The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [46]
Grace shook her head. “Your husband?”
“As I said, I am the queen of this place. And is he not the king?”
Yes, that was what the red-haired boy had called the stag—the forest king. “So he's safe, then?” Grace said. “The stag? I mean, the king?”
The old woman nodded. “For now. But in time Quellior and his hunters will catch him, and they will slay him.”
“No!” Grace said, cold with horror. “They can't!”
The old woman gave a soft sigh. “It is the way of the wood, daughter. Every year Quellior and his hunters pursue the forest king, every year they slay him, and every year he returns again. However, the king is newly risen. It is not yet time for them to catch him, and it is because of you that he escaped. So for your good-hearted deed, I will help you.”
“What can you do?” However, before Grace finished uttering the words, the old woman moved her staff, and a thicket of trees parted like a curtain. Beyond was a glade, and a scene that made Grace's heart stop.
The red-haired boy—Quellior—sat on his black horse, an arrow fitted to his bow. The other hunters gathered around him. Like a fallen beast on the ground, Durge lay below them. His eyes were shut, his hair tangled with leaves and twigs, the antlers jutting from his brow. A dozen tiny darts pierced his skin. Quellior laughed and pulled the arrow back to his ear, ready to send it flying down into Durge's heart.
“Stop!” Grace cried out, tripping over roots as she dashed forward. She fell to her knees beside Durge, covering his body with her arms. “Leave him alone!”
“Wood and bone, how did you get here?” Quellior sneered in his high voice. “But it's no matter. My arrow can pierce two as easily as one.”
“I should think it will pierce none at all,” said a sharp voice, and at the same moment the arrow in Quellior's bow sprouted leaves and tendrils. The tendrils coiled around the boy's hands like green snakes, binding them. The other hunters gasped and chattered and fluttered their wings.
Quellior glared at the old woman. “Blood and stone, Mother! I nearly had him!”
Grace blinked in astonishment. Mother?
The old woman marched into the glade, staff in hand. “Shame on you, Quellior.” She cast a stern eye at all of the hunters, and they quailed under her ire. “Shame on all of you. Is this mortal man the quarry you are bound to hunt?”
“She denied us our quarry,” the red-haired boy said, glaring at Grace. “So we were hunting this one instead.”
The forest queen's eyes flashed. “Answer my question. Is this mortal your true quarry?”
Quellior hung his head and sighed. “No, Mother.”
“I should think not. Now off with you.” She gave a flick of her staff. “All of you. You shall find the forest king again when summer comes and is in its waning days.”
Quellior lifted his head, and there was a queer look in his eyes. “If summer ever comes again, Mother.” He cast one hateful glance at Grace, then his horse bounded away through the trees, and the other fey hunters followed.
Grace cradled Durge's head in her lap. She smoothed his mousy hair from his brow, and she could not help marveling at the way the antlers melded with his skin and skull. She touched a tiny arrow that jutted from the skin just above his collarbone but could not bring herself to check his pulse.
“Is he dead?”
“No, daughter,” said the forest queen, standing above her. “The darts of the winged ones bring sleep, not death.”
“Then how can I wake him up?”
“Are you sure you wish to, daughter?”
Grace stared in blank confusion.
Sorrow lined the old woman's face. “A mortal man is not a beast, but he may be made to act like one. I fear Quellior has played a wicked trick upon your friend. If he were to wake now, he would not remember he was a man at all, but rather would think himself an animal.”
In a way he did look like a beast—naked, dirty, and wild. But Grace knew the true man that lay beneath. Her tears fell on his face, washing away some of the dirt. “He's