The pack hadn’t scented it; the wind was blowing in his direction. Bernarr knew the forest pig’s ill-temper required little to turn it aggressive, and only the presence of so many hounds and riders was causing it to flee.
And I feel like boar-meat tonight. It would be a prideful moment, the head borne in on a platter, the tusks gilded, and Elaine glowing with delight at her husband’s deed.
Bernarr slung the bow over his back and yanked his broad-bladed boar-spear from its socket, plunging past trees and leaping his horse over rocks, never letting his prey from his sight. By its size and the sharp, unblunted outline of its tusks the creature was young, in its full strength but still reckless, giving the Baron reason to think this would be an easy kill. An older, more aggressive male would have turned to fight already.
Suddenly the boar faced a thicket too dense to crash through.
It turned first left, then spun right, then came to bay, facing Bernarr in a flurry of dead leaves, its little hind legs stamping as it set itself to charge, to rip at the horse’s belly or the rider’s legs.
The Baron slowed only a little, to adjust the aim of his spear for the over-arm thrust that would split the beast’s heart or spine from above. He would give the inexperienced boar no time to charge and endanger the horse.
Before he could make the thrust an arrow came from behind and to his right. The thick bone and gristle of the boar’s shoulders would have stopped it, but the shaft struck right behind the shoulder, the broad-bladed hunting head slicing like knives through the beast’s heart and lungs.
It collapsed, spewed blood, kicked, voided itself and died.
Bernarr pulled his horse up hard, causing it to rear and almost fall back on its haunches. He turned to find that Zakry had followed him; the younger man was just lowering his horn-backed hunting bow.
Zakry, his mocking grin in place, spoke, but the words seemed indistinct to Bernarr, and then the youthful rider was gone.
Bernarr was now riding with his wife’s other friends from Rillanon, a stag carried proudly behind him by bearers. Then the images faded.
Well, it’s not all that different from being a sneak-thief in Krondor, he thought. Just be sensible and don’t try to walk too quickly.
It had been a day and a night since they’d bedded down in the cottage; the old couple didn’t seem to find it odd that they chose to stay and spend their days mooching about the woods.
Or perhaps friend Jarvis’s silver contains their curiosity, Jimmy thought, stifling a sneeze. He was watching the manor from behind a sheltering belt of bushes, and something in the bushes made his nose and eyes itch. Plus the musty green freshness of it all was disconcerting; Krondor smelled bad, right enough and often enough. But the stink was what he was used to, not this meadow-sweet greenness. At least spring had decided to be spring, with blue sky and warmth and some fleecy-white clouds above, instead of cold rain.
Their curiosity but not mine! his thoughts went on. Something very nasty is going on at old Baron Bernarr’s house, and unless my bump of trouble has lost its cunning, Mr Coe is looking into it—looking into it for someone.
‘Find anything?’ Jimmy asked casually, conscious of Coe coming up behind him. I may not be able to identify every rustle and squeak in the woods, but I know a man’s footsteps well enough, he thought with some satisfaction. It was just a matter of filtering out what didn’t matter, same as in town.
‘There’s an odd absence of bigger game towards the house,’ Coe said. ‘Plenty of insects, plenty of lizards and birds and even squirrels, but anything near a man’s size evidently feels a man’s unease about the place. You keep watch on the gate; I’m going to circle around the other side.’
‘Yessir, right, sir,’ Jimmy muttered under his breath as the older man ghosted across the road and into the brush on the other side. ‘Why don’t we just get in there?’ Coe’s caution was beginning to make him itch, almost as much as these damned bushes. Jimmy wanted something to happen.
Something did. A pair of figures came around the central block of the fortified manor house; he knew the stables and sheds were there, so as not to spoil the view from the road, he supposed. They were leading horses; soon enough they mounted, and began to canter towards the outer wall and the gate.
Ah-ha! Jimmy thought, as they came closer.
In their twenties, but looking older; one slight and wiry, the other like something a smith had pounded out of an ingot. A weasel and a mean pit-fighting dog, Jimmy thought, as he got a good look at them. In Krondor he’d have picked them for Bashers—or Sheriff’s Crushers. They wore rough leather and wadmal, travelling clothes, and buff-leather jerkins; but their swords were good, if plain, and they had a noteworthy array of fighting knives in belts and tucked into boot-tops. One of them also had a short horn-bow in a case by his right knee.
Let’s follow them, he thought. But carefully.
As they passed through the wrought-iron gate the thicker-built one reined in.