Alexander's Chronicle: Chapter 7

Running the Hounds

The next morning, I brought Josef and Alan in through Josef's Trump. I had horses ready and saddled for them and ten Hounds, on their best behavior, quiet as mice and sitting perfectly still. "These are Storm Hounds," I explained. "They're not very friendly, but they're not allowed to hurt people normally and they know that.

"What I'm supposed to do with them this morning is just take them out and have them do a little 'practice'. We use them to hunt monsters and bandits, but today, they're just going to hunt for food animals, and I'll make sure they're familiar with all their usual commands and so forth. But we'll be going pretty deep into the Forest and there are some very pretty places along the way. If you guys want to do a little hunting as well, they won't disturb your game, I'll see to that."

Alan asked for a long bow, but Josef shook his head. "That's alright," he said. "I'm quite happy just to watch and admire the scenery."

The scenery, I thought, should be quite worthwhile. I brought them up into the mountains, to an area lush with thick conifer forest and with streams and waterfalls in plenty. Alan asked as we rode: "Will we get a view of Amber at all on this trip?"

That would actually be pretty easy to arrange. "On the way back, if you are up to climbing a tree."

The Stormhounds did not embarrass me. I let them flush and run down three deer and a cougar, a few at a time. The first time, I called them off the kill as soon as they brought it down and although they must have been famished, they sat down and looked at me, just as good as could be until I gave the command to return and eat. They desisted immediately both times I called them off their prey. "A doe, they can't take any of those until winter," I told Josef and Alan as they watched the deer bounding into the brush. I ran the Hounds through a fair number of commands and got a nearly perfect response, though I'd told my companions, "I'm not so worried about them forgetting what they should know as of them getting willful and my not finding out about it before it gets to be a real problem."

With my sling, I occasionally knocked out a squirrel or other small beast, which I tossed to one of the Hounds. I'm afraid I was a little generous, but I did want to reward them and they're always hungry...

Alan picked off a few squirrels and so forth (awfully small prey for a longbow, but he was a guest, and as he'd mentioned, not used to being in forests), but wanted to feed them to the dogs, but expressed no interest in stalking larger game. He seemed quite interested in how the Hounds responded to commands, so I was very glad they were being so obedient.

I mentioned that Storm Hounds aren't used to hunt deer, but to stalk larger, more dangerous prey. "In that case, we often don't want the Hounds to finish the thing, but to stop it so that Father or I can finish it, since our weapons will kill it faster then their teeth. Father says he used to have the worst time losing dogs to manticores. One would typically kill two or three dogs before he could dispatch it."

A little while later, Josef asked, "By the way, Alex, are we going to meet Julian or any of your siblings while we're here?"

"My brothers don't live here," I said, "but if I warn them, they could come here for future visits. As for Father, he's out on a long-range patrol right now."

Alan asked, "Have you met any other of our cousins?"

I shook my head, "Just you three, Alistair and Nimue."

On a ridge on the trip back, I pointed to a couple of large trees, "If you can just get up into the canopy, at a place where the leaves are thin, you can see the City pretty well from here." I dismounted and tethered my horse, Tam, and ordered the Hounds to "Stay!" (which they were more than happy to do, wanting to nap after they had gorged). I didn't even bother to make one of them "guard". I looked at Alan and Josef, who were still on their horses, looking uncertain, and back at the tree.

Alan dismounted and carefully climbs up one tree. I followed, to catch him if he slipped, which, of course, he didn't. Alan looked at the view for some time. He could see the City in the distance, it's walls and towers quite visible beyond the thickly-set saplings Father had planted in the Vale of Garnath Technically, I supposed, I shouldn't be showing it to anyone. Uncle Benedict had been helping Father replant and the Vale had been declered off-limits to everyone not actually working there, which told me that they were constructing secret fortifications as well (so, hopefully, it wouldn't have to be burned again the next time it was attacked). But I couldn't see any such fortifications from the tree, so no harm was being done.

Alan asked me some questions about the local geography, including whether the Vale was recovering from "being Corwined". I pointed out the shoreline of the sea and the lake near Father's castle. Trees blocked our view of Faiella-bionen andof the castle proper.

Josef asked if he could climb the tree and see Amber too. Alan suggested the tree next door. Instead of climbing up anyway, Josef just stood at the foot of the tree among the dozing Stormhounds and shouted up questions about the view and whether it was good painting material. Alan answered as undescriptively as he could until Josef finally got fed up and started climbing.

"Have you ever been to Amber yourself?" Alan asked me, once he'd finished teasing his brother.

I shook my head. "When I was very small, I could climb trees at night and see the lights, but when I went to investigate, they were far away and outside of the Forest, so I decided not to bother. Then Father said he didn't want me going to the City, and that was fine."

"And you've never been tempted to go there since?" Alan asked, faintly disbelieving.

"No," I said truthfully, "I've seen your city and I've seen Rebma. I don't know what Amber has that Rebma and other cities do not. I suppose it will be a useful thing to have walked the Pattern and I guess it will be nice to have met the rest of the family. But I don't know anyone in Amber, so I don't really want to go there."

"So apart from brief visits to Rebma and Verona, you've lived in Arden all your life?" Alan sounded even more incredulous.

I nodded. "I've never heard of anywhere nicer to live. Have you and Josef had to move to Verona from somewhere else?"

Alan reponded, "Yes, Verona is our third home. Initially we lived in a castle very much like Amber's, and then in a high-tech world."

Josef, who was surverying the view for himself, added, "If you want to see the high-tech place sometime, I'll be more than happy to give you a tour. Verona is all very well, but I think I prefer a bit of technology."

"That would be very nice," I replied. I was curious about the artifacts I'd heard people describe and wondered what kind of a world people would make with them.

"Well, anytime you fancy a holiday, you know how to get in touch," smiled Josef.

I nodded again.

Alan, refusing to be drawn away from his earlier questions, asked, "If you want to stay here, then why do you want to go through the danger of walking the Pattern?"

I did have an answer to that one. "I'll need that edge if I am to protect Arden from people who can walk through Shadow."

"What kind of enemies do you have to protect Arden from?" Alan's eyes were bright, this was an issue that made sense to him.

I told him, "Pretty much anyone who wants to attack Amber without a fleet has to come through us. The Moonriders, Corwin and Bleys and the Courts of Chaos have all attacked Amber through Arden and Amber's defense started here, pretty much saving the city. Before Father came to live here, all sorts of people and, well, things who wanted to trouble Amber maintained bases here and terrorized the Forest People. Father put an end to that, and they couldn't hide from him in Shadow."

"Anything since Random became King?" Alan demanded.

I had an idea then. If I told these two what had really happened during the ambush, and they told others, such as their father and Uncle Benedict, then the rumors that were circulating the Courts would be less likely to be believed in Amber. So I led them to ask for the story. "Attacks on Amber? Not through here. Just some internal security situations. The usual bandits, and then there were those lunatics from Chaos who decided to ambush my brothers and myself."

Sure enough, Josef raised a curious eyebrow and Alan gave me one of his intense stares.

"It's...kind of a long story," I protested, feeling rather guilty about my duplicity. It wasn't as if I were hurting them or lying to them.

Alan took the bait. "We have plenty of time. And its very pleasant up here."

"Okay... Well, I'd been told that Father had invited Nimue to come hunting here but had been called away on business and that I'd have to make all the arrangements. So I did and invited Marcel and Morgan along so I could make them help. I couldn't reach Father during any of this time, but didn't think I'd be able to. Well, Nimue and Alistair arrived and we went to a part of the forest where I'd seen a couple of deer herds the day before and couldn't find a darned thing until this big golden stag came bounding out. So, of course we gave chase, but it was not a normal deer. It kept running in a straight line and still outdistanced the dogs. I called on everyone to break off as soon as I noticed this; there are some strange things in Arden and they are Father's province, not mine. But Marcel had pulled ahead and was even with the beast, so he wasn't quite willing to give up.

"As soon as the rest of us had pulled up, we were fired on by these little creatures from the trees. They had crossbows, but Morgan and Alistair made pretty short work of them. More came up from the ground with short swords and they got finished too. I told Morgan to take the Princess back to safety and I went after Marcel, because I'd seen him duck into the woods when the attack began.

"I went in where I'd seen Marcel go and saw some bigger creatures, humanoid like the other attackers, two grey ones standing guard and a shiny one poking at a bush with a sword and taunting Marcel. Marcel tried to dash out of the bush when I came into the clearing, but the shiny fellow struck at him and managed to cut off his right hand. A couple of the rangers came in after me and I set them on the grey ones while I went after Shiny. He ran his sword through my shoulder, but I knocked him down and beat him half senseless. But the shiny stuff was armor and slippery and he twisted away. It was cracked and he was bleeding, so I was more than willing to let him exhaust himself on strange ground by trying to run, then I could drag the bastard back to the lodge by the heels and find out who the hell he was and what he was doing in Arden.

"But Marcel decided to play hero (maybe he was crazed by blood loss, I don't know) and blocked the path, no sword or other weapon in hand and badly injured. Shiny could have just dived into Marcel's old bush at that point or one of many others, and crawled off like the wretched worm he was. Instead, he lunged at Marcel. At that point I had to choose between getting some answers and keeping Marcel alive, so I took the sword that I had pulled out of my shoulder and just smacked it into him. He started spouting a bunch of nonsense about how the Courts would never be suborned by Amber, whatever that is supposed to mean, and died. His body caught fire and burned up.

"Morgan and Nimue came rushing in at that point, not having gone to somewhere safe after all," (Josef seemed to be stifling a snicker at this), "and Alistair crept out of the bushes (apparently he'd come to help and not been able to figure out what to do). There were no survivors among the attackers.

"Somebody, I no longer remember who, Trumped Father, who had us Trump Uncle Benedict. They stomped around and looked at everything. Shiny's sword belonged to someone from House Chanicut in Chaos, so they figured that Shiny was just some crazy little princeling who'd given his household servants dangerous weapons and organized the ambush in hopes of bagging an Amberite his own age. It turns out that Father hadn't sent the invitation (I think he's plugged the holes in his organization since then) and the reason he'd been unreachable those few days was that he'd been stalking a dangerous Chaos monster on the slopes of Kolvir. So, it looks like Shiny had help from grown-ups back in the Courts, or maybe they were just using him as part of their plan. I don't know."

After I finished, Josef remained deep in thought, but Alan had a few things to say, as I'd expected. I'd really wanted to gloss over a few things there, but realized that if I didn't, it would be more recognizable as the truth.

"Interesting. Remiss of you not to take a single prisoner. It sounds as though you were very lucky not to yourselves all killed. Did you ever discover any more about what Shiny was up to?" Alan started.

I tried feebly to defend myself, "The problem was that we were not prepared for a combat situation. If I didn't have to worry about the Princess and Marcel, I'd have been much better equipped to deal with the situation. None of the enemy had the brains to surrender and with lives at stake, they had to be killed rather than disarmed. I guess it was good practice for next time, if there are any more young idiots in Chaos.

"As for Shiny, he's dead and none of his confederates have revealed themselves. Marcel's hand has pretty much grown back, so we're none the worse for wear anymore. And Shiny paid for his stupidity with his life, so we've got no-one to hold grudges against, though I think Father would like a piece of whoever had him fighting monsters on Kolvir."

Alan was unimpressed (and I guess I would have been too). "Drawing your sword to fight Shiny would have been a good start."

"Not if I intended to take him prisoner, which I did at the time," I answered. "I figured Father would be very irate if I didn't bring him in for questioning."

"Was he?" Asked Josef, smiling.

I told him, "After I explained that I had made a choice between keeping Shiny alive and keeping Marcel alive, Father came around to my way of thinking. Marcel can be pretty darned difficult to keep alive sometimes."

Alan persisted: "I suppose that lodging an opponent's sword in one's own shoulder is one method of disarming a foe, but there are less painful ones if you have a sword yourself."

"Unless your opponent is better than you," I retorted, "then you leave yourself in his reach. I was gambling that I could close with him before he could turn, but I'd already seen how quickly he'd nailed Marcel, so I knew how bad my odds were. I think I did OK: he got in one shot and it wasn't a good one. Pain, I can handle, but I had to stop him. Now if Marcel had just drawn his sword before he bolted..." I shook my head.

Alan gave up pointing out my tactical blunders at that point. "I can't help thinking that there was more to this incident than some idiot hunting young Amberites. Fooling your father and Rebman intelligence took some planning, while the ambush completely failed to kill any of you, despite your wandering straight into it and then splitting up. Any theories?"

I was relieved at the change of direction that the conversation had taken. "Nimue thinks that people in Chaos were hoping that the Chanicut guy would get himself killed. There are an increasing number of theories as one's reasoning gets more convoluted. And there may have been several plans operating at once, using one another as diversions."

Josef remarked: "Interesting. Chanicut was the heir to the throne or something like that right? So how did he end up out here, executing what appears to be a wholely stupid attack with very little thought and remarkable ineptitude? Seems to me as though someone in the Courts might have been taking advantage of you to do their own dirty work; that must be quite irritating. Hmm. Worrying as well, if you think it through to its logical conclusion."

I had to agree with him, but it didn't matter. "I didn't have a lot of choice about doing Shiny in, thanks to his stupidity and Marcel's... mistake. Short-term goals sort of took priority over the long-term. If the person or people trying to get Shiny killed were watching, they must have been very frustrated with us for a while, because first we just wanted to pull out, then I almost caught him alive... Good thing for them that Shiny had not an ounce of good sense. Good thing for Shiny, too, because Father wouldn't have held back when he was questioning him."

Alan went on, "I take it that the entire affair is now over and that there have been no repercussions."

I answered "Not that I know of, but Uncle Benedict is handling the diplomatic end of things. He's probably taking all the flak for us and staying quiet about it so Father stays away from the Courts, which is pretty decent of him." I cringed inwardly at the thought of mannerless Uncle Benedict doing anything diplomatic, but he was saving Father a lot of grief, apparently without benefit to himself.

Alan nods and then started climbing back down the tree. He'd been trained by Uncle Benedict and I'd gotten hints that it hadn't been a pleasant experience.

Alex had a couple of the Hounds retreive rabbits for me on the way back (they were so sated I had no worries that they'd eat the rabbits themselves). "For lunch back at the castle," I explained. I took us back towards the castle by way of some of the more pastoral bits of deciduous forest.

We rode through the town on the way to the castle, leading the ten happy Hounds, one still carrying a large bone, back to their pen. The town's architecture can best be described as "eclectic", as are its residents. Many wear the uniforms of rangers, but several races of humanity and several of probably-not-humanity were in evidence. They avoided the Hounds but were respectful to us. My cousins seemed quite interested.

Alan gestures toward some of the less-human-appearing ones, and said, in front of them: "Did these people wander in out of Shadow, did your father bring them here or did they live here before Julian took over?"

"The Forest People have been here for a long time, but Father's always recruiting Rangers and support and they come to live with the Forest People. Since he's been doing this for many of their generations, the Forest People are a little more...varied than they used to be. Father doesn't let anyone just 'wander in out of Shadow.'" I felt slightly grateful that Father was nowhere around to hear Alan's question. None of the townsfolk were close enough to hear me.

Josef looks quite curious when I explained this. "Is that a problem round here? Where we come from, it's unheard of. I know there are Shadow paths, but those are few and far between, and I would have thought they would all be known. Then again, I understand that Shadow becomes harder to manipulate the closer you get to Amber. Does that mean that there are fewer paths? I got the impression that as well as Shadow being harder to mess with, the Shadows themselves tended to be closer, somehow, so perhaps that would mean there are more paths. Sorry...I'm rambling a bit." He looked at me. "Did any of that make sense?"

Not really, but I didn't say that. "We have a few paths that Father has made. We know where they are and keep an eye on them. During the recent war, the Black Road came through Arden and there were all kinds of things wandering along that, most of them very nasty," I answered. "The major road through Shadow is through Arden, and that was what Father was originally sent to guard. It leads straight to Amber."

I returned the Hounds to one of the four pens in the kennels to finish their nap. On the floor of that pen, along with other chewables, was a well-gnawed chunk of metal that someone had told me was a "Mercedes fender", a piece of a horseless carriage. We had some stew and some salad before my cousins bid me goodbye. I would be seeing them again in Amber, when it was time to walk the Pattern.

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