Demons of the Hunter

by Stephen Allan

  “Why?!?” he finally shouted. “Father, why?!? Why do you do this?”

  He was surprised to hear footsteps approaching, his father wearing a smug smile on his face. His father looked so pleased with himself. Why? Why couldn’t his father just… let things be? Is this what he wanted Tyus to become? A sick, cold-blooded, ruthless, sociopathic killer? It won’t work. No. I won’t do it. I won’t join you. I refuse.

  “Why,” his father said, as if pondering the very meaning of the word. “Why, you ask me. Why, you wonder. Do you not see what I see right now? Do you not see the destruction and innocent lives lost—”

  “Because of your actions, father! Because you set out to kill them!”

  His father reached down and yanked him up. It was not a move of love, but of demanding that a father might make of an infant who wouldn’t listen.

  “I set out to finish them while they were weak and small in numbers because if we do not finish them, they will finish us! Do you not see, boy?!? Or do you need more time in the guild to become hard enough to be an emperor? I thought you had become strong. Do you dare to tell me that you are not the man I thought you had become? That my assumptions were incorrect?!?”

  His father seemed to beg for a chance to send Tyus away once more. Tyus was so tempted to do something in response. Spit at his father. Curse him out. Point out that every single time the magi had pushed back against the empire, it had come in response to something the emperor had done. Nothing would have become what it was without the actions of the empire and its soldiers.

  But… it dawned on Tyus that if he did any of that, he could not make a difference. If he was ever to become emperor someday and to make peace, he would not do it by retaliating now. As cruelly sick as it was to see the magi die before his eyes and not do anything, Tyus understood. He had to change the empire from within, not as an outside agent, the son who lost his way in his father’s eyes. For at least today, until he figured out a better strategy, he had to agree with his father. He had to let people die now so that when his time came, the violence would end. He had to play the role of a good son, an obedient son who questioned nothing.

  “I see, father,” he said. “I’m sorry. The heat of the battle caught up to me. I did not expect this to be so bloody and so I doubted. But I should not have. I’m sorry. Forgive me for my error.”

  His father was surprised. The look on his face didn’t seem to believe Tyus. His eyes probed. He let out a mocking laugh and released the collar of his son and sneered once more.

  “You say the right words,” he said. “But now it is time to do the right thing.”

  He whistled to some guards below and made a gesture. The guards then grabbed a bloodied mage—one who was probably dead in the next few minutes from blood loss anyways—and brought him before the emperor and Tyus. The mage was barely conscious, resting on all fours, no longer with the energy to cast magic and without a weapon to channel it through anyways. It was a great mercy to Tyus that he did not know who this was, because he had a sick feeling of what was to come. Had it been Gaius, or, worst of all, that young girl…

  His father motioned to a guard once more, and the guard handed him his bloodied, burnt sword. The king examined it for a brief moment before shoving it into the stomach of Tyus.

  “You want to prove how sorry you are, boy,” he snarled. “Cut off this man’s head as a demonstration of your commitment to this empire.”

  “What? Are you crazy?”

  The thought was sickening. He had killed plenty of dragons before, but never a man. And that was far different. Dragons were predators who hunted humans when they came too close. For the good of humanity, they needed to be put down. This was… at worst, this man had killed a few guards in self-defense. Maybe he deserved a long jail sentence, but this?

  And besides, he wouldn’t survive his wounds. Was it really necessary to add this mark of shame? What was this going to demonstrate?

  “Are you deaf, boy? Do my instructions hurt your ears so much that you are incapable of doing as I command?!? Cut off his head!”

  “He’s going to die anyways!”

  His father folded his arms, as if utterly content with however this played out. He wants me to fail. He wants to send me away. He enjoys taunting me and making himself look good in comparison.

  “Yes, he most certainly is, because if you do not do it, I will do it to show you how a man operates an empire,” his father said with a cold, slow pace. “What kind of a man are you, Tyus? Do you want to be in my good graces? Do you want your father to love you? Then earn that love.”

  Tyus began to wonder if his father was even capable of love based on the way he was acting today. No man who did what his father had done could possibly have the capacity for love. He hated his father for putting him in this spot and making him earn his love.

  And yet… Tyus found himself desiring his father’s approval. No matter how much he tried to deny it, his mind kept going back to getting his father’s support. It sickened him and made him feel ill, but he could not escape the basic human need for love and devotion from a parent. His father was the only family that he had, and no matter how much he tried to resist it, it did not go away.

  I hate you. I hate you for needing your approval. I hate you!

  “I am running out of the generous patience I have provided, Tyus. When I count down from five, I will kill him myself and you will face the consequences of not performing your duty. Five…”

  Tyus looked at the man on the ground. His arms were shaking. Blood poured from his mouth. He would die so soon. Maybe it was a benefit and a mercy to him to just kill him now.

  But why did Tyus have to do it? Why did he have to kill someone who had likely helped him against Indica? Why did he have to do it in such a humiliating way? Why did he have to become the very thing he feared turning into?

  “Four…”

  Tears formed in Tyus’ eyes. This was awful. This wasn’t humane. This was beyond even cruel. They needed new terms to describe what this situation was. And what was even worse was that Tyus felt like he might do it. A son’s devotion to his father’s word… I hate you!

  “Three…”

  Tyus raised the sword. His arms shook. If this made him look like a coward, he could not have cared less. Things would change soon enough. He’d change his father. Or he’d change who ruled the empire.

  “Two—if you do not do this now, Tyus, you will never be a part of this empire ever again!”

  He raised the sword to a crescendo. He tried to say “I’m sorry,” but the words only came out as blubbering gibberish. He remembered his promise to himself. Let people die today so that they would live tomorrow.

  It did not provide any relief. In fact, it made him feel worse. He knew he was trying to rationalize a murder.

  “One!”

  Tyus closed his eyes and slammed the sword down. He felt the sickening force of the sword hitting skin, but it made a clean cut otherwise. Tyus fell to his knees, exhausted and drained. There was a brief silence before his father suddenly burst out in laughter, amused and satisfied with what he had just witnessed.

  “I will admit, I did not expect you to finish the job, boy,” he said as he patted his son hard on the shoulder. “Though you acted like a coward and a woman before you struck him down, you nevertheless finished the job. You may have a future in the empire just yet.”

  He removed his hand. Tyus, with a loud groan, stood. He opened his eyes, doing his best not to look down lest he vomit. Mercifully, some of the guards had collected the body and were moving down the stairs to gather the decapitated head. He looked at his father, who actually seemed to glow with enthusiasm over what had just happened.

  Sick. Just sick. His father took joy in the death of magi. Actually, Tyus couldn’t even be sure it was the death of magi. He just needed an easy target, and he knew the magi were one, small in number, and two, mostly unwilling to fight. Only Kara and a few of her friends posed a challenge. Were it a different group�
�a difficult guild, a class of people, a race of people—Tyus knew his father would take the same sick pleasure in first making their lives difficult, then in pushing them out, and then in killing them.

  The more he thought about it, the more difficulty he had in seeing his father as human. He was almost demonic. Sociopathic, perhaps.

  “There were about four magi I saw who escaped this area,” he said to his guards. “Kara. An old man. Two young girls. Search the entire city. You may enter any building, any location, without permission. Search the outside of these walls. I will not stop until I know for certain that those magi are exterminated and my empire knows peace. Take the entire forces of the imperial army if you must. Those magi must not escape! Do I make myself clear?!”

  A group of a dozen soldiers saluted and affirmed their response. The emperor dismissed them, the soldiers dispersing and barking out orders to their subordinates.

  “Come, Tyus,” he snapped.

  Tyus willingly and eagerly followed his father up the steps, desperate to leave the carnage of an ambush and war behind him. He didn’t want to think about what had just happened, because he didn’t see how he could go much further. What was he fighting for? His father’s approval so that one day he could become emperor?

  Was the long game really that worth it? Was it worth seeing all of these people die just so that in five, ten, twenty years he could become emperor? What good was it to become emperor of a land so marred by death and destruction that the roads were littered with ashes and bones of the dead, so overrun was the city by casualties that they ran out of graves?

  And why was it that in the presence of his father, he would commit something so horrible as to decapitate a captive but then he would feel guilt and anger toward his father when he wasn’t there?

  Why couldn’t Tyus just have a moment of peace?

  Maybe he wasn’t blessed to be born as the son of the emperor. Maybe his greatest curse was being born as that.

  No, it wasn’t quite that. It was being born the son of the emperor and then not having the personality that his father did. Maybe if he had that, he could lead a coup and take over the empire.

  But if he had that kind of cult of personality, would he want peace as he did now?

  This was too much. He just wanted to slaughter dragons, assume the throne, and lead a drama and war-free reign over the world. He didn’t care about giving the magi protection or extra rights. If they all went to Dabira and never stepped foot in Caia, he could live with that. He just wanted peace. He just wanted to know that if a citizen crossed paths with a mage, that utter chaos wouldn’t break out.

  But that seemed less and less likely by the day if it wasn’t already impossible. The empire was heading toward civil war, and more likely than not, if the magi gathered their forces… how could swords and bow and arrow defeat magic, even if that magic needed weapons to function? The only thing his father could rely on was the mage’s code of honor to not kill unless necessary. Did he not realize that he was constantly poking the wolf in the eye, and that eventually, the wolf would bite back, and his stick would shatter when faced with the wolf’s teeth?

  His father led him past the throne room and into his own private room. Tyus sat down on the couch before his father had even found a seat and folded his arms. He had gone from grief-stricken and in a state of shock to utter rage.

  “You’re insane,” Tyus said. “You’re going to lead us to our death!”

  “I?” his father said, but without servants or guards around, his father seemed much more relaxed, like he could have an actual open dialogue. It caught Tyus off-guard, but he pressed ahead.

  “The magi have power that would kill us all if they ever united and launched a coordinated attack on us, and you know it, father. The only reason they haven’t is because they are better people than us. If they ever decide to become violent, we’re dead. This entire empire survives because of the pacifism of the magi.”

  His father grimaced. Tyus couldn’t tell if this was an acknowledgment of something he knew to be true, or something else entirely. It wasn’t a great look either way.

  “Which makes it all the more important that we take them out now—”

  “Stop it, father, please,” Tyus said, his voice unconsciously shifting toward pleading. “Whoever we left alive is going to Dabira. The people of Dabira, if I understand it correctly, could not be more independent if we let them exist as their own territory. Kara might come back for us. I guarantee you as long as no one else dies, no one else will come for us.”

  “And you think Kara is going to Dabira.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you think no one is going to pay attention to her story of what happened here?”

  Tyus begrudgingly had to acknowledge the truth of his father’s words. Even if Kara was militant and extremist by mage standards, just about any mage would turn to her side once they had learned what had happened. Tyus might be able to make peace with a few of the magi, but Kara would fight until she or the two people in this room were dead.

  “The reality is, Tyus, that war has already begun. The removal of Indica ensures that for now, at least, we have only the magi to worry about.”

  “You don’t fear the other two dragons?”

  His father dismissively waved his hand. He seemed far calmer than in earlier conversation. Tyus still didn’t know what to make of this. Did that make him more willing to talk? Did it made him more agreeable? Or was he the same evil man inside, just with a calmer exterior?

  “Ragnor is so far south that the dragon hunters will perish before they reach him. There is nothing that they can accomplish that leaves me worried. And even if they awaken him, an outcome that I believe will not happen, we will summon the magi to our side.”

  “And you think they will help us after all of this? No. Not a chance. You’re insane.”

  “Have you not heard of the phrase the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Tyus? Surely you have at some point.”

  Tyus had heard of it. Anyone in the empire would have heard such a phrase at some point after Indica.

  “If the dragon should come, it will be as much a threat to the magi as it will be to us,” the emperor said. “The magi cannot defeat the dragon without us and we… well, it would be nice to have their assistance should such a matter arise.”

  Even here, even in the privacy of your quarters with your son, you can’t bring yourself to admit we would need their help, can you?

  “You don’t worry about the dragon wiping out all that it sees?”

  “The dragon is not smart enough to attack only humans and leave magi,” the emperor said.

  That may have been true to some extent, but Tyus didn’t believe the dragons were as mindless as his father assumed.

  “Now, however, we have an issue at hand,” the emperor said. “Kara and three other magi have escaped. We already know they are heading toward Dabira. I have my men set to explore the city and the outside walls, but frankly, it would shock me if they are still within range. Even if they are, it is likely that they will struggle to capture them. So, we need a backup plan. Tyus, I want you to go to Dabira. I will give you two ships, each with twenty men. I want you to hunt those magi down. Preferably alive and brought to me, but dead is acceptable.”

  “Father!” Tyus roared. To his surprise, his father did not lash at him as he had in public. Was his father that concerned with how he looked in public that he would strike him down there, but in private act like… like an actual father? “Have we not been over all of this? How much blood will come as a result?”

  “I am not asking you to kill the citizens of Dabira, son, only those who were here on this day. You may not want to, but I am serious in my threat that I will remove you from the empire if you do not comply. Such tasks are not designed to be easy. I take no pleasure in seeing a man die.”

  If ever there was a bold lie which came from his father, that seemed to be it. Tyus heard his father laughing at the death of the mage. He had witn
essed his hysterical smile and how much sick pleasure he took from it.

  Why? Why did his father have to be this way with him? How sick in the head was his father?

  “Do you accept? I will not send you immediately, knowing you. We will need some time to plan and prepare for the magi’s assault on us. And you will need all the rest you can get.”

  “This is madness, father. Blood will beget blood. Our blood. If we kill them while they’re at Dabira—”

  “Fine then, don’t kill them there,” he said. “Bring them captive here and we will kill them here. I told you it was an option.”

  “This will not work as you think it will!”

  “Do you want a future in this empire?”

  Tyus knew he could not get what he wanted in the future if he did not acquiesce to his father.

  But… maybe this was an opportunity. Maybe he could command his own men to do what he wanted. He would have the official orders from his father, but maybe he could change the men’s mind. Order them as the son of the emperor. Command them to “surrender” to Dabira, apologize, and try and make peace. To build an army to counter his father and force his father to step down so Tyus could take the throne. A coup from within the Syrast family.

  It came to him in a blur, and he wasn’t exactly settled into the idea that this was a good plan. Nevertheless, it was the plan that got him off the hook the most at this moment. His father would assume he was going, and he might even be able to minimize bloodshed.

  “Yes. And yes, father, I will go to Dabira. I will capture Kara and the other three escapees. I won’t say that I think this plan will go smoothly, but I will do it.”

  It was the first time Tyus could remember boldly lying to his father. It felt like an awfully treacherous slope to be going down, given that his father had the art of lying down to a science. Was he, too, headed down that path? Was his father once like him, capable of telling the truth but then turning into a walking lie? Was Gaius correct about him?

  But he saw no other way out. There was just no chance of him doing so otherwise.