Page 11 of The Huntsman's Heart
“Do you want her here?” I snap.
The princess blinks. “No.”
“Then I suggest you come with me.”
With a sigh she stands, leaning over the bed to place a soft kiss on the old man’s forehead. I step back, giving her space. She may as well say her goodbyes.
As soon as she follows me into the passage, I wrap my arm around her and cover her mouth. “What are you—?”
I cut off her cries with a blow to her midsection and tie her quickly while she is still gasping for breath. Then I gag her and toss her over my shoulder. She’ll have to make the first part of the journey hog-tied over my horse. And she’ll need to remain gagged until I can convince her not to scream, or she’ll draw every monster in the Gloamwald straight down on us.
She struggles as much as she can with her arms and legs tied. The look in her eyes is positively venomous. I shove a hood down over her head and hurry to the place behind the stables where I’ve left my horse waiting. He trots over at my soft whistle, black ears flicking as he sniffs the bundle I’m carrying.
I haul Guin over his back, put my foot into the stirrup, and sling my leg over. With a nudge of my knees, we’re away. Tharrok is clearly off put by the unexpected weight of the princess across the front of the saddle. Guin thrashes, and I have to hold her down to stop her sliding off and breaking her neck, an effort that seems somewhat wasted seeing as I plan to slit her throat myself later.
I can’t do that here, though.
At the gates to the inner keep, the watchman gives me a funny look, but the guards are used to my strange comings and goings with gruesome cargo. They let me through without a word.
Thornvale is subdued as we cross the bridge. An old dog barks as we pass a narrow lane. A dark creature scurries away into a bush. The people are all inside their cottages, thick wooden shutters drawn against the cold and the monsters without. Not that a monster has made it over the outer wall in years. Thereare still stories, though. The elderly ones are old enough to remember.
The guards on the outer wall, though, seem to want a chat. One leans over the parapet to get a closer look. “What have you got there, then?”
No formality. Not even basic manners. I deliberately did not wear my livery, and now I regret it. “Just let me pass,” I snap.
He sniffs and calls across to his partner. “What do you reckon he’s got there?”
“Looks like a girl, ain’t it?”
Frustrated, I tense in the saddle, and Tharrok snorts and paws the ground. “This shrew needs to learn a good lesson about keeping her mouth shut. The hard way.”
The first man scoffs. “Good riddance to her, then. My missus could use the selfsame lesson.”
They wind the crank, and the gate slowly opens. Guin thrashes and tries to speak around the gag, but the men only laugh. “Should have thought of that before you gave your husband a tongue lashing.”
Their raucous laughter follows us into the dim clearing, beyond the light of the torches. Here the road narrows as if the path itself shrinks away from the thickening wood. Spindly branches reach for us from blighted trees, closer and closer, until they spread above and the wood closes us in.
As if sensing the change in mood, the princess quietens, going slack against the sides of my horse and ceasing her protests.
“All the better for you if you keep quiet, princess. There are things out here that even I have never met. I cannot make any promises about your safety if you make too much noise.”
Of course, I can’t make any promises about her safety at all. But she doesn’t need to know that yet. Melantha wants this done in the woods, away from prying eyes, and so that’s what must be done.
I expect her to try to speak. I’m not sure how to interpret the fact that she doesn’t. Perhaps she has realized how much danger she’s truly in. Guinevere is stubborn, but slow she is not.
We ride in hostile silence for some time. I do not light a torch. Instead I conjure a magical flame, an ethereal blue light that floats in the air beside us, lighting Tharrok’s way along the path enough to let us find our way without drawing out the creatures of the forest angry to have their accustomed darkness disturbed.
By now we’re well into the woods. There’s not another soul around. No one to hear her scream. I could do the deed now and be done with it, but I ride on, battling with myself.
As cursed a creature as I am, I’ve never slaughtered an innocent. It feels like an irrational distinction to make after the despicable things the queen has made me do over the years or the things I did when I was master of my own fate. Yet for all Guin’s flaws, she is young still. There might have been time for her to learn, to change. Her whole life is before her—or it was.
She might have made a good queen in time.
Even now she would be a better one than the woman who currently holds ultimate power in Blackthorn Keep. But the choice isn’t mine to make. Disgusted with myself and suspicious of the princess’s extended silence, I stop my horse and dismount. Pulling her free, I put her on her feet and remove the hood.
Her eyes widen as she takes in our location. I see fear flash in her blue eyes before she conceals it, correcting her expression into a glare.
There is the stubborn princess I am all too familiar with.
