Chapter 157: The Hunt

Francisco loved The Hunt. He loved the speed, the wind in his hair, the thunderous sound of hoofbeats, the screams of Climbers, the feel of his mount imposing its will on the terrain, and the shiny black fur of the hunting dogs sprinting alongside them, nearly as big as the horses themselves.

He loved the fear of death when they clashed against the Climbers who didn’t run. The joy of vanquishing the brave…and the malicious pleasure of punishing the cowards for years.

It was better than sex.

Every monster in The Tower had instincts baked into them by the omnipresent miasma. The instinct to find and tear apart those who didn’t follow the flow of the miasma.

but Fae were a little different. They could, for a time, muscle down that monstrous instinct. Express it in other ways. Unlike Climbers, the fae, as a species, were not animals. They were rational, thinking beings, capable of exercising logic.

Many of them assigned a great deal of pride to that logic, and what better way than to prove their wit against Climbers? By and large, they were a dull lot, who knew they should simply keep their mouths shut, but like cattle lows when it is prodded, so too did Climbers forget their silly strategies when they were faced with superior beings.

Kincaid understood that those instincts to tear and bite were natural, and not to be repressed, nor were they to be given into entirely. They were to be harnessed and unleashed when necessary.

Francisco had been tormented by the soft, weak humans visiting the castle for years now, and had been nearing his limits.

So when Lord Kincaid learned that a rare caravan had arrived on their Floor, he had given Francisco his long-awaited release, and a gift: The Lord’s Favor.

It felt as though the wind peeled back his lips into a half snarl, half grin, exposing his fangs to these hapless Climbers.

He could picture it now, the first thing they saw after their thunderous approach would be his gleaming smile in the darkness. Or perhaps they would see the ivory badge of honor his Lord had placed on his breast.

Francisco nearly shuddered in pleasure.

They were almost there, now. In a matter of seconds, the first sift would begin. The brave ones would stay and give him that brief thrill of fear, while the others would scatter and save themselves for the stewpot.

The Hunt burst through the treeline, spotting the caravan ahead. He could make out…singing?

“My lover went up, up up, my heart went down, down, down~”

Something’s wrong, a tiny portion of Francisco’s mind whispered to him. There were no wagons. Large groups of Climbers needed their supplies.

There were no runners. That was odd.

In fact, the prey all seemed unconcerned with their approach, sitting around fires, singing in various states of undress with practiced nonchalance like the sirens of ancient myth. In fact, all of them seemed to be beautiful young women, unusual among Climbers.

Rather athletic ones too, with short jaw-length brown hair and-

They all had the same face.

That last observation cut through the bloodlust and brought Francisco up short. He yanked on the reins of his mount, causing his warhorse to cut furrows through the loamy soil as it struggled to halt its awesome momentum.

Francisco lifted the whistle to his lips and blew a rapid chirp, causing the massive black hounds to come to a halt, waiting for their master’s next order.

“Good evening, ladies,” Francisco said, the other six members of The Hunt skidding to a halt and forming a semicircle around the odd campsite.

“Good evening,” The closest girl said, glancing up at the assembled Hunt, without any particular concern in her expression.

Fracisco motioned for the hounds to search out their prey. The hounds put their noses to the ground and began spreading out but none of them caught any scent leaving the area aside from the young girl. It seemed as though none of the caravan had left, and instead been transmuted into this young woman by unknown means.

Fled to the sky, perhaps? Francisco thought, glancing up, spotting nothing before he turned his gaze back down to the sirens.

“I don’t suppose you young ladies happened to see a caravan full of Climbers?” Francisco asked, leaning forward on the saddle horn.

“I wouldn’t lie to you, sir. So I’ll simply refuse to answer.”

Ah, too bad. A lie would’ve put her in my Debt. It seemed as though these women were watching their words, like a typical Climber. The ruled out a trick by Mordaine…probably. You never could tell with that one.

Francisco tugged on the miasma around him, silently telling his bretheren to prepare for battle.

In that moment, he felt a vibration returning to him from a weak fae buried about thirty feet beneath the surface of the earth. The only way a fae would be that deep underground…

So that’s where they’re hiding, Fracisco thought. “Since you don’t seem to understand the script, I’ll give you another chance to flee, Climbers.”

“Flee?” a hundred voices asked as one, soft if taken apart, but together, they had a strange omnipresent quality. The edges of the words blurred slightly due to distance between speakers.

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The voices came from beyond the clearing. All around them. That niggling doubt blossomed into delicious fear.

“Do you really think we’re the ones who should flee?”

Rustle.

More of these women dropped from the tree-branches, their skin changing from bark to ivory. They were everywhere.

This is a trap.

Francisco felt a grin blooming. This was going to be the greatest Hunt in hundreds of years, and he was the leader, sure to survive with his Lord’s Favor. He was already fantasizing about the respect he would garner as the sole survivor. The embellished tales he would tell.

He might even have to kill some of his brothers to cinch that ‘Sole Survivor’ title. This young woman didn’t look that strong. And if the rest of the caravan was cowering in a hole, they couldn’t be any more of a threat than she was.

“If you leave now and do not return, we will-“

Francisco dug his heels into his mount’s side and it lunged forward. They called them horses, but they were nothing of the sort. A monstrous creature in the shape of a horse that enjoyed the flesh of Climbers as much as the Fae.

The massive hounds followed suit, leaping forward with ravenous hunger.

With a whooping cry, Fracisco unsheathed his saber as he passed by, his horse reaching out for a little nip of the nearest girl’s flesh.

Her hands rose to clasp around his steed’s head.

CRACK.