Ilse Witch

Then he grinned cheerfully. “At least we’ve got that grouse from yesterday to ease our hunger and a cold aleskin to soothe our wounded pride. Best part of hunting, Bek lad. Eating and drinking at the end of the day!”


Bek smiled in response, and after Quentin retrieved his castoff weapons, they swung into step beside each other and headed back toward their camp. Quentin was tall and broad-shouldered, and he wore his red hair long and tied back in the manner of Highlanders. Bek, his lowland cousin, had never adopted the Highland style, though he had lived with Quentin and his family for most of his life. That his origins were cloudy had fostered a strong streak of independence in him. He might not know who he was, but he knew who he wasn’t.

His father had been a distant cousin of Coran Leah, Quentin’s father, but had lived in the Silver River country. Bek remembered little more than a shadowy figure with a dark, strong face. He died when Bek was still tiny, barely two years of age. He contracted a fatal disease and, knowing he was dying, brought Bek to his cousin Coran to raise. There was no one else to turn to. Bek’s mother was gone, and there were no siblings, no aunts and uncles, no one closer than Coran. Coran Leah told Bek later, when he was older, that Bek’s father had done a great favor for him once, and he had never thought twice about taking Bek in to repay the favor.

All of which was to say that although Bek had been raised a Highlander, he wasn’t really one and had never been persuaded to think of himself in those terms. Quentin told him it was the right attitude. Why try to be something you know you’re not? If you have to pretend to be something, be something no one else is. Bek liked the idea, but he hadn’t a clue what that something else might be. Since he never talked of the matter with anyone but Quentin, he kept his thoughts to himself. Sooner or later, he imagined, probably when it mattered enough that he must do something, he would figure it out.

“I’m starved,” Quentin announced as they walked through the deep woods. “Hungry enough to eat that boar all by myself, should it choose to fall dead at my feet just now!”

His broad, strong face was cheerful and open, a reflection of his personality. With Quentin Leah, what you saw was what you got. There was no dissembling, no pretense, and no guile. Quentin was the sort who came right at you, speaking his mind and venting his emotions o1penly. Bek was more inclined to tread carefully in his use of words and displays of temperament, a part of him always an outsider and accustomed to the value of an outsider’s caution. Not Quentin. He opened himself up and laid himself bare, and if you liked him, fine, and if you didn’t, that was all right, too.

“Are you sure about that bird?” Bek asked him, thinking back to that huge shadow, still puzzled by its appearance.

Quentin shrugged. “I only caught a glimpse of it, not enough to be certain of anything much. Like you said, it looked like one of those big coastal birds, black and sleek and fierce.” He paused thoughtfully. “I’d like to ride one of those someday.”

Bek snorted. “You’d like to do lots of things. Everything, if you could manage it.”

Quentin nodded. “True. But some things more than others. This one, I’d like to do more.”

“I’d just settle for another crack at the boar.” Bek brushed a hanging limb away as he ducked beneath. “Another two seconds …”

“Forget it!” Quentin grabbed Bek’s shoulders playfully. “We’ll go out again tomorrow. We have all the rest of the week. We’ll find one sooner or later. How can we fail?”

Well, Bek wanted to say, because boars are quicker, faster, and stronger, and much better at hiding than we are at finding them. But he let the matter drop, because the truth was that if they’d bagged the boar today, they’d have had to figure out what to do with the rest of the week. Bek didn’t even want to speculate on what Quentin might have come up with if that had happened.

Shadows were layering the woodlands in ever-darkening pools, the light failing quickly as the sun slipped below the horizon and the night began its silent advance. Serpentine trailers of mist already had begun to appear in the valleys and ravines, those darker, cooler havens were the sun had been absent longer and the dampness was rooted deeper. Crickets were beginning to chirp and night birds to call. Bek hunched his shoulders against a chilly breeze come up off the Rappahalladran. Maybe he would suggest they fish tomorrow as a change of pace. It wasn’t as exciting or demanding as boar hunting, but the chances of success were greater.

Besides, he mused, he could nap in the afternoon sun when he was fishing. He could dream and indulge his imagination and take small journeys in his mind. He could spend a little time thinking about his future, which was a good exercise since he really didn’t have one figured out yet.

“There it is again,” Quentin announced almost casually, pointing ahead through the trees.