Forsaken Hunters_Book Zero of The Age of Dawn_A Prequel

by Everet Martins

  He flinched. “M-magic! I don’t know them,” Saban growled, though his legs gave a betraying tremble.

  “Liar,” Lillian hissed, drawing in close enough to smell the stink of his breath. “They’re bad Tigerians. Got bounties for them from the Empire itself.”

  Saban arched a salt and pepper eyebrow, face softening. “That right? Never liked them. I didn’t tell you anything.” His eyes met hers for an instant, and in that moment, they shared something she hadn’t recognized at first.

  “Of course, naturally.”

  “One is at the neighboring field.” He nodded in the general direction. “Has a large spot of black on his right cheek where his eye is scarred.”

  Lillian winced as the past consumed her. She remembered watching him watching her, his hips squelching against hers with his every violent thrust. “Don’t do this, you don’t have to do this!” She’d pleaded for mercy, but on he went, hammering into her. She gave up on screaming long ago, knowing it a fruitless waste of her water.

  “I can’t be marring your pretty face, now can I? Garen won’t like that, so we have to do this. This is your fault, you know?” Black Cheek had said, breath huffing with every thrust of his fur-lined cock. “You made me do this.”

  Lillian turned her head to the left, studying the contours of the planks making up the shed’s wall. It isn’t real. A fat tear slipped from the corner of her eye, welling up against her cheek and resting on the soiled mattress before being absorbed. Knots of wood were like one-eyed men, stoically watching from their timeless prisons while she was defiled. Some planks had long cracks. Others were rough cut and hardly sanded while those beside it were polished to a satin finish. It was as if each plank was harvested from another building, each hailing from another world. She wondered what past horrors the one-eyed men were forced to witness and what future horrors awaited them. Maybe they enjoyed it.

  Saban cleared his throat, vaulting her back to the present. He was brushing himself off, and Lillian saw she had let him go. “The other is at the Tougerery with his brother, beyond that field. Beating someone who was caught stealing extra porridge.”

  “Extra… porridge?” The words hung in her mouth, gaping with disbelief. She stared at the spot where Saban had pointed, spotting the Tougerery about half a mile away.

  “That all you want? I be on my way?” Saban asked with a grunt. “Want nothing to do with this. If I get caught helping you—”

  “At the Tougerery you said?” Lillian asked, meeting his cataract eyes.

  “Mhm.” Saban shouldered his way past her, confidence restored, shuffling down the road back toward the mansion. Would he betray her? Doubtful. She watched him go and recognized what they had shared a moment before. It was an ancient and boiling hate, locked away under plates of earth, waiting for the appropriate time for it to be woken.

  Lillian arrived at the Tougerery minutes later, leaving Saban and the mansion behind. The Tougerery was at the edge of a knot of rebellious forest. The stable was enormous with at least twenty Tougeres feeding and drinking, lassoed in their individual pens. Their long tails whooshed against their bodies, warding away feasting insects.

  A man who had been stripped bare was tied to a tree near a corner of the Tougerery. His body was coated in grit, sticking plant matter, and shining sweat. He bore the cuts and grazes that spoke of a hard day’s work in the fields. His hair was matted to his temples, eyes madly whirling, arms and legs wriggling against his bonds.

  A Tigerian with a missing finger clutched a lash handle, lash whirling overhead as he regarded his pinned target. Lillian stared at his hand, the hand she and Brenna were looking for. The leather strip warbled on the air, winding up to deliver a skin-ripping strike to the man’s bare back. A pair of Tigerians at either side of Missing Finger watched the man writhe with jovial laughs.

  Missing Finger was one of the three Kuro brothers, the youngest. The middle one stood to his right, arms crossed with blatant disregard for the world around him. She wondered if any of them had the faintest notion that they were about to die. She didn’t pity them but pitied their lack of awareness.

  Missing Finger drew his lash arm back, preparing to finally strike. She remembered how he enjoyed torturing his victims with a series of false lash cracks. Lillian seized the Dragon. Its glorious torrent of rage and fire coursed through her veins. “Hey!” she roared. Her voice made Missing Finger stiffen, and his lash fell limp at his side.

  Her hands became halos of fire, and twin fireballs materialized before her fists as they turned. She punched with both hands. Streaks of light cut across the air to intersect with each of the Tigerians at Missing Finger’s sides. Their heads were simultaneously rent apart, filling the air with gore and globs of burning flesh. A smoldering eyeball rolled across the dirt and stopped at the toe of Missing Finger’s boot.

  “Wh-who?” Missing Finger stumbled back, feline eyes wide as plates. He drew his lash arm back, face twisting with recognition. “Y-you! I know you! Here… you…” he stammered.

  “Me.” Lillian grinned. She splayed her fingers, and a perfect circle of razor thin flames sparked alight on the ground around where Missing Finger stood. An instant later, the flames rose up to become a cylinder of fire, engulfing him in a blinding white conflagration. Her Dragon fire was hot enough to turn the sand around him into glass, his body a handful of ashes.

  She let it burn for a long second and then let the Dragon go. The fire vanished from her hands, and with it, the column of lapping flames. Tongues of fire chewed at stray grasses near the edge of the Tougerery where the forest met the building. The Tougeres were rightfully frightened, all drawn into the recesses of their stables, some even whimpering.

  She felt some of the Dragon’s price in her gut, urging her to double over to rest. It had been long since she’d used its strength, and she was no longer conditioned to the ensuing exhaustion. With training, one could learn to endure the Dragon’s price with some indifference. The price always had to be paid eventually.

  The air was filled with the biting stink of burning fat and fur. The throats of the beheaded Tigerians continued to burn, each rising up in a thin column of smoking flesh. A few clods of burning flesh littered the ground, each with small fires gorging on their provided substrate.

  “H-help!” the bound man screamed, violently struggling against his bonds. “Aren’t you g-going to get help?” He gave Lillian a wild-eyed stare over his bare shoulder. “Oh no. Oh no! No!” He shrieked. “They’re going to blame me, going to b-blame me for this. What am I going to do? What have you done? They were just going to whip me. Why… why did you do that? Do you know what trouble—”

  She stopped listening, letting his words turn into an empty cacophony. His occasional word cut through her void as she tried to think about what to do next. She turned to regard the world behind her.

  “Shut up, shut up,” she mumbled to herself.

  A finger found its way into her mouth, and she hewed the nail clean off. She counted at least ten bodies fleeing, all human. Almost as many were coming toward her, all Tigerian, some mounted. The Tigerians were sending a great cloud of dust into the air, making their approach known for miles around. They converged as a group on the widest road leading to the Tougerery.

  Someone was sprinting towards her, arms glinting and throwing up beams of shining light, hair trailing behind like an oily snake. There was only one person she knew who shined like that. “Brenna!” Lillian yelled and waved with both arms. “Over here, got two of them!”

  For the first time in a long time, Lillian felt proud. She ran to meet Brenna, intersecting with her midway on the road between a section of corn whose ears shone with the color of plums.

  Brenna clapped her on the shoulder. “Two of them you said? You’re sure? Did I hear you correctly?”

  “Sure as the Dragon lives in my belly,” Lillian said, giving it a friendly rub. “I believe the third is coming to us now with the convoy. Shall I do the honors?” She pointed at the appro
aching knot of Tigerians.

  “This was a bit brash, but… I like it. The one with the scar over his eye, is that right?” Brenna raised a hand over her brow, knuckles shining like knots of silver.

  “That’s the one. I’d really love if I could have this one. He—”

  “No.” Brenna’s voice and expression went as hard as stone.

  Ruined me, Lillian thought, lips tugging down into an involuntary frown.

  Brenna looked at her, face softening. “There could be casualties. I’ll finish this. Your skill is clearly great my dear, but I think we can both agree that it lacks a certain measure of calibration. This requires finesse. Watch and learn.”

  A long minute passed while the troop of Tigerians came into view, all mounted on Tougeres. Garen headed the column, eyes narrowed in a look of confirmed suspicion. Among the cloud of sand shone the glinting eyes of Tougeres and Tigerians alike.

  “I can control it, please.” Lillian felt a pathetic whine touch her voice. She was again reminded that she had never been truly freed. Brenna still had her bill of sale in her pouch. She was a commodity. She was nothing, a means to an end like these waving cornstalks.

  “Trust,” Brenna hissed. “If we are to work together, you must learn to trust me, to trust those around you. Do you trust me?”

  Lillian scoffed. “Work together? I do trust—”

  “Then let me do what I do.” Brenna was ice.

  Lillian gave a reluctant grunt and a nod. She was right. What trust she once had in the world had long been shattered. It would take time to mend, she knew.

  The group fell into a trot, then halted ten paces away. Garen shook his head in abject disbelief. “What is the meaning of this? What was that? Do I see fire near the stables? I swear something has fallen into my tea. Did I hear fighting?” He first scanned his group for answers, none coming, then looking to Brenna and Lillian. “I don’t suppose either of you knows what happened?”

  Garen’s voiced faded as if a great wave from the Far Sea had crashed between them. Lillian spotted the last of the Kuro brothers at the edge of the group, his head cocked as he stared at her. She saw the muscles around his scarred eye tighten, going wide for an instant, then narrowing down to murderous slits.

  Something flitted through the air with the speed of an arrow, thunking into his flesh. Lillian found it, a dagger buried up to the hilt in Scarred Eye’s throat. A thin smile spread up her face as she saw him reaching and pawing at the dagger.

  It felt as if the world was suddenly within an infinite jar of molasses. A pair of fuzzy fingers found the dagger, pressing against the nub of exposed hilt, the raping bastard’s expression stricken at the realization of what it was.

  Lillian felt like she had all the time in the world. She smiled and turned to look at Brenna who was watching the scene unfold, eyes narrowed in expectation. Her teeth were so blindingly white, they looked carved from the canines of a newborn Tougere.

  Ruby droplets spilled from Scarred Eye’s wound, tumbling against the pyramids of oiled fur running down his chest. His fingers dragged the dagger out so slowly she thought she could hear the ripping of every fiber in his skin. Garen slowly turned to regard him as he started to let out a gurgling shriek. The dagger was eventually fully drawn, and with it ejected red snakes of his pumping blood. Lillian’s only regret was that the dagger was not hers. Time suddenly resumed in its usual speed.

  Shrieks and calls of terror cut the air. Tougeres reeled onto their hindquarters, claws like swords swiping at the air, their riders struggling to get them under control. “Hold! Hold!” Garen bellowed. “Order! Everyone! Calm!” Garen angrily cut his hand through the air. The Tigerians around him mastered their mounts, circling Brenna, who now had her hands raised.

  “Lift your hands,” Brenna said quietly, giving Garen a pleasing smile.

  “Lifting,” Lillian said, placing a similar smile on her face.

  “Thank you for making this easy,” Brenna whispered. “Let me do the talking.”

  Scarred Eye’s Tougere had hardly registered the commotion, pawing at Brenna’s bloody dagger as if it were merely bored with the whole affair. The last of the Kuro brothers slumped from his mount’s saddle with a sickening crunch as his neck was bent in a way it was not meant to be bent. A disc of red welled out from his body, bony ass raised to the sky as if he were preparing to take it from behind.

  Garen peered down at the body and gave a limp shrug. He shook his head and clicked his tongue. He raised his hand and twiddled his fingers in a series of sharp signs that could only be some form of silent command. His taskmasters complied and fanned out, circling Brenna and Lillian, hands twitching at sheathed weapons.

  Garen crossed his arms. “Please do tell me who you really are.”

  A thin smile flashed on Brenna’s cheeks. “I am the Empire’s blade. Masa here is my apprentice.”

  Lillian couldn’t help but grunt in agitation at being described as an apprentice. That was a battle not worth fighting.

  “Within my pouch is a bounty for the three slain Tigerians you will find on your property. They were wanted catfolk, and I have the paperwork to prove it.”

  “Paperwork?” Garen squinted his eyes, ears twitching.

  Brenna continued with arms upraised. “They were wanted dead or alive, the reward all the same, and it is much easier to transport a corpse than the living, as I’m sure you understand from your morally sound business operations. I know that you may wish to kill me or perhaps my apprentice, but know that doing so will only send others with bounties for yourselves.”

  Garen shook his head, mouth hanging open to show his carnivore’s teeth. “Let me see it.”

  “May I lower my hands?” Brenna asked.

  Lillian’s eyes scanned the faces of the taskmasters, searching for the telltale sign of an impending attack. The Dragon was always a brushstroke away, capable of incinerating this group with the effort of blinking. It would be so easy, so enjoyable to watch them burn. But she owed Brenna, and debts had to be paid.

  “Go on,” Garen gestured with one hand while scratching the back of his head with the other.

  Brenna’s posture relaxed as a hand reached into a pouch, producing the crinkle of stiff parchment. She drew out a folded square, carefully unfolded it, and handed it to Garen. “Do be careful with it, I’ll need it to redeem my reward money.”

  Garen looked it over. His eyes flicked between the held parchment and the women a few times. “Bounty hunters. Never had your like on my lands. If it’s the Empire’s law, I certainly can’t deny the Empire.”

  “Wonderful.” Brenna clapped her hands, her talons giving a soft clink. She accepted the bounty from Garen and placed it back into her pouch. “Could some of your men help us load the bodies onto the back of my cart?”

  Five

  Partners

  Lillian pressed her back against rough tree bark, bouncing up and down to scratch an itch. Brenna stood on a tree limb with her knees bent adjacent to her, one hand grasping at a branch above her head. They were both about mid-way up a towering sentinel tree, observing the world below. The tree stood at the topmost edge of a valley of sand and scrub that looked like an inverted dome.

  A sturdy rope was looped over the branch where Lillian stood, initially carried up by her summoned wind. They used it to help them scale its thirty or so feet. The moon hung over them in a cloudless sky, speckled with an infinite array of winking stars. The tree was bare from the base and filled out with leathery leaves as big as a man forming a canopy of foliage at its crest where they hid.

  A faint rumble came from a distant rise of sand dunes. “Here they come, as predicted.” Brenna huffed out a long breath. “Took them long enough.”

  Lillian scratched harder as the itch only seemed to magnify in annoyance. She noted that her feet had mostly healed, lips renewed with fresh skin. She almost felt like a person again. The sunburns on her shoulders still lingered, though they too were in the painful process of healing.

&nbs
p; “Would you stop bouncing? Going to knock me off this fucking branch,” Brenna hissed, claws digging into tree bark.

  “Wait, are you scared of heights?” Lillian couldn’t help but chuckle, peering over her shoulder to see Brenna’s face had gone a ghastly white. “By the Dragon. You are scared of heights!”

  Brenna gave her a wry smile and pointed at the approaching knot of Tigerians. “Look!” They came into view, cresting a dune that followed her cart’s deep tracks into the valley. There it rested like an empty casket, its polished lacquer reflecting the luminous moon.

  Stanley nickered where he was tied at the base of their tree as the deep growls of Tougeres reverberated on the air. He was not likely pleased with the additional burden of their essential supplies and the pair of their bodies. In addition, he would have to drag the bodies of two of the three Kuro brothers into the next town. Brenna gave Lillian a mock scolding for vaporizing the third but reasoned that two would be enough to redeem the full bounty with her reputation for success. Brenna whispered some consoling words at Stanley that Lillian couldn’t understand, but they seemed to calm him.

  Lillian thought she saw Garen among the group, but it was hard to tell in the dim light. It was either him or a well-dressed bandit. She supposed Brenna was likely right. They had yet to meet any bandits on their travels and suddenly meeting them on this night would seem suspect. And bandits were not typically attuned to fashion.

  Brenna scowled. “The bastards! Why is it so hard for a Tigerian to simply abide by the Empire’s law? I had the bounty, even showed it to them. It’s a shame. I really did like that cart.” Brenna raised her head to gaze at the night sky as if searching for answers.

  The dust settled to reveal that there were about twenty or so Tigerians poised at the top of the valley’s last rise before sloping down. Each Tigerian was mounted on a Tougere, regarding the cart with dubious stares. Rivulets of sand cascaded and hissed down its rippled surface.