Hunters Unlucky
Abigail Hilton
Hunters Unlucky
By: Abigail Hilton
Published by: Pavonine Books
Cover and Interior Illustrations by: Sarah Cloutier
Map and Cover Design by: Jeff McDowall
© 2014 Abigail Hilton. All rights reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This material may not be reproduced, modified, or distributed without the express prior permission of the copyright holder. Artwork is displayed by agreement with the artists. All artists were paid for their work and hold the copyrights to that work.
For my brother, Hughes,
who read the first draft when it was still warm from the dot matrix printer.
Special thanks to other people who helped with this book, including:
Jeff McDowall
Amy Watkins
Mistie Watkins
Sarah Cloutier
Rose Spinoza
Lucie Le Blanc
Bess Gutenstein
Caitlin Thiele
Table of Contents
Other Books
What’s this Book About?
Map
Size Chart
Intelligent Species of Lidian
Part I. Storm
Chapter 1. Hunter’s Moon
Chapter 2. Twelve Years Later
Chapter 3. The Grass Plains
Chapter 4. Pathar
Chapter 5. Dream the Future
Chapter 6. Snow and Mushrooms
Chapter 7. Horror
Chapter 8. Why?
Chapter 9. To Bend and Not Break
Chapter 10. Pursuit and Evasion
Chapter 11. A Race and a Corpse
Chapter 12. At the Top of the Cliffs
Chapter 13. Tales in the Dark
Chapter 14. Various Kinds of Traps
Chapter 15. Ally
Chapter 16. Spring
Chapter 17. A Narrow Escape
Chapter 18. A Thousand Faces
Chapter 19. A Line in Stone
Chapter 20. Ambition
Chapter 21. Riddle of an Island
Chapter 22. The Rules
Chapter 23. A Problem
Part II. Arcove
Chapter 1. Daydreams and Nightmares
Chapter 2. Repercussions
Chapter 3. Round One: Ariand
Chapter 4. Trapped
Chapter 5. Round 2: Treace
Chapter 6. A Lecture
Chapter 7. Threats and Apologies
Chapter 8. The Past
Chapter 9. A Strange Tunnel
Chapter 10. Round 3: Sharmel
Chapter 11. The River and the Trees
Chapter 12. Round 4: Halvery
Chapter 13. Gone Swimming
Chapter 14. Fighting an Idea
Chapter 15. Questions in the Dark
Chapter 16. Round 5: Roup
Chapter 17. Seaside
Chapter 18. Imitation
Chapter 19. Experiments
Chapter 20. Round 6: Arcove
Chapter 21. Season’s End
Part III. Keesha
Chapter 1. Ghost Wood
Chapter 2. Telshees
Chapter 3. A Minor Problem
Chapter 4. Syriot
Chapter 5. Syra-lay
Chapter 6. Misdirection
Chapter 7. Brothers
Chapter 8. The Battle of Chelby Lake
Chapter 9. A Difference of Opinion
Chapter 10. A Conference Concluded
Chapter 11. Death and the Cave of Histories
Chapter 12. Riddle on the Wall
Chapter 13. Curbs
Chapter 14. Return
Chapter 15. Control
Chapter 16. Homecoming
Chapter 17. Respite
Chapter 18. Waiting to Blink
Chapter 19. Blood and Water
Chapter 20. Parting Ways
Chapter 21. Good-bye
Part IV. Teek
Chapter 1. The Next Generation
Chapter 2. Injuries
Chapter 3. Bargain
Chapter 4. The Conference Again
Chapter 5. The Calm Before…
Chapter 6. The Storm
Chapter 7. No Different
Chapter 8. Out of the Storm and into the Surf
Chapter 9. Boundaries
Chapter 10. Follow
Chapter 11. Cubs and Pups
Chapter 12. Friendly
Chapter 13. Instinct and Reason
Chapter 14. Spring
Chapter 15. Solution
Chapter 16. Poison and Marrow
Chapter 17. Teek and the Curbs
Chapter 18. Mistakes of the Past
Part V. Treace
Chapter 1. Winter Conference
Chapter 2. The Truth at Last
Chapter 3. Run
Chapter 4. The Fiord
Chapter 5. Loyalty
Chapter 6. Council in Hiding
Chapter 7. Into the Dark
Chapter 8. Song and Storm
Chapter 9. Arcove Delirious
Chapter 10. Decisions to Be Made
Chapter 11. Cheat
Chapter 12. Exhaustion
Chapter 13. The Next Morning
Chapter 14. Poison
Chapter 15. Something Extraordinary
Chapter 16. In the Water
Chapter 17. Hide and Hunt
Chapter 18. Choose
Chapter 19. The Telshee’s Eye
Chapter 20. The Worst
Chapter 21. A Shadow on the Past
Chapter 22. Tell It All
Chapter 23. Something New
Chapter 24. Regret
Chapter 25. Surprise
Chapter 26. Howl
Chapter 27. Peace
Chapter 28. Paint You In
Epilogue: Two Years Later
After the End
About the Author
Books by Abigail Hilton
The Prophet of Panamindorah
Fauns and Filinians
Wolflings and Wizards
Fire and Flood
The Complete Trilogy
The Guild of the Cowry Catchers
Embers, Illustrated
Flames, Illustrated
Ashes, Illustrated
Out of the Ashes, Illustrated
Shores Beyond the World, Illustrated
The Complete Series (Not Illustrated)
Eve and Malachi, Illustrated Children’s Chapter Books
Feeding Malachi
Malachi and the Ghost Kitten
Other Books
Hunters Unlucky
Crossroads: Short Stories from Panamindorah, Volume 1
Secret Things: Short Stories from Panamindorah, Volume 2
What’s this Book About?
He’s not bigger. He’s not faster. He’s not meaner. So he’d better be smarter.
Storm is born into a world of secrets—an island no one visits, names no one will say, and deaths that no one will talk about. The answers are locked in his species’ troubled past, guarded by the fierce creasia cats. But when Storm’s friends are threatened, he decides that he must act, pitting himself against the creasia to show that they can be resisted and outwitted. To prove his point, he must stay one step ahead of clever hunters, who have more to lose than Storm imagines.
Hunters Unlucky is an animal story for anyone who loved Richard Adam’s Watership Down, Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, and Jack London’s Call of the Wild. Kids who enjoyed Erin Hunter’s Warriors books will also enjoy Hunters. The animals in this story do not carry swords, walk on two legs, or drink tea. They fight. They starve. Sometimes, they eat each other.
This 210,000-word novel is DRM-free and carefully formatted.
Map
Size Chart – Co
lor and Grayscale
Intelligent Species of Lidian
Ferryshaft
Creasia
Curbs
Telshees
Lishties
Ely-ary
Part I. Storm
Chapter 1. Hunter’s Moon
On the worst night of his life, Charder Ela-ferry stood on the blood-red rock of a steep cliff trail and argued with an insane child. “There are ghosts up ahead,” she whimpered, tucking her tail and crouching against the path. “I can smell them. Please, Charder, don’t make me go! Please!”
“Lirsy, stop it!” Charder planted all four hooves and used his teeth to drag her up by the back of the neck. They were both ferryshaft, but Charder was an adult, and Lirsy was not yet a year old. He tried to be gentle, but he was shaking, and her skin felt as fragile as a bird’s. He saw the outline of her ribs through thin fur as he released her, and he felt ashamed. When did she stop eating? Two days ago? Four? Why didn’t I notice?
Charder himself had not eaten in three days, but he’d thought the foals were getting something. Between all the fighting, it was hard to remember to check. But I should have remembered. Coden had asked only two things when he’d left Charder in charge of the ferryshaft herd. “Hold these caves and protect my daughter.”
I’m not doing so well on either count.
Lirsy was rocking back and forth, staring upward. “There’s a jellyfish in the sky,” she breathed.
“That’s the moon,” said Charder wearily. A bright, full hunter’s moon, and this night belongs to hunters.
“Lirsy, please get up.” He decided to risk the truth—a little of it, at least. “One of your father’s friends came back to the caves this evening.” He was dying. “He told us that your father…”
Lirsy was staring at him so intently now with her sea-gray eyes—Coden’s eyes—that Charder had to look away. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she whispered.
Probably. “No,” said Charder. “I mean, he may have hidden somewhere. He’s good at hiding—your father. But I don’t know how much longer we can hold the caves, and I think the creasia will hurt you if they overrun us.” I think Arcove wants a surrender, not an extinction. But you’re the last of Coden’s foals, and he’ll see you as a focal point for future rebellion. He’ll kill you.
Lirsy’s eyes searched his face.
“So I am taking you to Keesha,” continued Charder. “You remember Keesha, don’t you?”
Lirsy cocked her head. “The big white snake that sings?”
“Yes.” Charder felt a measure of relief. She was making more sense than she had at any previous point in the evening. “And the closest entrance to Syriot is on the beach on the other side of the cliffs. We just have to get there. You can do that, can’t you?”
Lirsy considered. “Will Mother be there?”
Charder could have howled in frustration. Will she never stop asking that? “No.” You saw her die; don’t you remember? “Your mother cannot be there. Now come on.”
He was immensely relieved when she trotted after him again, though her moment of lucidity seemed to have evaporated. “The jellyfish is singing,” she told him.
“Of course,” mumbled Charder as he tried to make her move faster.
“It’s singing to the ghosts,” said Lirsy.
“Whose ghosts?” asked Charder. Not your mother’s, obviously; I can’t get you to remember that she’s dead.
Lirsy made a show of squinting at the top of the cliff. “They look like us,” she said at last, and Charder felt a chill. “I think they’re our ghosts, Charder.”
The hunter’s moon was sinking down the western sky, throwing the trail into shadow, by the time Charder and Lirsy reached the cliff top. Lirsy was crowding closely against him, wide-eyed. Charder did not dare ask what she thought she saw.
He hesitated for a moment, blinking in the brilliant moonlight. The cliff’s edge stretched to their right and left as far as Charder could see. Beyond the bare rock, the trees began. Charder strained his nose and ears, but caught only the usual scent of pine and the distant salt tang of the sea. I have done the right thing, he thought, and I have done it in time.
Charder moved forward, into the wood, and Lirsy followed, ducking and weaving, as though to avoid an invisible crowd. It seemed very dark under the trees. Charder reminded himself that the wood, though dense, was not wide. The creasia are far away, he told himself, chasing Coden…or killing him…or celebrating his death. This is the only thing I can do for him.
Then Charder heard a soft rustle in the quiet of the wood, like wind among leaves. Except there was no wind. Without stopping to look around, Charder bolted forward with a cry of, “Run, Lirsy!” The shout startled her, and she leapt after him. For a few moments, Lirsy and Charder raced side by side.
He heard a muffled thump behind them, nothing else. Creasia run so softly... Charder resisted the temptation to look back. He galloped with Lirsy through light and shadow, over logs and under branches, always with a silent terror at their heels. Charder’s heart gave a bound as a brighter patch appeared through the trees ahead: moonlight glistening on water.
Then a shadow appeared before the trees in front of them—a shade blacker than all the rest. Charder knew that shape. He’d seen it in battle…and in his nightmares.
Stung with fear, Charder veered away, and for one moment he forgot about Lirsy. Before he could turn back for her, three enormous cats flashed out of the darkness ahead. Charder reared and spun, lashing out with powerful back hooves, snapping with his teeth. He felt one blow connect with a creasia’s ribs and the unmistakable give as something broke. He danced out of the path of a charging cat, caught a mouthful of the animal’s shoulder and flipped it with its own momentum. He tore at its belly with his teeth and would have had its guts out on the ground if its companions had not already been on top of him.
At his peak, Charder might have handled the lot of them, but hunger and exhaustion made him slow. A cat caught him across the shoulders as he ducked away, and the pain reverberated through his body like the echo of a scream.
Lirsy galloped past him, running unevenly now, and Charder guessed that she had been injured. The three creasia abandoned Charder to race after her along the cliff. Charder tried to follow, but the muscles of his wounded shoulders pulled painfully.
To his right, the Sea Cliffs made a dizzy drop to the beach. He did not think he would ever reach it now. Lirsy was still slightly ahead of her pursuers when she turned inland, back towards the wood. Charder decided that she must have encountered a fissure in the cliff. Although she appeared to have gone into the trees, she must really be behind them.
Just before the first cat disappeared behind the blind, Charder heard a shriek and the rattle of loose stones. Charder’s heart sank as he put on one final burst of speed, reaching the edge of the fissure a short distance behind the last of the creasia.
The cliff looked just as he had imagined—a long, jagged arm of the sea, cutting sharply inland and leaving a narrower space between the edge of the forest and the lip of the crag. The edge looked crumbly at one particular spot. The creasia were nosing about without much interest, for it was obvious what had become of their victim. Charder remained rigid, staring at the cliff. He was still standing there when a shadow fell across his head and obscured the moonlight.
Charder spun to face his enemy. Arcove. You were supposed to be chasing Coden. Arcove Ela-creasia was the undisputed champion of his violent and aggressive race. He was the largest creasia that Charder had ever met—a massive, night-black cat in his prime, who outweighed Charder by at least four to one. Charder’s head did not come much past Arcove’s shoulder, and even without these obvious advantages, Arcove had a reputation for skill and ferocity in battle that made Charder dizzy with fear.
Arcove stood close enough to pounce, but he didn’t.
Charder felt numb with his injuries and the loss of the foal he had sworn to protect. It’s over. He stood his ground and steeled himsel
f for death.
Arcove sat down. He was so close that Charder could see the individual black whiskers.
“Charder Ela-ferry. I had hoped to have a word with you this evening.”
Charder glared. He’s playing. Begin the fight yourself. But he could not move. He was afraid to die, and hated himself for it.
“The ferryshaft herd is crumbling,” said Arcove, his deep voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. “Soon they will need a new leader.”
Charder should have seen it coming, but he hadn’t. “No,” he said weakly.
“No, what?”
“No, I wouldn’t—” He couldn’t say it. “They haven’t chosen me.” Attack him! Just attack him!
“They will. You know they will. You’re the only officer left.”
“The only one you haven’t killed?”
Arcove’s voice dropped to a growl. “The only one I haven’t chosen to kill.”
Charder trembled.
“Would you like to start by improving their lives or by torturing them?” asked Arcove. “You would like to feed them, yes? You would like to tell them that their foals will see adulthood, knowing that they can wake up in the morning and find water to drink?”
I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. “I can’t surrender the ferryshaft.” Charder almost choked. “They’re not mine to give! Go to Coden with your vile proposals. You won’t wait long for an answer!”
“That’s true,” said Arcove, “but it won’t be true by tomorrow. The ferryshaft will need a new leader, soon, and they will choose you...if you are there to be chosen.”
Charder despised the trembling in his hooves, yet he could not still them.
“Your choices,” said Arcove, “are few. I have the power at this moment to exterminate every ferryshaft on Lidian. However, digging you out of those caves will be difficult and bloody. It will cost many creasia lives. I prefer peace. If you seize the opportunity I am offering, you and yours will live. If not, I am sure others will pounce on the chance.”
Charder said nothing. His thoughts raced like rabbits pursued by a hawk.
