The Hunt

[Jay Carpenter]

"I look ridiciulous."
He murmured to himself. Luckily, no one was around to hear the escaped thought. A beauty mark on a Domani man's chin made more sense compared to the way Jai felt he pranced with the Razor. "Not exactly a killer, are you?"
Riding a peacock on a hunt seemed a fitting retribution for delivering an old uniform to Fate rather than doffing the current one then and there. He reconsidered the mistake of not giving her what she really wanted. Burn it all. The stallion stomped back at Jai's nervous laughter.

"Rodel Ituralde rode a Razor."


Distracted by the conversation and attempts to feel dominating, he hadn't noticed Antony leading his mount into ear shot. It would not have been disturbing for a man a whole head shorter to quietly cross the hay-softened dirt, but to do so with a full sized horse of his own was unsettling. The apprehension curling Jai's brows slowly seeped into antipathy.

"Yeah? Well, not for stealth."
The rankle of amusement broke the captain's veneer as he disappeared from the stables.

Jai could hear the rustle of preparations out there, blinded into obscurity by the pour of sunlight's direction. A good spotlight was always appreciated, but the black and white stripes beneath him were as good a target as if he'd painted one on his back. The nobles without would certainly raise a few brows at seeing a foreigner confiscating something so prized. In that regard, Jai could grin at the lot of them, hold his arms out, and canter into their midst as a conquering hero. Considering the aim of one or two out there, they probably would not need the target on his back to hit him then; well, try and hit him. Metaphorical targets might be poetic justice, but he could imagine a leathery Raken circling him like a buzzard all the way to the Dragonwall with such an easy target to track.

A longing glance at the passing stalls of quarterhorses revealed his preference. Black, when given the choice; for obvious reasons. He could channel that sense of foreboding power as a rider cloaked in omninous night on a black stallion. Seen speeding forward by only the gleam of pins, flash of steel and white globes of horse eyes. The sword, the horse, the uniform. Jai knew it was all marketing; as clear an illusion as filling a hall with coerced busyness to draw in a real crowd. Brilliantly planned on the part of the Black Tower and fully supported by Jai. His brothers were just as deadly with or without looking like animated death, but people clung to symbols; grasping hard, ironically, at the hand that would bring them swift demise if they thought it would buy them a few more minutes before falling to the darkness below.

Today was not about that; not entirely. Jai owned no such animal of his own. A man who lived in tents rode the Legion's stock; a man who stalked palace halls borrowed whatever was waiting around. And horses were only a rewarding investment if one owned the land to stud them. Neither were ventures he cared to pursue; the thrill of investing was not about making money after all.

"Steady."
The Stallion snorted, assuming the suggestion was meant for him as though used to more confident riders than Jai. Or commanding ones, perhaps? This was Daryen's parade horse, after all, Fate's breeder; two of the world's great powers could certainly be described as commanding. A boy raised in immaculate city streets had little need for horse work. His own two feet sufficed. When the occassion called for cleaner boots, the Kojima men stepped from carriages rather than swung from a saddle. Off the island, long distance travel was essentially eliminated when one's constant company consisted of channelers. It left Jai with only a working man's skill at riding. Enough to not get bucked, know how to steer, and keep a wary eye for snakes.

He was determined to look confident; even if he wasn't. Which is why he took his time stepping into that spotlight. Gathering the swirl of expertise behind his eyes like he danced with the familiarity of equations was not an instant facade. But when it came, his smirk was for a mistress nobody else could conquer. When War Cry finally steadied, Jai knew the charade was a success. Winning over the stallion's respect was the final task to check off. It wasn't about the Razor, though. Not entirely. The stallion's tentative respect would be lost if it knew it were being used as Lady Nisele's entwining fingers had been when they tried to clutch at Jai: as a message.

A click of the tongue and they rode from stableshade and into sight of the group that would spit on a drowning man as soon as spot him. In the momentary burn of sudden brightness, Jai heard a gasp. An amused lick of a smile briefed his lips in response. It was about that.

He swayed in the saddle's graceful rocking, foreign on the Razor as an inlander in an ocean dingy. The reigns were loosely draped through his ungloved fingers casually rest on the black pommel. At least the saddle he'd acquired was classically colored. Jai needed every image he could to remind the lot out to keep the spit in their mouths. Perhaps it was being superior, riding forth as he did, unturning toward the whispers that followed him like hungry dogs. But there was no denying an Asha'man's dias above the rest; those vultures might not walk the wounded to safety, but Jai rode with the potential to give the vulture something to eat in the first place.

He walked War Cry straight as an arrow through the murmurings rising up to meet him.

'The King's mount?' one reached his ears. In answer, Jai flashed the anonymous questioner an affirming nod. Yes, it said; do not question again. He rode the same animal as was used to show off the nation's ruler. Only rather than parading Daryen around in Arad Doman's crown jewels, War Cry had the pleasure of prancing with a new brother of death.

Another question broke the barricade of indistinguisable buzz. 'A bet, I heard.' Then, the judgemental accusation: 'Gambler.' To those, he did not respond. Which was as good as confirmation as if he'd chucked a pair of dice into their face. Antony did his job it seemed, spreading enough of the tale with his time in the company of the horse's owner to initiate the appropriate momentum. Now, it was up to Jai to exponentiate the message.

He noted, that in general as people seemed to put the finishing touches on their travel supplies. The younger Suaya brother seethed with mocking pleasantries when Jai caught his eye, then went back to securing his buckler of arrows, eyes flashing to the weapon at Jai's hip, the blade obviously not condusive to shooting down animal flesh.

"What are you going to do, Kojima? Hack the deer to death?"
Jai quenched the younger man's mocking laughter with a suggestive laugh of his own. Asha'man did not need such lesser tools; effectively unsettling Tamal more with a disturbing laugh than any other comeback might have accomplished.

He kicked forward, past Nisele's seductive smile. Though Jai thought it dulled when she saw the leather and fur-clad Imaad raise a silvery flask to theatrically greet the passing Asha'man, a move more cleverly delivered than Tamal's attempts had been.

He was drawn toward the only other soldier in their midst; not that Jai particularly thought of himself in the same league. Soldiers were heroes, after all. Antony still wore vestiges of his uniform but was now transformed into more functional attire rather than the stern look of formality during the reception beforehand: buttons loosened at his neck, the stiff jacket shed, sleeves rolled to the elbows. The man was deep in discussion about terrain with a seasoned huntmaster by the look of the newcomer's lithe attire and assortment of projectile instruments scattered within arm's reach. A pre-strung shortbow at his left, fletchings of arrows sticking high above the opposite shoulder. A paring knife for splitting skin strapped to his thigh, a sheathed butcher's saw secured to the saddle. Riding up earned a split second pause in their planning as the man glanced curiously at the Razor, sword, and finally Jai.

It earned him a more healthy nod in greeting than Jai had given to the others; hiding his wonder at just which faction bought the hunter's allegiance. The griseled woodsman did not seem so fine an actor to Jai as to portray being until-now unaware of one of the party including a nameless man of the Black Tower. Perhaps his allegiance was still up for purchase, then?

Their conversation resumed, but Jai paid little attention to the details. He cared little for what pastures lay between the hills ahead, only surviving long enough to get there; hillsides could be moved anyway.

He caught the warder's eye next as one herald of death respecting the territory of another. He had no intention of crossing so expertly trained a man, especially one littered with the minute bulges of blades marring the slopes of his elaborate cloak. His weapons were not for hunting either, Jai noticed, but for blazing a path to safety. His sword was positioned the same as Jai's, though was not so fine a weapon. It's shape of none of the borderlands, and certainly not curved with the same beauty as his own; Jai ignored the inherent bias in such a thought. Yet the warder seemed less possessive of it, tied to the saddle while Jai maintained his belted.

It didn't take a warder-trained man to notice being sized up. It seemed to magnify the tension, though. While it wasn't his intent to signal hostility, the man bristled further when Jai dismissed the blades, and man who carried them, as only minor threats.

His eyes slid to the Aes Sedai in the gaidin's shadow. Now she was a threat. Without a way to know her strength, Jai was forced to assume she could snuff the Power from his grasp with the lifting of a finger, although it would take an exceptional woman to do so if he already seized Saidin. Her Ajah hadn't escaped his notice either. With the color of her dress she might as well have been shawled in Brown. The woman who engineered his path herewas of the same Ajah. Her Sitter in fact. He studied Liridia with the question of wondering how much she knew, and waiting for her half of the Power shredding his skin in ice enhanced the anticipation tightening his jaw.

Antony's cipher might easily have come from her faction as any other person in sight. Imaad's sly smirk seemed amused at the inherent threat between Asha'man and Aes Sedai; perhaps he was the mole to give Jai away? Nisele's clicking forward of her mare jerked Jai's attention her direction only to see her back ghosting forward, silken hair bouncing on the propulsion; Jai believed her as capable of striking a man's life inconsequential as the Aes Sedai. And likely just as resourceful at gathering information. Foreigner, she liked to tease him. He searched his memory for evidence if she'd ever hinted at knowing his past.

When his eyes finally absorbed Nythadri, her chill was frozen further by the events of the last hour. He swallowed the sick suspicion threatening the tentative trust constructed when last they were together. She was of the White Tower, he reminded himself. Therefore belonging with the likes of Fate and Liridia. But things were different now. It dug inward like gravel in an open wound, but rather than face such doubts, he pulled the reigns and steered War Cry around to put her out of sight. Hoping with a spur forward she did not see the incertaintude likely to have crimped the edges of his eyes.

The first of the party spurred forward, but with a general understanding of readiness rather than some official proclamation. Jai ignored the lingering eyes he passed on the way to catching up with those in the lead. He didn't interrupt Daryen's turn with the hunter now, but a brief meeting of their eyes and he had not the excuse of riding away to conceal suspicion as he had with Nythadri. This man was the only one Jai knew about that had the potential to have betrayed his trust. A silent question passed between them. How much did the other one know?

Behind them, other eyes were asking themselves the same question. The hunt began.