The Hunter of Hawk and Wolf

Anse Castle Town was being consumed by a conflagration so fierce, not even a blizzard could quell it.

Homes, food, hunting tools.

The very things the people of Anse valued as much as their lives were turning to ash, yet no one fought the flames.

Because the Imperial Army, having breached the castle, was slaughtering the poisoned townspeople.

Because the inferno was consuming the people of Anse as well.

“Don’t leave a single one of those bastards alive!”

After the brutal ambushes and the grueling siege, the Imperial soldiers were seized by a madness born of their own pain and terror. They slaughtered the people of Anse with a demonic cruelty, a savagery that had no place in this world.

Through this hell of swirling snow, embers, and blood, Sevha ran, carrying Marina in his arms.

“Ma...Marina.”

Sevha had snatched Marina and fled the moment the castle gates fell and the Imperial Army poured in.

But flight could not mend her wounds; her body was a pincushion of arrows.

“Marina!” he cried her name in anguish.

Bleeding from countless wounds, Marina answered weakly, “Sevha... run...”

“I am running! Just hold on!”

As Sevha shouted in desperation, Imperial soldiers appeared before him.

Unable to fight while holding Marina, he leaped onto the roof of a nearby house.

The moment he landed, the entire castle town came into view.

The wide road stretching from the Outer to the Inner Castle Gate was strewn with the bodies of the townspeople.

Midway, the square with the Goddess’s statue was shrouded in black smoke.

From the roadside to the castle walls, every house was ablaze.

Any survivors were cut down by Imperial blades or consumed by the inferno.

“Kill them!”

Hearing the shouts of Imperial soldiers behind him, Sevha scrambled across the rooftops of the burning houses.

Where can I go?

The town was so saturated with death, there was nowhere left to run.

“Aaargh!”

With every reckless leap across the roofs, the death cries of the townspeople below reached his ears.

“Run... run!” he screamed at them, his voice a harsh, desperate plea as he vaulted from one rooftop to the next.

It was then that he heard them: the small, frail screams of children.

Sevha tried to picture the town’s layout, to place himself on the map in his mind, but he couldn’t. The landmarks he knew were being erased by the fire.

So he ran, chasing nothing but the faint sound of children’s screams across the burning rooftops.

Thud!

He landed heavily, a deliberate signal: I’m coming. Hold on.

The children’s screams grew louder.

Sevha leaped again toward the roof where the cries originated.

Thud! Thud!

With every heavy landing, the screams intensified. And with every leap, another piece of his town vanished in the flames.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Finally, when he could get no closer, Sevha leaped down from the roof, sliding to a stop in the narrow space between two burning houses.

Shhhk!

In that moment, he saw and heard them.

Inside a half-collapsed, burning house, children were wailing. It was not a cry for help or rescue, but a raw, pained sound tearing from their throats.

The instant he heard their guttural sobs, Sevha moved to save them.

Then, the thud of horse hooves.

He looked up to see Imperial knights approaching, running their lances through anyone still moving on the ground.

Marina spoke then, her voice faint. “Run, Sevha.”

And in that same moment, the burning house crumbled with a splintering crash.

The children’s wails rose in a final crescendo, then vanished.

Sevha stared blankly at the rubble, then turned his gaze to the approaching knights.

Marina coughed, crying out, “I said run... Sevha!”

A spray of her blood spattered across his face.

Sevha gritted his teeth, turned his back on the children’s grave, and ran.

Was the poison spreading? His vision blurred.

Was that blood from his forehead? His cheeks were wet.

Not daring to stop, Sevha plunged into the black smoke enveloping the square.

It was the same hell he had just fled.

Every surrounding house was on fire, filled with the screams of those trapped inside. The Imperial Army ignored them, cutting down the collapsed, poisoned townspeople and battling the few Hunters who had not eaten the tainted bread.

In the center of it all, the statue of the Goddess Diaka burned. It watched the carnage. It listened to the countless prayers.

Then, as if it could bear no more, it collapsed.

Crack!

And then…

CRASH!

Edgar leaped over the shattered statue, bringing his handaxe down on an Imperial soldier.

The moment blood from the soldier’s crushed skull spattered his pale face, Edgar vomited a spray of his own—the poison had him too. He staggered and began to fall.

“Brother!” Sevha rushed to his side.

Edgar gripped Sevha’s shoulder, forcing strength into his legs. “Sevha... we have to run... We’ve lost.”

Sevha froze at the word “lost.”

As if to steel his brother’s resolve, Edgar roared to the others, “Scatter! Flee! Live, even if only one of you makes it!”

The unpoisoned Hunters met Edgar’s and Sevha’s eyes—a silent promise to survive and meet again. Then they vanished in all directions.

“Sevha, we’ll head for the secret passage in the castle.”

“Understood.”

Still carrying Marina, Sevha ran with Edgar toward the inner castle.

Both brothers were poisoned.

With every step, blood trickled from their mouths.

With every trickle of blood, their strides faltered.

And with every falter, they supported each other and ran on.

They ran until they passed through the Inner Castle Gate. Sevha tried to lower it, but the mechanism was broken.

It’s Elise.

He turned. The castle courtyard was also littered with the bodies of collapsed, poisoned Hunters.

Not far off, he heard the roar of the Imperial Army advancing up the main road.

They’re too close. We’ll be caught before we reach the passage.

As Sevha realized this, Edgar looked at him, his gaze intent. Then, decision made, he closed his eyes for a long moment before opening them again.

“Our parents gave me this tough body. I suppose it’s my lot to be a decoy until the day I die.”

“Brother?”

Edgar stepped toward him. “I’ll buy you time. Take Marina and go.”

Sevha’s mouth fell open, but Edgar just smiled. He swallowed the blood rising in his throat, determined to leave his brother with a good memory.

When he spread his arms for an embrace, blood burst from the large wound in his stomach, but the smile never left his face as he pulled Sevha close.

“Sevha. The time has come for you to be a man.”

Edgar pushed him toward the castle entrance. Sevha hesitated, unable to leave his brother behind.

Edgar let out a small, fond laugh at his kindhearted brother. Then his expression hardened.

“Sevha dan Anse! You are hereby the Count of Anse!” he roared.

The title, the duty it implied—it struck Sevha with its full weight. His eyes widened. 

Then, just as Edgar had, he closed his eyes, made his choice, and opened them again.

He gritted his teeth and ran into the castle.

As he passed, the fallen Hunters forced smiles.

“Take care of yourself, Count Sevha.”

“May the Goddess Diaka’s blessing be with you.”

One farewell after another followed him.

As Sevha disappeared inside, Edgar planted himself in the center of the courtyard. 

He spat out the blood he’d been holding back and roared: “To me, hawks!”

The fallen Hunters, the Hawks, heard their name. Gritting their teeth against the poison, they rose to their feet.

Just as the Imperial Army poured through the gate, Edgar bellowed, “It is time to take line before the Hall of Just Judgment!”

The Hawks crashed into the Imperial line. Spears tore their flesh and hammers shattered their bones, but they did not retreat.

If their flesh was torn, they fought on.

If their bones were broken, they fought on.

But one by one, they fell, never to rise again.

Soon, only Edgar was left, standing firm before the castle entrance. He gripped his handaxe so tightly his palm split, and he roared.

The sheer force of it made the Imperial soldiers halt instinctively.

At that moment, Goldas entered the courtyard and shrieked, “What are you doing! That ugly bastard is the Count of Anse! His Majesty wants the Dan Anse clan for a public execution! Capture him alive!”

Spurred by Goldas’s command, the soldiers charged in a panic.

Edgar did not retreat. As the enemy swarmed him, he stood his ground, cutting them down with his handaxe. Blades pierced his body, but he did not flinch, simply smashing the men who wielded them.

Watching the slaughter, Goldas was finally overcome with terror.

“J-J-Just kill him! Kill that monster!”

Just then, Chaynebel rode into the courtyard.

He cried, “Commander, no! We must capture the Count alive—”

He stopped mid-sentence, transfixed by Edgar’s butchery. He understood instantly why Goldas had abandoned the order.

“Had he been born under a slightly greater nation,” Chaynebel murmured, “his name would have been etched in history.”

Acknowledging the man’s strength, he too abandoned the thought of capture and barked, “Fire arrows! Fire until he is dead!”

A volley of arrows flew. The soldiers in front of Edgar were struck down, revealing him still standing behind their corpses, bristling with shafts.

He was still on his feet.

A chill of pure fear ran through the soldiers, through Goldas, even through Chaynebel.

Covered in arrows, Edgar took a step toward them.

Thump.

The entire Imperial force took an unconscious step back.

Thump. Thump.

Having single-handedly pushed them back to the Inner Castle Gate, Edgar stopped.

Thump, thump… thump.

He fixed his bloodshot eyes on them and spoke, his voice a low rasp. “The Hawk will have you lined before the Hall of Just Judgment.”

His gaze then drifted past them, as if searching for someone who wasn’t there.

When he didn’t find them, he whispered, “You as well... will face the same.”

With those final words, Edgar pitched forward into the snow.

“Is... is he dead?”

“He is. And we still have a Dan Anse to capture.”

At Chaynebel’s reminder, Goldas shrieked, “Into the castle! Seize that monster’s brother!”

The Imperial Army trampled over Edgar’s body as they rushed inside.

Running down a third-floor corridor, Sevha heard the commotion and looked out the window. He saw Goldas kicking his brother’s corpse, a desperate attempt to conquer his own fear.

Then, he heard footsteps thundering down the hall behind him.

The time Edgar had bought would have been enough to escape, if not for Marina.

Realizing she was a burden, Marina coughed up blood, murmuring, “Put me... down.”

Sevha refused. She struggled in his arms, falling to the floor.

“Marina!”

Before he could lift her, she staggered to her feet and looked him in the eye. “Go, Sevha.”

He didn’t move.

She smiled, a sad, weak thing. “Don’t make me lose what I’d rather die than lose.”

The meaning hit him.

She smiled more brightly then. “For my sake, abandon me. Run.”

She gave him a brief, soft kiss and pushed him away. “The words I truly want to say... can wait. A Hunter of Anse must have patience.”

Seeing her smile, her pleading eyes, Sevha’s face crumpled.

He turned his back on her and ran. For her sake, he abandoned her.

Marina watched him go, a wistful smile on her face, as the soldiers’ footsteps grew thunderous behind her.

She turned to see the Imperials, led by Chaynebel, charging down the hall.

Chaynebel saw Sevha’s retreating form past Marina and bellowed, “It’s Dan Anse! Capture him alive!”

The instant his soldiers tried to rush past her, Marina grabbed an arrow embedded in her own shoulder and ripped it free. Blood gushed from the wound.

She lunged through the spray of her own blood, plunging the bloody arrowhead into the nearest soldier’s neck. She immediately tore another arrow from her thigh and slammed it, point-first, into a second soldier’s face.

She held the narrow corridor, killing them with the very weapons that were killing her.

The Imperial soldiers faltered, faced with this dying woman painting the burning hall with her own blood.

Chaynebel’s temper flared. His men were being held back by a woman who was half-dead, nothing like the monster Edgar had been.

“She’s just a dying wench! Kill her and get Dan Anse—”

He stopped, witnessing something he couldn’t comprehend. Marina, bleeding out on her feet, was smiling.

“Why... is she smiling?”

Marina touched her own cheek, feeling the smile there. Just then, she heard the groan of stressed timber overhead.

Crack...

Her smile grew wider.

Craaack...

She looked at Chaynebel, her tone mocking. “You don’t understand why? I suppose a man like you has never known love.”

Her insolence shattered his composure.

Chaynebel drew his sword and ran through one of his own hesitating soldiers. “Kill that bitch or die by my hand!”

Spurred by the threat, the soldiers charged blindly.

As they reached her, Marina turned toward the end of the hall, in the direction Sevha had fled.

With the brightest smile yet, unable to hold back the words any longer, she called out, “Sevha! I love—!”

Her faint cry reached the distant, running Sevha.

CRACK!

The ceiling of the burning corridor gave way, burying the Imperial soldiers and Marina under a mountain of stone and timber.

Chaynebel, who had stood just clear of the collapse, stared dumbfounded as his soldiers vanished under the rubble.

He screamed, “Clear it away, now!”

But no one was left to obey.

Realizing he had been outmaneuvered by a dying woman, that he had failed, Chaynebel let out a monstrous shriek of fury.

And Sevha, still running, heard it.

I have to keep going.

He understood what that shriek meant, but he did not stop.

Even as the poison clouded his mind.

Even as tears blurred his vision.

He ran, repeating one thought like a prayer: Don’t let their sacrifice be in vain.

He reached the lord’s chambers and threw a bookshelf aside, revealing a dark passage. He plunged into the tunnel, and as he ran through the suffocating dark, he heard a phantom chorus of sounds.

Run... urgh!

The screams of his people.

Kill the savages of the forest!

The shouts of his enemies.

Whoooo...

The forest itself, sobbing.

Just as he reached the exit, he heard one real sound he could not ignore.

“Lady Elise, I hear footsteps.”

Sevha burst from the passage.

He was on top of the outer castle wall. Below was a deep spring, the source of Anse’s water, deep enough to survive the fall.

But the way was blocked. Soldiers from House Schreier lined the rampart.

And at their head stood Elise.