Rise Of The Hunters - Chapter 8

The walls of a city came into view as he came to a stop next to Willow. She was looking at his hide in obvious disgust as he lowered it to the ground with a sigh of relief. It wasn’t as heavy as it had been the day before, but it was still pretty heavy.

“Why are you carrying that with you?” She moved closer to see what it was as he leaned it against a tree.

“I’m going to make winter clothes out of it,” he said, brushing the soft fur.

“Have you ever done that before?” The disgust was almost gone from her voice as she looked at him in surprise.

“Well, no, but I’ve watched some people make clothes, so I was going to try. I don’t want to be too cold this winter.” He was a bit embarrassed that he had never actually done it, but he figured he needed to learn.

The interest left her face, and she turned back towards the city. He took that opportunity to look back at the city. He had never seen a city that wasn’t in ruin. Light shined from windows that didn’t even look cracked.

“How can it not be destroyed? Why is it in such good condition?” Xun was starting to think that maybe what she had said about the Slavers never having been there may actually be true.

“Well, they teach us that back in the war, this city was one of the few that escaped the bombs. They also have big machines to make new parts, like windows and doors, if they get damaged. I’ve seen them repair the wall before when it was damaged after a monster attack. I don’t know how most of it works since I just want to be a hunter. I wasn’t born there, so I’m not allowed to do some of the jobs.”

He looked at her quickly. One of the compounds he had tried to join had the thought that if you were an outsider, no matter how hard you tried to join them, you would always be an outsider. He had decided not to join them because he didn’t want to forever be doing the hard jobs. From what she said, he wondered if this place had some of the same rules.

“What do you mean that you can’t do some of the jobs?”

“Well, if I was interested I suppose they would teach me some of the stuff, but all I ever wanted to learn was how to hunt and kill the monsters that live outside.” She flung her hand to the mountains around them. “They weren’t about to let me run a dangerous machine without understanding how it works.”

A noise to the side, drew both of their heads up in unison. Xun saw the wolves first. It looked like the wolves who had been fighting over the hand that morning. Pulling his axe out, he prepared to fight. With the weight of the cougar pelt, he would never escape them, and he didn’t want to lose it.

Willow pulled out a short sword and took a fighter’s stance. Xun wasn’t sure how good she was as a fighter, but she obviously trusted him to protect her back as she turned to face the wolves on her side. He could count four wolves. They looked half grown, but that just made them unpredictable because of inexperience.

When the first wolf charged, it was at Xun and he stepped forward to slash it across the face with his axe. The axe bit in deep, burying itself into the muzzle of the wolf, and it cried out in pain, before running for the trees. The axe was ripped from his hands, and he found himself suddenly unarmed with another wolf bearing down on him. He bȧrėly had time to jerk a dagger out from his belt before it was snapping in his face.

Willow wasn’t having it any easier. The wolf that charged her tried to bite her sword, and it ended up being flung into the bushes to her side. The wolf’s lower jaw was hanging by a thread, and it stumbled to the side crying in pain. Pulling out a long dagger she kept at her back, tucked into her belt, she slashed at the next wolf to attack her.

Xun dodged to the side as the wolf pounced, making sure to avoid the wolf that Willow had just injured. The pouncing wolf ended up sliding into the injured one from all the blood on the ground, and a fight broke out between them. Low growling from behind him, warned him of the injured wolf he had slashed with his axe, before it jumped at him. He saw the crazed gleam in its eyes as it came at him again. He fell to his side as it jumped at him, and stabbed up with his dagger, trying for a heart shot.

Willow kicked her wolf in the head as she sidestepped its lunge. She slashed at its neck as it tried to bite her again, and scored a good hit. Blood began pouring out of the gaping wound, and she followed up quickly with another kick.

The wolf grabbed her foot and bit down hard. She screamed and stabbed at its eyes with her dagger, shoving it as deep into the head as she could. Pulling her foot out of its mouth, she almost whimpered to see her own blood staining the leather of her shoe. She jerked her dagger out and threw it as hard as she could at the last wolf who had turned from its jawless companion at her scream, and buried the knife in its side.

With a yelp of pain, the wolf took two steps and slumped to the ground.

An object in the bushes caught his eye and he hurried to retrieve it. The short sword she had lost was identical to the one he had been searching for earlier at the cougar attack site, and for a moment he wondered if she was the reason he couldn’t find it. Spying the axe laying on the ground by a tree, he snatched it up and headed for Willow. Whether or not she was the one who grabbed it, didn’t matter. They would need to hurry to make it before it was too dark.