Bowhunter – Chapter 2

The Mane, Sovereign Kingdom of Ebvren (The Barren State), City Capital Vrenki – Typhon Resurgence, Day 10

Whatever Ebvren, and by extension its capital city Vrenki, had to claim in terms of sovereignty, was beyond Fergus Reeves. If it wasn’t for its neighbours, Bravenasil to the north, his own home Huzken to the east, Cevun to the south, and Wonsoth in the west, there wouldn’t be a kingdom. It relied upon its neighbours for everything. Its soil provided nothing, the waters were rife with toxins, and long ago the King’s foresters had hunted just about everything living to near extinction.

Its capital, Vrenki, had been appointed less than a century ago, demoting the previous bastion further in land. And why? Because of how close it was to the eastern border with Huzken, the neighbour with whom they did the most trade.

Long stretches of rocky, crumbling roads better suited for goats, lead past vast fields of colourless dying grass, bowing forlornly. Even the sky was grim, devoid of puffy rain providing clouds, and nothing more than a dull slate ceiling.

Where there should have been herds of deer, cockatrice, and swaths of hares and jackalopes, there stretched dying grass fields, with the odd sliver of stagnant water. The landscape held the same terminal colours of an elderly person on their way out, Fergus thought.

Far in the distance, draigs and larger dragon species could be seen from time to time, gliding over the forests, or shattered heaps they called mountains. Cold blooded, these dragons preferred the atmospheric alterations provided by the volcanos, with each spurting the occasional cloud of burning sulphur to stain the slate sky with a bit of colour.

It was a surreal, and sour, contrast to Fergus’ own home, Huzken, colloquially known as the Venom State.

Thankfully Vrenki was close to the boarder, and Fergus did not have to travel too far into this desolate world. The country’s capital had been built into the hollowed husk of an ancient volcano, dead for millennia. The south-eastern side had at onetime collapsed during a great quake, opening the vast rupture up to mining guilds. Over centuries larger and larger communities rose. Where lava once boiled and flowed, an underground river, further north, was even redirected to flow through the city.

Of course, with all rich finds, came the kingdom’s provenance for stripping it bare. Thus, the mine, like the volcano, was now long dead. Anything of any value, and the once declared endless source of obsidian, had been scraped out of the land. In place of the mine was now a thriving city of almost a million people. Anything of the hovels, and utilitarian efficiency had been built demolished, or built over with grander, greater architectural wonders. Bulbous palaces like bright boils, with twisting pillars and extensive gardens, and of course statues of who-knew-who placed in every street, streets lined by multi-tiered residences of curved, swollen architecture. The further into the city Fergus and his team had travelled, the taller the towers grew, until they rose to meet the far upper rim of the volcano.

An epic metropolis held in the sweeping arms of a dead volcano; Fergus has been told. Though to him it looked more like a parasite lodged in the corpse of a giant…

Either way, Fergus Reeves was glad to be beneath it now.

“Those guards were glad to seal that door behind us,” Lenush Blanford muttered from the rear of the hunting party.

Fergus always winced when she made comments like that; ambiguous with enough structure to hint that this hunt was not going end in Fergus getting the trophy he wanted.

Lenush Blanford was tall, lithe, and moved with the slow caution of anyone who had spent a live hunting the undead in all their gruesome manifestations. The former Fang-Slayer and Scalper had dark skin, wide topaz-orange eyes, and silken black hair tied up in braids. Her whole demeanour was restrained, methodical. It made Fergus nervous because every time he had an opportunity to take a great beast, something unnaturally wicked got in the way. This became such a problem, that, aside from feeling cursed, he asked the hunter of the undead into his coterie, as an esoteric form of security.

“It’s a friggin’ basilisk, Lenush,” Kelby Steller added, loudly, as was his usual nature. “Do ye wanna be down ‘ere with one? Nae-body wants to see one. Why? Because that mangled up maw ‘o fangs are the last thing ye’ll ever see.”

Brash and bold and with the talent to back it up, Kelby was a dwarf, and a champion – many times over – of the Shooters Guild. The man moved with the confidence of a landslide. Fergus supposed that Kelby sincerely believed that there was no obstacle in his way he couldn’t shoot down or at least kick his way past. Ruddy features were permanently coloured darker by decades of using black-powder weapons, his eyes dark navy, and permanently bloodshot to match. His blonde hair was strewn through with danker shades from so often standing in the backwash and clouds of smoke released from his guns.

Whilst Kelby was famous for his many titles in the Shooters Guild, he was known too as a prolific griffin hunter, and so was his blunderbuss, Ma’s Temper.

“Their wariness was too…” Lenush replied quietly, her face bunching up as she tried to find the right words. “It was off.”

“Aff?”

“Aye, aff,” Lenush mocked. “They were far too guarded from something even as dangerous as a basilisk. Their poise, their whole demeanour held a more superstitious like trepidation.”

“Lenush, please just be quiet,” Fergus said, intervening, trying to hold back the intrusive thoughts that came from Lenush’s analysis.

Kelby cackled, a laugh like an axe splitting a wooden barrel.

“There are no rats,” Niva Amherst added to Fergus’ chagrin.

Coming to a halt, Fergus turned to the huntress directly behind him. Even in the dank shadows of the carved-out tunnel, her vivid leafy green eyes glowed, like a warning. Whilst Niva was a cannibal, she was – and Fergus was not wholly unconvinced this wasn’t an oxymoron – a civilised cannibal. Though the term was itself caused offense to the people of Vheruni, for whom the ritual consumption of dead relatives was a necessity within their religious beliefs regarding status in the afterlife.

Of the four of them, Niva hailed from The Sigel, specifically the Vheruni Wilds in the northern subcontinent. Perhaps the last untamed swath of land upon what was the most established of the five continents of Anordaithe. Like the majority of her people, Niva had pale skin and dark storm-blue hair, dark enough to match the unreachable depths of the sea, and of course vividly bright predatory eyes, matching the colours found on a venomous snake.

“If there are no rats, then that just means the people…”

“Engineer-architects,” Kelby added for Fergus.

“The engineer-architects are very good at their job, keeping vermin away from the well’s source.”

“Okeydokey.” Kelby shrugged and made to move on.

 “Look, there were more than enough animals within the city,” Fergus continued, standing firm, his bow placed limb-tip down upon the toe of his boot. “If there were anything undead here, they would have fled. Or be howling and crying in their homes.” He looked to Lenush for any kind of support.

“You’re correct. The deathly aura would have ensured a sparser animal presence,” the former Fang-Slayer replied clearly.

Socially Lenush was almost a mute, every attempt at conversation beginning with stutters, and would often struggle to assert herself. But, on a hunt – any hunt – she transmuted into this settled, confident huntress; every analysis produced from inner certainty, and relayed with swift, unreserved, clarity.

“But two issues still remain: the unusual forbiddance in the guards, and the absence of rats.” Of course she had to spoil things.

“It’s a basilisk… A helicoprion one at that. They are right to be scared,” Fergus added, hoisting his bow up and catching it by its grip.

Kelby’s eyes rose.

“Do not mention the rats,” Fergus snapped, pointing a finger at the dwarf.

“Let’s just be prepared, Fergus,” Lenush cut in, moving up, her own bow held over a shoulder.

The group moved steadily on through the tunnels. Whispers of frost pricked at Fergus’ cheeks with each breath released by the subterranean network. He tried putting out of his mind the absence of vermin, along with the tense quiet that often preceded the presence of something unnatural. Every mouldy black shadow slithered past, or over the group, seemingly watching and mocking their wariness.

After a quarter of an hour, or an hour, it was impossible to tell, Fergus lead the group into larger chamber, a crossroads cut through by wide channels of black water. Each channel was only a few feet across, the water shallow – too shallow for anything as large as a helicoprion basilisk to be lurking in. Even so, Fergus wasn’t letting his guard down. Eyes hardened with intent, Fergus wanted to be the first to catch out whatever maybe lurking just out of sight.

“There’s nay a curse in the world on ye, wee man,” Kelby then said, close to a whisper, as if reading his thoughts.

The moniker, wee man, always amused Fergus. For dwarves it was a term which included anyone who wasn’t a dwarf. Not so superficial to be addressing someone’s stature, but instead their character. To dwarves, a race who excel in just about every known pursuit in the world, character was everything. And the term wee man could be used to address non-dwarves in terms of kinship, animosity, and everything in between.

“Curses are for insecure minds, and people too afraid to do anythin’ with their lives,” he continued, hefting his magnificent blunderbuss up over a shoulder with the barrel pointing behind him – Niva instantly leapt to the side, away from the cannon’s mouth. “What there is, is luck. Good luck an’ bad luck.”

“And I’m just unlucky? I’d rather I was cursed. I’d hate for my lack of success to come down to something as banal as luck. Curses can be broken. Seized and broken, like clutching the neck of a snake,” Fergus replied.

Kelby snorted, somewhere between a sneer and a cackle. “You sound like a child, wee man. Nay gratitude. That’s what happens when ye sprout from a society with nay gods. You call yourself unsuccessful? Why? Because you haven’t found a trophy worthy of the scum-ridden Flint Castle?”

Ignoring the jib about his godlessness, Fergus continued, hoping to keep the bitterness souring his heart from leaching into his words. “You say its name with the same sourness as any profanity.”

“Nah, I enjoy profanity, and profanity has many a use in the world. The Castle,” Kelby spat, as if the word really did leave something sour in his mouth, “There’s no place for anything such as it in the world. It’s not a hunting or forester guild, it’s an imperial force, ravaging nature and taking in excess to fulfil its lust for blood and power. They turn other people’s own land into their personal sporting arenas, stripping them clean before moving on, and leaving starvation an’ poverty in their wake.”

Fergus didn’t have the patience to debate the Flint Castle with Kelby – again – and decided to move on.

Naturally, Kelby didn’t let up.

“Think of all the predators you ‘ave culled, the villages safe to go an’ hunt an’ feed ‘emselves. Or the services ye ‘ave provided, teachin’ your huntin’ skills so others can thrive. That is far more worthy than the Castle.”

“And think of the wicked denizens of the undead put to a final rest by your arrows, and how many more lives saved because we just happened to be in the right place at the right time,” Lenush added to further frustrate Fergus’ chances of moving forward. “I may be biased, but being in a situation in which we are able to eliminate the presence of undead – in whatever form they take – can hardly be seen as back luck.”

Bad luck or a curse, Fergus could not say, and after two decades of hunting. He would have thought himself able to recognise just what it was that interfered with every opportunity to take a trophy worthy enough to secure him a position within the legendary Flint Castle. A shade, a potentially tangible force of something or other, sabotaging him. With each opportunity to take a great prize, this thing revealed its deception.

When Fergus had followed the whispers and rumours of a Cometosaur, what should have been a dragon’s den turned out to be a cavern saturated with wallowing shades. Countless, dangerously mischievous spirits spewed from the cavern, baleful moans with soul-sucking black-fire light spilling out of what had to be eye-sockets and mouths.

Again, when pursuing a rust-flared gargoyle, all Fergus managed to encounter was a host of reanimated corpses – arguably the most lethal of the undead. Thus, his fabled hunt degenerated to into a route across a crumbling stone bridge, and a test of Fergus’ physical fortitude. Lenush was correct in saying that there was nothing like the physical undead; their unrelenting nature, their almighty strength derived from their focus on the consumption of flesh, their overpowering rotting stench, their variety, and their numbers – “However many you see, multiply it by ten. And then you’ll be a bit closer to the actual number,” Lenush had once said.

A diamond horned unicorn became a banishment of murderous wraiths. Sightings of a herd of Diviner Qilin turned out to be a shimmer of spectres. The Great Red Trumpeter Baku spoken of, only lead to an expulsion of revenants.

And so on, and so on…

There was not a species, or sub-species of undead Fergus was sure he had not encountered, and slain. None worth anything to the Flint Castle, and all a waste of his time and talents.

This time had to be different. Nature rewarded the adaptable, and those who persevered.

“The underground lake is close, let’s keep moving,” was all Fergus could think to say.

The group moved on, following Fergus’ lead, and gingerly placing each step as hoping to avoid awakening the shadows infesting the dank tunnels around them. What remnants of light exiled down here faded into a fuzzy grey, amalgamating with the dark – spectres themselves compared to the rays they once were. Soon Fergus could hardly perceive the world beyond a few feet. As the physical aspects of the underground where lost to the darkness, the tinkling and rustling of running water grew sharper.

Without saying anything, the group removed small vials of fluid from whatever pouches they had been stored in, and delicately – and with some trepidation in Niva’s case – poured the contents into each eye. Blinking rapidly to remove the discomfort, Fergus avoided rubbing his eyes with his fists, letting the fluids sink in. As they did, the world around them, or the tunnel, glowed with the light of an overcast morning.

Whilst the shadows dissolved, stripping the walls of their malevolent sheeting, the atmosphere of tingling eeriness was replaced with one of a deeper, gut-churning sinisterness. Along the walls at various intervals were what had to be claw marks; serrated, messy slashes, some inches deep.

Fergus’ heart stilled in anticipation – as he had trained himself to – and kept his eyes set upon the further reaches of darkness ahead. When he was content that there was nothing stirring, only then did he glance down to check if the claw marks in the ground mirrored those in the walls.

In contrast to the deep, wicked rents along the wall, upon the ground were gentler scratches which could have been made by a child with a pebble.

Now that his mind had assessed this new information, and made sure they were not within anything’s violent sights, Fergus lowered his bow and began to scrutinise the claw marks along the wall. In the back of his mind, thoughts began to taunt him, with a colder disappointment beginning to manifest in his gut.

“Nay basilisk I know of can survive on land for long enough,” Kelby muttered, fingering one of the rents.

“Careful, Kelby,” Niva said quickly, though softly. “If those claw marks are from a basilisk, there’ll be residual venom.” The dwarf recoiled his arm as sharply as if he’d been struck by a snake. “But this isn’t basilisk,” Niva added, making clear what Fergus was trying to deny. “We have a quarter of the known species lurking in our swamps and lakes back home – and some of the deadliest in terms of their venom. This is something else.”

A forlorn sigh escaped Fergus, and he gently thumped a fist against one of the deep rents. “There would be venom in the cuts, wouldn’t there,” he replied to Niva, civilly. She nodded, her vivid eyes glowing spectrally in the low-light tonic Fergus had applied to his own eyes. He turned to Lenush. “Any undead leave this kind of collateral damage in their wake?”

Evidently Lenush’s quick answer told Fergus that she had already a reply ready. “If there were physical types of undead, we’d have scented them long ago.”

Fergus admonished himself for his lack of foresight, scowling. “Of course.” Though he was a tad relived – not just because in this tight, linear environment a host of reanimated corpses would be their end, but it also reduced the chances of running into anything undead.

“What is the plural for a host of undead reanimates?” Kelby added.

“A cemetery, a mourning, a rotting, a mausoleum, a crypt,” Lenush answered. “Different places have different names.”

“Who else is thinking that this hateful city’s administrator has been somewhat dishonest here?” Niva whispered, spinning one of her hunting daggers around – the hilt of which was made from the thigh bone of a dead ancestor – the blade hewn from an obsidian gargoyle’s skin if the story of it was to be believed.

“You’re only sayin’ such because he didnae like you,” Kelby replied. “You gotta stop tellin’ folk yer a cannibal.”

“I did no such thing. He asked where I was from, and I said Vheruni. And don’t you justify his prejudice, Kelby.”

“Governor Gibson could have been ill-informed – that’s usually how it is, how it has been with us,” Fergus said.

“He didn’t come across as…” Lenush paused more for effect than struggling to find the correct word. “Shifty. His whole demeanour was withholding.”

“That’s politicians for ye,” Kelby grunted. “Daft twats. Anyways, what say ye, Fergus? Do we keep goin’ or bail an’ let Gibson deal with it himself?”

“I kind of want to see just what is lurking down here,” Lenush added, drumming fingers along the upper limb of her bow.

“We’ve committed to a job, even if it’s not the one we thought. Maybe we can ring more of a payment from him,” Niva agreed.

“Yeah, what else is new,” Kelby said with a grin.

“Well, that’s a majority anyhow,” Fergus said. “We’ll go on and cull whatever this is. Maybe it’ll be worth something to the Castle.”

“Oh, give over about the Castle.”

The directions given to them by Governor Gibson became largely redundant as the scratches upon the walls and the odd scuff in the ground created their own map. Periodically the tunnel the group were stalking through opened into a wide crossroads, with a narrow column of light spearing down from high above, from the world above. Other times there were large stone bastions built into the centre of these chambers, with drains built into their bases for the water to enter, and ropes dangling from on high with buckets attached.

From a tunnel to the left the rush of water growled with greater ferocity, pouring down from a wider channel.

“There’s the source, up there,” Kelby stated, gesturing with his blunderbuss, as if it wasn’t obvious.

“The source is far north in the Mane,” Fergus corrected. “Coming down from the north through countless states before it reaches us.”

“So, there’s one thing these’ns don’t mooch aff o’ us.”

The chilly air was damp, though mercifully the deathly tinge so recognisable by Fergus at this point, was absent. If he was noting this, then he knew Lenush did too. A break, finally.

“Niva, stay behind me,” Fergus ordered, glancing up into the hazy depths of the final tunnel. “Kelby, Lenush, stay back a dozen yards.”

An arrow had been fitted to the string of his longbow earlier and had sat patiently across his gloved hand ever since. Beige hippogriff feathers with gold bars graced the rear of the arrow, providing greater stability in flight, and resistance against the weather. Hide from the same animal tied the feathers down. The shaft was carved out from the wood of a stag yew, a tree often scratched at and marked by large deer, and the pile forged from reclaimed scales fallen loose from the body of minor typhon species. Horn from helican deer had been fitted into the self-nocks at the rear, adding a further blow from the arrow, specially designed to cripple a prey’s muscles.

Even Fergus’ longbow had been crafted from the same wood as his arrows, stag yew. It was an exquisite single piece of amber-brown wood, with rufus tints accenting the grain throughout the body. Harpy leather had been used for the grip, morose gold around the top and bottom, whilst the remaining colour had been worn down to pallid whites over time. It was an odd accompaniment to the bow – and arrows – but it had been a gift, and Fergus not been in a position to decline it.

It was often remarked by his peers that Fergus’ bow and arrows had been crafted from materials not found in his own home state, colloquially known as the Venom State. Fergus had decided long ago that he needed a bow and arrows to mimic the more brutish strikes found within the natural world, such as antlers and horns, if he wanted to harvest meat and other resources, and most importantly keep a potential trophy from being eaten from the inside out by the insidious ways of venom. Fangs and stingers were often counterproductive, spoiling the meat, and grossly corrupting the body.

By contrast, the only other archer in his hunting party, Lenush, held a shorter curved bow that had been crafted from a mythical mourning tree, native to her home in The Scar. It was said that these trees, found clumped in small tight forests absorbed all sound, permitting the living to hear the whispers of the dead, guiding them to spectral entities so they can finally be put to rest. She had had the bow for over twenty years, since the age of fifteen.

Her arrows were made from the same wood and favoured amongst the spirit hunters of Anordaithe. The undead in all their forms were largely immune to magic. However, here and there, there was always something to be found that could be used against the unnatural beings, and mourning wood was one such material. The piles were smithed from the armour of undead knights, and the gloriously glossy feathers at the rear came from a collection of blind carrion crows, that feasted exclusively upon the bodies of the slain reanimated corpses – each, again some of the few materials within the world in which the magical potential could be used against the undead. In these specific instances such magic would inflict a rapid decomposition upon the target, eating whatever organic matter remained until only motes of dust were left. Such arrows had been more than life saving in the past.

Fergus crept up the left side of the tunnel, hunched, and making sure each step was silent. Not so cynical, he allowed a degree of hope to reside that whatever lay ahead would be worthy of the Castle. However, he tempered the excitement, as he had been taught, to ensure nothing interfered with both his concentration in the stalk and – when the time came – the shot.

Everyone was more than just quiet. Nothing upon their person jiggled or rattled, and each controlled breath was released in total silence. It amplified the tension of the hunt, Fergus found, as each part of his well-honed team adhered to their role with total expertise, coming together to form a strike from which nothing could flee.

The crushing roar of water increased with each step, an unrelenting cascade that even rock had to yield to. Within the tumult came a sharper, icier cold found at the top of tall peaks, or in the lands much, much further north in The Mane. It embedded itself in Fergus’ skin, his clothing offering no defence. Mist rose from each breath now, and he could feel his heart thumping faster to compensate for the temperature.

Coming to the apex, a huge cavern revealed itself, large enough to host a small village. Its ceiling was obscured by shadow, as were its furthermost reaches. In contrast, the great waterfall, gushing eagerly into the large lake, glowed like crystal under a winter’s sun.

From experience Fergus knew the lake was likely fathomless, with countless tunnels beneath its surface taking the water elsewhere. Its silvery surface was still, calm, with the occasional dark glimmer.

This was the den of the alleged helicoprion basilisk.

“Not much to sustain a basilisk,” Niva whispered softly.

“How many people did Gibson say were pulled down wells?” Kelby asked.

“A couple of dozen it’s believed,” Fergus answered, keeping his eyes on the dead surface of the water.

Behind him Niva was looking back over their path, from the lake’s edge and down the tunnel.

“No way a helicoprion basilisk is making it down that tunnel, and up the well we past, never mind any further into the tunnel network to the other wells where the attacks are said to have happened. The channels are far too shallow, and not nearly wide enough,” she continued.

“Then it is something else,” Fergus said quietly. “We can say with certainty, that we’re not hunting a basilisk.”

“Ye no sound too disappointed,” Kelby said.

Fergus looked back and returned a sarcastic look. “I am. But I won’t throw a proper tantrum until I know whether or not what is down here is worth the trouble.”

“So, we’re huntin’ blind. Nay good, that.”

“Hardly an unfamiliar situation to us, though, is it, Kelby?” Lenush put in. She placed the lower limb-tip of her bow upon a boot to steady it. With her free hand she reached into a pouch across her torso, pulling free her vial of night-sight, and in the process, accidently spilling a few silver broadheads loose. A gentle, tickling jangle rang out as they fell upon the rocky ground. “Goodness me…” She began, before a throaty, brimstone hot growl seeped like molten slag into the cavern.

It was impossible to tell where the growl came from as it rolled around the dark walls of the cavern and back upon them.

Fergus swore the air around him became warmer… Muggier…

A stolid, wrenching clack followed, from Kelby readying his blunderbuss’ firing pin.

Behind him, Fergus’ team fanned out, delicate steps as if walking on ice, Lenush with her bow raised, Niva with her hunting daggers drawn, and Kelby with his cannon readied. Slightly ahead of the group, and no fool, Fergus knew whatever was lurking inside this cavern was not going to be found in the lake, a lake that accounted for nine tenths of the surface area.

Thus, he looked up.

Shadows swam.

Something writhed.

Something hissed, hot and wet.

Out of a cripplingly loud howl, dark fur leapt.

Fergus hardly had time to process what was happening, as another thunderous roar broke loose – Kelby’s cannon. As fast on the trigger as he was eager to use the weapon, its shot walloped against something dense, throwing it aside, forcing it to miss Fergus by a hairsbreadth. Spoiled meat, sulphur, and wet dog assailed Fergus’ sense of smell as he rolled away and came quickly back to his feet.

Lenush was cursing in her native tongue, and Kelby was hooting a mad dwarven battle cry – or just cursing in his native tongue, it was often hard to tell. Only Niva was silent as she brought her daggers around and held firm, with all the sudden potential of a swift predator.

Before the group rose seven feet of black, jagged fur, coating a bipedal frame hosting grotesquely bulging muscles. Jet talons, serrated, curved, and no less than ten inches long unfurled from somewhat human hands with a slow intent. Fangs glowed hot in the dank cavern, gobbets of steaming salivation rolling between them and down its wolfish maw, igniting in brief snaps of light as they combusted with the cold air. Each searing flare sent a quivering roll of light over its pitch-black eyes.

“Werewolf,” gasped Niva. And she was horribly correct.

“Good ta know ma shot went ta nothin’,” Kelby grunted, drawing a pair of pistols from their sheaths by the small of his back.

The beast dropped to all fours and stalked around the group, moving towards the tunnel entrance to trap them, growling in jagged, choaking breaths. Its fur was so dark it sank into the shadows of the cave, with bristles fluttering back into lighter shades of shadow, as if the beast held a wraith like ethereal demeanour. Fergus knew exactly what it was doing, and kept his draw on the beast, undecided upon where just to aim. His own broadheads would be next to useless, and unlikely to penetrate the thick hide, a hide known to blunt even lead shot. There wasn’t even any sign that Kelby’s shot had done so much as strip away a patch of fur.

Niva gently ground her foot into loose gravel, stealing the beast’s attention, its head darting around, its black eyes upon her. Fergus caught the sudden tautness behind its knees, and at the back of its dense ankles. He dropped his aim and quickly loosed his arrow into the rear of its left knee, just as the beast leapt. A howl of frustration broke from the beast, the momentum behind the ferocity and speed of its attack cut away, leaving it to leap feebly towards Niva. The huntress was ready, bringing her daggers up to intercept the gut-opening claws. Shrill cries broke loose into the air as her blades fought against the talons. Instead to fighting against the beast’s overwhelming strength, Niva used it, letting her daggers’ edges embed themselves into the wolf’s talons. Then she twisted her wrists, pulling away from the beast, and wrenching a talon from each paw. Before the wolf could recover and fall upon her, Kelby shouted, “’ere boy!” He levelled his pistols in line with its maw. The wolf snarled at the dwarf with maliciousness. Twin popping sounds, soft, dull, bounced from the weapons, prior to the throaty, rusty roar of their discharge. A sharp, high-pitched yowl broke from the beast in the wake of this thunder, its head thrown back, as its upper fangs spun away from its maw.

“Kelby!” Lenush called, tossing a spherical object his way even before he could acknowledge her. Kelby caught it with his chest, securing it between crossed arms.

“What now?” He barked, looking down at the object.

Fergus darted around the beast’s left flank as it plunged its talons towards Niva once more. Its speed was frightening as the huntress caught the attack with her daggers less than an inch from her chest. Her own legs trembled from the downward strike, and the weight of the beast, her jaw set determinedly.

With a clear shot, Fergus loosed another arrow, striking the wolf behind its left shoulder. As thick a hide as it had, the magical qualities of his arrows would be delivering powerful enough blows to bruise and wrack its muscles, sapping its strength and speed. Anyone of Fergus’ arrows could halt the charge of a bison, but here, they delivered just enough of an impact to keep the wolf shy of falling upon Niva.

“Don’t let it bite or scratch you!” Lenush shouted from Fergus’ left.

“Statin’ the obvious there, love,” Kelby shouted back from somewhere behind Fergus.

After launching another arrow, battering the beast’s left shoulder further, Fergus turned to find Lenush hurriedly finishing fixing silver tips to her arrows’ broadheads. She rose, clutching a buddle of the arrows against the grip of her bow, and pulled one from the morbid bushel, knocking it.

Niva attempted to dislodge another pair of claws, however, the beast was ready for the attack and thrust its arms out as the huntress made to wrench back. Staggering, Niva was vulnerable, her guard open.

Two arrows crashed into the beast’s upper back, one with a minor-typhon scaled head, the other lined with silver. The latter failed to break through the hide, however, the shriek that left the wolf’s steaming maw told of an agonising strike. It broke away from Niva, faltering on its injured left leg and struggling to stay upright. Around the impact of the silver arrow, tufts of fur ignited in white-hot sparks, and the hide glowed a sickly pale white to match. Fumbling in vain to reach the arrow embedded in its back, the wolf staggered in circles, yowling.

As Niva dived clear of the beast, Fergus loosed another arrow into its right knee, hobbling the wolf, and brining it down. Still, it reached madly for the silver-tipped arrow, just out of reach, in its back.

“Right, got it loaded,” Kelby shouted, hefting his blunderbuss up and cocking the firing pin – wearing a glowing, gleeful grin.

Fergus and Lenush knocked further arrows but held off from launching them. For a brief moment, nothing happened.

“Ye did wan’ me to load an’ shoot this thing, didn’ ye?” Kelby then asked, looking towards Lenush.

“Yes!” She cried in response.

“Grand so,” Kelby replied, his words lost to the shattering crack of his blunderbuss.

Burning away the darkness of the cavern, a lance of white-hot light, streaked with comet trails of silver enveloped the wolf’s head. Inky after wash bloomed from the impact, obscuring the creature momentarily, before presenting a headless carcass, sitting on its knees.

“Bugger me,” Kelby was the first – not a surprise – to speak, breaking the ringing silence. “What was that nasty little ting?”

“Grenade, loaded with silver shrapnel,” Lenush replied, letting loose a breath.

“Ye could’a jus’ tossed it.”

“I thought it would provide a greater efficiency if it was better channelled and more direct, wee man. Otherwise, we might all be pulling silver out of our faces.” Lenush made a pistol gesture with her hand and moved forward to inspect the body of the wolf.

Fergus moved across to help Niva up, taking her by an arm. “Inspiring as always,” he said. She let him pull her up, grinning through a sweat strewn, heat-flushed face.

“It made a nice change, finally being able to close in on something and go at it with my daggers. I always feel like a benched third tier shock-ball player when what we’re hunting inevitably turns out to be something undead,” she replied through heavy breathing. “Great Hearth, I’m wrecked.”

“Makes a quare change, does it not?” Kelby cackled, knocking loose the excess powder and detritus from his blunderbuss’ barrel.

For Fergus it didn’t. Whilst not undead, it was another failed hunt, another dead end. Though frustrated, he wouldn’t voice his annoyance aloud in front of his friends after such a well fought fight.

What remained of the wolf began to melt, and peal, as if decomposition was rapidly occurring. Black, scratchy fur fizzed and curled into nothing, and vast stretches of brown hide curled in on themselves before dissolving away, whilst other patches shrank and tautened, losing their rich dark colour, and settling into something paler – and more human.

From the grizzly metamorphosis came the kneeled corpse of a human – minus a head.

“Should have aimed for the chest, Kelby,” Fergus said, looking the naked corpse up and down, as if he might discern the identity.

“Naw, this is better,” the dwarf replied sombrely. “This way no one will know who the beast was, and if he had family, they won’t be ostracised or thrown outta the city.”

“He’s a victim all the same,” Lenush added, her voice weak. “I’ve never encountered a wolf before. I’d like it if I never did again. Reanimates are just husks and most vampires have it coming – anything spectral too. But this poor sod…” She turned away from the scene, likely to hide tears.

“There hasn’t been a full moon in at least three weeks,” Niva added. “And I know we’ve been down here a good while, but I’m certain it’s still day up there.”

Kelby only shrugged, and Fergus couldn’t think of an answer. He didn’t know werewolves, outside of the obvious lore – though made a mental note to study them more, given his past experiences in hunting trophy animals.

“It’s a brimstone wolf,” Lenush added, with a sniff. She came back into the group. “They turn on a full moon, however, only daylight can turn them back. So down here in the dark, it, he, was in a permanently turned state.”

“Clambering up the wells an’ snatchin’ people aff the streets when it was dark, and safer to go huntin’…” Kelby added thoughtfully.

“Gibson has a few questions coming his way,” Fergus said, something tight and bitter undercutting the words. “And we have a bonus coming ours.”

“Aye, at the very least.”

A religious decree with Ebvren saw that all windows were covered every thirty-two days, which made traveling back through the vast city a far eerier experience than it needed to be. Fergus recalled that it had something to do with a previous head of temple throwing a sheet over a likeness of one of their gods by accident, before getting a righteous hammering as recompense – allegedly. In penance, the people of Ebvren would cover their own residences. Not that most of those who carried out this peculiar tradition knew the lore behind it. They simply conformed to a religious action unthinkingly because that’s how it was and always had been. It made Fergus grateful for growing up in a country where sense chased out such daftness.

Of course, Kelby and Niva wanted to stop for a quick tankard or two, but Fergus found his ire heating up with every step.

When they did arrive at the palace there was a greater increase in guards. There were far more yellow leather and black linen bodies loitering about the vaulted chambers and marble hallways looking rather aimless as they leaned on their tall spears.

It was clear Sheriff Gibson was, well, concerned.

Two brutish guards, clearly the largest he could find, flanked the Sheriff as he tried to lounge back in his chair with an air of comfort. The contrary image prevailed, as Gibson looked to be reeling away from the quartet of aggrieved hunters in his presence.

The office was decorated with various portraits of himself standing with other important political figures, or scenes again of his own presence with adoring crowds or citizens wearing grotesquely overt smiles. A few hunting trophies decorated the rear wall, small skulls of bucks with weedy antlers, evidence of the overhunting that has been the ruin of the land. Even the desk was a majestic, richly grained wood, ancient and from before any of their times.

“Well, Fergus, did you managed to, ah, complete the contract…?” Gibson all but sputtered, attempting to lean in and try a statelier like pose. The Sheriff’s face was clammy with sweat, and it had nothing to do with the climate. Even his grey and yellow linen robes held dank patches of moisture under the arms, across the top of his not insubstantial stomach, and in the centre of his chest.

“Look at my friggin’ face, Gibson! Does this glare look like I bagged a helicoprion basilisk!” Fergus shouted, approaching the desk. Such an aggressive strut was met by levelled spears, though hardly noticed.

Moist palms came up, and Gibson rolled back again. “For all we know it could have been a basilisk – we had one down there before you know,” he said, each word crashing into the beginning of the next one.

“Aye, a hundred odd years ago,” Kelby added, the barrel of his blunderbuss tilted subtly off to the side, a side covering the rightmost guard. “Ye told us.”

“But a friggin’ wolf! Gibson! Just what in all the gods that sentient minds can invent did you expect to happen? We could have been killed! Or worse. There could have been four more damnable wolves down there for you to deal with!” Fergus continued, an arm waving towards an open window, the other on his hip.

“You have a reputation, Fergus. A reputation many a hunter would sell out their own mothers for. You can kill anything it’s boasted. I needed that kind of talent,” Gibson rapidly explained, his lips quivering.

“Werewolves are a very esoteric type of prey,” Niva said, stepping forward. “There are specialists for that kind of work.”

Gibson nodded, outdated prejudices of cannibals adding a new fear to his wide eyes. “Yes, but, you have, her don’t you… I know you always hunt with an ex-Scalper, or Banisher, or whatever she is…” He shot a finger towards Lenush, standing quietly off to the side.

A sudden, and bright apprehension took life in Lenush’s eyes as she unexpectedly, and against her own wishes, became a part of the conversation.

“She has a name,” Niva growled.

“Well, no, ah, you are not correct in thinking the undead, or rather werewolves are within that particular, ah… Group,” Lenush stammered, eyes down, hands nervously flitting with each word.

“How in the name of every imaginary god, is a wolf like the undead? They are so far removed from one and other,” Fergus snapped.

“I don’t know, I just assumed…” Gibson replied with a pitch to his voice. “Look, wolf hunters are… Just mad, aren’t they? Like the Fang-Slayers. Puritanical. They’d have locked down the whole city, usurped my generals, and placed a curfew over the whole city! We can’t afford that. People need to be out there, in the markets. We need traders coming in, going out. And least of all no one needs a riot.”

“An’ wolf hun’ers are a king’s ransom to contract, eh, wee man?” Kelby sneered, disgustedly.

“You had the skills; the wolf is dead… Isn’t it?” Gibson blustered in an attempt to move on.

“Yes. The wolf is dead,” Fergus replied mournfully, looking away from the vile creature pretending to be something other than a parasite. His eyes were hurting from having to take in such an undignified, and shameless display.

“Rather, the curse is broken, and some poor citizen of your city is dead,” Niva stated, coldly, as if the weight of her voice could crush Gibson’s ego enough to let him experience a moment of empathy. His eyes darted back to Niva, more fear alighted in them. His prejudice was beginning to make Fergus furious.

“And the body? Who was it?” Gibson managed, gulping.

“We don’t know. And we burned the body,” Fergus replied, with a sigh, still looking away.

“Well, you have my, and the city’s thanks.”

“Shut up!” Fergus snapped, rounding on the administrator again. “How many of your citizens knew, and where are they now?”

“None, I swear!”

“Okay, let me rephrase. How many had some idea that this wasn’t a semi-aquatic, venom leaden serpent, and perhaps a friggin’ werewolf!?”

Gibson recoiled, almost tumbling from his chair. “I few, I mean, some, a couple of dozen. There had been reports of claws, dark fur, a wolf shaped head in the dark, and of course a howl or two…”

“And where are they now?”

“Well, I had them picked up and moved to a very cosy palace… My winter residence actually…”

“You impounded them!” Niva roared kicking over a bust of some noble looking elf. The marble thumped against the hardwood floor, doing greater harm to the wood than the floor did to the bust.

“So, they couldn’t talk, or spread panic… Gods of the Forge Mountains, you’re a sour, mangy twat, aren’t you,” Kelby sneered, before spitting on the wooden floor. For a moment, Fergus thought he might actually squeeze the trigger on his blunderbuss.

“I put them up in luxury,” Gibson foolishly tried again.

“I don’t care how shiny the friggin’ walls are, or how much crystal is scatted about!” Niva roared, stomping her way toward the desk. “It’s still an internment camp!”

“What of them now?” Fergus added.

“They’re in fine health, well fed, and… And… And such… And now that the beast is slain, they can be released… I mean go home!” Gibson shouted, clamping a hand over his mouth.

“Gods and other fictional nonsense,” Fergus sighed, running his hands through his dark, amber hair, clasping them at the back of his neck. “Let them go, compensate them, and leave them be. If they talk, whatever, the beast is dead anyhow. We’ve got contacts for the Foresters Guild here, and we will be checking in again to make sure they’re not exiled or harmed. Understood?”

A slick, shrill, scraping punctuated Fergus’ words, as Niva began sharpening one of her ancestral hunting daggers on a small whetstone. Fergus locked eyes with the miserable creature, weariness and frustration burning within his own. Gibson nodded, somehow managing to struggle to do even that under the strain of his fear.

“Good. Now, our payment,” Fergus stated firmly.

“Oh, yes, yes,” Gibson spluttered, all too eager to see the end to this meeting. He fumbled with a drawer and pulled a hefty purse out, which he tossed onto the far end of his desk. It made a very satisfying clunk as if settled.

Kelby stepped up and snatched the purse, tucking it into a satchel of his own. Then added, his and Fergus’ glare still fixed on Gibson, “Not nearly enough weight behind it for a wolf kill.”

Silence settled in the office, the same way floodwaters did upon a village after a storm.

Gibson swallowed, his hands twitching.

“Kelby,” Fergus said, still staring down the sheriff.

The dwarf looked to the left. “That one,” he said before lowering his blunderbuss and marching towards a landscape of a healthy-looking forest set behind fields teaming with game. With a gruff grunt, Kelby hefted the painting from the wall, a wide painting, taller than he was. Prize secured, Kelby staggered across to Lenush.

“’ere love, ah cannae see a thing,” he said passing the vast work to Lenush. He turned back to Fergus. “It’s a Rodgers. You could get a lovely wee village for any one o’ his works.”