The Wood Wife by Terri Windling (the false prince TXT) 📕

of Them. His breath was labored; as was the stag’s. They had harried the beast for some distance. The Hounds breathed smoke in the cold desert air, their eyes were flames, their teeth like knives. The stag could be hurt, but not killed by them. He was bound as tightly with protection from the Hounds as the witch woman, Anna Naverra, had been. The stag knew the man was the danger here, on this night of all nights in human Time.

The Hounds herded him to the circle of the springs, the land rising steep around them here, trying to drive the stag to exhaustion and to bring him down, so the man could strike. Crow rocked on his perch with his amusement. The little Floodmage claimed to disdain all of humankind, and yet she overestimated them. That man was no match for the big white stag, even when the Hounds had done with it. The man was a painter, not a hunter; a creator, not a killer. The stag would win, and then the Hounds would feed on the man instead.

The stag wheeled, chunks of turquoise flying where his hooves hit the rock of the canyon’s floor. The Floodmage’s pack was closing in. But where had the Windmage’s poacher gone? Crow lifted lightly into the sky, circled the clearing and found the man at the edge of the trailhead, waiting there. Waiting for what? This was interesting. Crow fluttered and settled on a rock ledge above, where the Owl Boy sat, his masked face intent. Crow fanned his black wings, startling the boy. “And what are you up to, my pretty?”

The Windmage put a finger to his lips. “Be quiet, Fool, and you shall see.”

Crow surveyed the night: the stag, the Hounds, the man with the knife, the man with the gun. Black Maggie was coming up the trail, the witch woman’s son close at her heels. She spied the poacher, just as the poacher spied the stag bounding up the hill. The Hounds drove the stag up toward the springs. The stag wheeled. Then the animal gathered himself, to bound through the clearing and up the steep slope, toward the east, toward escape, away from the Hounds. He ran, made the leap. He folded in midair, and fell heavily to the hard ground.

Crow shifted to his true shape, his dual horned-man shape, where his quick eyes were the sharpest. Then he saw the cold, metallic gleam of a wire stretched across the clearing. A trap, a poacher’s dirty trick. He looked at the Windmage with sharp disapproval. “That is not well done. There’s no beauty in it.”

The boy shrugged. “The man’s doing, not mine,” he said. “And I’ll still win the wager.”

The stag climbed slowly to his feet, moving with effort, with great heaving breaths. One leg bone had snapped, another fractured. The Hounds surrounded him, holding off now. The poacher smiled, and came out from the rocks. He lifted his gun up to his shoulder, the smile wide on his red, flushed face. Behind him, Black Maggie snarled like an animal herself and launched into the man.

Gunshot cracked, ricochetting on rock. A tall sagauro was hit and one long green arm fell heavily to the ground, pinning the leg of the poacher, piercing through flesh with its hundreds of razor-sharp spines. The young man howled in agony. Crow laughed aloud on his ledge of stone. The boy hissed, “You brought that woman here! She’s spoiling the hunt! She’ll change everything.”

“Look there,” said Crow. “At the Floodmage’s pet.”

The painter was stalking the white stag now, his hand trembling, his shoulders tensed. Even with the Floodmage’s glamour on him, he was thinking twice of this work tonight. He was a sorry sight for a hunter, and the Owl Boy smiled wickedly.

Crow made an elaborate show of yawning. “The hunt is almost over now, before it’s even truly begun. That puppy won’t strike. The stag has won. Now all that remains to be seen is whom the Hounds choose as their consolation prize.”

The Windmage shrugged. “It could be your own pet, Fool. Look, the woman has broken herself. How will she run from the Hounds?”

Crow frowned. Black Maggie was climbing to her feet, braced by Fox, her face tight with pain, cradling one arm against her. Beside her, the poacher lay flat on the ground, leaking tears into the dry soil. Crow pointed, and said, “She carries turquoise—”

“That will protect her from glamour, not the Hounds.”

“—and she wears a white feather in her hair. That feather is one of yours, pretty boy. She’s under your protection now. The Hounds aren’t going to touch her.”

The boy shrugged. “In that case they’ll take her friends.”

“What is that to me?” Crow answered him, but he knew the words were false as he said them. The witch woman’s son was of interest to him; it would be a great pity to lose him now. And little Dora had taken his fancy. He watched as she ran across the clearing to her husband, calling out his name.

The Floodmage reached the painter first, her eyes like burning coals, her hair streaming smoke and fire behind her. “Strike! Strike! Why do you not strike?”

Juan swallowed. “I can’t. He’s so beautiful…”

“You must!” she shrieked. “You must! Or the bargain’s off, and I shall take something else! Your limbs, your life! Your work, your wife! Strike, or you will owe me one of them!”

“What fun!” said the Windmage.

Dora reached Juan, her hair as wild and as bright as the mage’s. She grabbed his arm, but he wheeled away, holding the knife between them. “Don’t listen,” said Dora. “Don’t do it. Don’t listen. Just give me the knife, dear heart.”

“I can’t,” Juan said, his voice breaking. “I made a bargain. I promised to hunt the stag. I can’t back out.”

“You’re hunting an angel, not a stag,” said Johnny Foxxe, coming up behind Dora. He looked warily at the knife held between them. His eyes flickered to the Floodmage and back.

The painter’s