More writing. Bloodborne this time.
The smell of ash and fear conjoins with the screams of beasts in the night air. This is my overture, these smoking flagstones my stage, an artist with no audience. I can do better. I am a Hunter and I need no audience for my work. I am singular, incomparable, and unfaltering in my pursuit of success. This was my charge. My enemy. My Hunt.
The Old Man once called me an upstart with no principles. I called him nothing for that is all he meant to me. The Badge hangs around my neck on its chain. He gave it to me as a reminder of our heritage, and that even if we deviate from our shawl-shod counterparts we still have rules. But that was a long time ago now.
I stare through the archway, and steady my breathing. I know what lies under this sundered roof, what pestilence lurks just out of sight. There is a ringing in my ears. My finger twitches. It is all I can do to stop myself from storming the building. I must delay my victory for the moment, I must ready myself.
We had a visitor. We spoke briefly, and she gave me a scrap of parchment, emblazoned with a rune. I thanked her, and she waved me away, saying that I should thank her only after I used it. The others were more intrigued by the strange cloak and mask the stranger wore, but what entranced me was the shining blades she carried. I asked the smith later where I might find such beautiful weapons. He chuckled, and told me to come back a week later. I did, and what he gave me was not the silvered knives of the outsider, but they were close enough, and they were mine. The Workshop has attempted similar reproductions before, and whilst the results were never perfect, they did the job just as well, with a little more flair.
Holding my tools before me, I check the metal, my finger tracing the fine sawtooth hooks along the back edge, my eyes reflecting in the polished cutting front. Through thick and thin these blades had given me the chance to get the job done, slicing through unworthy opponents like a butcher’s chopper. From my pocket, I pull out one of the sandpaper-like sheets I adored, and carefully fold it in half, wrapping it around a knife like a mother swaddling her child. A long fluid motion rasps the gritty leaf from hilt to tip, and my hair swirls back as heat bursts into being, my reflection now smothered by the beautiful curls ands eddies of raw flame. My second blade also deserves such adornment, and I repeat the process. I rise and my blazing knives hiss and pop in the cold air as I rotate my wrists, leaving orange streaks in my vision. I am ready.
Firebrand. Tinderbox. The Burning Dervish. They had many nicknames for me back then. Some used them as mockery, even the jesting names made me smile. I had made an impact. I was remembered. My legacy will be etched in their memory and the cauterised flesh of anything the Firebrand carves. I wonder where they are now. Most likely gone, in one manner or another. Whilst many would pass from my mind, there were a few I look back at with a fondness. Arnholm, with his furnace-hammer and untidy beard that never grew out evenly. Lillian, with her hair dyed black by soot and powder burns. The three of us understood each other. Back then, Hunts were full of explosions, laughter, and comradery. Now, just the gloom of the solitary night barely punctured by the pale glow of the moon.
My prey is before me at the far end of the long hall, ripping into some chunk of discarded flesh. There was no grace to this thing, no elegant motion. It was just claws and teeth and hair mobilised by a gangly skeleton. I was thankful it chose to cover its shameful form in some kind of cloak, stained in the grime of Beastliness. One could say that the work of a Hunter was to make the world more safe, but this thing was solitary, left down here to rot, no threat anymore, however it was still a Beast. An ugly eyesore of a Beast. I will burn it away, for ash looks like falling snow and I am the harbinger of a furious winter. Its head turns towards me, our eyes meet. The Beast knows why I am here. Neither one of us wastes a moment and we begin our savage performance, spilling the blood of the other as our only motivation.
Stay sharp, stay fast, stay alive. The three tenants of practical Hunting were drilled into my mind and body, as I swung my blades into targets, against my fellow hunters in sparring sessions, against my first Beast. We were an undisciplined rabble at the beginning, but with sweat and blood our bodies became as honed as the sharpest of blades. We studied, learning which tool suited which task, the doctrines of the Hunt, the techniques of those who made killing an art. We took the lessons of the past, and forged them into armaments of the future with our signature conflagrant pompositity, and blasted a hole into the verminous hordes.
The Beast begins slowly, swinging its rancid claws in wide sweeps, easy enough to duck under, stepping forward with blade extended to rake against the atrophied flesh covering its thigh. The sweet sizzle of seared meat hits my ears like a bugle-call. My knife hisses, its inflamed coating burning away a foul concoction extracted from the gouge. I rotate my wrist with a flick, spattering the flagstones with the pestilent blood of the beast. A death by fire was the only thing capable of cleansing this hulking stain. My smile widens as the lupine brute spins on its heels for another slash, I can read this like a book. Rolling forward, I feel the ripples in the air as claws scythe past my cheek. Springing to my feet, I snatch one of the pots stashed at my waist, and cock back my arm. The Beast’s cloak ripples as its fury grows, and as it’s body tightens to lunge back to me, my hand lurches forward like a catapult to launch the clay jug into the side of its rotting face as it turns to face me again. It reels back as black oil, thick as molasses, clings to the fur of its head and neck, soaking into the cracks around its eyes. The hesitation is more than enough for me to leap forward, blade extended overhead like a windmill, and catch the monster’s chin. Barely the lightest touch is needed, and its face explodes in a shower of burnt hair and lit oil, some of which falls onto my shoulders as I escape to the far side of the howling aberration.
Word had reached us of a beast, lurking away down in the sewers of Central Yharnum. The three of us had gone together, our first hunt without supervision. We were Hunters now, wearing our firing pin Badges proudly around our necks. I had gone slightly ahead, Arnholm and Lillian following. Crossing the Great Bridge, we felt like Kings. The streets of course were deserted, but had we been seen by the normal folk, we would have been lauded to the rooftops. The trip out was the easy part, and it didn’t take long to reach the area and begin searching. That didn’t take long either. We heard the howls long before we climbed down into the aquaduct. Blood lay atop the mud, creating a lovely trail for us to follow. The Beast was already wounded. I confessed a slight disappointment, a sentiment the others shared. We hurried on, following the crimson path to our quarry, licking its wounds in a crevice off the main waterway. Lillian opened fire with a hail of gleaming bullets as Arnholm struck the ignition cap on his hammer. My knives had been in my hands since we started.
Brushing away the smouldering droplets from my coat, I watch as the emaciated fiend clutches the raw skin where the left side of its face once was. It lets out a screech, yowling to the holes in the ceiling. Something has changed in its stance. It shudders, and a smell hits my nose. Utterly putrid, I can feel the stench burning in my nostrils, forcing me to cough into my hand. The Beast was not so distracted and begins a chain of quick strikes, driving me back, its claws raining down blows, spreading its toxin with each twist of its shriveled form. It is all I can do to backpedal, I know this series of attacks, so I stay just beyond its reach. Stay fast. My movement is halted by the cold press of stone into my back, already it has me against the wall. Its paws swing in tandem, from either side. I can’t dodge both. I roll the left, grimacing and crying out as a claw digs into my shoulder and down my back. I shake my head. Stay sharp. The wound itches and flares with spikes of pain, whatever plague infects the Beast seeping into the open gash. Scrambling into my pockets, I shove a pill down my throat, which lessens the effect, but doesn’t eliminate it. I resolve to finish this quickly. Stay alive.
We had neglected to remember a Beast is most dangerous when cornered. Lillian had already slipped into unconsciousness after being thrown into a wall and cracking her head. Arnholm nodded at me, the cuts on his face oozing slowly. We circled our prey, its head snapping between us. I lunged in a feint, drawing its eye, and Arnholm’s hammer crushed its skull into a mushy pulp from behind. We stood there, sucking in air, looking at the mess. We both felt the rush of accomplishment, but we both knew there was a lesson to be learned here. Arnholm slung Lillian over his shoulder, and we headed home. She recovered, waking a few days later after being treated by a Minister. There was something different about her after that. We thought it due to the head trauma at the time, but she never slept well again, and talked about strange dreams and nightmares, of Hunters long since gone, of blue-lit lamps, and red moons.
Both of us are bleeding heavily now, its limbs hang with exhaustion as mine do. It is near its end, but I risk following it into the ground at my current rate. I jam the needle of my last vial of sanctified blood into my thigh, and grunt as I feel energy surge back into my aching muscles. It’s not much but it is enough. The flame along my blades sputters and fades so I spin away, reapplying the paper along the cutting edge to create a fresh burst of fire, matching my renewed fervour. This fight has not gone well, I can do better. I snap back to clarity, dropping to my knees as my enemy leaps at me, flying overhead. I jut my blades skyward, allowing the Beast’s momentum to slice its belly on them. It collapses, spasming in a puddle of gore and its cloud of miasma. This is my chance, its head is exposed. My vision swims from the repeated doses of poison. I’m better than this, this should have been easy. I could finish it here. But I don’t. Is it Pride? Fatigue? Sickness? I don’t move in for one last strike. I can do better. I reach once more to my pockets. I can do better. The monster rolls and shudders as it bleeds. No honour is this battle of attrition. I take out the gift given so long ago, and I press the Stranger’s Rune against my eye, filling my vision, burning it into my mind. I can burn this scourge to ash. I can do better. The mantra follows me into blackness.
“Welcome home, Good Hunter…”
I take the offered porcelain hand, and struggle up, wiping a piece of grit from the corner of my eye as she helps me to my feet. “Were you successful this time?” I bite back a scathing retort. She only wants to help. I stretch my legs out, my bones cracking as I wander through the many graves that litter the ground of this plane. I stop where I always do, at the last headstone in a long row surrounded by white flowers. “She found her worth, far from here.” I flinch as the soft voice of the pale automaton starts suddenly behind me. “The Good Hunter Lillian was kind and fierce. She often spoke of you. She found comfort, and you have a task yet ahead of you.” She’s right. I thank the manikin for her words. I have a charge, and I can do better.
The smell of ash and fear conjoins with the screams of beasts in the night air. This is my overture, these smoking flagstones my stage, an artist with no audience. I can do better. I am a Hunter and I need no audience for my work. I am singular, incomparable, and unfaltering in my pursuit of success. This was my charge. My enemy. My Hunt.
