Red Hood's Revenge

no difference.” For a moment, Roudette was a child again, running through the woods, branches tearing at her cape and hair. “The Wild Hunt ride wherever they choose, or they did until recently. They’ve been sighted more and more often in Arathea, though they rarely enter the cities.”
    “Zestan?” Talia asked.
    Roudette twirled her hammer. “Had you asked me a year ago, I’d have told you no one, human or fairy, could command the Wild Hunt.”
    Two sisters ran down the hall toward them. Roudette recognized the old woman who had brought them in, Khardija. The other was unfamiliar. Both smelled of fear, though the older one hid it better.
    “Do you know what’s happening?” the old one asked.
    “Keep everyone in their rooms,” said Roudette. “Remain calm. If you flee, the Hunt will ride you down.”
    The sister looked to Talia for confirmation.
    “Do it,” said Talia.
    “The Wild Hunt rides from midnight until an hour before dawn.” Roudette moved into the garden, assessing its value as a place of ambush. “They’d be upon you already if my cape hadn’t obscured our trail.”
    “Since you’re the one who dragged me back here to begin with, I’m having a hard time feeling grateful.”
    “You will once you face a hunter.” Roudette pointed to the far side of the garden. “That doorway is closest to the main entrance.”
    “I’ll lure him into the garden,” said Talia.
    Roudette shook her head. “You’re his prey. When he spots you, he might summon the rest. Wait by the wall. I’ll keep his attention on me. Strike quickly, and the Hunt won’t realize they’ve lost one of their number until they depart before dawn.”
    Talia moved to the right of the doorway, crouching against the wall where a row of olive trees would help conceal her from view. She waited with a short curved sword in one hand, a knife in the other.
    Roudette moved into the middle of the garden, making sure the moonlight shone upon her red cape. She gripped her hammer in both hands as she paced around the pool.
    Even a single hunter was enough to rouse the wolf’s hunger. She fought the urge to don the skin and charge into the night, chasing down the hunters and ripping them from their mounts. Tearing into their throats until every last one of them lay dead before her.
    The next howl was closer, eliciting cries of fear from within the temple. Roudette heard the sisters rushing through the hallway, doing what they could to calm their patients.
    She smelled the hunter before she saw him. The sulfurous stink of a fairy curse mixed with the bloody musk of the hounds. Two hounds, but only a single huntsman. The leather- wrapped handle of her hammer creaked in her grip. She could remember her first glimpse of a fairy hunter, though she hadn’t known what he was at the time. Fool that she was, she had believed him to be a rescuer, come to save her from the wolf that had consumed her grandmother.
    Shouts broke out from the yard. Footsteps pounded through the hallway as the more able-bodied patients fled, ignoring the pleas of the sisters. The hounds’ barks grew louder in response.
    “In here,” Roudette shouted. The first one through the doorway was a young man with a splinted arm. Roudette pointed to the back. “Keep running.”
    He vanished through the rear doorway. Four others tore through the gardens, and then the hunter appeared.
    Flanked by his hounds, he could have passed for human. A bronze helm fringed with black horsehair masked his face. He held a spear with a leaf-shaped point in one hand. Fresh blood darkened the tip.
    Swirls of blue, either painted or tattooed, decorated his bare chest. His loose blue trousers were bound at the knees. A bone-handled knife hung on one hip, a bronze-rimmed horn on the other.
    The dogs wore neither collars nor leashes, though they appeared to strain at invisible bonds. Long- legged and lean, their ears flat, they growled at Roudette. Their eyes had a faint blue-green glow, barely visible in the moonlight.
    Joy surged through Roudette’s heart as she charged the hunter. His dogs raced to intercept her. She saw Talia launching herself from the shadows, silent as the darkness.
    Roudette swung at the dog on her right, the iron weight of her hammer crushing the animal’s shoulder. The other dog slammed into her. She fell, releasing her weapon and digging both hands into the dog’s throat. She kicked her legs into its ribs and hurled it through the air to land in the pond