The Hunter of Hawk and Wolf

A thought occurred to Sevha.

What is a myth, really?

Perhaps, long ago, it was nothing more than a fight between one called Diaka and one called Eirang.

But now, such thoughts were a useless distraction.

Clang!

The moment Sevha blocked Achuk’s greatsword with his handaxe, the distraction vanished. His vision narrowed to the fortress wall set against the large full moon, and Achuk, swinging his greatsword.

“Diaka…!”

Sevha gritted his teeth and met Achuk head-on.

There were two reasons Sevha did not avoid a direct confrontation.

First, there was no longer a plan. The plan had been to use all of Teresse’s and Blanc’s forces to back Achuk into a corner—one where killing him meant the annihilation of the Carved Tusks.

Drive him deeper into madness, worsen his injuries, and then kill him. That had been the entirety of the plan he and Teresse had made.

He’s so far gone he thinks I’m Diaka and he’s Eirang. This is exhausting.

Blood spattered from the wound Sevha had dealt to Achuk’s chest and from beneath the werewolf hide he wore. But Achuk swung his greatsword furiously, as if he felt no pain.

I need to open the distance, wear down his stamina…

But that option was impossible, which brought Sevha to the second reason he could not avoid a direct fight.

“The Princess…!”

Achuk’s eyes would sometimes dart toward Teresse, who stood behind Sevha. The last thread of reason in Achuk was tethered only to the Moon Princess—to Teresse.

If Sevha gave him an opening, he would charge Teresse and tear her apart.

In the end, all I can do is use everything I have to kill him.

Sevha abandoned the search for a clever solution and committed his full strength.

He dodged Achuk’s greatsword, creating distance. Then he scattered his other weapons, daggers and a bow, in every direction.

Achuk did not understand Sevha’s bizarre actions.

He had no need to. He simply planted his feet and swung his greatsword in a wide arc.

In response, Sevha leaped to avoid the blade.

He stepped on the flat of the greatsword and vaulted over Achuk’s back, swinging his handaxe the moment he landed. Follow current novᴇls on ɴovelfire.net

Achuk spun, his greatsword swinging with the turn.

When the blow knocked the handaxe from his grasp, Sevha snatched a dagger from the ground and threw it. The dagger sank into Achuk’s thigh, but he paid it no mind and brought his greatsword down.

Sevha dodged backward, then kicked off the edge of the fortress wall to leap behind Achuk again. He immediately grabbed another dagger and threw it. As if to say he would not be fooled twice, Achuk batted it away with his greatsword.

Creeak!

Sevha had already picked up the bow and was drawing the string. Before Achuk could react, Sevha loosed the arrow. It pierced Achuk’s side.

Achuk let out a roar as if vomiting the pain and charged.

But Sevha closed the distance instead, stepping on the dagger still embedded in Achuk’s thigh. Tearing the wound open, he vaulted over Achuk’s back.

More…!

Sevha moved like an acrobat without rest, using the weapons scattered on the ground to press his attack.

More…!

This was the height of Sevha’s skill.

Where there was no forest, his movements became one.

Where there were no traps, his gestures became the snare.

Where there were no wings, his body became flight itself.

“Hawk’s pinnacle,” Achuk praised, then opened his mouth wide, then wider, and laughed. He lowered his stance and rested the greatsword on his shoulder.

“But Hawk… small.”

With a great surge of strength, he forced the arrow and dagger from his body, and they clattered to the ground. An instant later, he charged Sevha like a beast.

Sevha recalled the diagonal swing he had seen when he first lured Achuk here. As Achuk swung the greatsword like a wolf swiping its paw, Sevha moved to dodge the blow he remembered.

But then, Achuk slightly loosened his grip.

It’s different from before.

The blade slid through his hand, lengthening its arc and blocking Sevha’s escape. The trajectory of the greatsword, which had been falling from upper right to lower left, suddenly reversed its path.

“Wolf… large.”

It slashed down from upper left to lower right—a strike born of immense strength and a will that ignored the twisting of joints, a claw that could snatch a bird from the sky.

The Wolf’s Claw.

Shhlick!

The moment Sevha threw himself backward, an X-shaped gash opened on his chest, and blood burst forth.

As his blood splattered the stone, Sevha gasped for air, unable to steady his breathing.

So we’re both half-crippled now.

But something was more important than his own mortal wound.

This won’t end easily.

Sevha had fought with unpredictability. To counter it, Achuk fought with brute force. They were trapped in a cycle of struggle, each man’s choice countering the other.

As he struggled to catch his breath, Sevha thought, No wonder Diaka still hasn’t managed to take the Moon Princess as her bride…

He had to end this fight before the Carved Tusks slaughtered his soldiers.

He knew a way to escape the cycle.

Like a wolf.

All he had to do was face Achuk head-on, with strength alone. They were both gravely wounded. If they clashed violently again and again, one of them—or perhaps both—would inevitably fall.

It had to be done. Sevha prepared himself.

Either you die… or I die.

As if to show his resolve, he picked up the handaxe and gripped it tightly. He bared his teeth, his eyes wide and fierce.

Achuk seemed to sense his intent. He grinned, drool spilling from his mouth. Come on, the look said.

Just as Sevha and Achuk, two beasts, crouched to spring…

“Calm yourself. You’re not Diaka. And I’m not the Moon Princess.”

Teresse seized the back of Sevha’s head and pulled, forcing him to straighten.

“No matter how we struggle, we’re only human.”

“Is there a human way to win?” Sevha asked.

Teresse gently wrapped her hands around the one he had clutching the handaxe. “Unlike us, that thing is a wolf. A wolf from the myths, hunting the Princess.”

Sevha understood and hesitated.

He warned, “You could die.”

Teresse squeezed his hand tighter and stood beside him.

He looked at her. She was afraid, but she smiled anyway.

“Are you worried about me? Wasn’t I just your tool?”

Sevha briefly, but clearly, committed her smile to memory. “A hunter takes care of his tools.”

Then, without letting go of Teresse’s hand, he nodded tauntingly at Achuk.

“Come, Wolf.”

How must the sight of their hands clasped over the handaxe have looked to Achuk?

He roared the answer: Don’t touch what’s mine!

He charged.

“Go, Teresse,” Sevha said, and ruthlessly pushed her toward him.

“Princess…!”

Achuk slowed for a moment and swung his greatsword at Teresse.

She gritted her teeth and dodged, but it was impossible for her to avoid it completely. The blade tore across her arm.

Sevha darted out from behind her and threw a dagger. Achuk could not pull back his swing in time, and the dagger sank into his shoulder. He ignored the blow and tried to aim for Sevha.

“Teresse!”

“I… know!” Teresse threw herself between them.

“Princess…!”

Achuk forgot Sevha completely and thrust his greatsword toward her. Teresse dodged backward, but the blade grazed her stomach. Unable to bear the pain, she collapsed.

“Princesssss!”

Achuk smiled broadly, as if it were finally the end, and brought his greatsword down.

Sevha shot out from Achuk’s blind spot and fired an arrow into his leg. As Achuk faltered, Sevha grabbed Teresse’s hand and pulled her back.

She fell into his arms, and he saw the terror on her face. But though she was afraid, she did not yield.

“S-See? That bastard can’t escape his myth, can he?”

It was the instinct of the wolf of myth, the source of his immense power: he had to chase the Moon Princess.

“W-We can use this to win.”

Sevha saw her trembling from fear and the excitement born from it, and he smiled in spite of himself.

“This is no time to be smiling…!”

“My eyes.”

“What?”

“If you’re scared, just look at my eyes.” Sevha’s golden eyes were reflected in Teresse’s red irises. “I hate it when someone beside me whines.”

“Hey!” Teresse grew angry.

Sevha pushed her toward Achuk again.

The actions repeated. On the fortress wall, the two humans and the one beast moved in a repetition that was like a dance between the earth and the sky.

One, two, three.

Sevha and Teresse danced. Sometimes pulling each other’s hands, sometimes meeting each other’s eyes.

One, two, three.

The Wolf, not being human, could not join their dance. It could only be wounded again and again, roaring with each new wound.

One, two, three.

The full moon was silent, but it shone brightly upon them, as if demanding this sight be witnessed.

Teresse was covered in wounds. Achuk suffered even more wounds.

He bellowed. The werewolf hide he wore fell away, revealing his bare face. Blood poured from his lidless eyes and from where his nose had been torn off.

“Diaka…! Princess…!” Achuk glared at them with eyes redder than his blood-soaked face. “This… insult.”

Sevha using Teresse as bait—so unbecoming of the mythical guardian—was an insult.

For the Moon Princess, who should remain beautiful until she was devoured, to struggle so wretchedly was an insult to him, to Eirang.

And so Achuk roared with fury and charged. “I will tear you to pieces!”

He swung his greatsword wildly at Teresse—an emotional, wide-open strike meant for one who had only fled, a mere prize for the victor.

As the blow came for her, she gritted her teeth and dodged to the side.

“How many times do I have to say it? I’m no Moon Princess,” she said. “I am… human.”

She swung the handaxe Sevha had secretly passed to her when they had clasped hands. Achuk, who had never imagined she would fight back, could not react.

Thunk!

The handaxe sank into the wound Sevha had opened on his chest. The gash split, and blood erupted.

Just as the geyser of blood began to fall, Achuk saw him. Golden eyes.

Sevha was running toward him, bow in hand, nocking three arrows to the string as he ran.

Ignoring the blood bursting from all his wounds, Achuk lowered his stance and rested his greatsword on his shoulder. With the eyes of a wolf about to tear apart its prey, he watched Sevha rush toward him like a stooping hawk.

“Diaka,” he said.

Teresse yelled loud enough to drown out the Wolf’s voice.

“Sevha!”

Sevha and Achuk crossed paths. A contest of Hawk’s Talon and Wolf’s Claw.

The moonlight illuminated them both.

Sevha’s bow was empty. Achuk’s greatsword was buried in the stone.

Shhhlick!

Blood burst from Sevha’s shoulder as a fountain of it erupted from Achuk’s face, where all three arrows had struck.

“Ah…!”

Blinded, Achuk staggered. He dropped his greatsword and stumbled backward until his back hit the edge of the wall.

Leaning there, he tilted his head, trying to see the moon, but the blood gushing from his face obscured his vision.

“The end…?”

Still, as if he yearned to see it, he tilted his head back further, and further, and further.

“No,” he rasped. “Hawk, Wolf… the fight, eternal… as long as… you exist, Diaka…”

His center of gravity shifted, and he plummeted from the fortress wall.

Thump!

When Sevha and Teresse went to the edge, they saw Achuk submerged in a pool of his own blood.

The Carved Tusks stared at the sight of them standing alone on the wall, the full moon hanging overhead.

“The Wolf’s Incarnation… lost to the Hawk’s Incarnation… He lost. He’s dead!”

The faces of the tribesmen contorted, and they began to scream like children who had lost their parents.

Immediately, shouts erupted from all sides.

“Commander! That bastard Achuk is dead!”

“Annihilate them!”

“Hunt them down without mercy!”

Having lost their will to fight, the Carved Tusks collapsed.

Sevha and Teresse watched for a moment before turning away and sliding to the ground in unison.

“Teresse… Can you take command?”

“Sevha… I’m exhausted, too. I’m never doing this again.”

“Don’t worry. What are the chances there’s another madman who would mistake you for the Moon Princess?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Isn’t she a goddess famous for her beauty?”

“What’s wrong with my face?”

“What do you think?”

They turned around and met each other’s gaze. The sight of their blood-soaked faces was so ridiculous that they burst out laughing.

The laughter consumed what little strength they had left, and they slid down until they were lying flat.

Then, the great full moon came into view.

For some reason, their hands felt warm. Moonlight could not be warm.

They looked and saw that their hands, Sevha’s and Teresse’s, were clasped together.

They wanted to pull them apart, truly, but they were too tired.

And so, they simply closed their eyes.