111 Chapter 111: The Hunters and the Hunted

When I suggested that the rest of Yvonne's hunter tribe try their luck after twelve hours, I did it on purpose. The hunters and huntresses of Yvonne's tribe, on the other hand, didn't realize the trap that I had laid out for them.

After all, Yvonne usually completed her hunts within a few hours. By the time she left the forest, it still hadn't reached evening. Even if the hunt started at midday (noon), she would be out long before the sun set.

Twelve hours, on the other hand, meant that the hunters and huntresses would only be entering the forest in the middle of the night, when the forest was at its darkest. Used to their mistress finishing her hunts in the space of mere hours, it never occurred to the hunters and huntresses that twelve hours later would see them entering the forest around midnight, where they couldn't rely on their sense of sight at all.

The forest was so dark that you couldn't even see your hand when you stretched it out in front of your face. It was so total and all-consuming that it could drive any normal man mad. The hunters and huntresses, fortunately, had trained to hunt in the dark, so they wouldn't find the pitch blackness debilitating. Even so, they had gotten more accustomed to hunting during the day, where there was a lot more sunlight trickling through the dense canopies of tall, thick trees. Additionally, they were only humans. No matter how much they trained, they would find it difficult to see well in the dark.

Such a problem was absent for vampires, who were nocturnal. We had developed and evolved to see perfectly in the dark, no matter how devoid of light the place was. In fact, we actually preferred dark places to bright ones, feeling more at home in the shadows and threatened by light.

The hunters and huntresses might have thought they had the home ground advantage in a forest that they had trained and hunted in throughout their lives, but they probably had never tried hunting a vampire in total darkness before.

Make that thirty vampires.

"Are you sure this will work?" Larson had asked when I lay out the plan. I had nodded with a smile.

"The darkness is our ally," I had replied. "The hunters merely adopted it. We were born in it, molded by it. We didn't…"

"Yes, it will work," Eleanor had interrupted impatiently. "You are right, though, Larson. The hunters cannot be underestimated. They should be very familiar with the terrain and will be able to track us down no matter how well we hide."

"But they won't be looking for us, nor are they aware that you guys are in there." My grin had grown wider. "The darkness will restrict them further. They won't know what hit them. As long as we strike swiftly and take them down as soon as possible before they can react, we will hold the overwhelming advantage. Also, knowing how they hunt, they will split up into smaller groups, thus allowing us to eliminate them one at a time."

Their fierce independence and ambition for glory were their weaknesses, at least in this scenario. I planned to exploit those vulnerabilities.

Pushing up my glasses, I had continued with a grin.

"We'll spread out a cordon of zoo bats, gold bats and cross bats to survey the entire forest. They'll communicate through ultrasound and let us know where the hunters and huntresses are. We will then work together to isolate them, then root out the small pockets one at a time."

"They might notice something is up," Eleanor had warned. "The bats are not native to the forest. Even though they shouldn't be able to see much in the dark, they might still be able to detect that something is off. Like…sound. Maybe even smell."

"Yeah, but we'll have to take the risk." I had pondered for a moment, and then grinned. "I just need to distract their attention so that they won't focus on the strange appearance of the bats. I'll get them to focus on me."

"Good idea. They will be so distracted that their attention will be taken off the vampire knights lying in wait to ambush them too." Eleanor had nodded in approval.

"If you're that confident, that I have no objections." Larson had bowed. "We will follow your plan."

And that was how I ended up directing the platoon of vampires to set up traps and conceal their presence in the forest shortly after I had Stella drag the incapacitated and currently unconscious Yvonne away. All that was left to do was wait.

Glancing up, I watched as the sun slowly shifted across the sky and dipped toward the horizon.

I couldn't wait for the mission to begin, but patience was a virtue. Once the sun set and the forest was shrouded in darkness, then it would be our time. I could tell from the faint bloodthirst in the air that my vampire knights were looking forward to it too.

It was time to hunt the hunters.

*

The hunters and huntresses of Yvonne's tribe waited restlessly outside the forest. When their mistress failed to appear after six hours, they grew excited. This was the first time she had taken so long in a hunt and hope began to grow within them that they might just have a chance at hunting me.

Funnily enough, it never occurred to them that their mistress might have been defeated or worse, killed.

All the better for me to wipe them out. I estimated that there was about three hundred of them in total. They outnumbered me and my platoon of vampire knights ten to one.

Those odds were pretty much even, then.

The hunters and huntresses continued to watch in anticipation, noting the lack of activity or violence within the forest. Well, it wasn't as if they could see or detect anything from such a distance anyway. Try as they might, they wouldn't have noticed what I did to Yvonne, or they would have charged in to save their mistress (or run away at the sight of my ice dragon). Then again, given the culture of their tribe, they were just as likely to celebrate the fall of their leader and fight against each other for the position.

"She's taking a much longer time than usual."

"This foe must be really tough."

"Well, Mistress seems to know the person. If that's the case, it's not surprising that he would last this long."

"Seems like his confidence wasn't misplaced, after all. I thought he was boasting, but he could back up his words."

The hunters and huntresses were looking forward to their chance.

"If we're able to hunt a target that even the mistress couldn't, doesn't that prove our superiority over her?"

"Hah! Who knows, we might be able to take over as the next leader?"

Too bad they wouldn't be alive to do so.

While they bantered among themselves, a few of them noticed the sun was setting. Even though they refused to show it – the hunters hated any sign of weakness – they were hardly able to conceal their anxiety.

The darkness disturbed them. It was intrinsic in all humans – the fear of the dark. That was why we created lights or ignited fires, to keep the beasts and monsters at bay. There was nothing scarier than the unknown, and nothing hid the unknown better than the dark.

However, these hunters had survived encounters with deadly predators and even triumphed over them. They couldn't possibly be afraid of the dark. Unnerved, yes. Disturbed, yes. But fear? Only the weak feared the dark.

Or so they believed.

I waited until the twelve hour mark, keeping my distance and monitoring the hunters and huntresses through my network of zoo bats, gold bats and cross bats. As impatient as I was to get the whole thing started, I needed to buy the time required for my forces to take up their positions and set up their traps.

At first, I only had them scout the area and leave, with only Stella staying behind because she insisted that she needed to watch over me. Given Yvonne's superlative tracking skills and hunting abilities, I didn't want to reveal my hand too soon. She would have detected the vampires' presence and noticed that something was amiss.

That was why I had them wait until I had subdued Yvonne before I allowed them back in. Using the data we gathered from an earlier reconnaissance mission, I allowed them to use their own discretion to plan their own ambush sites and traps.

The platoon of vampires broke into groups of twos or threes, because staying in large groups would make it extremely difficult for us to hide. While I stayed in the clearing where I had defeated Yvonne, the vampire knights under my command spread out.

Even I didn't know where each and every one of them was. I could find out by using the bats, but I would rather save them for an emergency. Use too much ultrasound and flutter about too much, and the enemies would notice something was amiss. I wasn't going to risk it.

Staying where I was, I raised my head and watched the sky slowly darken. The sun set, casting the forest in colossal shadow. Even so, I patiently waited. My glasses helped me keep track of everything, detecting motion, tacking thermal signatures and even providing night vision despite not needing it because I was a vampire.

When midnight struck – basically the twelve hours, I gave the signal. Conjuring a gigantic icicle, I allowed it to hover high in the air, above the canopies of the tall trees that populated the forest, and launched it at the place where Yvonne's tribe was waiting.

The hunters and huntresses jumped, and some of them were killed by the icicle when it crashed into their position, crushing them into bloody pastes before they could evade. Those whose reflexes were fast enough sprang back to their feet, their jaws agape.

"This is…!"

"There's no mistaking it! This ice magic…it must be that mage!"

"So he's still alive! Mistress failed to kill him!"

"Ha ha ha! This is our chance! Get him!"

"He's mine!"

Elated, the hunters and huntresses sprang to life, sprinting into the forest. They split up into smaller groups of three to five, a balanced party that blended muscle with accuracy (from bows). Having been raised in the forest and trained to hunt their whole lives, they moved in small, disciplined units, spreading out to cover as many areas as possible.

This made sense. If they bunched up together, then they would alert me to their presence and the direction from which they were coming from. That would make it a lot easier for me to evade them. Not unless I was stupid enough to confront them directly, but surely I wasn't that dumb, right?

At least these hunters were respecting me slightly and not treating me lightly. I felt a little flattered. Relying on the bats, I saw how they treaded cautiously in the dark, trying to be as stealthy as possible. They were actually pretty incredible in terms of silence and stealth – if I was trying to find them visually or listen for them, I would never have detected them.

However, the bats had ultrasound, emitting waves that acted as a sonar. Thanks to that, they could detected movement, no matter how silent it was. The information they received was transmitted not just to me but also my vampire knights.

We stayed still, waiting for an opportunity. The hunters and huntresses weren't pushovers. They were moving cautiously, alert not just for their quarry but also for nocturnal predators. They were being even more careful than they were during the day, an effect of moving around in the dark.

Evidently they were aware of the dangers. The predators lurking at night were even more dangerous than the diurnal ones, their black fur camouflaging them in the shadows.

Fortunately for the hunters, they had been trained for this sort of scenarios since young, having been thrown into the forest at night. The hardiest, most adaptable and most cunning of them survived, outwitting predators or overwhelming them in combat even during a time that didn't favor them. This was the best of the best, those who remained standing after a ruthless process that weeded out those not resilient or crafty enough to survive the rigors of night hunting.

Unfortunately for them, they had never met anything like a vampire before.

Within the first half hour, first blood was drawn.

A trio of hunters had blundered into a trap set by the vampires, despite all of their caution. They were moving in a circle, eyes out and scanning the trees and surroundings for any sign of predators or enemies. Occasionally, one of them would kneel down to look for tracks – my tracks – so that they could pick up my trail. When he did so, the other two would guard him, keeping an eye out on the trees.

A single vampire knight dropped down behind the two sentries, silent and all but invisible in the darkness. Before the two sentries could react, he had already reached out and slit the throat of the single woman in the group, causing her to gurgle. Her partner whirled around when he heard the sound, only for the vampire to ram a blood dagger into his forehead.

Of course, there was no way the tracker couldn't have heard the ruckus. He was about to twist around at the gurgle and grunt from his comrades, but the bush he was inspecting suddenly shook violently. Earlier, he had found something interesting about it, which was why he had stopped to inspect the otherwise ordinary shrub.

It turned out that his tracker instincts were right. Someone had gone through this area. The flattened leaves and broken branches indicated a path left by someone unmistakably human.

Or vampire. Well, vampires counted as humans. Former humans, mutated humans, transformed humans. Still humans.

Whatever the case, his excellent tracking senses ended up being his downfall. When he was distracted by the commotion behind him, turning around to check on his comrades while simultaneously drawing his hunting knife, a single hand shot out of the bush to grab his neck.

A vampire had been lying in wait inside the bush, ready to ambush him. Casting a blood spell, he conjured blood claws and punched several holes in the tracker's neck, killing him instantly.

As the three hunters flopped down, their lives expiring, the two vampires dragged their corpses into the bushes and used blood magic to shred the bodies into nothing, doing their best to leave no signs that a murder had ever occurred here.

Without knowing it, the hunters and huntresses of Yvonne's tribe had now become the hunted.