13 The Hunt, Part 1

Kiren waited, leaned against the ring wall of the Lodge. The first rays of the sun washed the clouds in pale gold and dew hung heavy in the grass.

'This guy better show up. I'm done being yanked around by the Heroes' Guild.'

One of the sentries on the wall shouted something to the others. Slowly, the gates came open, creaking and groaning.

Lace came through and the gates closed behind her. She looked around the courtyard. She held herself with a slight slouch, dark rings under her eyes. She had little bits of hay stuck to her clothes.

'She's been sleeping rough. Too bad for her.'

"Over here," he said.

She spotted him and waved, then came over.

"Have you seen Excelerate yet?" Lace asked.

"Nope. Not a hair of him."

"The sun's coming up. He should be here soon."

"This better not have been some sort of sick joke."

The temple bell rung five. Kiren shook his head.

Lace slumped against the wall next to him. She stared off into the distance, her mind seemingly on other things.

'Looks a bit out of it. I can't have her screw up today.'

"What's wr—" Kiren started.

There was a flash of dull black.

He felt something grasp his waist and he was hoisted into the air. The world became a blur and his stomach lurched as he hurtled through space.

He caught only glimpses of what was going on around him. Roads. Houses. Trees. Water. Yellow fields.

Kiren tried to scream, but the wind caught his mouth and peeled away his lips. Every second that passed that way felt like an eternity, and he struggled not to throw up. The contents of his stomach were precious slim as it was.

Everything slowed. The grip holding him was released and he fell hard. He tumbled across the ground, dirt going in his clothes. He came to a stop on his stomach, grass tickling his face.

All the sounds of the city were gone, replaced with the chirping of birds and a gentle symphony of crickets.

Kiren worked his arms underneath himself and stood with a long groan. He looked around, blinking at his surroundings. He stood on the edge of a field in between rows of wheat. Lace was on her hands and knees next to him, spitting dirt.

"Good morning, prospects," Excelerate said, walking in front of them. "That oughta woken you up."

"Fuck you," Kiren muttered.

"Really not fair, master," Lace said, working her way to her feet.

Kiren had a closer look at his surroundings. There were a number of squat houses off to his right, clustered around both sides of a wide, calm river with trees growing by the banks. Further in that direction was a thick, imposing wood, stretching far. The city lay behind him in the distance. It'd take hours to reach.

He ran that far in, what, two or three minutes? Lugging two people, no less. I see why they call him A Rank.

"Why're we at this hodunk?" Kiren asked.

"An eager one, aren't you?" Excelerate said. "Don't worry. All will be explained. Come with me, children."

Excelerate walked out of the field, his black robes trailing in the breeze. Kiren followed, grumbling to himself, and Lace came last. They entered the small village, which seemed to consist of only forty or fifty houses. A few farmers had already come out for the day's work. Three men worked on fixing a wagon, while a young boy walked through the wheat rows, pulling up bundles of wizened crops. A girl sat by the river, dipping her bare feet in the dark, almost black waters and humming to herself.

"This is Winewater Village, isn't it?" Lace asked.

"What tipped you off?" Excelerate asked with a sarcastic twist to his lip. "But yes. It is."

"I've only been outside the city once or twice. It's so beautiful here!" Lace bent down and scooped a bumblebee into her hands. She giggled to herself and seemed to stand a little taller. "It's hard to imagine this river runs all the way to the ocean."

"Mm..." Kiren said. Her rambling was already getting on his nerves.

"I've heard the river goes through this narrow gorge on its way south. I always wanted to go there and play, but my parents wouldn't let me."

"Mmhmm." Kiren raised his voice. "You said we had to do something for you, right? So why are we here? Do you want us to shovel horse-shit or something?"

"Something a little more exciting than that," Excelerate said.

They proceeded to the south side of the village. On their left, a small field of potato plants had been uprooted and cleared away, with a circle of flowers and dried leaves placed around a patch of dirt. Wooden totems had been thrust into the dirt along the circle, words scratched into them. It was a binding circle, like the ones made at funerals, though the totems had been modified. It looked as if they had been dipped in blood, then sanded down so that only the letters stood out a stark red. Dead beetles and bees lay at the edge of the circle, in some places piled on top of each other.

Something lay at the center of the circle. It was rounded and pale, half-covered by the dirt. Excelerate entered the circle and unearthed the object. He wiped his hands on his robes and stood aside.

Kiren flinched. Lace gasped and put her hands over her mouth.

It was a human baby.

"Holy Creator..." Lace muttered.

Excelerate turned it onto its back with the tip of his shoe.

The baby was grotesquely mutilated. It had wide, buggy eyes with blood red irises. Its jaw resembled an elongated snout which split down the middle, its mouth opening into four, sharp-toothed sections. It had small holes instead of ears and its naked skin was covered in patches of flaking, dull brown scales. Below its short arms were two more sets of vestigial limbs, more akin to stiff tentacles than arms.

Two more creatures lay next to the first, almost completely covered in dirt. Excelerate uncovered these as well. Each was more deformed than the last, with odd-numbered limbs and faces twisted in single-minded malice, even in death.

"Creator save me," Lace breathed.

Kiren frowned, leaning in closer.

"These are not children," Excelerate said. "They are…"

"Beasts," Kiren finished.

The Hero nodded. "Yes, very good. Have some experience, do you?"

"We get them in the Slog," Kiren said. "As you should know. No one there to exterminate them."

Excelerate ignored him. "These Beasts were still in their juvenile stage. Spawnlings, we call them. At this size, they pose a threat only to the unwary. The villagers took care of these ones of their own accord. However…"

"Beasts never show up alone," Kiren said.

"Excellent! Maybe I should start handing out treats! Yes, you are quite right. There's another Beast near Winewater Village—one far more shrewd and dangerous than these runts. A woodcutter was killed at the edge the forest to the west a few days ago. His body was recovered and it was determined that only a Beast could have done the deed. Likely a humanoid-class—one that has evolved beyond the spawnling stage."

"That's terrible!" Lace said. "What's being done about it?"

Excelerate motioned to the two of them. "The cavalry has already arrived." He put a thumb to his lips and made a blew a half-hearted fanfare.

"You want us to hunt a Beast for you?" Kiren asked. "One that's already killed a man?"

"I need to make sure you can be useful to me," Excelerate said. "Right now, being useful means saving me time. Sure, I could go out in those woods and hunt down the Beast myself. But I have work to conduct in the village. If I have to do both, that'll take me two days instead of one. In that time, a Villain might decide to go on a spree and kill a hundred people, with no high ranked Heroes available to stop them."

"So, yes. If you want to be my apprentices, you have to do this. Capture and kill the Beast by sundown, or you needn't bother coming back to the Lodge."

"I understand, master," Lace said.

He went from the heart of the city to here in a few minutes. Surely, he could knock this out in no time if he wanted to. Is this purely to test us?

"I hope you'll at least give us some weapons to use," Kiren said.

Every fool in the Slog knew that if you saw a Beast, no matter the size, you ran the other way. They had nothing worth taking, and more likely than not they would gut you like a fish and suck your corpse dry of blood. Now, he was expected to fight one, for some village he hadn't even known about before this morning.

"Ah, yes," Excelerate said. "Weapons. It would be irresponsible of me to send you out there without any way of defending yourself."

An older woman watched them from the dirt road, holding a basket of fresh apples in the crook of her arm. Excelerate approached her with a half-hearted wave. She offered an apple to both Kiren and Lace, and he wolfed it down gladly.

"I'm looking for the elder," Excelerate said. "Do you know where he is?"

"Over there, Master Hero," the woman said. She pointed to a building near the center of the village, larger than the rest. "Poor man. Maxim's been living in the village hall since his daughters were stolen by Beasts in the night. Hasn't been the same since."

"That's horrible!" Lace said, looking towards the village hall.

"When Jagon—the woodsman—was taken as well, Maxim shut himself in. Wouldn't come out for days. I had the husband go to the city to ask for help." She nodded. "Suppose that's why you're here. If it's all the same to you, Master Hero, don't bother Maxim too much. He's been through a frightful lot."

"Hopefully he'll feel a bit more at ease once this situation is dealt with," Lace said.

"Thank you for your help, goodwife," Excelerate said. "We'll be moving on."

The woman nodded and made a sign to the Creator. "Thank you for this. It's about time this nightmare was put to rest. We've lost too many to the Beasts."

Excelerate wandered over to the village hall. A weathervane spun lazily at the peak of the two-story building, depicting a hunched-over Beast—half human, half wolf. He tapped the heavy double doors. When no one answered, he knocked harder, making the heavy oak doors rattle in their frame.

There was a voice from inside, and a minute later an older man opened the door, sloppily dressed in hose and an unlaced shirt. He glared up at Excelerate, but as soon as he realized who he was looking at his gaze shot straight into the ground.

"Master Hero!" the man said.

"Elder Maxim, is it?" Excelerate said.

"Indeed, master. Say, uh, why are you here?"

"Yeah. Say, while we are about this dark business, could you fetch us some weapons? Anything'll do, so long as it's proper enough to hunt Beasts."

Elder Maxim blinked, a frown forming, then dissipating. "Uh, I, erm, I suppose we should have something lying around. It's not often we find the courage to fight back against the Beasts, you see."

Excelerate nodded. "Excellent. Be off then." He shooed away the elder with a lazy hand motion. The man hurried off, doors slowly creaking shut behind him.

He returned with a bow, a half-full quiver, and a rusted hunting spear. Kiren frowned skeptically at the supposed 'weapons'.

"This were all I could find on such short notice," Elder Maxim said. "It's in a bit of a state, but…"

"That'll do," Excelerate said. He took the weapons. He handed the bow and quiver to Lace and the spear to Kiren. It was as tall as him, with a rusted, leaf-shaped tip and a shaft that had been worn smooth with use.

"We must all stand united in this age of Beasts, eh?" Excelerate said. He put a hand on the elder's shoulder. "Mind if I come in for half-a-cup of tea?"

"Of course, master," Elder Maxim said.

"You expect us to fight with these?" Kiren asked.

Excelerate turned around, eyebrows raised. "You're still here? I wouldn't be wasting time if I were you. You have a job to do, I have mine."

He stepped inside the village hall and the doors slammed shut behind him.

"Fucking typical," Kiren muttered. "We're meant to run into the woods and chase Beasts, fucking Beasts, while he sits around and drinks tea like some fancy inner city lady."

"It could be worse," Lace said. "At least we know where the Beast is probably hiding, and we got, uh…" She looked down at her bow with its frayed string and unwinding leather grip. "...Something to fight them with. And we have all day to finish, so I'm sure it won't be too hard."

"Oh, yeah?" Kiren asked. "Do you know how to track?"

"No," she admitted. "What about you?"

"Do I look like I do? I've not left the city since…" He trailed off.

"Anyway," he said. "Let's get this over with."