I didn’t have to wait long as Cassandra exited the back of the lodge in a few ticks. She handed me the contract and as it made contact with my hands, it tore off into tiny particles that orbited by right hand, before covering the back of it in a circular pattern. The pattern looked like a magical seal and it intensified in colour, going through a myriad of hues before settling into my skin and then disappearing from view. A hunter’s contract was a sacred oath and couldn’t be broken without dire consequences. I had authorised Cassandra to make one on my behalf and her part in the contract was specifically left optional as she wasn’t really obligated to help me with this matter. The village council had agreed to it as they effectively held Gerty’s people hostage in this shithole. There were few places except for the outer edges of civilisation like Blackburr where her people could get paying work without running into enemies and though the council didn’t know that, they knew that I had an attachment to the lodge. So anyway, as the light from the contract seal vanished, I looked up to see Cassandra watching me intently, with a strange expression on her face. I avoided her eyes, turned my back to her and made to walk off into the jungle, hoping that it was implicitly communicated to her that I wished for her to follow. But, I was stopped dead as she put her hand on my shoulder with an iron grip. I turned around to catch her eyes blazing with a slight silver iridescence, before I looked down. “Why?”, she asked.

I was actually confused for a tick before I replied, “Because it saved the girl and the lodge both. And because we’re too weak to help in any other capacity. And because it was the fastest way to resolve this problem and be on our way again.” She just gave a short “hmm” before she let go of my shoulder. Damn, but this woman was strong. “Okay, let’s go. Keshi should be a half a league to the north”, she said as she turned to go in the direction that she wished for me to follow. I followed her and soon we were on our way. It had been a long day and I still hadn’t fully recovered my strength even though I was technically fully healed, so we decided to stop after another 3 hours for supper and then take a short nap before continuing on our way. I wasn’t surprised to realise that Keshi could run just as fast in the death of the night as he could during the day. God damn freak horse!

It was mostly a quiet journey for the next 3 hours before we decided to stop and find a decent resting spot. I can’t just create a Hunter’s Refuge with a snap of my fingers as it takes at least of week’s worth of effort for the ritual to complete, so we just found a decently clear area under the forest canopy and Cassandra unrolled her saddlebag to lay out a sleeping bag for herself while the damn horse went its way to do some horse shit, I’m guessing. I hunted half a dozen rabbits and decided to make a stew myself because I wasn’t in any mood to taste Cassandra’s bland, half-burnt cooking. Luckily, Gerty had handed her a few condiments and a small bag of salt along with some dried jerky, so we had a decent meal before I decided that I needed to take some rest. My body was still recovering its strength after the chimera had burnt me to a crisp. Even though I had healed completely after my journey to the Refuge, I hadn’t recovered my strength fully, as that took a few heavy meals and much needed sleep, even for hunters. I was about to doze off when I smelled a bizarre stench. It raised my hackles and I quickly picked up my bow, strung it and had an arrow nocked within a few heartbeats. I took a deep breath and it almost made me gag but it sharpened my senses. There was a group of six people, three of whom gave off the sharp stench that I had smelled and the other three, quite puzzlingly, smelled like hunters. They were about a quarter league away from us and moving towards us quickly while surrounding us. We were in trouble. Cassandra saw me and quickly unsheathed her deadly yet beautiful blades. “Trouble?”, she asked. “Yes. A hex, but I’m not sure. There’s something wrong with three of the members. They also have three others who are hunters. You’ll have to take them on, while I try to see what I can do about the three strange ones.”, I said quickly.

There was no point in trying to run from a hex, the official smallest squad used by the Crimson Cloud. I had absolutely no doubt that they were affiliated with the Cloud. I had seen these tactics before. The three strange smelling ones were a twist in the tale, but one I was sure didn’t particularly make any difference to what needed to be done. We could either stand and fight or they’d harry us and bleed us dead little by little over the course of a day or two. As much as I wished, there was no running away. Cassandra stood with her back against mine and although uncomfortable at the touch, I let it linger for a tick or two as it reassured me a little, before moving one step away. I needed the space to use my bow, not to mention, the discomfort made me more than a little uneasy. The members of the hex were now visible to me and strangely enough, it seemed like Cassandra could see them too. My doubts about what she was, were now almost completely gone. She was definitely a Mage, though I doubt even she knew it. Lots of Mages went unrecognised through their childhood. Most of them usually died, but those that survived had an instinctive grasp of a school of magic that let them specialise in some interesting, if not terrifying ways. I had no more time for stray thoughts as the Hex was now only 30 feet away from us. As expected, we were surrounded on all sides. They formed a hexagon around Cassandra and I with one each on our flanks and one in front of us. It was a brutal and efficient formation and I had seen a hex absolutely destroy chimeras within a few ticks using it. They were frighteningly strong, at least the three hunters were. The strength of the three strange ones were veiled from my senses, but I had little doubt that we were in deep fucking shit and then some more.

“So, Captain Chronos. Would you like to go with us now? Or would you like us to drag your corpse to the General?”, said the hunter that was facing Cassandra. She audibly scoffed and said, “Oh really? You and what army, little Binny.” I chuckled at that. ‘Binny’ basically meant latrine pit among most mercenary outfits. “You bitch!”, he said, before she cut in, “That’s Captain Bitch to you, little Binny. Behave or you might be eating what your name suggests you should.” I laughed out loud. She might be a mage, but she was fun to have around. I’m guessing “Binny” wasn’t a particularly popular character because his fellow hunters laughed as well, while the three strange ones around me audibly gnashed their teeth and growled. Their faces were obscured by deep hoods. I was unnerved but, as always, I instinctively pulled back and let an arrow fly straight at the head of the one in front of me. They didn’t even try to dodge and their face exploded into gory chunks of meat and everything went to hell right after that. I was kind of taken aback but I just took another breath and let two more arrows fly straight into the faces of the ones on my flank one after the other. Their faces exploded in a similar manner. Now, I’d be the first to admit that I’d imbued some nature essence into the arrows as soon as I nocked them, but this explosion was very peculiar. However, I didn’t think too much about it at the time and turned around to get a bead on the hunters who had quickly moved to engage Cassandra.

It was disconcerting how they paid no attention to me. Sure, they could probably sense that I was weaker than them, but as far as I knew, no hunter would completely disregard even a weak threat, especially not one which had just eliminated half a hex within a few breaths. The reason for their apparent lack of concern became clear very quickly as I caught the fight that Cassandra was putting up. The trio of hunters were using a well known style of squad fighting called Wolf-Pack, which was essentially focused on whittling down a target quickly and efficiently with fast and precise hit and run attacks, but Cassandra never let them hit her blind spots. She was blazing fast and I could barely keep up with her speed and everytime her blades clashed with one of the hunters they were sent sliding back across the floor. The combination of speed and power was mesmerising to watch. One of the hunters, an octabanded one by my estimate, attacked her head on, dashing into punching range and letting a straight right fly straight into her face, but it was quickly pushed aside with the handguard of her wakizashi as she kicked him square in chest and he went flying back a dozen feet. Not stopping, she pivoted and whipped around with a wheel kick straight into the face of another hunter - another octaband by my guess, but taller and more muscled - who had been about to rabbit punch her in the back of the head. The kick had enough force to make him go somersaulting across the floor and then she turned to the weakest one of the three, a quadband just like I was, who was coming in with a dagger from below that would have punched through her abdomen, but she just stepped back effortlessly and cut the man’s hand off at the wrist with a brutal and quick overhand strike of her katana. He screamed and then a tick later so did I, as I felt something bite off a chunk from my right thigh.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I looked down and saw a gruesome sight. A twisted caricature of a snake - a long thick body with bones protruding out of its skin and thick, viscous blood pouring out of sick pustules across every inch of its flesh - latched across my right thigh. It had bitten off a chunk of my thigh and was looking at me with an evil glint in its eyes. I quickly one handed my bow, unsheathed one of my knives and slashed it across its eyes. I was fighting in a forest so it barely took any effort for me to imbue the knife with some nature essence, so the snake’s face was sliced clean across its eyes and it dropped its hold on my thigh. I looked around and saw two more snakes surrounding me, their hoods raised three feet off the ground, even as the third one started regrowing its lost features and then, something even more unnerving happened. The three strange warriors I had killed earlier stood up and their necks started spurting a viscous, black liquid and each of them sprouted a lion’s head and a goat’s. I came to the shocking realisation that they were chimeras. But they were walking on two feet, like humans. “The snakes…. are their… tails”, I mumbled. Well fuck me, but this shut me down for a few ticks. Humanoid chimeras were not possible. They were unnatural, mythical nightmares created to scare little kids to go to bed. Something along the lines of “Go to sleep, little Tanya or the betrayer will turn you into a chimera” or something. Huntress save all the little Tanyas if humanoid chimeras were actually real.

“You can’t be real”, I said. “You hear that Progress and Regress? The baby hunter says we’re not real”, said the one in front of me and laughed in a condescending manner. The animal speech that I could usually understand from most beasts and animals was rough, throaty and evil. The sound was like the howling of wolves somehow mixed with the laughing of a hyena. It was unnatural and hair-raising. The other two on my flanks smirked and the one on my right said, “What do you think, Advitiy? Should we kill him slowly? Or cook him long and slow?” The one on my left cut in, “Shut up Regress! You only speak, when you’re told!” Losing patience, I whistled loudly which made all three of them turn towards me and I said, “Fuck you!” while I fired off an arrow straight at where I supposed Advitiy’s heart would have been. I missed by a small margin as he quickly pivoted on his front foot and dodged the arrow. He smirked at me with an evil smile on his lion face. His lion head had large, even teeth but if you looked closely you could see the slight sharpening at their ends. They weren’t exactly pointed like fangs, but they were close enough. He had slitted pupils like a nocturnal snake and his face had a unique, angled look to it. He was like a corrupt melding of a regal, majestic lion and a poisonous snake. The goat face, on the other hand, seemed emaciated. I didn’t have more time to look at Progress and Regress as my senses alerted me to the snake tails’ attacks. I shifted my weight quickly from one foot to the other, pivoted and slashed at the snake trying to bite me from behind, then continued the momentum to punt kick the one on my left flank and somersaulted backwards twice - the second time higher than the first one - sheathed my knife, nocked an arrow on my bow and this time, I closed my eyes to sense the source of the corruption from the chimera standing a dozen feet away from me. It took me barely a tick and my arrow was through the abdomen and out the back of the chimera before I landed from my second somersault. It let out a shrill, ear-piercing scream before it exploded into gore and blood. One of the bones shot straight towards my face and grazed across my right cheek, searing a bloody path across that burnt like acid.

<>

And just like that the other two chimeras tackled and pinned me to the floor. One had his tiger paw pressing down on my chest, while the other kicked me in the side of the head. I saw stars for a while and before I could get my bearings, the one who had me pinned bit my right pectorals through his snake tail. I barely suppressed a scream but then the other one’s snake bit me on the other side, taking a chunk out of my abdomen. Then, I did scream - loud and shrill - and blanked out for some time. As I came to, I clearly heard a distinct sound and smiled as I bled through my teeth and said to the one who had me pinned, “Ever been kicked in the face by a horse?” The Chimera narrowed its eyes at me and growled, “Shut up, little hunter. You will pay for killing Adv…” and then its face disappeared as Keshi kicked it in the face hard enough to literally shatter every bone there.

The pressure lifted off me and I was up, holding my insides on the left side of the abdomen. I saw the other chimera leap at Keshi who had kicked the Chimera pinning me at least 30 feet away. Keshi dodged and continued towards his original target. Seeing this, I unsheathed one of my knives, quickly imbued it with nature essence in a sharp, thin edge overlaid on top of the knife’s actual edge and in one smooth motion let it fly straight at the other chimera’s left eye. It punched through the eye and sank in upto the hilt, remaining there and sapping the chimera’s health. I’d reduced the amount of nature essence imbued into the knife this time and shaped it to make sure that it would puncture the eye but not punch completely through its head. Nature essence was antithetical to the existence of unnatural monsters like chimeras, but it needed to be used in an efficient way for each individual monster. Apparently, I’d guessed correctly as the Chimera faltered and cried shrilly and changed its target from Keshi - who was charging the chimera he had kicked - to me. Frothing at the mouth, it pounced at me. I simply stood my ground, picked up my bow that had fallen when I’d been tackled, nocked an arrow, imbued it quickly with as much nature essence as I could and closed my eyes to lock in to the source of the corruption. The chimera was barely 6 feet away when I let the arrow fly. It tore through the chimera’s core and it exploded into a mess of bone shrapnel, muscles and blood. Several shrapnel punched straight through my chest, arms and throat and I fell straight on my face. I should say, it’s very difficult for hunters to die in a forest even from normally mortal wounds, so I wasn’t all that worried, but then came the burning sensation and I realised that I was lying in a puddle of black chimera blood. It was neutralising my body’s natural healing and burning through my skin while simultaneously forming a layer of corruption stopping the natural energy of the forest from reaching me.

“Huntress-fucked Hunter’s luck… a fool’s death from laying down in a pool of chimera blood… Gods-cursed Hunter’s luck…”, I murmured. I turned my neck to look the other way and saw Cassandra, bloodied and bruised, standing calmly in front of the last standing hunter. She had sheathed her blades and had her hands on the grips. Her hands were crossed in front of her and the hunter in front of her was shifting his weight from one foot to the other like a boxer. He was wearing a thin, shining silver gauntlet and had his hands up just below eye level. I could see him coating the gauntlets in a deceptively thin layer of nature essence. He was actually overlaying the gauntlets with thin, densely packed layers of nature essence. He already had enough essence packed in to punch through and completely destabilise the natural vital energies of most octabanded hunters. Cassandra was in trouble. I looked at her and my rapidly degrading vision fuzzed as she launched across the distance between her and the hunter. She almost disappeared in my hazy vision before materialising right in front of the hunter and her swords rang out as she quickdrew them in a diagonal shape, the wakizashi slashing downwards, as the katana slashed upwards in a dazzling arc of blood and death. I didn’t see what happened next as I lost consciousness.

“Gods fuck me!”, I mumbled, as blood loss took its toll on me.