“This… isn’t hunting,” Tyla said. She looked around her, confused. “I know this because I was a hunter. Hunting is something I have done before.”

  Anton was a stranger to any kind of hunting, but he could figure out where the problem lay. It was his wife who could find the words, though.

  “It’s a different kind of hunting, Magister,” Suliel said. They had settled on Magister as a default title for Tyla, as she was the official court witch. Her class had gone in a strange direction, and no one was sure of the proper address for a Dungeon Wife.

  “It’s more of a social event than what you’re used to, I’m sure.”

  “Hunts are not social events,” Tyla stated firmly. “There is you, and there is the prey.” She hesitated for a moment. “Sometimes there are others with you,” she admitted, “but they are not part of the hunt. They stay silent.”

  She gestured around her. “This. Is not silent.”

  Anton had to admit that she had a point. The only way Anton could describe the Duke’s hunting expedition was that it was a nobleman’s party, held outdoors and on the move. They had left the horses behind when they entered the forest, much to Anton’s relief. Much of the baggage train had stayed behind to pitch pavilions and serve as a base camp for the main hunting party.

  And it was a party, with brightly-dressed ladies, food and drink and even music. Progress was slow, as dainty boots stepped uneasily over roots and brambles, but the Duke led the way forward with confidence, and the knights were there to eliminate any obstacles that might bar the way of the fairer gender.

  Anton watched it all with a kind of stunned bemusement, but Tyla was feeling something more existential.

  “There cannot be any animals to hunt within a mile of this procession,” she protested. “And we travel so slowly, even a lame beast could get away.”

  “The idea is to have the beasts come to us,” Suliel explained. She was elegant, as always, in her hunting garb, which was… different from the gowns she normally wore.

  Anton’s discernment, when it came to clothing, was insufficient to describe what his wife was wearing. He could identify the difference between dresses, pants and coats, but that was as far as he went. He thought he knew what shirts were, but sometimes they were actually tunics, or blouses, or something else entirely. And in fact, he wasn’t altogether sure that shirts weren’t just short dresses.

  Anton could discriminate between a myriad of different variations of armour, but clothes were a mystery to him. Thanks to Delver’s Discernment, he knew that she was wearing a yellow mustard surcoat over a green kirtle, but his mind just turned those terms into “coat” and “dress”.

  The important thing was that he’d remembered to tell her she looked amazing in it.

  Suliel continued to talk Tyla through her culture shock. “The Duke’s hunters are out ahead of us, looking for suitable game. When they find it, they’ll send word and drive it toward us.”

  Tyla didn’t seem happy with this explanation.

  “That’s hardly a hunt,” she said. “That sounds like a slaughter.”

  “It’s a different kind of hunt,” Suliel said. “The point is for the fighters to kill the beast in hand-to-hand without having to go through all the tedious sneaking around.”

  Tyla glowered at her. “It’s not tedious, it’s survival.”

  Suliel laughed. “For you it is,” she agreed. “But if many of these lords and ladies' lives depended on it, they would die in short order. Myself included.”

  Tyla looked conflicted and clutched at her unstrung bow. “Not everyone has to hunt,” she said. “Hunters provide for the village. But if you hunt, you should hunt.”

  “We do things differently in Zamarra,” Suliel said. “For you, it’s an opportunity to get out in the fresh air and see the trees. You’ve been quite out of sorts lately.”

  Anton nodded. Something had been bothering Tyla since before they left on this trip, but she wasn’t willing to say what it was. Anton glanced at Kelsey, who had made exactly zero concessions to the dress code for the hunt. She had just shrugged when Anton asked her what was going on, which was as good as an admission that it was her fault.

  Cheering up Tyla wasn’t the reason Anton agreed to go on the hunt—he could hardly refuse the invitation of the Duke—but he had hoped that coming along would cheer her up.

  It had distracted her, which he would take.

  Horns sounded from up ahead.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  “I think that’s the signal for me to go up front,” Anton said.

  “Go and be gallantly dashing, darling,” Suliel replied.

  “Should I go with you, or should I stay behind with the ladies?” Aris asked.

  Anton smiled at her. “It’s about combat capability, not gender, and you absolutely count as a combat class,” he said. “That said, I don’t think the nobles will find it very thrilling if you shoot the beast as soon as it steps into view.”

  Aris pouted. “So only shoot if somebody’s in danger?” she complained. “That hardly seems fair.”

  Anton shrugged. “There’s just a little bit of danger. Enough to provide excitement. Not everywhere has access to dungeons.”

  “Not everywhere deserves dungeons,” Kelsey said, meaninglessly. “You know, wild beasts can get levels too. If you people instituted some kind of improvement program, you could be hunting some serious beasts.”

  “And then those monsters would be running around the forest, hunting the villagers,” Suliel noted with a shudder. “That sort of thing can’t be helped in the north, but we prefer our tenants to stay alive.”

  “Are you coming, Tyla?” Anton asked. “Ranged weapons are discouraged, but I know you’re good with that long-knife.”

  Anton wouldn’t normally have recommended a knife of any length when going against a boar, but Tyla’s agility exceeded most of the nobles here, and she would be at the back of the pack.

  “No,” Tyla said glumly. “I do not wish to view this… twisted definition of hunting more closely than I have to.”

  Anton shrugged. He didn’t find this particularly exciting, but he had to make a showing in front of the Duke. His plan was not to make a move unless the boar came right at him or Aris. He hefted the spear he’d been given. It wasn’t his favoured weapon, but he’d been trained on every kind of weapon his parents could find.

  He led Aris and Kelsey—another non-combatant—to the front of the hunting party. A small group of the more martial classes had gathered in a loose line. Anton took a spot at one of the ends. He didn’t want to appear to be greedy.

  Ahead of them, he could hear more horns and what sounded like clanging pans. Then there was a cracking sound of breaking wood, and the line started to tense up.

  “Stand ready!” the Duke called from the centre of the line.

  “Anton,” Aris said from behind him, “I thought you told Tyla that climbing in the trees was discouraged.”

  “Yeah, she—” Anton broke off, levelling his spear. The bushes ahead of them were rustling.

  “Then why—” Aris continued, but in that moment, the leaves parted, and a boar came rushing out. It squealed with rage on seeing them and charged. Not straight for the Duke, but a little to the left, further away from Anton.

  Then everything started happening very quickly. A shot rang out from behind him, distracting everybody. Even the boar twitched, altering its trajectory slightly. Anton opened his mouth to reproach his wife, not yet registering that the boar was still charging, uninjured.

  Then the man fell out of the branches above. That was distracting, especially for the men in line. For the boar, it was just another noise behind it, spurring it on for a faster charge.

  The two men the boar was charging between looked back to see that their spears were just slightly out of line. Instead of impaling the charging beast, they scored long, bloody lines down its side. Enraged, the boar twisted, trying to gouge out the bellies of its tormenters with its tusks. Turning too quickly, it tumbled into the man on the other side of it. Both men and the boar went down in a twisting, screaming tangle of limbs and blood.

  Leaping Attack.

  Anton had resolved to stay out of it, but seconds could matter. His spear plunged into, and then through, the boar's neck with all the force of the leap added to the blow. Then, when his feet were firmly planted, he wrenched the spear upwards, lifting the beast off the hapless noble.

  With a grunt of effort, Anton hoisted the boar and flung it back over his shoulder, letting it fall to the ground with a crash.

  “Can we get a healer over here?” he called out. To his relief, a priest came scurrying forward. Only the best for the Duke’s party.

  “What in the hells was that noise!” the Duke yelled.

  “I’m sorry, that was—” Aris stepped forward, and then back again as the Duke turned on her.

  “That was you! You distracted the hunters at a crucial point! Asdran could have been killed! What are you pointing at?”

  He turned to look at the black-clad figure that had fallen out of the tree.

  “Who is that? Who killed him?”

  “He was aiming a crossbow at Lord Brankil,” Aris said. “There wasn’t time to warn anybody, I had to use Last Word.”

  “What in Butin’s name is that? How does a word kill someone? Why was it so loud?”

  “My lord Duke,” Anton said, stepping next to Aris and laying a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I think the important question is who is trying to kill Lord Brankil.”

  The duke stopped in mid-tirade and looked at Anton shrewdly. “You’re the new baron,” he said. “One of Brankil’s. I suppose that explains the concern.”

  He stomped over to the corpse and turned it over with his foot.

  “Quite the hole, when there’s no arrow to be found,” he said. Grunting, he bent down and pulled off the corpse’s mask. He stared at the revealed face, but Anton didn’t see any flicker of recognition in the Duke's visage.

  “Who wants you dead, Kinkin?” he shouted.

  “Many people, my lord,” Count Brankil declared. He maintained his composure, but Anton didn’t think he was entirely unaffected at the thought that he might have been killed.

  The duke gave a short bark of laughter. “Ha! I’ll wager a quarter of the wives and half of the husbands!” he joked.

  “I doubt they’d go this far, my lord.”

  “It seems you owe your vassal some kind of reward,” the duke said, finally speaking in something approaching normal volume. “Nice work there, young baron,” he added to Anton. “We may not have gotten a proper hunt, but at least we saw some real fighting.”

  Anton bowed. “Just doing what was needed, my Lord.”

  “And this is your wife? Good eyes on you, lass. How’d you notice him?”

  “It’s Aris, my Lord. As to how… I might have felt a nudge from my Class.”

  “Your Class?” The duke stared intently at Aris. “I see. And what is it you announce, young lady?”

  “I’m not sure, my Lord, but I think it has something to do with… death.”

  “Hmm. Well. You seem to have the eye for it.” The duke's mouth twisted into a wry smile, but he couldn’t seem to muster a laugh at his joke. “For most of us, death comes without warning. It might make a change to have advanced notice.”

  Aris bowed her head. “It might be a change, but I doubt it would be a welcome one,” she said.

  “Perhaps not,” the duke agreed. He kicked the corpse. “Someone look into this, will you? We might as well call the hunt early.”

  He looked over at Count Brankil. “If someone wants to silence you, perhaps you have something worth hearing.”