The Huntsman of Adamos (Quartet)- draft

CH BREAKING A HUNTSMAN’S HEART

In the morning, Yurieth woke to the sound of his daughters’ arguing. He stalked out to find the source and found Roserae sitting at her desk writing note about some patient, unperturbed by the racket.

“Can you not hear them?” Yurieth demanded.

“I am working,” Roserae said coldly.

“Girls, be silent.” He shouted down the hall at them and they quieted.

“I am not leaving my home or my healer’s practice, and you are not taking them away to live with your parents.” She announced, standing to face him.

“Roserae, it is not safe for you to live here unprotected. The villages and castle are too far away for the guardsmen to save you if invaders come here.”

She scoffed, mocking him. “You can’t intimidate me into leaving, Yurieth. We are ‘winning’, aren’t we? They wouldn’t dare come back.”

“Roserae, we know the Xelusians are preparing to send warriors back to Aetheriabecause they cannot beat us on their own world. We believe the Royals will be the targets. You need to be somewhere defensible. I need you and our daughters to be safe. Please, move to my father’s castle and let my brother protect you.” He was begging her, but he could tell from her posture and the feelings emanating from her soul that she was going to refuse. He hated that he had enough oracle magic to read souls, but not influence them.

“I will not leave my home and you will not move my daughters.” She announced. “I told you if you left, don’t come back. Why won’t you listen?”

“You are my wife and I will not abandon you or my children,” he gritted out angrily.

“Father...” Willow and Lily were standing in the door, staring at them with uncertainty. “Can we go out on our skiff?′

“Just go,” Roserae snapped at them. Their daughters stood frozen.

“Go ahead girls. Don’t yell at them you are angry with me.” Yurieth snarled at her. They stood glaring at each other until the door closed behind the girls.

“How dare you!” Roserae hissed.

“How dare I? I am not the one whose foolish pride is putting my children at risk. You always were selfish and foolish girl following the pathetic opinions of courtiers who have never faced the enemy. You are more frustrating and childish than my daughters have ever been.” He yelled at her.

“How would you know how are daughters are? You are gone for years on end, you know nothing about how much it hurts them every time you leave,” Roserae accused.

“They are of Adamos, they understand it is my duty.” He defended himself. “They are proud of my dedication and the honors I’ve earned for our house.”

“Ha,” Roserae laughed, then mocked, “Their father... the great Huntsman of Adamos, the war hero. Some days they will know that you are just the murderer who abandoned them for the first decade after their birth.”

“I was doing my duty.”

“Hmrph, a huntsman on the war front is ridiculous and everyone knows it. You were just playing at being a warrior and betraying our marriage because you have no sense of responsibility or honor, and you never will!” She screamed at him. “You don’t deserve to know them or be near them and someday, they will see the truth and then I will take them away from you forever.”

Yurieth found his hand closing around her throat, and he dragged her toward him, lifting her until her toes left the floor. She clawed as his arm, eyes wide and terrified. He trembled in rage as he threatened. “I have more honor than most or I would not have put up with your naive idealism for so long. I only tolerate you for their sake. I have spent years knowing I was only married to you for the alliance between our Houses. I tried to love you. I even left behind a woman who loved me more than a shrew like you ever could love anyone but herself. The truth is that I was unfaithful once... ONCE... and never again. I regretted it then, but now I regret coming back to you.” He released her and she crumpled. He snatched her back up to her feet, “Pack your things, wife. You will live in my father’s castle or you will live in the City of the Kings, your choice.”

She slapped him. “I hate you, Yurieth of Adamos. I never loved you and I never will.” She choked out as she clutched at her throat and he could see the bruises he made forming on her pale skin.

“Are not capable of love, you mean?” He demanded. He knew he needed to leave before he hurt her more, so he let his words promise her the violence he wanted to commit against her. “The feeling is mutual, Roserae of Athenos. When our daughters turn 200, you may leave without them. But if you try to take them away from me, I will take you to Xelusia and give you to the Berserker Blood warriors personally. You do not want to know what they do to pretty little healers, my dear wife.” Yurieth promised and then turned on his heel and strode out. As he walked out the rear door, he slung his bow, sword and a quiver of arrows over his shoulder. He needed to hunt, to kill something before he killed his ungrateful, foolish wife.

His was very far from his house when he felt his daughters call out to him in terror. To his horror, he felt Lily dying violently and ran harder. Then Willow died. His soul cleaved painfully with the realization they would not revive because someone was harvesting their blood. He cursed the small amount of oracle magic that he had which allowed him to feel such things so clearly. Roserae was being hurt, violated, her blood taken by many. The smell of smoke drove his rage. He felt his mother and brother both call out to him and ignored them as Roserae died, to never revive.

At the edge of the clearing that held his burning home, he saw a dozen Berserker warriors, a Blood Mage Journeyman, and an Assassin of the Blood Brotherhood. He would see the Blood Mage holding magic orbs that were filled with his children’s life essence. His first shot when through the mage’s head with enough power that it exploded; another arrow shattered the orbs holding his daughters’ blood. Then he put two arrows in the Assassin. He barely felt the Assassin’s throwing blades that pierced his body. He knew he was going to die with his family, and he had vowed to take as many of the enemy with him as he could.

Abrieth shouted to his mind to hold on, they were coming, but Yurieth didn’t care. All he could feel was the cold emptiness where he had once felt his little girls’ heartbeats. His heart had died with them. Three of the berserker warriors fell before they finally managed to get him on the ground. Three held him down.

Standing over him as he lay dying, the Assassin spoke. “Huntsman of Adamos, today your kind is ended for the death of Crown Prince Demonis, son of King Apollyon. No more will the magic of the Ghosts of the Forest hunt the Blood Mages and Blood Brotherhood of Xelusia.”

Coughing, Yurieth spat his words and blood on the Assassin, promising, “You had better forever kill me before my brother comes, because if I live, I will never stop hunting your kind or your king.”

The Assassin laughed and stood up, pulling the serrated blade of the Blood Brotherhood. Raising the short sword above his head, the Assassin hesitated, then dropped to the ground with two arrow in the back of his head. Yurieth jerked his arm away from one of the berserkers and impaled his comrade through the neck with his own cursed blade as Abrieth removed the disarmed one’s head.

There was a blinding flash of Oracle light from across the lake and the berserkers staggered. Regis killed the third holding Yurieth’s legs as Regulus slayed three on his own. The Protector and Huntsman aided the Guardian as Yurieth knelt over Roserae. She had been badly beaten and assaulted in the manner in which Berserkers treated those they had decided to kill. The warriors had bitten her in many places where they had drank her blood from her to steal her magic. However, using her magic to heal themselves did not matter to those Yurieth had decapitated.

Yurieth wept over Roserae as his brother and allies killed the last of the enemy. He had failed to protect her. He had never truly loved her, but she was his wife, the mother of his children, and that counted for something. Abrieth picked up Lily as Regis picked up Willow. Yurieth forced himself to lift Roserae in his arms, with Regulus’ steadying hand under his elbow. Together they carried his family back to the flyer that had brought Abrieth, Regulus, and Regis.

Landing in the courtyard of the Summer Castle of Adamos, Yurieth stepped off first. His mother was weeping in his father’s arms. Most of the castle staff had gathered, many were weeping.

Regulus, stood before Yurieth and held out his arms. “Give her to me Huntsman and let your mother tend your wounds until the healer from Odini arrives.”

Yurieth’s arms tightened reflexively around Roserae, he looked at her abused body and pressed a kiss to her temple. “I am so sorry, my briar rose. It is my fault. I killed you.” He whispered, then he gently gave her to his mentor. He kissed the foreheads of each of his daughters before his weeping mother led him away. Sitting in a chair, he barely felt her cleansing his wounds and dabbing them with healing potion. He was blind and deaf to everything except the memory of his family’s murder replaying in his mind.

“Yurieth, speak to me,” his mother Yllumina implored.

He looked at her with tears streaming down his face. “I killed them, mother. The Brotherhood Assassin knew my rank and house, he knew who I was. He killed them and came for me because of who I was in the war. It is my fault that my daughters are dead. I killed them.”

“You did not kill them, Yurieth. The Xelusians came here with the purpose of destroying the Huntsmen of Aetheriaand they almost succeeded.” Yllumina told him.

He looked at her oddly through the haze of his grief, “What do you mean?”

“Immediately after you left Xelusia three days ago, there was an attack against the Huntsmen. A group launched for Aetheria , the Guardians Regulus, Ra-itath, and Soltarus, and the Huntsmen Regis and Seamus chased them. Once here they split up. Regulus and Regis arrived here just as we after we felt the girls...” Yllumina sobbed for a moment then continued in a shaky voice. “Um, Soltarus, Ra-utath, and Seamus followed the larger group to the school, they killed Axion and Meteriel and almost everyone. They even killed Queen Xena and the princes.” She wept into her hands. “I’m sorry... I know you wished to join your family, but I am glad you did not die this day.”

Yurieth had stopped crying and become completely still, everything he had worked for over the last century, every huntsman he knew save two were lost. His heart stuttered to a stop and he cursed the Light. Without a word, he went to the room he had kept in his childhood summer home and put on the extra uniform and armor he kept there. He walked into the room where they were preparing his family for their pyre and cut a lock of each of their hair, taking a last look at the price he had paid for this war. Then he went out to where Regulus and Regis stood with Abrieth and his father.

“Take me to the Huntsmen Academy, now.” Yurieth’s tone left no question of refusing him.

As they flew over the lake and away from the Summer Castle of his father’s family, Yurieth looked at the smoke rising across the lake and took all the blame on himself. If he hadn’t been who he was in the war, this would never have happened, his daughters would still be alive, and their mother wouldn’t have hated him. Oddly, he didn’t feel any pain, only cold purpose.

The Xelusians had attacked all of the Huntsmen on both worlds and Yurieth vowed to make them pay. The School for Huntsmen had fallen with less than a dozen novices surviving. He stalked through the campus with Abrieth and Seamus following. Seamus had not yet made Master Huntsman, he did not have the magic for it but he was one of the strongest Yurieth had mentored. Axion was found dead with his thirty-eight journeymen. Huntsmen had killed over two hundred Berserkers and dozens of Assassins. Eleven mages, including two females, were among the Xelusian dead.

Yurieth knelt over some of the dead, studying their wounds.

“What is wrong, Master Huntsman?” Seamus asked.

“Their wounds are what is wrong, Huntsman. It almost appears as if they were slain by their comrades instead of the enemy. These are the kinds of wound we would inflict on an enemy, it is our weapon-wielding style,” Yurieth pronounced.

“Perhaps the Xelusians are cross combat training as we are?” Abrieth suggested. He lifted a long-curved blade from a dead Berserker, it was similar in shape and size to a Huntsman’s long Knife. “They are changing the weapons they carry from the traditional axes and pole-arms. I also found a bow on one of the Assassins. Looks like they are taking a page from your war-book, big brother.”

“Let them try, little brother. I will not give them the time to master the skills I have spent centuries perfecting.” Yurieth growled, as he turned the blade in his hand, before looking back at the dead novices and journeymen. It would have made the wounds, but it did not have the balance or edge of a huntsman’s blade. He shook his head at the thought his mind presented. His students would not have slain each other.

Meteriel was found murdered in his home with his wife, Anvonne and their twins. Yurieth asked Regis to stay and mentor the remaining novices and while he returned to Xelusia. Of Seamus, he asked to search the common houses for anyone with Huntsmen’s magic. They needed to rebuild and rebuild fast.

Yurieth bid Abrieth and Regulus farewell when he stepped off the transport. He disappeared for years at a time behind Xelusian lines. No one heard from him when he was gone, not even his brother, but they all heard of him. A lone huntsman rescuing villages and ghettos, and sending the commoners to the Aetherian lines for sanctuary. A ghost travelling and killing Blood Mages and Blood Brotherhood Assassins alike, decimating the upper classes and turning the lower classes against their rulers. Yurieth used every skill he had ever learned from his mentors and even some he made up for himself to become the thing Xelusian Royals had nightmares about. The Black Huntsman was the most feared being on two worlds.