The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 1384: Meeting At The Rapids

Reynolds’ plan wasn’t ambitious. Ambitious was too tame of a word for what the young lord hoped to accomplish. Perhaps Tulori could calculate the sum that it would require to build a stone fortress faster than the Horse Lord’s demons could tear it down, but Erling knew the amount wouldn’t be small.

Before he could comment on it, however, his ears caught the faintest of high-pitched cries, drifting on the wind but coming closer.

"Hold," Erling said, holding up his hand in a fist to call for silence as he strained his ears, closing his eyes to better focus on the distant sounds.

-hhhhheeeeeetttt!-

The bugle of the elk was unmistakable, even with the sound of rushing water from the rapids and the noise from winter winds whipping through the tree tops overhead. Most damning of all, dozens of birds took wing on the opposite side of the creek, putting distance between themselves and the baying hounds that were in hot pursuit of the fleeing elk.

"Be ready," Erling said, checking the string on his bow one last time. The tension was good, even in the damp winter air. The young baron exhaled slowly, momentarily enveloped by the fog of his own breath as he cleared his mind of distractions.

Right now, the only thing that mattered was the imperial elk, which was rapidly drawing closer. Reynold’s ambitions, his revelations about the Horse Lord’s herds, even tomorrow’s coronation or Owain’s reaction to whatever happened here... None of that mattered.

There were five people here, and somehow, the smallest among them found himself in command of an attempt to stop the elk from escaping the hunt. Two of his companions were capable warriors, even if one of them had largely retired from fighting. The other two were little more than boys despite the fact that they’d come of age years ago.

Two comrades in arms, two charges he had to protect.

-HHHHEEEETTTT!-

Closer now.

Erling opened his eyes, sweeping his gaze across the forest on the far side of the rapids, searching for the first sign of movement within the trees.

It didn’t take long to spot it. Squirrels raced up tree trunks, then dashed along branches to make way for the undisputed emperor of the forest. The sounds of snapping branches, baying hounds, and the muffled sound of horns blowing followed just a few heartbeats later.

"Whoever is chasing is exhausted," Reynold said, shaking his head at the feeble sound of the horn blowing. "Or they’ve never used a horn before," he added as a thought occurred to him, settling into his stomach like a heavy stone.

"We’ll know soon enough," Erling said, keeping his focus on the tree line on the opposite bank of Coldwater Creek.

The sounds of the hounds were louder now, along with scattered shouts from the men chasing the elk.

"...eek is ahead! Get ready, it may turn!"

"... stay back, my Lord! Stay behind us!"

"... to the left, cut it off!"

A few heartbeats later, the moment Erling had been waiting for finally arrived as the elk burst from the underbrush. Its sides were heaving with exertion, and steam poured from its nostrils as it swung its head from left to right, briefly surveying the shore before rushing down the steep bank and plunging into the frothy, churning water of the rapids.

A curtain of water rose around the elk as its massive bulk entered the creek, but the creature barely slowed down as it began to cross the swiftly moving stream, quickly reaching a point that it was chest deep in the water, and Erling could no longer tell if it was swimming or walking across the rapids.

The hounds appeared next, their lean bodies lathered in sweat as they scampered down the muddy bank toward the water’s edge. Three of the relay hounds followed the elk into the water and immediately found themselves in trouble.

The point where the creek had barely reached the elk’s belly was chest-deep on the lean, long-legged dogs, and the current that the bull elk shrugged off like a mild annoyance was enough to sweep the hounds sideways, tumbling them against boulders and dragging them downstream. Their baying turned to yelping as they scrambled for the bank, abandoning the chase to save themselves from the frigid water.

The elk had known exactly what it was doing. The rapids weren’t just a crossing point. They were a weapon, and the bull had used them to shed its pursuers as cleanly as a snake shedding its skin.

"Clever, aren’t you?" Erling muttered in praise as he watched the elk making its way across the rapids. "But then, you wouldn’t have lived this long if you weren’t, would you?" he said, finding it almost sad that such a majestic beast would die for no purpose other than Owain’s vanity.

Behind the hounds, perhaps forty paces downstream and losing ground with every heartbeat, came the pursuit on horseback.

Erling had expected huntsmen and hound handlers. What he saw instead made his stomach clench. The three squires, Riwall, Juhel, and Breok, were riding hard along the creek bank on horses that were lathered with sweat and blowing hard, their young faces flushed with exertion and something that hovered between excitement and fear.

Flanking them on either side, the knights who had been assigned to escort them were riding with the desperate urgency of men who were trying to do two things at once and failing at both.

"Damn fools," Reynold muttered when he saw the squires outpacing the knights who were supposed to be escorting them. The squires were smaller, lighter, and faster on their horses because of it, and it was all their guardians could do just to keep them from doing something profoundly stupid.

One of the squires, Riwall, raised a horn to his lips and let out a pathetic blast of sound that might have startled a housecat but certainly wouldn’t have intimidated the mighty elk. Still, he blew into his horn with great enthusiasm until his horse faltered on the uneven terrain of the creek’s bank.

"Cut south!" Erling shouted, rising in his stirrups and pointing downstream past the rapids to where the creek bed widened and the banks grew shallow enough for horses to cross safely.

"Cross below the rapids and drive south from the far bank!" Erling roared, desperate to be heard above the crash of the rapids and the barking of the hounds. "Don’t try to follow it through the boulders!"

The knights hesitated. Most of them considered their first duty to be the protection of the squires who were the sons or grandsons of the barons they served. Anything involving the hunt came second to their first duty, no matter what the young lords they accompanied thought about it.

If the orders had come from Sir Gilander, the Master of the Hunt, or from Sir Franc Kermeen, the sole member of Owain’s household who accompanied the large group of squires, knights, and hunters, they would have obeyed without question.

Orders from the youthful-looking archer across the river, however, were another matter entirely.

"It’s getting away!" Riwall shouted, urging his horse forward. "We have to get after it!"

"You heard the Baron’s orders!" Reynold roared from his position on the game trail, his voice carrying the kind of battlefield authority that turned hesitation into obedience through a combination of tremendous volume and sheer force of will. "Now obey them!"