I was standing on the precipice of a cliff staring down into a seemingly never-ending canyon.

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I quickly turned around and a bow materialised in my hands with an arrow nocked.

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I was facing a huge, red wolf. It was taller than me by several heads. Although I’m not quite sure how, but I knew it was a he and not a she. The wolf’s fur was a dark crimson, bordering on black and he had shining silver eyes. There was also a small bit of his right ear missing at the very tip.

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The wolf looked at me intently and he seemed a bit vexed for a few moments as he tilted his head one way and then the other. It would have been an adorable site if I wasn’t almost sure that I was dying and if not for the fact that he had an imposing and dangerous presence, quite a bit more impactful than Cassandra’s.

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That still made no sense to me.

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He was interrupted by a significant tremor and all around me cracks appeared near the edges of the cliff.

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And just like that, he put his paw on my chest and I woke up. I’m not going to lie, I’ve probably never had worse mornings. The sun was a thin bright sliver of light right in my eyes and I hurt in places I hadn’t realised could hurt.

“Oh, it hurts like a motherfucker!”, I mumbled. I tried to sit up but realised that I hurt too much to bother trying to push through it.

A shadow fell across my face and for a second I was a bit scared that the last chimera had probably killed Cassandra and Keshi and was about to put me on the chopping block. And then I realised it was just Cassandra standing over me with her hood up and a thick, wooly cloth in her hand that was dripping water.

“Thank the gods, you woke up”, she said, “I didn’t even know Hunters could catch a fever and you’ve been steaming away the water I’m using to bring your temperature down.”

I paused for a second. I remembered the conversation with the deadly red wolf. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to share that with her, but I could feel myself growing weaker with every passing moment. The wolf had not been lying. I was dying and I needed help. I was not sure how anyone could find a branch of the Evertree seeing as how everyone believed it to just be a superstition that had continued from the founding of the Hunters’ Elder Council. But, I knew I couldn’t help Cassandra cross over to the Northern Kingdoms with her brother before I would probably die from whatever was currently afflicting me.

“Your thanks are wasted, Mer… Cassandra”, I said, “I’m dying and I will probably be dead inside of a week unless I find something that I’m sure I don’t know how to find.” She stared at me intently and her eyes blazed with that silver iridescence again for a few ticks before they went back to their normal pale green shade. “You’re not lying”, she said.

I nodded. I closed my eyes and tried to hear…. I’m not sure what. The wolf had told me to listen for the Evertree’s hymn. I could hear better than most people and I heard birds chirping, a distant python sunbathing in contentment, the burbling of a nearby bayou, the sounds of fish swimming downstream, a troop of monkeys playing in the treetops high above and…. a lot of other things. After a few moments, I heard Cassandra sigh audibly and say, “What are you doing?”

“Trying to find a lifeline. But I’m not sure how to find it”, I said. “Uh huh… So tell me, what exactly are you trying to find while trying to go to sleep from which you might not wake up?”, she replied.

“I’m not trying to sleep, I’m trying to… hear something”, I retorted irritably.

She quirked her right eyebrow at me and then tsked, “That’s not even an answer!”

“Well, if I knew how to tell you what I need, I would. But I doubt you’d understand. It’s supposed to be something I can find instinctively, but seeing as how I’ve never even heard about it, I must be a pretty fucking shite hunter. Fuck me…”, I shouted and then immediately felt like a completely sorry jackass. I think I felt a tear slide down the side of my face and drip into my ear. The tear had nothing to do with the excruciating pain I was feeling in my chest, abdomen, legs, arms and basically everywhere else. I was just… tired. “Fuck it, I’m going to sleep. It’s not like dying could be more pa…”

Aaaaaand there I was again. Back on the precipice overlooking a canyon. This time, the cracks all around me were deeper and the earth shook massively.

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I turned around expecting to see the red wolf, only, he wasn’t a full-grown wolf anymore. He was a small pup, who could comfortable lay across my hand.

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This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

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I sat down and cried a bit after that. I was so tired. Tired of hurting, of running, of not being strong enough. Huntress help me, but I’d just been running away from my problems since I was a child and now… I was about to die. I silently cried until the earth shook all around me and the cracks at the edges of the cliff got deeper. The wolf however, seemed more patient this time. He sat down on my crossed legs and lifted his paw to tap my chest.

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He walked a foot away from me and lifted his head proudly.

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I looked at him, incredulous at the implication that at some point I might have to find the entire Gods-fucked Ever-damned-tree.

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Before I could reply, a huge block of rock broke away just a handful feet away from me and fell into the canyon.

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And then the wolf jumped into the air and tapped my chest and I woke up. Only, I hadn’t woken up. I was dreaming now. This chimera poisoning had been a real trip. This was one of my worst dreams. I wanted to wake up, but somehow I couldn’t.

A child was crying in the corner of a dark room. His clothes were torn and the back of his shirt was shredded with whip marks criss-crossing his back. Even though his face was half-hidden, an ugly scar could be seen going across his face. It was dripping blood at a slow and constant pace.

“Let me out of here. Huntress, I’ll stop cursing you, just pull me out of this nightmare.”

A door opened and a woman came into the room. She was quite tall and of a slight build, but deceptively so. She was clearly powerful as she carried two limp bodies, one on each of her shoulders. She tossed them both into a corner furthest away from the child.

“Ori… come here. It’s me. I’m here, child.”

“Master”, I spoke softly. Child me was still cowering in the corner.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Please don’t hurt me anymore. I don’t know where Master went”, the child cried.

“Hush, little one. It’s me. Come quickly”, said the woman.

The boy slowly turned his face to peek at the woman and just as he caught sight of her, he quickly turned back. Then he looked back at the woman again.

“Master?”, he asked almost pleadingly.

“Oh, little one. What did they do to you?”, the woman said with tears in her eyes.

“I didn’t tell them where you were”, the child said with a bit of pride and a lot of pain in his voice.

“Oh little one. You didn’t need to protect me. I’m supposed to protect you, not the other way around”, she said and gently picked up the child. She held him protectively and he hugged her like he would his mother. They both cried for a few moments, before the woman said, “We need to go now, little one”, she said, “Elysia is no longer safe for us. I can carry you, but you’ll have to hold onto me as I will have to fight my way out. Can you do that?”

The child was quiet for a few ticks and then he showed the woman his hands which he had kept hidden till then under his armpits. Someone had cut off all of the fingers of his right hand and all except the thumb and the index finger of his left.

The woman was quiet for a few seconds, then she took out a small vial of pale golden liquid. “You know what this is, don’t you, Ori?”, she said. The boy nodded and opened his mouth. The woman slowly and carefully fed the child the entire contents of the vial. Nothing happened for a few moments, but then the boy was engulfed by a fiery golden aura. His wounds started closing up, his broken bones fused and his fingers grew back, but his facial scar remained. The woman traced her hand along it and tsked, “If only I hadn’t taken that sip.”

“It’s okay Master. Gerty says, scars add character to your face”, said the boy. The woman smiled sadly at that. “My brave child, my brave boy”, she said. She left it at that and then she continued, “Now, you must hold on tight and not let go, no matter what happens, you can never let go. Do you understand Ori?”, she said. The boy nodded and the woman said, “Good. Time for some payback. They will rue the day they pissed off the Huntress’ Hound of War”, she said and as the boy wrapped his hands around her neck, she unsheathed two daggers, one with a cruel, jagged edge whose blade was black as the night and the other with a smooth curving edge which was a slightly lighter shade.

“The Night of the Red Eclipse”, I said to myself, “Now I get why they call it that.”

The scene in front of me changed. I didn’t remember most of that night, but I remembered how it ended. My master was surrounded by four hunters, near the edge of a high waterfall. “Give up, Sofya!”, said the tallest one. He had an old, weathered face, blocky of shape and as he lunged towards her, my Master threw her curved dagger straight into his left eye. He cried throatily as he went down, but a woman jumped over him and deflected a strike from my Master’s black dagger and punched back straight in her face. My master went flying backwards and almost fell over but balanced herself in a way I probably would never come close to replicating. But as she balanced herself, a slim and short man snaked around her and tried to stab her in the back. My master turned away quickly, deflected the strike and saved the child who was clinging to her back. “Still so sentimental”, said the slim man. My Master didn’t deign to reply back and just shot towards him, but was brought short by the woman who had punched her earlier. The fourth hunter was another tall woman, muscled and beautiful, but she was keeping back and looking at the man who had received the dagger in his eye at the beginning of the fight. The fight went on for some time, my master trying to protect the child clinging to her and fight back, while receiving punches and cuts, while the other two kept harrying her. They didn’t fully commit to any engagement, determined to avoid further injuries and as a result my Master was pushed to the very edge of the waterfall. She was breathing heavily as she looked into the faces of the other two hunters. “Come on, then”, she said.

The two hunters swept in, one from each flank. The woman sent a right hook towards my Master, which was deflected and the man slashed downwards, which my Master turned aside using her own dagger and followed through with a slash, but that was the moment of lapse the woman had been waiting for as she kicked my Master right in the face. She stumbled backwards and while falling over, she threw her dagger into the woman’s face, which she casually swatted away. “Ever the stubborn bitch”, she said casually as my Master fell over the edge and down the waterfall. The child’s hands lost grip as he hit the water after what felt like an eternity. He was drowning. The child had been taught how to swim, but the shock of falling from so high had temporarily disabled his limbs and he was close to losing consciousness. And then he heard it, a soft melody on a piano backed by rhythmic drumming.

“Wait what?”, I said, “What’s that?”

The melody started off simple and then kept building in complexity and then a violin was added to the melody, followed by a flute. The child started swimming towards the source of the melody.

“That’s not how I remember it!”, I said slowly. But then it hit me, “That’s how I survived? The hymn!” I now knew where I had to go and how to find it. I had an idea, a bad idea, granted, but one that I felt had a decent enough chance to succeed. It was time to almost kill myself. Seeing as how I was already dying, I didn’t think this would be too difficult. And that’s how I woke up with a smile on my face while looking up at a Mercenary about to slap the living daylights out of me.