Stalking Darkness

shutters banged open behind them and two familiar voices shouted, “Good morning!”
    Startled, Micum and Alec looked up just in time to catch a faceful of snow from Seregil and Illia, laughing victoriously outside.
    “Sneak up on me, will you?” Seregil jeered as he and the girl fled.
    “After them!” cried Micum, scrambling out through the window.
    An ungainly chase ensued. Illia wisely dodged into the kitchen and was granted asylum by Arna, who brandished a copper ladle at all would-be abductors.
    Seregil wasn’t so lucky. Never at his best in a daylight fight, he stumbled over one of the excited dogs who’d joined in the hunt and was tackled by Alec. Micum caught up and together they heaved Seregil into a drift and sat on him.
    “Traitor!” he sputtered as Alec thrust a handful of snow down the back of his shirt.
    Micum cut him short with another handful in the face. “I believe I owed you that,” he chortled, “and here’s another with interest.”
    By the time they let him up, Seregil looked like a poorly carved sculpture done in white sugar.
    “What do you say to a hunt?” Micum asked, attempting to brush him off a bit.
    “Actually, I had more of a quiet day by the fire in mind,” Seregil gasped, shaking snow from his hair.
    Grabbing him. Micum tossed him easily over one broad shoulder. “Find me a fresh drift, Alec.”
    “There’s a good one right there.”
    “I’ll go, I’ll go, damn you!” howled Seregil, struggling like a cat.
    “What did I tell you?” laughed Micum, setting him on his feet. “I knew he’d want to.”
    With dry clothes and a quick breakfast, the three of them set off into the hills above Watermead with bows and hounds.
    The dogs struck the trail of a boar first, but Micum called them off that, since they hadn’t brought spears.
    For the rest of the morning they found nothing but birds and rabbits. At Alec’s insistence, Seregil had brought a bow and no one was more surprised than he when he managed to hit a roosting grouse.
    They were just thinking of stopping for a midday meal when the dogs flushed a bull elk from a stand of fir. They chased it for nearly half an hour before Alec put a broadhead shaft into the great beast’s heart, dropping it in midleap.
    “One shot, by the Maker!” Micum exclaimed, swinging out of the saddle to inspect the kill.
    “Quick and clean,” said Alec, kneeling to inspect the shot. “That way they don’t suffer.”
    Alec had dropped armed men with the same merciful economy, thought Micum, inspecting the red-fletched shaft protruding from the animal’s side.
    They built a fire and began dressing out the carcass. It was messy work; the snow around them was soon stained a steaming scarlet. Opening the belly, Micum tossed the entrails to the dogs and presented the heart and liver to Alec, his due for the killing shot.
    “We’ll need more water before we’re done,” Micum remarked as they set about the skinning.
    Alec wiped his bloodied hands in the snow. “We passed a stream a ways back. I’ll go refill the water skins.”
    Seregil paused in his work, following Alec with his eyes until the boy had ridden out of sight between the trees. Beside him, Micum smiled to himself, thinking of what Kari had said.
    “He’s grown up a lot, hasn’t he?” he ventured presently.
    Seregil shrugged, going back to his skinning. “He’s had to, ramming around with the likes of us.”
    “You’ve come to think quite a lot of him, I’d say.”
    Seregil saw through his flimsy words in an instant and his smile faded to hard, flat denial. “If you think I—”
    “I’d never think ill of you for the world. I just think that heart of yours leads you down some hard trails, that’s all. You haven’t said anything to him, have you?”
    Seregil’s face was a careful mask of indifference, but his shoulders sagged visibly. “No, and I’m not going to. It wouldn’t be—honorable. I have too much influence over him.”
    “Well, he loves you well in his own fashion,” Micum said, unable to think of anything more optimistic.
    The silence spun out between them again, less comfortable this time. Loosening the last bit of hide, Micum set his knife aside.
    “Do you have any idea what Nysander is up to? I haven’t heard a thing from him since the Festival.”
    This time there was no mistaking the troubled look in his friend’s eyes.
    “Secrets, Micum. Still secrets. He’s driven me half-mad with them,” Seregil admitted, warming