Sword Play by Clayton Emery

that he’d “lose hair.” And more. For the damned bird had flown right over the bandits’ attack, but kept going. With no effort, it could have circled back to warn Sunbright, but hadn’t.
    The barbarian struck an imaginary chalk mark on the raven’s slate: not to be trusted.

    It was coming on autumn, almost a year since Sunbright had been banished and begun his adventures, when they came to the head of a vast valley. Far down, through miles of trees like giant steps, they saw open farmland, and in the distance along a broad river was their destination, the city of Dalekeva. Even the gloomy traders, the ones who’d survived, cheered when they saw the high walls of yellow stone, the onion-topped towers, and the colorful town that sprawled around the city and meandered along the many roads into yellow-grained farmland and beyond. Even the horses picked up their feet and plodded faster toward the last stretch of forest road, now that their destination was in sight.
    But scouting ahead with Sunbright, Greenwillow lifted her nose, swiveling her head like a stork. Pointed black brows knit as she asked Sunbright, “Where is everyone?”
    “Eh?” The warrior shifted his quiver and longbow at her tone. “Where should they be?”
    “Look!” With her arm she swept the whole valley, the sky. “It’s the harvest season, half the fields sport grain, the sun is high, there’s no threat of rain, yet there’s not a soul out working. No peasant would pass up this kind of day to get his crops in, not with the weather so changeable.”
    Stringing his bow, Sunbright squinted. He’d been staring at a long set of old gashes marring a red oak, gray-white gouges in red-gray bark. The gashes were as wide as his finger and as long as his bow, and occurred a dozen feet high on the tree. He tried to remember where he’d seen them before. Distracted, he mused, “Perhaps they’re all inside those walls. A festival, perhaps, or—”
    Greenwillow’s answer was a shrill in the elven tongue. She, too, grabbed her bow while nodding back toward the woods behind them. “The Hunt! They come! The Hunt!”
    Sunbright whirled around to see. From over the treetops, like dragons of silver and gold, soared a party of flying folk. Some skimmed on huge disks of metal; others rode clockwork wyverns. All were armored and armed and masked, with long lances whose points glinted in the afternoon sun.
    With the shrill “halloo” of foxhunters, the flying folk swooped toward Sunbright’s party.

Chapter 6
    “Traders to the city!” roared Dorlas like a lion. “Guards to me!”
    “What are they?” yelled Sunbright. He and Greenwillow drew long arrows to their cheeks. Hers were slender, black, polished, fletched with exotic red and yellow feathers, while his were of plain ash and fletched with dark turkey.
    “A Neth hunt!” she cried. “They hunt humans! Loose!”
    Their arrows flashed from bowstrings. They’d automatically chosen foes at opposite sides of the attackers, squat men on flying disks, but the arrows spanked off armor or shattered. Sunbright was not surprised, but he cursed nonetheless.
    Dorlas and the other bodyguards had cut some loads, grabbed whichever traders came to hand and plunked them on horses, then whacked the beasts, urging them toward the distant city. The traders left afoot were similarly whacked and sent scampering down the dipping forest road. Sunbright and Greenwillow passed them, running the other way. The barbarian yelped, “Wait! They’re defenseless! This makes no sense!”
    “No, it’s the way! The city is sanctuary! Once inside the walls, the prey is safe, and the hunters won’t bother with helpless prey. They’ll attack us fighters! That’s a challenge; that’s their game.”
    Nocking on the run, they now formed a rear guard as Dorlas and the other bodyguards got off the road and under cover. Even panicked, Sunbright counted his foes, studied their tactics. There were seven, four on flying disks and