The herd was easy to find. Once her message was delivered, Lyssia was free to find a quiet spot on the trees to wait. take her position in the trees. She slid her bow out of its holder and laid it across her lap as she closed her eyes and inhaled the clean scent of the forest.

She liked these moments best. When she had just Arvid and the birds as company.

Her mind battled against the wrongness of what her father had said. Elken hunts were not meant to be rushed.

They were meant to be a journey. It took time to reach the mountains and effort to track down the herd. Three days at the minimum. The hunt was hard work, a rite of passage, a celebration.

It is a tradition, she thought, even as a tiny voice in the back of her mind wondered if what she truly wished for wasn’t adherence to tradition but proximity to the mountains.

Aturnel, in the east he dwells.

It was probably for the best that she did not indulge those wishes.

A flash of bright red drew her attention off to the right. She turned in that direction, whistling a few notes and searching for a pattern of red wings or red fur.

She looked down, reaching for her archery gloves, and when she glanced back up again she found herself face to face with a fanged monster.

“Ahhh!”

“Ahhh!” Azerian echoed and burst into laughter.

“Azerian,” Lyssia hissed. As soon as she found the breath to yell…

He was already off, his horse sprinting through the trees in the direction of the herd. “The other hunters are ready! You’re at the end of the line! One of the Dunival riders is positioned on your right.”

“Thank you,” Lyssia said, too slow for him to hear, and imagined his smirk.

The drumbeat found her a few minutes later, and she heard the call of the hunting horn and the far-off sound of a voice raised in song. She couldn’t make out the words, but the tune soothed the last restless rustling in her heart. At least some traditions were not so easily shaken.

There was a moment of hush as the forest held its breath. Lyssia felt it like a shift in her vision, for one moment everything was right in her world.

She heard the thunder of hooves as the herd took flight. Lyssia pointed Arvid in that direction, but she kept him from advancing. Her eyes searched the shadows for a flash of gold and brown fur flying past, a graceful hoof kicking the ground, a set of horns reaching for the treetops.

“One to me!”

“Two has fallen!”

Arvid was impatient to be off, but Lyssia knew there had to be one or two Elken that veered off from the main herd. It was her job to catch a straggler this time around. She could be patient.

The signal came when she saw another horse ride past in pursuit of a spotted female. Arvid surged forward with the slightest bit of pressure from her heels. She pulled behind the first rider, following the path he set as she searched for her own quarry.

“Three down!”

A young male, blinded to her presence by its need to escape, blundered past her. She veered off to the left and plucked an arrow out of its satchel. The Elke wasn’t running a straight path. He kept veering back toward the rest of the hunt, running a zigzag pattern that made it difficult to get a sight on him.

But she didn’t want to be led back into the main hunt, and she knew the number had been sent low at six. Better to end this quickly.

“Four to me!”

One. Two. Her arrows sang as they flew through the air, landing with a sickening thunk in the Elke's hindquarters and side. Arvid came to a halt on his own seeing the creature felled, and Lyssia jumped down from the saddle, knife in hand.

“Shhhhh,” Lyssia whispered as she approached the Elke. She lowered herself into a crouch. He struggled to gain his feet as she placed a hand on its neck.

She inhaled sharply as she angled her knife and thrust it into the hollow under its throat that Seaka had taught her about. It would ensure a cleaner, quicker death for the Elke than having its throat slashed open. It was done in an instant.

Lyssia stood and yanked her knife free, retreating quickly so she would not have to watch the life-blood drain from her victory.

“Five is down!”

“Six!”

The final cry rang out as a horse wearing an empty saddle broke into the space between Lyssia and her horse. Arvid gave a warning cry as it passed too close to him, and the strange horse reared up onto its hind legs, its front hooves flashing dangerously close to Lyssia’s head.

She skipped back a step and dropped to the ground, her boot coming to rest against the Elke’s body. The riderless horse stomped the ground and reared again before taking off.

Lyssia rushed straight to Arvid’s side without taking note of where it went. What concerned her more was the direction it had come from.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

She hadn’t recognized the horse. It wasn’t Sikurd, and it didn’t belong to her father or Azerian. She remembered him saying that she was positioned beside one of Magnor’s men. Could the horse be his, and if so, what had happened to the man?

“Dunival!” Lyssia shouted as she set out in search of the man who had lost his horse. “Dunival down! Where are you? Dunival!”

She came upon a figure hunched on the ground all of a sudden.

Her gaze swept the area, searching for a horse. There was none, and the man’s attire revealed him to be part of the group from Dunival.

“Hello! Are you alright? I saw a horse without a rider, and I thought that...”

The man turned to the side, and Lyssia saw what was on the ground before him.

A scream caught in her throat.

A bloody Elke’s carcass rested on the ground with its legs up but bent at odd angles like they had been broken. A long gash had been torn out of its belly, and blood and...other things...were strewn all around it. Lyssia turned away before she could see any more.

Steeling herself against the sight, she started to turn around to face him again. A blood-slickened hand grabbed her wrist.

“Hey! What are you…? Get off me! Stop! No!”

Lyssia fought against the man’s grip, kicking back at his legs until he let go. Falling to her knees, she crawled away a distance before turning back to face her attacker.

The Dunival man made no move to follow her. Blood was dripping down the man’s front, from his forehead to his knees. His hands were caked in blood and gore. He had ripped his mask off. It hung behind his head by one end of its leather strap, and the eyes that stared back at her were black and wild.

As Lyssia watched, he crouched and reached for the ground, rubbing his hands along the ground. It was a curious movement. If Lyssia knew any better, she would have thought he was trying to wipe the blood away.

“Dun...Dun...Dunival?” Lyssia’s breath hitched, and the man’s gaze shot up again, locking on her.

rewn all around it. Lyssia turned away before she could see any more.

“What happened? Did you...did...did…?”

The man didn’t respond. All Lyssia could hear was his labored breathing.

He opened his mouth as though baring a set of fangs and growled at her. The scream that Lyssia had been holding in clawed its way free of her throat as he rushed toward her.

“Hey!” A tall figure jumped in front of her. Lyssia climbed to her feet and ran to hide behind Arvid, still screaming. He rocked nervously from side to side, but he would not bolt. His training would not allow him to leave her behind.

Glancing over his bent head, Lyssia watched Magnor advance on the man. “Standa! Standa!”

The man’s features were twisted with rage. He looked almost inhumane with his teeth bared and his black eyes devoid of recognition. This was his Kongr standing before him. Surely, if he had any reason left, he would not attack his sovereign.

“Magnor, no! Don’t! He’s---!”

“Be quiet, Lyssia! Standa! An-rivic!

The man-beast growled again. Lyssia couldn’t help but think of him as such when he crouched down on all fours and reached out with his bent fingers. Lyssia’s eyes flashed to his fingers, checking for claws.

Magnor grabbed hold of his arm and drove him to the ground. They wrestled that way for a long moment. Lyssia clamped a hand over her mouth as her scream broke into a fit of tears.

More men raced toward them. Magnor’s men converged on their crazed countrymen, taking hold of him and pulling him away as Magnor directed them. “Take him away! Get him under control! Place him in the kennels!”

Roakev pulled Lyssia away from Arvid, yanking her hand off her mouth and searching her for injuries. “What happened? Where are you hurt? Who hurt you?”

“No one. I’m...I’m fine. Magnor...and the...he...”

“You’re bleeding.” He ran his hand up and down her wrist, trying to find the source of the blood. “Is this…? This isn’t your blood, is it? You’re okay?”

“But how? Why? No! I...I can’t...”

Lyssia tried to move past him to look for Magnor. She was fine, but was he?

“Lyssia…” He took hold of her arms and shook her gently, drawing her gaze back to him. “What happened?”

Lyssia tried to gain control of her voice. Her eyes latched onto the even rise and fall of Roakev’s chest. She tried to duplicate his breaths, waiting until she felt her heartbeat begin to slow before she answered him.

“I found a...a horse and I thought…no rider, so I...I found...and there was blood...and the Elke and…”

“Okay. So there was a horse with a rider, and a man, and an Elke, and blood...Did a man fall?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was the blood his?”

“I don’t know. I don’t...think so. I…I don’t know.”

“Okay. It’s okay.” Roakev pulled her into his chest. “Here. Stand up.”

He helped her to her feet and drew his cloak around her shoulders. Lyssia counted the seconds as he held her. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight...

He pushed her away, back toward her horse. “I’m going to go find out what happened. Wait here.”

Lyssia nodded, watching him stomp off after Magnor’s men, who had thrown the man covered in blood onto one of their steads and were preparing to carry him off back to the stead.

Magnor wasn’t with them. Lyssia clutched the edge of Roakev’s cloak, rubbing the edge between her fingers, and searched the clearing for the Dunival Kongr. He was standing beside the Elke that had been ripped apart. He held the reins to his horse in hand, but he didn’t make any move to draw himself into the saddle.

“Magnor?”

He looked up at her approach and stepped to the side, blocking her view of the Elke. “Don’t look. Trust me.”

“Magnor, what just happened?”

“He has it.”

“It?”

“The...fatigue.”

“Is that what Seaka called it?”

“She didn’t know what to call it. It messes with the mind. Makes you confused. He felt warm. Like he had a fever. He wasn’t sure where he was. I think he fell off his horse, got scared...It wasn’t his fault. I’ve been pushing them too hard.”

“The blood…”

“It wasn’t his. I don’t know where it came from.”

“Maybe he fell...he fell on the Elke after he…shot it.” Her eyes searched the ground for an arrow. “And his horse…”

“Got spooked and almost ran you down? Is that true?”

“Yes. You yelled at him.”

“Yeah, well, he had blood on him and you were...I didn’t know...I threw him down. I hope I didn’t hurt him.” Magnor glanced down at the Elke one more time and then reached out a tentative hand and took hold of Lyssia’s arm, drawing her away.

“Let’s go.”

“Go?”

“Yes, go. Away from here. Anywhere...anywhere but here. Somewhere...without..”

Lyssia took in the haunted look in his eyes and the tremor in his voice, and she stood up straighter, placing her hand over his. “I know a quiet place. Come with me.”