The King mobilized every hale man and boy in both the village and manor to search for his son. The search party had to be over 300 people when it moved out. When I became aware of what was happening, I followed at what I hoped was a safe distance. They found Andray's mare dead at the foot of the escarpment around noon. The site was not too far from what I called the spring cave, which was one of my sleeping spots.

"Looks like some kind of predator got the horse," the King's Keeper of the Hounds decided, "ripped out the neck." The mare had a ragged gash at the base of its neck. It didn't look right to me.

Dekker shared my opinion, "that gash was not made by an attacking animal. Only a bear could pull that big a chunk of flesh out but bears don't attack from below. Wolves do, but the wound is too big for a wolf."

"Yet here we are, with a dead horse with a gash made by some kind of beast here in front of us," the Keeper of the Hounds sneered. "How would you explain this? The evidence before our eyes can not be denied."

Dekker had no answer for the Keeper's disdain. He and Father Garshom fell back once the searchers moved on in their scheme to search further to the west. Once the others were well ahead, the two men circled back to the horse.

Dekker and the priest crouched to look at the wound. "This is just plain wrong," Dekker muttered.

"Could it have been made by a wolf and then widened overnight by wolves or other animals?" Father Garshom asked.

"If the dead horse had been scavenged overnight, it would be a mess with multiple rips and tears."

"What about a cougar?" Garshom looked at Dekker.

"A cougar would have covered the carcass with dirt in an attempt to bury it. They bury their meat and then revisit it to feed on until it goes bad."

I had crept up behind them and was listening. Dekker had a good grasp of attack and feeding patterns. I yawned loudly to let them know I was there. Gershom jumped and Dekker whipped around with his short sword out and ready to defend.

"Oh," he gasped and then relaxed, "it's you."

"Hello, my lady," Father Garshom smiled. "Do you want to see it?" He gestured to the dead mare.

I nodded and walked up to the carcass. Dekker scooted sideways to let me through. The wound was strange. There were no obvious cuspid tooth marks. It was a ragged avulsion but it didn't look like a bite wound to me. Then I sniffed and knew that the dead horse was staged for the benefit of the search party. The wound smelled of beeswax and linseed oil, that combination that men used to oil their swords and woodsman tools. I lifted my head and growled my dismay softly.

"Do you agree with me that this wound was not made by any beast?" Dekker asked. I nodded.

"I was afraid of that," Father Garshom said. "Prince Andray's sister died in the same suspicious fire that took his eye and foot. Someone is determined to kill Queen Eleanor's children."

"Will you tell the king?" Dekker asked.

"He will not listen to me," Garshom laughed bitterly. "Remember? I'm a disgraced priest, stripped of my office for making false accusations about the hunting lodge fire. I was lucky not to be defrocked. Besides, we may know our lady here is honest and upright, but we would be laughed at all the way to prison or exile if we claimed our evidence came from a spirit beast. They don't believe in such superstitions in the capital."

"Do you think the boy is still alive?" Dekker lowered his voice so only I and the priest could hear despite our current isolation.

"I don't know but looking at this dead horse doesn't leave me feeling encouraged."

"This horse died here," Dekker stood up and circled the carcass thoughtfully. “There are no drag marks or cartwheel imprints in this soft soil. It wasn't killed somewhere else and then dumped here. Unless the Prince was removed from the horse before the horse arrived here, then the Prince was here too."

Dekker walked around the horse in widening circles looking at the ground, underbrush, leaves, and tree trunks. "I can find no trail of this horse traveling to this spot nor any footprints," Dekker concluded. "So either the Prince was never here, he left this location on his own, a wild animal carried him off, or some animal that walked on two feet carried him off; however, I can not find a trail that would narrow down those choices."

"Oh Merciful Matadee, what a muddle," the priest grimaced. "What do you suggest?"

"I suggest that you have twisted your ankle and I had to help you back to the village. There's little point in continuing with the fake search."

"We will see you later, my lady," Garshom scratched behind my ears. Then the two men left, heading back to the village.

I walked back to the horse, to sniff at its hooves. Why did they smell like ferns? Then I took a deeper look. The hooves and pasterns above the hooves were spattered with grey-green mud and there was greenish clay stuck in the horseshoes. This horse crossed water-saturated ground near a clay deposit. There was only one stream nearby, downhill to the south. I started running down the slope.

When I got to the stream, I ran upstream and then started walking back in the stream itself so I could examine the ground on either side. My search plan bore fruit when I spotted green clay exposed where the stream cut into the bank, followed by the imprint of horseshoes going uphill toward the dead horse.

I followed the trail of horseshoes. Where they vanished, I picked the likeliest path that someone would lead something as big as a horse. I walked quite a way when heard the sound of men laughing. I crouched low and slid into the thickest underbrush, moving sideways to get off the path the horse took to its death. Inch by inch I closed the distance silently until I could see them. Three men were drinking. Next to them was my boy, tied up and gagged.

"When is that slacker Johan going to get here? He should have been here by now."

"Well, the roads up here really aren't the best."

"Aren't the best? They aren't even graveled. No wonder no one wants to live up here."

"Don't forget the elves. Those bastards are just the other side of those cliffs. Who would want to live so close to those savages."

"Dammit, when is that blackarse going to get here?" I don't want to sleep another night out here with no fire and no hot grub and we're almost out of booze."

All three of them looked like they were more drunk than sober. They were armed with swords and axes but I saw no bows or crossbows. I was estimating the distance I needed to jump to land on the back of the nearest ruffian when a tired-looking man wearing teamster gloves dragged himself into the little clearing.

"Johan, you spoot spewer, what took you so long?"

Johan took one of the men's flasks and drank a swig, "the wagon is stuck at the ford over this ridge." He handed the flask back. "It'll take all of us to get the wagon out of the mud."

"Why can't we carry the kid down to the ford and just chuck him in with the bear in the cage?"

"Hey, I like that idea!"

"Yeah, that could work," Johan said. "Then we can let the bear go and free up the wagon. Sounds like a plan. Let's do it."

The other three men got up and staggered around. They were more inebriated than I thought they were.

"You boys are hopeless," Johan was disgusted. "Get walking. I better carry the kid because none of you is sober enough."