Hunting in the dark

The night was dark and starless. Francis sat on top of a hill, observing the whole village of Hemwick. Looking at it from atop the hill, the village seemed to extend to no end; wooden houses and big structures with high chimneys from which smoke emanated endlessly.

Francis had learnt a great deal about the village. The first thing was that it was now inhabited by blood crazed women who would cut your throat at the first opportunity. They were gathering ritual materials from corpses and would burn the rest.

This explained the smoke emanating from the buildings all around the village. The big brutes known as executioners were there to ensure their safety against stronger enemies. In other words, their role was to interfere when somebody broke inside the village and tried to stop the harvesting of human organs.

Francis tried to get his new mentor to tell him about these women's objective. The retired hunter refused to give him any clue about it, claiming that Francis had to discover the truth by himself. He told him that he promised to train him to become a better hunter, not to tell him about Hemwick's history.

If he wished to know more about the place, all he had to do was to walk around the streets and question the women patrolling it. A joke in bad taste, as all of the women would attack at the sight of Francis. The only words they were capable of uttering were "I'll slice you in half you fiend" or "I'll cut your throat". Most of them just attacked him while screaming at his face and waving their sickles or hammers at him.

Since he discovered the existence of the hunter's dream and his inability to properly die, the notion of death had taken a new meaning to Francis. He was careful during his fights against hordes of women for sure. He didn't want to lose all his echoes stupidly to them. On the other hand, he didn't shy away from danger.

He wanted to put himself recklessly in dangerous situations and see how he could manage to pull himself out of them. One time, he was ambushed by a group of angry women, accompanied by two executioners. The fight was long and bloody.

He had had to use all of his blood vials and he ended up with a broken leg and two protruding ribs. He laughed as he drank the blood oozing from an executioner's neck after he sliced it open. In Yharnam, as much as in Hemwick, blood was in abundance and prey was all his to hunt and feast on.

His mentor had told him about hunters who could turn into beasts. They feast too much on the blood, more than they actually needed. The excess of blood corrupts their own mind and makes them blood thirsty hunters.

They start relishing fights and exhilarate at the sight of blood. And so they fight any and all that moves. They kill and consume blood until their thirst is satiated. "And when is it satiated?" asked Francis once. "When they completely transform into hideous beasts and another hunter comes to finally put them to rest" he replied.

"You must know this, not all hunters have good intentions. Some just want to see blood. Others want to consume it and let themselves be consumed by it in return. Few look for a way to put a stop to the night of beasts and horrors, but none of them survive long enough to reach their objective."

That revelation confirmed Francis' doubts about the order of the hunters. "So you mean to tell me that there are no good hunters left around in Yharnam?" he asked after taking his time to assess the information he had received from his mentor. "There may be one or two, but I have never met them."

Francis never told the old man about the dream he had the night he received the blood ministration. That castle and the woman in the iron mask. If his mentor was willing to keep secrets hidden away from him, nothing obliged him to confide in him.

Moreover, he understood that trusting anyone in this godforsaken place would probably mean his demise. Not that he feared death anymore; he dreaded being used most of all. The retired hunter had his own hidden agenda and he had his. He doubted that someone who had tasted immortality would give up his life after that gift had been taken away from him.

He was afraid that the man knew something he could use against him. He remembered a tale women used to tell their children back in his hometown. The story was about a witch who adopted two orphans, fed them and raised them to be hers. She even taught them how to read and write.

When they trusted her enough and the children were big and plump, she fed them to an ogre in exchange for access to his cave, where precious ingredients for her potions grew. She eventually grew stronger and killed the poor ogre too.

Her power didn't stop at that however, she honed her dark arts and assassinated the king. She ate the king's heart and metamorphosed into his shape and reigned in his stead for many years. Until a brave knight from a foreign land came looking for his long lost daughter.

As it turned out, the daughter was one of the orphans the witch used as a sacrifice to the ogre. The man revealed her treachery and after a bloody fight, managed to kill the witch and restore the kingdom to its rightful heir.

The story was mainly to scare children off from trusting strangers and to teach them about the benefits of bravery and honesty. If Francis laughed at womenfolk before for believing in witches and all kinds of sorcery, he retained the lesson of never trusting a stranger.

That man, although he offered his help, was still a stranger. One who managed to kill him in cold blood before. Francis was determined to get his revenge on him. From the few times they had sparred, he realized how fast and skillful the hunter was. Francis was proud of his new powers and his skill at sword fighting, but his mentor far surpassed him in skill and strength.

The man would dodge bullets as if rocks were thrown his way in slow motion. His sword never even touched a cloth from his clothes. What he got in return were bruises and broken bones. The retired hunter deemed it humiliating enough to never use his weapon on Francis unless the latter could tear up a piece of his clothing using the Chikage. To that end, Francis tried while his master dodged and punched and kicked him.

Francis had become frustrated to the extent of feeling hopeless. If he could kill his enemies in Hemwick and even in the Cathedral Ward with extreme ease, touching that damned retired hunter was a feat akin to a miracle.

That night, as he sat on that hill, he decided to take on the biggest horde of enemies he had ever seen in Hemwick. Every night, women and executioners would gather around the center of the village, an enormous circular area that used to be used for the preservation of their cattle.

Some villages kept their cattle in the middle and surrounded them with houses. Men would take turns at night to protect the village while women and children slept. The center was the safest place from predators for the animals that provided them with their sole source of income. Now, the village's only cattle were living humans and there was no need to keep them alive as the women harvested their organs and killed them in cold blood.

Francis doubted if these women even kept any humanity in them otherwise they'd attack each other and harvest each other's organs. He had seen their eyes and their teeth; reddened with blood and black as night. All they wanted was blood and to taste the fear of their prey before they slaughtered it.

He was no different than them however. He grew to love the fights and smell of blood. He learned to recognize the fear in his enemies' eyes. He swore he could even smell it. That night, a great fire was lit at the big circle. Women in great numbers gathered in there and around them executioners stood; big and clad in black as if they were statues carved out of obsidian.

He could count at least twelve executioners. The women must have been four scores or even more. The idea of taking on so many enemies excited and frightened Francis. 'If I am to understand that man's speed, I need to have as many weapons swinging my way as possible. I need to learn to see not only with my eyes but with my whole body.'