The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 1388: Cornered

Erling, Reynold, and Wes rode south along the creek trail with the sounds of the hunt growing louder ahead of them. The sounds of the horns had changed in the last few minutes. The blasts of sound were shorter and more urgent, overlapping in a way that suggested the pursuit was closing in on its quarry rather than chasing it across open ground.

"It’s slowing down," Reynold said, cocking his head to listen as his cracked spear rested across his shoulder. "Do you think they took the horns away from the brats? Or have the other hunters caught up to it?"

"Sorcha doesn’t like it when I gamble," Wes said lightly as he returned his sword to its scabbard. "But if I did, I’d put my money on the others catching up. I don’t see Riwall and the others giving up their horns. The hounds are louder too," he said as he listened. "Sounds like they’re all bunching up ahead."

"The hollow," Erling said. The terrain ahead narrowed where the creek bed pinched between steep, rocky slopes choked with deadfall. It was exactly the kind of dead end that a tired, wounded animal would be channeled into without realizing it was a trap until the walls closed in.

"That ear is going to cost the beast," Reynold said, glancing at Erling. "A nick like that won’t slow it down, but the blood draws the hounds like nothing else. They can smell it now, and they’ll press harder because of it." He paused, his gray eyes weighing something. "Lord Owain won’t thank you for that."

"I didn’t shoot to make it easier to track," Erling said helplessly. The entire hunt would have been easier if someone had blooded the elk in the beginning, but Owain would never allow something like that to taint his hunt.

Now that Erling had wounded the beast, no matter how trivial the injury was or why he’d done it, the eventual defeat of the beast would be tainted in Owain’s eyes.

"I know," Reynold said. "But that won’t matter when Sir Franc tells the story."

Reynold’s tone was closer to friendly advice than any he’d used with the young baron before, sounding almost like he was speaking to his own younger brother.

Reynold came from the southernmost edge of the frontier; he had no time for the political games played by the knights and lords of the Lothian Court. But Sir Franc’s Kermeen Village lay to the northeast of Lothian City, where no demon had raided for more than fifty years... He had plenty of time to master the games played by men who sharpened their tongues like knives and traded favors like gold sovereigns.

Sir Garrik Maeril wasn’t the only knight who hoped to rise in the coming Holy War, after all, and if Sir Franc could use this incident to push the ’weakest’ baron down, he was unlikely to miss the opportunity.

Wes, riding on Erling’s other side, said nothing, but the smile faded from his lips, and his brow lowered as the exultation of driving off the elk faded. Erling had shown too much at the rapids. From his skill with his demon horn bow to the way he assumed command, even his ability to read the terrain and anticipate the movements of their prey, all of it eroded the camouflage he’d spent years building.

The people who witnessed it would talk. The story would spread, and stories had a way of reaching ears that couldn’t be predicted or controlled. Erling himself might be capable of weathering the storm that would follow those tales, but Fayle Barony was another matter. It was still isolated and impoverished. He still only had six knights to follow his banner instead of the ten that most barons commanded.

Most of all, he still couldn’t afford to make enemies of people who had the power to further erode what little prosperity Erling Fayle’s barony had managed to hold on to in the years since his father’s death.

Valeri Leufroy, in particular, hadn’t been subtle about luring away the most talented and capable men who had once called Fayle Barony home, and now Tulori Leufroy had witnessed just how capable Erling could be if he had command of capable subordinates. If Erling had any plans to leverage the coming Holy War to recruit capable men from across the sea, those plans had likely become much more difficult now that he’d exposed himself.

"It doesn’t matter," Erling said, and meant it. An arrow couldn’t be recalled once it had left the bow, and there was no use in regretting the choices he’d made. There would be consequences for what he’d done, but so long as he’d protected the lives of his companions, he was willing to bear them all. "The elk turned south. Everyone here is safe and unharmed. That’s what matters."

"You’re too generous with your own glory," Reynold said, but he didn’t press the point further. Erling had been a ruling baron for years now, and even though his appearance made it easy to forget that, the quiet confidence he radiated made it clear that the young lord had accepted whatever was coming his way.

After several minutes of riding at a pace that was slow enough for the horse carrying both Tulori and Serge to keep up, the trail ahead of them bent sharply around an outcrop of mossy rock, and the sounds of the hunt crashed over them like a wave.

More than a dozen hounds were baying loudly, and several men were shouting.

"...mind your leashes!"

"... the horses back!"

"...block off that gully!"

Through the trees ahead, Erling caught glimpses of movement. Dozens of horses and their riders had gathered, along with huntsmen, hounds, and even servants rushed about, tending to the needs of the noblemen as they arrived.

And beyond them, in the narrow hollow where the creek bed pinched to almost nothing between walls of rock and deadfall, the imperial bull elk stood at bay, cornered by hounds and facing the final moments of its life.

The hollow was a natural amphitheater, a bowl of mossy rock and old-growth timber where the steep slopes of the drainage closed in on three sides and a tangle of fallen trees choked the exits. The creek itself had narrowed to a trickle here, threading between boulders that were green with moss and dark with moisture, and the ground was soft and churned where the elk’s hooves had torn the earth in its final, desperate search for an escape that wasn’t there.

The elk stood with its back to a wall of rock, its flanks heaving as its breath formed clouds of steam in the cold winter air. It shook its head fiercely, waving its rack of antlers back and forth like a sweep of deadly spears, all moving in perfect unison to keep the hounds away.

Blood from its nicked ear had dried in a thin line down the left side of its jaw, and fresh scratches from the relay hounds scored its flanks and shoulders, but the animal’s eyes were still bright with fury rather than fear.

It was magnificent and powerful... and it was doomed. Erling suspected it knew both, but it refused to go down without a fight.

The hounds formed a ragged semicircle around the elk, baying and lunging but never committing to a charge. They’d learned their lesson the hard way. One of the dogs lay in the underbrush to the left of the hollow, whimpering, its ribs scored by a sweep of antlers that had flung it five paces through the air. One of the handlers cradled the wounded hound with tear-filled eyes as he inspected the wounds.

But for all the chaos of the hollow, where men and horses jostled, and hounds barked and snapped at the elk, there was one person who seemed completely unaffected by the clamor of the moment.

Owain stood at the edge of the hollow, perhaps thirty paces from the elk, and he had already dismounted. His longsword hung at his hip in its scabbard of dark red leather, and his hands rested on the pommel, already covered in heavy leather fighting gauntlets.

He wasn’t pacing. He wasn’t fidgeting. He was watching the elk with the focused stillness of a man who had already decided how this ended and was waiting for the world to arrange itself to his satisfaction.

Sir Gilander worked beside him, directing the hound handlers to beat the dogs back with staffs to clear the space between Owain and the elk. The professional huntsmen moved with practiced efficiency, dragging the most aggressive hounds away by their collars and leading them back to the edge of the hollow where their baying could still be heard but no longer interfered.

Sir Franc knelt nearby, giving Owain a report that likely contained his version of events at the rapids. Whether Owain was pleased by what he heard or not was impossible to say, but he nodded occasionally in acknowledgement of whatever his vassal had chosen to say.

Whatever it was, Erling would deal with it when the time came. For now, his attention was focused on Lord Owain and the imperial bull elk. Owain appeared confident, and his eyes were sharp and focused on his prey, like a wolf preparing to move in for the kill.

But in these final moments, when the elk was cornered and facing a deadly foe, anything could happen, and victory was never assured. Unconsciously, Erling’s hands drifted back to his bow, checking the tension of his string one last time...

Bors Lothian had once asked him to be ready to stop a boar from fleeing the hunt if something went wrong. This time, just as before, Erling didn’t think anything would go wrong... but he still readied a broadhead.

Just in case.