Rough Justice (Cainsville 5.5)

One would expect a writer to have books, of course, but Patrick's were unique. Not the ones he wrote--those were currently paranormal romance. I mean the reference books on his shelf. He might snark about me treating him like my personal librarian, but he was indeed the local archivist, even if he held the title unofficially. He collected books written by fae, and they were...a unique reading experience.

Patrick walked to one shelf and took down a book on the Cwn Annwn. Ioan didn't know Patrick had it. If he did, he might demand it back. The Cwn Annwn were not archivists--they were more book-burners, sometimes literally. Chronicling real tales of fae or Hunt life was dangerous, risking exposure, so the Cwn Annwn preferred an oral tradition.

The book Patrick handed me was one I'd read before, by a Huntsman whose views fell more in line with Patrick's own on the value of historical record. He'd written a massive tome on everything he knew about Cwn Annwn history. After his death, his fellow Huntsmen hadn't known quite what to do with the book. Pages were burned, as if it'd been thrown into a fire but then yanked out again. Some pages were torn away. Others had passages redacted with heavy ink.

The book made the Cwn Annwn nervous, but they couldn't bring themselves to destroy their brother's work completely. If they'd known it would end up in the hands of a Tylwyth Teg elder, they might have tried a little harder.

I skimmed the pages, mentally translating the Welsh. I tipped my hat to the Huntsman who wrote it, and I was sure Patrick did too. The man wasn't just some amateur, jotting down notes as they came to him. The book was meticulously organized by section, and I only had to flip through until I came to the part I wanted. Justice.

I'd read enough of this book to confirm that everything Ioan had told me about the Cwn Annwn was true. I expected no less. For a branch of fae, the Cwn Annwn were astonishingly resistant to lying. Perhaps not so astonishing, I guess, if they'd broken from the main group and established themselves as a separate entity with a clear mission and a very different worldview.

I trusted Ioan to be honest with me. The problem was that, being from an oral tradition, he was largely reliant on his own experience and that of his predecessors. If they hadn't experienced a thing, they knew little about it.

The Huntsman author began the justice section with explanations. All things I knew. Cwn Annwn hunted humans who killed fae or fae-blood humans. It wasn't like a bat signal that went off every time one died. Instead, the Cwn Annwn became aware of their prey in different ways. For example, I'd seen visions of Cwn Annwn ravens circling the site of an ancient massacre, looking for fae-blood humans among the dead. I'd also had visions of Huntsmen walking past a human, looking at his eyes and getting an inner alert that said: this one. In the case of fae deaths, the news also traveled through the fae, and the Cwn Annwn would investigate. All this meant that not everyone who deserved a Cwn Annwn death got one--just the killers they came across, one way or another.

Once the Cwn Annwn had their prey, they tracked him or her, using their ravens and hounds. They needed to get their quarry to a forest for the actual Hunt. That was the only way they could take a life.

But the author did more than just expatiate. He gave examples. That was the part I needed. I learned best when shown. And Patrick's books really did show me.

I ran my finger over the text, and the writing began to blur and pulse, and then the words opened up, and I fell through into darkness, smelling damp forest, a cold spring chill in the air.

I heard a voice then. As always, while I doubted I was listening to modern English, that was what I heard. "Albert Mays, you have been found guilty in the murder of your wife and her lover."

The scene cleared, and I saw a medieval peasant held in the jaws of a cwn, the pack around their alpha, a mounted Huntsman towering over them.

"Your life is forfeit for theirs," the Huntsman said, voice booming from inside his cowl.

"Wh-what? No. The law set me free. Within my rights, they said, walking in on them like that. They had it coming, they did."

"No, they did not. Your wife broke her marriage vow. That is a violation of contract. Nothing more. The human courts might set you free, but we do not. Now run!"

The scene darkened again as I tumbled into another vision, this time hitting the ground in a bog, the stink of death and decay heavy in the air. A woman crouched by a well-trodden path through the swamp. She wore even older garb, from the time of nomadic Celtic clans. Night had just begun to fall. A dog howled in the distance, and she listened. Then she shook her head and settled back into her crouch.

"Are you sure you wish to hear the hounds?" a man's voice asked.

The woman leapt up, drawing a blade from under her cloak. "Who's there?"

"A concerned passerby." A man stepped out. He was about my age, with a thick fur over his shoulders and a bow across his shoulder. He lifted his hands. "I am unarmed."

She snorted. "A man doesn't need arms to be a

threat to a woman."

"True enough." He stopped a few feet away. "Is this better?"

A rustle sounded in the bushes, and she spun. The man gave a low whistle and waved his arm.

"Merely my hound," he said. "I've sent him off."

She peered at him. "I don't know you."

"Do you know everyone in these woods?"

"Yes."

He smiled. "Perhaps not, then, if you don't know me. You might not wish to pursue your current course."

"And what might that be?"