The Hunter of Hawk and Wolf

On the top of the Right Wing Fortress tower, beneath a sunset-stained sky, Sevha and Teresse stood in silence.

It was two different kinds of silence.

Sevha’s mouth was agape in disbelief. Teresse, however, wore an amused grin.

The very reason for the silence was also the reason for their different reactions.

“Believe it or not, I am a true magus.”

Teresse had introduced herself as a magus.

“That’s a poor joke.”

Sevha’s reaction was natural for any inhabitant of the continent.

Magic was said to have existed in the age when gods walked the earth, but that was myth, not history. Unexplained phenomena still occurred, but they were dismissed as coincidence, never magic.

“You think magic doesn’t exist?”

As Sevha’s disbelief held firm, Teresse’s voice suddenly turned childlike.

“If there were no magic, how could a mere peasant have become the First Holy Emperor?”

“It was not magic, but his own ability that brought him success.”

“If there were no magic, how could the Great Road have been built in this hellish land of Anse?”

“The Great Road was built with immense cost in manpower and coin, not by the Emperor’s magic.”

Sevha refused to yield.

Teresse puffed out her cheeks in a pout and stepped closer. She thrust her face toward his, locking eyes with him.

“If magic isn’t real, why are you—a man who was about to kill me—standing here having this foolish conversation?”

Sevha flinched, caught completely off guard.

“See? I can use magic.”

Seeing him speechless, Teresse stepped back with a triumphant smile. She took a breath, and her tone shifted again.

“Well, that’s enough fun and games. I’m a pharmacist, hired by the Imperial Army.”

The childlike quality vanished from her voice, replaced by something sweet and calculating.

“A soldier who’s never been wounded might not recognize me. Might even mistake me for a noble.”

Teresse spoke as though she had mistaken him for an Imperial soldier.

But Sevha did not breathe a sigh of relief.

A lie.

A hunch told him that Teresse was certain he was no Imperial soldier.

I have to kill her before she becomes a problem. And yet…

The longer Sevha looked at her, the more he felt an unknown sensation. A premonition he shouldn’t kill her. Not yet.

It was the instinct of a hunter who’d just found the quarry of a lifetime—prey that demanded a proper chase.

It feels as if I am really under a spell.

But a hunter doesn’t act on feeling alone. Sevha resolved to kill her.

Yet, the moment he made up his mind, Teresse moved to the very edge of the tower.

“It would cause quite a stir if I were to somehow fall from here, wouldn’t it?”

Sevha’s brow furrowed at her subtle threat. He was cornered.

Teresse giggled, seeming to find his reaction endearing.

“So… just close your eyes and do what you must.”

She spoke while looking down at Goldas and Chaynebel, who were talking in the distance below.

“The women who fought at the fortress are locked away in the underground prison.”

As Teresse watched the two men, her eyes narrowed with revulsion.

“To some, as spoils of war. To others, as sacrifices to instill fear.”

She scoffed, shaking off her disgust. “Well, that’s how it is.”

Teresse blinked slowly, looking at Sevha as if to ask, What will you do now?

Sevha didn’t hesitate for long, turning toward the stairs.

He didn’t know why she was feigning ignorance of his identity, or why she was telling him about the survivors. But with no clean way to kill her, she was no longer his immediate prey.

“I don’t know why you’re telling me this, but I’ll be on my way, Pharmacist.”

Sevha played along and descended the stairs.

Teresse watched him go, then lifted her head toward the flame-red sky.

“Yes. We’ll meet again.”

Annoyed at being outmaneuvered, Sevha ignored her meaningful farewell.

Behind him, Teresse’s laughter rang out, echoing on the stairs—sweet and innocent, like a dangerous witch and a mischievous girl all at once.

Teresse…

Sevha burned the name into his memory and left the tower.

The moment he stepped into the courtyard, he pushed her name aside and located the underground prison.

If I just walk in, I’ll draw attention.

He considered how to enter naturally.

Just then, Goldas began to bellow in the middle of his talk with Chaynebel.

“Don’t hurry our march? Chaynebel! We will rest for a bit, then plant the Empire’s flag on Anse Castle! Now shut your mouth and bring some women to my chambers!”

Soldiers cleaning the courtyard exchanged glances, each trying to push the task onto another.

Eventually, three soldiers grumbled and headed for the underground prison.

Sevha fell in behind them, neither too close nor too far, following like a ghost.

The other soldiers in the courtyard took him for one of the detail and paid him no mind. The trio heading to the prison were oblivious to him trailing them.

And so they arrived at the underground prison, tucked into a corner of the fortress.

“Of all people, why’d that pig have to be our commander…” one soldier grumbled as he opened the door.

Beyond it was a dim, spiral staircase leading down. Two soldiers descended, and the last one stepped through, about to close the door.

Just then, Sevha, who had silently positioned himself behind the soldier, let his spear fall.

Clang!

The soldier spun at the sound, eyes locking on Sevha. In the next instant, a knife sank into his face.

Sevha caught the body before it could tumble down the stairs, laying it silently on the landing. He closed the door, plunging the staircase into near-total darkness.

He followed the echoes of the other two soldiers’ footsteps, moving silently through the gloom.

When he drew close enough to make out their backs as faint outlines, he spoke, casually pretending to be the soldier he had just killed.

“Damn dark down here. The three of us could die and no one would know.”

One of the men looked back. “Don’t make such grim—”

Sevha clamped a hand over his mouth and drove a knife into his throat. Clutching the struggling soldier, he continued the conversation.

“Hey, what village are you from?”

“Audrey.”

The last remaining soldier, oblivious to what was happening behind him, answered and continued down the stairs.

When the soldier in his arms went still, Sevha laid the body on the steps and continued his descent.

“Family?”

“I married recently.”

“Conscripted right after you got married? That’s rough.”

“What can you do? Just gotta get through it. Think of my wife’s face.”

“Right, right. So, is she pretty?”

The last soldier stepped off the final stair and onto the corridor below.

“Prettiest girl in the villag—”

Only then did he turn back. He turned to see Sevha’s blood-splattered face.

Then, a knife plunged into his temple. The soldier’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed to the floor with a thud.

Sevha wiped the blood from his face and walked a short way down the corridor until he came to a large room. All around were iron-barred cells. The floor was littered with torture instruments.

In the center of the room, two soldiers sat at a table, playing cards for a few copper coins.

“What is it?”

“Something happen?”

The two called out without looking up. Sevha walked calmly and stood behind one of them.

“The pig wants his women.”

“Again?”

“He’s one insatiable swine.”

“That’s just how pigs are.”

The three men shared a chuckle, united in their contempt for Goldas.

“So? Who’s winning?”

At Sevha’s question, the soldier across from him spread his hand on the table, speaking triumphantly.

“I’m winning.”

A second later, blood splattered across the cards.

The soldier stared, his eyes wide, as Sevha drove his knife down through the crown of his opponent’s head.

“No. You both lose,” Sevha uttered curtly, wrenching his knife free and throwing it in a single motion.

With a wet tear of flesh, the soldier fell backward, taking his chair with him.

Expressionless, Sevha searched the corpses for the key. He then looked around before approaching one of the cells. Inside were women, half-clothed and in a wretched state.

Sevha took in what they must have endured, closed his eyes for a moment, then unlocked the cell door.

He asked impassively, “Your conditions?”

One woman answered for the rest. “They’ve hamstrung us. Cut a tendon in one leg and one arm. Seems the Imperial pig has no stomach for playing with wooden dolls, nor the courage to face a Hunter.”

As the woman cursed Goldas, the others burst into laughter.

It died as quickly as it began. The woman who had spoken looked at him. “And so, we cannot flee. You came to save us, but we are shamed, Lord Sevha.”

A silence fell over the cell. Sevha broke it with a scoff. “I didn’t come to save you. Don’t speak such nonsense.”

“Then why have you come?”

Sevha turned his back on them. “Isn’t it a shame for a Hunter to die on a bed?”

Only then did the women—the Hunters—laugh again. As Sevha headed out of the cell, they rose on their broken bodies and followed, picking up torture implements from the floor and weapons from the dead soldiers.

“O Diaka...” they prayed as they followed him up the stairs.

“We shall take line before the Hall of Just Judgment...”

Sevha remained silent, the sound of their prayers echoing behind him as he climbed.

“Hoping to be held in your embrace beyond Judgment...”

Only when he opened the door to the courtyard did Sevha speak, finishing their prayer for them.

“We take line before the Hall of Judgment.”

Then he yelled, “The prisoners have escaped!”

The Hunters charged out immediately.

A few seconds passed.

The courtyard erupted in chaos.

It was the sound of the Hunters’ final, desperate struggle. The sound of their struggle, and of its end.

Sevha listened more intently than anyone, then stepped out into the pandemonium.

Hunters were stabbing Imperial soldiers who had been cleaning their weapons, and being stabbed in turn. They were shoving soldiers who had been burning corpses into the fire, and being shoved in themselves.

Sevha took in the scene—Hunters killing and being killed—then screamed, “Kill those bitches!”

A panicking Goldas was spurred by Sevha’s cry and unknowingly echoed it. “Ye-yes! Kill them! Kill them all!”

Hearing his frantic cry, the Imperial soldiers moved with even less order, and the courtyard descended further into chaos.

Sevha ran through their midst.

He ran on, trampling a Hunter who fell before him, her body pierced with swords. 

He ran on, kicking aside a Hunter who writhed on the ground, her body aflame.

In the midst of it all, Chaynebel brushed past Sevha. “Do not panic! Surround them!”

At Chaynebel’s command, the soldiers came to their senses. The chaos was quickly suppressed.

But Sevha did not look back, did not watch the Hunters die. He did not need to see to know they were dying as Hunters of Anse should.

The only time he looked back was after he reached the well. Teresse was still standing at the top of the tower. She was too far, her face too wrapped in bandages, for him to see her expression.

Sevha briefly burned her image into his mind, then leapt into the well.

As soon as he reached the bottom, he released the poison he wore at his waist. He swam against the current and out into the city waterway.

Immediately after, Marina and the other Hunters dropped stones to block the passage.

When Sevha emerged from the waterway, Marina handed him a scarf.

“What did you scout?” she asked.

“The Imperial Army will march on Anse Castle immediately.”

When Sevha said nothing more, merely wiping his face with the scarf, Marina asked, “Any survivors?”

Sevha listened toward the fortress. It was silent. Just as silent as it had been when he hadn’t known if there were any survivors at all.

“They’re all dead,” he uttered coldly.

“Then… your orders,” Marina said, just as cold.

Sevha answered as he moved away from the fortress, deeper into the forest.

“Kill. Them. All.”