The apprentice knew something was wrong with the firehawk, something that warranted greater observation, but for now, she had no choice but to kill it. She exhaled, her heartbeat slowing, her eyes narrowing and drawing a bead on the screeching bird down her notched arrow. The creature shrieked, spewing a shower of red flames, and shuddered, twisting in irregular spastic jerks. It did not perform the graceful movements of the previous firehawks that the apprentice had exterminated that morning, and even with the bowstring pulled taut, she hesitated.
The master huntsman put a heavy, calloused hand on her shoulder, a move that would have startled most due to his eerie ability to move in complete silence; however, the apprentice was trained well enough not to react, not to let the unexpected touch throw off her aim. In a grizzled whisper that crackled not unlike the plumes of a firehawk's tail-feathers, the huntsman said, "Take it down 'ere it causes more damage."
Deftly opening her hand, the apprentice released the arrow, and with a twang that she couldn't hear but which vibrated beside her deaf right ear, the arrow flew true to its target. The cry of the firehawk turned into a surprised screech, and it dropped out its zigzagging path straight to the ground, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake. The apprentice lost sight of it as it landed in a field of tall grass, but the waft of black smoke that buffeted from the field a moment later made the landing spot easy to mark. The master huntsman began to walk toward it. The apprentice paused, inhaled deeply, and followed, slinging the bow over her right shoulder.
"Something was wrong with it," she said, her thin lips curdling into a frown as they did when something worrisome crossed her mind, which was often. The huntsman replied with a noncommittal grunt. The apprentice had many questions, and he did not wish to encourage more. However, he knew that she had a point. She'd probably heard the increasing rumors spreading through the kingdom, the whispers of the creeping evil that had been released from the mountains, tainting everything in its path, and the master huntsman had made a promise to himself long ago that he would always be honest with his young apprentice. He would not make the mistake that so many of his predecessors had by pretending truth was fiction for the sake of keeping up appearances and maintaining the status quo. Now, especially, was not the time for that, for the huntsman knew that the rumors were reality. Niceties for the sake of themselves had become dangerous.
"No matter. We put it out its misery. Every firehawk's a nuisance at best and a danger at worst," he said, punctuating his words with a shrug. He scratched his closecut, gray beard and wondered if he had said enough to satisfy her curiosity. He knew that he hadn't. The girl's was notoriously insatiable. She inhaled information and exhaled inquiries. Although her intelligence had the habit of rubbing most other men the wrong way, the huntsman found it both admirable and exhausting; he couldn't help but be proud of the girl's perceptive nature.
"That was no ordinary firehawk. It seemed... infected. Do you think... could it have been..." she stammered and gesticulated with a wide expanse of her arms, her mouth working to shape the thoughts that raced through her mind into words. Trying to catch them was like trying to catch hummingbirds with her bare hands. They buzzed through her fingers before zipping away and disappearing into the vast eternity of sky.
"Whatever it was, now it's dead, thanks to you," the master huntsman proclaimed. "And if it were infected, then you did the kingdom a service. Best to leave it at that." His squint became more pronounced as they approached the burnt, crisped blades of tall grass, which had blackened and curled from the heat of the fowl, and the sweet scent of charred meat drifted slowly across a slight breeze. As the grass was still wet from the morning rain, the fire had not spread far, and the smoke thinned to mere whisps. The flickering corpse of the firehawk did not appear to have any physical deformities, indeed, nothing out of the ordinary about it at all, and for that, the huntsman felt grateful as it meant fewer questions from his apprentice. Indeed, she seemed disappointed by the scene, and she scanned the area as though expecting that she had missed something.
"Bag it," the master huntsman ordered, pulling a burlap sack from a bundle tied to his waist and handing it to the apprentice. She gave a curt nod, her brow still furrowed with dissatisfaction, and moved to smother the last of the corpse's flames before disposing of it.
The sound of movement drew the huntsman's attention, and through the grass, a tall, pale scarecrow of a man in a long black cloak emerged. Seeing that he'd been noticed, the scarecrow lifted a rolled paper that he carried in one hand, tied with a purple ribbon. The scarecrow called out, "I carry a message bearing the royal seal!"
The huntsman frowned and grunted. Dressed as he was, the scarecrow was less likely an emissary of the king but one of the king's sorcerer, a man with whom the huntsman worked hard not to deal.
The apprentice drew up beside her master, her kill weighing down the smoky sack in her hands. She said, "The royal seal? Does that mean?"
"A message from the king!" the scarecrow answered, coming to a stop before them and mustering as much haughtiness as the smell of charred firehawk would allow. The man's long nose, one that reminded the apprentice much of the beak of the creature that she'd just bagged, crinkled in dismay. Although a messenger today, the man didn't seem to be comfortable outside the walls of the castle, or perhaps, the apprentice noticed as the man's eyes quivered nervously below his prominent brow, even in his own skin.
"You are needed by your majesty, his Grace, the King! As loyal subjects, follow me and be commanded by him!" The scarecrow swiveled on his heels and marched in the direction that he had come, apparently expecting the huntsman and apprentice to follow.
The master huntsman grunted again, weighing his options, none of them particularly pleasing. Heaving a heavy sigh, he followed the scarecrow. The apprentice paused, turned to survey the burnt clearing left by the firehawk, glanced at the sack in her hands, and then hurried after her master and the royal messenger. She murmured under her breath, "But he didn't even give us the message."
***
The master huntsman had kept the apprentice away from the castle as often as he could. It was a cold, gray, drab place, filled to the brim with cold draughts that invaded the lungs and petulant royals whose entitlement was equaled only by their depravity. Both things could bring diseases which the huntsman wanted his apprentice to avoid. Even now, he noticed how both the men and the women in the castle watched the apprentice as she passed them through the massive halls, their eyes filled with hungry lust. The apprentice was fresh and beautiful and soft, things that the inhabitants of the castle devoured and spat out like fruit, leaving the remnants chewed, ugly, and hard. The huntsman had kept his apprentice safe until now, and he didn't plan on anything changing today.
An image of the apprentice on the day he found her, a newly orphaned toddler dripping with blood and shrieking in horror, came unbidden to his mind. Even if she could not remember it, the girl had experienced enough pain to last two lifetimes.
"Stay close," he whispered out the corner of his mouth in her direction. The apprentice moved close enough to brush his arm without protest. Perhaps she had observed the looks as well.
The scarecrow was babbling, yet he still hadn't officially read them the king's message: "... for weeks. And the king doesn't know what to do. This is an urgent matter, one most serious. One in which..."
"That's enough, Greymore. You are dismissed," interrupted a low, ominous voice, one which made the apprentice think of the rumble of a mountain before its top exploded into fire and flame.
The scarecrow stammered, and then with an awkward bow, he scurried away, his cloak flapping after him and his royal message still in hand.
The apprentice saw that the man who had spoken and had eyes like pools of midnight with a dead center, a perfectly-groomed goatee of the same color coming to a fine point on his chin, and a bald head, the skin dull and covered in crisis-crossing scars. Like the messenger, the man wore a simple attire of a black cloak, cinched at the waist with black rope, as well as an expression that would make a summer blossom wither from the chill. While the messenger appeared as though a scarecrow in his cloak, this man loomed large, broad, and intimidating like a surly, hell-spawned demoniac.
"A royal order from the king, eh? Or from his magic dog, Quiver?" the master huntsman growled. The other man's thin black eyebrows drew up, and his face gritted itself into something that looked like a smile but felt more like a grimace.
"Pleasant as always, Master Huntsman. As I work at the behest of the king and in his dread name, 'tis all one and the same, 'tis it not?" the man, Quiver, rumbled in that resonating, authoritative voice.
"Depends on who has whose hand up the others' ass," the huntsman said with a sneer. The apprentice held in a gasp. She had only ever seen her master treat other people, especially those of higher station, with nothing but the utmost respect. She couldn't imagine what this black-cloaked, black-bearded, black-eyed man had done to earn the huntsman's disdain, but she desperately needed to know that story.
A thought flashed across her mind. Was that why the messenger hadn't shown them the paper? Was it because the king had never actually written and signed it? Was the scarecrow and his claim all a ruse to lead her master to the castle for this confrontation with the king's sorcerer? The apprentice found it a far-fetched theory but one that fit well enough to make her wonder.
Quiver threw back his head, put his hands on his stomach, and roared with laughter. Silvery peals of it echoed through the halls and into connecting chambers, disrupting various royals from their schemes and sport. No doubt they shivered when they heard Quiver's guffaws before going about their business. The huntsman and the apprentice watched this display until the sorcerer finally finished. Quiver sniffed and wiped a tear from one cold eye.
"As entertaining as I remember, Garck. Follow me, and I will lead you to the king. However, the girl must stay here. The matter we must discuss is... sensitive, and the king wishes it to be confidential," the sorcerer said.
The huntsman shook his head and replied, "The girl goes where I go. She knows what I know."
Quiver nodded. "Yes, and she will. But not today. Not with the king. You may fill her in as you wish at your leisure but later. The king has specific orders not to be met with... strangers." Quiver allowed the last word to drip with deadly insinuation.
"Strangers? She's my apprentice, and just a girl. There's no danger from her."
