Hunters Hunted

Hunters Hunted - Chapter 2

<Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Arthur C. Clark>

There were three of them; dark elven sisters - silver-haired, sleek and sly. They lurked, as dark elves were oft to do, watching as the cumbersome creature hastened by. Their delicately pointed ears had heard its clumsy lumbering from at least a furlong away, and their eyes, keener by far than any cat's, tracked it effortlessly, despite its crude attempts to shroud itself. It had come from the mist, and everyone knew whose cottage could be found in that glen, and it wasn't made of fucking gingerbread; that was for sure. If the stupid thing had dared to go a-viking in Her domain, then it had only itself to blame for what followed.

They had heard the eerie howling of the hounds some time ago, and being as crafty as they were, they had taken shelter in the mouth of a nearby cave. For they knew that only a fool would let themselves be caught out upon the moor when The Hunt was abroad.

From the comfort of their shadows, the eldest tilted her head as she observed the floundering figure, lifting a single arched brow as she pondered, "That's queer, what manner of strange beastie is that do you think?"

The youngest shrugged, "Too puny for an ogre. Some trollish thing perchance?"

Shaking her head, the middle sister whispered her disagreement, "Ugly enough methinks, but too small. Perhaps an Orc?"

The eldest scratched her silver locks as she considered, "Orcs don't run."

Looking up, and keen to appear wiser than her years before her kin, the youngest spoke up again, "Aye but they do. I've seen them with mine own eyes, loping across the heather at times, like wolves upon the hunt."

Rolling her eyes, the eldest fetched her a clout, "And tell me sister mine, have you ever seen then runningawayfrom a fight?"

Blushing, the younger shook her head, "No, I've not seen that."

"Then hold your tongue."

There was a pout, "I can speak if I wan-"

The middle sister interrupted, "I know what it does look like, mind."

"Aye, what?"

She grinned, "An opportunity for mischief and amusement; agreed?"

Their smiles, brilliant, vulpine and sleekit, was answer enough, and she hooked her thumb over her shoulder, "Shall we?"

Silent as spirits, they slipped into the gloom and vanished.

...

...

Badb frowned mightily, or as mightily as only an indignant wain could. She had come upon the shape she was wearing this day but a little while ago and was playing with it. It was the body of a young girl, long drowned in the bog, lost but not forgotten by her grieving kin.

A simple whispered enchantment was sufficient to sever the thread binding the ghost to the cadaver, and she had given the wraith a gentle embrace before ushering it along the path to the evergreen lands, where the child could play with the spirits of her ancestors in those sunlit meadows until the breaking of the world.

Looking down at the corpse, sunk as it was in the mud, she had considered for a moment before her lips curled and she gave a puckish shrug,"Waste not, want not."

Rising from the mire, she tossed aside what remained of the pitiful rags she wore as she wiped the ooze from her eyes and spat the clart from her mouth, before frowning at the threadbare handful of straggly hair that had dislodged from her scalp and come loose in her tiny fingers.

A stray wisp of thought restored the body to new, and she had spent a happy eventide dancing among the toadstools and splashing in the fens as she skipped from one faerie ring to another, before sitting by a moonlit pond to weave a daisychain.

She had been so concentrating upon the shaping of her garland that she had all but missed the creature's hasty approach, but she had looked up angrily as its heavy footfalls had splashed her with a generous spattering of mud and water.

"Oi, Longshanks! Mind where you plant your feet, you great clodhopping hobbledehoy!"

The creature came to a slithering halt, amazed at being addressed, yet again, in its native tongue. This was a backwater world, ostensibly with a population so pathetically primitive that by all accounts they could barely speak at all, let alone master the civilized language of true warriors.

With a snarl it spun, claws extended and ready to fight, only to halt as it regarded the diminutive form standing petulantly before it with hands on hips and eyes flashing as it frowned up at him. Instinctively his plasma caster had focused upon the scrawny monkey-like figure, and there was an ominous crackle of power from the cannon, before the device gave a wailing splutter and failed. The hunter bared its fangs in annoyance at yet another inexplicable malfunction, but truthfully it was just as well, for this tiny primate had the look of a child of some kind, and the hunting of helpless cubs was as unworthy as it was against creed.

With a growl, it waved the annoying thing away.

She sniffed, "Well, that's rude for ye."

Behind her, the swamp stirred.

The hunter was casting its gaze back the way it had come, its helm scanning for pursuit as it considered options and schemes. Earlier it had seen the thing that doubtless even now stalked his trail. A wild and savage lifeform unlike any it had encountered on more than a dozen worlds, and clearly as much a hunter as he. It would make for a fine trophy - if it could be taken that is. If not; well, there was no better end than to die under the claws and spears of worthy prey. Anything less was weakness.

It had emerged from this bothersome fog with its own hunting beasts on its heels. Perhaps responding to the calling of the older female creature. She looked too decrepit to be a breeding mare, but perhaps she was some kind of primitive matriarch of her brood - in the end it did not really matter, for she had set the beast upon his pack.

Leaping forward, the thing had skewered one of his brethren with a spear, striking with such blinding speed and savagery that even so crude a weapon had punched clean through its mark in an explosion of gore. The beasts that accompanied it had taken that as a cue to pounce. Plasma casters had roared in response, and there were screaming bellows as the things howled in fury as their hides were singed and burned. But to his horror the shaggy monstrosities had shrugged off the blasts, pulling down two of his companions in their slavering jaws and tearing them limb from limb. Blood dripping from their fangs they had turned their rabid eyes towards those still standing.

He and the other survivors had scattered, running into the mist and activating their shrouds, but not before a hurled spear had taken another of his cadre in the back, nailing him to a tree.

Now he was so intent on his search of the trail behind him, that he entirely missed the beast rising silently from the mud.

Badb gazed at this new thing, for its form was not entirely familiar to her, which was strange enough in itself, and so she watched curiously as it slithered to its feet, emitting a low, menacing hiss as it did.

It loomed over her, eyeless, and black as the pit, its dark hide encased in an armoured carapace that reflected the moonlight like obsidian. Its fingers ended in diamond-sharp talons as long and wicked as any bear's and behind it flicked a bony tail tipped with a vicious and deadly barb. The whole monstrous form had a troubling and quarrelsome look about it, as if it was a creature bred solely to violence and death. She didn't think it pretty at all.

Even so, her merry little smile only widened as those vicious talons reached for her, and she shook her head, "I wouldn't."

The beast ignored her warning, lips curling back to reveal fangs of shining steel...

From the relative safety of her hiding place, the eldest of the dark elven sisters watched and winced, "Uh oh."

There was a bellowing roar of challenge as the first beastie made to shove the cub aside as it charged, crashing full tilt into the black form and slashing at it with cunningly wrought metallic blades that had slid deftly into place from hidden sheaths.

The eyes of the youngest dark elf gleamed with childlike avarice as she smiled her wicked smile, "Dibs."

The two creatures slammed into each other with a tremendous impact, screeching and howling as they rolled about in the bog, slashing at each other and trading blows that spilled gouts of glowing blood and sizzling ichor all about them.

Badb wiped her face with the back of her hand and muttered in annoyance as she looked down at herself, once again caked and covered in the mud thrown up by their idiotic wrestling.

Gazing down at the torn daisychain lying at her feet, her eyes narrowed perilously, and she looked up.

"Will you twa eejits behave yourselves!"

She stamped her foot for good measure.

The blast that followed the crack of thunder hurled them apart, throwing them both in opposite directions. The hunter pinwheeled like a daftie as it flew twenty paces to land in a pond with an enormous splash that threw up a small explosion of reeds and lillies.

The more darksome creature smashed through the bole of a half sunken tree but even as it did it twisted with serpentine reflexes, rolling as it landed so that it came up on all fours. Silver teeth gleamed in the moonlight as it hissed in fury. Its elongated head snapped round, fixed unerringly on her, and then it charged.

It was fast, even with the bog clutching at it, its strength was such that the thing fairly bounded towards her, making great leaps as it came, its razor claws extended, tail whipping this way and that as it made ready to strike.

With a final prodigious leap, it pounced.

Reaching up, she deftly tore its throat out.

A great gout of ichor spewed from the wound as the thing collapsed twitching into the mud at her feet. The spray had spattered all over her and she gave another vexed sigh as it ate through her body, watching as her hand dissolved, and what remained of her arm flopped into the muck.

Looking down at the dead and twitching thing at her feet she waved the stump of her arm at it angrily, "I only borrowed this, you know."

The creature did not deign to reply, which was well enough, she'd had quite enough of its cheek for one day.

It was her intent to take the borrowed flesh back to the village and there lay it to rest in the family barrow for her kin to find and finally mourn over, and now look at the state of it...

Well, she'd not be accused of being so careless with other folks garb. Her sisters would mock or scold her for such poor manners and she'd be black affronted.

With a thought she restored the body once again, and then, cheating but a little, she repaired the mangled daisychain for good measure and placed it back around her neck.

There was a splashing as the hunter staggered from the pond; bedraggled, dripping and reed-covered, and she turned to face it, "Look you now, you can't be wandering that way," she pointed, "for that leads to the barrows and you'd doubtless be sleeping with the draugr by moonset if you go bothering them."

She squinted and scratched an ear as she pointed in another direction, "And yonder lies the house of my... well, nevermind, you don't want to meet her either, oh no, not at all. In fact, best thing would be for you to hie yourself back the way you came and hope my older sister is in a forgiving mood," she grinned, "which, knowing her as I do, I admit is bloody unlikely, but she bores easily and if the fates are smiling she may have wandered off."

"Otherwise," she gave the thing an uncaring shrug, "I think you're fucked."

The beastie staggered back, stepping into a faerie circle as it did. There was a whisper of magic, and it vanished.

Badb rolled her eyes, "Oh, bloody Hell. Never mind then. See you in a hundred years or so."

Turning, she made to wander off, pausing by the hiding place of the dark elves as she did and giving them a happy wave.

Behind her, the dark elves eyed the armoured corpse she left in her wake.

The eldest turned to her kin, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

There was a flash of teeth from the youngest, "Necromancy?"

Grinning, they slipped from their hiding place.

...

...

A hundred years later, and the body of the child still lay in state in the barrow among the bones of her kin, untouched and untroubled by time and the passing of years, the daisychain around her neck still in bloom.

There were those among the old folk who whispered that theSìthstill visited that barrow from time to time, and they were careful to always leave an offering, especially come Samhain. And if they noticed the wet mud that could sometimes be seen on the girl's feet, they were wise enough to keep it to themselves...