The Hunter of Hawk and Wolf-Chapter 39 : Chapter 39

On a hill overlooking the training grounds of Rasseu Castle, Sevha and Legra stood with Toto and Shri. Both young men were armed with a shortbow, a quiver, and a handaxe.
The reason was simple.
“Lord Sevha,” Legra began, “if we sneak off to hunt, won’t the Witch and the Commander be furious?”
Sevha gazed down at the training grounds below.
Conscripts led by Teresse and knights led by Eshu were locked in a mock battle. The knights repeatedly tried to break the conscript line to reach Teresse, but the recruits, organized into squads, were somehow holding their ground.
“They will be.”
“Then why are we sneaking off?”
“Because they wouldn’t let me go otherwise.”
“So wise…”
To the Anse Tribe, hunting was like breathing.
But Sevha hadn’t hunted once since descending from the Frost Mountains. He’d been holding his breath for far too long, and felt if it went on any longer, he would either suffocate or put a rope around his own neck.
That was why he was going hunting, with or without Teresse and Eshu’s permission.
“Enough,” Sevha said. “Let’s go before we’re spotted.”
He mounted Toto, pulling Legra up to sit in front of him. Shri landed softly on Toto’s head.
As Sevha took the reins, Legra glanced back toward the training grounds.
“I don’t know much about command, but even I can see the Witch is a natural.”
Sevha had to agree. Against all expectations, Teresse was a skilled commander, so much so that even Eshu had acknowledged her talent and now assisted with the training.
I still don’t understand how an Imperial woman knows so much about training men for battle.
Pushing the suspicion aside, Sevha offered another observation.
“It helps that the conscripts are throwing themselves into it.”
“They have their reasons.”
The conscripts trained relentlessly for two reasons: the desire for revenge against the Count, and the desire to protect their families and friends.
To Sevha, the two motivations felt like a contradiction.
“Is it possible… to protect something while dreaming of revenge?”
Legra met Sevha’s eyes, ready with an answer.
But before he could speak, Sevha urged Toto into a faster gait.
The moment lost, Legra swallowed his words and changed the subject.
The boy remarked, “Anse and Blanc are so different. The terrain, the style of fighting… I’m a hunter. I don’t know how I’m meant to fight here.”
Sevha agreed. Blanc was a land of plains, lakes, and scattered woods. You could run for days and find nowhere to hide.
How does a hunter fight in a land with no cover…
For the moment, no answer came to him.
“Well,” Sevha said, dismissing the thought, “we’ll find out while we hunt.”
He spurred Toto onward.
They hunted for hours, riding across the plains and along the lakeshores.
As the sun began to set, Sevha came upon an abandoned village nestled in the woods.
“Legra. Butcher the game. We’ll eat before heading back.”
Sevha’s face was pure satisfaction.
The hunt had been a success; if a hunter had nowhere to hide, neither did his prey. With no cover to speak of, his quarry had been unable to escape his arrows.
“Eat before we go back? I think that will only make the Witch and the Commander angrier…”
“Exactly. And the angrier they are, the less likely they are to feed us.”
Legra laughed at the joke and began to butcher the game.
After a short while, he paused and began, “Lord Sevha?”
“Yes?”
“Isn’t this village strange?”
“What’s strange about it?”
“It’s deserted, but it’s completely untouched.”
Legra’s question struck him.
He was right. The villagers had fled the Tusk Tribe, but there were no signs of looting.
They didn’t plunder an empty village? Could it be… they came to Blanc for a purpose other than pillaging?
Just as the thought crossed Sevha’s mind…
Snap.
The sound of movement in the distance.
“Those footsteps… a deer.”
Sevha’s expression lit up.
Legra said hastily, “We don’t have time. We have to eat quickly and get back…”
“Just one more.”
“What? Lord Sevha, wait!”
Ignoring Legra, Sevha plunged into the forest.
The trees were countless, but their number was paltry compared to the Labyrinth Forest. He tracked the deer’s footsteps with the ease of a child on an outing.
The sound of hooves grew closer.
When the deer was within bowshot, he silently climbed a tree and saw it standing in a small clearing.
Sevha loosed his arrow. It struck the deer’s head like a bolt of lightning.
An instant later…
Thwok!
A javelin flew from the trees and pierced the deer’s back.
Struck by both arrow and javelin, the deer collapsed without a sound.
Another hunter.
The deer lay silent, claimed by two killers at once. The stillness that followed only amplified the desolate sound of the wind in the trees.
For several minutes, only the wind moved.
Then, the other hunter emerged from the brush on the opposite side of the clearing.
He was a Tusk Tribe warrior, a canister of javelins on his back, his tusks cut short.
Without hesitation, Sevha drew his bow and took aim.
In that same instant, the Tusk warrior stood tall beside the deer, drew a single javelin, and shouted, his voice like thunder.
“A coward has no right to the kill! Prove you are worthy of this prey!”
Sevha was surprised to hear the Tusk warrior use the common tongue so fluently.
But surprise was no reason to lower a drawn bow. He was a hunter, and provocation meant nothing.
He loosed the arrow without mercy.
The Tusk warrior saw the streak of light aiming for his throat a moment too late.
“This chill…” he grunted. “A Hunter of Hawk.”
With speed that defied his slow reaction, he slapped the arrow aside with his javelin, then grinned fiercely and roared, “Hawk! A Wolf has come!”
Wolf.
As Sevha registered the word, the Tusk warrior hurled his javelin toward the tree.
Sevha leaped down just as the weapon struck the trunk, shaking it violently and scattering leaves in all directions.
He ran through the falling leaves, circling the Tusk warrior from the cover of the brush, loosing a rapid succession of arrows as he moved.
The warrior deflected them with his javelins, hurling his own mighty weapons back in the direction of the shots.
Arrows met javelins, speed against power, and each impact sent leaves and dust churning through the air.
“Now I see!” the Tusk warrior taunted. “The hawk is just a flighty herbivore!”
Sevha’s mind raced, and for the first time, he spoke. “You talk too much for a witless beast who can’t count his javelins against my arrows!”
The taunt hit its mark. The Tusk warrior realized the truth in it.
He had far fewer javelins than the hawk had arrows. He couldn’t win an extended exchange.
He had to end this now.
Guessing Sevha’s position from the last taunt, he charged.
It was a ferocious charge, one befitting his massive frame, yet also a swift ambush that belied his size. In an instant, he was upon the brush where Sevha was hiding.
“Butcher,” Sevha’s voice cut through the rustling leaves. “Go back to your shop and carve the game a hunter brings you.”
Just as he had predicted, Sevha burst from cover, swinging his handaxe.
Startled, the Tusk warrior blocked the handaxe with his javelin.
But Sevha’s powerful swing shattered the wooden shaft, the axe blade continuing on toward the warrior’s neck.
The big man roared and threw himself backward in a desperate roll.
He scrambled back to his feet. A thin, red line opened on his neck, and a trickle of blood followed.
The Tusk warrior touched the wound, looked at his fingers, and then broke into a wide grin.
“I apologize, Hawk. You are… a beast of prey. Like a wolf.”
He drew another javelin from his canister and leveled it at Sevha.
Sevha spun his handaxe once and tightened his grip.
“Hawk. Your name?”
Sevha remained silent. There was no reason to give a name to his prey.
The Tusk warrior smiled, as if this pleased him even more.
“Tataka, Chief of the Broken Tusk Tribe.”
Just as Sevha and Tataka tensed to tear into each other, more Tusk warriors burst from the surrounding brush.
Sevha’s gut tightened. He assumed they were Tataka’s reinforcements.
But Tataka’s expression mirrored his own.
He understood at once. “You have no friends?”
“I have no desire to be friends with
them
.”
The newcomers swung their weapons not only at Sevha, but at Tataka as well.
The two adversaries exchanged a sharp glance, dodged the incoming attacks, and fell back-to-back.
“Front,” Sevha grunted.
The two smashed the heads of the warriors charging from the front with a handaxe and a javelin.
“Behind,” Tataka barked.
Tataka dropped low and swept the legs out from under a warrior rushing Sevha. At the same time, Sevha vaulted onto Tataka’s broad back and drove his handaxe into the shoulder of another attacker.
“Too many.”
“Time to run.”
The words were barely out before Sevha and Tataka bolted, running in the same direction. They were too fast for the other warriors to follow on foot.
But that didn’t mean they couldn’t be followed.
Awooo!
Just as they put some distance between themselves and their pursuers, the howling of wolves rose up around them.
Both knew what it meant.
“Goddamned filthy wolves,” Sevha growled.
“They are like family to the Tusk Tribe,” Tataka said, “but right now, I agree.”
The moment they burst from the forest, the howling grew louder as wolves poured out of the woods behind them.
Adorned with colorful tassels, these were no ordinary wolves. They were larger than the warriors themselves. Tusk riders were mounted on their backs.
“Werewolves.”
In an instant, they closed the distance Sevha and Tataka had struggled to create. The sound of slavering jaws grew closer.
Just when they thought it was hopeless…
“Lord Sevha!”
Legra’s shout, followed by the thunder of hooves and the jingle of a bell.
Sevha and Tataka reacted, leaping upward.
They landed hard. Sevha on Toto, who had galloped past the pursuers, and Tataka on a massive werewolf of his own, one adorned with tasseled bells.
“Ride!”
“Run!”
In an instant, Toto and Tataka’s werewolf were thundering across the plain. The pursuing Tusk Tribe let out enraged shouts as their own mounts surged forward.
As the plain filled with the thunder of paws and a rising cloud of dust, the sharp cry of a hawk cut through the chaos.
Shri burst from the dust cloud and soared into the sky. Reaching its apex, the hawk began to glide, and below, the dust began to settle.
Shri watched silently from above.
The chase across the plain.