Hunter Hunted (The Eternals Book 2)

by Richard M. Ankers

  “Who knows?” Linka replied.

  “I'd have said who cares, but it's obvious someone does.”

  “Do you want me to take a peep?”

  “No, don't worry, I'll do it.”

  “My hero,” Linka purred.

  “I know, but I have an alternate reason for my heroic act.”

  “Really.”

  “If one of us is to give the Nordics a violent look of intent it's probably best it's me. I'd hate to ruin your angelic image.”

  “That can't be ruined, I am an angel.”

  “Not after last night you're not.”

  “Ah, but only you know.”

  “I may sing it to the world, my love.”

  “I didn't know crows could sing?”

  “Raven, my dear, and of course they can. Not well, that's all.”

  I jumped out of bed to avoid Linka's swinging fist, slipped into my brand new jet-black trousers and opened the bedroom door. Princess Narina stood there in full white, silk splendour, her fist raised mid-strike.

  “Oops, sorry, Your Highness.”

  “It is I who should apologise, Jean. I was about to knock.” Narina made an undisguised once-over of my open-shirted frame and continued. “You are requested to hunt.”

  “Is that the same as commanded?”

  “Jean,” came Linka's chastising tones from the bedroom.

  “My apologies, Princess.”

  “I much prefer Narina.”

  “You have my apologies, Narina,” I said giving a low enough bow to expose Linka's uncovered form. Narina never even twitched. Instead, she watched me all the way to my lowest sweep and then back up again, as I did her. I suspected our reasons were different, though, as her ruby, unblinking eyes took me in. “How long have we got?”

  “Now,” she replied without hesitation.

  From the exodus of pale shapes streaming down the corridor, and the clopping of booted feet on ice floor, we were already the last.

  “Do you mind?” I asked, indicating for her to look the other way with my finger. She did not. Narina stayed exactly where she was. So, I did what any self-respecting Eternal should, I shut the door in her porcelain face.

  “That was very rude, Jean,” Linka chastened. She hopped out of bed with a shake of her head spilling out hair like ink on a desktop in the process and dressed post-haste.

  “Aww,” I sighed.

  “What?”

  “You look even more beautiful when you're mad.”

  “I'll give you mad,” she laughed, jumping clean over the bed in one bound, fist poised to punch my arm.

  Not only did I avoid her blow, but had donned both my boots before she landed.

  “Are you ready, my little pumpkin?” I winked.

  “I am,” she replied. Her look of amazement said different.

  I buttoned up my black shirt and swept the matching cape over my shoulders, as Linka did her snow-white one.

  “You look almost Nordic, my dear.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Well, I'll take it as one. The princesses are stunning, after all.”

  “Not to me, my love. I'll take your raven locks and emerald innocence over their bland albinism any day of the week.”

  “Hush, Jean, they'll hear you.”

  “So what.”

  “So everything,” she hushed. “Just be more discreet.”

  “I'll try, but I cannot promise.”

  “That's something, I suppose.” She raised one perfect eyebrow, kissed me on the cheek, and then led us from the room.

  Narina waited in the exact same spot I'd left her. She gave a nod to Linka, a wide-eyed stare to me, then whirled away down the now deserted corridor. She moved with effortless grace across the slick floor, her trailing skirts covering her feet so that one might have thought she hovered.

  Down the corridor past the innumerable doors we went until exiting into the empty throne room. There was an eeriness to our echoing footsteps multiplied ad infinitum as they were. I did not like it one bit. And, for the first time, I noticed the music had stopped. The throne room sat in chilled austerity full of nothing but hollow echoes.

  However, I had no chance to dwell on the matter. Narina ushered us out the other side of the blue-tinged hall at speed and headed towards the staircase in complete darkness.

  We had caught up with the rear of the party by the time we exited the stairs into the half-light of the Arctic world. The low sun appeared as an ancient, red god brooding and ruddy-cheeked, as I took that last step out into the wan daylight. I was the last of Hvit's occupants to do so, or so it seemed.

  Like a melee of snowflakes, the Nordic peoples gathered ahead in an arc about a central point that was their queen. Serena stood motionless looking to the ocean, for a reason I couldn't fathom, one fist raised to the claret sky. Her regal presence dominated the proceedings.

  Linka followed Narina towards where her mother stood. I didn't, though. I couldn't. Unseen eyes were upon me. They froze my nape, so intense was their icy glower. So, whilst kicking out at the ice, I made a surreptitious circling of my position casting my eyes about as inconspicuously as possible. Like all such actions, I suspected it made me look more conspicuous than ever. Two complete revolutions later, I had revealed nothing. But those eyes were out there, I did not doubt it.

  In an attempt to give myself something else to think about, I returned my attention to the motionless throng. All eyes were to Serena whose own were on the rolling, ruby waves.

  “There!” she screamed, as a pair of black fins rose from the water like the dark sails of some bygone mariner's boat. “Follow me,” she commanded.

  Without another thought, Serena launched herself into the water in the orca's wake. As one, the Nordic peoples followed her into the ice-trimmed ocean. Plop after plop of departing Eternal marked the submergence of an entire race. With them, caught up in the excitement and general melee, went Linka.

  I, on the other hand, seemed to have taken several inadvertent steps back from the hubbub, therefore widening the distance between myself and the water. It would be a cold day in Hell before I took that descent. My thoughts had already turned inward back to the city's dark embrace, and my feet were quick to follow, the halls of Hvit a safer place to summarise the pros and cons of immersing myself in such a lunatic endeavour. But before I made the doorway, I felt myself grabbed by both arms.

  “Get your bloody hands off me!” I growled to my antagonists. Two quick glances confirmed it the grinning forms of Serstra and Verstra. The pair held me pinioned. “I would advise you to let go, my friends, or we may have an altercation, royalty or not.”

  “Gladly,” said the two, as one.

  And they did, but only at the point of swinging me backwards then forwards at so great a velocity that I flew through the air like a broken bird for fifty yards or more. The attack took place with such speed, I'd only concocted about ten separate murderous endings for them by the time I flapped into the water. Within moments, I'd sunk beneath the blood-tinged waves.

  I saw the water erupt above my private nightmare as the forms of the twins shattered the ocean's ruby skin. More fish than Eternals, the twins looked at my floundering form, grinned the bare-teethed gape of sharks, before gesturing to each other and swimming off at pace into the ever darkening depths. I watched them go as the seawater entered my mouth; my throat; my lungs. It felt as though my innards were being quick frozen, not that it hurt, or even sent a particular chill, but my fear was no less for it. I hated the water. To have it enter me was worse than any torture, a true violation of self. I flailed about but found no purchase in that liquid environment. All I achieved was to swallow more sea and sink ever lower into what appeared a war.

  Time lost all meaning as I slid down through the depths. The snow-white forms of the Nordics swam hither and thither, as a patchwork of fast-moving, gaping maws complete with full sets of wicked teeth struck for them. I wasn't even sure who was the hunter
and who was the hunted? Not that at that particular moment I could have cared less.

  Before I could give it any more consideration, two orcas hurtled past swimming for the surface as though their lives depended on it. Hot on their heels, speeding up from below like shooting stars in reverse, a shoal of Nordics pursued the black and white blurs. Caught up in the melee of their pale limbs, I tumbled over and over in the churning water, not knowing up from down nor left from right. Nobody gave me a second glance as I drowned; nobody cared, as the dark depths rose toward me.

  Somehow amidst the chaos, I flipped myself back over, so my steady descent availed me a view of the sun through the water. I'd waited so long to see it. I could've slipped into the afterlife, or whatever awaited Eternal kind beyond our non-lives, with a degree of pleasure, basked in its glow, despite my circumstances, but it was not to be. The unmistakable forms of the elder Nordic princes surged into my immediate view both clinging to an orca's tail. I could not understand what they attempted until their mother sped towards them from within a cluster of her people. Only when talons like sharpened knives struck for the creature's eyes did I see the true ugliness of the hunt. They sought to blind the beasts and drown them.

  * * *

  Those were the last images I saw as I floated beyond my vision's limits. An Arctic oblivion reached out toward me like a comforting shroud of night. It wasn't such a bad way to go, or so I thought, even peaceful. If I could have seen Linka one more time, I should even have been happy, but I knew I would not. She wouldn't have seen my falling from the chaos of the battle above. A distinct faux pas in my choice of attire allowed for a seamless blending with the obsidian depths. If I hadn't known better, I'd have said it more than destiny how the Nordics had laid out black clothes the previous evening. Or I could have been overthinking things, a not unusual trait, as I prepared to meet my doom.

  The last of what little oxygen remained in my lungs dispersed as tiny bubbles and an Eternal lord became one with a midnight sea.

  * * *

  I wondered how I'd know if I was dead? As an Eternal, I felt no murderous change in temperature, so doubted if even a descent into a fiery Hell would've told on me. If purgatory was my destination, then I may have already been a part of it, a weightless existence in absolute night was no worse than a weighted existence in the same. And, if Heaven, which I doubted, was my designated destination, then surely white light would've consumed me, wouldn't it?

  At that moment, it appeared my questions answered. Most surprising of all, it was the latter destination. A brilliant white spark cut through the endless black. The distance between it and I was hard to gauge, I almost thought I might reach out and pluck it as a star from the sky, but it grew larger, stronger, more defined by the second. The speck of white became a snowflake, then a lantern, then a beautiful, luminous, blue-eyed form: blue eyes!

  I flapped my arms like reeds before a hurricane. A dread set upon me, one might even have called it fear. Could it be? Had the one who'd spied upon me returned to guarantee my demise?

  I watched a pale, slim-shouldered form descend into my nightmare. The demon bore goggle-less features, sharp, angular cheekbones and lips of ruby brilliance vivid against the luminance of an alabaster skin. A beautiful ghost, a murderous apparition, her features struck me hard, for I realised, as her hands reached out, it was no demon but a girl. She was an amalgamation of those females I knew most intimately. She had the ruby lips of my darling Linka, but not the same ethereal beauty; the skin tones of Narina or Ekatarina, but not the same aloof air; she wore Chantelle's innocence before her grotesque transformation, but not a false innocence, a real one. She was something else entirely.

  She closed the distance between us like aquatic lightning, grabbed me by the lapels, and pulled me in a direction I presumed to be up before I could even react. All I managed was to waft my arms around in feeble circles as I tried to extricate myself from her trailing cloak. The girl gathered pace with each passing moment, faster and faster, she swam. The absolute dark soon gave way to tinges of rose petal, and I realised us to be nearing the surface. So enthralled was I by my saviour that the passage of several severed Eternal limbs, which hung in the sea like shattered marble sculptures, caused almost no distraction at all: almost.

  We breached the surface as though powered by the machinery of the once almighty humanity. Clear out of the water, we hurtled, then back down again onto the ice, unfortunately for me and my head. The smack of skull on ground almost caused me to lose consciousness, but that was nothing compared to my embarrassment at retching up the liquid contents of a waterlogged system right in the middle of the assembled Nordic peoples. My saviour waited by my side until I'd finished.

  “Jean! Oh, my god! What happened to you?” came the sweet voice of the angel that was my darling Linka. “Why'd you go in, you hate the water?”

  “Help…me…up,” I spluttered.

  Supported by the arms of Linka and my mystery heroine, I stood tall and surveyed the massacre before my eyes. Blood shone everywhere, over everything, and everyone. There was so much red, I imagined the world sliced in twain, its lifeblood poured over those palest of peoples. A world that carried the subtle hints of a ruby sun had become painted in those of purest crimson, and at its centre stood Serena. For a moment, I didn't recognise her, or her siblings, with their faces thrust into the carcass of an orca pulled ashore to suffocate. They'd butchered the beast almost to the point of a bloody pulp. As if sensing my disdain, Serena swivelled from her gorging and eyed me. I tensed.

  “Don't, Jean,” I heard Linka's voice as if in a dream, and felt steadying hands grip that bit harder.

  “If you value your life, stand down,” came an Arctic blast of warning from my opposite side.

  But, as ever, my actions were inextricably tied to my mood; my mood was not good. My two guardian angels tried to stop me, and to be fair, they caused me to slow to a stalking prowl. Nevertheless, I closed the distance between Serena's sneering face and myself, the others hauled in my wake.

  “Can I do something for you, my dark, wet raven?” Serena asked when I was no more than a pace from her.

  “I should very much like a word with your twin boys, Your Majesty,” I grated.

  “With Serstra and Verstra!” she exclaimed, sounding genuinely surprised. “And I told you to address me as Serena.”

  “Yes, you did, Your Majesty.”

  “Hmm, you seem like a man with a grievance.” She wiped at the blood on her face, which caused it to smear all the more.

  “It might be termed that.”

  “You do realise, they are two, have feasted on whale blood since childhood, and are without doubt each more powerful than you?”

  “I do.”

  “What do you think, Aurora?” She addressed the girl to my left, who shrugged a response. “Well, I don't believe in people harbouring grudges whilst guests in my realm.”

  “How would you know, we were supposedly the first?” I spoke with barely concealed venom. A flash of anger in Serena's eyes showed I'd hit a nerve, but she soon recovered herself.

  “Serstra! Verstra!” she barked.

  In an instant, two unrecognisable, blood-soaked figures rose from within the bones of the orca carcass.

  “Oh, Jean, my sweet, sweet love, please don't do this,” Linka whimpered in my ear. “I beg of you, reconsider.”

  I looked at her, grinned, patted her arm with the hand Aurora had released, then placed a gentle kiss upon her beautiful lips. “I won't be many moments, my love.”

  By the time I set my attention back to the inanely grinning twins, they had taken up positions either side of their mother.

  “I believe you owe me an apology, boys.”

  “Make us,” they replied in unison.

  * * *

  “I bet a whale bone's never been used for that before?” Linka giggled, as I knelt by the water and washed the blood from my face.

  “My mother will not look well upon you for making fools of my brot
hers.”

  “Aurora, lovely name,” I replied.

  “Thank you,” she answered.

  “And if they are your brothers, then I should say thank you for saving my life, Princess, and sorry about your brothers.”

  “No need to thank me.”

  “There is from my point of view.”

  “And mine,” added Linka.

  “I have no love for my family and if by saving your life I can annoy them even a little, then it was worth it.”

  “Ah, so not entirely for my benefit.”

  “I did not mean it to sound that way.”

  “He's joking,” Linka giggled.

  “Oh.”

  “You'll get used to him.”

  “Maybe?” she almost smiled.

  “I gathered you didn't want to be seen the other day.”

  “You are, and were, very perceptive.”

  “I try, but the blue eyes gave you away.”

  “And, no, I did not.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “You may ask.”

  “Ah, I see. I shan't ask again, at least, not for a while.”

  “Thank you,” Aurora spoke, sweeping her long, milk-white hair from her pretty face. “I think it would be wise for us to return to the throne room. The merriment of the kill shall continue in the depths of Hvit for some time to come.”

  “Do we have to?” I implored. Both beauties nodded together, as the sound of a whale breaching close by drew my eyes back to the ocean. “Will they not disperse after what has happened?” I asked, looking to Aurora.

  “They have as little to eat as we have to drink,” she replied. “In their own way, I am certain they look forward to the hunts as much as my kind.”

  “I sense you are not of the same opinion.”

  “Your senses do you justice.”

  “Circle of life, then.”

  “Or, non-life.”

  “Yes, that too,” I said, as I gave the descending fin of the hunted one last look. For a second, its flukes caught the sun's ruby rays before dripping, blood-like, back into the ocean after the rest of it.

  “Come, my love,” Linka said, “we should be getting below.”