We Will Hunt Together Read online

  Table of Contents

  We Will Hunt Together

  Book Details

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  About the Author

  We Will Hunt Together

  J. Hepburn

  On a quest to avenge the murder of her lover, Helgaer is attacked by bandits and badly wounded in the fight. The very last thing she expects is to be rescued, least of all by an intriguing foreign woman, a hunter eager to leave behind the burdens and betrayals that drove her away.

  One seeking vengeance, the other seeking freedom, the very last thing either needs is attachment …

  Book Details

  We Will Hunt Together

  By J. Hepburn

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Keith Kaczmarek

  Cover designed by London Burden

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition August 2014

  Copyright © 2014 by J. Hepburn

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 9781620044001

  With thanks to JRR Tolkien, who we all owe a debt, & to Fritz Leiber, for the inspiration.

  Dedicated to Tam, for everything.

  She hadn't seen the boy with the crossbow.

  Two bandits had challenged Helgaer Elfriede on the road, demanding all her money and weapons. When they had realised she was a woman, they had demanded other things. The first one died easily. The second, messily.

  She had followed their tracks back to their camp in a clearing at the base of a small cliff. Approaching through the woods, she had seen five tents and three men. That had added up nicely.

  The first one died after her knife cut his throat from behind. She had drawn her sword as he fell. The second one had laughed when he recognised her sex, then died trying to hold his intestines in.

  She ducked under a wildly swung mace, slicing open a throat with her knife as she rose again.

  She hadn't seen the boy emerge from a tent and fire off one lucky shot with a crossbow.

  Her wolf-fur vest and tightly woven woollen shirt were thick and offered good padding, but they could do little against a sharp crossbow bolt except slow it down. The point protruded from her back, but the fletches did not get past her clothing.

  She screamed, but kept her feet.

  The boy was not the only one remaining. Another emerged from a tent, running straight for her, bellowing a meaningless battle cry.

  He had the breastplate, sword and shield of a soldier. They were old and battered, but he had the look of someone who had taken them by force.

  He lifted his sword to run her through. The tip of her sword severed his wrist.

  She threw herself sideways, away from his charge and the blood spraying from his wrist. A jolt of pain made her miss her footing and crash to the ground where the other one, the desperate crossbowman, could perhaps have taken her. It was her luck that he was young and brash, but not brave. He backed away, yelling for help.

  Pain made her vision close to a red tunnel but gave her the energy to get to her feet and run him down.

  She risked a glance down at the crossbow bolt. The fletches, just visible through the fur of her vest, were so filthy they probably would have poisoned her if they had gone through. The point may have poisoned her anyway, but what was done, was done. It was so crudely made that it was an insult to have been wounded by it, but it had nearly done its job.

  Enraged shouts from the other side of the campground made her look up in disbelief.

  Two more bandits had emerged from the trees, carrying a deer between them. When they saw her and their friends, they dropped the deer. One drew his sword; the other unslung a bow.

  She raised her sword and dagger, stepping backwards to give herself a little more time, edging towards the tents while the two men separated and the bowman, after fumbling at first, nocked and drew an arrow.

  The first spike of adrenaline had faded and the pain in her side was steadily increasing. She had already been walking half the day, hungry from poor hunting and tired from poor sleep, before attacking the bandits. Now, blood was seeping through her clothes.

  The odds had turned, but she was calculating how quickly the archer could fire a second arrow if the first one didn't kill her.

  An arrow fired from the top of the cliff struck the archer in the throat. His missile went spinning wildly away.

  She was almost as surprised as they were.

  The other bandit threw himself forwards and sideways, but not quickly enough, an arrow hitting him in the side, underneath his ribs.

  He screamed as he dropped to his knees, clutching the arrow. A second shaft hit him in the neck, silencing him.

  Helgaer, trying to control her breathing, her heart, and the pain burning in her belly, lifted her eyes slowly to the top of the cliff.

  "You really think you stood a chance against them?"

  The voice was female, hard, and, apparently, coming from thin air. Helgaer knew the unseen archer must be on top of the cliff, but the voice was directionless.

  It was not the question—let alone the voice—Helgaer had been expecting.

  "I made one mistake."

  "Could have killed you, though."

  Helgaer didn't see much point in answering that.

  "Why did you attack them?"

  "They attacked me."

  "That's not what I saw."

  Helgaer still could not pin down where the voice was coming from. "Two of them. On the road."

  "Why track them back here?"

  "I finish what I start."

  After a moment of silence, the unseen woman asked, "What are you called?"

  "Helgaer Elfriede."

  There was a brief pause before the voice said, "You are Vreeland, then."

  "Yes." The question surprised her a little. Was she not dressed in her people's clothes? Her home country was not far from here, and her people were recognised.

  There was a longer pause before the voice said, "My name is Camille."

  Helgaer did not try to hide her surprise. "That is a Danovan name."

  "That is because my parents were Danovan." Camille let bitterness bleed into her voice.

  Helgaer's only spoken response was a surprised, "Oh." She had heard rumours of how women in Danova lived their lives. The rumours did not allow for a woman who could hide her voice at will.

  "I left my patronym behind when I fled marriage to an arranged husband, crossing an entire country that was trying to kill me in order to live close to a country that does not accept my people."

  Helgaer realised she could now pinpoint Camille's voice. She mentally raised a salute to a master hunter. Outwardly, she winced in cultural guilt, but said nothing as she heard Camille's voice move along the cliff and down the other side without at any point being accompanied by the noises of footfalls or moving branches.

  "Believe me, I can understand why you may be running, but I don't understand why you were looking for someone to kill you."

  Helgaer did not see any reason to answer that. Her attention was distracted by the man with one hand who was still trying, with a trail of blood behind him, to crawl towards the trees. She walked after him with some difficulty, then separated his head from his body with one hard and precise swing of
her sword.

  When she looked up again, Camille was there, standing over the dead body of one of the bandits she had shot. She looked only a little older than Helgaer, but much more tempered by life. She was more slender than Helgaer, but nearly as tall. Her hair, unlike the multiple red plaits of Vreelanders or the unrestrained straw-yellow of the bandits—native Ortliners all—was jet back and kept back by a leather barrette at the nape of her neck.

  Her clothes were well made from finely woven cloth, but were dirty and patched so they blended with bark and shadows. Her shoes were light and supple, unlike the sturdy—if supple—boots Helgaer was wearing. The long knife at her belt had a workmanlike leather-wrapped handle and a crudely-made leather sheath, but the bow she carried looked better made, more valuable and more powerful than any Helgaer had ever seen. It was compact, but each limb had a double curve to give it power, so it looked more like the heavy bow of a plains horseman than the long, straight-limbed, hunting bows used in Helgaer's village.

  "I wasn't looking to die," Helgaer said through gritted teeth.

  "Looked like it from where I was watching. Nicely done on the ambush, but you were impatient. You didn't plan the layout, and you need to learn to keep an eye open for archers. Put your sword up, girl. If I was going to kill you, you'd be dead already."

  The adrenaline boost from the fight began to turn to hostility at Camille's criticism, but Helgaer bit down on any retort, sheathing her sword with poor grace.

  "Ever carry a shield?" Camille asked as she bent to examine the dead bandits. With a grunt of satisfaction, she pulled her arrow from the neck of the first man she had shot.

  "Gets in the way," Helgaer said shortly. "I prefer bracers and a dagger."

  Camille glanced up to look more closely at Helgaer's wrists, nodded, then went back to retrieving her arrows. She managed to carefully pull out the neck shots, but the one to the gut she left with a grimace of annoyance. She did, however, break the shaft to retrieve the bone nock. "None of these have any good gear," she called to Helgaer. "You know what that means?"

  "It means they weren't very good," Helgaer rasped, without raising her voice. "I already knew that when I attacked them."

  Camille raised an eyebrow. "Are you bleeding badly?"

  Strangely, Helgaer was not. "My shirt seems to be stopping most of it."

  "Well, that's a mercy. Can you walk?"

  "Yes." Helgaer didn't try and test that first. She would walk, or she would die here. So, she would walk.

  "Far?"

  "If I have to."

  Camille gave Helgaer a piercing look as she straightened up and slipped the final arrow over her head into the quiver on her back. She nodded. "Good. You're going to need to. I'll help you, but on my terms. Understand? If you can make it back to my cabin, I'll do what I can there. You need any time?"

  Helgaer shook her head. If she waited until the last traces of adrenaline wore off, she might not be able to move at all.

  "Good," Camille said flatly. "Are you carrying anything else?"

  Helgaer turned and walked back into the woods a little way to where she had cached her wolf-fur cloak, her water skin and two large pouches. She tied the pouches to her belt next to her sheathed dagger, her knife and, on the other hip, her sword.

  "No blanket? No bow?"

  "I'm good at setting snares, and my people are tough." Helgaer also had a sling tied from hip to hip around her back where it wouldn't get in her way, but didn't feel like mentioning that yet. She also did not mention that her people regularly slept wild, wrapped in a cloak and, if necessary, sitting in the fork of a tree. She would need more clothes in winter, it was true, but was not expecting that to become an issue.

  "You'd need to be. This way."

  Camille almost disappeared from view as she entered the wood.

  Gritting her teeth, Helgaer began walking after her, holding the end of the crossbow bolt to stop it moving.

  The walk to Camille's cabin was not short, flat, straight or easy. Helgaer was led along the animal trail before scrambling over a landslide, along another animal trail, then up between boulders onto a rock shelf. Camille kept an eye on her and didn't try to push her, but did not offer any assistance, either.

  Helgaer could tell she was being led along a route that even the most skilled tracker would have trouble following, but wasn't sure if Camille was trying to disorientate her as well.

  It wasn't necessary. Pain and blood loss, on top of the poor eating and exertion of the past week, gradually sapped Helgaer's energy until she was barely able to move over the more difficult parts. She certainly couldn't concentrate enough to pay attention to her surroundings. Her cloak, something she had worn all her life, was getting in her way and weighing her down.

  At one point, Camille stopped and took the water skin off Helgaer's belt, ordering, "Drink."

  The tepid water revived Helgaer a little, although even drinking was painful by that point, so she was dimly aware that the nature of the country and the vegetation had changed. They were clearly much higher and must have been climbing for a while. When she managed to spy the sun, she was shocked by how low it had sunk.

  All the time, she could feel blood oozing inside her clothes. It slowed as the day progressed. Whether that was because she was clotting or running out of blood, she wasn't sure. She was too tired to tell if she was merely exhausted or nearing death.

  When Camille finally led her up to an old hunter’s cabin, as day was threatening to become dusk, Helgaer was in a world made so hazy by pain and fatigue that she just stopped and stood there, staring blankly in front of her.

  "Sit," Camille ordered, pointing at a bench against the front wall of the cabin.

  Helgaer nearly fell unconscious as soon as the weight came off her legs, but she forced herself to keep moving, struggling to remove the pouches and water skin from her belt with shaking fingers. Her belt, tied over her long shirt, gave her more trouble. She was almost crying from frustration before Camille came to her aid.

  "Drink."

  The water this time was cool and even more welcome.

  Helgaer barely paid attention as Camille drew her knife and cut through the fine cord holding the crossbow bolt's fletches on, removing the fletches easily, although she had to carefully spread the vest's fur apart to do so.

  She was so exhausted, she obeyed Camille's order to turn sideways without thinking about it, not realising what Camille was doing until she felt a hand on her back a second before the shaft was pulled through her in one swift movement.

  Helgaer howled, adrenaline waking her up enough to feel the fresh blood spurting out of the wound. She almost turned to attack Camille, stopping herself with fists raised.

  Her vest fastened in the front with four buttons. Camille undid them in seconds.

  She lifted the bottom of Helgaer's shirt, then pressed a wad of linen against the entry wound. "Get your vest off."

  At least that was easy.

  Helgaer felt Camille lift her shirt up the back before pressing another wad of linen over the exit wound.

  "Now get this shirt off. I can't bind you properly if it's in the way."

  Moving her left arm too high made Helgaer hiss with pain, but she managed to pull the wool over her head. Beneath it, a long, broad strip of linen bound her breasts tightly against her chest.

  Camille’s fingers tapped her on the belly. "Hold this pad. Your right hand. Here. Press harder. You have to stop the bleeding."

  The pressure on Helgaer's back shifted without ever going away before Camille passed a long bandage around her, right to left, shifting hands again so she could take it with her left hand and pull it over the padding on Helgaer's belly.

  Helgaer managed to do her part, getting the bandage in place, but her fingers were fumbling as she did so.

  Camille wrapped her quickly and efficiently, pulling the bandage tightly enough to cut into Helgaer's waist and jam the padding against each wound.

  She poured water into Helgaer's mo
uth, following it with a handful of dried flowers and bark.

  "Chew, but don't swallow them. Just the liquid," Camille ordered. "They'll help with the pain."

  They were bitter, but Helgaer chewed them, trying to generate as much saliva as possible, eager for any relief from the throbbing, burning pain in her side.

  There was a moment then when Helgaer could think clearly enough to look at her surroundings.

  Not far in front of her was a fire pit with an iron tripod over it. A small cauldron hung from the tripod.

  The fire couldn't have been more than coals when they had arrived here, but it was burning steadily now. Steam was rising from the cauldron.

  Camille appeared again, holding more scraps of linen and a small clay bowl. She wet a wad of linen in the bowl, using it to clean the dried and drying blood off Helgaer's skin, sponging what she could out of the clumped fur of her wolf-skin pants. "You need a bath, but that can wait until tomorrow."

  Helgaer was too drained to take offence. Besides, it was true. She had been walking for four days in the same clothes without washing them or herself.

  The herbs Helgaer were still chewing must have been doing some good because the pain was now muted and dull. But it was still pain.

  On Camille's next trip into the cabin, she returned holding a thick woven blanket, much patched and, when she put it around Helgaer's shoulders, warm. It felt strange after her cloak.

  Helgaer wrapped it gratefully around herself, trying not to move her waist too much, then had to unwrap it far enough to accept a bowl of warm stew with a wooden spoon in it.

  "Lucky I didn't need to cook tonight," Camille said. "Eat up. You'll do yourself no favours not getting enough food in you while you heal."

  Helgaer ate. She was an experienced cook herself, but all she had the mental energy to taste now was rabbit and wild garlic. She was not sure if it really was as delicious as her tongue was telling her, or if it simply tasted like that because it was in her mouth right now.

  Camille did not talk as they ate, but did keep staring at Helgaer, not intently but inquisitively. Helgaer ignored her, keeping her head down.

  By the time they had finished eating, the fire and the stars were the only light.