Dawn of the Hunters

by Ryan Wieser

  They breathed in unison. Their hearts beat as one. They searched from the sky like a bird of prey, flying on the breeze, eyeing the sandy dunes below. They soared above sand walls and dipped into gorges. They moved quickly, gaining pace, searching more thoroughly, no single Hunter pulling in the wrong direction. And Jessop felt what they all felt—that guiding them was Falco. He forced them forward and drew their shared eye over each potential movement below, determining their course. He was their leader.

  Jessop found herself squeezing his hand tighter, offering all of her abilities to him, all of her power and all of her faith. She was a vessel for strength and destruction. Her power was without compare, but she knew her faults. Falco was a leader. She searched over the sand, over the miles of glistening golden desert. They traveled far—further than she had thought they would need to. They passed over more Soren and groups of nomadic travelers. They passed the last source of water for what would have been miles and miles. They flew low to an adjacent cave and ducked under—

  His laugh. Jessop heard Jeco’s laugh.

  “Jeco!” She screamed for him, and as she opened her eyes, believing for just a moment that she truly was at the caves, she accidentally wrenched free from the search and fell back into the present, surrounded by warriors and soldiers, many miles away from her son. She had broken their connection.

  “Jeco, Jeco!” She shrieked, but it was pointless. She was standing in the circle of disoriented Hunters. She pulled her hand from Kohl and grabbed onto Falco. “He was there! He was at those caves! We need to go.”

  He nodded quickly. “I know. I heard him too.”

  “Let’s g—”

  Jessop’s words died out under the sound of drums—a loud beating, shaking the sands, echoing around them. “What is that?”

  Falco did not answer. He did not know. They all looked around, as the beating grew louder and louder.

  “The Soren!” Kohl was the first to realize, his voice ringing out between booming drum beats.

  Jessop unsheathed her sword. “They’re back?” The drums grew louder and louder. The brigands were close. The sound was coming from just beyond the dune wall, where the remaining Soren had watched her warily.

  “Apparently they didn’t take well to you cooking their leader,” Kohl snapped, removing his own sword.

  “Imagine that,” Falco scoffed, shaking his shoulders loose before drawing his weapon.

  Jessop flicked her gaze between the two men, watching as they amped up for battle. Falco had been planning on killing Kohl, and here they were, ready to fight together once more, exchanging quick quips. She had no interest in the state of their relationship—their brotherly banter contrasting with every time one had tried to kill the other. She needed to get to those caves. She needed to get to Jeco.

  Urdo turned to face her. “We will hold them off—you get to your son.”

  She could see the throngs of Soren coming over the rise. “You need me.” She was prepared to run off into the desert, but some part of her faltered. She didn’t want to leave them to die. She had never felt loyalty to any other than Falco and yet, she hesitated at Urdo’s side.

  “They’re desert bandits, Jessop—nothing we can’t handle. Just go!”

  They might have just been desert bandits, but there were many of them, perhaps near one hundred. Dressed all in red tunics, armed with crude weapons, they stared down on the Hunters and warriors with a steely determination, their metal and bone forms ready to avenge their leader.

  “Jessop, go!”

  She turned to Falco when all of the sudden a large bag was being thrust into her arms. She wrapped an arm around the parcel, looking into the inky blue eyes of Teck Fay. Go, Jessop, he whispered into her mind. With a twirl of his cloak, he spun away from her, vanishing.

  “Ready yourselves, Kuroi! Far’a harana! Far’a harana!” Dezane’s voice called out and immediately the Kuroi warriors moved into a formation, spears and shields at the ready, short swords drawn.

  “At the ready!” Mar’e yelled from her place near Dezane, as she drew her own blade. Jessop watched as the Kuroi woman shifted her gaze to Kohl. She held him in her stare for a long moment and then readied her stance beside Dezane and her warriors.

  “Wait!” Jessop yelled, urging them not to charge the brigands.

  Her eyes had fallen to the still smoking wreckage, the vessel that the Soren had brought down. Heaps of metal were strewn all about, ripped from the Soar-Craft when it crashed. She focused on the great body of the destroyed machine. She threw her hands out and the heap began to shake. She had used much of her energy already on preventing the vessel she had traveled on from crashing and searching for Jeco in the caves. She needed help.

  Falco saw her intentions and joined her effort. He hit Kohl in the arm to get his attention. Kohl looked from the wreckage to Jessop and focused his energy. With the three of them sharing a common goal, the smoking metal body levitated high above the ground. They held it for a second, as if getting a stronger grip, before lobbing it over the surviving Soar-Craft, over the heads of the Kuroi warriors and Falco’s army, towards the Soren.

  Many leapt out of the way—but they also struck many. Urdo and Dezane didn’t wait any longer, seeing the opportune moment to strike. They charged, leading their soldiers forward without looking back to her. She wished she could help them. She reminded herself, as she watched them run towards the Soren, that they were some of the greatest warriors she’d ever met. She told herself, as she turned and began to run into the desert, that if any could survive, it was them.

  * * * *

  Falco ran at her side. They sprinted, zipping up sand walls, sliding down dunes, making their way blindly towards the caves they had seen earlier. It had taken her a near minute to realize Kohl had run with them. She couldn’t stop to question him; they needed to put enough distance between themselves and the Soren first. They sprinted silently; their strong bodies were built for endurance.

  As she ran, her sword sheathed on her hip, the bag Teck had given her tight under her embrace, she thought of more than just Jeco. She thought of Urdo and Dezane. She thought of the Soren. She thought of them running, weapons drawn. They had sacrificed so much for her. She hoped that their lives wouldn’t be added onto that debt.

  As the three of them slid down a near-vertical drop into a dune, Falco grabbed her arm. The ground began to level out and he pulled her to a slow stop. “Stop for a minute —we can stop.”

  She pulled free from him and rounded on Kohl. “Why did you follow us?”

  Sweat dripped down his brow as he tried to regain his breath. “I ...Because I can help you.”

  She narrowed her eyes on him. “You could have helped them! They need you—not Falco and I.”

  “I just figured…” he began, looking from her to Falco, back to her.

  “What? You figured what?”

  Falco grabbed her hand, urging her to calm herself.

  “It just seemed like the right thing to do.”

  She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at him. “Yeah, follow the two people you’ve most recently been at war with. Sure, that seems like the right thing to do.”

  Falco shook his head at her. “It does feel right, Jessop.”

  “What?”

  “The others will be fine and Urdo will search for us when he’s ready. They face common brigands. We are going after Hydo Jesuin. Kohl made the right choice in coming to help us.”

  She stared at him with disbelief. She had ruined Kohl’s life for Falco and now she was tormented by her actions, and they had reignited their brotherly relationship. “You were planning on killing him just days ago.”

  “That was then.”

  “You’ve only just been reunited and instantly the brethren bond appears once again, strong as ever.”

  He reached for her hand once more, but she ripped out of his reach. �
�Don’t. Just don’t, Falco.”

  Kohl cleared his throat. “There’s more, Jessop. There are things I haven’t told you. Things I need to tell you.”

  “Such as?”

  “Things I found out when I was with Hydo and Hanson. Things that I do not know much of, but what I do know, you should know.”

  She stared at him with anger and suspicion. She had been terrified of him dying, despite at times wanting to kill him. She had mourned the relationship they’d once had. She had cared for him and he had loved her. And now, it seemed as though he loved Falco more, despite their years of mutual hatred. She wasn’t jealous ...She was mad.

  “You are bringing this up with me now?”

  “At first, I wasn’t going to tell you. Then I didn’t want the last words between us, if Falco had killed me, to be hearsay from Hydo. When Jeco went missing, I thought I could find a time to bring up what I had learned ...Either way, now might be the only time we have.”

  She was impatient with him. Impatient with both of them, impatient with waiting in the bottom of a dune for a battle to finish behind them and one to start ahead of them. “And what did you learn, Kohl, that is so important?”

  He held her with his hazel eyes in a way that seized her heart. It was the way he had regarded her so long ago, when he had first loved her. She had been so certain he would never look upon her with that gaze ever again. She knew, instantly, that whatever he had to say was actually important.

  “Kohl, what is it?”

  He took a deep breath. “It’s about your mother.”

  Chapter 4

  Azgul

  Twenty-five years ago

  Hydo ran his hand gently over the smooth skin of Octayn’s back. It was milky and taut, pulled tightly around her rib cage. Her mess of pale blonde hair trailed over her shoulders and spread out around the bed. “You’re stunning.”

  She rolled over and propped herself up on one elbow. He watched the way she regarded his scarred body. Without hesitation, she reached out and traced one of his many scars, running the silver line from breastbone to hip. “Tell me about this.”

  She touched him like he belonged to her. She spoke to him like he was hers alone to speak to. And as far as he was concerned, he was.

  “It’s a final test, so to say.”

  She stared at him, expectant.

  He took a deep breath. They were not meant to tell. They were not meant to tell many of the things he had told her. “Every day for a year, in our thirteenth year, we submerge into a pool. It’s difficult to explain, but it’s not a normal pool. Each time, our mind gets searched, and the pool does something—to say it cuts you would be the easiest way to explain it.”

  While her dispassionate exterior remained unmoved, Hydo could see her pupils widen. He rolled onto his back, regarding the white ceiling above. “They want to know if you would defect, if you ever think about leaving the Blade, if you’re truly loyal ...They want to know everything. By the end, you have no secrets and no will to hide them even if you did. And that’s when the fight happens.”

  Octayn inched closer to him, as though concerned he might not continue. He waited a long moment, enjoying her undivided attention. He had never said these things to anyone. He had never needed to. Had he ever considered it before, it would have felt like a betrayal. But he’d also never had anyone to tell it to who hadn’t also endured it.

  “We fight our mentors. The pool weakens us; exhausted, already wounded ...we never win. We aren’t meant to. We are meant to quit.”

  “This is vile. It’s treacherous.”

  He jolted at her words. “Wh—”

  “They train you, nurture you, bond with you and then they try to break you—all to test your loyalty to a regime that was only established to maintain power for a handful, and control the rest.”

  “I’ve never thought about it like that. It’s just how it’s always been done.”

  “You think that that makes it okay?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just the Hunter’s life.”

  * * * *

  The mechanical trill rung out incessantly, growing louder and louder, ceasing only when Hydo raised his hand to the sensor pad beside the pod, allowing entry to his friends. He tightened his black robe and braced himself for the onslaught of questions and accusations he knew would be arriving along with Hanson and Urdo. As his friends appeared in the descending glass chute, he saw the anger in Urdo’s face and the confusion in Hanson’s.

  They both leapt forward, nearly knocking one another over to reach him first.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Gredoria thought you’d been attacked on your travels!”

  “He’s going to kill you.”

  Hydo raised his hands slowly, nodding along to his friends’ concerns. “Enough. I’m fine, as you can see for yourselves.”

  Hanson shook his head, his golden plait falling over his shoulder, his blue eyes wide. “You’ve been here this whole time and not thought to contact us? To return home?”

  He appeared hurt and it wounded Hydo to see it. Hanson was his closest friend, perhaps even closer than Urdo, though all three had been raised as brothers. Hydo inclined his head slowly, offering his friend an apologetic look. “I’ve had important matters to attend to.”

  “Is she one of those matters?” Urdo snapped, looking over Hydo’s shoulder.

  Hydo whipped around to see Octayn standing in the doorway, a white linen from the bed wrapped around her body, her blonde hair cascading down her body.

  “I told you to wait for me in the bedroom.”

  “And I told you that no one orders me to do anything. Now, what is the meaning of this?” She drew her hand out before her, gesturing to Urdo and Hanson. Hydo could see the look in his friends’ faces—exasperation. They didn’t understand who Octayn was—what she was.

  “I told you, if I didn’t return to the Blade, Gredoria would send them for me.”

  Urdo pivoted on his heel to stare at him. “Who is this, Hydo?”

  “This is—”

  “You may call me Octayn.”

  Hydo wrung his hands together. This wasn’t going as he had envisioned. He believed that Hanson and Urdo would understand if they had it explained to them the right way, if they could hear it from him. Octayn was a fiery woman. She did not possess the disposition Hunters were accustomed to. He wouldn’t fault her for that. He loved her for it. But it wouldn’t be an easy transition for his brothers.

  “Octayn? That doesn’t sound like a Daharian name,” Hanson piped up, looking from her to Hydo.

  Hydo hadn’t thought of it, but he supposed Hanson was right. He noted the intense stare Urdo fixed on her, his anger unabated by any introductions. Octayn held his stare with ease, confident in her position, in her power. Hydo couldn’t help but feel his attraction for her intensify—she was a woman who couldn’t be intimidated. But he didn’t sense that his brothers had come to do any intimidating.

  “We should sit, we can explain,” he began, knowing his friends needed an explanation.

  “We don’t need to explain anything,” Octayn spoke, her voice clear and authoritative.

  Urdo practically rolled his eyes. “We? Please, girl, leave us to speak with our friend for we have—”

  Before he finished his sentence, a wall of fire erupted on the white stone floor, climbing seven feet high, flicking between Octayn and the Hunters. Hanson and Urdo immediately scrambled back, stunned. Hydo took a deep breath, watching with confliction. She had produced a shield of fire, without any noticeable effort or exertion. She was incredible. She knew so much more of their Fire-Wielding than he did, and he yearned to learn from her. But he also saw the fear in his brothers. He saw the hurt that he had created—it wasn’t just surprise at learning that he had found another like him, but confusion as to why he wouldn’t rush to share the news w
ith them.

  “Octayn.”

  At the sound of her name, she extinguished the flames, turning her green gaze to him, her expression softened.

  I’ll tell them nothing you’ve told me, he pushed the thought to her, careful to conceal his mind from his friends. She nodded slowly. She looked over Hanson once more before turning her fiery gaze on Urdo. “Speak to me so informally again, I’ll burn you where you stand.”

  Hydo took a deep breath, knowing Urdo had meant nothing by the epithet, but knowing Octayn was accustomed to much more than most.

  “My love, just give me a moment to speak with them.”

  She nodded slowly, tightening the sheet around her body as she turned and walked back down the hall.

  Hanson turned to him, his blue eyes filled with confusion. “Love? You love her?”

  “Can we sit? Please?”

  Hanson sat, but Urdo refused. Hydo made them drinks. Urdo downed his but Hanson wouldn’t touch the glass. Urdo paced, continuously turning his gaze to the doorway, as though he suspected Octayn to return at any moment. Which, Hydo knew, she might do. In the short time that he had known Octayn he had learned many things—chief among them being that no one told her what to do. They asked. Everything was a question, and her answer was absolute.

  Hydo regarded his friends with remorse. “I’m sorry I worried you both.”

  Urdo glared. “Worried? We thought members of the Bakora might have ambushed you on your travels. We thought you were dead. We were more than worried.”

  Hanson stood, as if in solidarity, beside Urdo. “Gredoria instructed us to go straight to Haycith—we told him we would check here first. You were supposed to return a week ago.”

  “I know. Just let me explain.”

  Hanson sat once again, but Urdo remained standing, as though to sit would be to surrender some of his anger. Hydo told them what he could. Octayn had appeared at Haycith on his last night, she was a Fire-Wielder, he had spent the past week with her and he was in love with her. They stared at him, silent and incredulous.

  Hanson was the first to speak. “I’ll be the first to admit that the woman is a vision. And I see how important it is to you that you’ve found another Fire-Wielder. But love, Hydo? Be serious, you just met the woman.”