Free Winterwood by JG Faherty Page A

through the woods. The great hounds baying as they raced beside the horned mounts, tongues lolling and eyes red as fire, ready to pounce and rend at their master’s command. Trumpets raised to announce the coming of Death incarnate, a warning to all, in the form of thunder and wind, a living storm ready to capture any foolish enough to venture outside. A vision from a frozen hell, galloping from town to town until they gathered their quota of bodies for the night.
    The discordant song grew to an earsplitting crescendo and then came to an abrupt stop, leaving Anders with a ringing in his ears and an unpleasant tingling in his body, as if the wavelengths of the notes had played the strings of his muscles and nerves like an instrument of flesh, vibrating his cells in unnatural and unhealthy ways.
    â€œNow what?” Anna asked. Her voice caught Anders by surprise and his heart stuttered for a few beats.
    â€œJust a few minutes more,” Ulaf said. “Time for the King to return to his throne and his men to bring their captives to the larder, where the witch will be waiting to look them over. We shall need to be quick because she will not be occupied for long. Each year the Hunt returns with fewer victims, as belief dwindles.”
    â€œBelief dwindles?”
    â€œAye.” The elf’s tone made it seem the answer to Anders’s question should be obvious. “The Hunt is guided to places where belief still runs strongest.”
    â€œNo. That makes no sense. It’s not believing that’s the danger. Belief keeps you safe. Following the old ways means staying inside during Yule nights, keeping presents under the tree. It’s those who don’t know the truth who’ll be caught outside by the Hunt.”
    â€œThose things be true, but ’tis those same convictions that draw the Hunt. The stags and hounds follow the scent of belief, which draws them as a magnet draws iron. Adults who no longer put faith in the tales are hidden from the Hunt. They may hear thunder in the night or see a ghostly shape in the snow, but to the Hunt they are but air, passed through as a man might walk through smoke or fog.”
    â€œWait. Do you mean that if my father hadn’t taught us the old tales, my boys might not have been taken?”
    Anna’s words stabbed at Anders, each one an acid-dipped blade cutting through flesh and bone to pierce his heart.
    No. It can’t be. The stories are meant to protect, to—
    â€œâ€™Tis a sad truth. No man is safer than the fool who knows nothing.”
    â€œGod damn you!” Anna dove at Anders and her hands slapped at him, her nails raking across his hands as he raised them to defend himself. “This is all your fault, not mine! If you’d just kept your mouth shut, lied to us, we wouldn’t be here and my boys would be safe.”
    â€œHush! Hush!”
    â€œYour fault, goddammit. I hate you.”
    â€œAnna, stop.” Her weight fell away in response to Paul’s voice, and Anders heard her grappling with her husband as he pulled her away. Her curses changed into sobs and then full-out weeping.
    â€œQuiet, please, or only things we will find are the King’s teeth.”
    Ulaf continued to urge silence, interspersing his pleas with shush ing noises, until Anna’s crying finally dwindled down to wet snuffles.
    Leaving Anders alone with his guilt, a guilt that rose up from his stomach like bitter vomit, to fill him.
    All my fault. I thought I was doing the right thing. Since Anna was a child, all I wanted to do was protect her. Instead, I led the danger right to my family.
    All because I believed.
    But how could he not, when he’d seen the truth with his own eyes, bore the scars of it every day? How could he have known the hazards of passing on the legends?
    He couldn’t. The logical part of his mind understood that. But logic counted for nothing, not when weighed against the knowledge that his actions had