The huntsman weighed up his options and it was clear he only had the one. He put the knife, thick with the animal’s hot blood, on the ground next to the carcass. The black stallions, whose colour matched the black tabards and helmets of the men who rode them, pawed at the earth, excited by the proximity of death. It was an unnatural reaction, the huntsman thought. Horses, noble and beautiful as they might be, were natural prey, just like the stag. The blood should make them nervous.

‘To kill a white stag is treason, you thieving bastard,’ the captain said. ‘The queen will want to deal with you herself!’

‘The queen?’ the huntsman asked. The tabards they wore were marked in blood-red with a lion and serpent bound together. Was the queen the serpent? And in what land did a queen ever wield power?

‘Not from round here, then?’ a second soldier, one with a rougher accent, growled. ‘That won’t save you. The queen takes her magic very seriously. White stags are guardians of magic. You killed yourself when you killed it, boy.’ The circle of men drew closer.

‘An animal is just an animal,’ the huntsman said, standing tall, his shoulders wide and with his dark eyes burning. ‘I don’t hold with superstition.’

The blow to the side of his head came hard and he fell to his knees, reeling and dazed, black spots filling the corners of his eyes. The men around him laughed, and he forced himself back to his feet.

‘Shall we finish him off?’ one voice said.

‘No, tie him up,’ the captain’s eyes were cold through the gaps in his heavy helmet. ‘We’ll drag him back and let the queen deal with him. We’re the Queen’s Guard, after all.’

Two men leapt down from their horses and the huntsman’s jaw clenched as rough rope burned his skin as they tugged it tight around his arms.

‘And bring his things.’

‘What about the stag?’

‘You two. Take it up to Ender’s Pit and throw it in. Even the dwarves won’t be able to get it out of there.’