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The silence of the winter night was barely disturbed, and mostly by animal noises too minute for human hearing. For the hunters, only the steady whisper of the slight breeze through bare branches, and the occasional call of a local owl, interrupted the pristine quiet. This was a well-tended forest, left to grow somewhat wild during the inept reign of the previous Duke Madouri; some underbrush had been allowed to encroach, not due to be culled by its newer and more skilled custodians until the spring, but apart from that brief lapse it had been lovingly cared for. It showed, now, in spacious paths through the trees—pleasant to walk in, but not ideal for this night’s business, especially with the paltry cover provided by winter trees.
But they were the Huntsmen of Shaath. They more than merely made do, but relished the challenge.
Clad in white furs, making skillful use of the scant shadows and disciplining themselves to utter stillness, the party remained where they had surreptitiously arrived nearly an hour before in a stand of trees closest to the wide cleared space around their target, warded against the cold both by their thick winter gear and the fae blessings inherent to this night’s sacred work.
Across that expanse of pure snow, disturbed by countless tracks to an uneven carpet rather than the glassy smoothness that still lay farther out, stood the palace. The lodge, or so generations of the Madouri family had had the nerve to call it; the insult in architecture, clearly based on the sensibilities of a Shaathist longhouse but designed to suit the opulent tastes of a line who were practically kings and queens within the Empire. Entire tree trunks ornately carved into towering sculptures served as pillars, intricate marble made up the walls, and vast windows afforded its occupants a glorious view over the surrounding forest and nearby village—also making the place a nightmare to keep heated in this weather.
Or at least, it would have been, when it was built. Now undoubtedly that glass was heavily enchanted. The so-called lodge certainly did not lack for fairy lights; most were dark at this hour, but a few windows blazed with radiance against the darkness where the occupants of some rooms seemed to have business keeping them up.
An owl hooted. None of the Huntsmen reacted, holding their stillness as they listened to the pattern. Or rather, the lack of one. That was just an owl.
Tents had been erected around the lodge, far more respectable dwellings to the Huntsmen’s sensibilities. Though they were mostly made of modern oiled canvas rather than traditional hides, at least they were tents, with telltale wisps of smoke emerging from their roof vents to reveal they were heated by proper fires rather than portable arcane ranges.
The heretics had that much good sense, at least. Brother Cameron would never have voiced this in front of his brother Huntsmen, but in private he couldn’t blame Ingvar and his pack for moving into the disgustingly ornate palace masquerading as a proper lodge; working for the Duchess was a perfectly sensible move, politically, and appeasing House Madouri naturally would involve certain compromises of this nature. The tents at least proved that he was trying to coach his people in proper outdoor skills, rather than having them all lounge about in their aristocratic digs.
Still silent, the group watched the scout patrol again, for the third time since they had slipped into this last patch of cover. That was enough repetition for them to have the schedule down. It was, for the moment, just one patrol making slow loops around the perimeter of the grounds—wide loops, as they had chosen to encircle not just the lodge but the surrounding tents.
“Such a beautiful shot,” Brother Harvik whispered, barely more than a breath misting on the air. One hand stroked his longbow with clear intent.
Cameron shot him a sidelong glare. “Do not.”
“I’m not an idiot, Brother. Just…regretting the lost opportunity.”
It was said without rancor, and he was right; it was a beautiful shot. Wide open space, just within longbow range, and a slowly-moving target. Cameron was unfortunately uncertain of some of his fellow Huntsmen, as large and diverse an operation as this was. He knew there would be those among them who would not balk at murdering a scout, for all that he considered such a ruthless military decision to be the worst kind of Avenist perfidy. Nearly as bad, a lot of them would fail to comprehend the political stakes of this situation, and the importance of maintaining the moral high ground through bloodless action. Thankfully, he was at least certain that everyone here was too intelligent to commit the tactical blunder—surely Grandmaster Veisroi would not have sent any real fools on the Wild Hunt.
The patrol party consisted of one human in a cloak—a gray-green Ranger cloak rather than proper camouflage for the season, but clearly they weren’t on the hunt. Such a target alone might have tempted some of the less circumspect of the Huntsmen, but there was also the huge glowing wolf with strange markings pacing alongside the human. None of them even knew the capabilities of those aberrant beasts, though made of blended fae and divine energies as they were, there was a real chance that even a shaft from their double-blessed longbows would fail to dispatch it. Even worse was the pixie bobbing and swirling along with them. Truly an impossible target, and one an arrow probably wouldn’t affect even if by some miracle it hit. They were unpredictable little monsters—reports from the West where they’d been spreading out since the Battle of Ninkabi suggested they varied between virtually harmless and virtually unstoppable. Regardless of its status as a threat, it would definitely raise the entire lodge if someone sniped its companion. They were all of them damnably loud.
Again, a soft hoot of a distant owl—this time in one of the prescribed sequences. Brother Cameron let out a soft breath of satisfaction, shifting his head just enough to bring the rest of his hunting party into view.
“Unless those windows facing us go dark in the next minutes, we are consigned to keeping watch,” he murmured, pitching his voice just barely loud enough to be heard by his companions. To a man they grimaced in displeasure, but remained too disciplined to voice a complaint. “Brother Vjann, the second that patrol is facing away.”
Vjann’s cowled head nodded once in acknowledgment, and stillness resumed as they all watched the three Shadow Hunters—or one Shadow Hunter and two familiars, it was unclear how the heretics counted such things—make their steady way around the closest of the tents.
Long, tense seconds later, they had crested the curve and begun to swing away again, and as instructed the shaman closed his eyes, raising one fist to cover his mouth and whispered into it.
Seconds more passed before the messenger returned, due to its circuitous approach. The spirit falcon came from behind them, the opposite direction as the lodge, gliding low to the ground and having to maneuver around trees and bushes before it came to alight on Vjann’s glove. Such measures were necessary: a Shaathist shaman’s spirit companions were spectral, incandescent creatures of blue light despite taking the shapes of mundane animals. A glowing, fast-moving target would be impossible for anyone paying the slightest attention to miss if it passed against the night sky, but hugging the ground, the effect of moonlight upon snow served to hide it quite well.
The shaman held the incorporeal bird up to his face, eyes closed and forehead tilted forward to meet its beak. After a moment passed in silent communication, Vjann opened his eyes and turned to Cameron, nodding once.
“All is well. We have not been sighted. Our group and one other are overlooked by lit windows with signs of activity; the other four have clear angles of approach. Every target has been selected; spirit wolves easily singled out tents occupied by runaways from Shaathvar. There is no sign of Ingvar.”
Cameron nodded back, turning to study the large expanse of their target. The last was unwelcome but unsurprising news; the Shadow Hunters’ leader would undoubtedly be deep within the lodge, well-protected. The Wild Hunt would reach him eventually, but that was not the aim of this night’s hunt. It was wise to weaken a bear before challenging it directly.
The brightly lit window overlooking the section of surrounding forest which faced them almost directly held more than just inappropriately timed illumination: even as Cameron studied it again, shadows shifted across the glass. That was a large room, containing several wide-awake people. Whether or not they were actively on watch, at this angle they could not fail to notice a party crossing the grounds toward them. Even being backlit by their own artificial lights would not spare the hunters, not with the vivid glow of moonlight upon thick snow. He studied their own target tent, confirmed by Vjann’s own spirit wolf to contain only women who had fled their rightful filial duties in Shaathvar—these so-called Harpies whom the Duchess Madouri had abducted and the Shadow Hunters were now apparently training in their heretical arts. The trickle of smoke through its vent flap seemed to mock him, but he let it go. A hunter could not expect to catch the best prey with every attempt.
“And magic?”
Vjann shook his head. “The Mother’s power lies thick on these grounds, its form unfamiliar. No conventional wards, not that I or the other shamans recognize as such. We cannot be sure what lies in wait.”
“Then we must act, and adapt. Begin it.”
Vjann lifted the spirit hawk to his face again, closing his eyes and silently communing with the fae familiar. Moments later, it spread its wings and swept back the way it had come—this time, not arcing around to the other hunting parties lying in wait, but all the way back to the Wild Hunt’s temporary camp and waiting transportation. Once its message was delivered to the shamans waiting there, everything would be set in motion.
“We have prepared as best we can,” Cameron said softly to his men, taking advantage of the last moments in which to give instruction. “Perhaps it is well that two of the parties must hang back and watch; we may have to react quickly to changes in the field. We know not the capability of the heretics’ witchery. Moreover, do not forget whose summer palace that originally was. The House of Madouri have been duplicitous serpents for a thousand years, and this new Duchess is a student of Tellwyrn and ally of the dark Houses of Veilgrad. Be unceasingly alert, and be surprised by nothing.”
All the Huntsmen nodded once in acknowledgment. Cameron nodded back, and left it at that. The reminder was sufficient; Huntsmen of Shaath required no elaborate lectures nor stirring speeches, and would appreciate neither.
There was not much longer to wait before the wind rose. Gently at first, yet even so it seemed to cut through layers of fur, fabric and leather. The Huntsmen made no complaint, keeping their shivering silent, their movements slow enough not to attract attention and just vigorous enough to keep circulation going. The light dimmed as the tendrils of cloud drifted across the formerly clear sky, growing steadily thicker with the passing minutes.
Cameron, like nearly everyone here—like, indeed, almost all active Huntsmen of Shaath on this continent—had been in Tiraas for the demon attack two years ago. At that time, a blessed arrow shot into the sky had called down the blessing of Shaath upon the city, shrouding it in the snowy winds of the Stalrange and serving the more strategically important purpose of hampering all infernal magic and cutting off shadow-jumping. It had been an awe-inspiring sight, one he felt privileged to have observed firsthand.
The rumors were that more recently, Ingvar himself had performed the same sacrament at Last Rock to aid in the pursuit of some demon or other. It was an important reminder—both of the power of their prey, and that Ingvar himself had been placed high in Shaath’s estimation before succumbing to heresy.
Obviously, they could not do the same here. Activating that ritual involved firing a glowing arrow high into the sky, which their prey would assuredly notice and react to. The change in weather it induced was likewise sudden and extreme, so unnatural it would raise alarm even if the inciting arrow were not observed. This hunt called for something slower and more subtle, and also less laden with the Mother’s power—because against this prey in particular, that too would betray their presence.
So it came on relatively slowly. In fact, quite swiftly as changes in the weather went, but gradual enough to be plausibly the work of nature. The first flurries of snow were simply lifted off the ground by the growing breeze, but as the sky gradually darkened more began to drift downward. They could not call up a proper storm without putting their targets on the defensive, but cloud cover and drifting flakes would at least increase their stealth. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the cover to be sufficient—or as close to sufficient as Cameron judged it.
He was pleased, so far, with how the Wild Hunt was cooperating—notably its lack of infighting. The plague of nightmares had driven a wedge not only through Shaath’s cult and the entire social fabric of the Stalrange, but even between those factions who remained loyal to the true path. Huntsmen had been trickling away to pledge themselves to the heretics ever since the great fae tumult which preceded the Battle of Ninkabi. It was mostly the comfortable, mentally flexible middle ground who had turned from them, leaving behind only the most harsh of fanatics and those like Cameron: the progressively-minded, politically astute members often derided by the former group as “city Huntsmen.” In short, precisely the two groups who held each other in the most contempt. Grandmaster Veisroi and Brother Andros were keeping order by the skin of their teeth, constantly emphasizing that the ongoing nightmares were a penance for their failure to prevent the rise of Ingvar’s heretics. Cameron had heard that it was not going so well elsewhere; rumors and more substantiated tales of lodges tearing themselves apart continually trickled into Tiraas.
But a Wild Hunt was the most sacred of charges, and this one was aimed at the heart of what plagued Shaath’s loyal people. A common purpose, and a sacred one; for now, it served to bind them together. He prayed it would continue to hold.
Best, however, not to give his men a moment longer to stew than necessary. They had done meticulous reconnaissance, and now waited only long enough for their cover to hold. Even as he watched, another window in the palace that dared call itself a lodge ignited, causing him to wince. Blessedly it was one facing his group; unless more had come on from angles he could not see, they would not prevent the four hunting parties who still had a clear line of access to make their move.
Even cloud cover would not create true darkness, so good was pure snow at reflecting light—especially with illumination from the lodge blazing upon it. Hoping he was not acting in excessive haste, Cameron waited only until the stars had disappeared behind the thickening haze before turning to nod at one of his men.
Brother Yorgen nodded back and raised his cupped hands to his mouth, producing a sequence of hoots that perfectly mimicked the native owls. Seconds later, it was repeated from the north and west, then from further out as the signal was passed.
And so it began.
From this angle, Cameron was able to see two of the parties moving in. They were swift, but he was pleased that they did not sacrifice discretion to haste. Someone less watchful might have mistaken the white-furred shapes slinking along the ground for normal patterns of shadow cast by the clouds scudding along beneath the moon, especially with the intermittent haze of snow. He could not help feeling a swell of pride at the skill of his fellow Huntsman, even though circumstances denied himself and his party the opportunity to display their own.
It was not only the Huntsmen, though, who knew such craft. When it happened it was so swift he nearly missed it.
One moment it looked as if the vague patch of moving shadows that was one of his hunting parties rippled and expanded, and then it entirely stopped moving. Cameron fixed his eyes on the spot, narrowing them in concentration. If they had seen movement, they would naturally have frozen till they could be certain they were not spotted, but something about it seemed…
Then movement resumed, and only after a few seconds of watching did he discern the pattern. The shifting shapes were not proceeding toward their target tent, but shuffling among…the shapes which were no longer moving. Turning them over, checking them. It was hard to notice from this distance, through the swirling flakes, but he suddenly realized that from the now-still figures, crimson was spreading across the snow.
Cameron’s eyes widened as comprehension set in. Ambush. He snapped his head around to see… The same. The other group within his view had been taken down with swift and contemptuous silence, and were now being rummaged through by their attackers.
They’d been under the snow. Waiting there since before the Huntsmen had even arrived, enduring the cold in utter stillness for hours… Somehow positioned upon the precise paths each of their hunting parties would take toward the tents, which even the Huntsmen had not known until they had arrived. Who could do that?
“Yorgen, call retreat,” he hissed, already shifting backward. “We must report to the Grandmaster.”
Brother Yorgen toppled forward into the snow with an arrow protruding from the back of his neck.
In the distance before them, midway between their stand of trees and the tent which would have been their target had they not been dissuaded by the glowing windows of the lodge, snow erupted as those who had been concealed in ambush there burst out and came charging in near-silence toward Cameron’s position.
As one, he and his men whirled, and beheld that in addition to Yorgen they had lost two others, silently felled at the rear of the group. One by an arrow, one he could not… No, that was a dart protruding from his back. Poison.
He couldn’t see his foe, nor hear them! They were being charged from what was now their rear, and sniped from—
It wasn’t Cameron who first spotted them, but Brother Harvik, raising his longbow to fire an arrow into the skeletal branches above them. There was no dodging an arrow at that range, though the motion of raising his bow gave the enemy enough warning to move. The shaft struck an indirect blow—a non-lethal one, to judge by the cry and ensuing thrashing in the snow after their attacker landed on the ground.
They were in the trees. To hide in those bare branches they would have to have been perfectly camouflaged, and utterly still in the bitter cold, for hours. Looking up now, Cameron saw movement as another arrangement of branches took aim with a shortbow, and another with a blowpipe.
“Run! Go!” he roared, throwing caution aside. It was too late for that. Harvik took an arrow in the shoulder with a grunt but kept going; Vjann silently dropped with another poison dart.
As they burst out of the copse and charged back toward their rendezvous point, Cameron got his first look at the weakly moving foe who had fallen out of the tree.
A lizardman?
Nonsense. Lizardfolk assiduously kept out of human conflicts. Hell, they preserved and hoarded food three seasons out of the year and stayed in their dens all winter! Being ambushed in the snow by lizardfolk was…absurd.
As he dodged and weaved, running an erratic course to evade the hunters closing on him, Cameron bitterly realized how he had failed to follow his own advice: be surprised by nothing. Damn Ingvar and damn Ravana bloody Madouri, no one could have anticipated this! He had never even realized just how effective the lizards were as hunters. They so fervently kept to themselves that he’d never heard a rumor they were such a decisive match for Huntsmen in their skill.
An arrow grazed him; he felt another impact on his back as a dart stuck in his fur cloak, failing to penetrate to his skin. Only one of his brother Huntsmen had pulled ahead of him, and right before Cameron’s eyes the man dropped with a grunt, a dart protruding from his neck. Behind, he heard a cry as another of his brothers was felled. Gritting his teeth, he ran. The Grandmaster must be warned.
Behind Cameron was only one other set of footsteps now; he dared not turn even to see who. They made it across the open patch of snow leading up to their previous copse and into another stand of trees. The Huntsmen did not slow, darting around trunks and between leafless bushes, making full use of the available cover to throw their pursuer further off the scent. Even in haste, even through the impediment of midwinter snow, Huntsmen were adept in the forest, fleet as gazelles. They would make it—
A thump and another strangled cry, and the last of his brothers was no longer running with him.
Brother Cameron clenched his teeth and forced more energy into his frantically pumping legs. He ached to turn and strike back, even if it was futile, yearned to go down fighting as a man ought. But he was not just a man, he was part of something greater than himself, and someone must inform Grandmaster Veisroi of what had happened here.
He was almost clear. This was the last stretch of forest separating him from their base camp, where powerful shamans awaited with an honor guard of Huntsmen, surrounding the trucks which were ready to carry their planned cargo back to the lodge. The lizardfolk had caught them unawares, but they would not succeed in a frontal assault against such an array of strength.
There were no sounds of pursuit behind him, nothing but his breath and his feet in the snow. He did not dare relax his pace, even as he burst out of the treeline and charged down the hill toward…
Three trucks were parked just where they had been left. Around them were strewn the bodies of his shamans and brother Huntsmen, either lying amid spreading crimson stains in the snow, or slumped against the trucks with their limbs bound and heads covered in bags. Upright figures all around turned to face him as he sped toward them, a mix of humans in Ranger cloaks, great glowing wolves, and darting, chiming pixies.
Cameron did not stop. He slowed, though, recognizing futility when it reared up before him. There was…no point, anymore. Nothing to run toward, or from. When he reached the base of the hill it was at a measured walk, his labored breath already calming even as it misted upon the frigid air.
One figure stepped forward to meet him—one he recognized, though they had not met in person before. Finally, he came to a stop, a handful of yards distant. Ignoring the weapons and lupine snarls aimed at him, and studying the man he had thought must be secured deep in the lodge.
“There is no joy in this for anyone,” Ingvar stated, regarding him with his jaw grimly set. “Had things been different, I would have been glad to call you Brother.”
“Aye,” Cameron said, permitting himself a soft sigh. It was funny, how life turned out; from the descriptions left behind at the lodge in Tiraas, he had always thought that Ingvar sounded like someone he would have been glad to call a friend, had he not turned against them. He was hardly inclined to wax sentimental about it, though. Not out loud, not here and now. “But we have all made our choices.”
“So we have.” Ingvar nodded once, deeply, an acknowledgment of one man to another.
Something pricked the back of Cameron’s neck through the hood of his cloak. Hard; it stung worse than a hornet, though only for a second. By the time he landed face-first in the snow, consciousness had faded to black.
The Gods are Bastards 