Disclaimer: This is a work in progress as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). You are reading the work product of a first draft writing session and not a finished product. Comments are welcome, but bear the first draft nature of the work in mind. Thank you and enjoy!

Chapter 1

Cori stepped carefully. She glanced down and made sure of each step, avoiding leaves and twigs that would announce her progress through the thick forest undergrowth. Looking up again, the sixteen-year-old girl shifted her upper body to move her bow around the branch in front of her, keeping her knocked arrow pointed downrange. She could see her target now. The doe and fawn moved through the brush 15 yards ahead of her. They stopped, lifting their heads, the mother looking left and right. Cori froze. The deer’s eyes scanned past her but did not stop and then the forest creature went back to grazing with her child. Cori took another step, then another. Closer and closer. It was a game to her. She could have taken the shot yards back on the path when she first spotted the pair after tracking them for an hour. Her hunting leathers shrugged off the thorns and pickers as she moved through the brush, towards the deer grazing in the small clearing ahead of her.

She was at the edge of the undergrowth now and could see the two magnificent creatures in the dappled sunlight leaking through the tall trees surrounding the forest glade. The spotted fawn was young and still dependent on its mother for milk but testing the glade’s grass with a few tentative nibbles. Cori stopped where she was and marveled at the beauty of the scene. She kept her arrow nocked, as she had been taught by Uncle Vernon, but kept the shaft pointed at the ground. She was prepared for the shot but was not to aim until she was ready to take it and kill her target. At this range, it would be an easy kill. Then her eyes refocused and locked on a target. Without thought her bow snapped into position, the arrow’s fletchings tickling her cheek as she drew the bowstring back to her ear. The sudden motion caused the doe to lift its head and look directly at her. She released. The arrow flew true, and a snarling cry sounded from the other side of the glade as it struck home. The doe and fawn, alerted now to danger, bounded into the brush away from the sound, their passage close enough, it nearly knocked her down.

Cori was not phased by the nearness of the animals. She had already nocked another arrow from her quiver and sent it on its way as the mountain cat launched from its stalking point on the other side of the small meadow. She could see her first arrow standing out from the big cat’s shoulder even as she released her second shot. It must be the one that stopped the predator. She would not have time for a third before it reached her. She realized that it was no longer after the doe and faun. It had shifted its yellow-eyed gaze on her as it bounded across the clearing. She drew a breath, released halfway to steady her aim and released. The young huntress didn’t wait for the shot to strike home. She dropped her bow, drawing her long knife and tomahawk from her belt for the close quarters fight that would follow if she had missed. But she didn’t miss. She rarely missed when given the chance to aim true. Her arrow struck the cat’s chest in mid-bound, and when it’s clawed front paws landed on the turf ten feet in front of her, they failed to hold the massive creature’s weight. The shaft had struck home in the animal’s heart. It tumbled and rolled with its forward momentum, sliding to a halt only a foot from where Cori stood, prepared to fight for her life. Its chest heaved a few times and then the massive mountain cat was still.

A sigh from behind her brought a smile to her lips. She turned to see Uncle Vernon lowering the large crossbow as he saw the danger had passed. She liked to think she was was all alone in the woods hunting on her own as one of the forest girls of the northern reaches of the province, but of course, that would be out of the question for the provincial governor’s only daughter. Despite her desire to go out on her own, she could only pretend to do so. The guardsman with his crossbow and the hunt master behind him would always be close by to protect her. If she needed protection. She looked down at the body of the large predator that had nearly taken the faun from the doe. Her position across the glade had been perfect, and she had seen the cat’s intent as it stalked from the other side, angling toward the younger, more vulnerable target.

“Girl, ye’ll be the death of me yet,” Uncle Vernon, her grizzled guardsman grumbled. He wasn’t her real uncle, but she had called him that all her life since that was what her older brothers called him. He had been her father’s companion and guardsman during the war many years earlier, and now he was just like a member of the family. “If I don’t die of a stroke during one of these hunts, your father will kill me himself when I bring your body back tied across the back of a horse. Ye should have let the beast take its dinner. Shooting it only made it angry and gave it a new target.”

The hunt master stepped forward past the guardsman and looked at the kill at her feet. “Lady Corrine,” he said, pointing at the two arrows. “You should have made the first shot count as the kill shot. You might not always be lucky enough to have a second chance like you did here. Your guardsman is right.”

“But I didn’t see it until it was ready to strike at the deer,” Cori explained. “I had to take the quick shot.”

The huntsman shook his head. “Take a half-second and draw the breath to steady your shot. It could be the difference between a wounding shot and a kill. It likely was that difference here.” He pulled a horn from his belt and blew a few clear notes alerting his assistants of their location. They would bring the horses up so they wouldn’t have to trek all the way back to Westgate castle on foot. “Still a good kill for the Lady. I’d be mighty proud were you my own daughter. She went off to marry that baker’s son in the village. She never wanted to hunt with me in the woods.”

“Don’t ye go filling her head with all that nonsense,” Uncle Vernon said with a chuckle. “She’s a good huntress but doesn’t need us heaping praise upon her for a foolish, dangerous act.” He turned from looking at the big cat and looked at his charge. “Lady Corinne, Cori, ye cannot take chances like that. I’m serious. If your mother or even your father hears about how close a thing this was, you’ll never be allowed to lead a hunt again.”

“I don’t think you’d talk to my brothers like that, Uncle,” she quipped. Cori was annoyed. She was tired of being treated like a delicate princess. She was as tough as her older brothers. If any of them had done what she had done, they would have been praised for their selfless bravery.

“That may be, but none of your brothers are the lord’s only daughter, either,” the old guardsman said. “Yer mother barely tolerates your little excursions into the forest as it is. She still hopes to send you off to the capital in Rhodes to serve as a lady for one of the princesses until you are old enough to marry.”

“I’ll not be shuffled off to some becomes some flibberty-gibbet lady in waiting to the princesses,” she responded. “I happen to know that Princess Alvina wishes she could come up here and hunt with me. She has told me as much when we’ve made our court visits.”

“Princess Alvina will someday lead this kingdom,” the guardsman returned. “She and her twin brother must prepare to be the Queen and her guard captain. That means that a certain amount of martial training is necessary.”

“Well, if she can train with the sword, why cannot I train with the weapons of Solon,” Cori complained. She picked sheathed her long knife, slid the haft of her tomahawk into her belt at the small of her back and knelt to pick up her bow. “I’m as good a shot as any of my brothers with a bow, and you’ve said yourself that I’m a dangerous foe with knife and tomahawk. The weapons of the Legion should be my right as a Westgate.”

“You’ve trained well enough on all of them, my Lady,” Vernon said with a sigh. “But you are not your older brothers. They are enough to lead the forces of the province. Lord Rad is with the King’s Heavy Horse Guards, your brother Lord Logan has command of the Legion should they need to be called up. You should settle yourself on a quieter career path like your brother, Jonathan.”

“Oh, so now you want to shuffle me off to join the holy orders in some convent or monastery?” She laughed aloud. Her guardsman and the hunt master laughed along with her which assuaged her rising anger a bit. They knew how ill-suited she’d be stuck in a monastic cell, contemplating her navel while in prayer. Jonny had always been a quiet sort and talked of studying in the libraries of the monastery for years before he joined the order. He was suited to that life of quiet and contemplation.

Cori, on the other hand, wanted adventure. She hung on the stories her father told of the Legion of Solon in the last war. How he had saved the King’s life and been awarded the Barony of Solon when the old Baron died without a son. She listened to every word when he talked of leading expeditions to quell the barbarian uprisings to the north and secure the northern borders of the kingdom. Now her older brother, Logan, got to go on those expeditions. She had asked once to join him, but her mother and father had laughed at her request. She knew her parents laughed for different reasons, but it hurt no less. Her mother laughed because she never thought it proper for a noble-born woman to engage in unwholesome pursuits like hunting and war. Her father had laughed because, while he admired his daughter’s spirit, he had always held out hope for her to marry into the capital’s nobility and carry the family name there.

She shook herself back to the present and tended to the chores of the hunt alongside her warders as the hunt master’s apprentices brought up the horses. She unstrung her bow and settled it in the straps that held her horse’s saddle quiver. Then she helped as the hunt master gutted and cleaned the big cat for transport back to the castle. He grinned at her as she stooped down to help him with the grisly task and she was proud that she never saw herself too highborn to undertake a task that needed doing. Her father had taught her that, and she liked that it brought her close to the people she might lead someday. She knew her brothers felt the same way, and she saw it in the way that Logan led the Legion companies when they were mustered. He took on the training of raw recruits alongside the sergeants and captains.

Once the monstrous cat was gutted and much of the blood was drained, the hunt apprentices loaded it on the back of a pack horse. The animal rolled its eyes at the smell of the big cat and the blood, but Cori stroked it’s nose and spoke quietly to calm it as the load was tied down. Her father would want to see the prize his daughter brought back from the hunt that day. She knew her mother, Lady Elena would frown, but her father would be pleased with his daughter’s skill in the hunt. He might hide his pride, but she knew it would be there.

Cori mounted her horse as the rest of the hunting party gathered their reins and did the same. The hunt master led the way back to the main path, followed by Cori, Uncle Vernon, and the two huntsman apprentices bringing up the rear with the pack horse and its cargo. The winding passage through the woods was peaceful, and Cori listened to the sounds of the forest around her amidst the clop-clop of the horses’ hooves on the packed earth of the path. This might be one of her last hunting trips for a while. The caravan to the capital in Rhodes would leave soon, and she knew he mother’s intention was to send her off in that caravan to take her position as an attendant to Princess Alvina in the palace. Cori knew Alvina, and she knew the princess would like to see her friend again. But this was different from the occasional visits with her in the capital when her father was summoned there, or the even rarer court trips where Alvina, Prince Kyle, and young Princess Joan and their parents, the King and Queen, had traveled out to see the outlying lands of the kingdom. King Edgard and Queen Adelaida were good rulers and made it a point to visit part of their kingdom each year to meet the people on their ground and show benevolent rulership over the whole of the kingdom. It was something about which her father often commented. He believed it was one reason there was so little unrest in the kingdom. He strived to be the same type of leader in Solon and traveled the province with his children frequently to see the people and how they lived. It had impressed upon Cori and her brothers the importance of knowing your subjects and she had stopped and shared bread with more than one farm family on such trips. She watched the admiration and loyalty it built in the subjects her father met and sat with at their table.

She continued her random thoughts as she followed the hunt master out of the forest and onto the rolling farmland surrounding Castle Westgate. From her vantage point, she could see the sea beyond the castle where it sat on the cliffs above Westgate town. On the far side of the town, she could see the tops of the ships’ masts in the harbor, bringing goods to the marketplace and taking the furs from the mountain trappers as well as the harvest foods from the rich farmland of Solon Province. She brushed away a stray wisp of her long brown hair that had blown across her eyes. It had escaped the leather band that held her hair back at the nape of her neck when she hunted. A shepherd was tending his flock at the forest’s edge and raised his hat to the hunting party as they passed. Cori waved in reply. The big cat across the pack animal at the back of the party would have eventually started worrying at the farmers’ flocks and herds. It was good that she had killed it before it decided that skittish deer were too difficult a prey and started after the slow-moving and stupid sheep of the valley.

As they progressed further down into the valley, she continued to be recognized by the passing folk on the road and more than one praised her on her trophy as they passed. It was getting dark when they entered the town and started up the winding road leading to the castle gates. The quiet creak of the saddle leather and clip-clop of the horses hooves was replaced by the bustle of a busy port town. Merchants and farmers with carts on the streets hawked their wares to all who passed. The constant murmur of voices seemed oppressive after the relative quiet of the forest all day. She knew which of the two she preferred.

They neared the gates and passed through them under the raised portcullis in the gatehouse. The two guardsman with their spears and shields bowed to her and nodded to Vernon when they passed by. Once in the castle courtyard, the grooms came and took her horse’s reins while she dismounted. She was slipping her bow and quiver of arrows from the saddle’s straps when a desperate voice made her turn around.

“Ooh, young lady, your mother is going to have your hide.”

Cori turned to see Maddie, the head of the house, and now Cori’s personal keeper it seemed. “Maddie, I said I’d be home by nightfall. Surely it’s not yet time for supper?”

“There’s been a courier and emissary from the King arrived, and your mother wants you cleaned up and presentable before dinner so you might meet them,” the woman said as she fussed over Cori. “Oh, dear lord, is that blood on your cheek?” She wet a thumb in her mouth and, before Cori could pull away, was scrubbing at her face with it.

“Maddie,” Cori said, flustered. She brushed the woman’s hand aside. “I can clean up myself. I will go straight to my rooms and change. I suppose mother wants me in full courtly attire?”

“Of course she does, Corinne, dear,” Maddie said. “No off with you and don’t skimp with the soap and water. You’re a mess, and you smell of horse, sweat, and blood.”

Cori shouldered her bow and slung her quiver over her other shoulder as she headed up to the keep and her rooms. Mother would not like to be kept waiting, she knew. It wasn’t just the arrival of the guests. Lady Elena didn’t care for her outdoor activities and wished her daughter would stay home and learn needlepoint and embroidery with the other ladies of the castle. Her room and antechamber lay at the top of the north tower staircase. She knew that Maddie would have a bathtub filled there for her there, although the water was probably no longer hot. It would feel good to have a soak after sweating in her hunting leathers all day. Then she could change into whatever the maid had laid out for her at her mother’s suggestion. She would be in the hall to greet their guest within the hour.

—-

Disclaimer: This is a work in progress as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). You are reading the work product of a first draft writing session and not a finished product. Comments are welcome, but bear the first draft nature of the work in mind. Thank you and enjoy!