The Hunter of Hawk and Wolf

The Labyrinth Forest

It was daytime, though one would hardly know it.

In the Labyrinth Forest, day brought no light.

The forest was dim as ever, choked by a dense canopy of trees.

But the woman’s weeping that always haunted the woods was gone. Drowning it out was the thud of footsteps.

Clomp! Clomp! Clomp!

The footsteps of fifty-odd Imperial soldiers.

The soldiers' shoddy gear spoke to their sorry state as conscripts.

But the man leading them was different. He was a knight, clad in full plate with a longsword at his hip.

“Stay alert!”

The Imperial unit, led by the knight, was a vanguard.

They were securing a route for the advance from Right Wing Fortress to Anse Castle.

The Labyrinth Forest was a place where the laws of the wild held sway, and in the wild, numbers were strength.

Neither beast nor monster dared approach the might of the Imperial Army.

But one young man saw their strength and approached all the same.

So many of them.

Holding his breath, Sevha tailed the Imperial soldiers, his ears straining for any sound in the distance.

Clomp! Clomp! Clomp!

The tramp of more boots echoed from far away.

They've sent more than one vanguard into the forest. Not a bad strategy.

Sevha saw through the Imperial Army's strategy at once.

The Imperials vastly outnumbered the Anse Army.

If they advanced along multiple routes, the Anse Army would have to split its forces to defend against them.

Splitting a smaller force was a sure way to create a weak point, one they could easily break.

The Imperials were deploying a strategy that played to their overwhelming numbers.

It’s certainly not a bad strategy…

Sevha eyed the nearby Imperial soldiers, a sneer playing on his lips.

If only this weren't Anse.

His mirth vanished in an instant, expression hardening into that of a hunter. He raised his bow and nocked an arrow.

Just then, the leading knight stopped and cried, “Anse Castle is in sight!”

Just as the knight had cried, a sliver of Anse Castle became visible over the treetops.

One soldier grinned and spoke to the comrades drafted from his village.

“They call this the Labyrinth Forest, but the destination is plain as day.”

“Keep your voice down. That high-and-mighty knight will have our heads.”

Hearing their conversation, Sevha drew his bowstring taut.

“I don’t know why that knight is so tense in this shitty fores—”

Sevha loosed his arrow as he slipped behind another tree.

Shwiik!

The arrow struck the soldier squarely between the eyes.

His eyes rolled back as he collapsed to the ground.

His companions screamed.

Hearing the commotion and seeing the body, the knight yelled frantically, “Ambush! Form a shield wall!”

At the knight’s command, the soldiers formed up.

A quick response. An experienced knight, then?

Sevha assessed his prey and whistled.

The taunting whistle continued as he moved behind another tree.

The knight immediately scanned the area, but there was nothing to see but trees. Nothing to hear but the whistle.

With such limited information, the knight assumed he was surrounded.

“Stay focused! They’ll be on us soon.”

As the knight's words made his soldiers even more tense, Sevha slipped behind another tree and fired again.

The arrow struck a soldier in the arm.

As the soldier screamed and clung to a comrade, the knight bellowed, “Here they come!”

But nothing came.

One minute, five minutes, ten minutes.

For ten minutes, the Imperial soldiers did nothing but listen to the wounded man’s screams and shiver in the early winter chill.

As tension mounted, wearing away at their stamina and morale, the soldiers' faces filled with dread.

The knight saw their expressions and decided to silence the screams first.

“Treat the wounded!”

Then, Sevha slipped behind yet another tree and fired.

The arrow pierced the screaming soldier’s throat.

The soldier died, spewing blood onto the man beside him.

The soldier, showered in his comrade’s blood, shrieked, his face a mask of terror.

Then he ran forward blindly.

Was it an attack? An escape?

It did not matter.

As the soldier ran past a tree, Sevha appeared from nowhere and plunged a knife into his gut.

He then shoved the soldier back toward the shield wall and melted back into the shadows.

“My stomach, my stomach… it hurts.”

The soldier, a knife in his belly, staggered toward his comrades, then died vomiting blood.

The instant he pitched forward, the faces of the others twisted in horror.

They shrieked and scattered in all directions.

The knight's orders were useless. Lost to panic, the soldiers ran.

Just then, a quiet footstep, not the frantic thudding of boots, sounded behind the knight.

When the knight turned, Sevha was standing there.

Only then did the knight realize his mistake.

“You were… alone.”

The knight had made a sound decision based on his experience.

But the Labyrinth Forest wasn't a battlefield. It was a hunting ground.

A place where fear itself was the weapon, not just its effect.

“Lord Chaynebel's strategy will be of little use here…”

The knight realized then that the Imperial strategy was useless against the Anse Army.

To the Hunters of Anse, numbers were meaningless.

They were fighters who would, by any means necessary, turn a battle of many into a hunt for the few.

“Well… so be it.”

The knight decided it was time to fight, not regret, and drew his longsword.

With a war cry, he charged furiously toward Sevha.

The knight charged, believing in a simple truth: heavy armor defeated light armor. It was a truth of the battlefield, and he believed it held true even in this hunting ground.

He was wrong.

“What are you doing?” Sevha scoffed.

The knight’s body went airborne.

Tumbling to the ground, he saw what had tripped him.

A tree root. Just a tree root.

“Imagine someone mad enough to run through the Labyrinth Forest in heavy armor.”

The knight turned around to face his foe, only for Sevha to slam his handaxe into the knight's helm.

The handaxe, of course, did not break the helm.

But it rattled the knight's skull inside it.

“Not… yet…!”

As the knight struggled to rise, Sevha struck his helm again and again with the handaxe.

The knight managed to rise and put some distance between them.

“Not yet…?”

But blood gushed from the vents in the knight's helm.

With a thud, he collapsed.

Immediately, whistles echoed from all directions.

Pheee—

Then the screams of Imperial soldiers overwhelmed them.

The other Hunters have begun.

Sevha knew the other Hunters had started their own work, breaking down the Imperial soldiers to begin the hunt in their own ways.

Even though the battle had turned in their favor, Sevha did not let down his guard. He dashed silently, like a ghost.

Seeing a fleeing Imperial soldier, he pounced on him from behind like a beast, slammed him to the ground, and brought his handaxe down on his head.

He then rose and ran again.

The Imperial soldiers were broken in body and spirit.

As if to prove the point, gouts of blood erupted from between the trees as Sevha passed.

By the time he was drenched in the spray, another scream rang out.

He stopped. A soldier was caught in a bear trap, crying out.

His comrade was struggling desperately to free him.

“My ankle! It hurts so much!”

“You’ll be alright! I’ll get you out. Just think of your mother’s face and hang on!”

Seeing the scene, Sevha climbed a nearby tree and nocked an arrow.

He fired it into the face of the soldier trying to free the trap.

“S-Sir!”

The soldier in the trap saw the arrow strike his comrade’s face and thought he was next.

But no more arrows came. He understood why immediately.

He's leaving me alive to use as bait.

The soldier knew that if he cried for help, more of his comrades would die. So he bit back his cries.

But Sevha would not allow it.

He shot an arrow into the soldier’s trapped ankle.

The pain was too much. The soldier could not suppress his pleas for life.

“Help me!”

Those who tried to save him were struck down by arrows as they approached.

One, two, three. When seven bodies had piled up around the young soldier, the death rattles of Imperial soldiers that had filled the forest fell silent.

The soldier realized he was the only Imperial left alive and started begging piteously.

“Please! Please let me live!”

Just then, he heard the rustling of leaves behind him. He looked back and saw Sevha, drenched in blood.

“Let me… uh, Mom! Mo—!”

Sevha did not let the soldier finish his desperate cry. He slit his throat with an arrowhead.

Once the soldier was dead, the Hunters of Anse emerged from the surrounding trees. Marina was among them.

“The Imperial soldiers are fleeing,” she said.

“To where? The jaws of monsters?”

“Even if all the stragglers die, new soldiers will just enter the forest.”

“They will.” Sevha looked toward Anse Castle. “And the Imperial Army will keep taking the bait and walking into the trap.”

***

Right Wing Fortress

Chaynebel stood in the fortress command room.

Goldas sat at his desk, grinding his teeth.

“It’s been a week since we took this fortress, and we still haven’t gotten near Anse Castle because those damn Anse peasants keep ambushing us!”

As if yelling was not enough to vent his anger, Goldas slammed his fists on the desk.

“While we’re bogged down by these peasants, other nations have started to move! If this continues, we’ll be fighting multiple nations in Anse territory and returning to His Majesty the Emperor empty-handed!”

As Goldas continued to rage, Chaynebel suppressed a sigh.

Squealing like a stuck pig. Just what I'd expect from an incompetent swine.

Goldas was commander not because of his ability, but because he held the highest title among the vassals in this war, and because his domain bordered the County of Anse.

This war does not require exceptional command… but he is far too inept.

Not wanting to witness any more of Goldas’s incompetence, Chaynebel pushed past the other nobles and stood before him.

“Calm yourself, my lord. Being delayed by enemy ambushes was to be expected.”

Chaynebel pointed to the map of the County of Anse on the desk.

The Great Road was drawn in detail, but no road to Anse Castle was marked. This was not an oversight.

“Because there is no road to Anse Castle.”

There was truly no road. To attack Anse Castle, one had no choice but to pass through the Labyrinth Forest.

“Anse Castle was built in the center of the forest to serve as bait, to lure invaders into the woods.”

They use Anse Castle as bait to lure invaders into the forest, where their Hunters hold every advantage and can inflict maximum damage. Then they hole up in the castle.

The invaders, already weakened and with their supply lines stretched thin by the forest, are eventually forced to retreat.

This was the strategy that had made the County of Anse undefeated.

“Are you telling me to give up on conquering Anse Castle? If we don’t take it, those peasants will keep popping out to harass us until we’re forced to withdraw from Anse territory out of sheer exhaustion!”

“That is not what I am saying.”

Chaynebel’s face became a mask of utter ruthlessness.

“Our objective is to… arrive at Anse Castle. It does not matter how many die, so long as we arrive.”

Goldas paused at that, as if recalling something he had forgotten. Then, as if he had been worrying over nothing, he let out a great laugh and gave a horrific order.

“Have the regulars force all the conscripts into the forest. If any flee, cut off their limbs and feed their corpses to the pigs.”