Rain. Clouds. When you feel dead, that's when the world feels the most alive. Jack felt dead. If not worse. And yet the stom raging outside his tent kept reminding him that the world still kept going. And so he had to keep going as well. The others never felt that way. It was normal for them. All the robbing and killing.They had lived their whole lives that way. And that's how they were going to keep living it. He had to stop. He wasn't like them. Strong... Weak... And yet the storm kept raging outside. And the world kept going. One last job. Take the bounty to the One who would pay for it. And then get out. While you still can. That was the plan.

...

What holds us back? Is it the broken hand, or the fear of it breaking? Is it the piercing of an arrow or the fear of the pain that comes with it? Ardon knew, or even better, Ardon was forced to learn ever since he was born that fear doesn't belong with him. Being born a 'hunter' ,as these superhumans were called, was not so much a blessing but a curse. Ardon had to fight from the moment he could first remember himself. Until he turned sixteen he didn't know any feelings other than anger, pain, fear. He had learnt that fear doesn't belong in a battlefield. “And in a real fight, out there”, his teacher used to say,”it ain't the skills that will keep you alive, but the ability to fight through the fear.”That's probably the only thing Ardon and the rest of the hunters could agree upon.

He wasn't your regular hunter, as regular as a Hunter could be. He had gifts, he himself couldn't explain. But still the rough childhood in the Huntsmen Keep had scarred him. From the moment his training ended and he could get a sword and a horse, no hunter heard from him again. But in the end it seems noone escapes his destiny. Ardon thought on that matter regularly. As regularly as his job allowed him. Is it destiny that leads us? Is it god? A difficult question for a 'lowly' hunter. In the end, he ended up being the only thing he knew how to be well. A bounty hunter, one of the best in the whole empire.

And Ardon could feel his bounty closing in. Someone had gotten there before him, but noone could avoid a hunter for long. Even through the heavy rain, Ardon focused on the wet dirt road and he could clearly see every track left in the last few hours. And that's what he did. He had a track to follow. He had a job to do.

...

Hours had passed. An Jack was long awoken. Happy noone bothered him in his tent but a shallow happiness, almost not worth being felt. The weather had started to calm down. Noone had ever seen such weather in the beggining of the fall before. But eve the worst thunderstorm of the the past few years couldnt keep going forever.

Sudenly,Jack heard a loud crack just before a body rolled through his tent. He watched in horror as Arbior, an orc that travelled with them for years, and their best fighter, lie there motionless. There was no blood Some sort of energy blast had threw him so far. Elven magic? Here? Impossible. And then the first screams were heard.

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...

Ardon had travelled a while but in the end he did find their camp. And from a distance he observed. With his hunter vision, Ardon could regularly see from hundrends of meters away. So he focused. And he observed.

There were at least four people in the camp. Walking around armed to the teeth considering most bandits in this wilderness barely carried wooden bats. There were also tents. At least three. There could be people inside. Ardon always thought of every possibility. He dismounted his horse, a white female he called Silver. He grabbed a silver crossbow hanging from Silver's back and a pack of bolts from his belt. The lone sniper was one of the most feared crossbows in the empire. Crafted by the dwarfs during their empire's prime this crossbow could shoot accurately from hundeds of meters away. And there weren't many people that could aim from hundends of meters. Except the hunters.

Ardon focused his vision once again. He aimed at the camp. Silently the first target fell on the ground. And now for the second one... Ardon shot and missed the angle by half an inch. The target fell dead of course but he hit the ground with force letting everyone know something was wrong. And the rest of the bandints didn't lose any time. They found cover and weirdly enough for country men, they stayed dead silent. These men weren't random scum of the coutryside. They were trained. Ardon couldn't find a target. He had to get closer. He grabbed a sword and sheathed it in his belt . He mounted Silver and he galloped to the camp.

…

Jack grabbed a small knife from the side of his pillow and run towards the screams. On his way he saw Rean, on the ground with a crossbow bolt straight through the eye. He leaned to the side trying not to puke. He wasn't a fighter. Not like the rest of them at least. But the screams pushed him to keep running.

He reached the front of the camp just below an old dead tree. He tried to scream but there was no voice coming from his mouth, no air in his lungs. Half their gang leader was on the ground in a pool blood. The other half was nowhere to be seen. He fell on his knees and grasped for air. The man that had done all this was standing there only a few meters away from him. He was tall, and held a sword in his hand. But what Jack noticed was the man's helmet. It covered his face fully with two small holes and black glass covering his eyes. And the black eyes where looking at him.

...

Ardon looked at the man in front of him. Helpless on the ground. He almost felt bad. But it was part of the job. All the killing.

-You don't have to die!, he shouted and his voice echoed through the now empty camp. It sounded emotionless, metalic through the his helmet. The man on the ground tried to say something but stumbled on his own tongue. Then he slowly got up and dissapeared in the opposite direction.

Ardon was almost relieved. He walked past the big tree and through some tents in the middle of the camp. There was an array of chests and barrels scattered around and signs of a fire in the middle. Very few left after the storm. The sun was now almost noticeable behind the clouds. It wasn't much but it was the best they had gotten in the last week. Ardon finally heard a sound. He turned and walked behind one of the tents to a cage big enough to fit a person. Barely. Inside there was a small man with ragged clothes, dirty and in a bad condition. He looked at Ardon scared, but with an expression in his eyes that showed resignation.

-You are worth a lot of killing mister Grayson. I'm here on behalf of your father. He wants you home. Alive preferably.

Ardon opened the cage and whistled for his horse.