Rise Of The Hunters - Chapter 39

Hayden was lagging behind as Xun lead him and Willow north to the rock slide he had seen a couple days ago. Xun had slowed down a bit, thinking Hayden couldn’t keep up, but he was sure that he was lagging on purpose. Not sure why, Xun picked up his pace again, impatient to reach his destination.

The screams of birds fighting signaled a sight Xun was expecting. He had Willow and Hayden wait for him as he climbed the cliff face to see what awaited him on the ledge.

The flies were thick, and he knew that nothing would be salvageable of the goat he had left the day before. Shooing the bugs away, he began to unstack the rocks he had tried to use to preserve the food. The hide on top of everything was singed in places and crawling with maggots in others. The soup he had left to cook had boiled down the water, so the fire had burned it. The meat he had piled around had not escaped the onslaught of flies either.

Leaving the mess for the birds and bugs, he turned to examine the rock slide. It looked like they might be able to climb to the top of it, if they hugged the steep mountain side. Climbing back down, he ignored the curious looks and hurried on. They followed silently.

Xun wasn’t sure if he could trust these two as real friends, but he had been thinking about the fact that he had no one to turn to. If he truly wanted to stay at this compound for any length of time, he was going to need to make some friends. Willow was very selfish and sarcastic, but she hadn’t hesitated to try and help Hayden when he fell during the attack, and she thanked him at the soonest opportunity for saving her.

Hayden didn’t have as much of a reason to like him, besides having helped to kill the werewolf before it could kill him. Xun wondered if he was only being nice because he felt as if he needed to repay the favor. Hayden had been largely quiet when they had talked about what to do in the future, but between Rick and Willow it could have just been that he couldn’t get a word in. It was obvious Hayden didn’t have many friends, much like Xun, so he decided to give Hayden a chance.

The honest truth was that Xun craved friendship. No matter how many times he told himself that he would be able to survive easier on his own, he kept ending up trying to join compounds, even after having such horrible experiences at each one, he kept coming back to them. He craved having people around him that he could talk to and interact with. With a sigh, he stopped at the edge of the rock fall.

Hayden and Willow paused beside him, looking at the wall of rock before them. Now that they were here, how were they going to climb it? It had looked possible from the ledge, but now that he was up close, it looked far too steep and slick. The rocks were still too unstable to climb here.

“We’ll have to travel along it and hope there’s a spot we can climb. It’s too unstable here.”

“Darn, and here I was hoping to show off my climbing skills,” Willow said.

“Maybe near the water?” suggested Hayden.

Xun nodded and they began to make their way to the ocean. The rocks clattered around them, still shifting occasionally.

As they started to hear the water washing against the rocks ahead, a noise caused Xun to pause. The others stopped as well. It was a plinking sound, far too regular to merely be rocks falling randomly. He lowered himself to the ground, and began to sneak slowly forward. Taking care to place his feet so they didn’t crunch leaves or sticks, a chilling sight met his eyes.

A werewolf carcass lay sprawled on the rocks, torn apart. His first thought as he studied the body, was that it had fallen trying to climb over the rocks, but he could see bite marks. The noise, louder now, was the sound of blood dripping onto trash washed ashore.

Swallowing as fear clawed at his throat, he studied his surroundings. The body was freshly killed, and they hadn’t heard anything. Werewolves are not quiet unless they are stalking something. Whatever had killed this wolf was still nearby. He could see Willow and Hayden out of the corner of his eye, and movement behind them.

Adrenaline spiked, and he acted instantly, shooting to his feet with a shout, throwing the axe in his hand as hard as he could at the beast that rose up silently behind his new friends.

Willow and Hayden jumped away, completely confused as to why he was suddenly attacking them, but then they saw the monster that screamed with rage and pain as the axe buried itself into its ċhėst. Xun wasted no time running towards it and pulling out his sword. He would only get one chance to attack this thing before it got its wits together and attacked.

Jumping and swinging the sword with all the strength his twelve-year-old body could muster, it connected and sliced across the front of its neck. The wound bled like crazy, spraying out and covering him in a thick coppery mist. He rolled to the side as it swung its huge clawed paw at him. As it opened its beak-like maw to scream at him, an arrow buried itself in its throat.

Xun took advantage of the arrow attack as it swung its head around and clawed at its face, to stab it in the side, pushing the sword deep. He felt it hit a rib and stop briefly, before skidding between the ribs.

Willow suddenly grunted from the other side as she too stabbed it with her sword. The monster shuddered for a moment, gasping, then went to step forward, and fell towards Willow.