Oh, yes! Faster, he thought. This transfer was the best yet!
The young lord fell boneless from his tentacles, dead.
"No!" he screamed. It couldn't be, he thought, I'm not a killer! The
guards rushed into the room and looked at the dead lord on the floor
with burn marks on his arms.
The guards grabbed him roughly by the arms, "Come with us. It'll only
be worse if you fight."
He hung limply from the guard's hands as they pulled him from the room.
Ilya looked down at the young man in ragged clothes and old boots the
sharm guards had thrown at his feet. He was startled at the abrupt
intrusion into an otherwise dull autumn afternoon of listening to
various members of his court complain about the weather. The young man
was bruised and battered from head to foot. Zlinning more closely
though, Ilya noticed this renSime was junct! He remained lying on the
floor in front of his Lord, not even raising his head to meet his Lord's
dark blue eyes.
"You have killed." Ilya stated bluntly. Sharm Lord Katrina hissed her
fury and shock at the renSime, mantling like an angry falcon. The court
of Kirov stopped their babbling. As one they all stared down at the
figure on the floor in complete silence.
"My Lords!", the young man cried looking up at Ilya and Katrina, in
their brilliant red robes with gold embroidery. "I didn't mean to." he
trailed off looking aside at the marble floor, the only place away from
all the eyes glaring at him. He could still see them staring at him in
the reflection on the polished floor, glimmers from their jewelry making
stars in his vision.
"Whether you meant to or not, there is still a lord dead." Ilya noted
angrily, not caring why the lad had killed. The lords of his court
leaned toward the young man on the floor, each of them ready to murder
him then and there, only their sharm lords and respect for their
overLord holding them back. A subliminal growl filled the hall.
Katrina questioned Ilya with her Nager about who had been killed.
Ilya pointed out the bruises on the young renSime's forearms. The
pattern indicated that he had killed, but at least he hadn't killed a
Gen. Katrina looked down at him with some pity this time, to her at
least, killing a Sime was an accident and accidents happen. She looked
down at him with hooded, unreadable green eyes.
The young man slumped in on himself with relief as he felt Katrina
shift from murderous fury to simple disgust.
"So you think this isn't important!" Ilya raged at the young renSime's
relaxation in response to Katrina.
"No, my Lords," his voice quavered, and blue eyes looked straight into
green, begging for mercy from the Russian court.
Katrina put her hand over Ilya's. He saw that she asked for mercy for
the young man, and put his hand over hers.
He glared down at the pathetic wreck, sobbing in the middle of the
floor. "I will give you a chance!"
The young man looked up. He licked his cracked lips, and started to
rise, hoping for deliverance from the fate he knew he deserved. He
looked aside momentarily at the court, even angrier at this seeming
betrayal of their trust, and flushed.
"There will be a Great Hunt!" Ilya called out to his court, with the
full power of his trained voice.
The entire court of Kirov cheered this display of justice they felt
they deserved. The young man looked from side to side for any way out.
Katrina smiled at her Lord, she loved the Great Hunt far more than
hunting mere deer or boar and he knew that quite well.
Horn calls shattered the morning air. The hounds strained at the
leashes held by the huntsman. His mare's muscles shifted between his
legs, moving as fluidly as his lady. Lord Ilya looked over and smiled at
Katrina.
Katrina blew him a kiss and bolted in front of him to sail over the
fence to the field where they were to start. Sharm Lord Arkay caught up
with her over the fence. Ilya looked after the two younger Gens,
graceful as doves on their matched gold stallions, long hair streaming
behind them black and gold. Arkay laughed as his rearing horse,
Melekush, when they halted, secure on his sidesaddle. "Don't you start,"
Katrina warned her horse, Nasar, who was lightening his forehand in
imitation of his friend. She laughed at the Nasar's flattened ears,
commenting on what he felt to be an unwarranted correction.
Ilya joined them, after having ridden Kirakush around to the gate.
"Starting early are you?" he jested with them, rebrading his relatively
short hair, which had come undone.
"Just warming up a bit," Arkay winked, "its a bit chilly out here." He
looked not the least repentant as he walked Melekush for a bit to show
his nonchalance. Dropping his reins, he pulled the tail end of his hair
out from under his seat. "If you would?" he looked at Ilya. Arkay's
fingers, rings and bracelets had tangled in his long hair. Rapidly, but
without pulling it, Ilya started to braid his long hair up out of the
way.
"Do you only do one of your mates?" Katrina joked with Ilya.
"The get over here!" and when Katrina had sidepassed over to Ilya, with
his free hand and tentacles he started to put Katrina's shorter hair up
to match Arkay's, one hand for each, standing between them. Looking up
at both of them he announced, "There, a matched set! Is there anything
else a poor benighted Lord can do for his mates?" Ilya asked, coyly.
"Out here? In front of everybody?" Arkay quipped back, and Katrina
actually blushed and looked at the ground.
"We're ready!" Arkay commented loudly, and his horse snorted and pawed
the ground. Ilya just snickered at Arkay's taunt, as he watched the rest
of the hunt starting to come into the field the three were standing in
through the gate. The horses' breath steamed in the chilly air.
"Here's our prey." Ilya noted someone had cleaned the poor slob up as
the guards led the renSime up to them. The renSime was mounted on an
ancient, swaybacked Trakh gelding. "Do either of you want to do the
honors?" he looked at his two Sharm Lords.
"Flip for it?" Katrina asked Arkay. She flirted outrageously with him
by playing with the tail end of his hair as if she were a Lord, trying
to get him back for his earlier teasing.
"Flip what?" he pulled his hair away and tickled the end of her nose
with it.
"You are as silly as a Sime some times, Arkay!" Katrina laughed. "I'll
do it. You sent off the prey last time." she waved the guards over and
signaled them to release their captive, pushing her bracelets up near
her elbows where they would stay out of the way. The two guards backed
their horses up further as they felt the metal move along her forearms,
disturbed by the sensation.
Glassy eyed, the renSime just stared through her. Ilya waved the guards
back even further. This was the tricky part. Katrina had the youngster
looking in her direction but didn't really have his attention yet. Nasar
bridled as she tensed her muscles while concentrating to bring the
renSime to her. She dropped the reins on his neck to lock him in place.
"Come to me," Katrina sing-songed. She tried to goad the renSime into
rushing her by loosening some of the bracelets to jangle along her
forearms.
Arkay moved next to Ilya. "Thanks," Ilya muttered under his breath, not
wanting to disturb Katrina or ruin what she had managed so far, but
Arkay could feel the tension in Ilya from Katrina's teasing of another
Sime in front of him. Ilya moved to lean against Arkay's off side, where
he could touch the Gen's wrist, hiding himself in Arkay's field against
Katrina's manipulations.
"Shen." Katrina muttered under her breath, still not getting a hold of
the renSime facing her. He was still not really seeing or zlinning her,
eyes dull beneath the short, cropped hair. She started to pick up her
reins and ask her horse to move a bit closer. The movement started the
renSime a bit, and his eyes widened. "Good little prey, come a little
closer." and she reached out to him with her field, showing him a young
innocent Gen, with just a thrill of terror.
Katrina's field, while low for her, was far higher than anything this
youngster had dealt with in his life. Reaching out with her field and
brushing it lightly over his, she asked Nasar to back some. Suddenly the
renSime threw himself on her. Only the sidesaddle held her in place as
the Sime grabbed her arms with augmented strength and speed. Her
stallion sat back on his haunches as the renSime lashed himself to her
wrists. She drove her horse forward into him so she could make the final
contact point and drive Selyn into him.
He dropped her arms and stared, unable to zlin so soon after transfer.
Nasar reared over him flailing his forefeet over his head. She looked
down at him, green eyes narrowed in contempt.
The horns of the hunt field blared the start of the hunt. The hounds
growled as they knew what was to come. Slaver fell from open jaws full
of sharp teeth. The horses pranced, sideling and dancing in their
excitement and their riders'. Gems and gold winked in the sunlight.
The stallion's front feet returned to the ground. "GO!" Katrina whipped
him on with her field as he came back duoconcious and the young renSime
bolted for the far side of the wheat-field, mindless with terror and
well aware of what awaited him.
Katrina and Nasar stook motionless with her hand raised, her silver
bracelets down near her elbow. As soon as the prey had jumped the fence
at the far side of the field, she dropped it and shook her bracelets
down with a jangle. Baying, the gold hounds tore after the fleeing
renSime. As soon as the hounds and huntsmen had passed, Katrina turned
her mount to start after them. Ilya and Arkay started a stride later
kicking up great clots of turned earth. The rest of the field brought up
the rear, silent in single minded pursuit of their quarry.
Neck and neck the three of them followed the hounds over the fence at
the end of the rows of reaped grain. Katrina in the middle, the men on
either side of her, their horsed matched Nasar stride for stride. Face
flushed with excitement, Katrina laughed as the three of them sped after
the coursing hounds through the stream at the bottom of the field. The
horses legs threw sprays of water into the air to glisten in the morning
sunlight.
Katrina spotted their prey disappearing into a small grove on the top
of the next hill. The three moon-horses raced in troika up the hill over
a coop and then to the grove of barren trees.
"Hold!" cried Arkay. He noticed the hounds milling about trying to find
the line again, yipping and whining in their confusion. The rest of the
hunt-field caught up with their Lords and stopped, waiting quietly. A
few of them got a sip to drink from their flasks of tea. The few sharm
lords with them adjusted their riding habits after the hard run and
pulled their sleeves back down over their hands. It was already noon,
and they could zlin no sign of the young renSime amongst the trees.
Breathing deeply of the smell of leaf-mold and turned earth, the field
waited for the whippers-in to take control of the hounds.
Katrina pointed, jangling bracelets disturbing some of the younger
renSimes of the hunt-field, to the south edge of the trees where she had
seen the renSime disappear. The whippers-in followed her gesture and
started to track up and down the drainage ditch at the that side of the
small woodlot, calling the hounds to them with whip-cracks and whistles.
There he was, at the other edge of the woods, the field between him and
freedom. He staggered out from under cover. His clothing was shredded
and his boots now torn to the uppers. Ilya could see him and took off
his cap and pointed to the Sime. Augmenting madly, the young renSime
bolted back through the hunt-field! The horns called out, hark and away!
Horses spooked and shyed as the Sime tore through their loose ranks
almost as fast as thought. After getting their horses back under
control, the entire field pointed with their caps where he had gone
through them. The hounds took up their belling voice as they regained
sight of their prey, the entire field in close pursuit after the
huntsmen and their Lords.
The sun was slowly nearing the horizon. The hunt was now speckled with
mud from the streams they had forded while trying to catch the
sight-line again after the renSime had tried to throw them off by
crossing and recrossing the small streams that tracked through the
region. All the field was still grinning from ear to ear despite the
hard runs and sometimes boring searching for their prey when he had gone
to cover. During a final brief hold Katrina smiled at Ilya, "Even if he
gets away, thank you for the wonderful day."
"You are quite welcome, my Lady." Ilya bowed from the saddle, and
reached for his flask of tea.
"If he gets away after all this, he deserves it." Arkay remarked,
winded by the day in the saddle. Melekush was still as full of it as
when they began and started to rear again in excitement. Arkay glared
down between the horse's ears, and Mele' thought better of the idea.
"Perhaps you should spend more of your time in the saddle and salle,
and less in the bedroom, my Lord." Katrina taunted him, looking as fresh
and as bright eyed as when she started this morning. Nasar stood on his
hind legs this time, and Katrina just laughed at him.
Ilya choked on the tea he was trying to drink. Putting it away, he
looked up at the sun and then at the milling hounds, "Perhaps we should
call it ..." and the lead hound belled again, and they were off. Arkay
grinned, all discomfort forgotten as they flew back into the open fields
where the animals could really move out again.
Surging up the final hill, Ilya could see the hounds gathered around a
figure at the base of the wall of one of the old hay shelters. Looking
down he could see the final bloody footprints left in the soil by the
fugitive. Growling and snarling the gold hounds held the young renSime
at bay against the mildewing ancient wooden barrier. The youngster held
his bare arms behind him against the rough wood as if that would help
protect them from their sharp teeth. His eyes widened as he saw the hunt
coming up the hill toward him. Panting and shivering, his feet bloody to
the ankles, his clothes in rags, and mud covering most of his body he
stood awaiting his fate. He had no where else to run and was too deep in
need to try to break through the ring of hounds.
The sun touched the horizon.
The huntsman pulled back behind their Lords, their work done for the
day. Katrina looked past Arkay into the West. "You have won your
freedom." she told the renSime, and called back the hounds with a
whistle. The hounds whined, but obeyed her, knowing that they would get
a good feed once they returned to their kennel, even though they had
been denied their rightful prey. Tails between their legs, they still
looked hungrily past Katrina at the renSime.
The young Sime looked around him with empty, dazed eyes. The hunt field
surrounded him and they all bowed to him from the saddle, thanking him
for the day's excitement.
"But, how shall I live? Who, after this, would give me transfer?" he
cried. Face drawn with agonizing need after all the augmentation of the
day he collapsed to his knees in the ground wet with his blood.
"No one." stated Arkay as he turned his back on the renSime. As they
all walked away laughing and joking about their wonderful day, the
nameless young man collapsed at the base of the wall in a bloody, sodden
heap and was still.
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