The Hunter of Hawk and Wolf-Chapter 46 : Chapter 46

The main hall of Garde Castle was a place of worn wood, from the walls to the floor.
Here, a poor but kind lord had once welcomed countless guests. Now, it was a slaughterhouse of splintered planks and littered corpses.
In this charnel house, Sevha and the Blanc Knights battled the Carved Tusk Tribe.
“Lord Sevha! There’s no end to them!”
“I know, Legra!”
Sevha brought his handaxe down on a Tusk’s head and scanned the chaos.
Most of the Carved Tusks were heavily wounded, yet they fought on. Missing weapons, even limbs, they fought with ecstatic expressions.
The knights were slowly being driven back.
Are they undead…?!
A knight cried out. “Fall ba—!”
Achuk roared, cleaving the knight in two with his greatsword. Drenched in blood, he sought his next victim, his eyes burning an even deeper red.
The way these bastards fight like the undead… it has to be connected to Achuk’s transformation.
But this was no time to investigate.
The hunt was a failure. The first duty of a failed hunter is to escape and await the next opportunity.
“Eshu!”
Sevha called to Eshu, who was protecting the Viscount’s daughter, then kicked open the main hall doors.
As if on cue, Toto rushed forward. Sevha mounted him in a single, fluid motion and yelled,
“Retreat!”
Sevha charged into the castle courtyard. Eshu followed, carrying the Viscount’s daughter, with Legra and the other knights right behind.
“Retreat!”
The knights pouring from the hall and those already in the courtyard mounted up, spurring their horses toward the castle town.
As they thundered down the hill, they saw Tataka and the Broken Tusk Tribe securing the main road alongside Teresse and her knights.
The instant Teresse saw Sevha charging toward them, she knew they were fleeing and shouted a warning.
“The Broken Tusks are evacuating the commoners, and our conscripts are gathering those who escaped! If we retreat now, our lines will break and we’ll take heavy—!”
“The short version!”
“We can’t retreat yet!”
Just as Teresse finished, a roar echoed from the castle. Achuk.
In response, fallen Carved Tusks along the road staggered to their feet, their faces twisted in ecstasy.
“Here we go again. Tataka! Do you know why the hell those bastards do that?”
“No!”
“O,h isn’t that great!”
The roar came again.
Sevha looked back and saw Achuk standing before the castle gate. He charged down the hill on two feet as Tusk warriors on werewolves poured from the gate behind him.
We can’t fight them like this. We have to fall back to the conscripts, even if we take heavy losses...
Just as Sevha was about to decide, Teresse gazed at the red-eyed Achuk and the ecstatic Carved Tusks and muttered to herself.
“Genealogy of Myths, page thirty-nine. In the beginning, only a single creature was created. Why then are humans and other races so different? History of the Saintess, page two hundred and one. The saintess’s corruption was proven, yet the masses followed her into riot.”
Teresse finished her recitation and turned to Sevha.
“Sevha. Our contest with the Count isn’t over. To win it, we need all our pieces to stay on the board.”
“And how do we save all our pieces in a situation like this?”
“There is a way.”
“Then don’t waste time. Out with it.”
Teresse didn’t hesitate.
“Eshu! Take the knights, save the remaining commoners, and break out of town! Tataka! You and the Broken Tusks, set this town ablaze and then get out!”
As Eshu handed the Viscount’s daughter to Legra, Teresse finished explaining the plan to Sevha.
“Once the town is burning, the flames will cover our movements. But to make it work, you need to draw their attention. Buy us time.”
“I’m the leader, remember?”
“I know. But you’re the only piece that could do something so stupid and live to tell about it.”
Teresse’s strategy was a gamble. Better to wager everything now than to lose it all later.
But Sevha nodded. “If it must be done.”
He dismounted.
Teresse added, “If you can’t get away… tell their leader this: Sevha, chief of the Anse Tribe, challenges you to a duel.”
There was no time to ask why.
“You have command, Teresse.”
The instant he relinquished command, Sevha ran for a burning house.
Teresse immediately barked, “Move!”
The Broken Tusks and the Blanc Knights scattered, following Teresse’s plan.
Sevha kicked off the wall of a burning house and scrambled onto its roof.
Then he roared, “Over here! I am Dan le Blanc, the rightful heir of Blanc!”
A roar answered him instantly. He looked up to see Achuk hurling a house pillar taller than himself.
Sevha threw himself from the roof.
CRASH!
The pillar impaled the house where he had stood, and the structure collapsed.
“A true monster,” Sevha muttered.
The surrounding inferno intensified. He ran through the burning streets, through fire and choking dust. He could hear the thunder of Carved Tusk footfalls in pursuit.
It’s working. That bastard really wants me dead.
Suddenly, a Tusk leaped out in front of him.
As it thrust its spear, Sevha dropped and slid under the attack, slamming his handaxe into the Tusk’s legs.
As the warrior fell forward, Sevha used the body as a springboard to launch himself onto an adjacent roof.
He raced across the rooftops of the burning town, the sound of Tusk footfalls closing in from all directions.
A child’s scream erupted from a burning house nearby.
The scream brought back a shard of memory.
Himself, running across rooftops. A house in flames. The screams of children.
Himself, doing nothing but listening.
The memory pierced him, and his legs slowed.
Just then, a shattered pillar crashed down from above.
As it smashed through the roof, Sevha leaped to the street below, forcing himself to focus.
Achuk is close.
Sevha cut down a Tusk in his path and kept running. Shattered pillars rained down around him.
CRASH!
Sevha didn’t stop, didn’t hide. He just kept running.
CRASH!
He dispatched each Tusk with brutal certainty.
CRASH!
He ran on, dodging Achuk’s relentless barrage.
A horn sounded.
That’s the signal.
Time to go. Sevha leaped back onto a rooftop and turned to flee the town.
It was then.
WHOOM!
Behind him, Achuk leaped into the air, his form blotting out the moon.
He swung his greatsword as he fell toward Sevha.
Sevha spun desperately, parrying the greatsword with his handaxe.
The roof could not bear the impact; it splintered, and they both crashed into the house below.
They landed in a house burning on all sides.
Sevha scrambled to his feet.
Achuk laughed, blood and drool running from his mouth.
I have to escape… but he’ll kill me the moment I turn my back.
Sevha knew the only way out was not backward, but forward.
He charged, swinging his handaxe.
Achuk blocked with his greatsword, but Sevha pressed his attack, giving him no room to maneuver. He used the narrow confines of the house to his advantage, negating the greatsword’s reach.
Achuk’s stance wavered under the onslaught.
Sevha went for a wide swing with his handaxe.
Instead of blocking, Achuk dropped his greatsword and took the blow square on the shoulder.
Damn!
The moment Sevha realized his error, Achuk grinned and drove a fist into his stomach.
The impact sent Sevha flying. He smashed through the remains of a wall and tumbled outside.
Immediately, Achuk charged through the ruined wall, swinging his greatsword.
Just as Sevha braced for death—
THOOM!
Eshu leaped forward and blocked the greatsword with his shield.
“Young Master! You have to run!”
“I was about to say the same to you!”
Sevha pulled Eshu back, putting a brief distance between them and Achuk.
But there was no escape. The Carved Tusks were swarming them from all sides.
“I will clear a path,” Eshu said.
“If you could do that, I’d have done it already.”
Escape was impossible.
Watching the approaching Achuk, Sevha remembered Teresse’s advice.
He said, “Achuk of the Broken Tusk Tribe. Sevha, chief of the Anse Tribe, challenges you to a duel.”
Achuk stopped. He licked away his drool.
“Ha…”
Laughter grew, louder and louder.
“Hahahaha! Hawk! The Pure Blood of the Hawk!”
Achuk laughed for a long while before stopping abruptly.
“Achuk, the Pure Blood of the Wolf! A duel. Good! When the Moon Princess has finished her preparations! Beneath the full moon! We duel!”
Sevha glanced up at the moon.
It looked to be a week until it was full. Until the Moon Princess finished her preparations.
Who is that magus, really?
Sevha had to admit, her plan had averted the immediate crisis.
He threw his handaxe to the ground.
***
The Dungeons of Garde Castle
Moonlight filtered through a small, barred window, the only source of light.
Sevha and Eshu were prisoners.
I don’t know whether to call this fortunate or not.
Why did Achuk insist on a duel under the full moon? Whatever the reason, he had merely disarmed them before throwing them in this cell.
The reason didn’t matter. What mattered was the opportunity to escape. Sevha began to search for a way out.
We just need to get out of the dungeon. A castle of this size must have a secret passage...
As soon as he thought it, a memory surfaced.
“I knew you or Edgar would come.”
He remembered walking that very passage, and her, waiting at its end.
Today really is a… wretched day.
He couldn’t deny it. Ever since entering Garde Castle, he’d been tormented by a past that mirrored the present. He had to bury it, bury the feelings it dredged up, and find a way to escape.
He closed his eyes.
Unaware of Sevha’s struggle, Eshu said, “I assume you have no intention of waiting quietly until the duel.”
But Sevha did not answer him.
“Young Master?”
The moment Eshu said “Young Master,” Sevha’s foul mood curdled into something worse.
His eyes snapped open, and he kicked Eshu in the jaw.
As Eshu tumbled to the floor, the two Tusk guards watched with interest.
“What was that for, Young Ma—!”
As Eshu staggered up, Sevha punched him in the stomach. As he reeled, Sevha drove his shoulder into the knight’s chin, forcing his head up, then punched him in the stomach again.
When Eshu’s back hit the prison wall, Sevha seized his throat with a hand.
Only then did he speak.
“Why did you disobey my order?”
Eshu choked out a defense. “I admit my actions brought us to this! A crime I will pay for with my life! But a knight’s duty is to protect the people!”
“You’re full of excuses.”
“It is not an excuse!”
“No? What if my grandfather, the Marquis, had ordered you
not
to save them? Would you have refused his command?”
Eshu fell silent.
Sevha sneered. “There it is. You disobeyed my order because I’m not my grandfather. I’m just the
young master
.”
“That’s not it!”
“No?”
Sevha tightened his hand until Eshu could barely breathe.
Feeling the killing intent, Eshu cried out, “Before the Marquis’s illness grew severe, he spoke to me! He told me to protect Blanc in his place! That is why I—!”
So, he was only protecting Blanc to honor the Marquis’s wish.
Hearing this, Sevha loosened his grip, his voice tinged with something like pity.
“You see. You’re not obsessed with protecting the people of Blanc because you’re a knight. You’re doing it because of my grandfather’s request... your father’s.”
“I... I am...”
“You are nothing but a child, trailing at your father’s heels and making excuses.”
With that final, cutting remark, Sevha threw him to the floor.
Eshu, stunned by a truth he had refused to see, stared blankly at the floor. Then he looked up at Sevha.
He asked, “And you? Have you never wanted to be someone your family could be proud of?”
Someone his family could be proud of.
The words made Sevha think of his brother. For a moment, he faltered.
Then he was on Eshu, hitting him again and again.
Until Eshu’s face was covered in blood. Until one of his teeth fell to the floor.
Finally, Eshu stopped moving.
“Tch. Is he dead?”
Sevha gestured to the two Tusk guards outside, signaling for them to remove the body.
With a sigh, the Tusks entered the cell.
In that instant, Sevha said, “Eshu. Take one.”
He flicked the tooth he’d been holding in his palm, and it lodged in a Tusk’s eye.
The “dead” Eshu shot his eyes wide open.