Season of the Wild Hunt(Book 1 of The Seventh Gate series)

Usonái - pt 2

Aedan propelled the two women along before him. They walked a few hundred yards into the forest, then turned south across the slope until they reached a small clearing. Aedan steered them to the centre and pushed them down to the ground beside the ashes of a dead fire, then took up station behind them.

Nyani counted nineteen men as they entered the clearing, and another joined them from the trees below. She heard the soft whinnying and blowing of horses, and could smell them now, too. The women’s packs and weapons were dumped on the farthest side of the clearing from where they sat. Calculating the means and odds of escaping this situation, Nyani cast a sidelong look at Ashira. 

‘Calm down, keep your eyes open and play along; we’ll find our chance to get away,’ she signed discretely with her bound hands while ostensibly rubbing her face.

‘If these idiots don’t turn us into Usonái meat first! What are they doing here? I thought this place was supposed to be deserted, miles from anything?’

‘I don’t know. Stop. That one is looking interested.’

One of the men appeared to be watching them even more closely from within the shadows of his hood. He turned back towards the leader and murmured something to him. Donn shook his head at the man, then issued directions to the rest of his group.

“Dafydd - back to the horses. Keep sharp, there may be some sort of wild hounds about. They’re big and mean, so be careful and alert Kei if you see or hear anything at all. Anything, understood? Kei, you watch our guests. If they try to escape, shoot them.” Donn tapped the bow slung over Kei’s shoulder, then glanced up at the sky greying with the approaching dawn. “If we’re not back by noon, leave. You may decide for yourself then what to do with them. Everyone else – let’s go. We’ve lost too much time already.”

With that, Donn led the men off to the south. They moved silently, with no sound of footfalls or brushing of branches, disappearing quickly into the dark forest. Nyani hadn’t expected that – northerners had seemed to her, so far, to be like the farmers and townsfolk they had observed on their journey north. These men were different; they moved like hunters.

Kei approached and sat down on the opposite side of the ashes, crossing his long legs. He studied them in silence for a long while, then lifted his hands and drew his hood down onto his shoulders, revealing the milky-pale skin of northerners and long, straw-coloured hair tied at the back of his neck. He smiled at them.

“Well, we are stuck with one another for a time. How do you do? I am Keiran.”

To Nyani’s astonishment, Ashira smiled back at him. It seemed to be a perfectly genuine smile, too. “I am Ashira.”

Nyani spoke up, as quickly as she was able in the unfamiliar tongue. “Keiran? Please, you must hear me. That man – he say you shot hound?”

“Bearach did. It was in the trees with us, but it was a clean shot. The beast will be dead by now.”

“No! Must understand. Hound is not dead. Cannot kill with arrows. Will live again, come back to kill again, soon!” In her urgency to get her message across she fumbled for the words, but he seemed to be listening.

“What do you mean, live again? I’d wager anything Bearach’s shot was good. It must be badly crippled at the least. You needn’t worry about that one.”

“No, no please! Hounds are…wrong?” The term for ‘unnatural’ eluded her, but she tried again. “They not like real animal. They, um…evil things. Not die from arrows or lost blood. You must cut off head to kill.”