The Great Hunt (Eurona Duology, #1)(29)

The four wealthy men began to talk among themselves, but Harrison hushed them.

Hours passed and Paxton carefully shifted as temperatures dropped. His damned arse was asleep, and his feet were cold. Tiern took his lead and shifted himself, too. The brothers leaned more heavily on each other, garnering body heat.

Where was the beast? It’d been hours. He hoped his body could quickly adjust to the change of schedule. He’d be staying up during the nights until the beast was dead.

Or until he was.

At one point Paxton felt Tiern drift to the side and heard his light snoring. Paxton elbowed him none too gently and Tiern grunted awake.

More time passed with no sign of the beast. When that first slice of soft light buttered the horizon, Paxton’s gut sank with disappointment. The men stood, stretching their stiff limbs with groans and rubbing their faces. The two lads jumped nimbly down from the trees and cracked their necks.

“That was bloody brutal,” Tiern grumbled. A few men chuckled. The wealthy men looked miserable with their wrinkled trousers and muddied boots.

They trudged back to the royal lands, tension hanging in the air between them. Paxton peered around at the woods, not trusting their surroundings. Day or not, the beast could be hiding, watching, waiting. It’d never attacked during daylight, but Paxton didn’t count anything out at this point.

“Keep watch for tracks or skat,” Paxton said. All the men combed the ground with their eyes as they hiked, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

They picked up their pace as spires from the distant castle came into view. Paxton knew they were all as anxious as he was to find out what, if anything, had happened with the other groups of hunters. They entered royal lands through the heavily guarded south gates behind a line of traders with carts of goods, stating their names and homelands to the guards each and every time they went in or out.

As they headed up the cobbled path toward the castle and market, it quickly became apparent that something was wrong. Ahead, Paxton could see the shining heads of Torestan men with their packs stuffed full, rushing down the path as fast as they could go. Their faces were scrunched with alarm, eyes narrower than usual. As Paxton and the other Lochlan men neared, Paxton gently grabbed one lad by the shoulder to stop him.

“Why are you leaving? What’s happened?”

The lad’s eyes were wild. “It kill many! We shoot with arrow, but no work. We try dagger, but the beast—” He stopped, struggling for words, curling his fingers to show them, like claws. “Too strong. Too big. To fight is no use. No man can kill. We must go.”

Paxton could hardly make out the strongly accented rambling, but his insides tightened as the young man’s words became clear.

Samuel stepped up. “Was there any weakness shown by the beast? Anything you can tell us?”

He shook his head fast, waving his arms side to side. “No. No use. It never die. Never. We go home.” Wrenching himself from Paxton’s grasp, the man ran from the Lochlan hunters to catch up to the other Torestan men, fleeing back to their mountain homes. There go a fifth of the hunters, Paxton thought darkly.

“It must have a weakness,” Samuel mumbled, shaking his head of matted curls. “Nobody’s discovered it yet, but every living thing can be destroyed somehow.”

Paxton nodded. He caught sight of Tiern’s pale face as he watched the Torestan hunters hurrying away.

“Come,” Paxton said. “Let’s fill our stomachs and talk with the other men, then we’ll rest. Later we can scout the lands to try and find where the beast keeps during daylight.”

Tiern, appearing young and forlorn with his shoulders slumped, dragged himself down the path behind Paxton.

Raised voices issued from hunters inside the west commons as they approached. Paxton readied himself for the tense scene ahead—hungry, tired, proud, and alarmed was not a good combination.

The thirteen of them pushed their way into the large group surrounding one long table. Hunters from Zorfina with their loose clothing and head scarves came in behind the Lochlans, the last group to arrive. They began questioning what had happened. Voices lifted, everyone attempting to speak at once.

Castle guards had entered the west commons and spread out, eyeing their harried groups with caution. More guards lined themselves across the balcony.

“Enough!” Paxton shouted.

Lord Lief Alvi jumped on the table, muddied boots and all, causing all eighty men to shut up when he bellowed, “Quiet!”

Lief was most definitely the only Ascomannian Paxton could stomach.

“Here is what we know!” Lief began. “Four Torestan hunters were killed by the beast in the night, and one is in critical condition. They were posted farthest north of royal lands in a spot where, until now, the beast had never been spotted. I think it’s safe to say we cannot predict where the beast will show. Nor should we underestimate it. Every account says that arrows cannot break its natural armor. Its brute strength can fling away any man who attempts to wrestle it. We need to overpower it with sheer numbers. Wear it down and overwhelm it with a nonstop onslaught.”

Paxton felt half his mouth lift in a grin as Lief unknowingly voiced the idea Paxton had raised to the men the prior day. He ignored the glare Volgan shot him.

“What say you?” Lief asked.

The vast majority nodded their heads.

“Very well,” the blond lord said. He hopped down and bent over the map. “Men of Lochlanach, if you’d be so kind as to point us to the areas where our numbers could be best concealed.”