The Hunt

[Jay Carpenter]

He imagined Nythadri found the damage and dirt to his uniform was missing something extra since her fingers flicked him a mess to add on. "How dainty,"
he teased the musician's stretching forth her slender palm. He took his time swiping it away, seeming to find her gesture more cute than bothersome. Finally removing the excess from his own hand across one thigh. "Sticky,"
he smirked. Just as he imagined it would be. Whatever else passed between them besides the banter, it did not seem to sit well with the Aes Sedai by her follow-up glare. And no innocent smirk from Jai seemed to appease her either.

By then she'd turned her attentions back to the hunter who was obviously hesitant. "May you, what? Aes Sedai?"
But was far from disrespectful. Her wave and stern frown silenced any further comment. He shot a lateral glance toward the warder who looked up from destringing the bow, cast a wave of one hand across his clothes, and signaled acquiescence with a nod.

Jai found himself watching the bow work rather than the Aes Sedai until a sudden wrenching sent shivers across his skin. Given his last round with saidar left him in a rather unpleasant sprawl, saidin surged immediately into his grasp and he threw his face between Lirida and Nythadri. It went down hill from there.

It was like a circle of hatred. One enemy draws a knife and the others flinch to do the same. Then all goes to stillness, all waiting for someone else to make the first move.

Jai felt Daryen swell with power far greater than his own reach. Saidin pulsed to fight with itself, and War Cry's uncomfortable dance sensed the sudden animosity in his rider. Perhaps the animal's reaction was the only sign anything was wrong besides the two Asha'man staring at one another. Daryen's mirth now far from the surface, and Jai's burgeoning mood collapsed once more. Neither man moved, though Jai felt he must surely be quivering with holding onto so much saidin. Liridia seemed oblivious to the gauntlets being thrown behind her.

Daryen broke first. A superficial explanation to appease the hunter, though it was to Jai he really spoke and maintained his gaze. "My good man, she is going to clean you off."
It appeased the hunter only.

Jai risked peeling his eyes from Daryen, waiting breath by breath for the feel of a flow to take form, in order to to check the truth for himself. Liridia did appear to be concentrating on her efforts. Tense seconds later and the flush of color emerged from the hunter's clothes like the cheeks of an embarrassed babe as though hooked and yanked from every fiber. A sizeable pile mounded soon at their feet. The wettest of it disappeared into the warm earth below.

All the while flaming Daryen waited patiently until Jai relaxed to release the Power. Not that he needed a superior watching over his shoulder every time he tried to channel. But jumping at the Aes Sedai wasn't helping his case.

He let it go.

The huntmaster was explaining the terrain ahead. "..a glen. Flocks of trees at the mouth. Middle sized herd grazing on the downslope. Plenty of other animal tracks, but if its deer we are after. We need to move."


He considered the freshly clean jacket suspiciously before shrugging into his sleeves once more, but his scan of the large group was met with disapproval. There were too many, he explained. The noise of the horses alone might scatter them.

"Then we ride to the ridge and walk it from there."
Daryen stretched one arm rather kingly forward and soon after the mound was left alone in the grass like some lonely pink mole hill.

A few minutes of negotiation led to arrangements for those uninterested in the sport to hang back and wait safely near the ridge's crest. There they might find some shade and respite from the saddle while those interested in the hunt could fan on out ahead. He imagined Nythadri would join that former group but the curiosity in his eyes considered anything from her at this point.

He grinned playfully at her. "Lets see what I won, War Cry."
He dug in the Razor's flanks and they took off.

He leaned low into the stallion's neck, tense at first with the distance being swallowed far too swiftly for comfort. After a few minutes of practice, Jai dug his boots in harder. War Cry seemed happy to oblige and they flew at full speed. As the air whipped around him, flinging coat and hair backward, the concentration of hanging on devolved into the sheer thrill of speed. His heart raced in time and the world dissolved. For the few minutes it lasted, theirs might as well have been the only souls in sight. In fact, they were. None of the others could match the Stallion for pace. He laughed at the sheer humanity of it, the crescendo of his shouts lost to the wind.

Jai was breathing heavy by the time they slowed to a trot. The muscular horse quickly recovered from the jaunt, but for his rider an excited grin emerged. The race was theirs. He twisted, balancing one hand on the cantle behind to find almost everyone were left a full minute behind.

"I thought for sure you were going to fall off."
Almost everyone. Daryen was a close second place and was grinning just as broadly.

Out of earshot of the others, unless the women channeled hidden flows, Jai's gaze narrowed suspiciously. "You wouldn't have let me fall and break my neck now would you?"
Daryen's bright blue gaze roamed his form a moment as though considering the answer, but spoke not his thoughts, instead retreating to the topic of horses once more.

"I've never shared Fate's fascination, but I do understand it."
Jai nodded much the same. Unlike Nythadri's red, Daryen's horse fell into War Cry's side smoothly as both men capped the ridge simultaneously.

The valley below was as the hunt master described. Gentle slopes fanned out before them with their untamed grasses drooped lazily in the stagnant air. Pockets of flowers rose on stiff stalks like a kingsguard for the nature around them. He spared a glance at Daryen whose piercing gaze was also taking in the serene view. In court, even in his own palace, he never appeared more kingly than he did in that moment. Jai's hands tightened on he reins. If they were alone, he would have been fine forgetting about the hunt completely. But they weren't. He returned to studying the animals.

Grazing on the far upslope was the remainder of a herd otherwise nearly passed on from sight. Some of the males were large as a horse by their extensive antlers branching like limbs from heavy heads. One grazing female lifted her long neck to look unafraid at the two dots of far off men come to hunt her. Two long antlers spiraled from her head like a sleek curl of smoke. "Beautiful."
Jai's impression betrayed him. Eyes straight ahead. "So? How do we kill them?"
Amusement danced as boldly as War Cry.

Daryen grinned. Moments later he slid from his saddle and a bow appeared in his hands. "With this."
He brandished it majestically as a bard might with his harp.

A smile touched Jai's mouth. "Yeah. I didn't bring one of those."


War Cry was too well trained to need tied down, so the magnificent Razor nosed through the grasses for scents of tastier clumps of clover while the gentler sound of hooves pounded up from behind. The first wave of their group finally arrived though Jai did not turn to confirm their members. He stood at easy attention, peering down the slope, hands clasped calmly behind him and imagined ways an Asha'man could hunt without ruining the sport. The antelope beyond so far did not seem to care.