The Hunter got quiet again after that. Hawke broke the somewhat awkward silence by asking questions to Tava and Gosto. He did his best not to get too personal – their mother wasn’t there, and the few hints he’d heard about her absence had shown him it was a sore subject for all of them – but asked general stuff about the town, the sort of things people liked to do, that sort of harmless stuff.
“You should ask Tava to sing,” Gosto said when the conversation turned to music. There was a mischievous glint in his eye that anybody who’d had brothers and sisters would recognize. “She loves to practice, even when it scares away the game.”
“Shut up, you,” Tava told her brother, blushing again.
“A song would be nice,” Hawke said.
It took a little more prodding – even Kinto joined in – before Tava stood up and cleared her throat. Hawke hadn’t known what to expect, but he was pleasantly surprised. Tava’s singing voice was soft and a bit melancholic; she sang about a knight going off to war, leaving his family behind. Even without instruments adding to it, the rhythm was a mixture of familiar and alien that got Hawke right in the feels. She was good. Maybe not get a record contract good, but certainly good enough to compete in one of those singing TV shows people loved so much.
All in all, it was a nice dinner. Things only got bad later, when someone tried to assassinate him.
Thirty-Nine
It’d gotten a bit late; good conversation and better company had a way of making time pass quickly.
Hawke said his goodnights. Kinto had a last-minute change of heart and offered him a place to stay – not in the main house, but there was room in the attached shed, he said – but Hawke said he could use a walk. It wasn’t officially night yet; the city gates wouldn’t close for another hour, plenty of time for him to go back to the Copper Kettle, have a couple more drinks, and go to sleep. And truth to tell, a part of him was worried that Tava might try to sneak into the shed – or that he might help her do it. He was more than a bit buzzed; the wine had more of a kick than he’d expected, and he’d done plenty of stupid stuff while under the influence. Best not to tempt fate and make a mess of things.
It was a nice evening. The sun had set for some time, but there was still a scattering of reddish light behind the mountains to the west, and the moon and galaxy of stars were beginning to shine. The moon was three-quarters full; Hawke reminded himself to take his golden egg out and let it catch some moon rays in a few days. He couldn’t wait to see what his new pet would look like. That led him to reflect on how the moon seemed identical to Earth’s, but the stars and especially that huge galaxy crossing the sky were so completely different. He guessed that someone had decided to recreate Earth in another part of the universe.
“I still want to find out who that is,” he said, but reminded himself not to make any promises or threats. He didn’t want to get saddled with some quest he wouldn’t be able to fulfill.
“Been a while since you said anything.”
“I had fun. It was nice to have a whole day of peace.”
“You really think...?”
A hissing sound was followed by something slapping him on the chest, hard.
Hawke looked down. A fletched piece of wood was sticking out of him, right above his heart. A second later, he felt another slap on his shoulder. Now he had two shafts in him.
The pain hit him just as his mind processed the information. He moved behind a nearby tree, ignoring the stabs of agony he felt with each step. A third crossbow bolt zoomed through the space he’d just vacated. He’d taken thirty-three points of damage. That would have killed him at first level; now, the wounds hurt like hell but didn’t even slow him down. A Touch of Life spell expelled the two bolts in his chest and restored him back to full health in a couple of seconds. He heard movement from below: at least some of the crossbowmen were rushing forward. Someone cursed in a harsh whisper as the attackers came closer.
He buffed himself with Shield of Light; that was all he had time to do before a pair of men wearing dark clothing reached him. One had a big-ass knife that could be classified a sword, the other a spear. Hawke stepped around the tree to meet them. The two would-be assassins stumbled to a stop, crashing into each other. He knocked the spear aside with the sword on his left hand, and cut the man’s throat with a quick slash from the right. As the spearman fell to his knees and made horrible gurgling noises, Hawke reached out and lightly tapped the other man in the chest with his sword. At least, that was what it looked like; the tap actually pushed two inches of enchanted and sharpened mithril into the man’s heart, right between his ribs.
They were normies. No class and level. Less than twenty Health apiece. Killing them was like murdering puppies.
A crossbow bolt hit his Shield of Light and glanced off, despite the fact he wasn’t wearing any armor. He spotted the last two attackers. One was still loading his crossbow; the other dropped his ranged weapon and began fumbling for a knife at his belt. Hawke recognized him. He’d been the guardsman who ran away the night of the vampire attack. His name was Dimo.
Unencumbered by armor, Hawke moved as fast as a cat. He kicked Dimo in the crotch, leaving him curled up on the ground, gasping in pain but still alive, and beheaded the other crossbowman with a single swing of his blade. He almost felt bad about killing those men, but only almost. They had set up an ambush to murder him under the cover of night.
Hawke nodded as he turned to Dimo, who was coughing and clutching at his groin. His closed eyes opened wide when the light surrounding Hawke shone through his eyelids.
“Please,” the ex-guardsman gasped. “Don’t kill me!”
“Who sent you?” Hawke said, pointing a sword at him.
It would be so easy. Just a quick jab to the throat, the heart, or one of his eyes, and Dimo wouldn’t be a problem anymore. That was when the realization that he had killed three human beings hit and made him sick to his stomach. People had died at his hands, and he had enjoyed it.
Hawke shook his head and turned to the lone survivor, who had started to crawl away until he saw the sword point hover near his face again.
“I asked you a question,” he told Dimo.
“I can’t. I can’t tell you!”
“Dimo. Listen to me. Tell me who hired you to kill me. I have strong suspicions already, but it would be nice to have them confirmed.”
“If I tell you, I will die.”
“What do you think is gonna happen if you don’t?”
Hawke gestured with his left sword, pointing at the bodies of Dimo’s buddies. He didn’t need to say anything else.
“I…”
“Crap.”
Hawke remembered Brunes. The Guard Captain’s name had come up during the argument between Kinto and Tava, the day before they’d gone into the Lair. If the captain or the Prefect himself were behind this, they were working on old information. Four 0-level scrubs might have been able to kill Hawke when he was a third-level newbie, but not now. Normies couldn’t see levels, he reminded himself. Must really suck, living in a world full of super-powerful people who could slaughter you at will. That realization made him decide to spare the lone survivor.
“Get ou
t of here,” he told Dimo.
“What?” the assassin gasped.
“You should get the hell out of town,” Hawke went on, ignoring the sword. “I don’t think your employer is going to let you live after you failed. Start running and don’t look back. You’ll die if you stay in Orom. Go!”
“Probably.”
Hawke thought about going back to the hunting lodge and letting Kinto’s family know what had happened. He decided against it. Between their hunting dogs and their new levels, he doubted they were in any danger. Besides, he was certain the Prefect had put a hit on him, not them. He was an outsider stirring trouble, not a member of the community. If he went missing, few people would bat an eye. At least, that was what the Prefect would mistakenly think. Hawke might have been a stranger, but he had made friends already.
He kept walking, leaving the bodies where they lay. He’d come back early in the morning and ask Kinto what to do about the dead killers.
A few minutes later, somebody shot him in the back. He had put on all his auras, just to be safe, and the crossbow bolt bounced and went skidding off into the night. He turned around and saw Dimo as he dropped a crossbow and picked a second one he’d loaded.
Why?
Hawke loaded up a Hammer of Light while Dimo shot him again. The direct hit managed to pierce the shield and poke a hole – the third hole so far – in his new shirt. The ex-guardsman leaned over to grab a third crossbow – the sumbitch had picked up all the weapons his buddies had brought and reloaded them. Before he could take aim, Hawke hit him with his spell. The effect of forty-three points of Light damage to a human with only thirteen Health was gruesome. Dimo’s head and one of his arms went spinning away from an explosion of blood and internal organs.
“Jesus.”
Hawke left Dimo’s mutilated corpse where it lay, but he took the crossbows into his inventory, along with the eighteen bolts he found. Maybe they would come in handy at some point. He didn’t much care. The fight had been disgustingly easy, but it had left him feeling upset. Angry at himself. At the world.
For slaying your foes, you have earned 4 XP.
Current XP/Next Level: 6,454/6,500
“Is that all their lives were worth? One experience point each?”
“The Arbiters can kiss my ass! Those were normal people! They didn’t stand a chance. I don’t deserve any damn experience.”
“You never let up, do you?”
“Just shut the hell up,” Hawke said. He was full of adrenaline and had nobody else to vent to than this talking paper cutter.
His vision grew hazy all of a sudden. When he could see again, he was standing on a circular surface surrounded by a reddish fog. And before him was a woman with waving barbed chains instead of hair. Naked. He had seen her in his vision, but up close, she looked terrifying, but also… wow. Her body was strong, but curvy and soft in the right spots.
“Saturnyx?”
“Our bond has grown, Master. Through it, I can bring you to my home, where we can face each other.”
“That’s great. If I’m your master, how come you can drag me here without my consent?”
“You can leave at any time, but you don’t want to. You are angry with me. You wish to punish me. This is your chance.”
Saturnyx stepped closer. The barbed chains shrunk and turned into long and wavy red hair. She was breathing heavily, making her breasts rise and fall. Her nipples were fully erect. Other than her head, she was completely hairless. Suddenly, Hawke wasn’t angry anymore. He didn’t want to fight her.
“Punish me, Master. I am yours.”
Hawke walked up and grabbed her by the forearms. Her pale, smooth skin felt unnaturally hot, like someone with a fever. His grip loosened, became a caress. She took one of his hands and pressed it against her breast. Then pulled it further down, having him explore her body.
Their kiss was harsh and went on for a while, as if they were trying to devour each other. He sent his clothes to the inventory as he took her in his arms and she wrapped her strong long legs around his waist. They rolled onto the ground. It was wild, almost brutal. Sex wrapped in violence. It was just what he needed, and looking into her eyes, he knew it was just what she needed, too.
For a good while, all his worries, fears and anger disappeared. All that was left was pleasure and her eyes, burning into his.
Forty
Hawke woke up under a tree, feeling chilled and drained.
He summoned his clothes; they were bloodied and the shirt had three crossbow holes. He didn’t care. He and Saturnyx had… Wow. That had been…
It hadn’t been that long for Hawke, or rather Ben Velasco. Alba, of course, and before her there’d been that waitress from Friday’s – Wendy. Pretty, and nice to be around at first, but then she’d tried to domesticate him and things had gone south in a hurry. A couple weeks after their breakup-by-text, he’d bought a copy of Eternal Journey Online and ended up here. But nothing he had ever experienced compared to what he and Saturnyx had done. That had been pure, crazy, out of control, Animal Planet level stuff. His knees felt a little weak just thinking about it. He wanted to go back to sleep, but the sun was up over the mountains, which meant it was close to eight in the morning. He needed to go back to Kinto’s house and tell him what had happened.
Tava would be there. He wasn’t sure what to feel, let alone what to do. He had cheated on her.
“I guess I should tell her, then. Keep things honest.”
I’ll think about it. And stop calling me ‘master.’
“Jesus H. Christ,” Hawke muttered as he walked back up the hill. Just when he thought things couldn’t get any weirder, this happened.
Kinto met him at the gate, alerted by the dogs. He noticed the blood on Hawke’s shirt. “What happened?”
“Assassins happened.”
“Come in and tell your story while you eat. We were just finishing up breakfast. There’s plenty left.”
Hawke was famished; hearing about breakfast almost made him emotional. “Thank you.”
As he devoured some leftover bacon and eggs, Hawke recounted his night adventures, leaving out the dream or hallucination thing with Saturnyx.
The way she said ‘master’ sent a shiver down his spine.
“Are you all right?” Tava asked him. She reached out and held his hand with both of hers, earning a frown from Kinto and a weak and guilty smile from Hawke.
“First time I’ve killed humans,” he answered, which was the truth but not the whole truth. “I tried to spare one of them; he doubled back and tried to kill me again.”
“Brunes,” Kinto growled. “Has to be him.”
“Not the Prefect?” Gosto said.
“Felix is a weak man. Too weak to fight the Necromancer, but also too weak to have someone killed. Brunes is his servant, but
he does what he thinks is best for his master – and himself, of course.”
“We’ll kill him now, right?” Gosto asked with a teenager’s casual bloodlust. “Them. Brunes and the Prefect both!”
“No, fool of a Druid,” Kinto told his son. “Not unless you want to kill any guardsman who stands by his captain, and the townsfolk who will rush to their aid.”
“Nobody likes Brunes,” Gosto grumbled.
“None does, true, but many respect him. And many respect the law. Nobody likes a murderer.”
“What should we do?” Hawke asked Kinto. He was out of his depth when it came to the internal politics of Orom. He most certainly didn’t want to make an enemy of the entire town.
“Let’s see to the bodies first. Few people wander near my lands, so we have time. We’ll drag them off to a deep ravine by the next hill over, and drop them there. Let the crows and ants have their fill of them.”
That wasn’t how you committed a perfect crime on CSI: Wherever, but if Kinto thought that would take care of it, Hawke wasn’t going to second-guess him. “And after that?”
The Hunter’s smile was downright feral. “Then we go see the Prefect as if nothing happened. Let him or Brunes, whoever sent the killers, wonder what happened to them.”
Hawke smiled back. “I like that plan.”
“You’re going to need a new shirt, though,” Tava said, poking a finger through one of the crossbow bolt holes and lightly tickling him.
Hawke’s smile faltered a bit. “I’ll make another stop at the Copper Kettle’s lost and found. Although they are running low on things I can buy.”
And I need to get my head on straight. Thinking about getting laid will get me killed.
* * *
Sergeant Marko Clades was on watch at the entrance of the Prefect’s Keep, the fortified building on the tallest hill in Orom. He smiled when he saw Hawke but his expression grew serious as he noticed Kinto and Patros were walking alongside him. He and the other guard – Calvo – stood up a little straighter as the three men walked up.
Twilight Templar (The Eternal Journey Book 1) Page 23