Hunters Unlucky Read online

  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.