Ectorius gave a shout. Pelleas hailed the creature with an exclamation of delight. The hounds, seeing their quarry near, howled with renewed vigour. Ruddlyn raised the horn to his lips and sounded a long rising note.
The stag swung his head around, lifted his legs, and leaped away, floating up the slope as lightly as the shadow of a cloud. The hounds, ears flat to their heads, dashed after the wonderful beast, their master right behind.
We gallopped straight up the slope. Upon gaining the crest, I discovered it to be but a shoulder of a higher hill, the upper portions of which were still mist-wrapped and obscure. The stag turned and began running easily along this wide, grassy shoulder, which itself rose as it climbed to meet the ridge to the west.
As I wheeled my mount to follow the others, I saw a movement at the forest's edge below. I glanced back to the lowlands we had just quitted. Two figures on horseback and a dog had cleared the trees and were driving up the slope for all they were worth. I had no need to look a second time; I knew them for Arthur and Cai, a single hound between them. I paused to allow them to join us.
'He is ours!' cried Arthur when he caught me up.
'We saw him first!' Cai informed me. 'We have been on the scent since fording the river.'
Both boys glared at me as if I had conspired to steal their manhood. The dog circled us, yapping, impatient, the scent of the stag rich and heavy in his nostrils.
'Peace, brothers,' I told them. 'No doubt you crossed his scent some way back. But it appears we have sighted him before you.'
'Unfair!' hollered Cai. 'He is ours!'
'As to that,' I told him, 'the prize belongs to the man who makes the kill. And that prize is making good his escape while we stand here flapping our tongues at one another.'
'Truly!' cried Arthur, whirling in the saddle to view the track ahead. His eyes followed the shoulder of the slope, then travelled up the scree-strewn rise on the right. 'This way!' he shouted, lashing his horse to speed once more.
Cai threw a menacing glance at me and bounded after Arthur. 'Wrong way!' I called after them, but they were already beyond hearing. I watched them for a moment and then set about catching Pelleas and Ectorius.
I found them a short while later in a sheltered upland cove filled with gorse and briar. I could not see Ruddlyn, although I could hear the dogs baying close by. 'The beast has vanished,' declared Ectorius as I reined in. 'Took my eyes from him for a blink and he is gone.'
'The hounds will raise the scent again,' Pelleas offered. 'He cannot have gone far.'
'Na, we cannot have lost him,' Ectorius said. 'We will have the kill.'
'Not if Arthur and Cai have their way,' I replied.
'How so?' Ectorius wondered in surprise.
'I met them on the trail back there. They have been tracking the stag as well. They claim they saw him first.'
Ectorius laughed and shook his head. 'God love them, the whole forest to hunt and they strike upon our beast. Well, they will have to kill it if they hope to claim it.'
'That is what I told them,' I replied.
'Where have they gone?' asked Pelleas, looking behind me.
'Arthur led them up the slope to higher ground.'
'It is all rocks and brambles,' Ectorius pointed out. 'There is no cover at all up there. The rascals should know better.'
Ruddlyn returned to us on the run, his broad face sweaty. He had leashed the dogs once more and they pulled at the close-held traces. 'Stag was not in there,' he puffed, indicating the gorse-filled hollow behind, 'though he has been. There is scent everywhere, we could get no clear mark.'
'He must have jumped off the track at the bend,' said Ectorius.
'Oh, aye, could be that,' agreed the huntsman. 'A canny creature, he is. We must backtrack as we can go no farther from here.'
We rode back along the trail, keeping the dogs on a short leash until they could raise a fresh scent. And at the place Ectorius suggested, we crossed the stag's path once more. The dogs began howling and strained to the trail; it was all Ruddlyn could do to keep them from scrambling up the sheer sides of the hill.
'Is this the way Arthur and Cai went?' asked Ectorius.
'Yes,' I told him, 'but I met them back there a little, where it is not so steep.'
'That makes three canny creatures,' observed Pelleas.
'It seems we will have to follow the lads,' replied Ectorius. 'God knows we cannot climb this. We will but break our bones in trying.'
'Show us the place,' Ruddlyn called, already retreating down the shoulder trail. I wheeled my horse and rode to the spot where I had last seen Arthur and Cai.
'They started the climb here!' I called and, turning my mount off the trail, began the ascent. It was hard riding to gain the top, and once up the way did not become easier. It was, as Ectorius had said, all rock and briar thickets. The sheer stone cliffs of the ridge loomed above, and loose scree lay all around, making riding difficult. I dismounted and waited for the others.
'We will have to go on foot from here,' Ectorius observed, swinging down from the saddle. 'We dare not risk the horses.'
'Which way did they go?' wondered Pelleas. He scanned the high crags above us, all black and shining slick with the mist that seeped and spread around them. There was no sign of the boys.
Just then, one of the dogs gave voice and started jerking on its lead, haunches straining, head low over the track. 'This way!' shouted Ruddlyn. With a sharp whistle, he gathered the hounds before him and they trotted away once more.
We each snatched two spears from behind our saddles and hurried away. The ground was indeed rough with rock, the rubble made slippery by the mist and rain. I tucked the spears under my arm and jogged along as quickly as possible over the treacherous terrain.
The hounds led us into a narrow defile leading between two humps of stone like misshapen pillars. This passage opened onto a narrow gorge that rose at its end to meet the ridge above. I glanced towards the far end of the gorge and saw, galloping up the scree-covered slope, Cai and Arthur-the stag in full flight just ahead. Even as I watched, the stag cleared the crest and disappeared from view over the top.
Ectorius and Ruddlyn saw them in the same instant. Ectorius shouted for the boys to wait for us, but they were too far away and could not hear him. 'The young fools will kill themselves!' shouted Ectorius. 'And the horses, too!'
There was nothing to be done but press on as quickly as possible, and that we did.
The slope at the end of the gorge was much steeper than it appeared from a distance. Climbing it on foot was difficult enough. I do not know how Arthur and Cai managed it on horseback.
The ridge formed a natural causeway between the steep rock slopes falling away on either hand, running east to west. In the lowlands behind us, the forest appeared a dark, rumpled pelt with Caer Edyn rising a little above it some distance away.
The mist was heavier here, the clouds more dense. Water formed on my brow and ran down the sides of my neck. Despite the chill air of the heights, I was sweating and my clothes were wet; only my feet were dry.
The hounds led us east along the ridgeway, and we followed – our pace slower now as fatigue began to gnaw at us. Even Ruddlyn's ground-eating strides became slower, though he pushed on relentlessly.
The ridgeway snaked along – as uneven and perilous a killing field as I have seen. We ran. The track lifted slightly beneath our feet and ahead loomed a bare granite mound, lifting like a shattered head, blocking the ridgeway. To the right rose a cracked and fissured curtain of stone; to the left, a sheer plunge to a broken ledge below. Directly ahead were Arthur and Cai and the stag.
This is what I saw:
Arthur sits tense in the saddle, head down, shoulders square, spine rigid. The spear is gripped in his right hand. Well I know the strength of that grip! Cai is beside him a few paces away, spear levelled. Both are staring at the stag, breathing hard.