Chapter 2: Departures (Part 1)

Late Winter
Year 20
Myrgora, central Erennia

The hounds tore across the grassland, their hoarse barks pulsing through the air ahead of them. Tearing along also, just in front of the pack of hounds, a magnificent winter stag, chased from one forest and being pursued to the other. It was fast tiring, and its silver antlers shook as it tossed its magnificent head, unwilling to give up until it reached the last vestiges of its energy. Its beautiful white coat was much sought after by the merchants, expensive for its softness and colour, as well as in respect for the efforts it usually took to flush one out and capture or kill it.

The stag, hounded, dashed willynilly into a stand of trees, the ground broken by small rocks and made slippery by snow. A small brook ran through it, and the trees grew close together. Its big watery eyes noted the dogs charging at it, almost at the edge of the wood already; there were seven of them. It stood still, partially frozen by shock, its haunches still shaking from the effort of the run. It tossed its head again; its breath misted on the air. The hounds fell silent; they rushed onwards silently, a pack arranged as a arrow driving deep into the trees, aimed at the stag’s heart. It was primal; hounds versus stag, the dwarfs agains the gentle giant. The hunting dogs raced on, a few slipping on the wet rocks of the brooks while crossing it, toppling into the brook, promptly getting up and shaking themselves dry. Meanwhile, the first dog came into range of the stag, and it coiled up, ready to spring for the throat of the stag, bringing it crashing down into the undergrowth. It sprang; hurtling through the air straight for the stag.

It met with crushing impact on the antlers of the stag, whose head had lowered itself, lightning-fast, to meet the leap of the hound. In a flash the stag had flashed into action, slashing its head from side to side, catching the hounds on its antlers, flinging them away, the sharp points puncturing the hounds’ skin, inflicting serious wounds to some of them. Charging towards the decimated pack, the suddenly violent white stag dashed out of the copse, leaving all seven hounds injured and dying behind it.

Coming into the sunlight, it was transfixed to a tree at the copse’s edge by a spear that came flashing out of the weak sunlight, dying instantaneously. The man sitting on the horse twenty paces away dismounted, walked slowly towards the stag slumped by the tree, inspected the stag, then yanked the spear out of the trunk effortlessly. It seemed effortlessly; but the spearhead was barbed and it would have taken many others a lot of strength to take it out of the tree. Shouldering the carcass of the stag, he walked back to his horse, fastened the stag across his saddle and mounted. Turning around, he met the small group of horsemen just galloping up, arrows nocked to the bows of those who had them, the others holding spears. They were Horse Guards, twenty of them, detailed as an escort for Talamioros. Further behind, at a small camp, another hundred Foot Guards waited.

“Prince Talamioros, you have a good horse, but you should not have galloped so fast. We’d be responsible if we had allowed the stag to hurt you. His majesty would never let us off.”

“Am I hurt?”

“Er…no, my prince.”

“Well, then what is there to worry about? You must stop treating me like I wasn’t a Guard. Guards are not afraid of injury. Besides, that stag killed at least one of my hounds, and definitely seriously wounded my hounds. I could not allow it to leave alive. I reared those dogs from when they were puppies. They were gifts from a dying old man whose clan I once helped, and I loved them as my children. Instead of bothering about me, go and find my seven hounds and carry them back to the city.”

The Guards leapt to obey, and in a flash they were back carrying the seven bodies, unmoving. A quick assessment by the physician that followed the hunting party ascertained that five of the seven were dead, the remaining two on the brink of death. Quickly, Talamioros detailed five of the Horse Guards and the doctor to ride back with all speed to Myrgora. Despite his perfectly calm demeanour, one who looked closely enough would see Talamioros’ eyes glinting with unshed tears.

“Enough hunting today. We return to Myrgora.” Without waiting to see if his escort followed him, he turned his horse around and went back towards the Foot Guard encampment.

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