“So,” I said, when I got my breath back, “what’s the problem?”
“Come this way,” Massha said, leading me through the archway into the kitchen-dining area. “We can get some privacy in here. I love this house to pieces, but it’s cozy—read ‘small’ in real estate terms.” She gestured to a large carved wooden chair with a cushion on the seat and a few small pillows to stuff in between sore lumbar muscles and the tall curved back. “That’s Hugh’s favorite chair. It’s low slung so he can stick his legs out in front of him. He hates footstools.”
“Too easy to knock out from under you in a confrontation,” I agreed. Badaxe and I had been on opposite sides at one time, but never on the subject of strategy. “Glad to hear he’s not going soft even though he went in for wedded bliss.”
“It’s great,” Massha said, firmly. “When you find the right person, it’s heaven. You should try it, Aahz.”
“Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt,” I said, settling into the chair with pleasure. It really was comfortable. She drew me a mug of beer from a cask in a cradle on the counter. All the comforts of home. “So, what’s so urgent? You’ve evaded the question twice. I know there’s a favor involved, but we’re old friends. The answer’s yes on almost anything, exceptions being on things like getting married again.”
Massha let her antigravs bring her down to earth, and she perched on the front of a handsome upholstered chair made to her measure. I could have curled up in it sideways.
“I just feel awkward knowing I have to call in a favor,” Massha said with a sigh. “Do you do much formal hunting?”
“No. If I’m hungry I know a thousand restaurants a D-hop away. If I’m really stuck out in the boonies I’ll kill and eat whatever looks edible, no ceremony involved. The formal stuff ’s like the guy said, ‘the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.’ ” I glanced at her. She was plucking at the edge of her orange harem pants with uneasy fingers. “Why don’t you take riding lessons from Hugh?”
Massha dropped the filmy cloth and gave me an exasperated expression. “Aahz, honey, look at me. You’ve known me for years. Can you see me on a horse?”
“Well, no,” I admitted. Massha had no illusions about her figure, and I cared enough about her as a friend not to pretend I didn’t understand. “But you don’t expect me to do the riding, do you? I scare the hell out of horses.”
“Not these,” she assured me hastily. “They’ll handle a Pervect. They’re trained to hunt beside dragons.”
Some memory stirred. “Massha,” I asked warily. “How’d you get involved with the Wylde Hunt?”
“Princess Gloriannamarjolie is an old pal,” Massha said. “I was her babysitter for a while on Brakespear. She was a real brat when she was six or seven. No one had ever said ‘no’ to her before I did. There were some pretty fierce tantrums before she learned her limits. She liked it when I did magik for her, and I thought there was a great girl inside all that spoiled nonsense. We achieved a mutual respect, and we’ve been corresponding off and on for years. Now she’s old enough to lead the hunt, and she asked for my help.”
“She’s the quarry? It’s a suicide mission!” Unlike the Klahds, who rode horses and followed a pack of dogs after fox-wolves over fields and through forests, a brutal enough sport, Brakespear had a pack of dragons that pursued a wily princess across the landscape. The hunt began at dawn. If the princess kept away from the hunters until sunset she was free. If the dragons caught up with her, well, there usually wasn’t much left. The mask or ears was awarded to the winning hunter. I was appalled that this was still going on.
Massha read the look on my face. “Those days are gone. It’s only scent-hunting now. Glory’s got to keep away from the hounds until sunset. The hunters are judged on style, fair play, riding, control of their dragons, and, if they’re lucky, catching up with the princess. She’s been training all her life for this. She’s ready.”
“But for this we’ll need a dragon for the pack. We haven’t got one.”
“Yes, we have,” Massha said, with a little coy smile that should have sent me racing out the door as soon as I saw it. “I borrowed one.” She opened the back door of the cottage. A sinuous blue form twisted around in its own length at the noise, recognized me, and came streaking toward me. It knocked me over and started licking my face with a long pink tongue and breath that smelled like a volcano’s dung heap.
“Gleep!” it carolled joyfully, in between slurps.
“Dammit, get off me!” I roared. Massha put a hand in Gleep’s collar and hauled him back. I sat up, wiping the slime off with my sleeve. “You say you borrowed Gleep? Skeeve’s not here?”
“No,” Massha admitted.
“Then who’s gonna handle this fool lizard?” I asked. Gleep rolled his large blue eyes at me, wanting to get loose and greet me again.
“I’ve agreed to undertake the task,” said Nunzio, coming in the same door as the dragon, but at a easier pace. “We get along pretty well, don’t we, boy?”
“Gleep!” Gleep agreed, trotting over to lave the Mob man with the Tongue of Doom.
“So why do you need me?” I asked Massha. Slurp. Gleep trotted back and soaked me again. I wiped the disgusting wetness off with the back of my hand. “. . . Me, the overgrown newt and Nunzio?” Gleep gave me a look of adoration mingled with reproach, or maybe I was reading too much into his expression. He was still a baby, for all that he was twice as big as any of us except Chumley.
“There’s still a prize,” Massha said. “For the hunter who bags the princess, or, if she’s better than they are, earns the highest points, the finest treasure the king has to offer. And I’ve got to tell you, Aahz, Brakespear has some terrifically hot stuff in the treasury. As crown princess, Glory had the keys to the playground. We used to go down there and try things on. It was enough to give a girl dreams.”
I liked the sound of the treasure, but I was too old a hand to believe in a free lunch for the guy who could stay on his horse the longest. “What’s the catch?” I asked.
“Glory has been out looking over the course every day for the last three months. She’s been seeing . . . well, shadows or shapes. She’s certain someone’s following her over the landscape, getting a look at where she’s planning to go. She’s afraid that whoever it is is out to interfere with the hunt. Every once in a while they get protesters who picket the hunt, calling it brutal and outdated. Glory’s dad has guards posted around, and they know the signs of an incipient demonstration. Whoever’s been out there is more subtle than that. And the king has recently acquired a few terrific goodies for the treasury, a couple of them genuinely magikal. The prize is likely to be one of those. Glory wants her hunt to be fair and square. It’s dangerous, you know, hot stuff. People can still get killed, even though it’s for fun. If anyone’s messing with it, I want it stopped.”
“All right,” I said. “You’ve convinced me. Your Princess Glory sounds like she’s reading all the signs right.”
Massha leaped up and hugged me again. “So you’ll do it?”
“I’ll do it,” I gasped out. Joyfully, Gleep sprang over and licked me again. “Dammit, don’t do that!”
The following week found me wearing ridiculous breeches and a jacket that only needed the too-tight sleeves to tie behind my back to make it fit for lunatics. I refused outright to put on the helmetlike hat a bunch of the participants were wearing, preferring to depend upon the toughness of my Pervect skull and save my reputation as a snappy dresser from total ruin. The boots were the only things I liked: shiny black leather with just enough heel to catch the stirrups but wouldn’t make me trip while back down on terra firma.
It was the day before the hunt. My borrowed mount, a hiphippohippus named Fireball, came from Gloriannamarjolie’s own stables, a buckskin mount like a cross between a horse and a rhinoceros. Its big barrel-like body had one deep, diagonal ridge running from midpoint down to a leg’s length beneath the withers. It had delicate legs for its build, with bunched m
uscles in the shoulders and haunches that would make it a good jumper. The beast’s spoon-shaped ears swiveled back and forth as I climbed aboard to try it out for size. The natural saddle ridge was suprisingly comfortable. A harness buckled about his barrel in front of the rider provided reins and stirrups. The grooms on both sides shortened the stirrups considerably until my feet fit into them. Not one adult Brakespearan I saw was my height. All of them were at least a head taller, usually more. When the princess had taken us on a welcome tour of the palace guard I felt like I was walking through a forest.
Gloriannamarjolie herself was a strapping girl; not in Massha’s class, of course, but tall and big boned, with a healthy, pink-cheeked outdoorsy complexion, long blond hair, and green eyes similar to the fox-wolves that hunters in other dimensions pursued. Brakespearans resembled Klahds fairly closely, except that their ears were pointed at the top instead of round, and their hands were almost pawlike with short fingers, the fifth digit a cross between a thumb and a dewclaw, and a sixth digit just like it on the opposite side of the palm. Plenty of good manipulative talent, and, by the cording in the sturdy arm attached, the strength to back it up. The carvings that decorated both wooden and stone surfaces would have been considered art anywhere.
“All set?” the princess asked. She sat towering over me on a white beast with a set of wicked little pointed horns in between its ears. It lifted its lip in a sneer at me. I bared my teeth and growled back. The ’hippus danced out of reach, and I wheeled Fireball around.
“Ready,” I said.
“Then let’s move out!”
Massha and Nunzio, the latter holding an eager Gleep on a leash, stepped back. She looped the reins between the dewclaws on either side of her right hand, set her left hand on her hip, and kicked her mount in the sides. “Come on, Suzicue.” Fireball and I followed.
“Don’t fall off, Hot Stuff!” Massha called. Setting my teeth, I clenched my knees around Fireball’s sides. We thundered away.
The hunting course was off limits, but Glory led us out on a path in a stretch of woods that ran beside the river that fed the castle moat. A stiff wind beat the water up into mini-whitecaps. I could feel the tips of my ears starting to chill.
“A bracing breeze!” Glory shouted over the gale. “Open him up and see what he can do!”
My mount was already galloping hard, jarring my rear like a jackhammer. I dug in my heels, and was nearly bowled over the beast’s tail as Fireball threw it into overdrive. If I hadn’t seen dragons move I would never have believed a creature that big could move so fast. The trees around me blurred into a brown picket fence. Another white blur passed me as Glory, on Suzicue, hurtled ahead. I heard the princess’s hearty laugh.
“Ha hah! Exhilarating, isn’t it? Tally ho! Yoicks!”
The thundering gait turned into a speedy lollop, easier on my spine than the canter, but now we were running into the forest. Low-lying branches swept over me, threatening to scoop me off. Grimly I clenched the reins and leaned down over Fireball’s neck. As I told Massha, I’m not built for the saddle. I found myself digging my toe talons into the mount’s side. He didn’t seem to notice, probably because of the boots. He was too busy tossing his head to clear twigs out of his eyes. I put my head down next to his neck as I tried to keep Suzicue in sight. It’d take me forever to find my way back in these thick woods. If I’d had my magik, I’d have popped back to the castle and told Massha I resigned.
Over hill and down dale we galloped, pounding through the undergrowth. We were following a trail, but it was thickly overgrown. No surprise, if no one used it but Glory and her family. Birds fluttered upward, calling. Showers of leaves and seeds rained down on me. I tightened my grasp on Fireball.
A thin branch hit me in the forehead like a hot wire. I let out a bellow of pain.
Through the trees I saw mottled shapes scatter and flee: animals running from the sound of my voice. As Fireball crested the hill in Suzicue’s wake I spotted another shape, one moving toward me. It stood upright on two legs, not on all fours or all sixes like the rest of Brakespear’s wildlife. I squinted, trying to see details. Twigs lashed my face. I spat out leaves. Just as suddenly as I had spotted it, the mysterious shape vanished. Whatever it was had gotten close enough to get a look at us, then disappeared on the spot. That spoke of intelligence and probably advanced magik or technology. I caught up with Glory, and rode back to the castle in thoughtful silence.
“You were right to call us in,” I told her and the others, once we were closeted in her personal study and Massha’s privacy bracelet had drawn a cone of silence around us. “There is someone out there, scoping out the woods.”
“I have a thousand forest rangers,” Glory argued. “It could have been one of them.” I could see she didn’t believe what she was saying.
“So what do we do?” Massha asked.
I sighed down to my bruised end. “We go with Plan A, but we’d better have Plans B and C as backups. We join the hunt tomorrow.”
“Gleep!” announced the dragon. He was the only one who seemed happy about it.
“Stirrup cup, good sir?” asked a strapping Brakespearan appearing next to my mount. He presented me with a brimming silver goblet shaped like a skull.
“Heady liquor, is it?” I asked.
“Sire?”
“Never mind.” I took the cup and drained it. “Tally ho and yoicks.” I tossed the empty back to him. He withdrew, bowing. I took a good look around.
The misty morning air was full of the smell of brimstone and rotting meat as the Master of Hounds, as he was still called, organized five dozen assorted dragons by size with the help of a dozen handlers. Gleep, one of the smallest, was at the front with a couple of wyverns and a half-grown wurm. Nunzio, holding up a meaty bone, made him sit up and beg. Even though Gleep had been a royal pain in the posterior since the day Skeeve, er, acquired him, he was kind of cute. At a distance.
Fireball started at something invisible, dancing under me. I tightened my knees, and my muscles reminded me that they’d had a hard time the day before.
“How are you doing, Aahz?” Massha floated over to me from the royal reviewing stand. She was dressed in brown and green, the royal colors of Brakespear, to match Gloriannamarjolie.
“I’m remembering why I don’t do this for fun,” I gritted.
“Attention, all of you!” We turned to face the stand. King Henryarthurjon smiled down on us. He was a big, muscular Brakespearan with fox-red hair going white at the temples and green eyes like his daughter’s. He held out his hands for silence, spreading out all four thumbs in a gesture of welcome. “We are gratified to see so many puissant hunters assembled here to participate in our daughter’s Royal Hunt!” Rousing cheers interrupted him, and he smiled paternally at Glory. Glory held her hands up over her head in a gesture of victory. Her outfit was classic camouflage: A long-sleeved dress of light-absorbing brown and green mottled fabric covered her from shoulders to knees; no velcro or zippers. Tall, soft boots that would absorb the sound of stepped-on leaves or twigs were cross-gartered on her long legs, and slung across from one shoulder to the opposite hip was a split-leather bag that appeared to be driving the dragons into a greater frenzy than they’d usually be in. I assumed it contained the bait she would use to draw her trail. A pair of gloves were tucked into her belt. “She will give you a good run, my friends. The rules are three in number: the hunt shall commence at my signal. It will continue until sunset or until a hunter captures the princess—alive, naturally. Points will be given for style, courtesy, riding, coursing, handling of one’s hound, and, of course, success. The hunter who bags the princess wins the grand prize, the finest treasure in the kingdom.” He snapped his fingers, and two pages in army-surplus tabards staggered up onto the dais carrying a solid gold box. “This is a most remarkable treasure chest, my friends and guests. Once an item has been entrusted to its depths, it will always be safe, even when it is taken out again. If a treasure is stolen, one can always retrieve it by r
eaching into the chest. As far as I know this coffer is unique throughout the dimensions. I think you will agree it is a worthy prize, what ho?”
The assembled hunters let out a collective “ ’Oooooh.” I raised an eyebrow. I was impressed. That was definitely a goodie worth having.
The king raised a finger. “However, if she manages to elude all of you, the prize will go to my daughter. A consolation award goes to the hunter who has garnered the most points. These are our five judges, and their decision is final.”
The king gestured behind him with an arm toward the others on the stand. Massha was among the five. We’d agreed that the best way for her to keep an eye on things was a bird’s-eye view, floating above with the help of her flying ring. As an official judge she could call for help from the others or from the army of forest rangers who’d be accompanying the hunt.
I looked around me at the other riders, trying to spot which one might have been the shadowy figure in the woods. Massha and I had scanned the area looking for footprints or any other identifying spoor and come up empty. Like me, the hunters were already in the saddle-ridge, so it was hard to guess which could be the right height. In riding hats, helmets, little red riding hoods, and crowns, none of the heads matched the silhouette I had half-seen. I couldn’t exactly go up to the Samiram of Porzimm and tell him to take off his turban. This snake-skinned nobleman had an entourage bigger than Elvis’s. Next to him, on a dancing charger the size of a rhinoceros, was a good-looking Whelf seven feet tall named Prince Bosheer. The magnificent pointed ears sticking out of his mop of wavy black hair weren’t as handsome as my own, since they were tan like the rest of his skin. Something about Bosheer made me look at him twice, but I couldn’t put my finger on what made me uneasy. I was definitely concerned about The Niraba, a dark-furred female with a whip-thin body whose personal attributes far outweighed the rest of her. She looked us all up and down with a speculatively sensual expression on her face. Reminded me of a former girlfriend of mine. I always made sure I was heavily armed when we went anywhere, because fights tended to break out about whom she was going home with. I recognized a Deveel called Alf—short, I now learned, for Alfibiades (you can’t sue your parents for that kind of abuse; it’s a way they get even with you in advance for the time you wreck the family chariot). He looked uneasy on his ’hippus, a beast even smaller than mine. His eyes absolutely glittered when he saw the treasure chest. Right there I knew I had my number-one suspect. Deveels were just exactly the type to tilt the playing field in their direction by scoping out the field in advance. I wished I could analyze some of the mud on his hooves.
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