate it.”
Her voice turned cold. “What do you mean, “you hate it’?”
“Well, the blood…”
“Blood?” Lilith scoffed. “This is the girl who says she wants to be a doctor, and she’s scared of some blood? Astrid, I’m surprised at you.”
I tried to remember how Phil had put it. “I’m just not sure it’s ethical. They’re endangered. There has to be a more humane way to deal with the threat.”
“Humane? Oh, I get it. You’ll get better, honey. You’ll get better at shooting them so they go down quick and don’t suffer so much.”
“That’s not what I mean—”
“Did you kill one today?”
“No. Phil did.”
“Ph
il. I see.” My mother was quiet for a long moment. “Well, you’re just going to have to tough it out, Astrid. I know you can do it.”
“I don’t want to do it, though, Mom! I tried. I put in a real effort, just like you said, but I hate it.” The training, the tree sitting, the death, the magic…“I want to come home.” I waited, but there was no response to my plea. “Mom?”
“Maybe it’s just too early over here, but I really don’t understand where this is coming from. You’re doing well, you’re healthy, you’re getting along with the other hunters…. What’s the real problem here? Is it because Phil’s a better hunter than you are?”
“No! I don’t care about that. Phil doesn’t, either. She doesn’t want to kill anything.”
“And yet she’s out there doing it and you aren’t. Maybe you could learn something from your cousin’s dedication.”
“No! Mom, it’s not about that at all! You don’t understand.”
“Maybe I don’t, but I do understand that you made a commitment, and the second it starts getting hard, you’re calling me to complain.”
“That’s not true.” I took a deep breath. “School’s starting again soon.”
“Oh, right.” My mother sounded distracted. “I meant to discuss that with Cornelius. I’m thinking maybe a tutor, or enrolling you in an American school in Rome. We’d have to see about the cost, though. What are the other girls doing?”
I didn’t know, but I knew that a few of them weren’t in school anymore, and that others—like Dorcas, Cory, and Grace—probably weren’t factoring cost into the decision.
“And it would give you a chance to learn Italian. Have you been picking up much of the language, what with all your training?”
Only what Giovanni had been teaching me. But I could hardly tell my mother about him.
“Think of how great studying in Italy is going to look on your college applications, Astrid.”
Rampant Page 16