horse, and stabbing, as the first hunter had done, brought his beast down.
“Good,” Tabor muttered, a little grudgingly. “He did well. See, he even pulled it down to the outside, away from the others. The leap is the surest way, though you can get hurt doing it.”
And sure enough, though Barth rose holding a dagger aloft, it was in his left hand, and his right hung down at his side. Levon saluted him back. Dave turned to Tabor to ask a question, but was stopped cold by the stricken expression on his companion’s face.
“Please,” Tabor whispered, almost a prayer. “Let it be soon. Oh, Davor, if Gereint doesn’t name me this summer, I will die of shame!” Dave couldn’t think of a single thing to say. So, after a moment, he just asked his question. “Does Levon go in, too, or will he just watch?”
Tabor collected himself. “He only kills if the others have failed, then he must make up the numbers himself. It is a shameful thing, though, if the leader must kill, which is why most tribes take many more hunters than they need.” There was pride in Tabor’s voice again. “It is a thing of great honor to take only a few extra Riders, or none, though no one does that. The third tribe is known now over all the Plain for how bold we are on the hunt. I wish, though, that Levon had been more careful with two new ones today. My father would have—oh, no!”
Dave saw it, too. The eltor picked out by the fifteenth Rider stumbled, just as the hunter threw, and the blade hit an antler only and glanced away. The eltor recovered and raced off, head high, its mane blown gracefully back.
Tabor was suddenly very still, and after a quick calculation Dave realized why: no one else could miss. Levon had cut it very fine.
The sixteenth hunter, an older man, had already peeled off from the small group remaining. Dave saw that the Riders who had already killed were racing along on the far side of the swift. They had turned the eltor so the beasts were now running back south along the other side of the knoll. All the kills, he realized, would be close together. It was an efficient process, well judged. If no one else missed.
The sixteenth hunter played no games. In fast, his blade high, he picked a slower animal, leaped, and stabbed, pulling it clear. He rose, dagger lifted.
“A fat one,” Tabor said, trying to mask his tension. “Gereint’ll want that one tonight.”
The seventeenth man killed, too, throwing from almost directly over top of his eltor. He made it look easy.
“Tore won’t miss,” Dave heard Tabor say, and saw the now familiar shiftless figure whip past their knoll.
Tore singled out an eltor, raced south with it for several strides, then threw with arrogant assurance. The eltor dropped, almost at their feet. Tore saluted briefly, then sped off to join the other Riders on the far side of the swift. Seeing that throw, Dave remembered the urgach falling two nights before. He felt like cheering for Tore, but there was one more to go, and he could feel Tabor’s anxiety.
“Cechtar’s very good,” the boy breathed. Dave saw a big man on a chestnut horse leave Levon’s side—the leader was alone now, just below them. Cechtar galloped confidently towards the racing swift that the others were steering past the knoll. His knife was drawn already, and the man’s carriage on his horse was solid and reassuring.
Then the horse hit a tummock of grass and stumbled. Cechtar kept his seat, but the damage was done—the knife, prematurely upraised, had flown from his hand to fall harmlessly short of the nearest animal.
Hardly breathing, Dave turned to see what Levon would do. Beside him, Tabor was moaning in an agony of distress. “Oh no, oh no,” he repeated. “We are shamed. It’s a disgrace for all three Riders, and Levon especially for misjudging. There’s nothing he can do. I feel sick!”
“He has to kill now?”
“Yes, and he will. But it doesn’t make any difference, there’s nothing he can—oh!”
Tabor stopped, for Levon, moving his horse forward very deliberately, had shouted a command to Tore and the others. Watching, Dave saw the hunters race to turn the eltor yet again, so that after a wide arc had been described, the swift, a quarter of a mile away now, were flying back north, five hundred strong on the east side of the knoll.