Tainted Hunger

D hated many things. He hated his parents for abandoning him. He hated the orphanage for giving him a stupid letter for a name. He hated living on the fringe. He hated his life as a monster hunter apprentice and his master, Hunter Maerik. In truth, he hated pretty much everything but the thing he hated the most was being hungry. At that moment he was what he hated most, but considering that was how he was most of the time it wasn't anything new. What was new was that soon he'd be getting to eat. Maerik and his companions Den, Balnic, and Finnic had managed to complete their hunt. They'd been tasked with hunting an unknown reptilian monster. No one knew what it was since it had wings but seemed unable to fly, spent as much time running around on all four as it did on two legs. It had thick black scales like a snake over part of its body but lizard-like leather on others.

Right now the four of them were arguing its nature as the beast's meat roasted on a spit. Maerik thought it was some kind of wyrm. Den thought it was a true dragon hatchling. Balnic argued that it was just an overgrown gecko. While Finnic swore it was a snake despite the others' argument that snakes didn't have legs. Although they didn't ask D his opinion he just thought it was dinner.

Maerik stood up and checked the roasting meat before calling out "Alrighty boys. Looks like it's done." Each of the four men drew their knives and started carving out large chunks of meat. All four of them were huge burly bearded men that could have passed as brothers though none of them were related. They wore old worn leather covered by oiled overcoats that hid away the various weapons they carried with them.

Maerik was starting to sit back when D shifted forward to catch his attention. "Oh yeah. I guess we should feed ya. You did good today." He flung the piece of meat stuck to his knife high towards D making him stand up to catch it. Unlike the four men, D didn't have a knife of his own and was forced to juggle the still sizzling meat for a moment before tearing into it, too hungry to care about it burning his mouth. Maerik cut himself another piece of meat laughing at his apprentice.

Normally D would get upset but right now he was too busy trying to swallow the still too hot meat. While he was officially on paper Maerik's Hunter Apprentice the reality was that the group used him like a mule most of the time and bait when it was time to hunt.

So far they'd not actually taught him anything. D was around twelve, he didn't know his actual age and no one had ever celebrated his birthday so he wasn't even sure when it was. He wore old tattered hand-me-downs he'd been given that were far too big for him with shoes so small they were bursting at the seams. He was barely five foot one with a mop of dirty blonde hair that needed cut almost as bad as it needed washed.

As he wolfed down the meat it burned his mouth and throat before settling into his stomach. Even after he finished devouring it his mouth and throat continued to burn. Soon his eyes were watering from pain and he curled up in the fetal position whimpering as he clutched his stomach. From the fire, the four hunters laughed at his plight asking him if he had a "tummy ache". Soon though their laughs became choked gasps and wet coughs.

Through the blur of pain, he saw one of the men he thought perhaps Finnic stand up clutching at his throat as he coughed up blood. Den fell over sideways his mouth bubbling with bloody foam as his body seized violently. D pushed himself up to his hands and knees trying to crawl towards the huge pack he normally carried. They had medicine and antidotes in there, he didn't know what was wrong but he wanted the pain to stop.

Suddenly the pain in his stomach spiked and it felt as if his body was ripping itself apart. He vomited up blood. Dry heaving he looked down at his hands as his fingernails lengthened into claws to dig into the packed earth. From the tip of his fingers up his hand and to his arms scales appeared then disappeared like a ripple repeating every few moments. The claws grew and retracted with each pulse that rippled through him until finally, darkness engulfed him snuffing out the pain.

**********

Waking up D curled up into a ball his entire body aching. His throat burned while his mouth was filled with a mix of the metallic taste of blood and the bitter taste of bile. Once he realized the pain wasn't going away but was at least not getting worse he opened his eyes half expecting to find the flames of hell awaiting him. Instead, there was just the clearing they had been camping at the night before. Sitting up slowly he spotted the four corpses of the hunters still around the firepit. From around their mouth down to their waist it looked as if their bodies had melted away leaving blood and dissolved tissue. The smell was atrocious but D was used to even worse having been around more than one butchered monster.

Looking down he found he was covered in blood and vomit but seemed otherwise alright. Even the burning in his mouth and throat was slowly going away. Although, the headache was still pounding. Looking down at the corpses of the four hunters including Maerik who'd bought him from the orphanage to be his apprentice, D felt…. Nothing.

Pulling off the filthy rags he was wearing he pulled out one of the hunters' best shirts and trousers. Using the same methods he'd developed for keeping his other oversized clothes on he dressed himself up in the finest outfit he'd ever worn. Next, he started going through their pockets making sure to get the job scroll from Maerik as well as collecting their hunter tags. Once he had everything of value either on his person or in his pack he picked up the oiled canvas bundle and left without looking back, leaving the bodies where they lay.

**********

Pentok, Fringe Outpost of the Southern Region.

D walked through the outpost confidently. Even if he hadn't been there plenty of times during his six months of apprenticeship there wasn't a whole lot to the outpost. Other than the Hunters guild there was really only taverns and brothels. Entering the Hunters guild he moved right towards the desk to stare up at the older man he knew as Nip.

"You're Maerik's boy, right? Where is he?" Nip leaned over the counter to stare down gruffly at D.

"I ain't his boy." D's voice was even more raspy than normal. He rarely talked since it normally just earned him a beating.

"Alright then. What do you want Ain't Maerik's Boy?"

D slid over the contract, four metallic tags, one wooden tag, and then hefted up the large canvas bundle. He'd been surprised how much easier it was carrying the heavy bag and the large bundle. Normally he struggled under its weight and would often collapse yet on the entire way here it had hardly been a bother. 'Probably feels lighter since it is all mine now. Carrying others stuff just makes it feel heavier.' he'd thought to himself more than once.

At Nip's questioning look he rasped out. "Maerik and the others died but the contract is finished." He nudged the bundle with the beast's head forward. "I brought their tags back and want my own. This should count as completing a hunt right?"

Nip looked down at the half-starved boy before him that reeked of blood. He knew Maerik well and guessed most of what the apprenticeship for him had actually been like. Either this boy survived a hunt that took the lives of four rough hunters or he'd managed to kill said hunters. Either way, as far a Nip was concerned it made him worthy of the job. Besides if not he'd be dead soon enough.

Nip unwrapped the head and wrinkled his nose at the stench before unrolling the job scroll. It showed that the marked target was dead and presented. Shrugging Nip tossed the head into the disposal shaft before scooping up the tags. Picking a blank tag from one of his drawers he motioned for the boy. "Alright. Need some of your blood now."

D pulled Maerik's knife from the sheath at his waist, it was a knife he'd long admired. Maerik though had refused to give him even a backup swearing he wasn't worth being trusted with one. D tried to twirl the knife around just as the older hunters had and he'd practiced with sticks whenever he had the energy to. Sadly, he ended up cutting his own hand leaving a thin clean cut. He glared up at Nip while offering his now bleeding hand as if he'd cut himself on purpose. Nip for his part said nothing and touched the blank tag to a bit of his blood attuning it to its new owner.

D licked the cut and was surprised to find that it was already healed. 'Must have been a cleaner cut than I thought. At Least Maerik kept his knife sharp.' D thought to himself as he watched Nip engraving his new tag.

"What's your name boy?"

D had hated his single letter name his whole life, had thought of countless names he'd have rather had but when the moment of truth came he blurted out in a raspy voice "They call me D." Cursing himself for not planning ahead he figured it would be alright.

Nip then handed him the new tag. "Alright Hunter D here is the payment for your completed hunt. Forty Silvers minus the one for the new tag." D took the heavy pouch from the man, his eyes going more than a little wide. He'd never had a single coin to himself and now he had forty silvers. Mentally he counted out that it was a hundred bronze knots to a silver and a hundred copper kips to a bronze knot. He couldn't even imagine how much money thirty-nine silver coins would be worth.

D wasn't good at many things but he knew numbers, numbers were important. You had to know that or you might get cheated when making deals. Right there he stopped and counted out the silver coins while Nip shook his head. 'The boy's as bad as the one that trained him.'

Once he was sure he had all his coins he turned and walked out of the guild not even bothering to say goodbye to Nip who just shook his head a second time.

Leaving the guild he headed straight to the Drunken Dragon. It was the tavern they normally visited and where he'd watched the others eat more times than he could count. Pushing into the wooden building he picked a table based on the prerequisite he was used to. It had to be against a wall where he could watch the room and so he could store his pack out of the easy reach of others. In this case beneath the bench under his feet just to make sure no one touched it.

The burly tavern keeper walked over towards him instead of one of the normal waitresses. "You Maerik's boy right? Where is he?"

D's eye twitched as he growled out. "I ain't Maerik's boy. I want to order!"

Towering over him the man crossed his arms over his chest looking less than happy. "What ya orderin then?"

"Mutton plate. None of that dry stuff neither. Good cuts. Roasted veggies. A loaf of bread, none of that burnt mess neither. And butter. Lots of it." D might not have remembered the countless new names he'd always wanted but he remembered the order he swore he'd placed if he ever got money of his own. It was based on what he'd seen others order in the past.

"Big order. Let us see the color of your money then boy." The tavern keeper's tone carried more than a little disdain.

With a huge grin, D poured out the bag of silver on the table. "Is my money shiny enough for you?"

With a sudden pleasant smile on his face, the tavern keeper unfurled his arms. "You'll be wanting something to drink with that right? A MAN like you be wanting a good Ale with his meal." D had never had Ale but he liked the change in attitude and thought it sounded right.

Once he nodded the man reached towards the silvers and D slammed his hands down on it racking it back to him. D didn't miss the man's flash of anger but didn't care either. Nor did he let the man take advantage of him. He haggled the price and finally settled on one silver and fourteen bronze knots for the meal and a room for the evening.

D ate his fill for the first time in his life. The food was everything he'd ever dreamed of and he even licked the butter bowl. He wasn't very fond of the bitter taste of the ale nor the way it made his head spin but he refused to waste anything. In the end, he took his gear up and headed upstairs to the last room on the left. He made sure to latch the door before collapsing on the bed. It was nothing but a hard frame with a thin blanket tossed over it but to D it felt divine.

**********

Pain erupted in his stomach pulling him out of his exhausted sleep. For a moment he thought he'd eaten some more of the bad meat. Instead what he found was the tavern owner towering over him his fist buried into D's gut. D cried out as a second blow struck him in the gut, he could feel his meal creeping up his throat. "Go ahead and scream all you want boy. This room is soundproof for a reason. Now the money. Give it to me."

D kicked out clipping the man's thigh who with a growl wrapped one big meaty paw around the boy's slender neck. D gasped and felt his eyes start to bulge as he grabbed the man's wrist with both of his hands as hard as he could. Then he wrapped both his legs around the man's arm trying to break his grasp.

Pali had worked at the Drunken Dragon since before he took over when as normal the last owner had died of natural causes. A knife in the back was pretty natural in the Fringes. He'd used the last room on the left just as all the previous owners had for guests that wouldn't be seen leaving. He'd choked a fair number of men, even Hunters. But in all his years he'd never felt a grip like the boys. The bones in his arm screamed from the pressure and felt as if they were cracking.

Lifting the boy up he slammed him down on the hard bed repeatedly while cursing him. "Let me go you monster! Git off!"

After the third blow, the boy finally loosened his grip and dropped down on the hard bed. Clutching his aching arm he stared down at the groaning boy. "Shoulda done this from the start." He reached for the knife hidden under his apron. Before he could draw his weapon the boy suddenly leaped at him. Clawed hands dug into his flesh and he saw the glimpse of needle-like fangs before his throat was torn out. His screams went unheard as he was torn apart and the last room on the left witnessed another life end.