A tour of the home tree

Gus leaned on his lance with a black eye as John finished telling what strange sequence of occurrences has brought him to the home of the Wild Hunt, his knuckles slightly reddened for following his instinct. The young redheaded man shook his head for a moment, a look of sheer anger on his face when John ended his story.

“So those fuckers come into our town and try to enslave one of our demigods, do they? Where were the GRO? Did you even see any of their sheet metal clowns about the place?”

When John shook his head, Gus spat on the ground. “Of course not, why would they honour their end of the deal, right? Not like we have been dragging their clunky asses through our barriers to get the ingredients and treasures they need. But the moment some **** appears to attack us in THEIR town, they are nowhere to be seen.”

John raised his hand, in a small voice asking him, “Might it be that they just didn’t know or didn’t get there in time?” Not one to pick a fight with an already angry man, let alone someone he knew was of the same status as Miranda, but he still had to ask.

“Doesn’t matter. The deal is we help them in our barriers, they keep us safe in town. If they can’t keep up their end, they shouldn’t have made the deal. I want to see that posh prick’s face when he comes knocking for materials again next time, see how he gets them. From here on out, until they explain themselves, the Wild Hunt won’t lift a finger for them anymore.”

“I… know too little of this to actually say anything sensible,” John said still not really sure how to handle Gus. It was clear his temper was worse than that of the other elder hunters he knew. “What about the Collector and her ilk?” John did ask trying to get on to a different topic.

“Oh, they are already dead. They just don’t know it yet.” Gus’ anger traded places on his face with a smug look. He pulled out a scroll from his pocket. “Miranda has been busy. A war council has been called, Thursday, everyone will be there. The Gjoskenholms, we, of course, you guys are hosting, the Northern Wind, and… the GRO. Oh, this is going to be fun.” He then pulled his lance from the ground, hoisting his blunderbuss over his shoulder and turned around.

“Anyway, I’m taking you around the camp. I still haven’t given up on recruiting you. Even if you don’t want to, you are an ally, so you should at least know your outhouse from your bunkhouse if you ever do come here.” Gus switched topics so rapidly that John was caught off balance.

“Ehm, okay? I think? I am pretty sure I’ll be sticking with the Hunters,” John said before Gus patted his back with the lance, holding it there as he walked off.

“Don’t care. I’m taking you on a tour. Now, be a good guy and just let me do this, okay?” Gus replied matter of factly, gesturing with his head at the humongous titan of a tree the entire camp was built around. The branches were long, meters thick, and the roots looked like a waterfall of wood. Dozens of birds nested in its branches, the wind playing with leaves that would not look out of place used as boats in an elven fantasy story. Where the tree that Des inhabited was a large one, this one was utterly massive. “That’s the mother tree. In it, one of the daughters of Cernunnos lives. Daughter of Cernunnos is more a title than anything else. He has more daughters, you know, but those we call Daughter of Cernunnos are his, well, you could call them full blood daughters. Children of him and fae, every camp and outpost we have needs to be inhabited by one of his daughters, otherwise we can kiss our divine protection goodbye. If the tree dies, we leave. Lucky for us, no one has actually managed to kill one of them for twenty years now, so I am feeling pretty confident we won’t be going anywhere,” Gus said with a grin, nudging John’s side as he added in a conspiring tone, “Plus, I don’t know if you heard, but demigoddess pussy is the tightest you’ll ever get, greatest fuck of my life.” He then sighed. “Too bad that even with my authority I can’t claim one of them as my own, they outrank me.”

John was a bit amused by the way Gus spoke; he genuinely seemed like a nice guy, a frat guy at that. He did feel somewhat at ease in the way Gus spoke to him. Where Miranda and Arnold had a sense of authority to them, Gus just seemed like a random guy you would meet on the street, even if he did run this group of people. “Wait, claim, outrank you? What do you mean?” John suddenly asked baffled by what Gus had just said.

“Oh, no one told you? It’s how our organization works. The Wild Hunt is a meritocracy, the strong rise up through the ranks with all the benefits that come with them. At a certain rank, you can lay claim to one of the free members, make sure they are in your hunting group, make sure they only warm your bed or those you approve of. There are rules in place to keep **** in check. The mother tree surveys us, and if a higher up hears someone has been abusing their power… Well, I think we kill more of our own than the Collector does.” Gus chuckled grimly, then continued, “Once a person is claimed, well, the others will be wise to stay away from them. The higher in the pack we rank, the more people we get to pick from. Example, I am the big honcho around these parts, I can pick anyone I want; that means that if I were to point at her,” Gus pointed at a fae girl getting railed by two humans, their ecstatic moans echoing through the camp as she got spit-roasted out in the open, “And said she’s mine, then from here on out no one would be allowed to fuck her without my permission and she would only go on hunts with me. I myself have been firmly under Angie’s thumb for years. Well, until I managed to grow past her and took her place. Now she’s mine, which means I was free to offer her to you last week,” Gus explained.

John was slightly taken aback by the explanation, asking after thinking for a moment, having stopped walking, “So what you are saying is, if I had joined you back then, there was a chance that one of the people above me would have **** themselves onto me?” Cold sweat coated his back as he saw Gus’ face twitch, then the redhaired man burst into laughter.

“Well, in a way, yes. We have some quite dominant ladies in our ranks, but I want you to believe me when I say that we do not condone ****. Had one of our bisexual guys taken a shine to you and you’d have not been into that, don’t worry, before he could as much as invade you, he’d be dragged out of his hut and towards the heart to face judgement.” Gus was very solemn as he said that. “We are wild, but we are not savages. Yes, there might have been a moment where a lady that isn’t exactly your type would have wanted to play with your cock, but so what? Before you know it, you’d have been at my level and you would have been able to get all the specially picked out pussy you could find, so what if you’d have to fuck a few uggo’s on the way up, hm? We live a free life, we hunt, we fuck, we drink and we party. You’d have gotten used to it before you know it. And if you didn't, you could've just left after giving back what we gave you, not like we are going to **** anyone to stick around.”

John blinked a few times, needing to digest the load of information he got from Gus. He did, however, start walking again, taking in the sights of the camp Gus showed him. All around the camp, there were people tending to their gear in various stages of undress and people fucking, moresomes seeming to be the norm here in sharp contrast to the Hunters’ camp where he mostly saw duos enjoying themselves.

Gus led John towards a smokey stone building, a group of fae covered in soot walking back and forth with large chunks of meat on shiny metal hooks. The air was heavy with warmth and the scent of smoked venison. John’s mouth watered slightly when Gus had one of them bring over two strips and then gave one of them to John. The meat was crunchy, like bacon, a bit fat as the succulent meaty flavor burst into his mouth. “The smokehouse, where we prepare the meat of the game we hunt,” had been Gus’ explanation.

All around them on the roots, huts and houses had been built. Gus had taken John into one of them; it was basically a two person house with one large bedroom, the heavy scent of cum in the air as John saw a guy snoring openly on one of the two kingsize beds. The guy was absolutely covered in juices while his partner(s) were nowhere to be seen. The huts each had a living room (this one had been filled with dirty plates and empty glasses, once more reinforcing the nickname frathouse on elk back) and a bathroom with a magical shower. The housing for the common hunters.

Just outside of a large, fenced off area where John saw a second gang of elk bucking, grazing and running around an artificial lake. These elk looked different from the ones he had seen grazing between the houses before. There was a row of stockades; currently they were unoccupied. As John gestured at them, Gus had answered with a crooked smirk that they put hunters that acted foolish, brash or didn’t fill their quota in there as punishment, making them free to toy with for as long as their punishment lasted. According to Gus, that was ‘the’ way to get into the pants of some of the more aggressive ladies without them being able to find out who it was that drilled them at that point.

“We have a few more places of lesser importance, quartermaster, forge and such built into the mother tree, but seeing the gear you came in, I doubt you’d have much use in checking those out. Hmmm, also, I think that by now, Serena is done getting patched up. Let’s head back. I will make sure that Angie gives you a proper thank you for saving her daughter,” Gus said with a grin.