Foxhunt Read online

  Orfeus hummed. “Unlikely.” She lounged back, scowling. “I need to progress in the organisation first,” she said, playing up her irritation to steer the conversation somewhere safer.

  “Well!” Mordrai said cheerfully. “If you keep healing at this rate, you’ll be ready to hunt in no time!”

  “Mm,” Orfeus said. She looked down at her boots, pulled them on, one after the other. “Good. That’s…good.”

  She stood up. Mordrai had already turned, putting things away in immaculately organised drawers. They nodded to her briefly.

  Orfeus nodded back, and stopped at the doorway. “If I can ask,” she said, “what happened to Luga?”

  They blinked brown eyes at her. “What do you mean?” they said. “Happened? Nothing happened to him.”

  She flared out her fingers, then curled them up like claws to illustrate her point. Mordrai frowned.

  They shut the drawer firmly, and crossed their arms. “I was not his physician at the time, but I certainly am now,” they said. “Leave, please.” She stared in surprise, and they lifted their brows. “What? Being part of an amoral organisation doesn’t mean I’ve lost all memory of—” They waved vaguely downwards. “The real world. I still remember what it’s like down there. I’d like to be a good doctor by any culture’s standards.”

  These hunters did have their own odd brand of loyalty. Perhaps not praiseworthy, but resilient, it seemed. “Of course,” Orfeus said, and dipped her head a little deeper. “Thank you for telling me what you could.” She looked up. “In a place like this, knowing information is like having knives ready. I just want to keep plenty up my sleeve.”

  Mordrai looked faintly troubled. “Fox,” they said, then corrected themself. “Orfeus. Outside of sparring, and the Trial…you do know no one here’s going to hurt you. Why would we?”

  “I didn’t know that, actually,” Orfeus said. She took a step back and saluted them. “Now there’s some good intel.” It couldn’t be true, but it was interesting Mordrai thought it.

  “You’ll feel better once you settle in,” Mordrai said, and tugged fretfully at their sleeves, out of their depth.

  “Once I’m one of the ones who does the hurting, you mean,” Orfeus said, and they looked troubled. So she laughed, like it was a joke, and they laughed along with her.

  Orfeus dived forward again, and again Faol stepped easily aside from the blow so she tumbled to the ground from momentum. His mask was pushed back on his sweaty brow, and his eyes dug into her like coals.

  Orfeus pushed herself to her feet. Faolan said, “Enough.”

  She lowered her hands and frowned at him. “I can do more.”

  Faol just shook her head. Orfeus bristled. “Mordrai said I can fight,” she said, stretching the truth somewhat.

  “No,” he said harshly. He jerked his head at her. “You’re getting slow. You’ll learn better later. Push yourself too far and you’ll fall. I told you.”

  Orfeus crossed her arms. “But better for you if I die, right?” she said. “Then you don’t have to deal with me.”

  Faol stepped forward, reaching for her arm, and Orfeus tensed. Faol stopped short, tense-jawed, and just clenched his hand hard instead. “I will not fail,” he ground out.

  “Ahaha,” Orfeus said. “That’s why you care. Of course it is.”

  Faolan pushed her helmet forward, back over her face. “Wear your armour next time,” she said. The metal glinted. “Practice fighting with and without it, to be safe.”

  “Yes, there’s nothing safer than fighting!” Orfeus said. She was tired, bone-deep tired, and wouldn’t mind a wash. But she needed to climb higher in the Order. Fight harder. Never stop to think. “I need to get better, Wolf. You can’t exactly help me do that if you won’t even look me in the eye to argue—hey!”

  Faol paid no attention at all, walking over to the sink at the corner to dampen a cloth. Orfeus still had her knives; she could try stabbing him in the back right now, if she wanted to live an even shorter life than she would already.

  Someone swaggered in and called, “You two! You’re missing the feast!”

  By his build, this was the Shark, short and wiry, though she hadn’t seen him with his mask off before. He had brown skin and hair and a short fuzz of beard on his good-natured face.

  “Feast?” Orfeus said, a little puzzled. She tucked her knives back away.

  The Shark threw a look at the Wolf, then widened his eyes at Orfeus. “She hasn’t even brought you to the feast?” he said.

  Faol turned, and Orfeus tensed, ready for his anger. But beneath his mask there was nearly a smile. She wouldn’t have known from his voice, still harsh as ever as he said, “We’ve been busy.”

  Orfeus considered. “I could eat,” she said. She brazened forward, ready to brush Faol aside to reach the basin, but he stepped well clear before she could even get close.

  She cleaned her face. “Wolf?” the Shark said.

  Orfeus straightened. Faol shook his head. His hair was damp, tousled into spikes. “I have work still to do.”

  The Shark saluted, grinning. “We’ll save a steak for you, brother.” He nodded at Orfeus encouragingly, and she followed him to the mess hall.

  She stopped at the doorway and blinked. The tables were piled high with food, and hunters lined the long benches, talking and laughing, only twenty or so but enough to fill the room with chatter and noise.

  The Shark didn’t pause, striding forward, so Orfeus followed in his wake. “We haven’t really been introduced,” the Shark said, with a laugh. “I’m Tai. Orfeus, right?” He settled down and tugged a plate towards him.

  “Oh, so we do still get to have names,” Orfeus said, settling down. She glanced around. “Guess we get a lot of gifts and tribute, huh?”

  “Enough to feed us in style each night,” Tai said, passing her a plate piled high with a whole ham.

  She stared at him. “You eat like this every night?”

  He poured juice into his cup and winked. “Hey, it’s a hard job.”

  Across the table, the Hyena was sawing determinedly through what Orfeus assumed was a steak: she’d never seen one before. She’d never been able to believe that people ever ate food in the form of whole slabs of meat, but evidently they did.

  She stared down at the ham. “I already had meat this week,” she said.

  Tai laughed uproariously. He waved a hand at the Hyena. “Did you catch that?” he called.

  The Hyena laughed even more uproariously. “Little Fox!” she said, reaching across the table to stab a knife into the ham. Orfeus flinched back, then settled down, relaxing, as the Hyena sawed through the meat and offered it to her on the end of her knife with a grin. “Here you eat meat as often as you like!”

  That seemed impossible. Orfeus blinked at the slice, then smiled charmingly around at them. “I’d rather beef?” she said apologetically.

  The Otter drew a steak from a large platter and tossed it across the table towards her. Orfeus snatched it and settled it on her plate. The meat was thick and grey, veined with tubes. Probably not poisoned.

  Certainly this was hypocrisy, but maybe the elite hunters who patrolled everyone else’s misdeeds were allowed a few more luxuries themselves. Orfeus railed against it, but she sawed off a morsel all the same, put it in her mouth and chewed. And chewed. And chewed. And finally swallowed. Tough and gamey, but she could get used to this.

  As well as the meat, there was fresh bread, and couscous and rice, roast vegetables and crocks of butter for those who could eat it. Many hunters were here, though she saw no sign of Luga or even Dormarch.

  Orfeus took as much food as she felt like eating, and glanced at Tai. May as well get information along with her food. “Was that just a nickname, or is the Wolf really your brother? And sister, I suppose.”

  “Of course,” Tai said, muffled. He swallowed his mouthful and went on clearer, “We’re all brothers and sisters and kindred in the Wild. You’re one of us now, so that makes you my sister too!”


  Orfeus layered meat over bread thoughtfully. “Am I everyone in the Order’s sister, then? I hope that’s metaphorical. Otherwise the times I’ve thought about the Wolf naked are very unpleasant in hindsight.”

  Tai laughed out loud, then covered his mouth, glancing around, as though Faolan might loom up behind them. “I’m glad you’re with us, Fox. Should make things around here more interesting.”

  Orfeus grinned. “So Tai, if you’re my brother-in-arms—” And she found she quite liked that, the sense of belonging— “Is Hyena my sister, too?”

  Tai nodded.

  “Oh, good,” Orfeus said. She bit into the bread and said around it, “You know, I’ve always wanted relatives that could kill me.”

  “Hey, you can put up a fight,” Tai said, and his warm approval made Orfeus grin again. Maybe she could get used to some of the people here.

  They weren’t all monsters in human skin, even if some were. And she still remembered the stories her mother told her, about why the world needed hunters in the night when tales of the Rising Tide sweeping away the inhospitable wasn’t enough. With just a few changes, it could work so well. Maybe if there was any guarantee they came for the right people, the ones who deserved it. Maybe if they ate meat once a week like normal people instead of three times a day.

  “Thank you,” Orfeus added, and Tai lifted his brows up.

  “Mm?”

  “For kindred,” Orfeus said, a little sheepish already. “Not just brothers and sisters, everyone. I don’t know. I had thought when I came up here—well, I had no idea what to expect, but we wear animal masks and stalk the guilty from the shadows. It’s good that at least in some respects we’re civilised! Sometimes people forget, regress back to thinking there’s only two ways to be.”

  The Shark chuckled, resting his hand on his fist. “Not here. Mordrai’s terrifying if you get on their bad side.” He shook his head. “Before I knew what I was, I went by nonbinary a while. I still know that’s real, even if I ended up here.” He waved at himself. “A man,” he said grandly and laughed. “I was going to say a man of peace, but that’s not true, I love explosives so much.”

  Orfeus was trying not to think about Bright or Em or any of the things and people she’d left behind in the dust. She took a sip. “Mm, me too, except genderfluid still fits me fine,” she said. He gave an enquiring look and she shrugged. “That or bigender, something like that. Bigender woman. I’m too much for one gender to contain, what can I say?” She took another sip and concluded, “But I like being a she, and using just the one pronoun set seemed easier for my fans.”

  Tai cocked his head at her, and smiled a little, and lifted his cup to her. “You’re a piece of work, Fox.”

  She knocked her cup against his.

  They drank. Tai looked up and brightened. “Juana!” he called, waving over, and a sleek woman just entering the mess hall waved back and came over, throwing her legs over the seat at the bench next to him and tugging a plate towards her. The Ocelot, the one she’d stabbed.

  Orfeus put her bread down and darted her eyes away, guilt unfolding through her.

  Tai must have seen this, and nudged her shoulder. “It’s alright. You’re our sister, like I said,” he said quietly.

  “Hrm.” Orfeus kept her head down, nudging her food around her plate. “I wouldn’t really say I’m one of you. Haven’t even gone on a hunt yet.” She worried any moment now they’d all notice this oversight.

  Tai patted her shoulder. “Hey, you have to heal. Can’t cut anything with a broken sword.”

  Orfeus frowned. “Well—”

  Juana stuck her head forward to look at her from down the table, dark hair swinging. “I liked your Trial, Fox!” she chirped. “Your magic is just as pretty as everyone said.”

  “Thank you,” Orfeus said. She rubbed at the back of her neck, and mustered up a smile. “About what happened…”

  She hadn’t said sorry yet, this whole time, not since fleeing the burning Tinctora. Now she couldn’t push the word past her tongue.

  “No, do not worry, that is how Trials are,” the Ocelot said cheerfully. “No one died in this one!”

  Orfeus exhaled. She passed a pitcher of juice over. “I still feel I owe you something. I have some tea I can trade you, if you like.” She winced even as she said it. Tea wasn’t a good trade for being stabbed.

  “Ooh,” Juana said. She reached around Tai to punch Orfeus’s shoulder, and grinned. “Or you can just let me beat you up in the sparring room a little.”

  Orfeus rubbed at her arm, exaggerating her wince so the others laughed. “Sounds fair.”

  The skin at the back of her neck prickled, and she turned around fast. Faol stood behind them, mask tucked under his arm.

  His heavy gaze moved from her to her plate and he nodded. “Good, you’re eating.”

  Orfeus crossed her arms. “Wolfy, go away.”

  Tai lowered his cup slowly, without looking at her. The Ocelot’s eyes widened. The area around them fell a little more silent.

  Faol frowned, but nodded. She turned and walked all the way to the other end of the table before sitting down.

  After a moment, Tai whistled. He drank deeply from his cup, then set it down. “Well, you’ve got guts, even if your form needs work.”

  Juana nibbled on a slice of apple, eyes still on Orfeus. Orfeus shrugged, an itch in her shoulders. “He said we were finished training for today,” she said, sounding defensive to her own ears.

  “Being partners is about more than…” Tai said and stopped, sighing. “Ahh, you’ll learn.”

  She waved a breadstick at him accusingly. “Fairly sure you’re younger than me, so don’t go around talking like you’ve been here for centuries.”

  “I’m essential,” Tai said haughtily. Juana laughed, and Tai scowled at her with mock outrage. “Hey! I like to think I make up for being easily beaten at hand-to-hand by being the heart and soul of the operation.” He thumped his chest with his fist.

  “You’re doing wonderfully,” Orfeus said absently. Something was nagging at her. “Ocelot—Juana—how did you know my magic’s pretty? Before the Trial, I mean. Who said so?” Luga knew her songs, but it seemed strange he’d sing her praises.

  Juana glanced sideways down the table, then back, so quickly Orfeus nearly missed it. “Oh, we’d all seen vids,” she said dismissively. She leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands, grinning. “Not as good as the real thing, though…”

  “Yeah!” Hyena hollered loudly. She lifted a sloshing tankard, her grin not wholly kind. “Sing for us, Fox!”

  “Ha!” Orfeus said, lifting her own cup in a salute. “But you’ve all given me such fine hospitality already, you’ve nothing left to trade with. Performances don’t come cheap!”

  Hyena scowled and set her tankard down, liquid sloshing over. Beer, so Dormarch wasn’t the only one here who indulged in generally frowned-upon luxuries.

  “We’ll get through to her,” Tai called to Hyena, grinning.

  She laughed uproariously. “Shark, you can break through anything!”

  “Hey, now,” Orfeus said in alarm, and Tai patted her shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, I don’t bring explosives to feasts,” he said, and refilled her cup. On his other side, Juana chatted with someone Orfeus didn’t know, maybe the Starfish by their build. Cheer and noise and camaraderie, with luxuries spread out before them, the reward for dangers faced. Maybe it wasn’t so bad, being one of the monsters.

  Chapter Ten

  I should not have revealed Blood’s capacity for crafting illusions to Orfeus. Not to anyone outside of the grove but most certainly not to her, not for a second. As the weeks stretched on, I comforted myself that at least on her own there was no chance she could learn the techniques of weaving light, whatever the provenance of her strange Blood. No one outside of us ever has.

  - From the journal of Rivasoa

  * * *

  From above, they followed the course of the river, wind
ing and looping through the landscape. The terrain was mostly open to the air and uncontrolled, the ecosystem here natural, balanced, thriving. Flocks of birds flew past them. The ground was all rocky, pitching hills, too uneven for much large-scale habitation or efficiently vast fields of crops. A few small-scale farmers had been able to make bids, claiming the land was theirs by ancestral right or that they could do the most good with it, could benefit the most people with each square inch of soil and sunlight. Their quarry was one of those people.

  Faolan jetted his bike in front of hers and nodded ahead. “There,” he called over the wind. A little way ahead, a homestead perched above tiered fields. The hills framing it were lined with orderly rows of green vines against brown dirt. Though not huge, the house provoked attention, gleaming white with windows set to look out over the river. Some people by nature did need to live alone, but those largely kept cabins, boats, small residences. This was a tremendous waste of space for anything less than a dozen people.

  Orfeus was doing her best to cultivate dislike in advance. It seemed easier to kill someone at an anonymous order if she disliked them.

  Faol pulled down half a mile short of the mansion and Orfeus wheeled down after her, mimicking her movements, the easy spirals of slowing speed. She brought her bike down with only a little more noise and rustle in the plants than Faolan did, shaded by sapling trees. There were a few fruit-bearing trees, but others, if they had use beyond providing habitat for the local fauna, were for timber. It was a dangerously decadent place.

  Orfeus got off her bike, sweeping her cloak around her shoulders, checking her knives were in their proper places: one at her hip, one on the bandolier over her chest. “I suppose coming right down would warn them,” she said. “So this is one of the occasions we want them surprised more than we want them afraid?”

  Faol got off her bike and dragged a branch over it, not seeming to put much effort into this attempt at concealment. He did his own equipment check, patting at his belt and chest before nodding shortly. She didn’t answer Orfeus’s question but pushed off into the trees, heading towards where they had seen the white building on the hill.