The price of victory

Cynthia pulled up the car inside of the camp’s barrier, the three car occupants chatting merrily amongst themselves, laughing merrily when they eventually got out. Their laughing slowly quieted though when they heard a soft chanting throughout the camp. Blue balls of fire were floating in the air as Cynthia’s face paled.

“Guys, ok, we need to go to the temple. Now! Leave the gear, this is not a good sign.”

John just switched to his hunting gear, looked at his girlfriend’s anxious face and nodded; Ilis took off her charm as Jack and Toph looked confused at their serious looking owner. The pets following behind John and his friends as they made a small dash towards the camp’s temple.

In front of the temple, the entire camp was gathered, kneeling on one knee in front of the brazier, a field bed placed just in front of it and Miranda standing next to it with her eyes closed and her hands raised at the sky.

“Oh Artemis, no, please…” Cynthia whispered as she pressed through the crowd, tears showing in her eyes. John and Ilis, however, knelt behind the last group of hunters, not knowing what to do but join in on the ritual.

“Lord Hades, today, we beg of you to let one of our own into your halls,” Miranda’s voice swept across the camp.

“One of our hunters has been snubbed out, like a candle, way before it was time.” Miranda opened her eyes, seeing Cynthia approaching her through the crowd; she made a small motion with her head and pointed at her daughter. Dra quickly stepped out from behind one of the pillars and stopped her.

“It’s not him, Cyn, listen to me. It’s not your father,” he whispered softly, wrapping her up in his arms and dragging her to the side, not letting her interfere even as tears ran down her face.

“Lord Hades, we of the hunters beg of you, let her into your halls and guide her to our endless hunting fields. May she rest and enjoy herself till the end of times,” Miranda continued, her face by now cast down as tears streamed down her own face, leaning over the badly cut up corpse of a huntress lying in front of the brazier.

Arnold then came from within the temple, a small bundle of vines in the form of a sloth trying its hardest to crawl out of his arms. Mournful wails echoed across the silent camp. As Arnold stepped closer, the sloth finally managed to break free, jumping onto the corpse and desperately starting to lick her face. Its small claws caressed her face as he produced a small piece of ginger, trying to put it into her mouth as he kept crying out.

Arnold tried to pick him back up, but Miranda shook her head. “Let Ginger grief; they cut her up so badly. Let… Let the little critter have his time to say goodbye,” Miranda said choked with tears.

Archibald and Dra together with Cynthia stepped out from behind their pillars. Dra stepped up in front of the crowd and took the word first as Cynthia got hugged by her father, the girl sobbing into his chest as he caressed her head.

“Hunters of Artemis. Hear me!” the German dragon spoke loudly. “Those bastards have taken one of ours! Those bastards have mutilated her corpse! Those bastards… have messed with the wrong people!” he was shouting by the end.

Archibald stepped up next to his companion, placing his armored hand on his shoulder as he joined in. “The collector thinks that we, the Huntresses of Artemis, can be scared by such a gruesome display of savagery!” Anger was seeping into the usually calm dulahan’s voice. “She think that we are losing easily!” The small grammatical error did not interfere with his message.

“We are all hunters. We will show her! We. Will not. Be. Defeated!” the duo of high tier hunters shouted, riling up the spirits of the hunters; applause and a few cheers could be heard, the hunters murmuring upsetly, their anger growing.

Miranda stepped forward by that point, raising her hand to quiet down her fellow hunters. “My friends, we have lost Danielle. She was a kind woman, she was like a sister to me, a mother to others and most of all a skilled huntress. The collector and her savage mercenaries think that by stringing her up and mutilating her corpse they can beat us. I will make it very clear: Challenge accepted! We will show these rotten bastards just who we are and what we do best! We will avenge Danielle, we will hunt them down, and we will slaughter every last one of them. Hunters! Track them, and if you see one of them, shoot to kill. They want to challenge us? Let’s show them that they picked the wrong fight!” Miranda looked across the camp, locking eyes with every hunter briefly, finishing with John. The boy saw a shimmering bloodlust in her eyes, red with tears.

“Who are we!?”

“Hunters!”

“What do we do?”

“Track. Shoot. Kill!”

“My friends! We shall call a war council, bring in every ally we have around here. And we will hunt them down. The wild hunt stands with us. The others shall too. Before the end of the month, the collector will be wailing all the way down in Tartarus!” Miranda declared with passion.

The camp erupted in cheers. Hunters clapped and the many pets around let out angry howls and hisses. Jack gave a ferocious roar as even Toph managed a savage peep, whipped up by the spirit of the moment.

“Now, we can not be careless. We can not be rash. This is what they want. Return to your regular duties. But if you run into any of those mercenaries, kill them,” Miranda, flanked by Archibald and Dra, made her final statement. Then she turned around and walked into the temple. Arnold, with the softly sobbing sloth in one hand and Cynthia in the other, followed behind her.

As everyone cleared out, Archibald walked up to John. “John, glad to see you are safe. I bet you want to know what that was about,” the kind armour said as Solas clambered across his shoulder to fix something.

John nodded slightly, a bit baffled by all that had happened when they entered the camp. Ilis came up to him with Old Fred and Mimi next to her, the girl having found her uncle that was taking care of Mimi as the crowd thinned. “Oh and this is Ilis, she will be staying with us from now on,” John introduced the engineer as Archibald gave her a polite nod.

“As you heard, they killed one of our huntresses. We found her near the entrance of the woods just a few hours ago. They had hanged her, after that… Well, let's say that you do not want to look at her corpse.” The dulahan winced slightly. “It’s not a pretty sight.”

“Dra and I have gotten express permission to start hunting down their agents though. So you will probably see a bit less of us until we find them,” he added. “Miranda is quite upset. And I think Cyn needs you,” he finished his short explanation.

John gave a long sigh. “Okay, I understand. Old Fred, can you help Ilis unpack the car? If you want, I can have Toph and Jack help in any way they can,” John offered as he shook Old Fred’s hand. “Also, my condolences to all of you, I did not know her, like, at all, but I can see it affects you deeply.”

“Aye, I’ll help her. We dwarves, we just keep our head down and carry on, laddie. C’mon, Jack, Mimi and Toph, if ye three can help unpacking the car without breaking anything, I’ll give ya some candy.”

At the mention of candy, a small purple dragon dove down from the sky, landing next to Mimi, and gave a small bark.

John had no idea where she had come from, but right now, he needed to go check in on his in-laws and his girlfriend.