Ikoria

by Wizards of the Coast

  “Not…in precisely the same way,” Vivien said. “There were great beasts, but they were fully part of the natural world. Your monsters are not.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “They are…singular.” Vivien frowned. “Animals are divided into species, you understand? Rabbits, pigs, horses, and so on, each reproducing itself. Plants as well. But each monster seems to be unique, a species unto itself. And I am told they change over their lifetimes?”

  “Sometimes, yeah.” Lukka frowned. He’d never thought about monsters that way before. “They get bigger, mostly, or develop new horns or scales or whatever. The oldest ones are usually the most dangerous.”

  “From an ecological point of view, your country is impossible. Too many predators, not enough prey, and each hunter different from the rest. This is why I wished to study it more closely.”

  “Speaking from the point of view of the prey,” Lukka said, “I feel like I already know everything I need to.”

  “Understandable,” Vivien said. “I hope I have not offended.”

  Lukka grunted. “Let’s find that outpost.”

  The boundary between the Third and Fourth rings wasn’t demarcated by any kind of fortification, but there were Coppercoat outposts at regular intervals, serving as bases for the soldiers who patrolled the border and responded to emergencies. Lukka headed for the closest of these, hoping that, like for the guards at the secondary wall, word from the city about his defection wouldn’t have reached any of the patrolmen.

  His luck held, and the lieutenant who was in command of the place went wide-eyed at the sight of one of the legendary Specials. Lukka requisitioned a fresh uniform, keeping his old one as a spare, and a pack full of wilderness gear, with rations for an extended journey. It made for quite a heavy load, but Lukka figured it might be a while before he had the chance to resupply.

  Vivien waited outside the little fort, rejoining Lukka when he emerged in fresh clothes.

  “You have finished your business?” she said politely.

  Lukka nodded. “We shouldn’t hang around too long. No telling when Kudro will get the word out to these little outposts. Once we’re out past the Fourth Ring, we won’t have much to worry about from Coppercoat patrols.” Monsters, on the other hand, are another matter.

  “The monster you seek does not seem to be moving, at least not quickly.” Vivien pointed. “I sense it in that direction, though it is still some distance off.”

  “Let me know if we start getting close. The last thing we want is it flying off again, so we’ll have to plan our approach carefully.”

  Vivien gave a careful nod.

  It was late afternoon when they ran into trouble, and they were well out into the Fourth Ring. The shepherds were gathering their flocks and taking them back into the Third Ring, and the loggers had long ago headed for home. It was possible, Lukka reflected, that there wasn’t a human being ahead of them for hundreds of miles.

  Closer to the city, he’d made a point of staying away from the major highways to keep out of sight, but out here he let Vivien lead the way. She had a knack for finding the easiest route, along streambeds or game trails, skirting the worst hills or tangles of forest. They were just cresting a ridgeline when Lukka felt a pulse on his shoulder and saw a flash of light in his warning crystal. He dropped to one knee and gestured Vivien to get down.

  “A problem?” she said.

  “Monster out there somewhere.” He scanned the surrounding terrain, then looked at the crystal again. The light was getting brighter. “Hopefully it’ll miss us. Stay quiet.”

  Vivien nodded. She drew her bow and took an arrow from the quiver that rode over her shoulder. Lukka slowly shrugged off his heavy pack and worked his knuckles against the hilt of his sword.

  Trees swayed at the base of the ridge, and something big broke through, climbing the slope, trailing a cloud of dust. It was heading right for them, fast enough that there was little doubt it had seen them already. Damn. I suppose our luck had to run out sometime.

  Lukka gave the thing a clinical once-over, old training kicking in. It was dinosaur-clade, with six legs and a bony crest at the back of its head, sporting long spines. A long, viciously curved beak reminded him of a bird of prey. Pebbled, leathery skin stretched back along its flanks, and two tails curled independently, each tipped with a mace-like ball.

  The first thing they taught you in the Coppercoats was never to face a monster alone. “Monsters are bigger, stronger, and meaner than any human being.” Lukka had taught that to recruits himself. “The only reason we survive is because we can work together.” And yet, here he was, his team dead or gone, with only Vivien for backup. Lukka took a deep breath and drew his sword.

  “I will halt it,” Vivien said. “That should give you an opening to strike.”

  “Halt it?” Lukka said dubiously. The thing was gaining speed as it crested the ridge, coming with the momentum of a runaway cart. “How?”

  “Trust me.” Vivien nocked an arrow.

  No time to do anything else. Lukka dropped into a crouch, facing the oncoming monster, and waited.

  Vivien let the arrow fly. Almost as soon as it left her bow, it began to crackle with green energy, torrents of powers shifting and coalescing around it into a massive shape. It was a huge beast, translucent green like the pig and the elk but many times larger, a four-legged creature with a long trunk, massive tusks, and a shaggy fur coat. It came into being at a full gallop, heading directly for the monster. The arrow, flying slightly ahead of the beast, struck the monster’s bony armor and glanced away, but a moment later dinosaur and arcane creation collided with a titanic bellow and a spray of green sparks.

  The monster’s horns dug into the shaggy beast’s chest, deep enough that they would have drawn blood on a real creature. Instead, green magic crackled across the two giants. The beast’s tusks scraped against the dinosaur’s flanks, not penetrating its scaly armor, and its trunk slammed and flailed against the monster’s eyes. The impact, though, had stopped the dinosaur dead in its tracks, just as Vivien had promised. Which I suppose is my cue.

  Lukka broke into a run, approaching the dinosaur from the side. The beast’s assault was an excellent distraction, and he closed in easily. Bony protrusions on the monster’s knees provided a convenient handhold—he jumped, took hold with his free hand, and swung himself up onto its flank. All six legs strained and shifted, shoving the thing against Vivien’s beast. Lukka pulled himself up to the shoulder, where legs met body, and braced his feet against the scales.

  “Joints are always vulnerable.” Another thing they taught to recruits. Any body that had bones and needed to shift and bend—which, to be fair, didn’t include some elementals and nightmares—had weak spots where those bones came together. When facing something twenty times your size, a weak spot was often the only place you could do damage at all.

  With a yell, Lukka slammed his sword into the monster’s hide, point down. The steel point bit through the scales and sank into the meat beneath, cutting and tearing until it shuddered against bone. Lukka yanked the blade free, and a gush of blood came with it. The monster shook with rage and pain, but he’d expected that and kept his footing. The green beast bellowed and slammed into the dinosaur again, holding its attention long enough for Lukka to steady himself for another strike, and then another.

  Finally, the creature had had enough. It twisted free of the beast’s tusks and reared up onto its back legs, giving a titanic heave that sent Lukka flying. Reflexively, he gathered himself into a ball, rolling when he hit the grass and popping back to his feet. The monster, dragging two legs on one side, was retreating down the hill, trailing gouts of blood.

  Lukka struggled back to his feet and retrieved his sword. Vivien fastened her strange bow over her shoulder, while her beast melted away into motes of green light.

  “It won’t get far,” Lukka said,
looking at the blood trail. “Come on. We can catch up and finish it off.”

  “I will not,” Vivien said calmly. “If you wish to part ways, I wish you good fortune.”

  “We can’t just leave it,” Lukka said.

  “Why not?” Vivien said.

  “Because it’s a monster.” Lukka felt like he was speaking to an idiot child. “And it’s wounded. If we leave it alone, it will heal, and someday someone else will have to kill it.”

  “That is the only possible outcome? That someone kills it?”

  “Or else it kills some humans, and then that’s on your head,” Lukka said. “You saw how it came after us. You were pretty quick with your bow then.”

  “Every living creature has the right to defend itself,” Vivien said. “That includes you and me. But I will not slaughter something that is no threat to me, monster or not.”

  “You–” Lukka stared at her, frustrated. He shook his head and slammed his sword back into its scabbard. “You don’t understand how things work here, what my people have had to do to survive.”

  “I admit that I do not,” Vivien said. “It is one of the things I hope to learn.”

  “Let’s go.” Lukka took a last look at the fleeing monster as it returned to the woods. “I want to get this over with.”

  ***

  Dogsbreath rubbed the sticky leaf between his fingers, then took a sniff.

  “Blood,” he said. “A monster. And it’s fresh.”

  “And not too far out of our way, either.” Mzed spread her arms in a great clatter of bone. “What do you think, cowards?

  “Cowards,” Jirina had learned, was just how Mzed addressed her crew in general terms. It was one of many little eccentricities she’d had to get used to since they’d left Drannith.

  Though her current assignment was as a staff officer, Jirina had done her share of field work earlier in her career, tramping through the wilderness to bring down monsters before they threatened the walls. She had never fooled herself that her path had been as hard as most in the Coppercoats—no one ever forgot who her father was—but she liked to think she’d pulled her own weight.

  She remembered those expeditions as quiet and professional. Her squad had operated as a team, with everyone knowing their assigned task, while taking general direction from their captain’s orders. They hadn’t grumbled or complained, and personal drama had been kept to a minimum.

  Mzed’s hunters were…not like that.

  Jirina had guessed that any group of professional monster slayers had to have at least a basic level of competence, and she’d been right, after a fashion. The hunters carried plenty of weapons, and certainly seemed to know how to use them. Apart from that, though, they couldn’t have been more different from a Coppercoat squad. They wore no uniforms, openly defied orders, and bickered and insulted one another constantly.

  One thing that they had in common was that they all cultivated a ghastly appearance. Mzed, for example, wore a steel mask that covered most of her face. The left side of her features, which the mask left visible, bore a horrible burn scar, the flesh lumpy and discolored from her hairline down to her chin. Her armor was decorated with bones, hundreds of them, hanging from wire hooks and clattering against one another whenever she moved. The blade she carried diagonally across her back was longer than she was.

  Dogsbreath, on the other hand, was a big, solid man with little in the way of ornamentation. His mask was a snarling hound, exquisitely detailed, which he hardly ever took off. He was their tracker and trapper, with a hundred clever, cruel devices strapped to his side or hidden in his pack.

  The other three were Toothcracker, a huge man in steel-banded leather who fought with a maul made from a monster’s giant tooth; Sedra, a half-mad arcanist whose mask was a laughing skull; and Nightshade, a skinny young woman who specialized in lures and poisons. Jirina had so far managed to avoid saying much to any of them beyond a few pleasantries. Now she spoke up, hesitantly.

  “We need to catch up with Lukka,” Jirina said. “He’s moving quickly. If we take a detour, we may not be able to–”

  “We’re all excited about the prospect of delivering your crush back to the General,” Mzed said, the visible half of her mouth quirking into a cruel grin. “But that doesn’t mean we can afford to pass up an easy kill. Not all of us have a lifetime meal ticket at the Citadel, eh?”

  “I say take the kill,” Dogsbreath said. “I can always pick up Lukka’s trail again afterward.”

  “Take it,” Toothcracker boomed. “ ‘M bored. Need to hit something.”

  “There’s a way in, there,” Sedra said, and giggled behind her skull mask. “Find it, and we’ll find the specter, and then–”

  “Shut up, you bloody lunatic,” Nightshade spat. “I say take it. That’s four votes to one, with one too bloody out of her skull to count.”

  “Fair’s fair,” Mzed said, looking back at Jirina. “You can stay behind, if you like.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” Jirina said. Otherwise, gods know where you’d wander off to.

  Father, what have you gotten me into?

  ***

  Coppercoats said that there had to be a little bit wrong with someone if they became a hunter.

  After all, Drannith’s military was ready and willing to welcome anyone who wanted to defend humanity from the monsters. While not every recruit could hope to be a part of the Specials or reach the heights of some other prestigious branch of the service, bodies were always needed to man the walls, patrol the forests, or work in the forges and fletcheries. Every schoolchild in the city learned that all hands were needed to keep the threat at bay.

  In spite of that, there were those who chose to strike out on their own, to take the fight to the monsters on their own terms. Some were foreigners who’d drifted to Drannith because the Coppercoats paid good bounties. Others were those whose temperament made them ill-suited to military life, which was a more polite way of saying “criminals and madmen.” The Coppercoats tolerated them as long as they stayed out of the city proper, because any dead monster had to be a good thing for humanity as a whole.

  Hunter bands often spent as much time fighting one another as they did hunting monsters, hence the emphasis on intimidating masks and other bravado. It wasn’t unknown for one band to jump another and steal their kill, or even for a band to fall out amongst themselves and slaughter one another when there were particularly rich pickings to be had.

  Mzed’s group seemed more coherent than most, for whatever that was worth. They’d been together for at least a year, which was considered a long time in hunter circles, and while they might moan and protest, Mzed’s authority wasn’t often challenged. In the day or so since they’d set out from Drannith, Jirina had followed along beside them, feeling like a visitor from another world in her neat Coppercoat uniform beside their masks and rag-tag gear.

  Now they were close to Lukka—he was only a half-day ahead, according to Dogsbreath—and Mzed had decided to veer from a direct pursuit to kill a monster her tracker had happened to smell. Part of Jirina was a little relieved, since she still wasn’t sure what would happen when they actually caught up with Lukka. But either way, it was probably better to get it over with quickly. I need to get back to the city and start working on Father.

  Nothing to be done about that now, though. Instead she walked at Mzed’s side as the hunters followed Dogsbreath down a hillside, toward a stand of trees marked with a splash of browning gore.

  “Someone tore a chunk out of this thing,” Nightshade said. “Another monster, maybe?”

  “Maybe.” Dogsbreath sniffed the air. “Don’t smell any other beasties nearby.”

  “It has bright little eyes,” Sedra said. “Watching, watching, I’ll pop them out and set them like jewels in my chain. Avaunt!”

  She pointed. Beyond the screen of trees, a huge shape moved sluggishly.


  “About damn time.” Toothcracker hefted his maul and roared, a deep, reverberating sound, like his throat was made of steel. As it faded away, he charged.

  “We all know you can shout, you bloody show-off,” Nightshade said. “No need to break everyone’s eardrums.”

  Jirina tensed and put her hand on her own sword, but Mzed seemed unworried, even when the monster broke through the tree line. It was a six-legged dinosaur, limping badly on one side and unable to reach a gallop, but still a terrifyingly vast presence. Even Toothcracker, who was big enough that he made Jirina feel like a child, suddenly seemed tiny. The monster matched his roar with a shriek, its beak opening wide.

  Sedra gestured sharply, and bright light flashed in front of the monster’s eyes, accompanied by a crack of thunder. The arcanist’s spell distracted the thing for a crucial half-second, enough time for Toothcracker to wind up and swing his maul overhand against its head. The huge weapon was simply a broken-off tooth from some much larger monster, lumpy and rough at one end and cracked at the other. It slammed into the dinosaur’s bony crest with a crunch, breaking off one of its horns and leaving it staggering. Its beak snapped wildly, forcing Toothcracker to take a hasty step back.

  “Bloody idiot,” Nightshade said. She’d unwrapped a sling, a long cord with a leather pocket at the end, and whirled it lightly over her head. “Always ready to piss something off without thinking what happens after.”

  She let fly, a clay globe arcing out and shattering squarely against the monster’s remaining horn. Green liquid spattered across the thing, and almost immediately began to sizzle, scaled skin melting and bubbling beneath it. The dinosaur gave another shriek, this one in pain, and sank to its knees, desperately scraping its horn against the dirt.

  Jirina had a sour taste at the back of her throat, watching Toothcracker close in again and slam the creature in the side with his maul. She heard bones break, and the wretched thing flailed, unable to get back on its feet. The hunters were laughing, gathering round as it became clear there was no fight left in the creature.