“What’s the plan?” Teryn asked, stealing Helios’ attention back to him. “Do you think we can catch it?”
“No.” Helios returned his gaze to the hoof print. “This unicorn has already been caught.”
“How do you know?”
“See this print next to the unicorn’s? It’s smaller, probably belongs to a boy. An apprentice, perhaps. These marks are about a week old but consistently show up together. This tells me the creature has been caught and is being towed along behind the main company.” He pointed to a cluster of several larger footprints, these ones overlapping. “These belong to the other hunters, also a week old. The prints continue along this trail some ways. I also found fresher tracks about an hour’s walk away.”
Teryn had to hold his tongue to keep from expressing his shock over the fact that Helios was volunteering useful information for once. The unicorn print must have done a number on his brain.
Helios stood and faced them. “We’re going to follow the tracks. The newest ones tell us the hunters have settled into a new base camp by now. The older ones will lead us to it.”
“You’re so certain,” Teryn said, half in awe, half in question.
Helios nodded. “That’s how trained unicorn hunters work. Each party is assigned a specific region. They’ll hunt a small radius for a few weeks at a time, then move to new grounds once they’ve cleared an area. We’re going to catch up to this party.”
Lex grimaced. “Catch up to them and…politely ask to buy their unicorn?”
Helios grinned in a way that was not at all comforting. “Something like that.”
Teryn didn’t like what Helios was leaving unsaid. He had a feeling there would be no polite anything. Shouldn’t that worry him?
His gaze fell on the hoof print. Aunicornprint. Proof that everything they were doing wasn’t crazy. Well, he couldn’t say his mission was altogether sane, but for the first time since the Heart’s Hunt began, he had hope. And he was determined to do whatever it took to keep that hope alive.
“Come on,” Helios said. “We can cover more ground before nightfall.”
18
Cora maintained her post as the sun set and dusk turned to night. The hunters returned but not a single drink of rum was taken. She watched. Waited. The mood within the camp was strained, the silence palpable. Hardly a word was exchanged as the men sat idly around the fire hour after hour. It was eerie. Enough to make Cora’s skin crawl.
Careful, came Valorre’s warning. He sounded quieter than normal, but she shouldn’t have been able to hear him at all.
What are you doing so close?she sent back, unsure if her words would make it through her dense shields. Not that she’d ever been so lucky to avoid him reading her thoughts before. Still, it was dangerous for Valorre to come anywhere near camp, even after the company had finished their day’s hunt. She and Valorre had made great efforts not to leave tracks where the hunters would likely follow. They kept Valorre well outside their scouting radius whenever they could.
Have a bad feeling, was his reply.Something isn’t right.
A knot formed in her stomach, but she wasn’t sure if it was his anxiety or her own. There was definitely something strange happening. If the silence and solemnity hadn’t already been enough, the hunters’ rigid postures and darting glances were.
A horn sounded in the distance.
Hammond, a man with yet anotherRbrand, who Cora had learned was the leader of this crew, rose to his feet. “Harvest,” he said. “You know what to do.”
Cora’s throat went dry as she watched the men leap into action. Most formed a line in the middle of the camp, hands behind their backs, postures stiff, while Gringe retrieved a small chest. Cora leaned forward, bracing herself against the trunk of the tree as he opened it. Through the pine’s boughs, she caught a glimpse of what was inside—two thin, white, spiral-ridged bones.
Unicorn horns.
Cora frowned. She hadn’t seen these horns before, nor had she witnessed any of the hunters removing a single horn from the unicorns. So far, all they’d done was keep the creatures in iron cages, letting them grow weaker and weaker from lack of food and their close proximity to iron.
Gringe removed the horns from the chest and placed them on the ground. Hammond shot him a pointed look. “Only two? James said you’d caught three in the Ishvonn Woods.”
Gringe glared at James, who already stood in the line, then muttered, “James was mistaken.”
Hammond huffed a dark laugh. “If Duke Morkai finds out you left your region while another unicorn was out there—”
“James was mistaken,” Gringe repeated, more forcefully this time.
Hammond shook his head and stood at the center of the line, hands behind his back like the rest of the men. Gringe took his place next to him, then barked at James, “Get to the cages.”
James’ eyes bulged but he made no argument as he unsheathed a knife and approached the cages.
