THE WILD HUNT
by
Corinna Parr
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Corinna Parr on Smashwords
The Wild Hunt
Copyright © 2012 by Corinna Parr
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
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Adult Reading Material
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THE WILD HUNT
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Chapter 1
Cara realized, while they pushed her down the wide path that thrust through the village, that no one would meet her eyes.
The people she had known from birth seemed merry; they danced and sang and waved branches decorated with ribbons above their heads while they made their way towards the center green. But as she stumbled along, her arms bound behind her back at elbows and wrists, and her bare skin washed with chills in the misty morning air, not one person would meet her gaze. Not Fiachra, or Ailis, or even sweet dark Brady, whom she'd hoped to wed next summer. They capered around Cara and her priest-guards, mouthing prayers and lyrics, and refusing to look at the girl they were offering up to the old ways.
She'd spit on them if nerves hadn't stolen the saliva from her mouth and left it dry as a sun-bleached bone.
Cara was lovely and she believed that her beauty was, more than anything, the reason she was bound as a sacrifice. It was only this winter that she'd been recognized as an adult woman. The coming of spring saw her raven-black hair and heaven-blue eyes drawing the lust of their senior shaman, Tiernan. One day she'd fought off his sweaty advances and the next she was listening to him announce that the gods demanded a Hunt, to ensure prosperity for the year. It was to be the first held in over a decade, in spite of being one of their oldest and most sacred traditions. The past years had been good, the people had become complacent and easy for the priests to rule. What need was there to remind the village of the gods' anger when they did what they were told?
But Cara had broken the priests' rules, and now there was to be a hunt. And the object of that hunt? A virgin, of course. A beautiful virgin, the finest in the village.
Fat with good harvests and reluctant to go against their leader caste, Cara's parents didn't protest when the priests came for her. They gave their daughter over to the humiliation of being inspected by their holy men. The shaman and his brothers kept her in their hut and studied her for fitness. Their thick, calloused fingers had stroked her skin and combed through her hair, poked deep into her mouth and lower, probing secret places that no one but Cara had ever touched before.
For three days, she'd tolerated their pawing. For three days, they'd molested her in shifts, never soiling her with the fluids of their bodies, but withdrawing frequently to pant and writhe in the shadows as one of their brethren stepped up to continue the "inspection".
Their touches brushed against skin gone numb to such things and her eyes were grey with disinterest. She'd found the trick of it, of sending her mind elsewhere as they manipulated her body. She’d discovered they didn’t like that and poured most of her energy into it, as a way of defying them and their perverse desires.
But some of her fire returned when she was paraded through the village, exposed to the furtive study of friends and family. She hated them all, in that instant. The village, those who lived in it, their beliefs, their rites and the lies of their gods. It was all farce to hide the shadows and sickness that lived inside of the priests, to mask their own fear and perverted desires.
They shoved Cara to her knees in the center of the green, before the mound of earth raised by Tiernan to serve as a dais. The god-pole rose tall behind him, reaching to the sky as if it were the earth's own phallus hungry for the clasp of blue. Gazing up, Cara saw that children had decorated it with woven ribbons. Her stomach turned, empty though it was, and it took some hard swallowing to keep from vomiting bile over the high priest's leather slippers.
While she struggled to control the urge to be sick, Tiernan raised his hands to the heavens and began to call to the gods and their servant spirits. She understood only one word in four, and realized that he was speaking the old forgotten language. The villagers quieted to listen, their faces twisted into expressions of confusion or longing beneath the crusty daubs of paint that decorated cheeks and chins and foreheads. But the man wasn't watching the villagers; his muddy eyes were focused on the naked, shivering girl bound before him. He looked hungry, Cara thought. Hungry and angry.
Well, he wasn't the only one, her mind whispered. She glared blue hatred up at the priest and when he came to the end of his alien sermon, she did spit at him. Her nausea had summoned enough saliva to splat impressively against Tiernan's toes, forcing him to dance backwards. She knew by the gleam in his eyes that he'd strike her if he could. But she also knew he was as bound as she was now. He'd committed her to this Hunt and he had to send her on unharmed.
The fire rose through her and Cara seized the opportunity, shouting into the stunned silence. "He's a liar! You're following a liar! You're turning me out into the forest to be torn apart by wild animals and you think that my death will bring you good luck? You're all murderers! Murderers! I curse you! I--"
Then a dirty hand clamped over her mouth and kept her from venting the rest of her venom. Strong arms went around her, lifting her from the ground. She gave a few weak kicks but days without food or sleep had left her tired, too feeble to offer much of a struggle. When the man carrying her turned, Cara saw that the villagers were still staring, still silent, and she took bitter pleasure to recognize guilt in more than one face.
I hope it eats you alive, she thought.
Chapter 2
The priest carried her to the edge of the green, and she could feel others falling into his wake, walking with their brother to deliver her to the forest's border. It was an old wood, the trees larger around than the span of her circled arms and the shadows thick even at mid-day. There was a waiting silence in the air as the priests forced Cara down the path used by wood cutters and huntsmen. She knew the forest was empty of other people this day, empty of everything but herself, the men surrounding her and the wild animals that snarled and snapped at her in her imagination.