Arkwood, the forest outside Rauwic, twenty-eight years ago.
The Gyr hawk fidgeted on Faulkner's arm and twisted its head round to look at him, yellow eye staring unblinkingly at his green ones. Gods knew what stock Caine had bred this one from but it was next to useless for hunting on anything but the flattest most barren grassland. Here in the dappled light of the woods, a hundred different sounds mingling beneath the gentle hush of the wind in the canopy, it would not settle. Every rustle of leaves, every movement of Faulkner's arm caused it to shuffle a few steps or half-lift its wings in distraction. An attempt to teach it to retrieve an already-killed rabbit earlier had resulted in Faulkner having to spend the last twenty minutes coaxing it down from a beech tree whilst muttering a stream of curses under his breath.
In fact, he would have given up and turned back to the tower a while ago. Was it not for the fact he was fairly sure he was being watched.
If he'd been asked how he knew this, he could not have explained it. Perhaps it was some subtle difference in the bird calls from the trees around that indicated he was not alone. Or perhaps it was a quality of the atmosphere itself; the air was a little thicker, required a little more effort to breath now that another was hidden somewhere in the midst. Whatever instinct he was following, whoever it was- poacher, bandit, traveller- he knew they were close.
Allowing the hawk off his gauntlet, Faulkner walked silently over to the beech and crouched at its base, his hands moving to his boots to tighten the leather straps at his ankle. Without the slightest physical indication that he was about to do so, he darted around the trunk of the tree and, pushing back the shrubby branches of a dogwood, he was faced with what he'd been looking for. Although it was perhaps not who he'd been expecting...
Gwyneira would never be certain what she'd expected to happen as she followed the man from the castle. Wisdom would have had her abandoning her hunt--and the bounty it had yielded--the second he arrived, knowing what would happen if he caught her. He would detain her (if he could, which was likely given their differences in size), drag her off to the castle, hand her over as a poacher (though really, to call a Ranger hunting in what was rightfully a piece of Rowan Range was a madness only a too-tight crown could embed in a man's head), and she would be hung by her neck outside the castle walls as a message to any others who dared set foot in the royal hunting grounds.
Gwyneira knew all of these things. She had known them that night, as she lay with a grumbling stomach, thinking of all the things they had in abundance in the kingdom. She had known them as she set out that day before the sun had even risen, swiping one of Hadyn's recently repaired bows and enough arrows to allow for ill luck. But Gwyneira rarely had ill luck, not with the bow. Her father said she had a keener eye than most--a good sign, for a hunter--and a steady hand to follow it, and she would do well, if only she had something to shoot at. He had as much as given her permission...without knowing what she was doing or when she would do it, of course.
And the morning had gone so well. By virtue of being out of limits for the common folk, the king's hunting ground was green and flush with life. There seemed to be five tracks for every one that could be found in the Range these days, and the trail of a lively deer had been too tempting not to follow. So she had followed, her fool mouth watering at the thought of a proper meal to bring home. No punishment--for surely there would be a punishment from her parents, if they found out--could take away the pride of such a catch, were she successful.
Then her keen ears--to go with the steady hand an the sharp eyes, as her father would say--had caught the untempered, booted steps of a man.
She had found him. She had followed him. And for the life of her, she did not know why. Now, she found herself staring up at the stranger, Hadyn's bow resting easily in her grip, an arrow knocked and ready to fly. The arrow wasn't for the stranger, though. And as Gwyneira stared up at him, eyes round and wide like those of the deer she had been stalking, she found herself with very few alternatives.
She stood, pulled taut the string, and let the arrow fly.
The missile zipped past the man from court. It breathed through the trees. It struck the deer that seemed to have not been spooked by the commotion for the sole purpose of tantalizing Gwyneira. It was not a perfect hit, but it was perfectly lethal, and the deer fell dead as Gwyneira calmly looped the bow back around her shoulders. She stood at her full height, shaking out her hair so that the many little beads caught up in a few minute braids--meant to teach young Rangers what noise they could make simply by moving, her father said--rattled softly.
She raised her chin to peer over the man's shoulder at the fallen beast. Her heart hammered senselessly in her chest. Her palms might have just been rinsed in powdery snow. There was no talking her way around or out of an accusation of poaching, now. And looking with more care at her discoverer, there really was not much hope of fighting past him and hauling the deer home alone.
Perhaps she had known all of that, too, when she had first set out.
Ah, well. There was no foresight quite like hindsight, as her father said.
Gwyneira lifted her chin higher. Her blood still ran hot and cold with each beat of her heart, but there was little point in mewling for mercy. She tried to sculpt a mask of uncaring on her face, but was sure that whatever reflected in her eyes was anything but. Little matter. "I know what your duty would have you do, sir, and I'll not try and sway you from it."
She took a step away, resting her hand over her belt, where lay the knives she would have used to carve open the deer. "Know that I can maim you, however, if need be. But if you'll swear you'll get the meat to my family, I will go quietly. It is an inconvenience to you either way, I know, but one will only be a bother for a night, the other for a lifetime."
She kept her expression placid, but when she swallowed it tasted sour.
No, she had made her own decisions that had led her to this moment. She did not have the luxury of being anything but brave.
Behind the leaves, Faulkner was not confronted by the grizzled surprise of a poacher from the outskirts of town but rather the shocked face of a girl barely into her late teens. She was undoubtedly a Ranger, from her style of dress (Rangers didn't bother with the elaborate embroidered trims that were coming into fashion in the court, indeed the women dressed very much like the men in breeches and tunics) and the polished beads that hung at the end of the braids in her hair. But more importantly, she was holding a bow.
Faulkner barely had enough time to raise his sword before her arrow was let fly and it zipped past him into the woods beyond. He turned briefly, not knowing whether he had been her intended target, and glimpsed the flash of white underbelly as a deer thudded into the undergrowth.
He raised an eyebrow as she slung her bow back over her shoulder and tried to stare him down with a look of uncaring defiance that was entirely unconvincing. Faulkner's own heart was thudding fast in the aftermath of the last thirty seconds but now that he could see the true nature of the 'threat', he inwardly mocked his own caution, not dwelling on the speed and accuracy of her arrow more than he liked.
"Oh, you'll maim me, will you?" he said, his expression slipping into a grin.
Faulkner knew full well Rangers occasionally ventured onto the Royal lands from time to time and had sometimes found hidden finely-crafted traps amongst the ferns or in the morning came across a trail left from the night before. As another of the Peoples, he always neglected to inform anyone else of this fact. They, just as he and Caine had, did what they had to to survive. Besides, once upon a time the Range had extended much further than these trees; he had nothing to lose by allowing their 'trespasses' on their ancestral home to go unreported.
Yet, this was the first time he had seen one in the flesh for many years. Presumably most were too good to be seen even if they did venture down here during the day and they rarely came into the city as they had done in the days of Faulkner's childhood. Rumours were, they had little enough to spare themselves let alone sell their wares to others...
"I'd wager I might best you with a sword if it came down to it," he said, even as he lowered the weapon he spoke of. "Perhaps you should have let that deer go and shot me instead. Then you'd have had the forest to yourself to-"
Above the trees, the sound of a horn echoed. A few birds rose up from the canopy to a chorus of calls and chirrups.
Faulkner frowned. The King's hunt. He'd not been expecting them to set off until at least noon. In a few minutes, thirty hounds and a hapless boar would come squealing and barking through the trees followed closely by the King and a dozen courtiers on horseback. If the Ranger was glimpsed she'd certainly be taken back to the castle to be hung.
Without another word, Faulkner started off through the trees to retrieve the deer the Ranger had felled with her bow. Not bothering to remove the arrow from its hide, he hoisted it onto his back and gestured to a nearby beech tree.
"Up you get," he said, shifting the carcass of the deer so he could free his hands to give her step up to the lowest branch. He didn't have to do this, he told himself, holding the deer up for her to grasp so he could pull himself up too. He could have simply left, leaving her to chance the hounds (who would undoubtedly smell the carcass if it was left on ground-level) by herself. Gods knew the Rangers could do with fewer mouths to feed these days. And yet Faulkner found that he couldn't allow himself to. Wouldn't Caine be proud, he thought to himself as he deftly lashed the feet of the deer together to free both his hands to climb.
Within a minute they were both thirty feet above the forest floor, awkwardly cradled by the fork of the beech's branches. No sooner had Faulkner pressed a finger to his lips did the black shadow of a terrified boar dart through the clearing below, followed a few seconds later by a stream of yapping blood-crazed dogs.
Gwyneira's heart throbbed in her throat as the man from the court stepped forward, unimpressed by her offer or her threat. If he lashed out at her, she might be able to deal him some damage, but she knew it would be very little. And then she would be lost. Rangers were not combatants. She would gladly graple with a mountain lion, but not this hawksman.
Still, there had to be a reason she'd been led out here. There had to be a reason she'd stumbled across him and the deer all at once, and she could not believe that the wisps of fate had only seen fit to drag her to an unflattering death, dangling from the ramparts of the king's castle.
"I-" Gwyneira began, only to be cut off by the sound of a horn. She turned towards the source of the noise, and felt the color drain from her face. Who else had the right to be here? Who else would be so bold about their hunt?
So this was it, then. Perhaps it was her destiny to be caught and hung. Perhaps this was simply Fate's way of ensuring that the Rangers survived--by thinning out their numbers, the way they used to do for the herds of deer and packs of others animals.
The humble thing to do would be to accept where her folly had led her--there must have been some sign she'd missed, and so she'd brought this upon herself. But she hadn't been raised to be humble, or noble, or to give up simply because she'd made a mistake. She only ever had one option: survive.
The initial fright was broken as instinct kicked in. She was ready to run, abandoning her kill, and indeed she took the first few steps before coming to a faltering halt when the king's man addressed her again. She allowed herself the luxury of once second to consider.
Her family badly needed the meat.
Betraying her would be much easier if they stayed on the ground.
If she was turned over, she still had her bow. Perhaps she could put an arrow in the king's eye if it came to it.
The best choice was to trust the stranger she'd met by chance.
Gwyneira ran, used the offered hand-hold step, and leaped up into the tree like a proper squirrel. She eagerly caught up the felled deer, and between the man and herself had it up and beyond the noses of the king's hounds in short order. She tried to relax in the grip of the tree, tried to ignore the mad, slobbering chase that thundered into sight below them. Not trusting herself with any sound, she mouthed the best prayers she knew to whichever gods were listening.
The pounding of hooves drew nearer, as well as the whooping of a few of the hunters. Though that word could only loosely be applied. Gwyneira almost snorted at the very thought of the noisy parade below qualifying as a proper 'hunt.' She wondered how many of the men could even track without the aid of--
Her thoughts crumbled. She looked up, down, to every side, and then finally back at the man across from her. Eyes wide, she pressed her hands side by side and wiggled her fingers to mime wings, mouthing the question, "Where is your bird?"
Below, at the base of the tree, the desperate whining of the boar as it streaked away through the trees was soon overpowered by the barking of dogs. One or two of them lingered, sniffing and growling at the ground below, clearly having picked up the lingering scent of the deer that Faulkner had passed up to the Ranger. And yet, the call of the pack was too strong and they soon joined the rest, unwilling to be left behind in the chase.
As the last hound drew back from the tree and padded away in the direct of the doomed boar's trail, the thunder of hooves joined the dwindling yapping of the dogs. The king was at the head of the hunting party, though if Faulkner had not known what he looked like, he would have no reason to know his status was any different from the rest of the courtiers. He was dressed much like any of them: riding breeches and the quilted tunics that were the fashion in outdoors clothing for men at the moment. His face, or what little Faulkner could see of it from his vantage point far above, was flushed from the crisp air and the speed of his horse. Despite his stocky build that was beginning to lose its definition now he was approaching his thirties and he'd gotten more used to life in the Royal Court, he was totally at ease on his stead. Unlike Faulkner who, as a result of a mutual dislike, avoided horses if at all possible, much preferring to trust the tread of his own feet.
Edging further back into the crook of the tree, Faulkner caught sight of Gwyn's attempt at silent communication and immediately cast his gaze back down to the clearing below in mild panic. To his relief, he spotted the gyr hawk lingering on one of the low-lying branches of an elm, watching the hunting party with disinterest. Luckily, it had not yet been seen but if it was spotted and one of the courtiers took the time to look closely enough they would undoubtedly see the little leather circlet that identified it as one of Caine's birds.
Casting a glance at Gwyn, he let out a low whistle that sounded very much like any one of the bird calls that flitted between the trees that surrounded them. The gyr hawk ruffled its feathers and twitched its head in Faulkner's direction but remained steadfastly where it was. Faulkner frowned and uttered a silent curse before trying again. This time, after a few painfully long moments, the gyr hawk shuffled along its branch then took flight, landing inelegantly on leather gauntlet on his arm. It blinked balefully at him but he ignored it.
Below the king's horse picked up its pace and it, along with the party of courtiers that followed it, was soon lost to the forest. Once the sound of hooves was no longer audible, Faulkner allowed himself to relax.
"You risk much for one deer, Ranger," he said. "You don't have a brother or a father to hunt with you?"
Gwyn watched with a sort of morbid fascination as the hunting party went past. Somewhere down there, riding a thundering beast and chasing a boar that stood no fighting chance, was the man who stole lands from an ancient people and yet gathered those with abilities beyond his comprehension likes gems for his crown. Somewhere down there was a king who had taken things unchangeable and altered them to his own taste. Simply because he could. And Gwyneira could not tell him apart from the crowd around him. He was, after all, simply a man.
And just like that, the hunting party had past. Gwyneira waited until the sounds of them had faded completely, until another horn blasted, farther away than the first time she had heard it, and then she began to breathe again. She shut her eyes and pressed her brow to the trunk of the tree, and whispered a second prayer. She had just finished when the stranger--the man who had chosen to not only keep quiet, but to actively preserve her--spoke.
She looked up, silent at first. Then she tugged her hood back a bit, pushing aside the few chestnut-brown curls that tumbled in front of her eyes, to get a better look at him. "I may have. But I'd fill their mouths before I risked their necks. You think them any more dispensable than I?"
Gwyneira adjusted the deer on the branches beside her, aware of the way her hands trembled as she did so. A mix of anger, fear, and excitement, no doubt. "And you, sir...you risk much for one Ranger. I would know why...My punishment would be swift and certain. Gods only know what yours would be for aiding me."
She looked back up, and studied him for a moment with the direct, penetrating stare that was somewhat common among her people. Among the elder ones, anyway. And the longer she looked--the deeper she reached past the courtly clothes and the finely wrought implements for his trade...past the handsome face, through the green eyes...Suddenly, her own eyes lit up, and she sat back so quickly that, had she been one of the clumsy, earth-bound creatures that ambled around in the city, she would have surely tumbled back to the ground.
"You," she said slowly, "are not like them."
"I have no opinion on your relative dispensability," replied Faulkner, bemused at her resilience. He shrugged. "But they might..."
She was the same age as some of the youngest women in the court but was as far away from a lady-in-waiting as one could get. Not a single woman Faulkner knew hunted. Not properly, not well enough to enable their survival should the need arise. They were so completely reliant on their comfortable lives in the castle where food was brought to them daily and their hours consisted of embroidering and pinning hair and match-making and very little else. But then this girl was a Ranger and she wore the woods like a second-skin.
Rather than diverting his gaze at her unflinching stare, he matched it evenly then lifted the deer carcass off the tree branch beside them, letting it fall with a thick thud to the leaf-strewn floor before climbing back down himself.
Once his boots had touched the ground again, he looked back up, waiting for the Ranger to follow.
"No, but I'm not," he said. "But I'm not like you, either. But I am one of the Five. I'm Faulkner; I train the royal family's hunting birds."
He wondered if perhaps he should not bother to disclose his name. After all, she was correct in that his punishment would likely be harsh should word of his aiding and concealment of this Ranger's poaching ever get back to the king. But then what reason would she ever have to tell anyone of him? The Rangers were no friends of the king. For the last hundred years, the remaining Gleda had survived by careful allegiances. Should the tide ever turn, it might help he and Caine to have a friend amongst the Rangers.
Gwyn clambered down after her new friend, coming to a stop when she was nearly to the ground. One leg wrapped around the trunk of the tree and one hand keeping a hold on the last branch, she paused to give him a curious look. "Are you really? I've not met another since I was a child. Not enough to exchange words, that is. And you don't smell of dog, so you're not one of the king's pet devourers."
The Randulfr were not popular amongst the Rangers, if only because they had so long sat in the lap of nobility. Any sense of heritage or loyalty had long since left the remaining Randulfr family (assuming they were all that was left), and for all intents and purposes, they were little more than servants to whomever was in power. From the sound of things, the same was true of this man. But a Randulfr would not have aided her in staying hidden after she had broken the law...
Gwyneira dropped the rest of the way to the ground, and then stood tugging thoughtfully on one of her braids. "It must be strange, surrounded by their kind, living under their rule. How do you prevent yourself becoming just another one of them? How many are your people? Are you all at the castle?"
To lie to a Ranger--a full-fledged one, anyway--was an exercise in futility, and so Gwyn, like her peers, had grown up to be blatant with her words and open with her thoughts. It was simply the way of her people--she assumed it to be the way of all of the Five, though of course she had no real evidence to back that belief. And nor did she have any patience to gather it now. She stooped to examine the deer, fishing out the broken arrowhead and stowing it in a small bag tied to her belt, giving it an experimental tug to be sure it was not too heavy to haul back home.
"It must be terribly lonely for you there. I am sorry. At least you've found a place for yourself, though. I wonder sometimes what the king's world must be like, and I've heard things, though of course I've no intention of finding out for myself. I've never heard of a Ranger leaving the king's court, after all. That's the most frightening thought in the world to me, to be forever in one place! Be it crypt or court, I'll have none of it." She stood once more, and again fixed Faulkner with a steady stare.
"I must offer you something in exchange for the saving of my life, however." She straightened up, releasing her braid to clasp her hands behind herself. "Have you any need? I suppose there's food and shelter enough for you back at court. But Rangers never leave behind debts. And mine is great to you, I know."
Faulkner's countenance darkened. "Not so very strange; we all must survive, Ranger, and not everyone has the luxury of thirty square miles of woodland, shrinking though it now is."
He glanced up at the tree they had just scaled as the gyr hawk descended to perch inquisitively on a log nearby.
"Besides, I have spent all my life with 'their kind' and I have more friends in them than it is possible to have in my own kin. So perhaps I am not so very different from them after all. Perhaps it would have done the people of the Range good to venture out into Rauwic and prove yourselves not to be the strange wood spirits most ordinary townsmen believe you to be."
Faulkner stopped himself from continuing. What use was it to talk about the no-mans-land that he and Caine, indeed his family for generations had occupied to a Ranger girl barely old enough to be out in the woods alone? She must have spent her entire life in these woods; the residents of the castle and the town were about as real to her as she was to them.
Forcing calm into his voice, he shrugged. "The king's world does well enough for those who would live within it. I have a vocation, good food and the company of courtiers, should I want it. And that is more than many. Unlike you, I am content with my home at the Torr. So I require no payment from you, Ranger."
Turning back toward the castle grounds (where the Torr, a claw-like wooden tower that housed Faulkner and Caine's chambers at the bottom and the nooks of their birds as it ascended to the top, stood), Faulkner held out his arm for the gyrhawk to settle on his gauntlet.
"If you insist on repayment, then we can leave it in kind. A favour, Ranger; you can owe me a favour!"
With that, he set off back through the trees, knowing that if he turned back to look at the girl, she would likely have already disappeared.
