Chapter 11: Chapter 11 – Hall of Hunters

 

Mika pushed back her goggles and tugged at Threl’s sleeve, following him and the rest of thralls Uthur and Alaric out of the feast hall.

“Is this Hall of Hunters where the fight happens?”

“No, it’s more like…where it’s staged. And it’s not exactly going to be a fight.”

“But Uthur said the princes battle each other to claim things.”

“They call it a battle, and it is, in a way. But it’s more of a hunt.”

Before he could say anything else, Threl was shunted out of earshot as the lot of them funneled across a long and narrow bridge, Ume and Eshge closing in at Mika’s front and back. They walked for a long time, and she found herself at once grateful and homesick. Grateful, for the pace allowed her more chance to gawk at everything. Homesick, because her feet hurt…and the orcs did not have the benefit of hovertrains. Considering the skyships, however, she supposed the trek itself must be part of the rite.

“Why don’t they just fight each other directly, as they did back in the forest?” she asked Threl in a hush as finally she caught back up to him. When he didn’t respond quickly enough, she tugged on his skirt—now hiked up by hooks and loops sewn directly onto the garment, revealing a pair of trousers beneath.

“Because we are in Kanijha, not the Rooted Sea, where the creatures are natural and sacred. There are monsters that come up from the deep that are just…wrong. Getting rid of them is one of the most valuable things a thrall can do.”

Unnatural monsters? Mika was intrigued and horrified all at once. They cannot possibly think to take me down there.

They’d been walking for less then an hour when Threl pointed to a large building that perched atop an overhanging of stone at the entrance to another branch of the Rend.

“Almost there,” he said.

Already?

Mika’s buzz was still going strong, but as she blinked blearily around she noticed that the orcs—some of them sipping tonics from bottles pulled from belts—didn’t seem impaired at all. Thank the DeepMother.

A bridge of arched stairs led up and across the chasm separating the walkway by which they approached the Hunter’s Hall itself, flanked at both ends by statues several times Mika’s height. Beasts of stone with four legs, antlers, and arched wings, they were inlayed with crystal which turned from green to violet as they passed. If Mika hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn they were constructs.

Orcs guarded the wide entryway, but they stepped aside upon sight of the princes, allowing them to spill through into a central courtyard. There, at the heart of two concentric rings—one of trees, one of moss and tumbled stone—was a large hole. Luminous green mist spilled upward from its mouth, and over it was built a framework which supported an elaborate mechanism of windmill, gears, and chain. An attendant orc in a green uniform began to sing, and the winds flowed down into the courtyard to set the mill to spinning. The chain was reeled up, drawing with it the elaborate cage of a large lift.

From an archway at the other end of the courtyard, a group of uniformed and lightly armored figures emerged. The one at the head—an orc of middling height with lean muscles—peered down her nose at them from upon a platform of stone.

Unfurling a scroll, she adjusted her spectacles and examined it.

“Thralls Alaric and Uthur. You are assigned the quarry known as the Great Wretchblight.”

There was a sudden clamor from the crowd as several of the orcs all began to speak at once. One of the scroll-bearer’s attendants blew a horn to silence them.

“It is a blight-beast of approximately five orcs’ height which has plagued the lower western communities for some months now. Presently, when not terrorizing our citizens, it is known to haunt the thorn forest on the third tier of Twistpine Branch. You will know it by its large antlers and distinctive call, which sounds like laughter. Whichever thrall brings me its skull shall be declared victor.”

At that, she re-rolled her scroll and retreated, and her attendants with her. Everyone began to talk again, the two thralls drawing further apart. The next thing she knew, Threl, Uthur, Retga, and a handful of orcs whose names she still didn’t know had circled in around her.

“Of course they’d give us a blight beast,” grumbled one of the nameless ones as Uthur grimaced.

“We can handle it. We just—”

“I have an idea,” said Retga, interrupting him. The other prince frowned a her.

“We have something Thrall Alaric doesn’t,” she went on, eyes fixing on Mika. “We should take advantage of that.”

“I am not a fighter,” she reminded her. “Or a hunter.”

Uthur’s brow furrowed. “There are no Old Ones in that part of the branch, and her construct isn’t strong enough to—”

“That’s not my idea,” interjected Retga, baring her teeth in a wicked smile.

“Out with it, then,” said Uthur.

“Excuse me,” piped up Mika, raising her voice to be heard. “But I am not going.”

“This is a peak prey animal we have here,” declared the scarlet-eyed prince, ignoring her. “According to the histories, the scent of a goblin appeals to all great predators. Let us use her to draw the beast to us, and cut out half the work. It’s likely the biggest beast in its territory, and so we’ll not have to worry about attracting much else of concern.”

Mika trilled in indignation.

“You want to use me as bait?”

“Huh,” breathed Uthur. “That’s not a terrible plan.”

“It is!” squeaked Mika. “It is a terrible plan! I thought I was valuable to you, the only Stonesinger you have!”

“And that’s why we’ll take very good care of you down there,” Retga assured her, eyes glinting.

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”I’ve just had a bath. My smell isn’t strong.”

”Oh, I think it’ll do,” Retga insisted.

Much argument and some bribery later, Mika found herself crowding onto the lift with entirely too many orcs, trembling with nerves and indignation from head-to-toe.

The Stormsinger’s voice rang out, the gears and chain spool creaked, and they began to lower. Than the scholas and others who would not be joining the hunt vanished from sight as the lift plunged through the shaft. When the rock gave way, a wall of fronds, leaves and pine needles took its place. And then there were the mists, bright enough to make Mika squint at first, not so much that she brought her goggles down.

“Don’t worry,” said Threl. “It’s darker where we’re headed.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Their trek took them deep into the branch, where the fog thinned, its light swallowed up by a landscape of black tree trunks, thick moss, and leaves the color of old blood. There, as in everywhere in the Rend, waterfalls trickled and surged over the uneven rock of the chasm walls. But the bridges which crossed the resulting streams and pools were crude, hobbled together from local flora and fallen stone. Small creatures moved in the underbrush all around them and called out to each other, and Mika had to bat away schools of flying fish and, once, a cloud of sticky airjellies that caught in her hair and clung to her face.

“You sure you don’t want me to carry you?” whispered Threl, leaning over her shoulder.

“Very,” hissed Mika.

Then they came to the largest of the bridges so far—which led to split paths that curved about a towering spire of rock. The island was separated by several paces from the rest of the chasm tier, which at this point had become a sheer cliff. There, the two thralls parted ways at last. Mika now understood the snippets of quiet argument she’d heard from the princes along the way as their party split at once to the right, while Alaric’s took the leftmost path.

Threl groaned as it led them into the narrow corridor between spire and chasm wall.

“What?” Mika kept her voice as quiet as she could and stepped lightly, following the example of the others.

“There are advantages and disadvantages to both routes,” replied Threl, lowering his voice even more. “But I’d have chosen the other.”

As Mika’s lips parted to respond, the whole procession surged suddenly forward—the elf urging her along ahead of him.

“We have to get to the other end before they do,” he panted, still careful not to raise his voice. “So they don’t have a chance to block us off.”

When she stumbled the third time, he spat something that sounded like a curse and finally scooped her up—taking care to avoid her hands. She decided not to complain. Her legs were tired and aching already, her skirts too long, and there was simply no way she could keep up.

And then they were bursting from the walkway and past the spire, out onto an overgrown ledge.

At once, and without a single order issued, two of the orcs broke away, rounding the bend and out of sight a moment later. There was a scraping sound and a lot of a sawing, and then a great and shuddering crash. The orcs returned.

“There’s a clearing near the heart of that thorn forest,” said Uthur when they’d come to a stop at his side. “Guardians. Surround it, one orc per ten lengths. Enough space for the beast to get in and out without seeing us, not so much that we can’t close in when the time is right. I’ll stay with you. Hunters, spread outward in pairs—seek the beast and herd it here if you’re able. Retga will go as well. Alaric’s thrall will probably attempt to hunt it out at once. Do what you can to thwart them. Mika, you’ll perfume the air on the way into the clearing and, as heavily as possible, within the clearing itself.”

Retga, standing to his right, gave a short nod and a huff which seemed to indicate she backed this plan.

“Threl, you stay at the princess’s side no matter what, understood?”

The elf’s ears drooped.

“Understood.”

“Official goblin-sitter,” said Retga, grinning. “You’re moving up in life, Threl.”

“Go,” ordered Uthur. “Taking out the bridge won’t slow them for long.”

Following the narrow path upward, they entered a stretch of the tier where the blood-leaf trees were joined by branchless, sticky trunks studded in pink spines, each the length of one of her arms. As they went, Threl occasionally thrusted her forward and waved her around, made her shake her sleeves, and sometimes even rubbed her against a tree to, as he said, “really get her smell in there.”

But they reached the clearing quickly, thank the DeepMother, and there the elf let her down. The orcs spread out, positioning themselves in the shadows of stones and in the branches as Mika paraded around. Her face flushing hot, she tried and failed to stifle her embarrassment as she rubbed herself against trees and flapped her sleeves like she was trying to fly.

“That’s it, that ‘aughta be enough,” declared Threl once she’d made a full circle, cheeks puffing as he tried not to laugh. “Let’s get somewhere safe.”

He made to take her hand, then caught himself. “May I pick you up again? We need to be swift.”

She sighed. “At least you asked, this time. Do what you must.”

And so, snatching her up, the elf spirited them off and up to a spot in the branches. Depositing Mika in the crook of the largest one, Threl edged further out, to a spot where the branch forked and he could both spread himself out and prop up his long-barreled weapon.

There was movement in the trees behind them as a few Hunters of the other thrall approached. Quiet voices Sang out from the leaves, and vines coiled about the oncomer’s legs and mouths, hoisting them up into the branches. All save one, who was a Greensinger himself and managed to escape.

For a while, nothing happened. And then there was a sound in the near distance of dead leaves crunching and branches snapping. Something large approached.

Laughter echoed through the forest, erratic and crazed. Birds startled from their nests at the sound, crying out in warning.

Threl’s ears perked, and he adjusted the aim of his weapon.

It emerged from the trees slowly. The most horrible thing she had ever seen. Mika’s blood iced at the sight of it, her muscles locking into place. The beast’s movements were two steps back from graceful, somehow. Fluid one moment, jerky the next.

It was, in every possible way, wrong.

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