The boar reared, shrieking.
The elf-maiden astride a wolf dashed out of the forest and onto the riverbank. Her steed howled as she notched another arrow to her bow. A chorus of howls answered it. The thunderous approach of the hunt grew to a roar.
The boar whirled toward each fresh noise as it arose.
Which meant it faced away from the elf-maiden as she leapt off her steed and her wolf lunged for the boar’s flank.
The boar reeled to combat the wolf. More wolves burst forth from upstream. They surrounded the boar and leapt at it from all directions. One made it onto the boar’s back, sinking its teeth into the hairy hump over the shoulders and ripping its head back and forth. Another made for the boar’s underbelly, but a swift turn caught it on the tusks and catapulted it across the riverbed. It struck the rocks on the opposite bank with a sickening crunch like snapping branches and fell down to lie very still.
The rest of the hunt surged in to take its place. The remaining wolves howled for blood and tore out the boar’s flanks. Satyrs and centaurs hurled spears. The moth-like fairy with the fur ruff dove down on fluttering wings to inflict a thousand nicks with its glass dagger. Arrow after arrow flew from the elf-maiden’s bow and dozens of others. The boar gave as good as it got—one tusk-gored steed fell shrieking beneath its trotters, the rider in the spiderweb mask barely escaping the same fate—and the snow underfoot turned to crimson mud.
Yet Wren couldn’t focus on the chaos. His gaze kept flicking to the rim of the battlefield, the edge of the riverbank, the encircling tree-line.
The glint of moonlight off a blade’s edge ignited a welcome spark of hope in his heart.
Butcher leapt from the darkness as if borne of shadow himself. In his fist he clenched a blade as slender as an icicle. He landed on the boar with all the agility and ferocity of a panther, bracing his limbs against its tusks as it shrieked and tossed its head. His blade found its sheath in the boar’s remaining eye.
A gout of blood accompanied the horrible guttural scream that burst from the boar’s throat. A terrible shudder ran through its bulk. Then it collapsed. Butcher rode it to the ground, alighting only when it lay still.
Cheers rang out from all corners as the hunt burst into jubilation at their victory. The wild rejoicing—mounts rearing, hunters leaping and whooping around the fallen boar, dances springing up to merry songs tripping off fae tongues—hid Butcher from Wren’s sight.
More by instinct than design, Wren slipped from the stag’s back and staggered out of the forest to the edge of the riverbed to peer down the embankment. At first he could glimpse nothing of Butcher amidst the confusing tumult. Then a tall dark figure strode forth from the fray. Strong hands held a delicate blade and wiped blood from silver on the tunic’s hem. Glinting eyes gazed not down on the hands’ work, but upward, searching the tree-line with an intensity that quickened Wren’s pulse.
His heart hammered harder still when those dark eyes met his own and gleamed with unmistakable elation.
Butcher sheathed his blade and climbed the embankment in three long strides.
“Well done,” Wren blurted as Butcher joined him.
The words hardly felt adequate to describe the courage and skill Butcher had displayed. Yet Butcher grinned down at him all the same. Wren noted his canines appeared more prominent than those of most mortal men. The pointed ears likewise drew his gaze again, if only for a moment before his interest came to what felt like its natural rest in Butcher’s dark eyes focused so intently on his own face.
Wild impulses ran through Wren’s mind. His fingers twitched with the repressed urge to seize those well-muscled shoulders in his hands. He bit his lip to quell the desire to take further liberties no decent gentleman would consider. As Butcher searched his face, his grin fading into a no-less-appreciative smile, Wren found he couldn’t turn his mind from foolish thoughts without turning his head as well and so glanced away from Butcher and toward the hunt.
The rejoicing had only increased in the interim. Yet now, as Wren looked past the crowd around the fallen boar, he saw other figures in a more solemn gathering by the opposite bank. Some half-dozen wolves and werewolves attended the crumpled form tossed by the boar scant minutes earlier. One of the werewolves knelt beside the wounded wolf and cradled its head in its lap. Its sides heaved with laboured breaths. Wren, astonished it still breathed at all, felt his heart wrench in his chest at the sight.
“I know you said not to offer anything, but—” Wren dared to meet Butcher’s gaze again. “Is there nothing to be done?”
Butcher studied Wren’s face with an expression Wren couldn’t quite read. “We may approach.”
His words came low and gentle, rumbling forth from deep in his chest and resonating with the thrumming of Wren’s own heart.
Wren nodded his assent. Butcher led him across the riverbed to where the wolves had gathered around their fallen pack-mate. Several turned at their arrival. One pinned its ears back and snarled. Another—a werewolf—didn’t look much friendlier, standing a full head taller than Butcher with its arms cross over its barrel chest as it blocked their path.
Butcher halted a half-step ahead of Wren and held one arm out between Wren and the wolves.
“Your pardon,” Butcher began, then continued in a language Wren didn’t recognize, its words and tone both guttural and lyrical.
The werewolf cocked its head to one side as it listened. When Butcher had finished, it replied in a deeper and more growling version of the same tongue.
Butcher bowed. The werewolf nodded and made as if to turn away.
Wren put a hand on Butcher’s arm. The other went to his own throat and tore his cravat from his collar.
“If they need a bandage,” he explained as he shoved it into bewildered Butcher’s palm. “Or a sling, or—something.”
For a moment, Wren thought Butcher would refuse to pass it along. It certainly violated the rule against offerings. But then his fist closed over the cravat, and he turned to catch the werewolf’s attention again. A much shorter conversation in the same unrecognizable language ensued. At first the werewolf appeared irritated at the interruption, insomuch as Wren could read any expression in the canine face. Then, in slow increments, its flattened ears perked up, its lips relaxed their snarl, and at last, it uncrossed its brawny arms to take the cravat from Butcher’s outstretched palm. It nodded to Butcher, and to Wren as well, and returned to its pack.
Butcher caught Wren’s eye and jerked his head toward the tree-line across the riverbank. Wren followed him away.
