Finally, everyone collected near the forest: Knights, squires, hounds, and gully dwarves. The crowds pushed along, trying to get a glimpse, wishing to be near when the hounds were loosed. All the while the mist continued to lift until, as though Paladine himself, gone now from Krynn but not forgotten, gave his divine approval to the proceedings, the sun broke free from the mist and bathed the field in scarlet and gold light. The colors of the tents and banners and flags leaped out from the mist, seeming to burn it away like a bad dream.
The Knights began to talk excitedly of hunts remembered and forgotten, hounds yelped and barked, horses stomped and blew in their eagerness to run, filling the air with military noises and smells of cavalry. Gunthar smiled hugely, seeing his Knights and the Knights of Takhisis forgetting their differences in their excitement about the day.
Gunthar rose in the stirrups and gestured to a nearby squire. "Release the hounds!" he shouted. The squire lifted a silver trumpet to his lips and blew a long wild quavering air. The pack erupted with howls and boiled into the forest. Uhoh, clinging to Garr's leash, was dragged, laughing hysterically, into the underbrush by the massive hound. He soon vanished in the gloom. The crowd roared with delight.
Next, knights and squires put spurs to their mounts and leaped in pursuit. Lord Tohr's black warhorse led the charge down the main road to Gavin, while others veered onto smaller trails along the way. Soon, most of the Knights were out of sight, strung out along miles of dark winding forest paths, while all around them in the impenetrable wood they heard hounds yelping and barking uncertainly as they searched for a scent of the boar. They quickly left behind all but the sturdiest of the gully dwarves, most of whom were only too glad to return to the fair.
Within a hundred yards of entering the forest, Trevalyn Kesper was bounced from his saddle and landed with a thud in the middle of the road. This was not unexpected, as the Thorn Knights were mages and not used to the rigors of the saddle. His horse continued along its merry way, apparently intending to continue the hunt despite the loss of his rider. He rose and stalked back to the castle.
As the morning progressed, the hunt spread farther and wider throughout the forest. Lord Gunthar found himself alone, having lost his squire at the crossing of a thinly iced stream. Soon he came upon Uhoh trotting back down the trail, a bit of broken leash still in his fist. A nest of leaves and twigs stuck out from his rat-skin cap. "Hello, Papa!" the gully dwarf grinned with dirt-caked teeth. "This some hunt!"
As if in answer, a horn blew wildly somewhere to their left. "There he is!" Gunthar exclaimed. He stopped his mount and allowed Uhoh to clamber up behind him. They heard hounds baying and howling, the sound dwindling in the distance. With Uhoh finally settled in, Gunthar touched spurs to Traveler's sides and charged off down the forest path. The trail was well known to him, for he'd rode it many a time, even at night, so Gunthar was not afraid to allow Traveler his full head. The forest raced by in a blur of speed, wind whistling in their ears.
After a while, Gunthar reined in his mount to listen. Uhoh clung tightly to his waist, almost squeezing the breath from the old man. As they stood on the trail beneath a huge elm tree, Uhoh pointed off to their right. At first Gunthar didn't hear, but then perhaps the hounds drew closer, for he caught, at the edge of hearing, a squire's horn blowing.
"Aha!" he growled.
He was about to give Traveler a spur when Uhoh tugged at his elbow. "No, Papa! No, Papa!" he shouted. "Listen."
Now behind them, another horn was blowing. Then another to their right, and then ahead. All around them hounds bayed, hot on a trail, some moving away, one toward them, one across their path.
"Some mischief is afoot, my boy," Gunthar said to Uhoh. "There can't be this many boars in the forest today."
"Mischief, Papa. Very bad mischief," Uhoh agreed as he renewed his grip on his master.
Gunthar struggled to breathe. Somehow, the forest seemed close and hot, the air too thin, or perhaps it was Uhoh's vicelike hold around his belly. He felt the blood pounding in the veins of his neck, flushing his cheeks. Beads of sweat appeared on his brow.
"Uhoh, loosen up a bit, my boy," he gasped. "Let me catch my breath."
Struggling to breathe, Gunthar urged Traveler ahead, but the horse only took a few hesitant steps. The air seemed to grow thinner by the moment. Gunthar heard Uhoh gasping frantically behind him. It was as though all the air of the forest was being sucked up, devoured, even from their lungs. The sounds of the horns and hounds dwindled and faded, until all they could hear was their own wheezing.
Then they heard it-a woofing and chugging sound, like a gnomish engine broken loose and running berserk through the forest. Twigs cracked and branches snapped, the ground thudded as something hugely dark and menacing bulled through the forest immediately to the left of the path. Gunthar felt it more than he saw it, like a great shadow of evil moving at the edge of sight. A hot fetid air carried a smell wholly wild and untamed to his nostrils. This was a smell he remembered; it rose up, ghostlike, from his childhood memories. He'd smelled it the day his grandfather was slain.
Uhoh whimpered and buried his face in Gunthar's back, while Traveler pranced and whinnied hysterically. Gunthar fought to control his mount, while at the same time fighting to control his own terror. He hadn't really expected to see Mannjaeger this day. The hunt was just an exercise of knightly skills, with the possibility of getting meat for the table. Even to Gunthar, who'd seen his own grandfather slain by the beast, Mannjaeger had always seemed the stuff of legends, a dark figure prowling through the nightmares of his childhood.
The monster passed them by without even turning its head to look at them. It was like some boulder, freed from a mountain side and rolling along, oblivious, elemental, almost ethereal. When it had gone out of sight, Gunthar found his voice, as did Uhoh.
"Hell's bells," the elderly Knight swore.
Uhoh cried, "Oh, bad mischief. Very bad mischief two times!"
Gunthar tightened his grip on his spear and urged his mount down the trail. The forest seemed to close in around them, sending questing roots into the path to trip Gunthar's horse and dangling branches to slap his eye. Before long, their progress brought them back within the spell of thin air surrounding the beast. They heard it chuffing through the undergrowth ahead of them, and the air grew charged with tension and fear, as though they had caught up to a slow moving thunderstorm. It was all Gunthar could do to keep Traveler forging ahead; trained warhorse that he was, he balked at every breaking twig.
The trail turned suddenly and unexpectedly, in a way unfamiliar to Gunthar's experience. He wondered if he hadn't taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way. In any case, he now noticed in the distance ahead an arch of golden light marking the end of the trail. Traveler stepped up when he saw it and began to trot. Gunthar tried to rein him back, but to no avail; the horse seemed desperate to reach the light. Gunthar swore and shouted, tugged and tore at the reins, but Traveler galloped onward, tossing his mane and snorting.
Suddenly, a loop of leafy vine seemed to materialize before them. It hung over the path as perfectly as a trap intentionally set. Traveler easily ducked his head under it, but Gunthar, atop the saddle and encased as he was in stiff armor, could not bend so low. Desperately, he tried to fend off the vine with the shaft of his spear, but his aim was awry from the palsy in his hands. The vine looped under his arm. Gunthar dropped the reins and grabbed the saddle horn, hoping to hold himself in the saddle. The vine stretched taught, creaked, branches snapped overhead, but the great dappled war horse plunged against its pull. It was more than the old man could take. His fingers slipped from the sweaty leather horn. The vine catapulted him from the saddle.