The Hunt of the Unicorn
Joan D. Vinge
The hunt was closing. He heard the horns and closer by the belling of the hounds, almost on him now as the hill steepened and the gnarled fingers of the underbrush raked his dun hide, trying to hold him prisoner. Prisoner…prisoner! His wild heart leaped with fresh panic; fresh blood welled from the spear wound in his side. It was not a death wound—could not be, when the weapon that had made it was of base metal—but still he felt the agony of it, and still it weakened him with every heartbeat. The hounds had no need to track his scent when they could follow the trail of his blood. He had given up stealth for speed, and cunning for headlong flight.
He broke through a final thicket to stand clear at the crest of the hill; looking back, looking ahead. His slender, foam-flecked legs trembled with fatigue. Somewhere in the fear-tangled wilderness of his mind a voice was crying: a human voice. But he heard only the voices of the hunters far below, urging on their hounds.
“Caedwyn! Caedwyn!” The raven that he had seen following far overhead during his flight plummeted down out of a cloud-mottled sky, circling his head like a trained hunting hawk; like a betrayer. The sound of its harsh call was the sound of a human name, a strangely familiar sound. But he reared up in fury, puncturing the chill spring air fruitlessly with the rapier of his horn. The raven veered abruptly; circled above the reach of the jabbing horn and his flinty cloven hooves, still screeching the name:
“Caedwyn! Turn back! Turn back, before it’s too late!” The human sense of the words clashed with the sound of the language of crows.
. . .
