Demons of the Hunter

by Stephen Allan

  Then a growl came from behind her.

  She froze for half a second before whirling around in a defensive posture. Her flame illuminated just enough for her to see a mutilated, bloody, furious face of a behemoth.

  No, she had not killed it.

  “Zelda!”

  A blast of fire came from behind her as she ducked to avoid the heat of the flames. The behemoth bellowed as it reared back on its hind legs. Zelda glanced up to see Garo charging with his sword, which he swung at the beast. It missed the behemoth’s chest but got it on the thigh. The monster staggered back, roared once more, and ran away in the direction the magi had come from.

  Zelda let out a long gasp, relieved to have lived. But she had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last time she came across that behemoth, especially if she ever planned on returning to Caia.

  “Are you OK?” Garo asked.

  “Yes,” Zelda said as she slowly rose, still visualizing the ugly, scarred face barely visible with her flame. “Scared, but OK.”

  “Understood,” Garo said. “We are all here for each other. We must keep moving, though. Take my hand if need be.”

  Zelda didn’t need it, but for the rest of the trek through the caverns, she was on edge, turning at the slightest sound, even their own footsteps. It wasn’t until she saw the water cascading from the opening and the light that followed that her heart rate slowed and she could breathe easy once more.

  “Let me take the lead,” Zelda said when they came to the opening. “It’s slippery and you need to know where it’s most dangerous.”

  Despite her ominous warnings, the worst of the danger to Dabira had passed. They made their way down the path to even ground without anyone slipping or stumbling, and though Zelda gave a relieved smile upon touching the grass, no one else felt the need to release any self-imposed pressure.

  “Come, it’s just across the river,” Tetra said.

  Oh, right. The worst hasn’t passed yet.

  The four of them moved past the spot where Zelda had first met Yeva, Norius, and Romarus, spending no time reminiscing. In fact, Yeva didn’t even seem aware that they had first met at this spot about a month ago. Nostalgia, it seemed, was a luxury for those who had time and freedom of danger. The magi didn’t have either of those.

  They walked through the woods and came to the river, which looked deceptively calm. Zelda’s stomach flipped as she knew what lay underneath. A current. Danger. The fear that this would mark the time that she wouldn’t make it across. The—

  Without hesitation, Garo and Tetra dived in. Yeva paused, looked back to Zelda, and gave an encouraging smile.

  “You made it across twice, you know,” Yeva said. “I see no reason that you can’t do it again.”

  Zelda remembered she’d actually done it more times when she counted training with Roland and got enough confidence that she followed Yeva into the water.

  Though she still despised the water, she didn’t feel nearly as much stress as her previous journeys. Those treks had felt like the last obstacle to escaping Caia’s wrath. This felt like finishing a long road with three magi who she knew would defend her against any and all threats. She just needed to focus—

  Something bumped her leg. Something too hard to be debris.

  Zelda gasped and screamed. She thrashed her legs violently, even as she didn’t feel anything grab or touch her once more. Garo and Tetra, having reached the shore, immediately ran in line with Zelda. Tetra pulled out the turquoise crystal, which glowed a bright blue as she held out, while Garo pulled out his sword.

  “Keep swimming, Zelda!” Garo shouted. “Yeva! Get to shore!”

  Zelda closed her eyes and focused on putting one hand in front of the other, on kicking her legs through the water, and on breathing every third arm rotation. She could hear their commotion as she came out of the water, but it never stuck long enough to form a complete sentence.

  She felt a cold whoosh over her heard, as if a giant glacier had just slid a foot above her. Still, she kept her eyes shut and her motion steady.

  Then she felt something hard. But not alive. The ground.

  Desperately, anxiety taking over and her breathing becoming panicked, Zelda crawled out of the water and onto the beach. Finally, she opened her eyes and looked back in horror.

  A giant sea serpent, its face as large as Zelda’s torso, had risen up, presumably in preparation to devour her. But thanks to the quick magic of Tetra and the crystal, she’d saved Zelda’s life.

  “Now you see why I worry about doing it again,” Zelda said as she collected her breath. “That wasn’t there before!”

  Garo grimaced as he offered Zelda a hand up.

  “Perhaps the nature of Hydor is coming after us for defeating Indica,” he said. “Hydor is as much a living being as you and I are, Zelda. If it loses a major part of itself, it will not let it happen again without a fight.”

  We don’t need more fights. We have too much as it is.

  Zelda shook herself of the cold water on her robes as she followed Yeva, Tetra, and Garo into the city.

  At the gates, no one waited to greet them. No one had expected them. In fact, Zelda imagined they didn’t even yet know of the slaughter that had taken place in Caia.

  “Zelda!”

  She heard the familiar motherly voice when she’d walked in about two blocks. She turned right and saw Maria with her two boys, standing aghast at what she saw. Maria ran up and gave Zelda a tight squeeze.

  “You made it back,” Maria said, laughing with joy. “But why have you returned? And Yeva—your parents are worried sick about you! You should go see them. And…”

  Her voice faded when she saw “Kara” and “Gaius” standing behind them.

  “Roland!”

  ***

  A half hour later, it seemed as if the entire town had gathered in the middle of the city. In that area, the council sat in a semi-circle. On the open end, Zelda, Tetra, and Garo sat. The latter two had not yet revealed their identities, though Zelda felt that was imminent the way they had acted.

  Yeva had gone outside the circle with her parents, who had reacted to her return with sheer joy and emotion. It overwhelmed Zelda, who felt a tinge of envy that she would never have the kind of reunion with her mother that Yeva had had with hers.

  “So you are telling me,” Roland said, his voice unusually nervous. “Zelda, that you left without my permission, with two other citizens of this town, Yeva and Norius, may Chrystos grant his soul peace. You went to Caia, you defeated the dragon Indica with their help,” he said, nodding toward Tetra and Garo. “And then, to reward you, the empire attempted to hunt you down?”

  “That undersells it,” Tetra said with the boldness and force that reminded Zelda of the Kara she had met when she first thought of joining the shadows. “Do not do that for the magi who died, Roland. Do not let your fantasies of peace in Hydor overwhelm the dark, bloody truth of the Syrast Empire.”

  Roland seemed taken aback, on edge. His body language was not calm and controlled. It was shaky, nervous, and lean. Did he fear her?

  Was this what pacifists and peace-seekers looked like in the face of a warrior? Not as someone proud of their beliefs, but someone who chose them because they could not fight? Zelda hoped that it was just a case of Tetra being especially intimidating, but she was beginning to understand why sometimes, fighting and building strength was not just ideal, it was necessary. It was becoming better to have the ability to fight in reserve and being willing to unleash it than to die at the tip of an enemy’s sword out of an essentially suicidal principle.

  But when Zelda imagined herself as a fighter, she couldn’t do it for long. Every soldier she’d ever frozen, she’d thought of their families no later than after the battle. She might have had the ability to fight for survival in the heat of the moment, but she couldn’t ever imagine a part of her becoming like Tetra.

  “Let me tell you what happened, since Zelda, as much as I care for her and now watch over her, escape
d before the worst of it happened,” Tetra began. The entire audience did not say a word. It did not murmur. It barely breathed, so taken away by the angry words of the mage. “I saw a mage, about my age, old enough to be your former daughter, Roland, stabbed through the chest by the empire’s soldiers. I heard her screams. I dreamed about them last night, Roland. They haunt me still. I saw her blood dripping from the sword and witnessed her agony as she died. I saw this happen to many other magi, most of them rendered defenseless within seconds. Were it not for Gaius’ skills and my lack of need for a medium, we would have perished as well. Were it not for the fortuitous premonition that Zelda had, she and Yeva would have died.

  “I am fortunate that I did not see every last death, as painful as the ones that I saw were. But I certainly saw our base lit up with fire. I saw our entire home ruined and brought to dust. I saw a city that has gone from pushing magi to the edge to pushing them over the edge, and then shooting them with arrows before they fell to the ground, just to ensure they suffered even more. I saw what looked like a thousand soldiers descending upon us as we escaped Caia, with only the incredible powers of this young girl teleporting us to safety. If you think, Roland, that any of this story sounds false, then you have a fatal awakening coming your way. I understand you want to stay here and live out your lives. For decades, you have been able to do that, thanks in no small part to the work of Garo and Tetra.”

  Zelda looked for a reaction from Garo. He gave none. Tetra spoke of herself in the third-person so smoothly, Zelda would never have suspected “Kara” to be her if she hadn’t learned the truth before.

  “But let me tell you what this attack indicates, Roland. It indicates that the empire has had enough of the magi. Even though we are all that is keeping it from being destroyed by the dragons, it has decided we serve no purpose and seeks to destroy all of us. All of us. In all of the world. I would be surprised if there is a single mage left in Caia. I would also be surprised if there is a single mage left in the world within the year, should we choose not to fight back. The empire’s subtle plan to exterminate us has come out of the shadows and is now in full force. You can rest assured, Roland, that I plan on fighting back, and I plan on killing the emperor and all of his men. I come here to demand—yes, demand, because that is what the situation requires—for all of you to fight with me. I tell you now, if you do not fight, you will meet your demise. And the empire will not grant you a merciful death!”

  Roland looked at her for a long time, fear full in his eyes. Zelda had never seen the elder so terrified, even when they’d fought dragons or spoken about great monsters. He looked to Zelda and, barely getting the words out, asked, “Is it true?”

  Of course Roland knew it was true. But he was desperate for anything that could tell him it wasn’t. Unfortunately, though Tetra’s words were heavy, angry, and zealous, they were not inaccurate in any way. A couple of things, Zelda was not privy to, but that didn’t mean they didn’t happen. If anything, Tetra had probably held things in reserve in case Roland continued to resist early on.

  “It’s true,” she said, trying to make her voice strong.

  Roland groaned and put his hands on his face. He looked like he had just seen his own death.

  “We are about to see a fight on two fronts, then,” he said.

  Zelda looked at Tetra or Garo, hoping they might know what Roland meant. Tetra looked confused. But a look of knowing came over Garo’s face.

  “Recently, about ten days ago, we had three hunters come through the city. We gave them lodging and asked what their business was. They said they were going to hunt Ragnor in the southern lands. We… we told them in as strong terms as possible that that was a terrible idea. We told them that they should let the dragon be, that awakening it would only create more trouble. We warned them that the journey would take weeks and that it would get progressively more dangerous. The woman, their leader, she gave the appearance of listening, but I knew she was lying. I told all of them that if they pursued Ragnor, that they should not stay. I gave them until the following morning to leave. The next morning, they had all departed. And, as if to add insult to injury, one of the elder magi here, Romarus, went with them.”

  Three hunters. Zelda’s mind immediately flashed back to Eric and his old mentor. She didn’t remember who the woman was, but still, if he was with them…

  And Romarus. The mage who had explained to her gods and legends just before returning to Caia. He had said he was too old to fight—but now he went with them? What had changed?

  Zelda looked to Tetra and Garo, as if they might give some indication of going to help. If they were going to hunt the dragon, they would need help. Tetra’s eyes narrowed in fury. Zelda quickly realized she wasn’t going to help the hunters—she might just hunt them herself.

  “So in other words,” Tetra said. “We have one group of idiots to the east who want to destroy us, and then we have a small group of idiots who want the glory of killing a legendary dragon without realizing how much damage it can do.”

  “Afraid so,” Roland said.

  “We should go get the hunters,” Zelda piped in. “If we can stop them, then we can come back and defend the city or go to the capitol and—”

  “They are long gone,” Roland said. “I believe one of them remains somewhere in this city, but I do not know his current whereabouts. And even if they were not far, they have gone on a journey too dangerous to make it worth our while.”

  “We’re not going there,” Tetra said at the same time as Roland. “If they want to awaken Ragnor, well, so be it. I do not anticipate our world standing for much longer at this rate anyways. As long as I am alive, I am going to go and kill the emperor. Give him a taste of the pain that I have lived through all these times.”

  “Te—”

  “My decision is final, Gaius,” Tetra said sharply, emphasizing his name. “If you want to pursue a futile chase to stop the hunters, you can. But you’ll kill yourself before it’s all said and done. And I am not going to prevent fools from ending themselves. It will help Hydor in the long run.”

  Everyone is going to die at this rate, Zelda thought.

  Once more, she found herself at a crossroads. Should she go to the south and try and find the hunters, to help them defeat Ragnor? Or should she stay with the city?

  Her gut found herself leaning toward the hunters. They might be the only honorable people left in the world, if only because they merely kept to their jobs and didn’t try and seize power at every opportunity. The empire was the empire, but Tetra was becoming as extremist as the emperor himself. Greed was pushing Tetra in a violent direction Zelda didn’t want to go down.

  But she had no good answer. Death was sure to come, violence was a guarantee, and someone would lose out because of her choice. She could only hope those who pursued justice survived the violence of sword and magic.

  “I am tired of debating pointless arguments and wasting time,” Tetra said. “I ask you now, town of Dabira, which of you will voluntarily come to Caia? Which of you will willingly save the magi before the empire squashes us?”

  “That’s enough, Kara.”

  Now it was Garo’s turn to speak and his turn to annunciate Tetra’s assumed identity bitterly.

  “You have a point, and believe it or not, even as I tell you to watch what you say, I stand by your side. I would fight with you until the very end. But you will not attract the men and women here with violent words.”

  “The time for peaceful words is ended, Gaius,” Tetra retorted. “You saw what happened. Words will not work. Only weapons and magic.”

  “Perhaps so,” Garo responded, his words still sharp and his tongue still slick. “But we are in no immediate danger. Even if the empire were to come tonight with a fleet of ships and ten thousand men, we would hear and see them coming. We would have the element of fighting in our streets. And that is not going to happen. Kara, we must rethink our message.”

  “He’s right,” Roland said, who seemed to gain
confidence from what Garo had said. “You come into our town unannounced and without any warning and now you demand—not ask—that we fight. We have fought before, but we need a good reason to.”

  “A good reason to,” Tetra said, then she mockingly laughed. “You both are bumbling fools. I see that distance and time has made the men of Dabira as soft as their bellies. I will not waste time.”

  Then she turned to Zelda. The young girl felt a lump in her throat as Tetra positioned her body in front of her.

  “Zelda. You have magic that surpasses anyone here, and I mean anyone.”

  Even more than Garo?

  “Your teleportation is what saved us from the forces of Caia.”

  “Kara—”

  “Shut up, Roland,” Tetra snapped. “Zelda has slaughtered a legendary dragon, something more than you can say. She is smart enough and strong enough to make her own decisions. Now then, Zelda. Your teleportation can also get us back into battle. We can end the empire together, you and I. You can bring peace to the magi. You can do a great good for the world. Will you take me back to Caia?”

  As soon as Tetra said “a great good for the world,” Zelda’s mind went in two completely different directions. The first one said that Tetra intended to finish what Indica had started and burn the city down—anything to kill the emperor.

  But the second felt like Tetra had spoken the magic words to get Zelda to fight. The young girl remembered how Mama always said to use her magic for good, no matter what, and Tetra had just said that’s what she was doing. It felt like a cruel, yet effective, way to play Zelda.

  “I…”

  She couldn’t form the words. She stumbled over her speech multiple times, drawing concerned glances from Garo and Roland and a nervous smile from Tetra.

  “Give me time,” she finally got out. “I need time. I don’t know. I’m sorry, Kara. I don’t know what—”

  “So be it,” Tetra said.

  Tetra walked away in a huff. Garo sighed.

  “I apologize for her behavior,” he said. “I will speak to her now and advise her that her actions were unacceptable.”