Riddermarch by Ellen Quellery (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

is...unaware of the invitation to begin with. He's been in the Dalethorne Forest these past three months."

Then with a nod to the startled Lord Baron, all five Riddermarches tipped their heads and trotted out the door to the carriages.

 

When all the dinner guests were gone, Lord Baron Rooke marched straight up the stairs to the Baroness' room, where she was pummeling her pillows angrily.

"So, you heard," he said.

Growling, the baroness sat up. Her hair was askew and her eyes bloodshot. But even so, she was still beautiful. Her fury seemed to make her more so.

"He did not receive the invitation."

"Send him another!" the baroness snapped.

Sighing, the baron shook his head. "I have sent numerous rooks to him. He is either ignoring us, or he already knows."

But that only caused the baroness to fume more. "Then why hasn't he answered us?"

The baron shrugged. "Who knows the mind of a Riddermarch?"

"He should be punished," the baroness said.

But the baron only laughed at that.

"He deserves it!" she shrieked. "After all the torture...! The pain he's put me through!"

"My darling, sweet - "

"Don't darling me! For twenty-three years I have borne this! And for twenty-three years I have seen him triumph again and again!" She clenched her long fingers into balls, her fingernails digging into her palms. "And those - things! Walking about! Tormenting me with their presence!"

"It is not like they are aware of it..." the baron replied.

"Not aware?" Her voice shrieked into a sharp pitch. "Did you see what they gave me for our anniversary present?"

"They brought one?" He was startled, if not amused.

Nodding sharply, the baroness pulled out the box Azuesh had handed her. She tossed it to him.

Inside was the silver boar bristle hairbrush and the matching mirror.

"And with it came a card." The baroness held it out. Through clenched teeth, she growled. "Read it."

Taking the neatly penned card, the baron looked at the writing. It said:

 

Just returning it

Chapter Eight: Hunt

 

 

 

 

Bright and early Erleon and Ranoft met a group of gentlemen on the skirts of their property - a secret promise made to those interested in hunting.

"With us, you'll be fine," Ranoft said as they led the party into the borders of Dalethorne forest.

"But you said only a fool would enter this forest." Alder hesitated, peering nervously under the canopy of the towering trees.

Chuckling, Ranoft went straight in, almost vanishing into the shadows. "Well, they do say Riddermarches are either fools or dullards."

Erleon laughed, following right after.

Dale Rawling, Ernest Brokwood and Alder Ildenwite shook their heads and went in after the bothers. The other two men in their party hesitated a little longer.

The brothers, however, did not lead them deep into the wood, but rather into a glade full of high grass. Light shimmered down in pillars, illuminating the open space like a temple. The visitors drew in awe-filled breaths.

"We call this glade Haven," Erleon whispered.

"Are there plenty of birds here?" whispered back Alder.

Erleon shook his head. "We don't hunt here. Haven is a gateway between the elflands and the freewood. We hunt the freewood, but we must pass through Haven to get there."

"The elflands?" murmured Dale, his eyes quickly tracking to the tree line on both sides.

Ranoft led them silently through the glade, his feet making almost no sound. Erleon trod after him, just as quiet, if not more. It was almost as if Erleon's feet had no weight at all. The other five felt as if they were a herd of cattle in comparison. They were relieved when they reached the other side.

Turning around once they merged back into the trees, Ranoft said in a normal voice, "Yes. The elflands start just over there." He pointed back to the right side of the tree line in Haven. "Which we believe is guarded."

Their five guests drew in breaths and looked back.

"Can they can hear us?" Ernest whispered with wide eyes.

With a peek to Erleon, Ranoft said, "Not so much now. Elves, you must understand, are extremely territorial. More than human beings."

"More than?" exclaimed Dale in a whisper.

Ranoft nodded as they continued on. "Oh yes. A human being would work to chase you out of their lands, shout at you, and eventually shoot at you - though not trying to kill you. An elf..." He chuckled ironically. "They would capture you, and torture you. And after you have begged for your life sufficiently to satisfy their vengeful nature - maybe they would release you as a warning to others. But more likely, you would become a feast for their pets - or end up forever a prisoner. Elves are famous for lacking the ability to forgive."

"At least, those are the legends," Erleon said, smirking.

"The one thing I can say for human beings over elves," Ranoft sighed with a shake of his head, "is their ability for forgiveness and mercy."

The brothers led the hunting party through the trees a long way in silence until they reached another glade, this one misty. A few saplings stood in it, and the sound of a brook was nearby.

"What do you call this place?" Alder whispered when they entered it.

Erleon lifted his gun and peered over it at the high grass. "Merrow Creek."

Ernest broke into a laugh. "Merrow Creek? Isn't that the little river near your home?"

Ranoft nodded with a secret smile, picking up a handful of pebbles.

He threw one pebble into the grasses.

A trio of pheasants flew out.

Erleon took a shot.

One pheasant fell.

"What I wouldn't give for a dog right about now," one of the men murmured.

The others chuckled.

But the brothers' methods for hunting birds was rather good, and they bagged a fair number of birds. And, jealously, the men noticed the Riddermarch men were excellent shots. Elf-eyes, they whispered.

"Merrow Creek, huh? We walked all that way just to enter Witsend grounds from the other side?" Ernest said after a while, resting between shots. "Whatever for?"

"Honestly?" Ranoft asked.

"Of course."

"Well," Ranoft pondered it for a moment. "If we came directly from the manor, the animals might think we are here to play. And it would be a monstrous betrayal to then shoot at them. But by coming through the gateway, we are declaring our intentions to hunt."

The men drew in breaths.

"You must understand, animals know that food must be killed in order to live." Ranoft gave them the sincerest look. "It is the natural order of things."

"I know a man who refuses to eat meat on that very principle." Alder nudged a fellow hunter with a nod. "You know him. Southern fellow. From Whinding Shores."

But Erleon laughed with a shared look to his brother. "Does he assume that plants are not alive, then?"

Alder blinked. Then he thought out loud. "You know, I don't think I've ever really asked him."

Laughing more, Erleon said, "Ask him next time. See if he blushes. For I know trees have feelings, as do the grasses, and all those things underfoot."

The men stared at him.

"Is that why they obey you?" one man whispered.

Blinking, Erleon quickly looked to his brother who shrugged with a 'They noticed at The Picnic' look. Blushing, Erleon said, "It is more of a friendship, really."

And the men listened nearer.

Seeing and understanding that their guests were not so much afraid now, he explained shortly, "Trees speak. All living things have feelings. But they also understand that there is a cycle to life. Though they are not forgiving, trees are understanding."

"And the animals you hunt?" whispered Dale.

Cringing, Erleon shared another look with Ranoft. "Animals...are temperamental. They get angry, some remember, and most know when to stay away from us."

"But not all...?" asked Ernest.

Ranoft shook his head with wide eyes.

"No," Erleon said, shaking his head with the same expression. "Ran - you remember that bear that - "

"Oh..." Ranoft shuddered. He then looked to the other men. "Bad tempered, and we weren't even hunting her. She got mad at us for getting too close to her cubs."

"Meaning accidentally walking among them while they were foraging for wild honey. An honest mistake."

"And that badger. You remember that one," Ranoft said.

Erleon nodded.

"I woke him from his nap, and he would not leave us alone at all to pick up the pheasants we shot." Ranoft shook his head with disgust.

"And he stole those mushrooms we found." Erleon nodded.

"I think he was after them in the first place," Ranoft said.

"And the gooseberries."

"Some fox ran off with our birds..."

The gentlemen were too dumbfounded to laugh.

"Well? Shall we go?" Ranoft said after heaving a breath, looking around themselves. "I think this is enough for one day."

The gentlemen agreed. This time Ranoft led them to the creek which was along the thicker tree line. They intended to follow it home.

Then they heard it.

The squeal. High, grunting and infuriated.

A boar.

And riding on top was a small angular man, legs as thin as candlesticks, a head shaped like a turnip, and eyes as black as obsidian glass. The little person was dressed in mossy leaves, stitched together in spider webs. In its hand, a long bent-branch spear.

"Halt!" Its voice shot into the center of their ears, leaving a lasting sting that shivered down to the base of their necks and up behind their eyes with an ache. "Poachers!"

Erleon turned with a groan, his shoulders hanging. "For the last time, this is Riddermarch land!"

"This land belongs to the Elfking!" the little creature shouted back.

"Oh, for pity's sake..." Ranoft muttered. He turned to the men in the hunting party, urging them to continue on. "Keep going. It can't do anything."

"But isn't that an elf?" hissed back Alder.

"Hardly," Ranoft said.

"Hardly?" exclaimed the little folk on the back of the boar. "I'll show you hardly!"

Then it charged, spear pointed, after them.

Erleon stepped in between, glaring, not at the elf, but at the boar underneath him. The wild pig scraped in halt before the second Riddermarch son, squealing as if it suddenly faced a bear of prodigious size.

"You don't scare me, mortal!" the little elf shouted at Erleon. "And you! Come back here! Those birds belong to me!"

"What did you mean by hardly?" Alder asked in exasperation. "That is an elf, isn't it?"

Ranoft chuckled. "A minor elf, if even that. He's more like a rodent. A scavenger. A true elf exudes power - and they never expose themselves so obviously, especially to mortals."

They could hear the minor elf shouting after them, held off by Erleon.

"Oh...so he's not dangerous." Ernest looked back, relaxing.

"No," Ranoft shook his head. "He is quite dangerous - to you."

The men blanched.

"But you gentlemen forget, Erl and I descendants of the Elfking."

They followed Ranoft in silence all the way through the trees to the edge of Witsend land, where he hopped onto the wood planking to the water garden's near bridgeway. Seconds after, Elreon trotted over, grinning with chuckles under his breath, looking back over his shoulder.

"That little highwayman.... Doesn't he have a memory? Did he forget that last time we - "

Yet Erleon halted, stopped by the frozen procession. Everyone ahead of him had paused midway across the bridge to stare at a white doe drinking from the pond.

Ranoft had drawn in a breath and gone pale. Erleon rushed to his side, staring.

Under his breath, Ranoft whispered, "That, my friends, is an elf."

The white doe lifted its head, regarded them a slow moment, then turned as if time would wait for it, walking back into