Chapter 12: Aftermath and Arguements: Part One
The aftermath of the fight at the docks had been one royal mess. Talking to the police and officials afterwards had been another mess. And now that we had a chance to stop and rest for a bit, more messes were catching up to us. All I could do was thank God for Joan because I could not have dealt with all that on my own. Murder goblins I could deal with, an endless sea of bureaucracy was another matter.
“Do you have any idea how much damage has been done? What am I meant to tell the owners of those buildings? Do you know how much all this is going to cost them?”
Murder goblins you could blast with fireballs, bureaucrats you couldn’t magic to death, no matter how much you might want to.
Honestly, I didn’t even know who the man talking to Joan was. Some sort of official or representative? Whoever he was I had to give him some credit, he was face to face with Joan of Arc and he wasn’t letting it break his stride.
“Rest assured, these concerns shall be dealt with, in one way or another.” Joan declared, facing the man across the desk with admirable calm. “Either funds shall be provided or the damage repaired. The owners shall be suitably compensated and the warehouses and docks returned to full functionality.
“However, you must understand that the crisis is not yet finished. The Wild Hunt remains at large in this country and . . .”
I just tuned out the rest. It wasn’t that I didn’t care, but the weight of the scabbard I held in my arms kept reminding me of more pressing concerns. I’d wrapped it up in some torn-up tarpaulin, but I could feel the magic radiating from it. I knew that anyone with magical sensitivity would have no trouble working out what I held. That knowledge felt like a sword of Damocles hanging over my head. Compared to that these concerns of money and property damage just seemed so . . . trivial.
Trying to distract myself I glanced at my other companions. Kali was stretched out on an old and beaten-up sofa, apparently comfortably asleep. I honestly envied her ability to just nod off. Hadriel was in a corner, leaning back against the wall, her face . . . Pensive? Troubled? It was certainly the least confident that I’d ever seen her.
As for Athena, she was standing only a few feet away, and when she saw me looking over she gestured for me to come over.
“Come. We must speak.”
For the most part, I just wanted to get out of that room before the official or lawyer or whatever decided it would be a good idea to put me through a round of questioning. So when the tall goddess moved to leave the room I followed her. The building that we were in was some sort of branch office under the control of city hall, and finding a quiet spot to talk wasn’t too hard. We ended up next to some fire escape doors, some distance from the more crowded offices. Once there Athena turned to look at me, her eyes also flicking down to the scabbard I held in my arms.
“We . . . must review what happened last night,” the goddess stated, then pointed at the wrapped scabbard. “There is also that to take into account.”
“Yeah,” I acknowledged. “Last night wasn’t so great.”
“Considering that you had little in the way of warning you conducted yourself well in your battle with Herne.”
I was honestly surprised at her praise, faint as it was. Not unwelcome though, and it offered me an opening to ask some questions that had been boiling around in my head.
“So . . . why was he here? The last I’d heard of him he’d made a deal with the American government and was acting as their bounty hunter.”
“That was a pact undertaken in his own name,” she explained. “Last night he was not here as an independent actor, he was here in his role as the Hunter, the King of the Wild Hunt.”
“I know I’m not going to like the answer, but can you tell me what the difference is?”
My reply managed to tease a small smile out of her, but her face turned serious as she answered my question.
“Herne faced you as the Head of the Hunt, which both strengthened and weakened him. Because he was sharing his power with the rest of the Hunt he could not bring it fully to bear upon you, however, while it was divided he had near immortal allies and was himself far harder to harm.”
Say what? I’d faced him while he was weakened? He was holding back?!
“Okay, I think I need to know a bit more here. Just what is the Wild Hunt?”
I knew the generalities of course, a magic hunt that appears in folklore, meant to be feared, used in old times to explain extremely nasty storms. Not exactly useful at the moment.
“The Wild Hunt is . . . perhaps the strongest of the mongrel forces in the world.”
Interesting choice of words. ‘Mongrel’ was normally used negatively. So, what’d that mean in this case?
“What’s a ‘mongrel force’?”
“There are many factions in the world, but they generally remain within the culture to which they belong. As such, you will rarely see Hindu gods working with Viking gods, or Greek titans allying with Celtic Unseelie fay. Such alliances are not unknown to exist, but they are normally small or temporary affairs, but there are exceptions.
“These forces are disparagingly called ‘mongrel forces’ by others since most regard such alliances with some level of contempt. Such alliances often fail spectacularly, the larger examples often ending in an orgy of backstabbing that takes entire cities down with it.”
‘An orgy of backstabbing’, now there was an image to conjure with. Still, I could see what Athena meant, culture clash was bad enough with normal people. How bad could it get when you threw in things like different species and supernatural powers?
“The Wild Hunt is the single greatest example of a mongrel force, the proof that they should not be underestimated. Despite not being a true pantheon in their own right the Hunt as a whole is powerful enough that individual gods, or even small groups of them, would hesitate to face it.”
Athena paused, and looked at me, seemingly to make sure I was paying attention. She didn’t have anything to worry about, unless the building started coming down around us I wasn’t going to get distracted.
“The origins of the Wild Hunt rests with the Norse pantheon, the original Hunt being the creation of Odin, one of his plans to prepare for Ragnarök. Though it showed early promise the results were not to his liking and he eventually abandoned the Hunt, no doubt expecting it to fracture without his leadership.
“The Hunt didn’t break though, instead it found a new leader, a young and ambitious demigod, who led the Wild Hunt down from Northern Europe to richer and more populated lands. As time passed the Hunt took in others, regardless of their origins, adding their strength to their own and swelling their ranks. The master of the Hunt changed several times, sometimes being overthrown and sometimes being chosen from the Hunt's ranks after the old master died. But even though it suffered losses and even defeats, the Wild Hunt never broke.
“Over the centuries it has been led by many famed names. Diana, the Roman goddess of the wild, the Faery Frau Holle, the Scandinavian King Vold, and even your own nation’s King Arthur led the Hunt for a few weeks. Every one of them left their mark upon it, adding to the power of the Hunt itself. The less impressive leaders were generally just placeholders, keeping the Hunt together until a true Head of the Hunt could be found.
“As for the rank and file . . . one of the aspects that makes the Wild Hunt such a formidable force is the sheer diversity of those who join. They do not care what the origin of a member is, once they are a part of the Hunt then they are one of them, that is all that matters. During the Age of Legends, they travelled far, all about the world, gaining members from many cultures and powers. They have Greek centaurs fighting beside Hindu lamiae, Celtic fey, native American Skinwalkers, European vampires, undead from a dozen different regions, ghosts, hellhounds, horrors from every corner of the world.
“Generally, the Wild Hunt is considered a neutral force, at least as far as the Heavens and Hell are concerned. Occasionally the Hunt has been led by someone of strong morals, maybe to hunt some evildoer or something of that nature. Other times the Hunt might be led by an evil leader, possibly even a demon or devil. In either case, such examples are rare and brief, such leaders either stepping down, leaving or being slain in some way. The Wild Hunt always returns to its roots, wild, free, as concerned with morals as a storm or a pack of wolves.”
That filled in quite a few gaps in my knowledge and let me know just what I was dealing with, but I still had questions.
“Okay, so what can you tell me about them? What was with the weird flames they all had? Why was everyone immortal?”
“That leads back to Odin’s original experiment. He was looking for a way to survive Ragnarök, the foretold death of his family and allies. The Wild Hunt was meant to be a way for all who were a part of it to share their immortality. He hoped that by binding his whole pantheon into the Hunt they would reinforce each other, essentially leaving them all unkillable, even by their prophesised enemies.
“It did not work though,” Athena explained, gesturing with an arm as though to point at some distant target. “Rather than reinforcing one another the Hunt divided and shared their immortality, and since they were all immortal already there was effectively very little change. Some of them were weakened, some of them were strengthened, ultimately it all evened out to be more or less the same.
“The Hunt continued though, and it learnt that even without Odin as the Head they could still divide and share the immortality of their members. As they grew larger and more members of different races joined they found they could . . . layer that shared immortality. The immortality of a vampire is different from that of a Fey, or a demon, or a hungry spirit. By combining them all, and then using sorcery to let the Hunt take in energy from their kills to fuel that communal immortality, the Flames of the Wild Hunt were born.”
“Is that why they wouldn’t stay dead?” I asked, leaning forward as one of my major concerns was finally being explained.
“Indeed, as long as the Hunt endures then none of its members shall die, and as long as the members endure the Hunt shall never end.”
“Okay, that just seems broken. So, why haven’t they just conquered everyone then, if they can’t die?”
Being able to recover the way some of those things last night had managed just seemed unfair. Some of them had been reduced to little more than a bloody paste with some bone bits in there, yet they’d still recovered and rejoined the fight. I could see how devastating that could be in battle, just the impact on morale from fighting enemies that wouldn’t stay dead would be devastating. There had to be some limits or weaknesses, otherwise the Wild Hunt would be far more famous than it was.
“Immortality is not invincibility,” Athena stated, her face shifting into a smile with a sharp edge to it. “They can be defeated, and the power of the Hunt is potent, but not inexhaustible. If enough damage is done to the Hunt fast enough it is entirely possible for the underlying mystic framework that supports their immortality to . . . stutter. It would recover, it is a robust system, but that could take hours or even days, time the Hunt would be left vulnerable. That is why they were unwilling to face all of us at the docks, why they kept us apart and distracted. Kali is powerful, enough to potentially break the Hunt if she went all out. Of course, if she were to use her power with such abandon much of this city would be destroyed as well.
“There are other weaknesses of course. You fought Herne, but do you truly believe that you faced his full power? You are a powerful demigod Adam, and that child was strong as well from what I saw of the aftermath, but do you truly think you could face a god unleashing his full strength?”
Okay, I could see what she was getting at. Herne had been frighteningly powerful, but I’d always got the impression he was holding back, even at the end, when we were fighting over the scabbard, it didn’t feel like he was going all out.
“While Herne is the Head of the Hunt his strength is somewhat diminished. His divinity is divided amongst his hunters along with his immortality, weakening him. Some of his strength is returned by being the Head, the other hunters feeding him a portion of their own power to make up for what he has lost. It does not return him to his full strength, but as you experienced it is still a formidable level of power.”
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“Okay, that makes sense,” I agreed. “Do you know why he was dragging things out though? I thought he was playing with us, but if the rest of the Hunt was holding all of you guys up then Herne had to know it was only a matter of time ‘til you guys made it through. So why did he hold back?”
Athena nodded, her calm face growing slightly predatory. I was reminded that she was a goddess not just of battle, but of warfare. Something like this, explaining the weaknesses and flaws of a foe, was her meat and potatoes, something she was both good at and relished.
“The boy that they took was the prey of the Hunt, their quarry. By marking him as such he could never escape them, they would always find him, in time. When you joined his side you were likewise marked, and they could have hunted you with ease should you have escaped. However, that mark also comes with some protection. Yes, they could have killed you, but your death was not what Herne sought, and the same was true of the other demigod. They wished to take you, and that was where your protection came in.
“The Wild Hunt cannot take a quarry until they have given up. They can kill them without consequence, but an unbroken quarry cannot be taken. These are some of the rules that the Hunt must abide by, they can no more be ignored by them than a bird may breath beneath the ocean.” “Without the blessings of my uncle, at least.”
“So that’s why Herne was going on like that. He was trying to hurt us, to make us give up. Too bad we were too stubborn.”
I remembered Herne telling us how futile resistance was, how giving up was just an inevitability. I also remembered how he’d hit us both after the bear bit down on him. if he’d broken out an attack like that to start with . . . Yeah, we wouldn’t have handled it well at all.
“Okay, so why were they after that kid? They were hunting him before we got there before the scabbard was found. Do you have any idea why?”
“I am . . . uncertain,” Athena admitted. “The Wild Hunt has been known to seek out powerful artefacts and specimens in the past. Though the reasons have never been made clear.”
“‘Specimens’?”
That didn’t sound good.
“The Hunt has chased strange quarries. Their normal hunts are in pursuit of those who insult them or those who have somehow earned their ire. Sometimes they seek challenging prey simply to enjoy the thrill of the chase and the battle that follows. However, sometimes they pick . . . strange targets. A sorcerer hermit that has never done anything to them, a Kirin from the Far East, a Nightmare from the Dreaming, targets they should not have any interest in yet they hunt anyway. Even stranger is that there is no sign of them after they are caught, no trophies, no weapons made of their reagents. The same is true of the artefacts they find or steal, they are never seen again.”
“Actually, how were they able to take him? I didn’t see him give up, just get knocked out.”
The goddess frowned at my question, slightly taken aback.
“That is a good question. It could be that the boy gave up before losing consciousness, but I do not think so. More likely the boy was taken not as a quarry, but as a prize.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that he still possesses a certain level of protection. Yes, the Hunt can kill him at any time they wish, but because he is not a quarry they have hunted down yet he is not yet theirs. They do not have full ownership of him, so they cannot yet sell him into the slavery they threatened.”
Now that was some good news, maybe we could use that. My thoughts must have shown on my face though, because Athena shook her head and then continued.
“Do not think too much of it, Adam. Should they fail to treat with us and gain what they want then there are ways around such a limitation. They could take him to some distant place, set him free and then hunt him again, bring him down, then repeat the process. Enough times, enough pain, and enough failure will break any will.”
“Do we at least know why they want the scabbard so much?”
Athena was far too dignified to just shrug, but somehow she managed to convey all the meaning of a shrug without moving even a millimetre.
“It is one of the great treasures of your nation,” She said, waving a hand to emphasise her words. “Save for Excalibur itself and maybe Merlin’s Grimoire I can think of very few artefacts that would be its equal. To be sure, it is an artefact meant only for Arthur, but it is an artefact that imparts a potent form of immortality. Even if it cannot be used it would still be of great value to any wizard or sorcerer conducting their own research into escaping mortality.”
Well, that answered that question. Maybe I should get a bit more focused on Herne and how to fight him. If Kali hadn’t shown up when she did I would have been screwed. Actually, why did she only show up then? The same for the others actually.
“So, how did they manage to keep you, Kali and the others held up? Those things I saw were nasty, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t up to keeping any of you pinned down for too long.”
“The Wild Hunt has another power, quite a potent one. It allows them to preserve an . . . imprint of those that have been a part of it but have since left. By pouring their unique power into that imprint they can create a temporary copy of that individual, a pseudo spirit possessing many of the abilities of the one they mimic, and something close to their power. In my case, I was delayed by facing a simulacra of Diana, Roman goddess of the Chase. Though not a true goddess she was powerful enough to delay me until I was able to finally damage her enough to break her vessel and disperse the power that made her up.”
That sounded almost as broken as the whole ‘everyone in the Hunt is immortal’ thing! Sure, they weren’t real gods, but being able to create imitation gods whenever they wanted sounded just unfair! Where was the customer service contact number? I wanted to protest uneven game development!
“What about the others, who’d they have to deal with?”
“Kali faced Wotan, a version of Odin famed for his mastery of magical runes. A troublesome foe for a physical fighter such as Kali, especially since unleashing her powers of destruction would have caused widespread devastation about her. Saint Joan found herself facing a simulacra of your nation’s King Arthur, though a weakened one without his knights, his sword or his scabbard. As for Hadriel . . . did you know that for a short time, Satan himself was the leader of the Wild Hunt? Though his simulacra is only a fraction of the strength of the true ruler of Hell it was still a formidable challenge for an angel.”
Okay, I think my brain kind of froze up on that last one.
“What, Satan Satan? The guy that used to be an angel and now rules over Hell, that Satan?”
“Yes, but let us wait for a day less filled with turmoil to educate you on that matter. It shall be a long lesson.”
Yeah, I could see where she was coming from. Something told me that getting that explanation would lead to a whole rabbit hole of other subjects. When we had time I really wanted to sit down with the Greek goddess and get some proper lessons about this stuff in, but right now it was better to stick with the more immediate stuff.
“Okay. So, back to the Hunt. If I have to fight Herne again, what can I do better?”
“Herne’s roots rest in his role as the Horned God, a being of nature. The wild woodland, deep trees, thick brambles, beasts of the wild, those are the roots of his power. The Hunt’s gifts further empower him. The wood that serves him will not burn, the beasts he calls can bite through steel, even storms shall spring to obey him.”
“So . . . what can I do?”
Athena smiled, and for the first time, I saw a tiny bit of similarity between her and Kali. The Olympian might prefer to present herself as more controlled and civilised than the Hindu goddess of destruction, but there was still some trace of the same bloodlust hiding under that mask of sophistication.
“I believe I have a few suggestions.”
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“If you don’t follow through on these promises then there shall be consequences! My clients are fully prepared to take legal action. I don’t care if God himself comes down from on high, do you understand?!”
Joan watched the man leave and did her best to hold in a frustrated sigh. She had known that in this modern era faith in the Lord was not as fervent and pervasive as it had been in her mortal days, but being faced with such a small man with seemingly no concerns other than mere money . . . disappointing.
Since returning to the mortal world Joan had interacted with mainly the faithful, either members of the church or wealthy backers who were true believers. Even Adam, who was hardly the most devout believer, at least was respectful of the Lord God, and the High Heavens. Her interactions with the police and those government agents had been no great chore. Most of them had held duty firmly in their heart, a certain selflessness that she could respect.
The man who had just left . . . he had left a bad taste in her mouth. She felt . . . greasy just from interacting with that man.
“That guy’s a real piece of work.”
The comment came from the middle-aged woman who had been sitting at a desk on the other side of the room. She was the official go-between that had been assigned to them after the chaos of last night’s events. Someone who worked with both the local government and the local law enforcement. Her exact title had been mentioned at some point, but with all that Joan had to deal with it had slipped her mind.
She did remember her name though.
“Miss Badeaux?” She made the name a question, asking what she meant.
“That was Theo Nageotte, the main broker for a local businesses group that are seen to be . . . shall we just say a bit shady. Let me guess, he was here going on about how ‘vital support structures’ had been destroyed or damaged. Or maybe he was harping on about ‘lost revenue streams’ and ‘disrupted high-level transactions’?”
“Yes . . . almost word for word.” The resurrected saint confirmed.
“Listen, you shouldn’t have to worry too much. I’ve already read the preliminary reports about the damage at the docks. Most of the warehouses in that area haven’t been used in months! The company that owned them went under, then they were bought up on the cheap by one of the groups Nageotte represents. They own them and the land they’re built on, and they’ve been using them for exactly nothing since they got them. It’s all a property game, you see? Buy them cheap, then hang onto them until they rise in price and then sell them, or just have an ‘accident’ and claim the insurance money.
“But now, you’ve come along. France’s patron saint and her friends, fighting the good fight and doing some damage in the process. Those unused warehouses get smashed up and suddenly they’re vital points of goods transport and storage, and every second they’re damaged it’s costing their poor put-upon owners serious money. So obviously, that puts you in their debt, and I bet they can think of a whole lot of ways you and your friends can pay them back.”
Joan felt a hot coal of anger begin to kindle in her heart. She had thought that the man, this Nageotte, was unpleasant, but to hear that he planned to trick and exploit her . . . Her mind returned to her mortal days, and she remembered some of the courtiers in her king’s court, selfish, faithless and vile. Men who had looked upon her and not seen potential salvation for their dying cause, but merely another pawn, another asset to exploit, even a young girl to lust after. This fraudster was of an ilk with them, she was all but sure of it.
“He shall find little purchase upon myself or my allies, should he wish to play the part of the leech,” Joan commented. The dock and buildings shall be repaired, and I have allies who will cover reasonable costs, and who can invoke the law suitably to prevent mischief.”
“So, even a warrior from Heaven has a few lawyers to back her up?” Miss Badeaux offered an amused smile as she spoke. “Guess you got the only decent ones left.”
“Oh, the heavens can always find it in their hearts to accept even the worst of humanity, should they repent.”
Joan offered a smile of her own as she spoke, showing she meant her words in jest. It would seem that even so long after her own time, jokes about lawyers persisted. Still, she could not afford to indulge, not when there was so much that needed doing.
Very well, she had spoken with the local constabulary, the city mayor, representatives of the French Government, and, just now, the legal representative of the owners of the area of the docks where the fight had taken place. That just left a few minor matters and the press. That last one would be problematic. Joan was confident in her ability to deal with face-to-face interactions, but from what little she knew of modern information distribution, sensationalism and even shameless rumour-mongering were worryingly prevalent.
Still, she could not just ignore it. Truthfully honoured Athena would have been best suited to dealing with such a meeting. She had experience, having dealt with the press on many occasions while helping to manage the corporation she and the other Olympians had set up. The Greek goddess of craft and warfare had been their face, their public image, and she had masterfully dealt with everything from backroom rag reporters to professional journalists from the most prestigious news agencies in the world.
Unfortunately, she was currently fulfilling her duties as Adam’s teacher, and Joan was not inclined to interrupt. Though the resurrected saint knew some things about the Wild Hunt she was no authority on the subject. Her expertise lay in fighting demons and other traditional enemies of the High Heavens. As a more neutral force, the Hunt had been a less important subject of study.
Thinking of the Wild Hunt returned her thoughts to the night before. She should have expected no less from an oracle from the Heavens, but even so, she was surprised by the sheer chaos they had run into. The Wild Hunt, a powerful demigod, the stolen sheath of King Arthur, any one of them was a good reason to be there, but all three at the same time? That had the makings of something truly significant.
Joan remembered her own battle, facing off against a ghostly effigy of Britain’s Once and Future King. Even though it had been a counterfeit created by the power of the Hunt it had still been powerful, enough so that she had been forced to use her angelic form to finally defeat it. She was somewhat ashamed that she had been among the last to rejoin her charge’s side. If she had to face them again she would need to do better.
Leaned her head back Joan looked up to the ceiling. This had not been what she had expected when the Almighty had entrusted her with this duty. She had thought she would be fighting the hordes of hell, seeking out cunning infiltrators, standing between the innocent and the mad ambitions of tyrant gods. Not . . . paperwork.
She was brought out of her thoughts as the door to the room opened and a young office worker stumbled in. Joan had seen him a couple of times already, though she had not been told his name. his main job seemed to be delivering more paperwork as it arrived, or escorting people who thought they were too important not to speak to her directly. He seemed to have a permanent expression that somehow made the returned saint think of a rabbit that thought it was being hunted, but could not see the hunter and could only stew in slowly growing worry.
Right now the man had a distinctly . . . cornered look on his face. He frantically looked around, then spotted Miss Badeaux, exactly where she had been the last time he had come in to talk to her and make his delivery.
Joan was already sure that this could only signify more trouble was incoming. She did not even bother trying to give the two some privacy, she was all too aware that this would become her problem as soon as Miss Badeaux . . .
“Ma’am . . . there’s a man here.”
“Yes, I’m sure there is. There’ve been a lot of men here, for a lot of things. You’re going to have to be a bit more specific.
The young office worker’s face reddened in the face of the sarcasm, but he continued on.
“He’s from the UK! It’s about the scabbard, the one the angel guy has. They say it’s Arthur’s”
Oh yes, Joan had been expecting this. Well, ultimately it was Adam’s decision as to what would be done with the powerful artefact. She would of course advise him, but she would also offer her full support to any choice he made, even if she disagreed.
Dealing with this representative would be the first step, but she was sure that it would hardly be a difficult one.
“They’re looking for whoever has the scabbard, but listen, that’s not the worst part!”
“What do you mean?” Miss Badeaux asked, sitting up in her chair and taking this a bit more seriously.
“It’s Sir Lancelot! They haven’t just sent some guy or official. It’s the Lancelot!”
Ah, that might be a bit more complicated than Joan had originally expected.