at the sun and—”
A commotion suddenly erupted, evidently in the distance, but loud enough to cut that obnoxious king off. Thankfully.
Through the open gates, we could see something dark and large zigzagging through the nearest quarter of the gleaming city below. It was crashing through stalls and smashing into buildings, eliciting a cacophonous chorus of outrage, pain, and fright.
Erytheia sighed. “How many of these things must we deal with?”
Theseus looked down at her sternly. “Until you find a man you deem worthy of you, your spurned suitors will keep venting their fury by sending us such nuisances. The compensations the people petition me for every time is putting a strain on even my treasury.” His frown turned into a sudden grin as he turned to us. “Change of plans! We have a new task for my hand, one that’s to my benefit in a different way. Mr. Green Hood, would you call yourself a good hunter?”
“I would. Just give me back my bow and arrows…” Robin stopped as a quiver and bow materialized at his back in a golden shimmer. He reached behind him, fingers trailing over the silver arrows’ fletchings.
“I trust those will be satisfactory. Now I want you to rid us of that bull.” Theseus pointed towards the city below. “It will send a message to the others, to stop sending us their rampagers.”
“Done.” Without a second’s pause, Robin zoomed towards the gates.
As I watched him recede, terrible realizations started to hammer at me.
This couldn’t be that simple. There was no way Theseus would risk his plan to rid himself of me, on Robin taking that bull out with a single arrow. It had to be like that earth giant. There must be a trick.
And even without one, I could now see the difficulty in this task. Despite its size, that bull moved much faster than a horse. And Robin was chasing after it on foot. And he’d continue chasing it, even if it killed him. Either the exertion or the bull, or both.
I couldn’t let him risk himself again. I had to help him. This time, I could.
I rushed towards the grazing horses, calling for Amabel. The only thing faster than a horse, faster than that beast, was a unicorn.
Like she’d been waiting for the chance, she exploded towards me.
The moment she was beside me, she lowered her neck and I flew up onto her back, and pointed down to the city.
“Looks like we’re going on our first hunt, Mabily. Go!”
With an energized whinny, Amabel kicked into a thundering gallop.
In minutes, we’d left the Summer Palace far behind, and were closing the distance to the tirelessly sprinting Robin.
But as we entered the city, I realized this was a quarter we hadn’t passed through, and it was no place for speed. Its labyrinthine layout was built on steeply undulating land. Amabel was forced to slow down to keep from crashing into the mayhem the bull left in its wake. Only the bull who cared nothing for smashing into anything could maintain its pace.
Then came the danger of getting lost, and losing track of Robin. The one thing that made keeping an eye on him possible was his vivid green cloak in a sea of light-colored, gleaming garments.
Taking a sharp turn into an even more difficult-to-navigate alleyway, with Amabel’s hooves clomping on the uneven cobblestones hard enough for me to feel the vibrations in my ethereal bones, we finally caught up with him.
“Get on!”
At my cry, Robin lost his footing and slammed into a wall.
With a loud groan, he looked up at me. “What are you doing here?”
“Helping. Get on.”
He shook his head. “I’ve hunted plenty of things like this.”
“Theseus is depending on your confidence. There has to be a trick here, since he wants you to lose, so he doesn’t have to fulfill his end of the bargain.”
“I’ll kill it, don’t worry.”
“And you might kill yourself doing it! You almost died only yesterday, and such effort might reopen your wounds, no matter that they’d been magically healed! Why risk that, if you can ride with me?”
Robin peeled himself off the wall, rubbing his shoulder, the one the ghouls had bitten. “I’ll risk it because he can use your interference against you, and say you helped me cheat.”
“I’m taking that chance, because if I don’t, you’ll definitely hurt yourself!” I pointed behind me with a nonnegotiable snap. “Get on Amabel, now!”
He only started running again, and I screamed after him, “If you don’t care about your life, care about