Excerpt

The Hunt

Hidden behind a clump of bushes, Lars cocked his head as a low snort rippled through the trees. He nudged David, jerking his thumb toward the stand of beeches to the right. They edged out from behind the scrub, twigs grasping at their jerkins and twanging back.

Lars and David slunk through the long grass, pulling their bows off their backs.

More low grunts came from the beeches, but the thick brush and ferny undergrowth masked their prey. Lars took an arrow from his quiver and nocked it to his bow. Beside him, David readied his, too.

Swinging around, David jerked his bow at an oak behind them with low boughs. Lars nodded. Over years of hunting, they'd learned it paid to seek refuge if a beast attacked. The jagged scar on David's thigh proved it.

Bows ready, they edged through the grass.

Grunting came from the trees, followed by snorts. Twigs snapped. The undergrowth twitched—in several places at once. David turned to him, eyebrows shooting up. Lars gave him another nod. They'd stumbled upon a herd rooting around among the beeches.

An enormous black boar charged out of the undergrowth, smashing through a clump of shoulder-high ferns.

Flaming hatchlings! Its head was as high as Lars' chest.

"Flarking dragon shards! It's a giant black!" David cursed, his hand twitching. His arrow flew across the clearing, clattering against a trunk.

The boar grunted, racing across the grass, five smaller boar bursting from the foliage behind it.

Lars aimed for the spot between the giant black's eyes and loosed his arrow. It flew straight, but the boar twisted its head at the last moment, and the arrow plunged into the side of its face. The wild pig shrieked. Squealing and tossing its head, the enraged boar fixed its black eyes on Lars and his best friend. Hooves thundering, it lowered its tusks and ran right for them.

Lars aimed again.

The boar trampled the grass, leaving a swathe of crushed stalks in its wake, the smaller pigs racing on its tail. The giant black's hooves pounded the ground, flinging up tufts of earth. Then an enormous brown boar crashed out of the undergrowth on the right. Snorting, it raced for David.

Lars swung his bow, but David's body was blocking his aim. "Take the brown one," he yelled to David. Heart thrashing in his chest, Lars fired another arrow. It hit the black boar's shoulder.

Face pale, David fired too, but his arms were shaking so badly, the arrow went into the brown boar's back instead of its leg. Ignoring the arrow, it kept running.

By the dragon gods, these boars were fast! The black one's long-legged gait munched up the earth. Tremors ran through the ground as the beasts pounded closer, the tufts on their ears now visible.

"Run!" David cried. He took off, racing through the grass to the oak tree, leaving Lars facing the herd of wild boar on his own.

No wonder, after David's last injury.

In desperation, Lars snatched three arrows from his quiver and nocked them all at once. He released the bowstring and fired. Not waiting to see where the arrows landed, he raced away, hooves pounding behind him.

David's legs disappeared into the foliage of the oak. A heartbeat later, his face appeared. "Run! Faster! They're nearly on you!"

Lars flung his arm through his bow, gripping it beneath his shoulder, legs thrashing through the high grass. As he reached the oak, David slung an arm down. "Quick, grab my hand!" He helped yank Lars up.

Something jolted Lars' shoulder, stopping him from moving. "Oh Gods! My bow's snagged on a branch. I'm stuck." He thrashed his legs in midair, trying to bend his knee and swing it onto the bough, but he was yanked up short every time.

"I've got you." David stood on the bough. Reaching over, he snapped off a small branch, unhooking Lars' bow, and tossed the branch to the ground.

Lars swung up onto the bough, panting. The enormous black boar crashed into the oak's trunk, the impact reverberating through the tree and jolting Lars. Arms wheeling, David lost his balance. Lars lunged, grabbing his best friend and yanking him down onto the sturdy bough.

"Thanks," David panted. He sat up, swung his bow from his back, and aimed an arrow down the trunk.

The giant black's tusk was impaled in the oak's bark. Lars' arrow still jutted from the side of its face. This time, David's aim was steady. He shot an arrow into the back of the giant black's skull. Then another into its temple. Hind legs slumping on the grass, the boar convulsed, then stilled.

Lars swung his own bow off his back and aimed at the brown boar as it thundered at the oak trunk. His arrow pierced its right eye. One of David's followed, penetrating the beast's temple. Legs crumpling, the boar fell, its shaggy brown hair steaming as sweat rose from its flanks.

In a squealing frenzy, smaller coarse-haired pigs flocked around the black herd leader.

When David killed one of them with a clean shot through the eye, the smaller animals raced off into the underbrush, squealing.

David laughed. "Did you see that boar, boring into the trunk?"

Rolling his eyes, Lars wiped the sweat from his brow. "Gods, that was close."

"Too close." David grimaced. "One of these days, I'm going to give up hunting and live a safer life."

Lars didn't blame him. Although he secretly loved the rush of the hunt, he didn't fancy an injury like David's. "Those skins will make a fine satchel."

"Or a hundred fine satchels. By the sharding dragon gods, look at the size of those beasts!"

"And we killed two!" Lars grinned. The settlement arbitrator was going to be thrilled.

"Four. We killed four, Lars."

"Three, with the little one. Or is this your weird sense of humor again? Are you counting two kills for the biggest one?"

"Look." David pointed at a small black pig lying in the middle of the clearing amid a spray of arrows. One pierced its belly, the other two were buried in the earth, the arrow shafts standing proud in the trampled grass.

"By the dragon gods, you're right," Lars exclaimed. He must've killed one when he'd aimed those three arrows. "We killed four pigs, David. Four! That's more than enough for the feast tomorrow night. The settlement arbitrator will leap like a frisky dragonet when he sees this haul."

Exactly what Lars needed if he was ever to impress that sour man.

Homecoming

There was Lars: grinning; his jerkin, blood streaked; and his mane of blond hair, unruly, as he returned from the hunt with David, victorious. Two giant boar—one black and the other brown—were slung over their horses' hindquarters. Their horses were so heavily laden, Lars and David had to walk beside them, each man carrying a smaller boar over their shoulders.

Lydia squeezed her hands against her sides, her fingernails digging into her palms to stop herself from jumping up and down and waving wildly. That wouldn't do—not as the arbitrator's daughter.

Well, not with her father watching.

Cheers rose from people working in their gardens and more settlers flocked from their houses until there was a crowd gathered along the dusty road through Spanglewood Settlement. The butcher's son raced to meet them, pushing a handcart. Bending, Lars deposited his boar into the handcart, then turned to help David with the other animal.

Before he'd even straightened, Lars' eyes searched the crowd gathered along the road and rested on her face. Only briefly, but that piercing, sky-blue gaze jolted right through Lydia, making her stomach flip. Lars quickly averted his gaze to meet her father's eye. Wiping his hands on his breeches, he approached their house, David at his side, and paused at the bottom of the steps to the veranda.

Gods, Lydia wanted to rush down the steps and fling her arms around Lars. Instead, she smiled demurely, kept her eyes downcast, and stood on the veranda between her mother and father. A storm of dragonets was flapping in her stomach, but she kept her feelings masked and her face pleasant.

Pa cleared his throat and tilted his head.

Lars and David thumped their fists on their hearts.

It was David who spoke first. "We've been slaying boar for the hunters' feast, as requested, sir. We trust our offering will suffice."

Even her stern father couldn't help smiling at the four boar these brave men had brought home. "Well done. Four will be more than enough. Take your kill to the butcher."

No please or thank you. Beneath her polite public mask, Lydia fumed.

"Excuse me, Arbitrator Ronan," Lars said. "If possible, I'd like the skins for my tannery."

Pa nodded. "So you shall. Tell the butcher I said so. You've earned the skins. Four boar—and two of them giant boar—will provide enough meat for the hunters' feast with plenty left over to smoke." Pa waved a hand at two nearby men. His eyes tracked over the boar blood on the men's shoulders. "Help these two unload their horses at the butcher's so they can get cleaned up." Pa wrinkled his nose and stalked inside.

These two! As if Lars and David didn't have names. Lydia nodded. "Thank you, gentlemen."

"You're welcome, Lydia." Lars' gaze met hers again, startling another horde of dragonets into flight inside her. A pleasant sensation, one she didn't mind at all.

"Oh, the stench of blood is turning my stomach. Come on, dear." Her mother took Lydia's hand and dragged her inside.

Ma was being just as rude as Pa. By the First Egg, her parents were infuriating. Ignoring them, Lydia bolted up the stairs to her bedroom and peered out the window.

The crowd cheered the hunters again and dispersed, people getting back to their work in their fields, gardens, shops and homes. Lars and David took their horses' reins and walked along the road.

Lydia's heart sank. Lars wasn't even going to look back for her. She sighed, leaning on the windowsill, determined to watch him until the road's bend when he'd disappear behind the cottages.

Lars petted Socks' neck and smoothed her mane, leaning in to croon to his horse the way he often did, the muscles in his strong back flexing under his shirt. Lydia sighed again, wishing she'd been able to talk to him—properly, not just a sentence while under her father's stern eye.

They were nearly at the bend in the road when Lars turned briefly and waved, his face up-tilted, as if he knew she was at her window. His wave could easily be mistaken for him shooing a fly off the giant boar's black carcass—but Lydia hoped like a flaming dragon's fury it'd been for her.

It had to have been for her. The alternative was unbearable.