The Winter Prince (The Lion Hunters:01)(22)

“I’m fine,” Lleu said slowly. “No, I’m not hurt. Well met, Medraut.”

“The pleasure is mine,” I answered spontaneously.

“Prince—,” Gaheris began uncertainly, and Agravain said again, “My lord—”

Their formal humility seemed to steady Lleu. “It’s all right,” he said; and paused for a moment, then added sharply, “But, Gaheris, you might act with a little more speed and assurance next time. And you, Agravain: Stop Sgrad for a m to think.” His mastery of their names was suddenly flawless.

“Yes, my lord,” Gaheris said in a low voice. Agravain said nothing. He winced as though he had been struck.

“Never mind now,” Lleu said. “Begin again.” He lowered himself off the ledge and spidered sideways until he reached more level ground. I made certain that Agravain and Gaheris gave their cousin a period of grace in which to get clear of them, their forfeit for such stupidity. Lleu ran east, toward home; we waited till the leaves quivering behind him were still, then left each other.

It was hot. After I was alone once more the afternoon was silent, the gold-gilt air heavy and humming with insects. I too rode eastward, but this time without any real aim. I let the horse pick its own way along the sandstone screes. The rowan was ripening in handfuls of flaming orange, and early blackberries were beginning to cluster among the white flowers. In the shade of dark holly leaves I came upon the stone trough of the Holy Well and stopped to drink and dash spring water over my face and hair. Then, as I stood and let the cold run down my back, on the hillside below I caught the unmistakable flash of tall red flank and broad spreading antler. Stillness and drowsiness fell away, and I turned with all my being to the hunt, and a quarry equal to my pursuit.

Plunging heedless through briar and sharp, rattling holly, I set my horse racing down the hillside after the stag. It could not shake me; I had done so little all day that the horse was still fresh. Low on the Edge, where the underbrush goes from scrub trees to dense fern, I began to close in. Then, unexpectedly, the stag veered to avoid a slight, dark figure that appeared without warning ahead of it. Now, of all moments, Lleu crossed my path: he stumbled to his feet from the ferns where he had thrown himself to avoid being trampled by the stag pursued, then crashed back down on one knee as I followed hard upon the stag. And this time he would have been crushed but for my own desperate and lightning drag on the reins, which nearly threw me as the horse abruptly turned from the track and stopped short.

Blind anger coursed through me for a moment. We were both suddenly frustrated—I had lost my prey, Lleu had his path blocked. He knelt frozen on one knee, ragged, unaccountably barefoot, filthy and torn; I sat my dancing, snorting horse with bow in hand. Lleu’s eyes had the mute and desperate look of a hunted creature in flight. Of course: I remembered the game. And so I shaped my vengeance for the loss of a deer, and for Lleu’s wooden sword held at my throat. I said hoarsely, “You’re quarry still?”

He nodded, speechless.

“Then I’ve lost none,” I said, and let fly an arrow to tear through a dangling shred of his sleeve. It caught there, and hung.

He stared at it in astonishment, then reached one hand to pull it free and put the other hand down to push himself upright. And straight I set another arrow quivering in the ground in the inch of space between his fingers and his bare foot.

This was an even better challenge than the stag, and more dangerous. I concentrated my entire being on my hands, aware that I must strike with perfect and absolute precision.

“Don’t move,” I said.

Lleu did not move. He crouched there, almost under the hooves of my horse, and I sent another arrow skimming over his hair. Wild-eyed, he cried in a whisper, “If you should miss!”

“I don’t!” I cried back at him, and shot another arrow past his head that went so close the f So custletching grazed his ear. “I never miss!”

“Stop shooting at me!” Lleu screamed. He watched me fit another arrow to my bow and sobbed, “You’re wasting arrows!”

I shot into the arch his forefinger and thumb made where they rested against the ground. “It’s worth it,” I said fervently, and pulled another arrow from my quiver. Still and white as a statue of alabaster, Lleu hissed wordlessly at me through clenched teeth, like a cat.

It made me drop the arrow with a shout of laughter. “Hunter turns quarry,” I gasped, unable to stop laughing, “man turns beast. Get up, you idiot.”