“Saint William of the Thell?” he asked, half-confused, half-amused. “Aumir… That’s William Tell you’re talking about. We have a story like that in my neck of the woods, too.”
“Is that so?” Aumir said, not exactly thrilled about the interruption. “Tell Aumir of this… Tell fellow, then.”
Alex had first read about William Tell in an ancient, second-hand Classics Illustrated comic book. His dad had bought him a whole box of them at a yard sale when he was about five or so. As the story went, William Tell was a folk hero who lived in Switzerland during the Middle Ages. After refusing to bend the knee to some local governor, he was forced to shoot an apple off his young son’s head with a crossbow. Hunter was fuzzy on the details, but what he remembered more or less coincided with Aumir’s version.
“It is one of Aumir’s favorite legends,” the huntsman concluded. “A lesson about integrity, about doing the right thing, about protecting those you love. And about challenging injustice, no matter the personal cost.”
“Is that the lesson, then?” Hunter asked, fidgeting with the apple still in his hands.
“Yes,” Aumir said. “But also no. Mostly, Aumir wanted to get a measure of your skill as a marksman.”
Hunter cocked an eyebrow.
“You want me to shoot at the apple with a crossbow.”
“With a hunting bow,” Aumir corrected him. “It’s better for a greenhorn of the Hunt to master that, first, or risk building his skill as a marksman on shaky ground.”
“I don’t even have a hunting bow.”
“Imagine that!” the huntsman shook his head. “He wants to stand before Herne, demand his accord be mended, and he does not even possess a hunting bow, let alone know how to use one? Klothi would be appaled, were she here to hear this!”
“Hey—I never claimed to know how to shoot a goddamn bow! If you want to put the blame on someone, put it on your Great Spirit. If he wanted archers for his Hunt, he should have asked before strong-arming me into that goddamn accord!”
“Forefathers, do you hear this?” Aumir went on with his overly theatrical lament. “He dares blame the Great Spirit! He calles himself Hunter, yet he knows nothing of the Hunt!”
“Listen here, Aumir, I—”
“Be at ease, greenhorn,” Aumir flashed him his gold-toothed smile. “Aumir is only pulling your leg. Jesting, yes? He knows you’ve barely picked a bow before, if even that. Aumir has gazed upon your spirit with his third eye, after all.”
That was right. The huntsman had read him like a book—skills, strengths, weaknesses, everything.
Aumir reached into one of his bags—yet another artifact of extradimensionals storage, or so it seemed—and pulled out a hunting bow and a quiver full of arrows.
“Here,” he handed it to Hunter. “In the Krommkhatani tradition, it is the duty of a father to gift a son his first bow. We’re far away from the sands of Krommkhatan, though, so let us hope that old Aumir will prove worthy of that honor.”
Unsure of what to say, Hunter thanked the huntsman and accepted the gift. He didn’t know the first thing about archery, but he could tell his new bow was a well-made one.
“Aumir had the Sage of the Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine Spirits bless it for you,” Aumir said. “So that your arrows may ever find their mark. Do you like it?”
“It’s… It’s great, Aumir. I really don’t know what to say.”
“No need to say anything. Just wish me luck for the hard part, yes?”
“What’s the hard part?”
“Why, teaching the greenhorn how to shoot, of course!”
***
“So, Hunter,” Aumir said. “You do have bows, where you come from—do you not?”
“We do, but pretty much nobody uses them anymore.”
“How do your people hunt, then?”
“Uh… they don’t, mostly?”
Aumir spat a curse, shook his head in disbelief, and went back to his work. For the better part of an hour, he’d been teaching Hunter how to set up an impromptu archery range, along with some of the basic safety precautions everyone should be aware of before even picking up a bow.
“A bow is not a tool, greenhorn,” he said once they were done, his usual jolly tone now turned dead serious. “It is an instrument of death. Aumir should not have to tell this to one who is at the door of the Iron Rung; he will do so regardless, though, just as his own sire did an age and a half ago. You do not string a bow unless you mean to shoot, and you do not shoot unless you mean to kill. Not every shot is lethal, of course; but once an arrow leaves your hand, so does all control of what it will find. Tell Aumir you understand.”
“I understand.” Hunter nodded.
“Good. Pick up your bow, then. No—just the bow. Leave the arrows alone, for now. Turn it in your hands, get a feel for it. In order to shoot truthfully, you have to know your bow as intimately as your own hand.”
Stolen story; please report.
Hunter did as he was told. It was a modest, unadorned weapon, but one definitely well-made and well-used. Its limbs were carved from a single piece of well-seasoned hardwood, carved with shallow notches, smooth edges, and a slight asymmetry that was by design rather than flaw. There were no marks on it, no carvings or ornaments—just a strip of leather wrapped at the grip for comfort and control.
“This is a Krommkhatani hunting recurve,” Aumir went on. “See how its limbs curve? Compared to simpler, straight-limb bows, this shape grants more power. We take advantage of that to make bows that are not stronger, but instead smaller, lighter. Even compared to what the people here in the Weald use, these hunting recurves are more compact, more efficient, less cumbersome. It is not a weapon made for soldiers and wars. It is a weapon made for the Hunt.”
Hunter could see what Aumir meant. He had a vague recollection of watching a late-night documentary about English longbows, medieval bows so large and powerful that their long use warped the archers’ bones and skeletons. The weapon in his hands was a far cry from that; it was a bow meant to be easily carried through thickets and across hills, to be leaned against trees and slung over shoulders. He liked it better that way.
Aumir proceeded to demonstrate how to string and unstring the recurve, a task Hunter found deceptively tricky. He fumbled with it more than once before getting it right, but when he did, he earned a grunt of approval from the huntsman.
With the bow strung and ready to shoot, Aumir moved on to the fundamentals. He guided Hunter through the rhythm of the shot: nocking the arrow, finding the anchor point, drawing smooth and steady, releasing without a jerk. Aumir offered corrections in few words and sharp gestures, while Hunter adjusted, retried, and slowly improved.
“Don’t worry about targets yet,” the huntsman said. “Control your breathing and focus on the motion. Try again.”
Hunter quickly realized that archery was nothing like the movies; the memory of Legolas firing arrow after arrow while surfing down a staircase on a shield now seemed utterly ridiculous.
After two whole hours of practice, trial, and error, he finally got a skill notification:
Your Archery has increased to 1.
“I think I’m getting the hang of it,” he told Aumir, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow with his sleeve.
“Less talking, more breathing,” the huntsman shook his head. Since their lesson had started, his usual warmth and cheer had been replaced by a stern edge. He was all focus now, speaking in a clipped manner, watching Hunter’s every move with the intensity of a bird of prey. Earlier, Hunter had to consciously remind himself that Aumir was supposed to be one of Herne’s hand-picked elite huntsmen. Now, he could hardly unsee it.
They trained well into the afternoon. Hunter’s arms ached with each draw, his fingers raw from the bowstring despite the protective leather tab Aumir had given him. Sweat dripped into his eyes, and his focus began to fray. At last, breath ragged and muscles trembling, Hunter lowered the bow and shook his head.
“I think I’ve had enough for now. I have to take a break, pop over to my side of things.”
“What, already?” Aumir asked, but his gold-toothed grin showed he’d returned to his relaxed self. “Well done, greenhorn. We might yet make a proper huntsman out of you. Who would’ve thunk it, eh?”
Hunter just groaned and handed him the recurve, arms too sore to bother with a reply.
***
When he returned to the cabin a couple of hours later, Hunter found Aumir hunched over the hearth, cooking some kind of stew in a battered, blackened pot that looked older than the cabin itself.
“Smells nice.”
“Rabbit,” the huntsman said. “Carrots, potatoes, some root vegetables whose proper name a forget. Herbs. You can also add salt and pepper to your liking later.”
“Stew for the spirit?”
“Stew for the spirit.” the huntsman said with a chuckle as he stirred the pot with a long wooden spoon.
Fyodor lay curled in a corner, fast asleep after a long day of chasing through the woods with Klothi. The small creature was nestled against the direwolf’s thick fur, chest rising and falling in sync with his. Perched atop Fyodor’s back, Biggs and Wedge had tucked their heads beneath their wings—a new habit they’d recently picked up from who knew where. Hunter sat beside them as well, resting a hand on Fyodor’s flank.
“You know,” he told Aumir after a long stretch of silence, “I don’t think I have it in me to be much of a sharpshooter.”
He’d given it some thought while he was logged out. Archery was a valuable addition to his skillset, and he fully intended to keep practicing, but it didn’t feel like he had an innate knack for it. His heart wasn’t in it. Moreso than any other of his skills and abilities, it felt… forced.
“It is alright,” the hunstman said. “For those of the Hunt, archery is but a single arrow in their quiver—forgive Aumir the pun.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, it would not serve one well to be a stranger to the bow and arrow, but that does not mean those of the Hunt should all strive to be archers and the like. Some are trappers. Others favor stealth and ambush. In fact, most of the Hunstfolken favor other weapons and techniques—and we are the finest among the court of Herne.”
“That’s good to hear,” Hunter said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m more than thankful for your gift and lessons, and I definitely want to keep practicing. It’s just…”
“Your gifts lie elsewhere,” the huntsman finished his sentence for him. “Aumir knows. Aumir has gazed upon your spirit.”
“Yeah, that. Though were, exactly, I haven’t found out yet.”
That made Aumir laugh. He shook his head, the firelight catching on his gold tooth.
“False modesty, greenhorn? It does not befit one of the Hunt. Or do you truly mean to say you still haven’t recognized the gifts your Wyrd has laid at your feet?”
“Uh…”
“By Herne, you do mean it! Oh, what a grand jest! Wait till Aumir tells little Ilwi. She will be livid!”
“What’s the grand jest?” Hunter asked, shifting uncomfortably. “And who’s little Ilwi?”
“Look at them!” Aumir pointed at the two ravens, earning a disgruntled caw from a sleepy Wedge. “Have you seen many gallivanting around the Weald, twin spirit familiars at their beck and call?”
Hunter frowned. Save Aumir and Klothi—whose bond’s exact nature still eluded him—he hadn’t seen anyone with a single conjured familiar, much less two of them.
“Not really. What of it?” he asked, sheepishly.
“Let Aumir spell it out to you; should you apply yourself properly, you have the makings of an extraordinarily good spirit-speaker. A great one, even.”
Spirit-speaker.
He’d heard the term before. Arjen, the bear godling, had called him that, right before he’d almost squashed him like a bug. Sister Peregrine had said much the same, claiming he was gifted in the ways of the spirit. Still, both of them had also agreed when Fawkes had called him an ae-mai; an idiot, one made a fool by spirits. Which, considering his forced accord with the Great Spirit of the Hunt, felt more accurate than insulting.
“I’ve seen it in your Wyrd,” Aumir went on. “And so, I believe, has Lord Herne. That’s why he gifted you with knowledge in the ways of the spirit-speaker.”
“If I, as you said, applied myself… do you think it would please him, your Lord Herne?”
“Aumir would expect so.”
Well, fuck a duck, Hunter thought. Here we go again.
He reached into his backpack and pulled out one of the notebooks Fawkes had given him—the one he used to keep a manual record of his Character Sheet.
“Say, Aumir,” he said, settling onto the ground cross-legged and opening the notebook on his lap. “You wouldn’t happen to have heard of Exemplars, now, would you?”
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