The Hounds of Annwn (3-5)

Chapter 5-1

CHAPTER 5

“Look to the horses,” George yelled to Maelgwn as he leapt down, checking that his hunting sword and knife were secure in their sheathes. Rhian had already dismounted and draped her horse’s reins around a low branch.

He could hear the stag scrambling down the steep bank some forty or fifty feet below him but he was hidden from view by the bushes clinging to the side of the ravine. Flashes of white betrayed the hounds that pursued him in full cry, the echo of their voices changing as they sank further into the deep cleft.

Before he started after them, he spared a look around. On both sides, the whippers-in had tied off their mounts as best they could and were already on the way down. Good work, he thought. Behind him he could hear the first members of the field as they arrived but he dismissed them from consideration. They were certainly not going to be coming down the sides of this ravine. They’d have to find a place to watch from above somewhere.

The baying consolidated in one location and rose in volume, amplified by the enclosed space. As George slid from one bush handhold to the next in the cold mud, the mist obscuring his vision, he tried to see what was happening, but the cacophony confused him. Around it, all he could hear was water.

Finally he got low enough to see the stream itself, and paused to take stock before coming the rest of the way down. Above him, to his left, the little river came over a lip of harder rock and dropped in a small waterfall, maybe twenty-five feet high, the spring-fed flow active even in winter, though not at its full volume. Snow was still visible in the pockets of ground shaded from the sun, but mostly the banks were rock, running with fine droplets in imitation of the waterfall itself, and mud churned by the passage of the deer and the hounds.

The white-tail buck, still in antler, was at bay at the base of the waterfall, up to his hocks in the cold water. The hounds swarmed on either side along the banks and sounded off with excitement—here, here, here. Cythraul swam in the water in front of the buck, eager to bring him down but cautious of his hooves and antlers.

Dyfnallt and Brynach were closer to the falls, on his left, Brynach’s coat providing a splash of green in the winter drabness. “How do you want to do this?” Dyfnallt called.

George glanced right. Gwion’s red coat glowed bright in the gloom. He waved Gwion and Benitoe over to the other side and turned back to answer Dyfnallt. “I’ll come up the middle and from the right while you distract him. Try to keep the hounds out of harm’s way.”

He splashed into the stream some thirty feet below the deer and picked his way over the moss-covered rocks. Behind him Rhian whooped and toppled as she lost her balance and got a cold dunking. He heard her swearing behind him, but it didn’t sound like she was hurt. No time to stop, and the water wasn’t deep enough to be dangerous.

He came up to the right of the deer who was focused on Cythraul and the other hounds. The only way to get into proper position would be to back into the waterfall himself, to get behind the stag’s shoulder. He didn’t feel the cold water in the moment, as he faced forward, looking out from under his tricorn through the thin veil of water past the antlers at the baying, snapping hounds. It seemed as though this primordial scene could last forever.

Time to end it, something said inside, and he drew his short hunting sword and plunged it into the heart of the deer. The buck staggered and collapsed, and Rhian drew the hounds off onto the far bank where there was a little more room out of the water.

Brynach and Dyfnallt waded forward to help him drag the deer toward the near bank, while Gwion and Benitoe rounded up the hound stragglers and sent them to Rhian to hold in place.

The six of them were in their own enclosed world, deep in the ravine, and nothing could be heard but the hounds and the water. George wondered what had become of the field and looked up at the top where the scramble had begun. A bit downstream, where there was a view from above, he saw faces all around, on both sides, men and women watching the scene. Gwyn raised a hand in salute, with a smile. George removed his tricorn and rhetorically dumped the water off of it as he bowed flamboyantly in return, catching Brynach’s grin at the byplay.

“Well then, huntsman,” Dyfnallt said. “What now?” He seemed satisfied with the success of the hunt and undaunted by the obvious next steps.

“We can hardly make a fire here,” George said. “We’re going to have to haul this deer out to dry land.”

“Rhian,” he called, across the stream. “Does this level out below? Can we get out that way?”

“Yes, but it’s a couple of hundred yards of rough walking.”

“Alright. Take the hounds and we’ll follow with the buck.” George made a circle in the air with his hand for Gwyn, and waved him downstream. The field would have to find its own way and bring their horses along with them.

Dyfnallt pointed at a young tree. “This sapling will do for a pole. What type of tree is this? I don’t recognize it.”

“That’s a pawpaw,” George said.

Brynach shook his head, “That’s not what we call it.”

“Doesn’t matter. Don’t you carry an ax these days?” He thought Brynach had followed Benitoe’s example and added a hatchet to his belt gear.

Brynach nodded, and made short work of cutting down the small tree and trimming its branches off. George pulled some light rope from around his waist, glad he’d learned his lesson on an earlier hunt not to leave all of his gear tied to the saddle for occasions such as this. Between the three of them, they managed to tie the buck’s feet together and slip the nine-foot pole between them so it would hang suspended.

George thought they could carry the intact carcass some distance this way, until they reached ground dry enough to gut it and roast the hounds’ portion. He picked up the front end to test the weight, and Dyfnallt hoisted the back end to his shoulder. Brynach protested, but George said, “Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance. We’ll trade off.”

Rhian was already downstream out of sight with Benitoe, Gwion, and the hounds. George glanced up—the field was gone. “You ready?” he asked Dyfnallt.

“Haul away, huntsman,” came the reply. “Great sport, but I must admit I’m glad your deer is smaller than ours, just about now.”

Maelgwn dismounted and clutched the reins of his foster-father’s horse and his own pony. He peered over the edge trying to see the end of the hunt below. How was he going to take charge of six horses plus his own?

Hadyn came up from behind him and took in the other five horses left behind by the hunt staff, roughly tied off on the bushes and trees. “Here, Thomas,” he called, “we need to pass these horses out and bring them along. They’ll never climb out of that here.”

He put a couple of his men in the field to the task, and Thomas Kethin did the same for his. “Thank you, sir,” Maelgwn said to him. “It was too many for me to handle.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean for you to take them all yourself but just to see the task done, and so it is.” Hadyn replied. “Let’s work downstream a bit so we can get a better view.”

They followed a path along the top of the ravine until they found a good spot about fifty yards further along. Most of the field had gathered there to watch, though there were a few on the other side, too, that had somehow gotten off the primary path and crossed upstream before the deer took the plunge.

Maelgwn studied the men around him while he kept one eye on the drama at the waterfall. How tall and formal they are, mounted, he thought, with me on the ground, but when they dismount they relax and joke around. And I’m part of it, he thought. Hadyn had just treated him like another man with responsibilities and tasks, even though I’m still such a junior student of weapons under him. And Thomas Kethin did the same. He could learn a lot from them about the handling of men, he realized. They treated them differently under different circumstances. It makes me want to live up to the respect they just gave me, and that’s part of how it works, isn’t it?

Rhian with the hounds was furthest downstream below and closest to him. Gwion certainly looked splendid in his red coat, glistening as the water drops caught the sunlight. His eye appreciated the spectacle, the glamour of it, but his head told him to be cautious of these new men. How did Brynach keep his demeanor so steady with the two of them, neither giving way because of his youth nor causing offense by throwing his weight around?

He normally thought of Brynach as strong and confident, but it was different when the new folk were around for a comparison. He realized the visitors must see them all as inexperienced. It would be hard for them to work together, and he was impressed at how well Brynach had managed it so far. He would do well, he thought, to follow Brynach’s example of steering a difficult course. He admired Benitoe’s professionalism in the same spot, but it was easier to put himself into Brynach’s shoes.

His foster-father’s behavior was more of a mystery to him. Why does he throw himself into the welcome so heartily, he wondered, as if there were no threat at all. How can he do that, and why should he? It made no sense to him.

He looked around for Angharad as the field began to withdraw and make its way along the top of the ravine to meet up with the hunt staff and hounds further down. She lingered, watching from above, as George began to organize the carrying of the carcass at streamside. She felt the pressure of his gaze and turned, smiling at him when she saw him watching. “Shall I hold Mosby for you while you get back on?” she said.

He thanked her, mindful of his responsibilities to deliver his foster-father’s horse to him. After he settled onto Brenin Du, he took the reins back from her and courteously waited for her to remount her own horse. Then he escorted her after the rest of the field.

The wooded ravine began to widen out to more open terrain as George worked his way down. They’d rotated the bearers a couple of times, and George was now the free man in the lead. He could see they were still within the full-spate river banks, but winter low-water had exposed a shallow gravel shingle that extended from the shore on the right. It was large enough to hold the field which had taken advantage of a trail to come down to the water.

Rhian had the hounds, and Benitoe had gotten a fire going while Gwion fetched dead wood, carried down by the stream and beached.

George hid a smile as he watched Maelgwn show Hadyn and Thomas Kethin and three other men where to tie up the hunt staff’s horses, before he dismounted and did the same with Mosby and his own. He gravely thanked them, and took their nods of acknowledgment.

He’s such a mixture, George thought, as though he’s trying to move straight to adulthood as fast as he can. Not so surprising, I guess, considering what he’s lived through, but I wish he could enjoy what’s left of his childhood more.

Maelgwn turned from his task, and George loudly thanked him for seeing to their horses. The rest of the hunt staff added a few words, and the boy straightened with pride without changing his serious expression.

Dyfnallt and Brynach laid the deer down and cut the ropes binding its legs. “Pay attention, gentlemen,” George said to Dyfnallt, beckoning Gwion in, too, “here’s how we do it over here. You’ll get to do this, next time. We’re going to have to pack it out on horseback.”

“I never missed my staff until I had to do without them,” Gwion joked. “Not even a wagon out here among the primitives.”

Rhian, meanwhile, was doing her best to keep a quelling eye on the impatiently waiting pack and to dry out in front of the fire at the same time, without being too obvious about it.