by Hugo Damas
“Actually, their darkness is strange and different,” the Shadow interrupted, in that bad news kind of tone. “It cuts off the shadow streams.”
“Brilliant. Further cause to warrant your usefulness,” Mad Genius commented, derisively.
“We need to pool our resources and fight these things, see?” the Don argued, “they can’t take over the entire world! There’s too many of us!”
“We’ll do that, but no, there are not too many of us, not when nobody’s got any means to hurt them,” Griff said, and how quick had he joined the squabbling.
“I will procure the means,” the Mad Genius announced, proudly and in deliverance. “They had the gall to call me obsolete, so I seek only the chance to lay bare their ignorant folly.” His mechanical hand clenched, “by the spilling of blood.”
That was another reason the Hunter was made uncomfortable by the Mad Genius, he was part machine. She did not understand how he moved, how the machine parts of him gestured like that.
Zaniyah was of the unpopular opinion that technology should not be alive since it had no life in it. It seemed obvious to her, but civilization had long since left that reasoning behind.
Griff again knocked on the floor with his cane. Third time.
“Grandstanding aside, let’s talk plans. What can you offer?” Griff asked.
“I can offer you all of Igtahlia and Grehkia,” the Don said, thoughtfully puffing smoke. “And more, see? I can do it quick, too, if I have the Shadow Conclave backing me up.”
“There’s the matter o’ those fat-heads who tried to kidnap us on our way to the competition,” the Street Rat mentioned, prompting Griff and Eliza to trade glances. “Who’re they? And is it possible they can be allies? They looked to have lots of resources.”
“Hate to say it but the brat’s right.” The Don gestured towards her absentmindedly, “is that an angle?”
“We need someone to do that,” Griff mentioned, “Eliza’s leading the Magni, and I have to lead both the Tech Guild and part of the Shadow Conclave.”
“I will look into it,” the Mad Genius announced. “There is no hole in this planet those technologically impaired fools will be able to hide.”
“Ye sure about that there, genius? They took me on an underwater ship,” the Don argued.
The Mad Genius scoffed. “Yes, an ingenious toy to be sure, I happen to know who designed it. Would you like an autograph with the man? Or maybe with myself, I can claim responsibility for the window glass.”
“Yeah yeah, point taken,” the Don said, waving at him unimpressed.
“Well,” the Street Rat called out, “besides the big bucks, I can also go convince the people on my island to get involved. If history’s taught us anything is that they’ll want otherwise, right?”
“Money help?” The Don scoffed. “Of all things, you think we need money?”
Griff snorted. “The Scavengers are the richest organization on the continent, Don, I wouldn’t underestimate Street Rat’s contribution. Especially when you think about all the people we’ll have to buy off before this is over.”
“You think you can convince your chancellor to get involved?” Eliza asked, doubtful.
“Oh not him, that cat’s an idiot,” the Street Rat said, shaking her head dismissively. “I’ll work his wife, she’s got him whipped good.”
“And Don, you can mobilize the middle-western lands?” Eliza asked.
“If I got your support, yeah,” the Don said.
“We can’t provide any combat support,” Griff warned him.
“Naw, see? If I have your support to apply pressure, then there’s less trouble. Enough that my buttons can handle.”
“His buttons?” The Shadow raised an eyebrow.
“Soldiers,” he enlightened.
“Those three things all sound very useful,” Eliza said. “This will likely not be a short-term endeavor. The quicker we convince other nations to come together and fight, the more time we will buy to actually do whatever it takes to take them down. And speaking of that,” Griff and Eliza turned to look at Shadow and the Circus Freak. The Hunter was on the opposite side of the circle.
“I am your contact with the Kagekawa Clan,” said the Shadow. “We are allies in this fight. If there is a task which I am suited for, I will execute it.”
“The king of Norwayaka,” Griff mentioned almost immediately, revealing that he already had a task set out for her. “I know this man well, and he will not take action. But there is a diary we might blackmail him with if you can retrieve it.”
“I will check if no greater task needs my attention,” the Shadow said cautiously, clearly doubtful that that one did.
“I can do that,” the Circus Freak said, raising his hand, reminding everyone he wasn’t a rocking corpse left forgotten. “Sounds like fun! Scaring royalty’s one of my favorite hobbies!”
“That is not a good idea, anyone caught will--”
“And scaring babies,” the crazy jester interrupted, holding a finger over his lips while glancing up in thought. He grinned mischievously, adding “it’s so funny. They always look like they’re traumatized forever!”
“…It would be better for Shadow to do this,” Griff pressed.
“No, I’ll do it,” the Circus Freak said, with a grin. His tone of voice was infused with a small portion of threatening impatience, in-between his nonchalant goofiness. It was unsettling.
“Hunter,” Eliza called out, prompting her to look in her direction, “you have said nothing the entire meeting. Have you any plan on how you can help?”
The Hunter thought for a few seconds, not because of doubt, but because of a natural reflex to try to answer without words. She always gave it a second to see if she could do that.
“Mother Superior learned of an artifact which is supposed to be very powerful.” Zaniyah breathed. “Two have lost their lives trying to retrieve it from its tomb.” She sighed. “I was scheduled to retrieve it when we received the invitation to the competition. I assume,” she paused, every sentence having felt like she was reciting a book. “I assume I will do that.”
“Very powerful how?” Griff asked.
“Supernatural. A potential weapon,” the Hunter clarified.
“That’s definitely worth looking into,” Griff agreed. “Okay. Shadow, you will return to Kagekawa. We know the Beasts’re focusing on your land,so you’re best served helping to defend it.”
“That was from first estimates. It is now clear they spread equally in all directions,” the Shadow said.
Griff paused.
“I’m afraid you must have old information. They’re spread in all directions, yes, but it’s clear they’re spreading faster towards Kagekawa. It might be they’re just focusing on the entire East, though.”
The Shadow said nothing and showed no emotion. Although, that is a simple feat to accomplish when not an inch of the face is visible.
“I will carry your words,” she simply said, almost in a whisper.
Griff banged the cane on the ground again. “Then we’re set, let’s waste no more time and get moving. Keep communication channels open and report back with any news. We may have weeks, maybe even months ahead of us…but don’t be fooled, time is very short.”
The Hunter agreed. She had seen the mist, and every hour, her mind spent at least a minute visualizing it covering more and more territory. Covering her home. Covering that tower. Encroaching on every inch of world out there, stifling and killing it. Nature was the greatest casualty, by far.
It had to be stopped.
* * *
The meeting did not end soon enough. If the Hunter never stepped inside that tower again, she would be very grateful
A lot of things were odd about what was happening to her, and all of them ran through her mind considerably faster than she ran across the city within which the Tech Guild’s tower stood.
Everything had fallen out of place ever since she first received the invitation to participate in the Shado
w Conclave. Sorcerer dying at her feet, most of all.
That deep dark mist that made it hard to breathe and see, and apparently neutralized shadows. Then the Beasts forcing an entire city to stampede an evacuation, with their big vessels slowly creeping along, grounding the earth beneath them.
Running back home, everything seemed so normal that it felt very out of place.
It was life as usual in the big city. No one was worried, and no one was hurrying. Well, not any more than ordinary, they were hurrying, just not fleeing for their lives. One could mostly tell by the lack of screaming and the sort-of apparent effort not to bump into each other.
Meanwhile, Zariyah was surprised that, back there, they had accepted pretty instantly that they would be working together to defeat the Beasts. That was the oddest thing. No one asked whether they should, they just assumed it was up to them, and started planning. There was no way they all believed in the prophecy. More than likely, they all had something to gain from helping the Shadow Conclave, and that was it.
The Hunter did not feel she was anything like any of the others. She was a tomb raider, an adventurer. In fact, her steepest crimes had been committed during the competition. She had stolen from people before, but never as a career and definitely never in a way that would damage their life.
Zaniyah stole from forgotten lands, territories closed off by governments, or went against laws that were made to keep people safe from decaying structures or dangerous wildernesses. She was not a thief, not like them, and she was not a liar. Every year, her crimes were paid off by the guild, so negligible were the fines. The Hunter was the only one of them who wasn’t truly a criminal, and definitely the only one whose ulterior goal would be saving the world and nothing but.
What did the Mad Genius care? He had offered to help them. What did the Circus Freak care? Or the Street Rat? Or even the Shadow, who was probably there only on orders from her masters. They only cared about saving themselves. Zaniyah felt no bond with any of them, save for the Shadow, with whom she had faced death.
The Hunter did not trust any of them. But there was no denying their skill and their influence. Each of them would undoubtedly succeed in their part. If not, she knew one thing for sure, and that was that if anyone were to fail in their task, it would not be her.
She left the city by foot. The Hunter ran at a fast pace, and it had been a few miles by then, but still, thoughts lingered about the meeting and her new allies.
“You remind me of my predecessor,” the Shadow had said as they departed. “Well, not the actual, the one that mattered,” she said, immediately reeling with embarrassment over insulting her actual predecessor. But she was referring to him, the origin of the Shadow Conclave, the man who had foiled the Beasts’ first attempt.
“He didn’t talk much. He just did, and people expected him to accomplish. And he just did.” The Shadow was envious, Hunter noticed, but she wasn’t certain of whom. Whether it was him or the Hunter.
“Do not end up like him,” the Shadow had said. “May we see each other again.”
It was odd, being friendly with the Shadow. They had faced death together, that was probably why the Shadow felt the camaraderie. But Hunter? It was hard changing contexts for her. She had slated all of them as competitors, and in a way, she still did. The Shadow had tried to defeat her during the first match, even.
Finally, the city began to dissipate, the buildings to flatten and scatter. Soon enough, Zaniyah was out of the steam-riddled heart of Britthan and still running at a good pace. It felt good to be sweating again. It felt good to feel the air, clean and fresh, the rain weak and wet on her skin.
Trees surged up after a few more minutes, and after around thirty, the Hunter was deep inside a forest.
“Uff.” The first sign of fatigue showed itself, but her breathing was still relaxed, her muscles yet healthy and without stress. The Hunter could run for far longer but she didn’t have to, she had spotted the mark on the tree. It was of a bird’s talon with an extra finger. A warning for those who knew it, and a consequence for those who didn’t heed it.
The Hunter reached into her small pouch and retrieved a short pipe-looking flute. She blew into it, playing a specific melody. She knew they would have heard her and that she would be safe. She put it back and resumed her run.
Nobody could find the House of Magni’s estate or the Kagekawa’s palace, but everyone knew where they were. Her guild, Wild Felids, was believed to be nomadic…the only major guild or organization without a headquarters. But that was deceit.
They had a sedentary headquarters. They moved it sometimes, rarely, but they had one and, for the past few decades, it had resided right next to the Tech Guild.
“Zaniyah!” The voice sounded familiar and welcoming and it brought the Hunter to a stop. She looked up to see two men on top of a branch, brothers with an acute age difference. “It is good to see you again!”
“Welcome back,” the younger said, a bit timider. They were both dressed in buttoned shirts and pants, both wearing caps to protect their eyes from the rain, but otherwise not bothered by the weather. Zaniyah nodded back at them, making the older smile warmly.
“You are not going to grace me with your pretty voice, are you?”
Zaniyah rolled her eyes and ran to the side, leaving them behind.
Jake and Josh were two natives of Britthan who had recently joined, earning their place with a museum heist in which they recovered an original goblet of sapphire, favored by an ancient king. Both had dark hair and joyful eyes, and they both chuckled in farewell.
The Hunter ran, but now more cautiously. The route was filled with traps and ambushes she had to avoid.
Slowly, signs of the Felids began to surface. Tents in-between trees, fireplaces carefully tended to for the smoke, and an overall majority of people hanging around, minding their own business. That was until they saw her.
They all turned to watch her, they all knew her. Zaniyah was infamous when she had first come into their midst, more jungle beast than woman and largely distrusted and abhorred, and then she had become the most famous and successful of them all.
The Hunter had not had time to see how they regarded her now that she bore the title and had been invited by the Shadow Conclave, she had had to travel almost immediately.
However, she now saw they were proud. Glad to see her, but mostly it was the pride that got to her.
It was odd.
The Hunter ran up to the main tent, which was easily the size of a massive circus encampment, tied across the trees with little stakes actually setting it on the ground. That meant that even “inside,” she would be among the trees and over real ground.
“Zaniyah, welcome back.” Burto was a warrior, one of Mother Superior’s favorite lovers, and he was usually standing guard. He dressed in cloth armor and wielded a magnificent silver spear which sported scratches and tears all along the shaft.
Zaniyah nodded at him as a greeting.
“You want to see her, I guess?” he asked.
Zaniyah nodded again, relieved to be back in a place where people didn’t force her to speak.
“Go ahead, she’s waiting.” He flapped open a cut-out portion of the tent’s walls so she could lean her way inside.
Walking inside, she shook her head and brushed the dirt off her legs and arms as she walked.
Zaniyah could only see trees and interior tents, sections warded off by stitched fabric serving as walls and doors, all tied either to trees, or to the main tent itself. It was like a maze, but at the same time, like a building with halls that all looked alike.
One simply had to know the building to know the way.
Zaniyah adjusted her scarf to better cover her mouth, an act of timidity she had not outgrown yet. She didn’t like to be flustered, but it wouldn’t be the first time she caught Mother Superior at a…private time with one of her lovers. She had happened upon the act once before, and she dreaded to do so again.
As she approached the chamber
s, Zaniyah met with a woman who was standing guard there. She had a helmet of dark hair that almost covered her eyes and ears as she looked down at Zaniyah. Orithia was tall, even who compared to tall men, and muscular. Very muscular, so much so that her padded one-piece uniform stretched against her body. She was Mother Superior’s childhood friend and most stalwart ally.
Orithia squinted her eyes at the Hunter. “Zaniyah. Finally.”
The Hunter let her lips widen into a half-smile. The memories of riding the woman’s back were still vivid in her mind, she had played with her like an aunt for far longer than she should have. It only stopped when Manuela alerted her to the concept of age-appropriate behavior, because as strong as Orithia was, they could still be doing it. And the Hunter would still be enjoying it, most likely.
But the day she decided to be an adult was the day that relationship had withered. The Hunter was just another Wild Felid now, with many responsibilities to meet and even more expectations to honor. Orithia flapped open the cloth door leading to the room and nodded the Hunter along. “Zaniyah’s finally back,” she barked.
Mother Superior was the leader of the Wild Felids. Her guild was made up of bounty hunters, treasure hunters, and tomb raiders. Few of them liked technology very much, choosing instead to be surrounded by nature as much as possible.
In recent years, Zaniyah had become their main tomb raider.
“Hunter,” her voice sounded out, “you’ve returned at last.”
Mother Superior was not taller than Orithia, but she was bigger. Her muscles were less defined due to her having more fat, though one would never call her overweight. Her curves were voluptuous, not in an elegant way that observed the right angles men desire, but there was still a lot of body to her and, despite having reached fifty years old, there was little that looked old about her. Her green eyes flickered with enthusiasm and adventure, still possessed of the same energy that first captivated Zaniyah. It had relaxed Zaniyah’s predatory instincts and enabled a relationship to begin.
