Free Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) by Elspeth Cooper

put them away. She was folding them into a chest when she heard someone else enter the tent from outside.
    ‘Excellent,’ Ytha said. ‘That should impress them. Well done.’
    Teia, a folded shirt in her hands, froze where she knelt.
    ‘Are the others ready?’ Drwyn asked.
    ‘Almost. Every clan is here. They’ll be assembled in less than an hour. Do you remember what I told you?’
    ‘Yes, Ytha. Don’t fuss.’
    ‘I am the Speaker of the Crainnh. It is my job to fuss ,’ Ytha told him frostily. ‘You must make the right impression on the other chiefs. If they are to take you seriously, you must be your father’s son and more besides.’
    Dropping the shirt, Teia hitched her skirts up and shuffled on her knees as quietly as she could across the floor to the curtain. Hardly daring to breathe, she peered through a moth-hole in the fabric. Ytha was wearing a deep-blue woollen gown under her fur mantle, clasped around the waist with a golden belt of interlinked crescent moons. Another crescent kept her mane of hair back from her brow.
    ‘This is an important day, Drwyn. If you do well today, nothing will stand in your way. You will be Chief of Chiefs inside a year and all of the south will be yours for the taking.’
    ‘I am looking forward to it.’
    Teia recognised the hunger in his voice. It was the same throaty growl she heard in the dark, when he told her how he wanted to be pleasured. His back was to her, but she could imagine his expression. She shuddered.
    Chief of Chiefs! It had not been done in over a thousand years, not since before the clans had been driven north. The idea tumbled chaotically in her mind, a leaf in a welter of possibilities. And the south? Did Drwyn mean to challenge the Empire itself? Incredible. No, it was ludicrous; they would be cut to pieces. The iron men would be waiting for them. What could he be thinking?
    ‘Ah, Drwyn, one step at a time,’ Ytha said. ‘If we rush the hunt, the game will fly and we will not be able to set the same trap twice.’
    ‘You speak in riddles, Ytha! Say what you mean.’
    The Speaker tsked and her tone grew sharper. ‘I mean that our objective is closer now than it has ever been, but we must still be patient. If we try too hard we may ruin everything we have planned for. Now come, the chiefs will be waiting.’
    Long after they had left the tent, Teia just sat there, skirts rucked up around her knees. She could scarcely believe what she had heard and yet, whatever else he might be, Drwyn was not insane. He would not contemplate something like this unless he was better than half-sure he could get away with it. She had learned that much in recent weeks. What would the other chiefs say? Drwyn could do nothing without their support, after all. That gave her an idea. Quickly, she finished her chores.

    Amongst the rocks of the valley’s rim, she had a good view of the fair spread out below her. There was hardly a hide’s span of empty grass to be seen now. Tents crowded cheek by jowl, rival clans rubbing shoulders with all old enmities put aside. That was one piece of clan law that was universally accepted: for the four days of the Gathering and for three days before and after, differences were held in abeyance, even blood feuds suspended. The Gathering was the last great fair before winter, the last chance the clans had to trade, to exchange news, to find new wives before the ice and storms swept in off the northern sea to pen them all in their winter quarters in the mountains.
    Smoke thickened the air and the whole valley was loud with bawling babies, barking dogs, braying livestock and babbling chatter. If she squinted, she could make out the badges of every clan, standards planted in front of the chieftains’ tents. Not far from each ornamented pole was another tent, a fraction smaller but no less well appointed, which would be the residence of the clan’s Speaker. In place of a banner, each sported a bronze representation of the clan’s totem