The Great Hunt (Eurona Duology, #1)(23)

Paxton shook his head, trying not to smile. “She’s probably as cold as the far seas.”

“Don’t speak that way of my future wife,” Tiern said.

Beside them, a group of older men in fur-lined vests and dark trousers were passing. They had beards of differing lengths, and hair of dark blond past their shoulders, some balding on top.

“Only in your dreams, little boy,” one of the men said to Tiern, making the others laugh. The man was squat and wide, like a hairy boulder. “You probably wouldn’t even know what to do with a lass like that.” More raucous laughter.

Tiern’s joking demeanor shed, and his spine straightened. Paxton stepped closer to his brother, making his loyalties known. When their eyes raked over him, their laughter quieted a fraction, but the man who’d spoken only smirked. With a jerk of the man’s head, the foreign hunters walked away, talking loudly once again.

“Ascomannians,” Paxton murmured of the coldlands natives. “Best not to engage them when they provoke.”

“Aye,” Tiern agreed. Paxton could see the tremble of anger in his brother’s chest. “That big one is called Volgan. I’ve deemed him Volgan the vulgar.”

Paxton chuckled. “You’ll earn their respect in time, Brother.”

Tiern gave a stiff nod.

In the meantime, Paxton would have to remember not to put his brother in any more headlocks or do anything to undermine his right to be there hunting.

Paxton was there to kill the great beast, not brawl with big-headed men who thought to pick on his brother. Although he’d been known to do the latter plenty of times.

Two Lochlan men approached then, one obviously a peasant with his threadbare tunic and mess of brown curls, the other dressed sharply in thick trousers with a military-short haircut.

“I’m Samuel Gullet of Loch Neck,” said the peasant. They shook hands, Paxton and Tiern introducing themselves in turn.

“Lieutenant Harrison Gillfin,” the other man said.

“Gillfin?” asked Tiern. “As in, related to Captain Breckon Gillfin?”

A shadow passed over the young man’s face. “Aye. The very one.”

Tiern swallowed and glanced at Paxton to save him.

“We’re sorry for your loss,” Paxton said.

Samuel clapped the lieutenant on the shoulder. “He’s become something of a legend, your cousin. The way he took on the beast single-handedly.”

Harrison nodded, grim.

At that moment royal soldiers came into the commons area, carrying oversized rolled papers. Maps of Lochlanach. Hunters flocked around the tables as soldiers pointed out marked areas where the beast had been spotted, places where people had been killed, and lands where the beast’s paw prints had been found. It didn’t take long before voices were raised, tension spanning like bands between the bodies as men shouted out the areas they wished to claim.

“Here!” Paxton had worked his way to the front and laid a solid finger on the strip of Oyster Bay where the beast had been spotted most. “We should all stake these miles right here. Every one of us. Our numbers can overpower it.”

The thick Ascomannian who’d arsed with Tiern earlier let out a sharp laugh. “All of us, you say? But what if the beast shows here?” Volgan stabbed a stubby finger at a northern waterway on the map. “Or here?” Now he poked a southern route.

“You’re called Volgan, correct?” Paxton asked the man, trying to keep calm.

The bearded man from the coldlands puffed out his wide chest and stomach, like a preening bird. “Aye, I am. And I say we break into groups and each scout different areas of the kingdom.” A few of his men grunted behind him in support. “What say you?” he shouted to the masses.

Most everyone nodded their agreement.

“Volgan,” Paxton said, “if you insist on spreading out in smaller groups, I suggest that each group takes a few of the Lochlan hunters—”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Volgan bellowed. “To have your hands in each slice of the pie and take all the glory!”

Fool. Paxton bit back his irritation. “We know these waterways and the lands, the best places to lie in wait—”

“We don’t need your help! Men of the coldlands can read a map and hunt better than any in Eurona. You offend every man here by assuming otherwise.” He waved a hand over the crowd as if Paxton had purposely disrespected the lot of them. “If you waterlands men are so valuable, then why haven’t you killed the beast before now, eh? You had to call upon us to help, so leave off and let us work!”

Anger boiled within Paxton, his fists tingling for rough contact.

In Paxton’s stewing silence, Tiern spoke up. “There was a curfew instated.”

“There was a curfew. . . .” Volgan mocked him in a high voice, and the Ascomannian men laughed. Bright red spots bloomed on Tiern’s cheeks.

The young soldier Harrison, spoke up. “Some of us here have lost loved ones to this beast already. This is not about glory for us but the safety of our lands and people.”

“So you say,” Volgan muttered, scowling.

Harrison glowered back at him. “My own cousin battled the beast and lost his life. I am here to avenge him.”

“And bed the princess, no doubt.” Volgan’s mirth was cut short when Harrison swiftly moved forward with his blade and sliced off the tip of the coldlander’s beard. Volgan watched it flutter to the ground in shock.