LOT'S MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: The Night of the Silver Stag

Even the curs are quiet.

Me? I'm never quiet.

"So what happens now?"

"Now is the time for the ceremony of se hǣðstapa, the heath-stepper, the silver stag. Tonight, we heed the ancient call of the half-skies, of the near new moon," the Huntsman explains.

Well, that tells me a helluva lot of nothing.

The Huntsman chuckles (I'm not sure what at but am really hoping I'm not the punchline) and then raises his arms upward. "This night is our night. The moon burns black as soot and that which sleeps within us shall wake once more to feed upon the dark, and Dylan Caid will prove that he is a hunter."

I wonder what the whole proving I'm a hunter thing means, but I don't ask.

The Huntsman then adds,"The Hunt begins with that which once was."

Three guys wearing long robe-like coats made of dark green fabric step up next to the Huntsman. Where did they come from? Their skin is a shimmery gray, and their eyes glow with green light that spills out onto their faces. Their clothes look tons nicer than the Huntsman's. You'd think that the leader would dress better than everybody else.

"After I left Belle Lake as an exile, I walked the paths of Kanati, hailed to be the first hunter by those called the Cherokee, and Nodens Silver-Hand, battle god of the Celts, and learned their dark secrets." The Huntsman's voice grows softer as he adds, "With those secrets and much sacrifice, I summoned my fallen brothers, the dead princes of the Once-Kingdom, from the realms of the dead. Deirdre wept over their graves after the Tylwyth Teg fell. Within them now burn the fire of anger and the hunger of seeking what will never be. Never shall they be what they were or have what they had."

There's a real long pause.

Sweeping his hands toward the dead princes, he adds, "Come forward, Once-Was."

As soon as the Huntsman speaks again, the Once-Wases (or is it Once-Were? you got me on that one) step closer to him.

He starts again, "And with us so stands greats beasts of myth and legend."

As soon as the Huntsman finishes talking, the Bānhūs shudders, and about twenty huge horse-things step out of the walls. Some are gray and some are white with black splotches on them. One of them whinnies a warning that's meaner than any of South's ever was.

"These creatures are of the wild. They are the anemoi, the very winds caged and bent into this shape. It took many battles, but they came to our will," the Huntsman says. "Of the anemoi, many do not accept riders. Tonight, the Once-Was shall call what is theirs. This, you shall witness."

The Huntsman doesn't tell me the names of the Once-Was (I guess it's actually like saying deer instead of deers) or give them any further instructions. He doesn't have to. Instantly, the first robed guy points to the mass of milling animals, and a horse, one that's bluish-white with sapphire eyes, stamps the ground. Thin ribbons of cloud roll out of its flaring nostrils. As the thing steps forward to bow to the one that called it out, the first Once-Was says, "This is Boreas the Wintersteed, carved from the icy fist of the North Wind during a great war."

Can't they hurry up a little bit? Do they really have to go through all of this? I guess they have to because they keep going.

"And Eurus the Unlucky," the second Once-Was pipes up. A pale green horse with a mane that looks like clumps of wiry moss shakes its head and rears. "She was taken from the great waters that once rose and fell to the whim of the East Wind. All Nøkken and water-folk hear her call and count her as kin."