There were no flashes of torches or the light cast by lamps in the darkness. To orc eyes, the light of the full moon was enough to see as clearly as if it were dayti.
And as for Ardan...
He could see the outlines of their unusual steeds, one and a half tis the size of the ones the humans rode. He saw their reins and spurs, the glint of their fangs and the gleam of their guns and axe blades.
The hunter’s heart started beating faster. Sowhere on his chest, the symbol left by Ergar glowed like red-hot tal.
There, in the night, his father’s killer was rushing toward him. One who had crossed the hunting paths of his people.
A knife appeared in Ardan’s hands all by itself, and nacing fangs showed from beneath his upper lip as he grinned fiercely.
He gripped his horse’s flanks so tightly with his legs that it gave a pitiful grunt in response, but it dared not move, sensing that its rider was no longer a man, but had turned into a wild beast.
A low growl escaped from the hunter’s throat, and he was ready to leap down the hill. Tonight, he would bring peace to his father’s spirit, and with a bloody harvest, wash his path clean.
The scent of blood hit his nostrils.
And that scent, for a mont, cleared the fog of his rage. Ardan looked down at the body of Tevona lying still, and his reason caught him just in ti, forcing him to press down against his horse’s neck. A bullet whizzed past, right where his head had been a second before, vanishing into the night.
Part of him scread that he should charge into the thick of the galloping horde, while the other half whispered Ergar’s lessons to him.
It was hard to say which part belonged to the man and which to the snow leopard.
"Ahgrat," Ardan swore in the Fae tongue, casting one last glance at the approaching riders before turning and galloping back toward the camp.
"Orcs!" He shouted, yanking the reins and zigzagging as bullets whizzed past him, so even brushing the edges of his clothes. "Orcs! Riders! Orcs! Get to cover!"
The camp erupted into chaos.
Terrified mothers grabbed their confused children, who, like animals, caught the fear radiating from their parents. n gripped weapons with shaking hands, though it was clear most had no idea what to do with them.
The situation was teetering on the edge of total collapse when soone began harnessing horses to a wagon, clearly planning to flee. But they were swiftly kicked to the ground by Yonatan, who had returned with most of the Cloaks and marshals.
"You won’t make it," he hissed before turning to Ardan as he rode up. "How many, kid?"
Ardan recalled the moonlit steppe and the encroaching orcs.
"Around forty-five, maybe more," his words made those standing nearby pale, and a few marked themselves with the sacred sign of the Face of Light. "They’ve got military rifles. They shot Tevona with one."
"Motherfuckers," Marshal Kal’dron growled, one hand gripping his reins, the other his revolver.
Yonatan exchanged a glance with Cassara and imdiately began barking orders.
"Leave the wagons and carriages!" He shouted in a commanding tone. "Forget your belongings! Grab the children and get to the hill! Any man with guts — take up positions and form a periter behind cover! Your families are behind you!"
The settlers, stunned for a mont, snapped out of it when Cassara fired a revolver into the air.
"Move faster, mortals," she said calmly, but it was as if a cloud of darkness spilled out from her lips, spreading its wings wide, covering the borders of the hill and the camp beneath it.
It was as if a wall of black mist rose around them.
Even Ardan’s sight, far keener than that of ordinary humans, couldn’t pierce this veil.
The gunfire from beyond suddenly stopped. It seed even the orcs couldn’t see what was happening on this side of it.
But what was happening was still a ss. Won carried crying children up the hill, so screaming and reaching for their fathers. The fathers, laying out their rifles and ammo, climbed onto the wagon roofs or crouched under the carriages, trying to steady their trembling hands, which struggled to line up the sights of their weapons.
Ardan didn’t bla them.
He, too, if not for the image of the past gnawing at his mind, might have tried to hide as far and as deep as possible.
Steppe orcs — bandits — were the last thing any traveler in these lands wanted to encounter. And the deadliest.
"Well, now we know who wounded the Wanderer," Yonatan spat and turned to Andrew. "Take your n, old man, and get up the hill. If they break through the barricades — shoot them. And if things get bad, shoot the won first."
Marshal Kal’dron nearly choked.
"These are the Shanti’Ra," Yonatan growled. "And you know as well as I do what they do to human won. Cattle have it better."
Andrew swore foully, then turned and led his n toward the barricades of wagons.
"Katerina."
"Yes, Captain," the young woman nodded and followed the marshals.
"Don’t spare the ammo!" Yonatan called after her.
Without turning around, she raised her hand in an obscene gesture and disappeared behind the barricades.
All this ti, Ardan’s eyes had been glued to the wall of darkness. He and Tevona had been standing watch a kiloter from the camp. She had been shot from about seven hundred ters away… Ardan didn’t even want to think about the possibility that there was a marksman as deadly as Katerina among the orcs, but that seed to be the case. By now, more than half a minute had passed since the conversation had begun.
The orcs should have been here already. But the steppe, aside from the cries of children, was silent.
"Kid," Yonatan snapped him out of his thoughts. "Dismount, grab your staff and book from Mart, and get up the hill. I don’t want to see or hear you. If shit goes south, run."
Ardan thought he had misheard him at first, and when he didn’t react, Yonatan slapped him and grabbed him by the collar.
The Cloak, nearly yanking him out of his saddle, pulled him close. As Ardan looked into Yonatan’s eyes, he saw his pupils narrowing and elongating, becoming less and less human.
"Do as I say," Yonatan growled, sounding much like a snow leopard himself.
"I can hel-"
"Don’t argue with !" Yonatan barked. "Do you think this is a ga? Every single person here is responsible for your safety, you fool! Their lives and their families’ lives hang in the balance!"
And in that mont, the realization hit Ardan — the puzzle pieces that had never quite fit before finally snapped into place. Why Yonatan had worked so hard to ensure his prisoner’s family was safe, why he had been willing to sell out Gleb so easily, why he had been ready to kill the marshals for him.
The answer was simple.
Ardan really was a valuable asset. So valuable, in fact, that the Second Chancery was willing to trade several of their own lives for his.
Nodding, Ardan turned his horse and rode toward Mart’s wagon.
"Kid," Yonatan called after him. Ardan didn’t look back. "Watch your balls."
By the ti Ardan reached Mart’s wagon, a familiar voice rang out from the other side of the black veil, a voice he could never have forgotten even if he’d wanted to.
It was rough and heavy, like the growl of a wolf claiming its rightful prey. A wild, powerful voice, almost basking in the certainty of its own strength.
"Lawman," roared the leader of the Shanti’Ra.
Dismounting beside Mart’s wagon, Ardan peered inside and found the mage huddled in a corner, a revolver resting in his hand.
Mart wasn’t shaking. He had pressed himself against the side of the wagon, watching through a small gap in the canvas. When he saw Ardan, he gestured to where his staff and book were, then motioned for him to lie down and keep quiet.
Ardan, still clutching his knife, strapped his grimoire to his belt, grabbed his staff, and lay down across from Mart. The mage’s boots were near his chest, and Ardan had to suppress a cough — the man clearly hadn’t washed in a while.
"Orc," Yonatan’s deep voice bood as he rode up to the edge of the dark veil.
"Shall we talk?"
Ardan pressed his face against the damp wood, eyes locked on the Cloak.
"What do I have to talk about with you, orc?" Yonatan spun his revolvers on his index fingers, as if he were showing off rather than negotiating with one of the most dangerous beings in the steppe. "You killed one of our people. There’s blood between us, orc. And I have soone who’s more than happy to collect that debt."
"You an the one who walks through the night?" The orc asked, speaking those last words in Fae. "My shaman assures he can deal with her."
"Well, let’s find out!" Yonatan laughed. "What’s the point in stalling? Or do you think I don’t know you’re surrounding us as we speak?"
Laughter erupted from the other side as well. Not just from the leader, but from the other orcs as well, a cacophony of barking that made them sound like a bunch of hungry wolves, sending a chill down Ardan’s spine. He clutched his knife harder, feeling its solid grip as if it were anchoring him to this mont, grounding him against the fear swirling all around him.
"And there’s nothing you can do about it, mutant," the orc leader growled. "How many warriors do you have? Fifteen? I have nearly five dozen with . Or do you think those travelers, hiding behind their wagons, can do us much harm?"
"They might take out a couple of you," Yonatan smirked, clearly unfazed.
"And we’ll sing songs of their great hunt as we send them to the Sleeping Spirits!" The orc leader howled like a wolf, and soon, the other orcs joined in, their howls blending into a chaotic symphony that chilled the night air. Even from here, Ardan could feel the terror seeping into the camp, paralyzing the won and children on the hill. So of the n, too, stood frozen with fear, the guns trembling in their hands.
"Alright, enough with the foreplay," Yonatan barked, his grin vanishing. "Let’s get down to business."
For a mont, there was only silence.
"You have sothing that belongs to us," the orc’s voice rumbled through the veil of darkness. "My pack wounded the Wanderer. It is our rightful prey. You stole it."
"That Wanderer, as I recall, was alive when we found him," Yonatan adjusted his hat with the barrel of his revolver. "But I get what you’re saying, orc. If you wait a few minutes, I’ll bring you everything we took from the beast."
"And then we’ll go our separate ways?"
"Exactly."
The orc laughed again, deep and guttural.
"And what about that marshal girl?" The orc sneered.
"Let’s not dwell on the past," Yonatan replied, spreading his arms out as if this were a simple negotiation.
The barking laughter ca again, louder this ti. And then a low, dangerous growl followed.
"I can sll you, son of a snow leopard," the orc leader’s voice bood, switching to a different language. A language Ardan had only heard from his grandfather. The language of the Matabar people. "I know you’re here."
"Speak Imperial, you bastard!" Yonatan yelled, but the orc ignored him.
"Do you rember ?" The orc’s voice penetrated Ardan’s mind, each word hamring it harder than the last, speeding up his heartbeat as if it were a tribal drum. "I rember you watching that night. I rember how my hands took your father’s spirit. Do you rember how he cried like a female and called for you? And where were you, cub? Hiding..."
Yonatan raised his revolver, aiming toward the sound of the voice.
"This is your last warning!" He shouted.
"…just like you’re hiding now. Where is your courage? Where is your pride as a hunter, cub? Or are you weak? A coward? Pathetic? Is this the son of Hector Egobar? Is this the last of the mountain hunters? You have no hono-"
A gunshot rang out.
But the puff of smoke didn’t rise from Yonatan’s revolver. It ca from Mart’s wagon.
And then the world erupted into chaos.
Yonatan, in one fluid motion, emptied both his revolvers into the veil of darkness, then drew his saber. Kicking off from his horse’s back, he leaped straight into the black wall. But before he even made contact with it, the veil erupted into violet flas and dissolved, revealing dozens of orcs.
Massive and powerful, none of them stood under two ters tall. Their bulging muscles looked like boulders. So had green skin, others brown. But they all had one thing in common: their bare torsos and faces were adorned with white war paint. So wore crossed ammo belts over their hairy chests, but most, like the leader with the burn scar on his face that was shaped like a child’s hand, wielded small axes.
Ardan, who had just pulled the trigger monts earlier, was no longer himself.
He leaped to the ground, tearing at the second skin soone had dressed him in. He raised his hand — no, his paw — and ripped it off, exposing his ragged fur to the winds of the steppe. His side throbbed from the wound that had yet to fully heal from his last hunt, but it didn’t matter.
He sniffed the wind. The air reeked of terrified beasts trampling the earth, frightened humans screaming behind him, and the sll of hunters who had co to claim his life.
But they were wrong.
It was he who would claim their lives.
That was the law of the hunt.
He dug his claws into the earth and bared his fangs.
He cared nothing for what was happening around him.
He didn’t notice Cassara, who was locked in battle with the only orc dressed in robes. Wielding a staff made of bone, the orc shaman muttered incantations, shaking strings of beads made from skulls, both animal and human. Each word seed to pull at forces that had no place in this reality. Spectral figures and flashes of violet fire surrounded Cassara, but her expressionless face didn’t change as she ran her hand along the edge of her blade. Her black blood touched the weapon, and it ignited with dark flas.
The hunter also didn’t see how the orc leader tossed Yonatan aside as if he were nothing, sending him tumbling into a horde of orcs, where he fought in a frenzy, difficult to distinguish from his enemies.
The hunter paid no attention to the gunfire, the bullets releasing steel and death into the night. He didn’t even sll the gunpowder.
He only crouched lower to the ground, calling on it to aid him in the hunt, his eyes fixed on the neck of his prey — the one who’d dared to defile his father’s na.
"I will tear out your still-beating heart!" He roared.
The orc leader spread his arms wide, axes in each hand, and smiled as if this was what he had been waiting for all these years.
"Orak Han-da!" The orc bellowed back.
The hunter lunged, pushing off the ground with his hind legs. His body felt light and strong. The winters of fear were gone — those tis when he had been young and weak, when his claws and fangs couldn’t pierce flesh.
The hunter didn’t know that he still looked mostly the sa as before: lean, tall, with wiry muscles, but still not a true mountain hunter. He looked human, except he was wrapped in dense, blue smoke that swirled around the burning ground beneath his feet. He didn’t see how the smoke shaped itself into the form of a snow leopard. Nor did he notice the shift in his eyes as they went from amber to deep blue.
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