Their little clearing came into view, illuminated in the rosy colors of the morning sun streaming through the thin foliage. The tall grass around their sleeping mats swayed in the gentle breeze, listening to it tell stories of the small creek gurgling. Orion nearly collapsed at the sight, his broken rib screaming at him to stop moving. He felt Artemis’ exceptant smirk, and narrowing his eyes, refused to sit down.
And sure as the rising of the sun, she struck.
“Sure you don't wanna take a break? You took quite the hit.”
Orion gritted his teeth silently. “I’m sure.”
“Are you sure?” she sang, practically dancing around him, silver hair shining in the dawn light. He almost stumbled before catching himself. “Yes,” he snapped back.
When he finally reached the rock behind his mat he gratefully sank down, careful to not let his relief show.
“Thanks for helping Artemis. Couldn't have asked for a better assistant.”
Artemis raised an eyebrow. “I recall saving your life?”
Orion ignored her. “You even managed to get a head! Truly astounding!”
She grinned at him, nonplussed. She could tell how riled up he was. Orion tried to hold on to his anger and indignation, but in the face of her smile, it was impossible. The gentle dawn traced her pale skin, painting it in warm colors. With that amused smile on her face, she looked completely different than the cold goddess painted in the light of the moon. But her gray eyes were the same everywhere. As was her silver hair, shining like a star fallen to the earth.
He groaned. “Fine. Fine. I messed up.”
Her grin widened and she pushed him over to sit herself beside him. Her smile slowly faded and she reached out to pull his forehead to hers.
“Why Orion? We could have bombarded it from leagues away. We are archers, not brutes. You almost died. Why, Orion?”
He sighed, hanging his head in shame. Artemis didn’t push, simply staring into his brown eyes as she stroked his equally brown hair. He wanted to look away, break gaze with those piercing gray orbs, but he couldn't close himself off like that. Not to her.
“Something changed” Orion finally managed to force out. “These new beasts… They are not natural. They are smart and they are powerful. I… I needed to know.”
“Know what?”
“What they are. Why they came.”
“And?”
He winced. “Well, the fight was more pitched than expected…”
“Orion…”
He broke away, leaning back to watch the rising sun. “Artemis. Something’s wrong. Whatever these things are, they are fundamentally different from anything we've seen before. Whatever these things are, they are not prey. They lack souls, yet they wield immense power. It’s unnatural.”
Artemis was skeptical. “It's been less than a decade since we started exploring the wilds. There are plenty of things we haven't seen yet. How is this any different?”
“It just is.”
“How”
Orion threw up his hands, wincing as it jostled his rib. “I don’t know! It just is.”
Artemis surveyed him, taking in the almost imperceptible winces and his sagging eyelids. “Let's go to sleep.”
“But the sun’s just rising.”
“We’ve been up all night, and you need to heal.”
“But th-”
Artemis quickly leaned down and scooped a helpless Orion up. He struggled for a second before sinking into her embrace. She carried him to their sleeping pads hidden under a small tree, a bush really.
She gently set him down and laid down behind him, wrapping herself around him and snaking hands under his shoulder to set his rib. Orion flinched at her touch, but soon relaxed, sinking into her.
Spotty sunlight streamed through the gaps in the leaves, but in Artemis’ arms, Orion no longer cared.
He was out in seconds.
—-------------------------------
It was late noon when Artemis awoke, and gently slipping free of Orion’s embrace, left to wash in the creek. The creek was a few hundred feet from the clearing, and slipping out of her hunting leathers, Artemis shivered as the cold water rushed to embrace her bare skin.
For a time, she simply basked in its cold embrace, enjoying the delicious shivers that raced through her.
A creak snapped her attention behind her. A beast stood there, a horse-like creature with eight legs and black wings, radiating an aura of blurring forms and open skies. Artemis’s fear surged as she realized her situation.
She was alone, unarmed, unclothed, and devoid of the familiar embrace of the moonlit night. But still, it was only one beast. She was more the match for a single beast, even if it was of the strange new breed.
Another rustle sounded and her blood ran cold. Yet another beast emerged from the underbrush, another of the strange horse-like creatures, its eight gray legs and white wings radiating the same aura as the first, of open skies and zooming figures.
A thrill ran through her as she realized Orion was still wounded and asleep. She had to keep them away from her. Another rustle sounded, but Artemis ignored it and submerged herself in the stream.
When she rose again, cold water running down her silver hair and naked body, she was no longer Artemis.
She was the lady of the moon, bearer of silver chill.
And she would not fall without a fight.
—-------------------------------
Orion woke to the dawn light filtering through the tree above him. It trickled down, slowly pressing through the darkness of sleep to rouse him.
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He cautiously sat up and began to stretch, slowly checking each muscle. He prodded his rib, satisfied to find it already half healed. Watching the rosy rays of dawn stream through the gaps in the leaves, he realized he must have slept for a full day. For a time, he simply sat there, basking in the atmosphere. The wind joined him, whispering of far-off places.
There were times when he felt like the world could not be real. It was too beautiful. Too heavy. Too much. And yet… there it was.
He languidly reached out with the morning breeze, searching for Artemis. He wanted to show her the beauty he saw, illustrate the whispers of the wind to her.
And he didn’t find her.
He sighed, remembering all the times he had told her to stay close. But then again, he wouldn't love her so much if she just obeyed.
He stretched out his winds further, covering the nearest mile in a canvas of gently searching currents.
She was still gone.
A hint of a frown appeared on his face, and holding back no more, he called the full knowledge of the wind to himself, immersing himself in its wild and conflicting stories. Most of them were frivolous, beautiful but useless.
The longer he listened the grimmer his expression came. Grabbing one of his spare bows and a quiver full of his best arrows, he pushed out of the sleeping nook and towards the creek. His rib tinged uncomfortably but he ignored it.
Artemis was more important.
The creek would be clear to anyone else, but Orion was the lord of the hunt. To him, the signs of the fight were as clear as day. The iron tang of blood stained the air and the moist dirt of the filled-in depressions was as obvious as the sun. The wind whispered of beasts and blood. Of a cold moon shining over them all.
Orion ignored all of that, walking forward to crouch in front of a different depression. He shoved aside the lost dirt, revealing a single, blood-coated, silver hair. It shone with the cold light of the moon, pointing to the east.
That, at least, brought a semblance of calm to Orion. She must have been taken, not dead if she bothered to leave a sign like that.
Rage instantly overtook his relief as he struggled to comprehend who would dare do such a thing. But the answer was obvious, both in the tales of the wind and the remains of the battle.
It had been the beasts. They had ambushed Artemis while she was bathing and defenseless. He traced the scene of the battle. She had slain several, baptizing them in the sea of death. She had been wounded at some point, a trail of blood marking her movements.
She had fought valiantly.
But she had been alone and defenseless.
He slammed a fist into a nearby tree in frustration. He should have been beside her, defending her. Instead, he had been sleeping while she was taken. And worst of all, he didn't even know what they were going to do with her. They were intelligent, their impressive attempts at erasing their presence indicated at least that much.
But he was the lord of the hunt.
And nothing could evade him.
—------------------------------------
Despite his initial confidence, hours later he had still not found their tracks. It should have been impossible. Nothing could hide from his gaze.
Unless… Unless Artemis had made a mistake when implanting her hair.
But he had no other leads. He would have to trust her.
It was hours later, with the twilight stars shining overhead, that the wind finally brought him his answers. His gaze shot up to the skies, eyes widening with realization.
They had flown.
With that crucial bit of information, the rest soon followed. Tracking creatures through the air was much harder than those on the ground, truthfully only possible due to Orion’s mastery of the winds. They surged out for miles, bringing the faint scent of animal droppings and fallen feathers.
Emboldened by his success, Orion ignored the seductive oblivion of sleep and forged forward relentlessly. The miles slipped away beneath his feet, the wilds helping the hunter forward.
This was his path.
Inevitable. Inexorable. Relentless.
They could run. They could hide. But in the end, no one could escape the hunter.
—-----------------------------------------------
Time had become a blur, day and night blending together in a mush of time. Orion was close. He could feel it. The droppings had become more recent and although his wind had yet to get a clear glimpse of the beast, it had heard tales of their passing.
On the eve of the ninth day, sleep deprived and exhausted, his winds reported patrolling beasts ahead. He slowed for the first time in a week, finally taking the time to look around.
He was deeper into the wilds then he had ever ventured before. Everything was large here, like a celestial being had taken a normal forest and scaled it. The bushes looked more like trees and the trees towered over them, scraping the sky. A mountain loomed over it all, so massive Orion was shocked he had not known about it before. As he watched it rumbled and beleched a plume of gray ash.
From where he was shielded by the trees, he could make out faint specks circling the peak of the massive mountain. The wind brought him disparate vision, deeping his understanding of the situation.
The wind whispered of thousands of beasts, of a desert and marsh and sea and a grassland surrounding the fiery mountain. It whispered of a people, crude but growing. And in reverent tones, it murmured of a beast in the heart of the mountain, one different from the rest. One souled and alive, aware in a way that only Adam’s children had been before.
I will admit, Dargonth, the dragon slumbering in the volcano, had been an accident. A snake that had been content serving Adam and Eve in the heavens. When I had cast them outside of paradise, something had awakened in him. The primal nature and intelligence of beasts. It had awakened for all beasts.
But for Dargonth, perhaps because of his closeness to Adam and Eve, the process went a step further, granting him a true soul as well, rather than the dim sparks of his brethren. He had awakened an old legend, baked into the universe by something hidden deep inside me, something I still didn’t understand.
He had become a dragon, in all its power and greed. In all its cunning and wisdom.
The king of the beasts.
Orion asked the wind for more, pushing it a deeper understanding of his new foe, only to be interrupted by a flash of silver light.
Orion immediately turned, Dargonth forgotten, and sent the wind in its direction. It returned a second later, bringing news of a bound Artemis, held captive by winged creatures.
Eyes flashing, he forced aside his exhaustion and crept in her direction. The closer he got, the more detailed information the wind fed him. Artemis was tied to a massive tree, bound in crude ropes of braided plant matter, wrapped in so much that not so much as a glimpse of her skin was visible. Orion was gratified to see that her winged guard, composed of eight-legged winged horses, was covered in frozen wounds.
They each radiated a nearly identical aura of blue skies and racing figures, although some fluctuated with their injuries more than others. The strangeness of seeing beings with nearly identical auras stopped Orion in his tracks for a second. All paths were unique to the individual that walked them. How could a whole herd possibly share the same path?
They couldn't.
That meant the beast got their power from something else…
Orion's thoughts were interrupted as one of the beasts, covered in a strange pattern of gray and brown walked over to Artemis, and he tensed ready to spring into action.
Thankfully, it only neighed angrily at Artemis, shaking its partially frozen wing in irritation, before turning and prancing back.
Orion ached to free her in that instant, but his hunter's instincts took over at the last instant. He was exhausted and Artemis didn't seem to be in any trouble. The memory of the fight with that multi-header lizard remained clear in his mind. And while he didn’t know why they had taken Artemis, they seemed to be staying in place.
It was better to rest now, and free her during the night, when the creatures would be unable to see and the moon would empower Artemis.
Still… he gazed at Artemis longingly. She was right there…
But she was safe, at least for now.
He forced his gaze away, and commanding the wind to wake him in the case of anything unexpected, he clambered up the nearest tree where he wrapped himself in oversized leaves.
He didn't expect to sleep well with Artemis so close.
But nine days of non-stop consciousness is no joke.
He was out instantly.