by Curtis, Greg
“Hush.” Erislee placed a comforting hand on Nyma's shoulder before standing up and walking over to greet her new friend.
He was magnificent. A huge male with a full golden mane and white wings as large as those of any roc. But best of all when she went to him and embraced him, his eyes were filled with understanding and compassion. He knew what was needed. And when she released him and looked up to the night sky it was to see that more were coming. Many more. Their great, glorious wings were blotting out the stars as they flew.
The first pride had arrived.
“Nyma we are going to need to gather our people. We are going to need to find priests and followers. We are going to need to find soldiers and wizards. We are going to have to start building an army so that we can drive these imposters from the Goddess' temple and from our land.”
“It is time for the voice of the Goddess to be heard once more in the world.”
The fight back would begin in only a few days. There were several small towns nearby, or so Nyma had told her. Small towns with false temples filled with false priests in them.
Their presence in the world could no longer be tolerated.
And so the hunt would begin.
Chapter Eight
It was early morning when Erislee finally knew it was time to begin the attack.
She was nervous. Though this was part of a hunt it was also the first step in a war, and she had never gone to war before. And with only a dozen soldiers beside her to face an enemy of uncertain size, she had reason to be nervous.
But while she had only a dozen soldiers she had three prides of griffins filling the skies above her head, or around fifty of the wondrous creatures, while half a dozen unicorns now walked beside her. Artemis had been generous and Erislee thought it should be enough for their first town. The enemy wasn't expecting them after all.
Tyche had been kind too, the blind mistress of fortune somehow finding them a dozen wild men as they'd travelled through the wilds, all of whom had immediately wanted to join. While she understood that their reasons were born of terrible pain and loss, that still seemed like good fortune to her. Especially when all of them were warriors.
But what gave her the most confidence was that while the others called this war, she knew it for what it truly was. The beginning of a long and glorious hunt as they took down their enemy, whoever he was. And she was a huntress.
It was only a small beginning, Twinford being a town of only five hundred people at most. Once though she understood it had been twice as large; perhaps even larger. Over the years many people had fled and many more had died while few new people had come to the town to replace them. It had been a pattern repeated across a thousand towns and all five kingdoms. And one that these false priests were now trying to spread still further as their chimera marched east into Inel Ison. But while they marched east, conveniently splitting their forces for her, she and her army would march north. North to Midland Heights as they freed the Rainbow Mountains. And from there they would march further north again to the Kingdom of the Lion. To Lion's Crest itself, the heart of this false temple where they would face their quarry.
That march began here, with Twinford.
Studying the town from a small hill overlooking it at the edge of the forest, she could see Twinford was a town that had suffered much in recent years. It had lost people and been neglected. Many of the houses were derelict. Some had burned to the ground and their blackened husks had never been cleared away. As for the people, they were broken. Perhaps even more so than the town. Even from the hilltop looking down upon them as they toiled in the fields she could see the broken spirits that dwelt within them. This was a place of sadness and death.
“High Priestess.”
Gallin called softly to her, wanting to know her orders. He was no soldier – they didn't yet have any – but he seemed to know how to carry that axe of his. But then she understood the same was true of many of those who survived by trapping and hunting out in the forests while the chimera of the false temple roamed free. They knew how to fight, but also how to run and hide. As yet they didn't know how to fight as an army. But if all went as she hoped, they would learn that in time. Starting this very morning.
“It is time.”
With her order given she rose to her full height and started the march toward town, feeling strangely both powerful and foolish at the same time. The robes and the leather jacket she had been given did not fit well together, and while she had weapons, neither the longbow nor the hunting knife she carried was a soldier's weapon. Still, they would have to do. And in the end she was High Priestess to Artemis the Huntress not Ares the God of War.
As she walked the others walked beside her, forming between them a small but true band of soldiers no matter how poorly trained and ill-equipped. They weren't an army yet, but with half a dozen unicorns trotting beside them, their white coats shining in the morning sunlight and their horns glowing with the light of the Goddess, those who saw them would know some little fear.
They were at the bottom of the hill before any of the townsfolk noticed them. And when they did it was only the farmers out in their fields who saw them. The rest of the people were still locked inside their homes, keeping warm. None of the farmers though made any attempt to approach them. Nor did they run. They just stood there in the fields and watched, eyes wide and mouths hanging open.
Meanwhile Erislee was suffering an unexpected problem. For five long years she had been locked up in a cage where she could walk around no more than half a dozen paces in any direction. That had taken a terrible toll on her fitness. In particular on the strength in her legs. In five long years she had not walked up or down a hill, nor a fraction of the distance she was now trying to cover. Because of that her legs were already trembling with the effort required to keep moving while her breath was starting to become ragged. She was hot too, as if she had run the entire length of the city walls of Lion's Crest instead of simply having walked a few hundred paces. It would be embarrassing if she fell down in front of everyone she thought. Gritting her teeth she forced herself to keep putting one foot in front of the other and prayed.
Fortunately Nyma guessed her weakness and walked beside her, ready to catch her should the need arise. It was a comfort to have her sister beside her. Especially at this first battle.
Ahead of them a woman came out of one of the houses unexpectedly, a load of washing in her arms. On seeing them though she turned, stared at them in shock for a few heartbeats, and then ran back into her house, slamming the door behind her. Somehow Erislee doubted it was her that had frightened her. A party of warriors and a herd of unicorns were far more intimidating than a High Priestess.
Then when they finally walked on to the main street that ran through to the centre of the town, she saw yet a few more doors creeping open, more windows pushed out, and a few frightened faces peeking out at them. Women and children, staring at them in fear. And each time the faces saw them and then realised that they in turn had been seen, the doors and windows would close hurriedly and the faces would disappear. The townsfolk knew that a battle was coming. And they wanted no part of it.
Erislee understood that. Nyma and the others had told her much of what had happened these past five years. That it had been brutal. That to question these false priests in any way was to die. To fail to provide the tribute demanded was to die. Even to be too slow to bend their knee was to risk death. And these were the survivors of those years. The ones who had learned the lesson of fear they had been taught. Those who had not learnt it were either dead or had long since fled the five kingdoms. Or in a few cases they were now hiding out in the wilds being hunted. These people she knew, would not stand with them.
Unless and until they were offered hope. Then however, she knew or at least she hoped, some would stand with them. But first they had to give them that hope.
The small band – it was too small yet to call them an army though Erislee hoped that that would soon change – marched o
n, heading down the muddy street. Clearly the path had not seen any attention in years. There were holes in the dirt that no one had bothered to fill. Long grass and weeds had been allowed to build up alongside fences and the sides of the street, while the middle had turned to mud and dirt from years of wagon wheels rolling along them. No one had filled the tracks.
No one had done anything else in the town either. The houses were run down. Thatched roofs and slate tiles had seen better days. Walls were unpainted and had been left to rot. Broken windows had been left that way or at most boarded over. But then the people had no coin to pay for repairs or even buy the materials they needed. They did not have the time to do the work either. All their coin and all their time went to the false priests. To growing the food they needed and providing them with the gold they demanded.
In fact in all the town there was only one building that was in perfect condition. The false temple.
It stood ahead of them in the very centre of the town, and the instant she saw it Erislee hated it. It wasn't just the feeling of uncleanliness and evil that she could feel coming from it. It wasn't even the lie that it was. It was the fact that it was the symbol of a disease that had sucked the very life out of the town. It stood three stories tall and had a huge spire on top and was far larger than any other building in the town. In fact it almost towered over them like an angry giant. It had had been painted and kept sparkling clean while the rest of the town rotted away. It was an abomination.
Just then a priest came out of the temple and she forgot her loathing of the temple. Her prey had walked into view.
She drew her longbow and notched an arrow, thinking to bring him down quickly.
“Let the hunt begin!”
Erislee loosed the arrow and watched it sail through the air to bury itself deep in the false priest's heart, killing him before he had even known she was there. It was a clean kill, just as it should be. That was incumbent upon her as a High Priestess even more than it was on any others. It was why she had trained with the Goddess' hunting weapon so thoroughly for so many years. Why she had learned the blessings needed to send an arrow straight and true at four hundred paces when no other archer could achieve such a range.
Erislee was glad that she still had the skill. The strength too. After so long locked in a cage she had worried that she might not. But the Goddess' blessing was with her still and her nervousness was lending her the strength she needed. It might have been nice to see the priest fall down and writhe a little, but that was not Artemis' way. The hunt was never about cruelty.
But this was no ordinary hunt. They were hunting hunters. She remembered that anew when she heard shouting coming from the temple and then saw soldiers come rushing out. Soldiers who had seen the false priest fall with an arrow in his chest.
They came pouring out of the temple like an angry wave. And then nearly two dozen of them came rushing toward them, brandishing weapons and yelling war cries as they charged. That was a mistake. They should have taken cover instead. Because when they ran they made themselves targets. Perhaps they hadn't had to fight a battle in so long that they'd forgotten the basic rules. Always check your surroundings before you rushed into battle.
Erislee managed to take another soldier down with a clean shot through the neck as they ran, and the others beside her had some success as well. But it was the griffins who tore them apart. They swooped down behind the soldiers as they ran, reaching out with their claws, and then as they banked and started to lift again, shredded their backs. Their armour could not protect them. The soldiers went flying in all directions, massive rents opened up in their flesh and once they landed most didn't move again. Instead, they lay there in the street, bloody and broken while the griffins soared above them, roaring angrily.
After that it was the chimeras' turn. The priests had obviously opened the pens while the soldiers were charging, and the twisted beasts came flooding out after them. A dozen minotaurs and a score of leonids appeared, while behind them the cerberi had also started howling as they escaped their pens. But as the twisted creatures charged them Erislee's small band of soldiers in turn put as many arrows into them as they could. Then the unicorns charged them, their horns glowing with the righteous magic of the Goddess. They smashed into them, their horns striking out to the left and the right as they sent the creatures flying in all directions, moving so quickly that they were little more than flashes of perfect whiteness. And of course the griffins joined them, striking from above in perfect silence and destroying the unsuspecting creatures. It was a slaughter.
Still, a couple of the chimera made it through to reach them, and Erislee's soldiers had to deal with them. But they were well practised, and even though most of them were dressed as foresters and carrying axes, they were a force to be reckoned with. She saw a couple of leonids fall, axes having taken large pieces out of them, and the cerberi were even less fortunate. Several were thrown through the air howling with pain and spraying blood everywhere from the force of the blows. Others fell in pieces.
Suddenly a fireball streaked from the temple, and as Erislee and the others had to quickly take cover, she realised that the false temple had some wizards among them. That she hadn't expected. Maybe some of the demon following priests inside were actually powerful wizards of fire? The fireball missed them though, and she had the answer to their magic in her hand.
“Flame arrows.”
She gave the order and a heartbeat later the first of the fire arrows was launched into the temple. Erislee was impressed by the speed with which the men answered her call. Her rag tag soldiers it seemed were far more capable than they looked. And as she heard the sound of glass shattering and saw the smoke trails leading into it, she realised that they were accurate too. However many wizards the false temple might have inside, they weren't going to pose much of a threat. Not when they were soon going to be desperately trying to stomp out flames.
One wizard managed another fireball which they had to doge, while another started trying to shake the ground with his magic and throw them to their knees. But while it was impressive it wasn't enough. By the time the cerberi were streaking from the temple in numbers she could see flames coming out of the windows and hear the sound of men screaming inside. Better still, she could hear the blood curdling screeching of manticores coming from inside, and she guessed the false priests and wizards would soon be fighting a battle against their own creatures. Erislee had no idea at all how they could train a manticore, but she doubted that any training would hold when the beasts were scared.
After that it was more of the same. The griffins and the unicorns continued to slaughter the chimera, while she and the others kept sending more flaming arrows into the temple, fanning the fire. Soon the temple was well alight and the screaming coming from within was no longer about anger. It was only about fear and pain.
A couple of the priests tried to escape, but Erislee's men took them down almost as soon they burst from the temple doors. Behind them they could see fire. Flames leaping into the air as the temple burnt.
Ten minutes later the battle in the street was over and the screams coming from inside were becoming faint. The flames had started to leap from the second floor windows of the temple. Clearly the fire had taken hold. There were no more magical attacks coming their way and the last of the cerberi had been dispatched. But there were still people alive inside the temple. Whether they were priests or wizards or soldiers she didn't know. The smoke pouring out of the temple made it hard to be sure what they were. But she knew what they were doing. They were climbing. Trying to get away from the fire any way they could. But of course they were only trapping themselves further from the ground and from any hope of safety.
Soon the flames had made it to the third floor windows and there were few terrified shrieks to be heard. She assumed that most of those in the temple had either been overcome by the thick black smoke or were already dead.
Erislee watched quietly with the others as the flames leapt into the spire
and the screams coming from inside finally stopped. In time the building started to collapse. First the spire fell down into the building and then one by one the floors collapsed into the bonfire. it was then that she knew that the battle was over. The hunt had begun and the first of their quarry had been taken down.
Erislee gave a small prayer of thanks to the Goddess then as she watched. She even let a slight smile curl up around the corners of her mouth.
Finally these false priests were paying the price for their wickedness! Or at least some of them were. But over the coming weeks and months and maybe even years, many more would learn that there was a price for violating the Goddess' temple. A price that would be paid in blood.
Erislee knew then that it was time to speak with the townsfolk, many of whom were standing out in the street staring. It was time to let the words of the Goddess ring forth.
“Let it be known.” She raised her voice a little and let it carry to one and all through the grace of the Huntress. “That these priests and their creatures are not followers of Artemis. They are imposters. Liars and deceivers. Thralls to the demons. And Artemis the Huntress is angered by these false priests and their perversions. They have lied and mislead. They have pretended to be who they are not. And now they shall pay the price for their lies. The hunt has been called and they are her prey.”