The Hollow Hunter

VI.

The hunter crouches in the brush of the tree line. Ahead of him, across an empty expanse of frozen earth, the brick-and-mortar walls of the abandoned fort rise up to bar access to the mountain pass cut between their towering granite faces. At the height of its use, this fort controlled travel through the mountain pass and served as the principal stronghold in guarding the Argonian Empire from the hostile Ishkaran Nations to the west. But those days are long past. The fort had proved economically unfeasible to inhabit as it was so far from the empire's borders that the cost of manning and supplying it outweighed its strategic benefits. So, twenty years ago, it was abandoned. In the ensuing decades the harsh winter winds of the mountains took their toll on the infrastructure. The walls began to degrade and crumble and the interior buildings began to sag and collapse. Now only one building remains intact and standing.

The lone building is the largest of the structures. It is carved out of the mountain face with the skill of the best Argonian architects. Elegant buttressed walls rise up to overlook the fortress in both directions, commanding a view of both the eastern forest and the snowy mountain pass to the west. The hunter can see the flickering lights of torches through the windows that look out from the building's facade. It undoubtedly used to serve as the fort's command post and is most likely where the Baron had set up camp ten years ago when he had first moved in with his brood.

As the hunter watches he catches glimpses of silver moonlight reflecting off the obsidian forms of the hollows as they patrol the walls between the crumbling watchtowers. He sits unmoving for half an hour, studying their patrols. He also watches how the grasses shiver in the crosswind and how the scudding clouds above create roving pockets of shadow that cross the empty expanse between him and the fortress walls. He takes in the environment, trying see all the parts of its shifting picture and become one with them, just another leaf blown with the breeze. When he is ready he exhales and stands and steps into the open.

He moves in a half-crouch, following the undulations of the waving grasses and sticking in the shadow of a dense cloud as it passes over the moon. He is sure that the crosswind will prevent any of the hollows from smelling him, but he still gives a wide berth to any silver reflections that he sees flicker between the cover of the battlements. To the idle watcher he is indiscernible against the backdrop of shifting grass and shadow.

He makes it to the cover of the wall without incident. Once he is safely in the wall's shadow he moves along it until he finds a place where the wind and snow have eroded the mortar to reveal a skeleton of chipped brick underneath. He waits a moment, warming his hands under his armpits and listening for any sounds of movement on the wall above. When he is sure he's alone, he grabs the first handhold and sets off.

He swarms up the wall with ease, scrambling over the battlements in a matter of seconds and rolling onto the walkway. He glances around him and can just make out the shape of a hollow moving away with its back to him. He has only a few seconds before it turns around. He leans out over the interior edge of the walkway and studies the courtyard below. It stands dark and desolate. Moonlight wars against holdouts of dappled shadow that huddle around the collapsed buildings. He can see no sign of hollows patrolling the cobblestones. He drops from the wall, falling ten feet and landing deftly with a roll before slipping into the shadows of the closest building.

The dilapidated structures offer plenty of cover and the hunter flits between them like a rouge shadow. He makes his way through the wreckage of a long single-story building that looks to have once been the garrison's barracks. Metal bunks strewn with torn sheets and rotten mattresses lay jostled and overturned throughout the wreckage. The walls and ceilings are charred and collapsing, scorched by some previous fire. He places his feet carefully, the soles of his boots making little scuffs across the floorboards.

The hunter crosses the length of the building and approaches the gaping hole that had once been a doorway. The entrance to the command building sits only twenty yards away across an empty expanse and up a small flight of uneven stone steps. He looks around carefully. The courtyard appears empty and silent save the whistling wind and the clatter of leaves across the cobblestones. He tentatively steps out of the shelter and right into the waiting trap.

A gargantuan figure charges around the corner as soon as he crosses the threshold and barrels into him, knocking him to the ground and forcing the breath from his lungs. The behemoth howls victoriously as it towers over him.

It stands over eight feet high, sheets of bulbous black muscle grow like fungi across the amalgam of human and animal skeletons that comprise the creature's body. Appendages sprout at irregular intervals all across its torso, arms being used as legs to support its massive frame while legs kick and flail uselessly atop its chest and back. It has at least five heads, three are stacked atop its hunched powerful shoulders with another two placed on its back and side. There is no order or reason to its form, it is a grotesque and chilling patchwork of ebony tissue and bone. It smiles at the hunter with its many mouths.

"I knew you were here, boy. You cannot hide from me." It swings down on him with a plethora of fists but the hunter rolls away and grabs his rifle. He fires again and again, unloading the entire magazine into the behemoth's midsection. The behemoth bellows and stumbles backward from the force of the blows. The hunter scrambles to his feet and begins to run as the marrow rounds erupt across its body. It is momentarily engulfed by smoke and green fire, but it comes charging out of the the haze, charred and pockmarked, but the black sinew already flows back over the wounds, mending them.

"Where are you going? There is no escape. You are trapped," the Baron bellows after him. Hollows stream down from the walls and out of the buildings. The hunter disengages the empty magazine as he runs and slots in another with practiced fingers. He shoots the hollows that get too close, but he is fighting a losing battle. They are all around him now, closing in fast. He sprints across the courtyard toward an open doorway. As he nears the entrance a hollow charges out and dives for him. He rolls under the strike and barrels through the entryway. The door is still intact and hanging loosely on its hinges. He slams it shut on the first of his pursuers and braces his back against it as they batter and splinter the wooden door. He looses the second marrow grenade from his bandolier and charges it up. When the hinges on the door give way he moves back and tosses the glowing orb into the wave of hollows that come bursting through the door after him. The explosion blows a chunk out of the stone walls and makes the whole building groan and shudder and begin to buckle in on itself.

"Well, fuck me." The hunter begins to sprint through the building as the support beams complain and break. Ceiling tiles crash to the ground. The hunter weaves through the collapse, making for a door at the far end of the space. As soon as he nears the door the behemoth comes crashing through the wall beside him, fingers reaching out hungrily and managing to snag the train of his cloak. He is jerked backward but is able to disengage the clasp and continue forward to burst out of the building just as it caves in on itself.

He careens across the cobblestones, breath coming in ragged gasps and aura dwindling to a soft glow in his chest. His limbs have grown numb from overexertion but he continues on. He makes for the stone steps but the hollows are faster and quickly begin to overtake him. He shoots until his magazine is empty and when he reaches down to grab the next from his bandolier two of their number pounce on his back and force him to the ground. He scrambles and kicks but they swarm over him, prying away his rifle and pistol and raising his struggling form toward the behemoth as it lumbers to stand over him. It reaches out and gingerly picks him up by his head like a child holds and inspects a doll. It grins at him with its many mouths.

"I admire your tenacity, but you do not seem to realize you have already lost. Your fate was sealed the moment you entered my town. Just give in. I can make the pain go away."

The hunter feels the black tendrils that make up the behemoth's hand slide down and begin to envelope his skull. He kicks the beast in its chest but his boots just sink into the bubbling mass of black. He screams as the behemoth pulls him into a bear hug and the hunter begins to sink into its massive form. Before he disappears he reaches for his bandolier and channels marrow into his final grenade. As he fades into the black he sees the flash of its explosion and hears the behemoth bellow in pain. Then he is subsumed in darkness.