Burn the Forest: Part 3

[Read the story here with full formatting and illustrations: https://nicklstories.wordpress.com/burn-and-slay-part-3/]

"Stop what?" Raksha focused his aegis, heightening his senses. He felt the trembling of air that comes with words, the scent trails left behind by the flight of arrows, discordances in moon-cast shadows across cooling dirt.

There.

The ground cratered beneath his feet as he kicked off into a leaping charge. Eighty feet vanished between him and a shadowy mass in a quarter-second. He hacked out with Steelbreaker. Its curved length caught the moonlight as it arced. Raksha glimpsed eyes with feline pupils, a furred brow, and darkened leather as the archer hurled himself away from the blade.

He pursued, this time slicing downward. Once more, the archer avoided the cut, rolling away, bringing up his bow, and loosing a trio of arrows in quick succession at near point-blank range.

Raksha released one of his hands from its grip on Steelbreaker and opened it into a palm. He caught the shaft of the first arrow on the back of his hand. Working his aegis through the sequences of the Harmonic Palm, he suspended its momentum, so that the arrow stuck lengthwise to his knuckles. He caught the next two arrow shafts on his palm and did the same.

Then he raised his hand, redirected the suspended momentum of all three projectiles, and sent them streaking back where they came from.

The arrows struck the archer in the chest, drawing grunts of pain as each projectile thumped home. He staggered back, but did not fall.

"Well done, Raksha. But truthfully, I didn't expect anything less from the Destroyer's apprentice," he said.

"Kill the heretic, Raksha!" Ignatius screamed, charging forward with his weapons raised.

"No, Father, watch out!"

Something sliced through the air, so fast and so powerful that Raksha only perceived it as a blur. But that was enough for him to tackle Ignatius to the ground and out of the projectile's path.

There had been an old, abandoned wagon in the clearing where they'd been speaking. It flew apart in a shower of splinters and iron fragments as the projectile hit it. Raksha shielded the priest with his body, letting the shrapnel clatter harmlessly off his aegis.

Not going to be able to stop whatever that was with the Harmonic Palm. He raised his sword and scrambled to his feet.

The moon's light fell upon the archer, then. He was clad in a long leather coat and wore a peaked cap on his head. His eyes shone yellow under the moon. He held a bow lined with strange runes in one gloved hand and had an outlandish arrow that seemed more bone than wood at the ready in the other.

Most disconcerting of all was the fact that his face was snouted, bestial beyond the confines of humanity, and his legs were backward jointed, like those of a predatory feline.

"A mutant," Ignatius spat. "Foul, diseased, filth."

"Who are you?" Raksha demanded.

"I am the Hunter," the archer said, a grin stretching across his inhuman face as he plucked out the arrows in his chest with casual ease and tossed them into the dirt. "And I'm here for the party. It's going to be great, so I'd really appreciate the both of you not ruining everyone's fun."

Raksha didn't know what the Hunter meant by that, but it was obvious the mutant was playing out some kind of scheme. He'd never been very good at untangling knots woven of strategy and intrigue, but he knew one thing.

You can't scheme if you're dead.

Wordlessly, he charged.

Another blur of motion, but he was ready for it this time, having focused all of the Conflagration's might into heightening his senses and reflexes. The Hunter's bone arrow sliced through the night, faster than sound. Raksha brought up Steelbreaker to meet it.

Sparks flew as the arrow's tip struck the base of his blade, and Raksha began a sideways cut that would send the projectile spinning harmlessly into the night. Instead, the arrow drove against Steelbreaker, forcing it back beyond the strength of his aegis, and slamming its flat into Raksha's face. His vision spun, and suddenly he found himself airborne, spiraling out into empty air.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Hunter's arrow spin alongside him, its momentum thwarted. He growled, righted himself in midair, and slammed his down feet-first back onto the ground.

Already, the Hunter had another bone arrow nocked and drawn.

Raksha growled and thumbed his broken nose back into place. Blood flowed freely down his face, but his aegis immediately began rejoining the bone and stemming the bleeding. He raised his blade and set his feet again.

"Let's go," he said.

"Now, now, Raksha." The Hunter grinned. "The fun hasn't even begun yet. It'd be such a pity if we killed each other now, wouldn't it? Sit back, I say. See what happens. Listen to the music. At the end of it all, there'll still be time for murder, hatred, the spilling of blood. There always is."

Raksha shuffled forward, Steelbreaker's point leveled at the tip of the Hunter's bone arrow. He'd witnessed the flight of two of its kind. He would be ready for the third.

"What? Not going to ask me what I meant? What I want? My plans?" the Hunter asked.

"Don't care. I'm just going to kill you." Raksha inched closer. "Then you can't do anything."

The Hunter threw his misshapen head back and laughed. All this time, the tip of his arrow never wavered in his grasp. "A brutal but logical and undoubtedly effective approach. Ah, I like you, Raksha. In another lifetime, we could have been the best of friends."

Raksha took another step forward. "I don't befriend mutants."

"But what a pair we'd make. Think about it. Your sheer single-minded stubbornness combined with my penchant for luring prey right where I want them." The Hunter grinned again.

Too late, Raksha realized the mutant's intent. The arrow tip shifted, so that it pointed behind him, rather than at him.

Father Ignatius!

The night air split apart once more.

Spinning on his heel and calling forth the full strength of the Conflagration, Raksha hurled Steelbreaker at the arrow that roared past him. Father Ignatius stood at the end of its path, his face twisted with righteous indignation, but he was oblivious to his pending extinction.

Metal clashed against enchanted bone, drawing sparks once more. Bereft of Raksha's aegis, Steelbreaker was smashed aside by the Hunter's arrow and sent hurtling into the night air. But the impact was enough to shift the projectile's trajectory so that it zipped emptily by Ignatius's neck instead of tearing the priest's head off.

Raksha turned, fists clenched. The Hunter had put his bow away and was clapping his hands.

"Definitely didn't think you'd be able to pull that off. No, I'm not kidding. That's really impressive," the mutant said. "So, what now? You're going to beat me to death with your bare hands?"

"Yes."

"You need to reach me, first." The Hunter pointed at Raksha's feet. He looked down. Strange, twisted roots had wound themselves around his boots. The Hunter clenched his fist, and the roots snapped into binding tautness, tight enough so that Raksha's aegis creaked beneath their grasp.

"Bye for now, Raksha. I'm pretty sure we'll have another chance to murder each other again very soon." Bowing, the Hunter swept his cap off his head to reveal a bare, leathery scalp. Then he turned and sprinted into the darkness.

"Goddamn it!" Raksha struggled against the roots, but they held him fast.

"Take not God's name in vain, lest ye be damned to eternal hellfire!" Ignatius barked, coming up to stand beside him. The priest glared at the roots. "This is foul, unclean witchery, born of the heathen darkness that threatens the works of man. It must be purged with fire wherever it rears its head."

"Fire, eh?" Raksha seized the roots in his hands and drew deeply on the Conflagration, intensifying his aegis. Heat swirls began to form in the air around his body. He didn't know why, but the Conflagration's aegis was anathema to demons and sorcery and had always been since its true awakening in Raksha's soul.

The roots began to writhe in his grasp. Unclean green light leaked from fissures opening up in their flesh. With a final grunt, Raksha tore them from the ground. They disintegrated in his hands, and he tossed their crumbling remains away with a grunt of disgust.

"Well, he got away, and no soldiers are coming," Raksha said, turning to face Ignatius. "So what do we do now, Father?"

"This gathering must be dispersed, one way or the other. The mutant's presence proves that something unholy is afoot." Ignatius turned to the forest, where the sounds of merriment had grown stronger and the shadows dancing amid firelight had become wilder. "If words will not work, then steel and fire must suffice. Perhaps if enough blood is spilled, those serfs that survive will return to their rightful station in life."

"Wait, Father. Nobody needs to be hurt." Raksha picked Steelbreaker up, wiped its blade on the remaining sleeve of his robe, and sheathed it. "I think they're here simply for Aisa's singing. If she doesn't sing, then there's no reason for them to stay."

"Good thinking." Ignatius nodded. "Let's go kill her now."

"That's not what I meant!" Raksha sighed. "Let me talk to her. If I can get her to go home, everyone else will probably leave, and whatever that mutant is planning will fall apart."

"Yes, I saw you speaking with the girl just now. The two of you seem to have established some form of rapport, so you might sway her mind, yet." The priest tucked his flail back into his robes and sheathed his sword. "Go, Raksha, in God's name."

"Yes, Father. But where will you be?"

"I will lose myself among the crowd. We will find each other when the time is right."

Raksha nodded and strode back to the forest.