Xenoth's face went ruddy with anger. "Are you saying I can't handle this horse?" he demanded. He gestured again, and Alliance went crazy trying to snap the morsel that the adviser kept waving in front of his face.
Tanis sighed and stepped closer. "I'm saying that Kith-Kanan himself couldn't handle that horse." He heard footsteps behind him and guessed that Xenoth's screechy voice had attracted the attention of the other volunteers.
Xenoth's blue eyes protruded slightly; his voice trembled. "I was quite the horseman in my prime, half-elf."
"I'm sure you were, Lord Xenoth." Tanis tried to keep his tones low and even, on the theory that what would quiet a panicky horse also would work with a hysterical elf. "But you don't even own a horse now. It's been awhile since you rode. Why not start out with a slightly… easier… mount?" He heard a muffled snort from behind him; his neck prickled with the realization that quite an audience had gathered. Seeking to end the brouhaha quickly, Tanis reached forward and laid a hand on the adviser's silken sleeve.
"Leave me be!" Xenoth cried. "I will not be manhandled by a… by a bastard half-elf!"
Several of the elves behind Tanis gasped and others burst into laughter. Tanis felt his chest contract and his hands clench. He took one step toward the adviser, whose eyes widened in fear. Behind Xenoth, Alliance bared his teeth again.
"Tanis. Lord Xenoth." The words were spoken in a baritone that brooked no disobedience. Tanis turned.
It was Porthios. "Tanis, go out to your horse. Xenoth, you will ride Image or you will not attend this hunt."
Porthios stood like an avenging god, his golden green hunting garb glittering like the Speaker's ceremonial robe. His eyes flashed in anger. The other courtiers fell back, looking slightly ashamed. Porthios waited until Xenoth moved from Alliance to Image, now ready for the hunt. Tanis pushed between Ulthen and Miral and stalked toward the stable's double doors. Porthios's voice halted him, however.
"Tanis," the Speaker's heir said. "I am sorry."
The half-elf waited, not sure if Porthios intended to say more. Then he shrugged and went out to Belthar.
Half an hour later, the volunteers were ready. Xenoth sat astride Image, the adviser's robes bulked up around his thighs, revealing long, skinny legs in black leggings. Xenoth, who actually appeared to be a passable horseman, stayed near the back of the group. Tyresian, Porthios, and Gilthanas stood at the front.
Tanis's stallion pawed at the dewy cobblestones, and it snorted, breath fogging on the cool, damp air. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to ride a horse, Flint?" the half-elf asked.
"You know very well I can't," the dwarf said grumpily, his face pale and weary after only three hours of sleep. "I'm deathly afr-er, allergic to horses."
The dwarf gave a loud sneeze just for emphasis and then blew his nose like a trumpet in his handkerchief. Tanis's mount nickered, apparently in reply.
"Well, who asked you?" Flint said hotly, glaring at Belthar. The stallion rolled its eyes, showing the whites, and its ears went back as it chomped its bit.
"All right, you two," Tanis said, giving the reins a tug. "That's enough."
The horse snorted again, as if to say he didn't pretend to understand the peculiarities of dwarves. Nor did Tanis, always.
Tanis glanced at the other courtiers and young nobles who were mounting their steeds in the steadily brightening light, but few paid him much attention. Most likely they had taken his argument with Xenoth as just another sample of his human temper, though for the life of him he couldn't see that Xenoth had behaved with elven coolness, either.
Still, he felt a pang of excitement. Whatever the events of the last few days, to be finally given the chance to ride alongside the others…
He searched the gathering of elves. Tyresian sat straight and proud upon his mount, clasping the reins in black-gloved hands. Porthios was astride his gray steed next to the elf lord, and Gilthanas waited just behind them on a roan mare, a pretty creature with delicate legs and a finely drawn head.
A trumpet call rang out then, high and sweet on the clear air, and Tanis mounted his horse, reining Belthar in to stand near the others. Tyresian's gaze flickered in his direction for a moment, but it seemed an uninterested look, and then the elf lord turned his attention back toward his companions.
Tanis checked the arrows in the quiver at his knee; after leaving Flint last night, he'd spent an hour attaching to shafts the steel arrowheads the dwarf had made for him. The hard metal might be just what was needed against the scaly hide of a tylor. Then Tanis adjusted Flint's sword in its scabbard at his side. It was awkward-a short sword or even a long dagger was a more common blooding knife, used to dispatch, say, a stag that had been brought down with an arrow. But they were after a bloodthirsty lizard as long as several elves. Who knew what weapon would serve the hunters best?
Besides, Tanis was too proud of the sword to have left it behind. Its handguard glimmered coolly in the dawn light, like tendrils of silvery smoke that had somehow been frozen in place. In the middle of the handguard…
"Flint!"
The dwarf looked up from his seat on the gray mule's back.
"You fastened my mother's amulet to the handguard," Tanis said. Tyresian and Miral looked aside at the half-elf.
The dwarf sounded petulant. "Well, I told Ailea I would, didn't I? Spent two hours in the middle of the night on it, too. Poked holes in the handguard-nearly broke my heart to do that, I might add-and the pendant and then ran a chain link through 'em both." He huffed. "Amazing, the things I'll do for a damsel in distress."
Tanis smiled and shrugged. The midwife hadn't qualified as a "damsel" for some time, but he suspected that the dwarf was just a bit sweet on Eld Ailea, despite the several hundred years that separated them.
Tyresian's voice broke through the chatter. "Is everyone ready?" he asked quietly. Tanis had to hand it to the elf lord; he had the presence to command.
Tanis patted his sword. In addition to the sword and the quiver of arrows ready by his right knee, he wore his short bow on his back and carried a leather flask of wine, in case the creature injured anyone. Tanis checked everything and then nodded. He was ready.
An elf lord, one of those whose names Tanis didn't recall, moved his mount forward to face the gathered group, to speak a ceremonial benediction for the start of the hunt. He was a thin, sharp-faced elf with hard gray eyes.
"We pray to Kiri-Jolith today, war god of good," the gray-eyed elf lord said, as the volunteers bent their heads. "We ask him to stand with us as we search out and face this terrible creature that has plundered our land and killed so many of our kindred elves."
Tanis heard Flint snort beside him. "Beast almost killed one of their 'kindred dwarves,' too, only four days ago," he muttered. Tanis hushed the dwarf.
"We also ask the intercession of Habbakuk, god of animal life. May your skills of the wild and your knowledge of the harmony within nature be with us today.
"And if one of us fails to return, may you, Habbakuk, receive his soul." "So be it."
"So be it," the others echoed.
Then the trumpet-bearer gave another call, and the hunters spurred their mounts, guiding them through the streets of Qualinost to the western edge of the city. They clattered past the guard tower at the southwestern corner of the city, where two of Qualinost's encircling bridges arched toward land, then the horsemen continued past the overhead structure to the foot of the long bridge that crossed the ravine carrying the Ithal-inen, the River of Hope. There they halted at the very edge of the ravine. Out of sight, way off to the right, Tanis knew, was the landing, the Kentommenai-kath, where he and Flint had picnicked not long before. Tanis saw Flint take one look at the five-hundred-foot drop right before him and pull Fleetfoot back to the rear of the crowd. The dwarf's face carried a sheen of perspiration.