Chapter 1

Krill woke and stretched, he could smell the grass sward outside, with its herbs and flowers releasing scents as the ladies walked quietly across. Their light touch was enough for the plants to exhale a puff of perfume to follow them. Further, the pines were waving their tops in the breeze that blew down from the mountains behind the castle and the smell of pine sank down to the sheltered spaces and yards, and entered through his open window. Without opening his eyes, without needing to look outside, he could tell that it would be a good day for the hunt.

Krill loved the hunt, almost more than anything else, his dogs would race ahead whilst he followed close behind on his mount and the red or white deer would flee across the fields, across the rivers, up into the mountain valleys. Sometimes they caught one, oftentimes they did not, it mattered little; the thrill was in the chase, the wild, careless chase. The chase was what invigorated everything. All became more alive, from the quarry to the hunter as they fulfilled their destiny in fleeing or chasing as if their lives depended upon it (which, for the deer of course, they did).

The white deer were fleeter and faster, the red were heavier and stronger. The white might out-run the dogs all day, while the red might turn and fight, throwing dogs in all directions with their flashing horns. Krill sniffed the air, it was a good day for a hunt. The scents would hang in the moist air and the dogs would trail easily after the quarry. He leapt from his bed and moved to the window, forgetting decorum, standing naked to the breeze. The ladies passing affected not to notice, but marked his well-toned body. His mother walked past, scowled a silent rebuke and Krill retreated to wash, dress, eat a sparse breakfast and head to the stables and kennels.

His thoughts were all of the hunt now, as his thoughts last evening had been of carousing. He was, as his father vainly sought to remind his mother, young. He would settle down in time, or not; the fates controlled such things, not parents.

Krill was a mountain elf, tall, slender and strong. His father was neither king, nor lowly worker, he advised and managed and they lived well. His mother was born of good, noble stock and had selected An-Krill (father of Krill), Hajob as was (for in elvish the father and mother changed their name when their child was born), for his stable and calm bearing. She had thought that would bring a calm and noble child but if he was noble, An’n-Krill’s child was certainly not calm. Not yet anyway; he had centuries to go yet having just reached 100 in earth years. Elves did not count time the same, they drifted rather than marched through life, and if a period took their fancy they might bide a while at that age. Krill was happy at 102; he would tease his mother that he would stay that way for ever but of course that could never be. Even in elfish worlds eventually time will have its way and aging would come again.

This land of theirs was fine and plentiful and bountiful as might be expected; and if some regretted that they could only have one child, all saw the reasoning behind the lore that had been laid on them. As menfolk had expanded their dominion in their unrivalled rutting and reproducing, the lands of magic had receded steadily until only small enclaves remained. There was not so much room for elves to live comfortably as they wanted to; they had no desire to live in cramped boxes as the humans did. A wood that men’s hunting dogs would avoid no matter what the attractive smells, a pond where fishermen caught nothing despite seeing the biggest fish jump in the centre, a moor of unexpectedly, unnatural beauty where the heather bloomed brighter and longer and the grouse were always safe from the guns, or a mountain valley where the grass grew sweeter but the cattle would not eat. These were the indications of other inhabitants in other dimensions; and these places had connections to each other that humans did not guess. But of the vast plains in the western lands, where the elves had walked amongst the bison as plainly as the wolves, these had gone for ever. So had almost all the cliff dwellers (all save one place kept secret by the jutting headlands on either side) where the elves could dive fully 200 feet into the depths and swim with dolphins and tease the seals. Now humans found themselves drawn to similar jumps but showed themselves less adept and more prone to crash onto rocks that any elf, with their clear sight, would have seen and avoided even in mid-air as they plummeted.

Krill mounted the unicorn and called his hunting dogs. Five lean, long haired dogs appeared, loping along with an easy gait that could extend to a rush in a single stride or continue at the same pace all day. These were his pride, if in human terms they were merely impressive dogs, and his steed was a mythical creature from the story books, to him the reverse was true. The wild unicorns still roamed across some hills (for these elvish enclaves existed as much and further in other dimensions from the human ones) whilst the dogs came from lines bred for hunting almost as long as the elvish line he came from.

With a wave to his father, a stately bow from the unicorn’s back to his mother and a courtly wave to the young elf-maids who were even then discussing his elvish body in distinctly unmaidenly, admiring tones, and then he was gone. Riding to the dell where the deer most often congregated, he found traces, but no clear sign of recent visits. He travelled further, to the mere, thence to the carr and then across the river Dvan to the silent lake. Here, finally he had more luck. Two deer, a stag and a hind were engaged in their elaborate courtship ritual. Krill watched and commanded silence from his quietly whining dogs. He watched as they nuzzled, rose up on hind legs, circled and pranced. And he watched as the stag was finally allowed to consummate his desire for the hind. He allowed them the time because even as a hunter he had finer feelings and would have thought it ungallant to interrupt them. Then when they began to turn their separate ways he sounded his horn, the dogs leaped from still, furry statues to streaks of grey across the rough ground. The hind was unconsidered, the stag was the prey and he ran with an almost easy speed, initially outpacing them to a seemingly unassailable degree. But the dogs could smell him long after he had passed from view and the dogs and unicorn began to chase with a tireless ease.

All day the chase continued, all day and into the evening. Then, by some law of elvish nature, all stopped when the sun retired. The hunt would resume at light tomorrow, but in the night the hunted and the hunter would sleep to replenish their strength. Krill was elated, only once before had a quarry kept clear all day and found the safety of the night; and that time when the morning came the stag had made good its escape. Krill had been younger then, now he was more wily, he was an experienced and clever hunter, and he guessed that the stag also was not unused to the hunt. This was a worthy contest.

Dawn came and the hunt resumed with, as honour dictated, a new blast on his horn. And yet even with this new day they made little difference to the distance between them. Another day passed and ebbed away and still the hunt was not over. Perhaps he should give the stag best he thought, it was a noble chase. But the next day dawned and he found he still pursued; and this day ended with the prey in sight. Only 200 yards away, but too far as the light dissipated. Too far to catch, too close to give up now.

That fourth day dawned wet, it rained rarely in Elf lands, but even there nature insisted on sometimes washing the leaves of dust. The misty, drizzle rained from before dawn else perhaps Krill would have seen his danger. At dawn he blew on his horn for the last time and the chase began; surely to end in minutes. But the stag leapt, renewed, into the air and ran like the wind into the mist, the dogs followed and the unicorn and Krill followed the dogs. None of them perceived the shimmer for the mist hid it. None sensed the change in the sound, for the mist dulled it. None sensed the change in the feeling of the air, for their excitement or fear dulled such senses. And then they were over the border and the stag froze in sudden confusion; so much that one dog ran into it. The stag would have been killed if it wasn’t that the dogs were also assailed with the same confusion. Then the unicorn bearing Krill arrived and he knew, and Krill knew, they had come too far. Stretching before them in the mist were the stone walls of man and running in fear were the sheep of man.

And shouting at them from a nearby hill, visible through breaks in the mist, was a farmer who waved his arms and urged his two dogs to fresh efforts to round up the sheep. The dogs would not go straight because that took them too close to the fairy creatures who they saw for what they were. The farmer did not remark the unicorn horn, which was clear like glass it is true, but the dogs saw it clearly enough. The farmer saw only what he expected to see, a huntsman breaking the law hunting a lone deer with five dogs; he did not see that the stag was white and its horns were curved, he did not see that the dogs were as big as wolfhounds but built like greyhounds only faster. He saw what humans always see, what they want and rarely more.