Go A-Hunting

By Thea Hayworth

Loren knows better than to listen to faerie promises. But when medicine fails and prayers go unanswered, where else is there to turn? And when their lord's heir returns after a seven-year absence, will Loren's luck change for the better...or worse?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thea Hayworth
• Release date: May 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310159718

Thea Hayworth

Thea Hayworth lives surrounded by snakes, gadgetry and reference materials. She is also incurably addicted to pen names.

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Go A-Hunting

Thea Hayworth

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Copyright 2015 by Thea Hayworth

Smashwords Edition

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He’d been ten days in the woods when he heard the faerie pipes, a high, lonely sound he’d taken at first for the cries of far-off gulls. The skirling notes rose and fell like skipping stones, piercingly sweet but feverish all the same, the simple strain repeated with manic intensity. It caught at him, reached into his ears and hooked him, a pull so familiar it was more akin to homesickness than he’d like. The jingle of his horse’s bridle joined the music as it tossed its head restlessly, its inky mane licking at Wymond’s hands.

So, you hear it too? he asked, but the black horse only stamped, tucking its chin to its breast with a low, grumbling sigh.

Lifting his head he held his breath, straining to catch the faint notes woven through the hissing of the wind. When the breeze died down, he could hear the rumble of the tide coming in, its battering echoes rolling up the hills to crash against the trees. The forest drank sound like thirsty sand, branches thick and muffling, but when Wymond turned his horse’s head to the north, he was sure he heard the tune of the pipes grow louder.

That way, then, he muttered, touching his heels to his horse’s sides. The beast sprang away from the light prod, its hooves drumming dully against the turf as it broke into an effortless canter, weaving in and out of the young trees that grew close and thick on the hills above the ocean.

Wymond would have urged more speed, but pride more than common sense held him back. To go galloping heedlessly through the trees was to prove himself as pixie-led as the worst fool, the more so if he found nothing at the end of his chase but more trees. To show a little caution cost him nothing. If the fae wanted him, they’d take him whether he hurried or no.

The piping did seem to fade the longer Wymond followed it, and it disappeared altogether as he urged his horse down a gentle slope, the trees opening up a little to bring a wash of good, honest sunlight to the dappled shade of the woods. The stallion’s ears flicked back at him as his hands tensed on the reins, but before he could send it bolting forward in a gallop, the delicate piping was replaced by a great barking and belling of hounds. Like the sound of the pipes, the voices of the hounds were compelling, unnaturally musical despite the din, and Wymond’s heart caught for a moment to hear their cries. The sound seemed to be rooted in one spot, growing louder as Wymond approached, and the cheerful timbre of their barking pricked him to a gallop after all.

Plunging back into the trees, the black horse leapt deadfalls and dodged a sinuous path through birch and ash, flinging bits of turf from its hooves. Wymond held his breath again, expecting at any moment for the excited barking to stop, wanting to pray but holding his tongue. If he found the hounds, he might find the huntsman. If he could find the hounds at all.

A clot of heavy brush obscured the way before him, a close-knit tangle of thorn through which he could see only the silvery dart of low, lean shapes beyond. Steeling himself to find nothing or to see the pack disappear before his eyes, he almost trampled the first hound before it twisted aside with a growling yelp, snapping reflexively at his horse’s legs.

At the foot of a sturdy elm milled a pack of faerie hounds, long-legged and sleek as snakes, red ears bright as flame against their snowy coats. Circling the tree with single-minded purpose, the dogs bayed and leaped at the trunk, tongues lolling, tails wagging. They sounded more like the family hounds greeting their master home than an experienced hunting pack, and a foolish watcher might have thought they had mischief, not murder, in mind.

He hoped the young man clinging to the trunk in the lowest branches wasn’t a fool. If the lad didn’t mind his feet, the dogs would drag him down in a trice.

Ha! he yelled, driving his horse into the middle of the pack and breaking their circle into knots of confusion. Be off with you!

The dogs snapped and snarled, but when he spurred his horse toward them in feints, they scattered with only a few backwards glances, strange merriment in their ruby eyes. One dove right between his mount’s hooves, and the black aimed a kick at its retreating form that would have staved in its ribs if the blow had landed. The music of the pack lifted again as they bounded into the trees, a hint of laughter too wild for simple malice threaded through the ecstatic barking. Before Wymond could decide whether to turn in chase of them or let them be, the hounds had faded into the forest, leaving only a snatch of song behind.

The rustle of leaves brought his head back around, and he looked up into the branches to see the lad he’d saved sitting sideways on a stout limb, embracing the trunk with one arm and staring down at him with unabashed gratitude. Though the boy was past old enough to be working a trade, there was something disarming in his smile that made him seem younger. He looked a proper pagan in his patched shirt and ragged pants, shoeless, with twigs in the bright nest of his hair and a sparkle of good cheer in eyes the color