“As you were,” Hunter said, somewhat amused despite the awkwardness he still felt about being in a position of authority. Being in command of anybody while enduring a savage alien wilderness was among the least probable situations he’d ever imagined he’d be in.
He must have missed this module in the leadership supplemental.
“Uh,” he said as they all stood around waiting for something from him, “proceed as planned? Just pretend it’s business as usual. I’m not interested in stepping on any toes.”
“Thank you, sir—” the Lieutenant started, but Hunter wasn’t about to let that sort of thing proceed any further.
“—please, for my sake, just call me Hunter,” he said. If he had any authority at all, let it be used to ease his way into being a ‘sir.’
“Of course,” Lieutenant Richard said. “Now, if you don’t mind, we ought to be heading out.”
Hunter followed them through the forest. Joe scouted ahead, but the team seemed to know their way around.
“We left breadcrumbs for ourselves,” Bella pointed at a spray-painted line on a tree they were passing. “our team is one of a few that are scouting away from the outpost. Guard Captain Bell’s first order was to gain a full comprehension of the terrain.”
“Guard Captain Bell?” Hunter asked. He wasn’t familiar with the name.
“Our platoon commander,” Lieutenant Pellar answered. “Our platoon commander sent us ahead of the Merciful Cloud to shore up the outpost’s defenses. Insurance against the beast waves — just making sure that there was still an outpost here to work with when everyone arrived.”
“And we were so psyched to do that before Clarke shot us out of the sky,” Jeren said.
“Clarke? As in, Vice-Captain of the outpost?” Hunter asked. Why would he have shot them down?
“Yeah. Something bad has gone down at Skyhold, we figure. Can’t tell what, but now Clarke’s in charge. It seems he doesn’t like visitors,” Jeren answered.
They were all silent for a while as they walked. Hunter considered the Cloud. Who might have survived the crash was still a mystery. His thoughts often drifted to Aera and Trey, and he tried to keep himself from assuming the worst. There’d been no time to think about it until now, and he’d rather ruminate over something more immediately practical before he gets all anxious and despairing. He’d be useless at that point.
“Someone needs to kill that bastard,” Jeren said.
“Someone will,” Bella said. “There are too many resources coming in — especially Guard resources. It won’t be too hard to pinpoint his location and send in a low-flying flyer with a special ops team.”
“We just need to get hold of a stealth shuttle and a special ops team,” Jeren said.
“The first proper wave is only a week away at the most,” Hunter said. “You figure they’ll have one of those teams with them?”
“Even if they don’t, we need a more intel on the outpost. Barring a surgical strike, we may have to lay siege. Difficult, given the wildlife.”
“Speaking of which, how are you guys surviving out here?”.
“By the skin of our teeth,” Jeren said, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s like one thing after another in this hellhole. You avoid a swarm of killer insects only to find yourself in the middle of a den of something big and mean. You survive that, you’ve got a hundred other things that could go psycho at any time.”
Hunter nodded.
“I’ve seen some crazy stuff out here,” he said.
“Crazy only scratches the surface,” Bella said, “And the crazy seems infectious. Joe once said he’d seen people in the distance, watching us, and going invisible when he tried to get a good look. We all thought the stress had, you know.”
She tapped the side of her head.
“Now I’d tell you I’ve seen the same thing. Silhouettes in the distance, clear as day for a second, and then gone the next as if they never existed,” she said.
“I think you’re all just imagining things. Maybe we need to boil our water a bit more,” Jeren said.
“If it’s the water, why aren’t you seeing the same thing?” Bella asked, furrowing her brows.
“The Belviews have always been a hardy bunch. Good genetics,” Jeren smiled, enjoying Bella’s reaction.
“You know, if I hadn’t just seen two giant beasts try to tear each other apart, I might have agreed with Jeren.”
“Were you hallucinating those two giant beasts?” Jeren asked, then cleared his throat, “uh, I mean, sir?”
Hunter snickered.
“I may have hallucinated the giant hippo-bull which could harden its skin, and create enough explosive force to launch the giant snake dozens of yards away. The heat from the blast was intense, and its eyes glowed.”
He paused, ruminating over the strange event.
“Sure, I could have hit my head on my way down from the Cloud, but it felt real enough, and the pack of reptile-dog-birds that were chasing me seemed pretty motivated to steer clear of that area while the smoke and heat dissipated.”
None of them were looking at him with the skepticism he’d expected.
“Creatures here can do some strange stuff. I don’t have a hard time believing that,” Jeren said. “But people? Nah.”
Bella scowled.
“Pteropods, they’re the bird creatures you saw,” she said.
“Turd-wings,” Jeren sighed, “lucky us. We haven’t run into any in this sector. But they can be unpleasant during a beast wave.”
“Turd-wings,” Hunter laughed. “I woke up in one of their pits, you know?”
The scowl on Bella’s face deepened. She took a few steps away from Hunter, so did Jeren.
“No offense,” Jeren said.
“I’m surprised you can’t smell it,” Hunter said. The smell had lessened, but he figured that some of it must have gone up his nostrils. The river must have done quite a bit to wash the smell away.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I didn’t notice it until you mentioned it. None of us are at our most hygienic, either,” Bella said.
“You guys got any spare clothes at camp?” Hunter asked, crossing his fingers.
Jeren laughed.
“You’ll have to wait until we get back to base camp. They’ll have some supplies we can requisition,” he said. “They might even have a shower system set up.”
“And maybe some decontamination?” Hunter asked.
“Yeah, maybe, sir,” Bella mumbled.
Lieutenant Richard started walking his way back to them.
“Joe says that the camp’s gone. We’re gonna head straight back to the platoon.”
“This damned forest,” Bella said.
“Any luck establishing contact with the Merciful Cloud?” Hunter asked.
“None, yet,” the lieutenant said, “sorry, Hunter.”
Hunter nodded.
“The attack or the landing destroyed their long-range communications,” he said.
“That’s my guess too,” the lieutenant said.
Hunter kept his focus on the ground in front of him. One foot in front of the other. Don’t think about the negative potential, focus on the positives, he thought.
What were the positives? He was alive. This platoon was alive. If they activated the shield after he fell, then they were all alive. Aera was pretty quick-witted, and he imagined Trey was pretty tough as well. They’d be alright.
If he were a betting man, he’d put his money on them, having made it out of this without so much as a scratch.
“How far away is base camp from here?” Hunter asked.
“I’d say we’re about 12, 13 hours out,” Jeren said, looking at the sky. “The sun will set in around 6 hours, so we’re gonna head to a small shelter we found on the way here.”
“A safe shelter?” Hunter asked.
“Let’s hope,” Jeren said, shrugging, “it’s better than being out in the open.”
Their pace was variable over the next few hours. They’d grown adept at taking queues from the forest. Certain patterns of noises — some quite obvious, like a challenging roar in the distance — would be a sign to slow down. Other times, they’d jog through the forest, and Hunter was once more grateful for all the hard work he’d put into his physique over the last year.
They found Joe standing on the edge of a precipice. A large plain stretched before them.
“It’s starting,” Joe said as they all gathered around him. He pointed in the distance. Hunter could make out a dark line moving across the horizon.
“Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Hunter said.
“It’s not what you think it is,” Bella said, “but if it were, we would now be in a hurry to find that cave we marked yesterday.”
“Let’s go,” the lieutenant said. “We should be safe for the next half hour, and we’re not too far from safety.”
They ran across the edge of the plain towards another large hill where the forest continued. Howls echoed from behind them.
“Don’t stop! Sprint over the hill as hard as you can,” the lieutenant panted.
Hunter didn’t hesitate to obey as they reached the hill. His legs moved like pistons, pushing him up the hillside. Joe reached the top first and helped everyone else over. As Hunter crested the edge of the hill, he took a second to glance behind them.
The line of beasts in the distance now stretched closer. He’d seen footage of the tsunami back home — very rare occurrences, but frightening in their magnitude. It was a feeling of certain annihilation, a wall of despair, endless and unforgiving. He got the same impression from the wave of beasts emerging from all over the forest, and sprinting their way across the plain. Part of the wave extended behind the team. A chorus of hollering yelps, growls, and an increasing sound of quaking earth met his ears. He didn’t wait to see anymore, sprinting after the team.
He caught sight of Bella deeper in the forest and did his best to keep up. Then he found himself in a grove of thin, tall trees. The rumbling behind him grew, and he did not know which direction to go. Had he passed where he’d seen Bella?
“Where are you?” Hunter yelled.
He heard a sound echo back. It didn’t sound like an animal, so after nothing more than a split-second’s hesitation, he went in that direction. The sound repeated, and he felt he could make out a male voice. It could have been the lieutenant.
An etheric pulse appeared just behind him. Hunter dove behind a tree.
He looked left and right, assessing the surroundings.
What the hell had that been? There had been nothing behind him but trees, no one around him he could see. He felt the pulse again, further away.
The voice echoed again, in the opposite direction of the pulse. Hunter ignored the etheric mystery — Skyhold was going to be full of them, and he had little time to find the place the team had claimed for their shelter.
Soon, he saw Lieutenant Pellar waving him into a small cave under a shallow cliff. Hunter smiled and slapped him on the shoulder as he passed. He’d never felt so relieved to see another person in his entire life.
For good measure, they had one of the team jackets covering the opening.
“We won’t be staying here for long,” the lieutenant said as he followed Hunter in, “the odds are low the wave will pass over us, the beast wave — whatever mechanism underlies their coordinated aggression, drives the wildlife to the point of lowering their intelligence. The hills will look more like walls to most of the frenzied beasts, and the ones who are a bit more clever might try sticking closer to the main mass.”
Hunter breathed a sigh of relief. They weren’t in the clear, but he was glad to avoid waiting in silence and hoping the beast wave wouldn’t cause the cave to collapse on them.
“I think you should wring out those clothes a bit,” Bella said. Jeren hollered, but the lieutenant shot him a look which shut him up.
“She’s right, you’re still quite damp, and this cave will not get any warmer,” the lieutenant said.
“Should I just keep them off?” Hunter asked. Bella shook her head.
“They’ll keep you insulated if it gets any colder — not that it should be much of a problem, but the last thing we need is for one of us to get sick.”
Hunter nodded and took off his jacket and pants, doing his best to wring them of any excess moisture.
“You know, you’re pretty jacked for someone who had an AR of 5,” Jeren commented. Hunter rose his eyebrow.
“What? I did my research. A new Oberon kid is pretty big news,” Jeren said.
“You only have an AR of 5?” Bella asked.
Hunter shook his head.
“I hit a growth spurt, and Aera has had me on a strict training regimen every day. My AR is 48 now,” Hunter said, smirking a bit when Jeren whistled.
“Do you guys have some sort of secret AR training method? Bit of a coincidence that both the Oberon heirs turned out to be a couple of freaks, and you’re not even related by blood.”
“My dad had a high-AR himself, higher than Trey’s is, I imagine.”
“Right, you’re Gideon Koar’s kid,” Bella said. “That makes sense. Don’t artisans always have higher than average AR’s from all the time they spend using Drawstones?”
Hunter nodded.
“Hell of a time to hit a growth spurt,” Jeren laughed. “Were you always this tall, or is that a recent development as well?”
“No, I’ve always been tall,” Hunter said.
“Some people have all the luck,” Jeren sighed, resting his head against the cave wall.
The lieutenant called them all to sit in a circle, laying his jacket on the ground and pulling out a deck of cards.
“Since we’ve got time to kill, anyone up for some poker?”
“Poker?” Hunter asked.
All three of them looked at him, as if he’d just asked what colour the sky was on a cloudless day.
“It’s simple,” the lieutenant said. Memorize the hand types and their hierarchy, then bet against opponents—it’s a game of chance. You’re hedging your bets based on what you observe from your opponent’s behaviour.
“I’ve always wanted to be a betting man,” Hunter said. “Sure, let’s play some—”
A subtle current of sound grew into a quaking roar.
“Fuck,” Jeren said, standing up and jogging towards entering the cave. But the shaking was too intense. The entrance collapsed and Jeren stumbled backwards, sprinting towards us.
“Go! Deeper into the cave!” Lieutenant Pellar said.
Hunter didn’t hesitate to follow Bella and Joe, who were already running towards the other end of the cave. With the lack of light, he hadn’t noticed a tight crevice which the two of them were squeezing through.
“Is that smart?” Hunter asked.
“It’ll be stable,” the lieutenant said as he caught up to them.
“What makes you so sure?” Hunter asked, and he could hardly hear himself over the thunderous stampede above.
“I’m an expert, sir” the lieutenant shouted, struggling, pushing Hunter forward as Bella disappeared into the crack, “now go.”
“Going,” Hunter said, and pushed himself through the crevice. His clothes were still damp and pulled against his skin as it caught against small ridges in the rock walls. He grit his teeth as he felt his skin break a few times, staying focused on moving one step at a time.
The quaking hadn’t abated, and might have even gotten louder by Hunter’s reckoning. He wasn’t one to pray, but he was feeling tempted to give in to the temptation. Small stones and dust broke free from the roof above. Every pebble felt like a harbinger of doom; each one could trigger a fatal cave-in.
He made it through the crevice and saw that the lieutenant was right behind him.
“Keep going,” the man said, straining to push himself through. Hunter felt a few conflicting emotions then.
He wondered if staying to help would be brave or stupid. Then he wondered if the question itself was idiotic, since staying behind could put them both in danger. What was he planning on doing to help? Was he going to pull the lieutenant through?
He shook his head and followed behind Bella and Joe. He heard a yelp up ahead. Hunter sprinted towards the sound. They couldn’t afford for one of them to get injured right now, there just wasn’t any time.
He heard the lieutenant running behind him, followed by the bellows of an angry god.