Foxhunt Read online

  With a hshh, the blue light walls went down. The Wasp had her arm around the Ocelot, who was at least on her feet as she was helped out of the room. Please let them have some kind of med bay.

  Orfeus wrapped her hands together for some kind of comfort and closed her eyes. Did the Order of the Vengeful Wild throw their rejects out into the sky for the vultures when they failed?

  A hand heavy on her shoulder. Orfeus opened her eyes and frowned at the Wolf. Faol lifted her hand back. “Do you need healing?” she said, stiff and stilted.

  Orfeus stared at her, and then waved down at her side. Her shirt was in tatters, and she’d find time to be embarrassed about that later. “Obviously!” Not that she’d get it anytime soon.

  The Wolf sighed. “Can you stand, and walk?” she said. “Before those are seen to.”

  This seemed an unfair level of torture, even for them. Orfeus turned it slowly over in her mind, trying to make sense of it. “What for?” Orfeus said, and squinted up at the ceiling. “Do you have a gallows? A gangplank. I feel like you’d have a gangplank.”

  A shifting, a tug at all her wounds as Faol fitted a burly arm under her shoulders, helping her up. Once she realised what the Wolf was about, Orfeus put some effort into standing as well. She wasn’t going to be hauled around by this creature.

  “You need to see Luga,” Faolan said almost patiently. Orfeus could feel her voice as a rumble. “And you must choose a name.”

  “Oh,” Orfeus said. After a moment, she tossed back her head and laughed, and kept laughing. “You people. Are. A mess.”

  Faol shifted her head, acknowledging without agreeing. She took a step forward. Orfeus took the step forward with her, vaguely.

  She told her, “If I’d known it just took stabbing one of you, I would’ve done that the first night with my pruning knife.” Orfeus made stabbing motions in the air. “You would’ve been pruned, Faolan.”

  Someone laughed: Boarhound, walking ahead of them. Faol’s nostrils flared. “Come on,” was all she said. Boarhound jogged ahead.

  Orfeus leaned heavily on Faolan, the same way she’d lean on a sword that was stabbing her if it was the only thing that kept her upright. Dormarch came back with a jug of something. Orfeus drained half of it before realising with slight surprise it was just water. “Thank you,” she said. Dormarch nodded.

  With the water, some sense came back. She’d been talking most unwisely to Faolan just now. Orfeus had just been admitted into the mercenary cult that as far as she could tell comprised Faol’s whole identity, and then threatened to stab her.

  She didn’t regret it for a moment, she just knew it wasn’t wise. Orfeus breathed in, then out, and staggered away. She could walk on her own, just. Faol dropped her arm and let the space between them stand.

  Strange to stride side by side like they were allies. Orfeus glanced at Faol and nearly flinched. Through the mask, Faol’s brown eyes burned hot as coals as they dug into her, fixed on Orfeus like a nail through a moth. Orfeus let out a breath.

  “I’m getting the feeling you’re displeased.” She could manage understatement just this once. “Your odd idea of honour probably means I’m not going to wake up with your claws in my back, yes?” she said. She shrugged her shoulders restlessly, the itch between them that was becoming familiar. “I mean, again.”

  Enough corridor passed that she began to fear she’d misread the situation. “Right?” Orfeus said in sudden concern. “If you want to kill me, propose single combat. I rather like having at least one foe I know will fight me fair and square instead of sneaking up behind me.”

  Faol shook her head short and sharp. She stopped in front of the entrance. “I was only thinking that was the first good thing I’ve seen you do,” she said.

  “Oh.” What to say, thank you, how dare you? Maybe learn from Faol’s example, and say nothing.

  They entered the broad open room from which Luga held court. The Boarhound stood in one corner, leaning against a wall with ver thick arms crossed instead of sitting sprawled with a tankard, and a few others stood quiet in corners: not Wasp or Ocelot, but the Otter and the Shark and the Hyena, silent, like they were witnessing something. Hopefully not her execution.

  She would join their number soon, join those silent ranks. What snarling beast should she choose to hide her face behind?

  Luga sat unchanging, his face smeared with black, fingertips withering, atop his metal throne, like the prince of the underworld, ringed with red-eared hounds. “Enter then,” he called. His voice wasn’t pitched loud, but it carried. Orfeus nodded in appreciation of good projection.

  She stepped forward, clasping her hands in front of her, lowering her head respectfully.

  “You have passed the Trial of Fangs,” Luga said. His voice had a ritualistic tone, rolling, intoning. His eyes mostly looked bored. There didn’t seem to be many hunters here, but then, no doubt they died young. He added, “Good teamwork, but your combat needs improvement.”

  Orfeus blinked up at him. “Why, thank you, sir,” she said. “I must say that teamwork is not normally what people praise me for.”

  “Kneel,” Luga said. Not much patience for chatter, then.

  Orfeus hesitated a moment, then knelt. The motion made her side tear and ache; it wasn’t bleeding but she was missing a whole chunk of her, what a strange thought. She put a hand over her side and her mind hazed briefly with pain, then resettled. She could handle kneeling.

  “You may stay here in this place and in any place of ours for as long as you are one of ours,” Luga said. He shifted, slowly, deliberately, and took the crown of twining black antlers that hung on his chair, and settled it on his head. He seemed to sit up a little straighter afterwards, but perhaps it was the illusion of height. “You may take shelter with anyone, and the wise will shelter you. The wise will fear you. You are the fangs and teeth of justice. I will send you where you are needed, and you will bring your prey down or die in the attempt.”

  Orfeus knelt quietly. There were times to talk and times not to.

  Luga leaned back. He rubbed his fingertips restlessly together. “What is your name, hunter?”

  Orfeus glanced around, feeling the weight of the question. Who would she be, indeed. The singer, the coward, the runner, the trickster. The hider and burner and fleer of fate.

  There were plenty of opportunities, plenty of names to take, predators she hadn’t yet seen in these halls. She could be the Serpent, the Spider. But Orfeus knew what she was: a clever wanderer, sly and quick, a hunter who’d been hunted. If she was to be remade, let her be remade as something with teeth.

  “I’m the Fox,” Orfeus said.

  A smile touched his pale lips, and Orfeus was truly startled. He had seemed like Faol, carved and unsmiling, but this man was a human man after all, or mostly. He leaned back, resting his chin on his hand. “You are,” he said.

  Orfeus felt a shiver, all down her spine. She didn’t like kneeling. All at once, she did not like any plans that were behind those green hunter’s eyes.

  Luga stirred, and glanced across at the Boarhound. “You will be armoured and fed here,” he said. Orfeus frowned, but kept her lips clamped tight together and did not say, you’re welcome for the addition to your stables however much it sounded like he was talking of a beast. “The best technology our far eyes can find, and whatever suits your style in the hunt. Claws and fangs for you, Fox. Armour. With the symbol of our Order, you can speak to your fellow hunters in the field.”

  Dormarch started and then rummaged in ver clothing, producing something that gleamed and glinted in ver hand. Ve walked to Orfeus, a slow roll of a walk, leisurely, and held it out: an earring, hooked like a tooth.

  Orfeus touched her ear, her own earring. Then she dropped her hand. “No,” she said.

  The Boarhound blinked and smiled, looking sleepily amused. Everyone else was silent, still, stiff. Luga sat very still at this direct contradiction of his power. She hadn’t meant it as that, but bit back any quick covering babble
, either. She looked up and met his eyes calmly, because no. She would not lose the simple little daisy earring. Not that too.

  Was this it, the moment he’d show his fangs?

  “Fine,” Luga said at last and flicked his hand with its blackened fingers. “But you’ll need to stick closer to your partner than usual.”

  Orfeus cocked her head. “Partner?” she said. Hyena and Shark seemed to be a unit that worked together, and the Wolf meanwhile had hunted alone.

  Luga looked over her shoulders. “As you’re less skilled in combat than many of our new recruits,” he said, “I shall pair you with our best.”

  A low growl, barely audible, like a shaking in the ground. Orfeus grinned in dismay. So the Wolf would not be free of her yet.

  “Be grateful for this chance, cub,” Luga said, and even though his eyes were not on her Orfeus felt another shiver at the ice in his tone.

  Who was this man, that she should fear his opinion and wish to please him to avoid his wrath? Orfeus would bow her head whenever it helped her, but she was her own, her actions her own, beholden to no one.

  Lately, she had done a piss poor job of it.

  “I am, sire,” she said, and glanced up: he seemed surprised but not displeased.

  Luga leaned forward. Eyes gleaming. Crowned all in antlers and sharp. “Welcome then, Fox, to the Vengeful Wild.”

  After a moment he said, sounding puzzled, “Rise.”

  Orfeus blinked and stood, and her pain swept over her screaming and blinding, pulsing in her head bright as a nova, and she slumped to the floor unconscious.

  Orfeus woke up on a flat firm bed, someone half-familiar looming over her. She blinked her eyes shut against the pain of the light, reconfigured the world in her mind, and opened her eyes again. “Hello, Owl.”

  They smiled down at her vaguely. The Owl looked different without their mask, but not as different as all that. They had scrubby brown hair in loose curls, and were dressed in long brown robes like a monk, not a healer. But this was definitely a med bay of a sort, no other bed was ever this specific sort of uncomfortable. “Fox,” the Owl said.

  Orfeus’s lips twitched in an unwilling grin. There was something to that: to being acknowledged. A lot of old stories spoke about the brotherhood of battle.

  She still had her breeches, but her shirt was off. Orfeus rolled her eyes around and relaxed when she saw it draped on a stool beside her, though in enough pieces she doubted she could salvage it. Still, perhaps she could use the fabric for something. Orfeus tried to sit up enough to get a look at her side.

  “Lie down,” the Owl scolded. Orfeus lay back down quickly. Wise. Pain surged and swelled, rolled back. She shouldn’t be feeling this calm; they must have given her something.

  “I lasted ten minutes into my Trial, which was rather better,” the Owl said, chattily, as they turned and lifted up an instrument from a tray, considered it, and set it aside for a different one. “But I just hid for the first seven. The fight-all-comers approach never works out well except for the real brawlers, and they manage maybe five minutes, six.”

  Orfeus lay there thoughtfully as the Owl bent to apply soft gauze to her side. She twisted it in her mind, looking from different angles: it felt like she was floating above the blue-walled arena, looking down. “So you’re meant to lose?” she said.

  The Owl hummed. They straightened and squirted some antiseptic on their hands, rubbing them together briskly, and a clean, stinging scent rose up. “Mm, not exactly,” they said. “Some fights can’t be won, that’s all.”

  Orfeus closed her eyes. “They can if there’s eight of you.”

  The Owl clapped their hands together and said approvingly, “Yes, exactly! We fight best together.”

  That wasn’t really what she’d gotten out of it. But Orfeus lay quiet. These people were dangerous, and talking too much had already won her so many enemies and lost her far too many friends.

  Cool, clinical hands dabbed something stinging against her cuts. Orfeus attempted to eyeball her torso without moving her head, which didn’t go well. She could just about make out long red welts. The Starfish’s whips had left their mark. At least it didn’t look to have broken the skin.

  “You can come in each morning for me to do this, when I’m not on assignment,” the Owl said. They seemed chatty. “Or I can give you the cream, and you can get your partner to do it for you or do it yourself.”

  “Do it myself,” Orfeus said very firmly. She reconciled herself to the notion by the fact that this way, none of them could judge her for using a mirror. If they did, maybe she could just stab them anyway? The etiquette was unclear.

  “Ha, I thought so. As long as you do it daily. Those whips can make odd scars.” The Owl washed their hands. “I also gave you an antivenom while you were unconscious, I hope that’s alright.”

  ““I’ll forgive you for saving my life just this once,” Orfeus said. She wished she could sit up: exhaustion had seeped deep in her bones, but she wanted to be up, moving, doing something, running ahead of her thoughts. “Shockingly enough, after being beaten to a pulp by all of you, I don’t take such minor violations as personally as I might.”

  The Owl leaned against the cabinet and cleared their throat. “Speaking of which, sorry about the darts,” they said.

  “Mm?” So they were that shadowy figure, throwing the darts which hit her back. “I didn’t really notice.”

  The Owl drew out an excessively long needle and primed it. “For the pain?” they suggested.

  Orfeus eyed it. “I have remedies,” she said, not mentioning that she wouldn’t be stupid enough to chew down on willow bark when she had this many open wounds. She could handle pain, and she could heal it: her mind was the master here, not her body.

  A shadow loomed, a prickle in her back. Orfeus rolled her eyes towards the door as Faolan shouldered through it. “Push your body too far and it’ll fail you,” she said. “This, I know.”

  “Thank you, because of course I asked,” Orfeus said.

  Faolan looked at the Owl, exchanging some communication perhaps, but no words. Faolan didn’t seem one for words. She looked over to the side, as well. Orfeus craned up to see what Faol was looking at. There were five or six empty beds, and one where the Ocelot lay. She was unconscious but breathing, her chest lifting and falling, alive.

  Orfeus hadn’t killed anyone. Not on purpose. Not yet.

  Faolan stood in the doorway another moment, looking at her. Orfeus met her eyes as challengingly as she could while prone in a bed. She wished Owl had left her damn shirt on.

  “We shall begin our work tomorrow,” Faol said, and left the room again.

  The work, yes. Orfeus lay still, trying to let her body heal and trying not to think at the same time. The Owl hummed to themself off-key as they washed their hands again, surgically thorough. No one here had hands that were clean. She was a hunter of the Wild now.

  Chapter Eight

  The wild hunt ride on horses fleet-flying, borne by the clouds. King Arawn - or was it Herne the Hunter? Well, the king leads them, flanked by his hounds, white-bodied and red-eared. They’ll steal you away into Faerie; but not if you wear iron at your neck, and guard your true name.

  - An old folktale, as told by Basma of Hollyhock

  * * *

  Her room was small and dark, but adequate. If the ringing quiet in the place indicated anything, she had woken up early. She had time to herself. Dammit.

  Orfeus washed herself briefly, watching sourly as the water gurgled back into the system to be reused. This was why she preferred to stay in small working towns, not megacities. It wasn’t delightful to be reminded she was drinking other people’s sweat.

  On the cheerier thought that they were drinking her sweat too, and because she had time, Orfeus finally saw to her hair. She wrapped the sad tatters of her old shirt around her shoulders as something approximate to a towel and rinsed it out, then washed it out again with the plain soap, though that wasn’t ideal.


  She ran her fingers over the lengthening fuzz on the short-haired side and lifted her razor, then remembered, suddenly, morning in the wayhouse in Rountree: sunlight through the window. Rivasoa carefully shaving her face and head. The memory of the brightness of Rivasoa’s robes and the warm sunlight seemed to burn out at Orfeus in this dim room. She put the razor down. So she would curl, and tangle. There was nothing about her that was not crooked anyway.

  She applied ointments to her welts and left the dressing on her side alone for now. She stretched, just basic ones and then the few others she vaguely remembered, as she’d need to rely on her body more. Clean shirt and clean loose pants she could move in, her same boots as they’d done perfectly well. Her thick brown cloak was getting a battered, war-torn look she rather liked. She pulled that on as well, even though she might get armour today and be made fully into a dark and gleaming soldier of justice.

  Orfeus holstered one knife at her belt and took out the other, flipping it in her hand. The blade sprung out gleaming and blue. Just a tool, really. It had bit sharp enough, even if she hadn’t done as much damage as she received. So long as she survived it. “I’m going to call you Snakebite,” she told it as she tucked it into her belt.

  There was no one waiting outside her door and Orfeus breathed out relief. She’d half expected the Wolf to loom out there already, shadowy and enigmatic.

  She doubted Luga would be in his scrap-pile throne room this early in the morning, but wasn’t sure where else to find him. She put it off and just wandered for now, whistling a little, taking lefts and rights, prowling down corridors. This time she kept close track of what path led where. She was beginning to build up a schematic of the place in her head, but being able to see it from the outside would help.

  At a window, she stared out and down, down, down. There were wisps of cloud below, and below that a dizzying gulp of nothing before the ground far, far down, green and brown like a blanket instead of living country.

  Orfeus drew her head back and closed her eyes against unexpected vertigo. Higher than anywhere she’d been in Farflung, then, which was her closest form of reference.