Huntsman of Avangarde

As the sky’s evening glow began to be veiled by dark clouds, huntsmen stalked the forest of an island floating above a vast storm. Beneath the forest canopies, they moved quick and low; the wide, black sashes at their waist trailing behind them and muffling their movement as hushed wind along the leaves.

The red, summer sky bled upon Alquira and her huntsmen. They prowled through the trees and shrubbery in haste. Their breaths were shallow and each step light on the hot, earthen floor. Alquira was at the vanguard, her lilac eyes alight beneath her hood as they focused beyond wood and leaf. Her ears aimed to detect beyond the creaking sounds of leaves brushing against battered branches or rushing rivers aching against stone. Her nose sought to detect beyond the pine resin heavy in the bark of ancient trees or scents of dusted soils lifted from parched earth by warm breezes.

Yet her senses found no obvious oddities. If a child were to stroll through this forest, they would sense nothing unnatural. Still Alquira traced the yellow rune marked between her collarbone, ᚺ, anxiously. She could sense the fear pervading this domain.

“This shall pass,” Alquira whispered. Her words were meant not only to comfort this frightened forest, but for herself. They were words of commitment. The mantra that this passing will be achieved by her will.

Despite the summer heat, a haunting chill ran its breath through the trees. It was as if all creatures had fled and abandoned their shelters. Alquira could feel that whatever life in this forest remained was left frozen. Their wills were oppressed with dread, clinging only to the hope that the terror which stalked this forest would withdraw its wicked presence.

“It shouldn’t be this silent,” Alquira thought.”This is unlike those fiends. They’re not this subtle."

Indeed, the fiends they were hunting on that island were like them, the huntsmen. They were proud. They were willing to make themselves a martyr, boasting of their wicked creed to inspire fear and awe in the masses. Their name was Eydask, the dark image of the Wild Hunt, and loathed by Avangarde. Thoughts of Avangarde filled Alquira and she found her mind wandering toward that place she adored as home.

The great nation of Avangarde, where she had been given opportunity and purpose among the Wild Hunt. Avangarde, where Asena waited for her to return and play with her. Avangarde, where Osmund should certainly be playing with Asena in her absence. Certainly. The thoughts of that family awaiting her gave her warmth and she could not help smile a dimpled smile. She knew Osmund was dedicated to the daughter they had adopted. She always trusted - .

“Stop!” Alquira hissed behind her, the huntsmen halting in place immediately behind her. She cursed herself. She had been distracted. She had failed to notice the abrupt change around them until they were already upon it. The warmth that flickered in her heart had vanished by a sudden chill that sent a shiver through her, an uncomfortable prickling sensation crawling against the surface of her skin that made her hairs stand on end. A feeling of fear that forced itself upon her and demanded its attention through a harsh ringing in her ears. The other huntsmen could finally feel it too.

A noise had returned to the forest that was not of the natural ambience of branches or winds that she had grown dull to. The branches snapped and the winds dissolved, heightening the sound of a deep groaning rattling the leaves. Thudding echoed ahead. Multiple, unorganized thumps that fell dead against her ears.

She had led them too close to whatever terrorized this forest.

Alquira lowered herself and the huntsmen did the same. She raised a fist behind her as a sign to her band and crawled through the veil of leaves in front of her, leaving them behind.

A cacophony of hisses, groans, sighs, growls, and rumblings grew louder as she approached. Ahead of her, she could see a troop of shadowy figures of varying size lumbering away. Whatever evening light pierced through the canopies above barely gave glimpses to the forms of these figures. Among them, she could perceive horns, feathers, scales, fur, mud, bones, and mist. The rest were of impossible design.

She waited until the blunt, heavy walking became distant - waited even when her ears caught only the sound of her blood circulating by her wildly beating heart. Finally, she could no longer see the darkness ahead of her stir nor the discordant sounds of the troop.

This was not what they had been hunting.

Alquira returned to her band and they looked at her with anticipation. They could see on her face the unease. She regretted sending her band to investigate this island without informing Avangarde first, but it was their duty. On their patrol, they had found Eydask ships surrounding this island populated by a sizeable village. It was a huntsman’s duty to save the innocent from that terrible clan.

Alquira’s heart sped up again as she felt a presence stir behind her huntsmen and they turned to face it when they sensed it too. A rune hummed in the shaded ground, that of a vertical line with a diagonal line cutting through it, ᚾ, and shadowy tendrils emanated from it. The shadow tendrils melted into human form from which a few men and women walked out of.

They stepped into the crepuscular light, wearing the same uniform as the rest of their huntsmen; midnight blue capes draped over the left shoulder, the other shoulder cloaked with sleek raven’s feathers like a lone wing. Black sashes were draped around their waist, longer along the back. The leader of this party, a stout dwarf with long, burning red hair made all the more fiery in the sunset glow, stepped forward into the light.

“Speak, Regin. The village?” Alquira ordered the dwarf in a whisper, a tone of worry in her voice. She pushed her hood back and stepped toward the dwarf to meet him in the light. Her skin was as deep brown as the trees surrounding her, a circlet with short wings adorned her snowy, curly hair. Though her eyes twinkled beneath the light, there were tired lines and dark bags under them that softened their regal radiance.

“Houses wrecked, no corpses, no blood,” Regin said briskly. “Permission to detail?”

“Elaborate.”

Regin took in a deep breath, clearly ready to vent, and whispered emphatically, “Alas-scars of all kinds in that village! Niflheim frosts, Muspell fires, even the rot of Hel’s breath! Dear Nótt it would not have surprised me to find traces of lightning from that mangled, sh-”

“I get it,” Alquira waved him on, “what else? No corpses? Does that mean the villagers are safe?”

“No. . . . No. We found tracks throughout the village, but,” Regin stroked his fresh-shaven chin nervously, “the other side doesn’t seem humanoid. Tracks resembling bears, wolves, birds, and other Nótt-forsaken tracks I cannot name cover the village. I don’t know what happened to the villagers. Taken, devoured whole, I can’t tell!”

“I assume you found where the tracks led?”

Regin shrugged and shook his head, disappointed at what little he could tell, “The tracks only exist within the village. All of them.” He leaned in close to Alquira, his height only up to her stomach, glancing around at the confused expressions of the other huntsmen. “This isn’t like Eydask. They slaughter. I don’t think they did this or at least they didn’t fight. We’ve fought draugrs, wyverns, and other creatures forged of the elements. But there were traces of elements from both sides and they were rune-cast on both sides.”

Alquira digested the information, the shadows from the waning evening outlining her troubled face. Regin was right, it wasn’t like Eydask to take prisoners. They would leave the corpses of those they had slain to the crows and others to the spike as a symbol of their dogma. Stranger were the tracks and elemental rune traces Regin and his squad had found at the village. Only humanoids - the Erilaz’s of the Nine Worlds - had the elemental rune marked on their body as to manipulate its particular element to their will. No creature could will an element.

“A once predictable foe had become unpredictable,” Alquira thought to herself. She crossed her arms and said aloud, “I think we ran into the creatures whose tracks you found in the village. This still doesn’t make sense. The creatures were clearly walking away from the direction of that village, meaning there would have been tracks.”

As she wondered aloud, another entity stirred ahead of her.

From between the thickets of trees, an ominous red orb approached. As it neared, the orb’s smoldering radiance made clear the sleek black fur that held it, the blood-tipped ears, the elongated snout, and the enormity of the creature. The Black Dog walked with silent steps, as tall as Alquira on its four legs, its one eye at its center focused on her. Alquira sighed with relief at the sight of the dog, walking up to it and reaching to its ears.

“What did you find, Barg?” Alquira cooed. The two exchanged stares, its glowing eye lighting her face with a red hue. She nodded and placed her hand in its eye, scooping it out of its face like it was a ball. The dog dissolved into darkness and its eyeball hummed in her hand. It melted into her palms, flowing through her veins until a black tattoo of a dog’s head peaked out from beneath her bangles on her forearm. She looked to her huntsmen and saw Regin gazing at her with a mix of awe and perturb.

“I’ll never get over you völvas doing that,” he remarked.

“Come,” she beckoned her huntsmen. “Barg has found Eydask’s location.”

Alquira and her huntsmen waded back into the forest’s shadow, their pace faster than before. Alquira led them on, winding through the trees with newfound determination. Whatever mystery the island held and whatever terror festered from its forest, as long as they knew it to be of Eydask’s making, they were confident they could fight it.

Finally, the thickets opened into a clear path and they could see a cliff at its end. Walking through the clearing and away from the fresh breezes of the trees, a wall of heat met them and clouds of heavy smoke ahead greeted them, taming their pace. Alquira crouched low as she approached the cliff’s edge and the huntsmen did the same, looking on to the company below surrounded by the fresh forest fire.

There stood figures with long, silver veils draped over their faces, falling past their shoulders as tattered rags; held together by spiked circlets, jagged horns, or frightening masks. They were clad in crimson armor stained in the filth of carnage and dirt, some with heavier armor than others. What they shared in common was the infamous symbol at their chests: a crimson tree with three warped branches and scattered silver leaves scintillating despondently - the Tree of Ruin.

“Eydask. . . .” Alquira murmured against the grass. Her eyes wandered to the two people at the front of the company, who were facing each other in conversation. The first man was styled the same as those behind him, but with light armor, a silver cape with a larger Eydask symbol across it, and a crown of silver leaves atop a mat of black hair. Though she could not see his face as he was facing the other way, she knew who the man was: Niklas, the leader of Eydask.

“May the Eternal of Night curse your slumber,” Regin growled. He crawled closer to Alquira and whispered with glee, “We need to get that sky-haired bastard here. Oho how I would love to see him zap these roaches in one go.”

Alquira ignored Regin, looking on curiously at the person in front of Niklas. Behind the second person was only the forest fire. Their face was veiled by a lavish green mantle, splitting like an upside-down V through the middle of their body to reveal a skin-tight suit of sleek silver scales shaping their muscles. When Alquira squinted to get a look at the face beneath the veil, she gasped. They were beautiful, even from a distance, the features of their face feminine. Beneath long white eyelashes, steely cold venomous green eyes were fixed on Niklas, the person’s full lips curved into a smirk.

Alquira pressed her hand against the grass and the rune at her collar glowed, veins protruding from the back of her palm. The grass stirred and their blades flicked in the direction of the two men as if guided by an invisible wind. She grabbed Regin’s hand next to her and he grabbed the hand of the closest person next to him, going on until the huntsmen were linked. She closed her eyes and focused, the echoing voices of the two men growing from muffled to resonant in her head.

“. . . If you recognize His authority, fight with us,” said a gruff voice - Niklas’. “If you recognize our creed, you understand why their system cannot go on.”

​ “Recognition is not endorsement, Huntsbane,” said the softer voice of the veiled one. “I understand that power in the hands of so many is leading to sloth and greed. However, your method of enforcing this shared creed is...barbaric.”

The veiled one’s voice reminded Alquira of the nurturing voice of her mother and grandmother. There was comfort in them, yet it still made her anxious. It was like a loved one promising their love and loyalty to you, but your heart nagging at you that there wasn’t truth.

“The Black Wraith would loathe such cruelty,” went on the voice of the veiled one. “Change. I can grant you the power to see your will upon the masses.”

“Our methods have gained us followers, Archon,” rebutted Niklas. “It has created fear throughout Alas. Forsaking that by being more gracious would paint us as weak to our enemies and our allies!”

“There are other ways to cast fear.” Alquira could sense the relish in the Archon’s voice, a foreboding chill that forfeited the nurturing tone of their voice. The Archon’s lips curved wider and the voice that came forth was honeyed, “Other ways to enforce your ideals while hollowing the hope and dignity of the masses. You need only change.”

Niklas hesitated for a moment. Alquira gripped the grass tightly and she found herself hoping her sworn enemy would not relent. She looked to the huntsmen around her, whose weary eyes were fixed on her, waiting. She looked to Regin who met her gaze, his hand caressing the grip of one of his axes at his waist. They waited for her order to strike and prevent whatever plot the Archon and Eydask would produce. Alquira tried to rid her mind of the thought of Osmund and Asena, who expected her back at Avangarde.

Niklas looked to one of the men at his side. He had a gaunt mask of white and hollow eyes with no light within. He silently nodded at Niklas, who gave a curt nod in response. Niklas looked at the Archon again, who waited politely with a smile.

“Teach us another way,” Niklas answered.

Alquira stood, brandishing a spiked-ball mace from her waist and materializing a round shield with a valknut symbol on its surface from the bangles on her left hand. The huntsmen stood immediately as well, unlinking themselves, flourishing their various assortment of weaponry.

They had not alerted Eydask to their presence, but were ready to strike until a sudden, putrid smell wafted its way into their nostrils. It watered their eyes with its heavy odor, familiar to them.

Corpses.

The Archon’s lips twisted into an ugly grin, uttering words only Alquira and Eydask would hear, “Thank you, Huntsbane. You’ve seen what my creations can do. As a token of good will, I will demonstrate what more you stand to gain. Follow me.”

The island rocked with tempestuous winds that forced the huntsmen to the ground. Alquira saw even Eydask’s forces stumble and look around them in shock. From on high, a titanic shadow screamed within the thunder clouds.

Alquira saw the incomprehensible mass glide through the dark clouds, far wider than the island, and the shadow of wings stretching from beyond northern horizon to southern horizon. Its screams were tormented wails, cleaving at their bones and rippling their flesh. Its screeches awakened a primal fear within them and they could not tell whether their shivering was from the bitingly cold winds or their own courage forsaking them. The smell, the sounds, the harsh winds, all threatened to consume Alquira’s consciousness and cast her into madness. Until finally, after what felt like ceaseless time, the torment subsided and the shadow disappeared into the west, carrying with it the dark clouds.

Alquira trembled as she stood up, the huntsmen wobbling to their feet as well. Eydask was gone along with the wildfires as if they had been carried away by the monster’s winds.

“We need to follow them,” Alquira gasped, the stench of corpses still stuck in her throat.

Regin coughed, still struggling to get himself on his feet, but clear-headed enough to bark, “Are you MAD? You humans may not remember the legends, but I do! I know what that was! We follow them, we spend our afterlives in Nastrond being a chew-toy for that monster’s filthy spawns!”

“REGIN!” shouted Alquira, exasperated. Her head was ringing and her temper was flaring, awakening the rune at her bicep into a yellow aura around her body. She hissed, “Do you know what flies west of here?”

​“Is that a rhetorical question? Fucking Hartstark! It’s where - ” the real answer dawned on Regin. “Ah, shit.”

Alquira called to the rest of her huntsmen, “The Lightning Erilaz is in danger! I ask much of you, but for the future of Alas, we must act now in the name of our chieftain, Osmund the High King!” She looked to one of the huntsmen, a crimson-haired woman with an ornate half-mask around her mouth of a dog’s maw. “Kainda, when we get back to the ships, I want you to return back to Avangarde. A crow won’t do what we just saw and learned justice. Bid Osmund to send the rest of the Huntsmen of Avangarde to Hartstark.”

Alquira gazed to the west, where a pale moon began to shine through the scattered clouds. The wildfire’s smoke had vanished with the fires and now made clear the open skies of Alas surrounding this floating island. The yawning, boundless storm beneath them that rolled into the distance made the faraway horizon more ominous. Further foreboding was the knowledge that beyond there, monsters and mad men now plagued those skies.