forest they could not fly, but he could not run easily, either.
Moreover, in the forest he had to break his own trail, but
they could follow in the way he left behind;
he was doing their trailbreaking as well as his own. If he
stopped to rest even a moment, he heard the snap of brush
and swish of branches closer behind him than they had been
when last he rested.
“I would not,” he observed to himself as he raced after
one such pause, “have thought they could be so patient. It is
like being pursued by the dead, as I above all have cause to
know.”
They had swords and daggers, and perhaps other
weapons as well, but the animal in the stag thought most of
those pointed teeth, the cold eyes, the hissing breath. He had
been pursued – how many times? – for sport, for the
challenge, even for his antlers or for a vow, but being
chased as meat –
His heart went sick within him and pounded every beat
as hard as his hooves pounded the rock-strewn ground.
Behind him came the cold cries of the hunting
draconians. To the rhythm of his own rock-chipped hooves,
he could not choose but hear the darkest verse of the song
touching on himself and on King Peris:
THE GUARDS HAVE FLED; THEIR TRUSTING LAND
ALL UNDEFENDED LIES;
AND THROUGH THE WOOD INVADERS RIDE
WITH DARKNESS IN THEIR EYES.
WITHOUT ALARMS THEY PRACTICE CHARMS
THAT DRIVE AWAY THAT LIGHT
AND SHADOW INTO DARKEN WOOD
IS MADE THAT EVIL NIGHT.
AND AFTERWARD, WITH SWORD AND SPEAR
AND HORSE AND HORN AND HOUND
THEY HUNTED DOWN KING PERIS’S MEN
AND RAN THEM ALL TO GROUND.
THE KING WAS SLAIN, HIS BODY LAIN
AMONG HIS DYING MEN,
BUT THEY WERE TOLD ERE THEY WERE COLD
TO RISE AND HUNT AGAIN.
He ran over the green and sunlit hill called Huma’s
Breast, and found no peace there. Within sight of Prayer’s
Eye Peak he raced along the river called Night, and took no
sleep by it.
He passed the Vale of Sorrow. He passed the Cliffs of
Anger. He passed the Slough of Betrayal. Always the
draconians grew closer.
“I had not thought Darken Wood so large,” he thought
once. “Surely I should never have chided the king for a
single lapse in guarding so large a trust.” He thought
briefly of all the scorn he had shown the king, and more
fleetingly of how he had originally tempted the king into
betraying his trust, but there was little time for apology.
Twice, in the late afternoon, they encircled him and
began closing. The first time, he leaped contemptuously
over a startled draconian, in full view of the company. The
soldier jerked his sword upright hastily, but barely managed
to leave a furrow along the stag’s flank.
“A scratch, nothing more,” he told himself as he limped
away. He considered tossing a stinging retort over his
shoulder, but thought better. “I would only be lowering
myself.” And he might, he admitted silently, need the
breath.
The second time, panting and exhausted in the Glen of
Thorns, he had lain frozen under a branch of blooming
sorrow’s end, waiting until the draconians had plodded past
him to slip quietly away, unmissed until a soldier looked
back and saw the white mane as the transformed stag
scuttled, head lowered, through the thorn bushes.
“A fawn’s trick,” he panted, ashamed. “I got away by
hiding like a fawn.”
He stared at his own side, mottled with thorn scratches
and rock scrapes. “No wonder it worked. Still, perhaps these
creatures don’t see well by day.” But he looked at the sun,
already sunk below treetop level, and he knew that there
would be no third escape.
By dusk he was tottering, barely ahead of the
draconians, barely able to move his legs. His eyes showed
white all around the edges, and he smelled his own blood in
his nostrils. Each step brought a new ache, each breath
another side-stitch.
There was no question but that they would kill him. All
that mattered was when and where.
Once he nearly sank down on a patch of deathwort,