Darkwalker on Moonshae - Douglas Niles [25]
His lance sat, useless, back at camp, so Tristan was forced to attack the boar with his sword. Slashing downward, his blade sank deep into the animal’s shoulder, but the wound seemed only to inflame the boar’s raging bloodlust.
Tristan’s horse, whinnying with fear, danced away from the lunging boar. As he broke away from the beast, the prince turned and saw two arrows thunk solidly into the shaggy flank. Arlen and Pawdo were already nocking their second arrows.
The boar turned from its additional wounds, and ducked its head as if to gore an imaginary foe, Confused, it swung its bloodshot gaze from Tristan to the archers, and back again. Lowering its head, it lunged toward the prince. Blood ran luridly across one flank from the gash inflicted by Tristan’s sword. On the opposite side, the two arrows were buried deep in the boar’s flank. The animal grunted sharply, but showed no signs of weakening.
Suddenly a brown form streaked across the ground and hurtled itself into the combat. Canthus, far outdistancing the other hounds to reach the fight, struck the boar’s flank. The force of the great hound’s charge sent the creature tumbling across the ground.
The arrows snapped off as the boar’s weight crashed over them, and the bloody sword wound became matted with dirt and pine needles as the boar staggered to its feet, grunting angrily and ferociously stabbing its tusks into Canthus.
The boar’s powerful back legs tensed, and its stocky neck twisted to bring its tusks against Canthus’s long flank, but the hound was too shrewd. Turning with his adversary, the dog clamped his powerful jaws onto the boar’s snout, above the tusks. The beast bucked and squealed frantically but could not dislodge its attacker’s grim hold.
Daryth, his mount galloping across the rocky lakeshore, reached the fight, and reined in with a grim smile of pleasure.
“Kill him, great one,” he said quietly, watching the crushing effect of Canthus’s bite.
In moments the rest of the hounds had joined Canthus. The killing of the boar was not pretty. Canthus retained his grip on the beast’s snout while the other dogs tore at its flanks, throat, and belly. For a full minute the creature stood, invisible under the savage pack, but finally loss of blood set it squatting, and then lying, to the ground.
Tristan sprang from his horse and raced to the limp body of Angus. The old hound looked at him once, and flopped his tail weakly in recognition. Then the brown eyes, already grown dull, closed forever.
For a moment, the prince remembered a hundred carefree outings, Angus bounding eagerly at his side, his own childhood enthusiasm bubbling. Then he ran to grasp Robyn as she swung by her hands. But she let go of the branch before he reached her, and cried out as her gored leg collapsed. Tristan caught her as she tumbled to the ground, and helped her sit on the soft cushion of pine needles.
“I’m fine,” she said, pulling her shoulders away from his arm. The prince felt her body shaking, and heard a quaver in her voice, but he stood up and let her go. She looked up at him, gratitude in her eyes, and then sorrow as she looked at Angus.
Arlen stepped toward them, roughly clearing his throat. “Do not grieve for him – he has died a warrior’s death. He would have had it no other way.”
They erected a small cairn near the shore of the lake, and Robyn muttered a low prayer for the dog’s spirit.
“Let’s tend to the game,” grunted Arlen.
“Sure,” agreed the prince. He turned, with relief, from the cairn and looked at Daryth. “How are the other dogs?”
“Corwyss has a nasty gash on the side, but she’ll be all right. The rest are fine.”
The prince bent over the ravaged corpse of the boar, drawing his keen hunting blade and sliding the steel edge through the torn remnants of the boar’s neck. As he cut down, across the scrawny