Chapter Sixteen: Guilden's End

Clapping was the only sound we heard.

Guilden stood by me looking about.

I rose, glancing to and from, from the body to the surroundings.

To my astonishment, the body began to shrivel back into its original form. It was a man, a plain man. It was the farmer from so long ago.

Guilden, too, had looked upon this.

He turned upon me then as the clapping resolved itself.

"Drop your ax, Kinningson."

I looked to him, confused. He was already readying his bow.

"Guilden, what manner of treachery is this?"

Guilden took a few steps back. No matter how fast I would jump, his arrow would pierce my heart. I stood me ground.

A figure came from the forest and walked to Guilden's side.

His voice was harsh, quick to the end of each syllable, yet very distinct and enunciated.

"Well done, pawn."

He walked past Guilden.

His face was horribly scarred. He smelled of a conflagration, of fire and brimstone.

"What are you?"

He kept his hood over his head so I could not fully see his eyes.

Something was amiss with the whole situation. Nothing had been going right. It all happened a few weeks ago.

"You've met up with two of these wolfmen now. You are skilled in hunting." He turned to Guilden, beckoning him forth. Guilden came and bowed, and stayed so.

"You despise this man then?"

I answered not his question, but posed my own back, "What have you done to him?"

"Cut off his head."

as tempting as the offer was, I knew it to be foolishness. I don't know what game this man was playing but he felt himself to be powerful. With Guilden hunched over, the man no longer had his defense.

As lightning strikes, my hand shot out, crushing into the side of his head. The burnt man toppled to the ground. As he fell, Guilden shook violently.

He collapsed to his knees.

I gave him my hand.

"Guilden, we must away. There is an ill air about this man."

He rose, unsteadily, and together we trudged back into the forest. something in my heart would not let me touch him again, for my hand burned now.

After several minutes of travel and pushed off me.

"Kinningson...I must fulfill my mission. I have orders from the Magistrate's desk. I am to hunt you down. Bring you to justice for the murder of seven men." I had stopped walking."That man...he aided me in finding you and finding the girl." My fists clenched."She's safe. The first wolf is gone."

Before he finished, I turned about and knocked him over.

My hand burned even more. I looked up. The burnt man was approaching. He had recovered well.

Fear overtook me and I ran. Something primal inside me called out, screaming.

I ran.

And I ran.

Till evening did I continue to run.

Then I fell to the ground far from home, in an unknown forest, tired.

I recovered my strength somehow in the middle of the night. i felt more alive than ever. The nighttime couldn;t hinder my movement or sight. I could sense he was near.

I dashed through the trees.

I saw him, walking. The burnt man had left him.

I would take the burnt man's offer. I would kill Guilden tonight.

I leapt from tree branch to tree branch and slid down a fallen oak, right behind him. He must have been tired, for he heard me not.

He called to him. So angry was I that it sounded more akin to a snarl than anything. He turned about, fear entered him.

I pounced upon him. He loosed an arrow into me chest.

We both collapsed to the floor.

Everything was dark.

My eyes fluttered open.I was sitting against a tree. My chest was damp with blood. It was no longer warm. My breathing was unsteady. I looked about. Guilden was there too, though he was a mess. His face was half what it should have been. He clapsed a hand against his jugular. His other hand, lay limp, twisted about in some awful, god-forsaken manner.

His one good eye swirled up to look to me.

He lips quivered as he drew on the strength to speak.

"It is you..."

I sat dumb.

Again, he drew a breath.

"I die...at your hand. A beasts's hand...the dark man..he.."

I looked upon him. He sputtered, as if to say more, but he choked and gagged on his own blood.

A few more sharp breaths and the man passed away.

His arrow had pierced my lowest right side rib. Another one had entered between my clavicle and into the tree. I was pinned. And so there I sat, and closed my eyes. Everything was a mess. Guilden, perhaps, had been doing the right thing all along. He had made a bad choice with that burnt man. The burnt man. He seemed to be at the heart of the troubles. I thought this because of the very way he had controlled Guilden a day earlier.

I must live. I must live to hunt him down, for that is what I have ever become. A hunter. A lone wolf.