The Pillars Of The World

and every line of his body shouted his intention to vent his rage on something.
    Give him a different target , Neall thought, rising from the crouch and glancing at the still-dark cottage.
    You can survive a beating . As he started to step away from the tree, the small man gripped his wrist, holding him back.
    “Can’t you feel it?” the small man whispered harshly, pulling Neall down to a crouch again.
    “Feel wh—”
    Magic rippled across the land. A moment after that, a howl filled the air.
    “Mother’s mercy,” Neall whispered.
    “Best to stay down and stay quiet, young Lord,” the small man said. “The Wild Hunt rides through Brightwood.”
    Neall shivered. He saw Royce freeze, then run to the front of the cottage where he had left his horse. He had one glimpse of Royce whipping the horse into a flat-out gallop before horse and rider vanished from his line of sight.
    Twisting around, he stared at his gelding, which hadn’t stirred at all.
    “Sleeping dust,” the small man said softly. “He’ll sleep a bit longer. Perhaps long enough,” he added under his breath.
    The pack of shadow hounds burst from the woods that bordered the back of the meadow, racing silently toward the road.
    Neall’s breath caught, suspended by fear and awe. The hounds looked like phantoms shifting across the meadow rather than living creatures. As they streaked past his hiding place, he didn’t dare move. The traveling minstrels and storytellers had plenty of tales about men who had been invited to participate in the Wild Hunt—as the prey. True, all the men in those tales were scoundrels whose own misdeeds made the Hunt a deserved justice. But it was one thing to listen to those tales while sitting safely by the hearth; it was quite another to be out in the open with the hounds racing by.
    It was the small man digging his fingers into Neall’s wrist that made him glance away from the hounds in time to see the Huntress and her pale mare canter into the meadow.
    When she was abreast of his hiding place, she reined in the mare. She studied Ari’s cottage with its broken kitchen door for a long time. Then she turned her head and seemed to look straight at him.
    The small man’s grip on his wrist grew painful. The Huntress’s stare was compelling enough to be painful in another way.
    She’s ice , Neil thought. A man would be a fool to put his life in her hands .
    One of the shadow hounds returned, as if wondering why its mistress no longer followed the pack.
    She looked at the hound, hesitated ... and moved on.

    When she could no longer easily see him, Neall dared to turn his head toward the road. The pack was gathered there, sniffing the tracks. Some of them were staring in the direction of Ridgeley—the direction Royce had taken.
    The Huntress paused there too, then crossed the road. She urged the mare into a canter and headed toward old Ahern’s farm, the hounds flowing on either side of her.
    “You’d best be gone before she comes back this way,” the small man said, finally releasing Neall’s wrist.
    “What makes you think she’ll be back?” Neall asked as he straightened up slowly.
    “She’ll be back.”
    Neall walked over to Darcy, placed a hand on the gelding’s neck. Startled awake, the animal jerked away from his hand, then turned its head toward him, as if needing the reassurance of a familiar smell and touch.
    “You’d best ride, young Lord, before she begins wondering a bit too much about you,” the small man insisted.
    “What’s there to wonder about?” Neall said uneasily as he untied Darcy. “And being a poor relation of Baron Felston doesn’t make me a lord.”
    “Wasn’t talking about the likes of him ,” the small man said, annoyed. He studied Neall, his expression grim. “You think the Small Folk talk to every lad that comes looking for us? We watch them the same way we keep watch to make sure the rats don’t harm our young. The only difference between most humans and rats is that rats are more honest. But like will recognize like, even when the blood has thinned
    —and yours isn’t as thin as you pretend. That’s why the Small Folk have made themselves known to you, and that’s why the Huntress will wonder about you.”
    Neall stared at the small man. “You’re mistaken.”
    “Am I?” the small man asked softly. “Am I really, young Lord?” He shrugged. “As you will. But the boy you were has grown to be a man, and a lie told by a boy isn’t swallowed as easily