Shadow of the Hunter Complete

Chad cocked his head, considering. "There might have been something similar. But I already knew you were a dragon when I came, so I don't know that I paid that much attention."

Qiang crossed his arms across his chest. "And how did you know that, by-the-by. I'm curious."

"Well, you felt like Chang & Sebastian. More Chang than Sebastian. That was a tip off. The fact that you call this place 'The Dragon's Garden' was confirmation. I wasn't born blind and stupid last week."

"Fair enough, and a possible answer. It could be that your natural talents crossed with the bird form affected how you perceived things. Of course, it's also possible your lady friend's magic impacts these things. Maybe a combination of those and other factors you're not aware of."

Chad humphed at the non-answer. "Well, what if I bring her to you. Could you tell me what she is?"

"I should think I could, but I doubt you'll get her here."

"Why?"

Qiang smirked. "Because I think she's playing a game with you. I don't sense any contagion or harmful magic on you, so I concur she's not a threat. And I assume it was during sex she had a slip up?"

"During orgasm."

Qiang nodded. "I thought so. My guess is that she finds you as interesting as you do her. And I suspect she's going to keep you guessing as a means to prolong the game."

"So, this is just a game?"

"I'm not in her head. But I think it's a bit more complex than 'just a game.' I think the game phase may be a way to see who you are and how you behave. Now, if I've answered your question..."

"Not really, but I guess I see where you're coming from."

"Good. Let's start again."

Chad said nothing more and assumed a training stance. He had accepted his training with little comment. Qiang had been surprised by this. He had expected more complaining. There was the occasional gripe when Chad became bruised or failed to execute a particular move. But overall, he took the training with a great deal of stoicism. Far more then Qiang had anticipated.

Qiang's teaching method at this point in Chad's development was rudimentary at best. Push Chad to see where his martial weaknesses and assets were. Chad was an aggressive fighter. When pressed he would try to overbear his opponent. When this didn't work, he would try to strike from an unexpected place and would pounce on any perceived weakness or opening. His previous experience played well to bravado, in a fight he rarely showed it if he was at a disadvantage. However, while he had a few tricks that served him well, when they were exhausted he was at a loss.

Once Qiang established his base techniques and illustrated to Chad how they could be countered, he went on to teach him how to expand them. As Qiang drilled Chad, he analyzed his moves and methods endeavoring to determine which style of weapon would serve him best. Chad did well with hand held weapons, both hand-to-hand weapons and longer range pole arms.

During the current bout Qiang had Chad working the guan dao, a four foot wooden polearm with one end bladed and the other with a mace for counterbalance as well as striking. Chad handled it well for his level of experience. His moves were a bit clumsy when compared to Qiang's and he tended to only move it when attacking as opposed to keeping the weapon in motion to add power to his strikes.

Chad was giving ground. Qiang realized it was intentional; Chad was trying to lead the combat to the wall. Intrigued, Qiang continued to press Chad as he tried to determine the endgame of Chad's ploy. Soon, Chad was backed against the wall.

He tossed his weapon in the air, as high as he could send it, then jumped up and pushed off from the wall. Then he was a hawk, zipping over Qiang's head before he had a chance to react. Chad shifted back while landing and attempted to catch the weapon. He managed to keep his footing, though he stumbled and missed the weapon. It clattered to the floor a few feet behind him.

"Fuck!" Chad gathered up the weapon.

Qiang leaned against the wall. "That was nicely done."

Chad glowered back. "I know I screwed it up, thank you."

"Perhaps you didn't nail the execution, but I wasn't being facetious. That maneuver surprised me." Qiang pushed himself off from the wall. "Well done," he repeated.

"Seriously?" Chad cradled the weapon in the crock of his arm.

"Yes, seriously. Previously, your style consisted of overbearing or surprise attacks. This shows an evolution. Does it need work? Of course. To think you could master something that complex on the first try is beyond ambitious."

Chad sighed, then continued on.

**************

That night, Qiang laid among the pillows in his lair. The braziers burned, but their flames burned low, giving a quiet ambiance to the space. Next to him was Mingzhu. She curled against him, his tail protectively entwined around her. Their love making had been pleasant enough, but Qiang's mind had been elsewhere. Now as they lay together, he clutched her close, desperate in his need to keep her safe. Mingzhu had been with Qiang a few years. She recognized the signs. Anytime Qiang worried about something it translated into protecting her. Even when she wasn't in any direct danger.

Mingzhu adjusted her position so that she sat more upright. "What troubles you, love?"

Qiang moved his head to face her. "Am I that transparent?"

She reached up and ran her hand around his eye ridge before trailing her fingers through the fur along his cheeks and jaw. Qiang closed his eyes and leaned his head gently into her hand.

"Maybe not transparent, but your mind has been elsewhere this evening."

Qiang straightened his head and sighed. "Yes, it has and I am sorry." He nuzzled her. "You deserve my full attention when we are together."

Mingzhu leaned against Qiang's head. "What troubles you?"

Qiang considered not telling Mingzhu his concerns. He much preferred to leave her out of his problems. He also knew how persistent she could be, and her concern was a balm for him. He used his head to push Mingzhu against his side.

"I am worried about Chad."

"Really?" Mingzhu was surprised. It seemed to her he was doing well. "What is wrong with him? Isn't he doing well with the training?"

"That's what troubles me. He's doing too well." Qiang paused a moment before continuing. "He pays close attention, doesn't prattle on or question every other thing I say or teach, and applies what he's learned in a cognizant manner."

Mingzhu furled her brow and frowned slightly. "And why is that a problem? What did you expect?"

Qiang's muzzle turned up in a half smile as he snorted. "I expected him to be more flip, to not take it all as seriously as he does. I expected him to be a bit more like Sebastian. In truth, my expectations are my own problem, not his. However, he is beyond serious. He brings an intense focus to everything he does. I'd glimpsed it with the Jorogumo and I'm seeing it full bore here."

"But I still don't see why that is necessarily a bad thing."

"His being serious and focused in and of itself is not a bad thing. What concerns me, though, is that in blunt truth he is dangerous. He is in control of his darker impulses, but I fear that control is tenuous. My worry is that I'm taking a volatile young man and showing him how to be even more of a threat." Qiang's look became distant as he shifted his attention over Mingzhu's head and into a future he wanted desperately to be able to see.

Mingzhu gathered his jaw into her hands and lowered his head to her eye level. "I can see your concern. It also puts me in mind of something I heard once."

Qiang cocked his head, curious. "What?"

"That every person has two wolves in them, one called love and the other hate. And do you know which is stronger?"

Qiang smiled. "The one that's fed," he answered. He had told her the story, the same as he'd heard it many years previously. He brought his head in close and rubbed it against her.

"Thank you, I needed to hear that. But his hate had been glutted long before he came here. I can only hope it can be compensated for."

"In the end, all that can be done is to try."

*************

Chad awoke agitated late in the day of the Solstice, after a sleep filled with troubled but unremembered dreams. He went to his window and studied the world outside. The weather had cooled down to an appropriate temperature for December and white flakes were tumbling down. There had already been ample accumulation and the sky showed no signs of stopping. Chad pressed his hand against the cold glass and stared out into the snow-blue day. As he watched the snow continue to come down he wondered if there was a snow augury. Something was coming, and it was going to be heralded in with the snow.

He stepped away from the window. After he showered and dressed, he pulled a chair over to the window and seated himself with a prime view of the falling snow. He studied it intently, wanting, needing, answers badly and coming up empty.

The sudden materialization of a figure outside the window made him jump. He was up and heading for a weapon before he recognized the figure. Bright blue eyes regarded him from a snow white face, framed with a glittering shag of silver-white hair. A pleasant smile and hearty wave did nothing to make up for the annoyance Chad felt. He stalked over to the window and opened it.

"You scared the shit out of me!"

The Snow Miser had the decency to at least fake looking chagrined. "Oh, I'm sorry. May I come in?"

"You're not going to melt or anything, are you?"

Snow Miser cocked his head and smiled further. "I didn't know you cared."

Chad stepped away from the window, leaving it open. "I don't. I just don't want to explain any sudden flooding to maintenance. And anyway, you actually accused me of the opposite." He returned to his seat.

"I did, that's true." Snow Miser stepped in through the window and closed it behind him. He took a seat next to Chad and regarded him some more.

"Come to apologize?" Chad's attention was again focused outside.

"No."

"To say it again?"

"No."

"Then why are you here?"

Snow Miser turned his attention outward, too. "That is the question of the hour isn't it?"

There was a long pause between them. Chad turned and looked at the Snow Miser.

"Are you going to tell me in this hour? Or any other?"

The look that crossed Snow Miser's face as he continued watching the snow was difficult for Chad to read. It seemed at once frustrated and pensive.

"Perhaps, if I was certain of it myself."

"It's got something to do with the weather, doesn't it?"

"I believe it might."

"Nothing worse than an inscrutable omen."

They sat there for a bit longer. The wind picked up as the snow fell faster and heavier. Chad was beginning to lose sight of the farther edge of the cityscape. He rose from his seat and retrieved his coat from the closet.

Snow Miser turned in his chair, tracking Chad's movements. "Where are you going?"

"Where else? Qiang." He slid his coat on. "You're welcome to stop the winter wonderland at any time to make the going easier."

The Snow Miser said nothing, but the look of quiet desperation told Chad what he needed to know. This wasn't the Snow Miser's doing. It most likely wasn't natural at all.

"I'll do what I can," he said, when he broke the silence. "It will be dark soon, be careful."

"Always am."

Chad walked down stairs to the lobby. As he crossed the lobby to the main doors a familiar voice greeted him.

"Afternoon, Mr. Chad. You're not planning on going out in that, are you?"

Chad turned and was surprised to see Mr. Franklin at the desk.

"Isn't a little early for you to be on shift?"

"Yeah, but since I live here I get called when people can't show." He shook his head. "This is one bad storm. Buses are shut down, so's a lot of the city. Phone lines are down, so's power in some places. So if I were you, I'd just turn back around and stay in for the night." He looked out the front doors into the snow, his expression distant. "Ain't nothing to be gained going out into that."

Chad followed Mr. Franklin's gaze outside. No phones meant he couldn't call the restaurant; all he had was the main land-line number. He didn't even know if Qiang had a cell. No buses meant walking through this mess. He watched the darkening sky with concern. Then he closed his coat and headed for the door.

"Afraid staying in isn't an option."

"Mr. Chad," he shouted.

Chad looked back. "Yeah?"

The night desk man tossed something to Chad. He caught it and examined it. It was a Saint Christopher metal on a metal bead chain. Chad gave Franklin an awkward look.

"Umm, thanks, but I don't swing this way." He prepared to toss it back.

Franklin held up his hand. "I do. Just take it. It'll make me feel better."

Chad pocketed the medallion. "OK, thanks." He pushed open the door and made his way out into the snow.

**************

The Bridge Keep pack gathered under their namesake. As the night fell, a deep and solemn stillness pervaded the area. Quarrel and Nargle, as well as several other hunters and runners from his pack, waited with apprehension twinged with desperation. Tonight was the Solstice. Tonight was when their fates would be determined. Tonight the hunt would run.

The seer stood in the middle of the keep, fire light dancing off her, causing her hunched form to appear to shudder. She was tracing intricate diagrams on the ground and muttering guttural, nearly incomprehensible syllables into the air.

Nargle leaned in close to Quarrel. "Is she summoning the hunt or freaking Cthulhu?" he whispered.

Normally, Quarrel found Nargle's barbs amusing. He didn't now. "I would prefer the latter," he said flatly.

Slowly and softly, as if from a great distance, a sound like thunder began to build. The vargr began to stir and shift, snapping at each other as agitation seized them. The weaker riders began to lose control of their mounts. The seer continued her chant, oblivious to the effects around her.

As the rolling sound intensified, so did her chant. She rose from a squatting position to standing, all the while calling out in her strange chant. Quarrel swore he could feel the magic stir then quicken, building with the seer's chant. She shook her arms in the air, the ancient flesh quivering in the movement. She threw back her head and thrust her arms high above her head. Then the chant reached its crescendo with a shrill, nightmarish shriek from the seer.

As her body tumbled back to the ground, the building magic erupted, extinguishing the fires and sending the vargr in a frenzied and uncontrollable surge out from the Bridge Keep and into the howling storm.

***********

Chad made his way through the storm as the snow obscured sky darkened and night gathered around him. The wind whipped at him like a thing alive, clawing mercilessly at his coat and hood. He pulled his hood tighter and clutched at the top of his coat as he struggled through the deepening snow. The combination of driving winds and drifting snow forced him to a near stand-still as he was reduced to smaller and smaller steps. Eventually, he stopped all together as the sound of thunder sounded softly in the distance, but loudly in his heart.

***********

Ambrose felt the gathering storm in his bones. His whiskers twitched with the building energy.

It's going to be a bad one, he nodded to himself.Better gather those I can.

Ambrose systematically worked every haunt he knew and ushered people to safer places. Sometimes he had to cajole, wheedle, whine and outright bully to get people to safety. But he did whatever it took. All the while he kept an eye out for Chad. The building storm worried him greatly, not only for the lost and forgotten people he took as his charges, but for the young hunter. Something in this storm seemed directed at the young man, and Ambrose couldn't understand why. He only grew more worried as every place he went showed no sign of Chad. He eventually came across Rin.

"This storm is bad," he said as he walked over to her.

She looked up into the sky and nodded. "I know. Not a fit night for man or beast. Most of the ladies had the good sense to already be in, fortunately. Not much business on a night like this."

Ambrose nodded. "Have you seen Chad?"

"Not today, but I wasn't looking. Why?"

"I'm just worried. It's what I do." Then he was off, continuing his work.

Night had fallen when Ambrose decided he had as many off the streets as he could, with still no sight of Chad. He shuddered as the wind picked up. He could feel the call of his colony, urging him to return to the safety of its burrows. With great difficulty, Ambrose resisted it. A last, and very important, charge was unaccounted for and he couldn't leave that be. He continued to search the storm wracked streets for a sign of the hunter.

As he moved about in the storm, he felt something stir in the wind. It was ancient, fearsome, and it was hunting. Dread clutched at Ambrose and he redoubled his efforts, hoping not to attract the attention of whatever force was moving through the storm. He darted and dashed, alternating between the small rat and the bipedal rat forms as needed as he headed for the last place he could think of to look.

************

Chad stood, rooted to the spot as the tempest roared around him. He slowly raised his arms to his head to block out the sounds he heard in the wind. The sound of thunder contained hoof beats, he could tell, and a long, mournful horn. He clasped his arms around his head and crouched down on his heels, curling in tight. However, the more he blocked the sound from his ears, the louder it became in his heart. His heart felt as though it might split with the force of the sounds, the call he realized. It was a call. In a daze, he dropped his arms and rose up, looking into the storm for the source of the call. And then he answered it.

**************

Ambrose made his way to the apartment building. He worked his way in through his normal entrance, chittering curses at the billowing snow and blowing debris that inhibited his movement. After thrashing through a discarded newspaper that had become wadded into his entrance tunnel, Ambrose crawled into the building. With a haste he rarely used, Ambrose bolted through the building, coming out in Chad's room. The moment he skittered past the refrigerator, he resumed his larger form and frantically searched the room. He didn't find Chad, but he did find someone else. A tall, snow bound man, dressed in the shades of winter, greeted Ambrose from his spot next to the windows.

"I'm afraid he's not here," the man said.

"Yes, I had made note of that fact." Ambrose kept the annoyance out of his voice with some effort. "Can you tell me where he is?"

The Snow Miser looked out the window, his expression distant and very sad. "He's with the storm."

Ambrose crossed his arms in front of his chest and rose to his full height. He didn't like where this conversation appeared to be going. "Is that so? Well then, what is to be done for it?"

Ambrose felt the weight of the Snow Miser's gaze, and sadness. "The hunt has called him and he's gone. There's not much to be done about it. What is, is."

Ambrose felt his features settle into a scowl, an rare expression for him. He did nothing to stop it. He uncrossed his arms, his paws forming fists as he stalked over to the window.

"Oh, is that so? Well I, for one, don't give a flea's regard for what the hunt thinks. Or you, for that matter. And if necessary I will tell that to the grand, high, huntsman's face."

The Snow Miser sighed and gently laid his hand on Ambrose's shoulder. "I understand, and I am truly sorry this happened. The hunt has called back its own, and we must accept that."