Anne Bishop - The Pillars of the World

Royce came into view, reining in hard enough to set his horse on its haunches. He studied the cottage for a long moment before dismounting and striding toward the front door.

“No lights,” the small man said, now standing beside Neall. “No smoke rising from the hearth. No reason for anyone to think she’s home.”

That was what worried him. He’d seen no flicker of a candle or lamp since he’d arrived, and he’d seen no sign of Ari. But she must know she couldn’t thwart the fancy that way. And where else could she be?

The small man said, “If she keeps the door bolted—”

“Love magic doesn’t work that way,” Neall snapped. “If she tries to defy it, it will turn against her.”

“A convenient spell, that,” the small man said with deadly softness.

They heard Royce pounding on the front door, watched him circle round the cottage and pound the kitchen door. His curses reached them clearly.

But no light flickered at any of the windows, no shutter moved to indicate someone might be peering out.

“You bitch! ” Royce shouted. He threw his weight against the door again and again until the lock broke and the door swung inward. ”You’ll give me what I came for, one way or another.“

Royce tried to take a step forward, and ended up taking a step back. He tried several times, but couldn’t cross the threshold. “ Bitch !” He spun around, and every line of his body shouted his intention to vent his rage on something.

Give him a different target , Neall thought, rising from the crouch and glancing at the still-dark cottage. You can survive a beating . As he started to step away from the tree, the small man gripped his wrist, holding him back.

“Can’t you feel it?” the small man whispered harshly, pulling Neall down to a crouch again.

“Feel wh—”

Magic rippled across the land. A moment after that, a howl filled the air.

“Mother’s mercy,” Neall whispered.

“Best to stay down and stay quiet, young Lord,” the small man said. “The Wild Hunt rides through Brightwood.”

Neall shivered. He saw Royce freeze, then run to the front of the cottage where he had left his horse. He had one glimpse of Royce whipping the horse into a flat-out gallop before horse and rider vanished from his line of sight.

Twisting around, he stared at his gelding, which hadn’t stirred at all.

“Sleeping dust,” the small man said softly. “He’ll sleep a bit longer. Perhaps long enough,” he added under his breath.

The pack of shadow hounds burst from the woods that bordered the back of the meadow, racing silently toward the road.

Neall’s breath caught, suspended by fear and awe. The hounds looked like phantoms shifting across the meadow rather than living creatures. As they streaked past his hiding place, he didn’t dare move. The traveling minstrels and storytellers had plenty of tales about men who had been invited to participate in the Wild Hunt—as the prey. True, all the men in those tales were scoundrels whose own misdeeds made the Hunt a deserved justice. But it was one thing to listen to those tales while sitting safely by the hearth; it was quite another to be out in the open with the hounds racing by.

It was the small man digging his fingers into Neall’s wrist that made him glance away from the hounds in time to see the Huntress and her pale mare canter into the meadow.

When she was abreast of his hiding place, she reined in the mare. She studied Ari’s cottage with its broken kitchen door for a long time. Then she turned her head and seemed to look straight at him.

The small man’s grip on his wrist grew painful. The Huntress’s stare was compelling enough to be painful in another way.

She’s ice , Neil thought. A man would be a fool to put his life in her hands .

One of the shadow hounds returned, as if wondering why its mistress no longer followed the pack.

She looked at the hound, hesitated . . . and moved on.

When she could no longer easily see him, Neall dared to turn his head toward the road. The pack was gathered there, sniffing the tracks. Some of them were staring in the direction of Ridgeley—the direction Royce had taken.

The Huntress paused there too, then crossed the road. She urged the mare into a canter and headed toward old Ahern’s farm, the hounds flowing on either side of her.

“You’d best be gone before she comes back this way,” the small man said, finally releasing Neall’s wrist.

“What makes you think she’ll be back?” Neall asked as he straightened up slowly.

“She’ll be back.”

Neall walked over to Darcy, placed a hand on the gelding’s neck. Startled awake, the animal jerked away from his hand, then turned its head toward him, as if needing the reassurance of a familiar smell and touch.

“You’d best ride, young Lord, before she begins wondering a bit too much about you,” the small man insisted.

“What’s there to wonder about?” Neall said uneasily as he untied Darcy. “And being a poor relation of Baron Felston doesn’t make me a lord.”

“Wasn’t talking about the likes of him ,” the small man said, annoyed. He studied Neall, his expression grim. “You think the Small Folk talk to every lad that comes looking for us? We watch them the same way we keep watch to make sure the rats don’t harm our young. The only difference between most humans and rats is that rats are more honest. But like will recognize like, even when the blood has thinned—and yours isn’t as thin as you pretend. That’s why the Small Folk have made themselves known to you, and that’s why the Huntress will wonder about you.”

Neall stared at the small man. “You’re mistaken.”

“Am I?” the small man asked softly. “Am I really, young Lord?” He shrugged. “As you will. But the boy you were has grown to be a man, and a lie told by a boy isn’t swallowed as easily when it’s told by a man. Remember that.”

Neall didn’t see any movement, but the small man was no longer standing there.

“Let’s get home before anything else happens,” Neall muttered to Darcy.

He kept to the woods for as long as he could, skirted the tenant farms his uncle controlled, and finally reached Felston’s manor house. As he gave Darcy a hurried grooming, he noticed Royce’s horse wasn’t in its stall yet, which probably meant his cousin had stopped at the tavern in Ridgeley. He imagined the place would be crowded tonight with the younger men who wanted a roomful of witnesses in case a girl pointed a finger in their direction. It didn’t matter if the man left early or came late. They would protect each other to keep from getting caught.

Slipping out of the stables, Neall headed for the back of the house. The kitchen door was unlatched, and there was no one sleeping by the hearth. Well, even servants weren’t excluded from the delights— and dangers—this night could hold, and he could well imagine what would happen to a young servant who had the misfortune of being the first man a gentry lady saw—especially Odella, if she was still out.

Using the servants’ stairway, Neall made it up to his room and gratefully bolted the door. Quickly undressing in the dark, he got into bed, releasing a sigh of relief.

Not that any of the gentry girls would have wanted to make an offer to him . He had no more to offer any of them than the servants. At least, nothing he was ready to acknowledge yet.

He had turned twenty-one a few weeks ago. He could own property in his own name now, without “Uncle” Felston claiming control over it as his guardian. He could leave Ridgeley and finally go back to the mistily remembered place that had been his home as a small boy. His mother’s house. His mother’s land.