Thus, to the Kilkry and Lannis Bloods, and to the Bloods of the Black Road in the farther north, there is a night late in the year that stands, more than any other, for the passage of time. On that night the world passes into cold and darkness to await its reawakening in the following spring. It is a night of mourning, but it is a celebration also, for in the slumbering of the world that is winter lies the promise of light and life’s return.
A horn sounded clear and sharp across the blue autumnal sky. The baying of hounds wound itself around the note like ivy on a tree. Orisian nan Lannis-Haig turned his head this way and that, trying to fix the source of the summons. His cousin Naradin was ahead of him.
‘That way,’ Naradin said, twisting in his saddle and pointing east. ‘They have something.’
‘Some distance away,’ Orisian said.
Naradin’s horse was stirring beneath him, stepping sideways and stretching its neck. It knew what the sound meant. It was bred to the hunt, and the horn pulled at it. Naradin jabbed the butt of his boar spear at the ground in frustration.
‘Where are the cursed dogs we were following?’ he demanded. ‘Those useless beasts have led us nowhere.’
‘They must have had some scent to bring us this way,’ said Rothe placidly. The elder of Orisian’s two shieldmen was the only one to have kept pace with him and his cousin over the last mile or so. The forest of Anlane was open in these parts—good hunting country—but still it was forest enough to scatter a party once the chase was on.
If the hounds had stayed on a single course it would have been different, Orisian reflected. Instead, the pack had divided. It was only bad luck that he and Naradin had followed the wrong dogs. Orisian could not summon up much regret. He knew his cousin would feel otherwise, though. As of four days ago Naradin was a father, and tradition said he must put meat killed with his own hand on the table on the occasion of the baby’s first Winterbirth. For a farmer or herder that might mean killing one of his stock. For Naradin, heir to the Thane of the Lannis-Haig Blood, something more was called for.
‘Well, let’s answer the call,’ Naradin said, tightening his horse’s reins. ‘They might keep the quarry for me, if we can get there quickly.’
Orisian started to turn his mount, struggling to couch the huge spear he had been given for the hunt. The Lannis boar spear was a weapon for a grown man, and though he was sixteen he did not yet quite have the strength to handle it as deftly as did Rothe or his cousin.
‘A moment,’ said Rothe.
Naradin glanced at the ageing warrior with something approaching irritation. ‘We must be off,’ he insisted.
‘I thought I heard something, sire,’ the shieldman said.
The Bloodheir did not look inclined to pay any heed, but before he could reply there came the distinct cry of a hound from the south. It was a cry of sighting, not scenting.
‘It’s closer than the others,’ Orisian observed.
Naradin looked at him for a moment or two, wrestling to control his horse. Then he gave a quick nod and dug his heels into the beast’s flank. Orisian and Rothe went after him.
The turf flowed beneath them. The fallen leaves clothing the ground shivered and shook. Birds burst from the treetops: crows, a raucous clamber into the sky. Orisian trusted his horse to find its own way through the maze of trees. It was a hunter, trained in the stables of his uncle, the Thane, and it knew more than he did of this kind of business. Over the crashing of their progress he could hear the hounds up ahead, not just one now but several.
They found the dogs at a thicket of hazel and holly. The animals were gathered where the undergrowth was thickest, jostling and snapping in feverish excitement. They bounded this way and that, lunging sometimes towards the bushes without ever venturing too close. Naradin gave a cry of delight.
‘They have something, for certain,’ he shouted.
‘Sound your horn,’ Rothe called to him. ‘We need more spears.’
‘They’ll have answered the other call. We can’t wait or we might lose it.’
Rothe scratched at his dark beard and shot a glare at Orisian, who in his turn felt a twist of unease. Naradin’s enthusiasm could get the better of his judgement at times. Boars did not come small or meek in Anlane.
‘You hold here,’ Naradin said. ‘Give me a couple of minutes to work around and then set the dogs in. And if something comes out this side, don’t kill it. It’s mine today!’
He urged his horse onward without waiting for an answer.
The boar came through the dogs like a hawk flashing through a flock of pigeons. It scattered them, some leaping high and twisting from its path, others darting aside. The beast was huge, its forequarters great grinding slabs of muscle, its tusks yellow-white blades the length of a man’s hand. It ploughed after one of the hounds as the others snatched at its haunches.
Naradin spun his horse. ‘Mine!’ he cried.
The point of his spear swung towards the boar as it shook itself free of dogs and came towards him. It was an old, forest-wise creature and turned at the last minute, going for the horse’s belly. The spear blade skidded off its shoulder, slicing through hide to bone. Naradin’s mount sprang over the boar’s head. It almost made the leap. A tusk brushed its leg and it reeled on the soft ground. It kept its feet, but Naradin was snapped forwards. He lost his left stirrup and was thrown around the horse’s neck. He hauled on the reins, the strength of his arms the only thing keeping him from falling. His weight twisted the horse’s head around and it began to stagger sideways. It would go to ground in a moment. The boar closed again. The dogs were coming, furious and bloodthirsty, but too late.
Orisian and Rothe were side by side as they charged in. It was impossible to say which of their spears struck home first, Orisian’s on the beast’s hip, Rothe’s parting its ribs. The impact jarred the spear out of Orisian’s inexpert grasp. Rothe was better prepared. His lance knocked the boar on to its side and he put his own and his horse’s weight behind it. For a few breaths he held it there, grimacing with exertion as the haft of the spear bucked in his hands.
Naradin had slipped out of his saddle. He drew a long knife from his belt.
‘Quickly,’ Rothe said through gritted teeth.
The Bloodheir did not hesitate. The boar reached for him. Its great, desperate jaws almost had his arm as he drove the knife into its barrel chest. He sought, and found, its heart.
Afterwards, as they sat on the ground beside the huge corpse with the hounds dancing around them, Naradin laughed. Orisian could see the joy in his cousin’s eyes, and it made him laugh as well.
‘That’s one to remember,’ Naradin said. ‘See its tusks. That’s an old master, that one. A lord of the forest.’
‘I thought we were in trouble for a moment,’ said Orisian.
‘I would have been, if you two had not been here.’ Naradin drank from his waterskin, then spilled a little on his hands to wash the boar’s blood from them. He offered the skin to Orisian. The water was cold and sharp, drawn from a forest stream only an hour or two ago. It had all the chilled clarity of the autumn day in it.
‘Luck rode with us all today,’ said Rothe. Orisian knew his shieldman well enough—they had been together for six years—to hear the words Rothe did not speak. The warrior would not presume to tell the Bloodheir what he thought of taking on an old boar with too few dogs and only three spears.
‘We should call the others,’ Orisian said. ‘They’ll want to see this.’
‘In a moment, in a moment,’ Naradin said as he got to his feet. The dogs milled about him. He went over to the boar and knelt. He laid a hand, in near-reverence, upon its flank. Something took his eye then.