Chapter 18: The Hunt Ends

Khukri followed Master’s orders to the letter, maintaining formation with Perch’s pack as they engaged the beast. The strike team was everything she’d hoped. They’d encircled their prey with lightning-fast dashes, letting off short barks to signal every shift in the beast’s attention and maintaining constant updates to their position. Khukri drew blood from its hind leg, then fell into a retreat as Perch’s pack stopped it from pressing an assault. It was glorious while it lasted, and there was never a doubt in Khukri’s mind that they were poised for a flawless kill.

That’s when the howl came, not from a flanker warning of interference, but from the girl defending Perch’s master. A full retreat ensued. Instantly, they fell into form, allowing the drake to fight another day as they rushed to Issac’s aid. By the time he appeared, Khukri was already furiously searching for Master’s scent on the air - and finding nothing.

Khukri ran past, ears straining as her head whipped about before finally resting her attention on Issac, fur standing on end. With clenched teeth, she stepped forward, words coming to her lips harsher than she meant. “Where’s Master!”

“Grab her.”

Too late, Khukri recognized she’d allowed herself to be surrounded. First, she dropped the spear; it’d be too unwieldy to bring to bear in close-quarters combat. Before the first girl could move, Khukri twisted and threw an elbow. The strike cracked against a spear haft as her opponent performed an expertly timed block, though she wasn’t quite so fast as to avoid the low sweeping kick Khukri followed with. The hunter yelped as Khukri connected with her ankles and sent her sprawling to the dirt. With the closest girl down, Khukri had just enough time to whip out one of her knives in a wild slash, driving three encroaching sets of hands back. Khukri pressed the attack, knife flashing in rapid shallow strikes as she struggled to maintain a position where none of the girls were in her blind spot. She failed.

Keeping track of fourteen opponents in a fight was a losing endeavour against untrained opponents; against hardened veterans like Perch’s crew, the fight was over before it began. When Khukri’s knife slipped sideways to push one back, another fell on her from behind, seizing Khukri’s wrist, followed by six more sets of hands that easily subdued her.

As frantically as she struggled, there was little she could do as Perch’s pack pulled Khukri's arms apart and left her helpless. She snarled as she was shoved to her knees and presented to Issac as a trophy. “Where’s Master?” she demanded again. “What did you do with him?”

“Someone attacked us,” Issac said, handing a rope to his girls. “Whoever they were, they masked their scent to get in close, then waited until you were distracted to make their move. Ruari led them away, and without him, there’s too high a risk of you going feral. You’ll be restrained until I figure out what’s going on.”

Khukri’s blood ran cold as she forcibly relaxed her muscles. It had to be Via, finally coming to take Master for the bounty on his head. That meant, at least for the moment, he was alive. “You don’t need to be afraid of me,” she insisted. “I’ll help you find them, but we need to move fast to get Master back!”

“What we’re going to do - is follow procedure,” Issac insisted, motioning for the others to tie Khukri’s arms behind her back. “We’re going to the outpost, then I’m going to surrender myself to security and turn my slaves over for questioning. I’m a company executive, and, after today, a suspect for assassinating royalty. The Direwood Syndicate hires multiple independent security companies specifically to handle incidents like this. Do you have any idea the questions I’ll be answering if I turn a feral wolf loose at a crime scene?”

“Please,” Khukri begged, falling to her stomach as Issac’s guards bound her. “I’m a tracking specialist, and I’ve been with Master for seven weeks. I’m the only one attuned to his scent; no one can follow his trail like I can. Even if they could, it’d take hours to get them out here, and he might not have that kind of time.”

Issac’s jaw tightened as he looked back the way he came. “It’s not that I don’t want to help, but security is more qualified-”

“Then go get security!” Khukri yelled. “But Master’s in trouble now. I track targets so someone else can bring them down all the time, so let me do my job! Security can’t do shit if they don’t know where to look!”

“Damn it, Ruari,” Issac sighed, stepping away from Khukri as he motioned for her to be released. “Perch!”

Perch straightened, a dubious look on her face. “Yes, Master?”

“Take four girls and go with the wolf. Use her to find out what happened to Ruari. If you find him, don’t let his captors know. As for her? If she so much as touches a weapon or removes her claw sheaths, kill her. Take no chances.”

“Thank you,” Khukri said, hastily stumbling to her feet as the ropes fell free.

Perch whirled on her, levelling a spear. “Claw sheaths, wolf. Now!”

A twitch inside Khuri rankled at the order. It had been some time since Maya’s pack kept her in line, and she’d grown accustomed to Master’s gentleness. After stepping back, Khukri raised her hands so the others could see, then secured the leather over her claws.

“I want two girls running between groups on constant rotation,” Issac ordered. “One to send orders, one to keep me updated so I can relay it to security.”

As fast as Issac could manage, everyone made their way to the hunting blind where Issac retrieved his crossbow and indicated Master’s last known direction. Khukri, the moment she was allowed, led five women with spears trained on her back toward Master’s scent.

It wasn’t long before they found his clothes and pack strewn about the dirt. Perch pulled ahead, raising a hand to stop them, then grabbed Master’s cloak and sniffed it. “This is his?” she asked.

It wasn’t really a question, but a confirmation. Everyone here had seen Master wearing it. Khukri nodded.

“No sign of a struggle,” Perch noted, staring in the direction Master’s smell led. “They were already willing to use alchemy, so maybe he thought they sprayed him with something back at the outpost? It would explain why he wasted time removing his clothes.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“He’d head for the river,” Khukri said. “He knows how scent tracking works, and that would give him the best chance to lose them.”

“Only one way to find out.” Perch led the group after Master’s scent, only to stop a minute later. “He didn’t make it to the river.”

The mixed scent of blood and bile flared Khukri’s anxiety, leaving her rushing past Perch in a panic, only to find a length of bloody fabric and a soggy paper too covered in fluids to read. The confrontation with Via happened here, and she’d been too busy hunting to do the one thing he bought her for.

Perch knelt, checking the linen for his scent. “It’s Ruari’s,” she concluded. “The blood’s all from one person, doesn’t look like enough to kill him though. Anyone find a body?”

While the other girls circled wide, calling out negative responses, Khukri sifted through the scents of various dogs. That stupid alchemical dampener was hell on her senses, blurring signature smells together until she could only be certain someone was here, which was less useful than just looking at the ground. “They applied the solution to him here,” Khukri said, circling the site until she found sets of claw marks that sunk deeper into the dirt than the others. “They carried him from here. His weight’s spread between two of them; he was probably knocked unconscious and tied to something.”

“Or killed,” Perch cut in.

No, not killed. Master couldn’t be dead; he’d told her Via wanted him alive, plus, if he was dead, this trail would only lead to madness and execution. What point was there in entertaining the thought?

“Either way, there’s nothing for us to do here,” Khukri insisted. “If he didn’t escape, we follow.”

The hunters dashed through the wood with Khukri in the lead, blindly chasing the warped scent over every ridge and around every tree. They had to be faster. Even if Master wasn’t struggling, they’d still need to carry him, and that load had to slow them down. This was what she was made for. She didn’t need to take the target down; didn’t even need to rescue Master herself. Her prey had a complicated goal: escape while dragging an unwilling target. All she needed to win was to identify their location. Their group bounded over the next ridge, then skid to a halt, sending a shower of dirt into the wide chasm of water ahead.

The endless flowing river stretched forever in either direction, replacing the air in Khukri’s lungs with dread as she gave up looking for the difficult scent. Her training, her race, her specialization, all of it meant nothing with no trail to follow, leaving her a weapon for a man disarmed.

“They were using alchemy to dampen their scent before they reached the river, and they could’ve exited anywhere; we’ll never find them.” Perch motioned to the other guards. “This hunt is over, we’re heading back to the outpost to meet with Master.”

Khukri’s ears shot upright as her head whipped around to look at Perch. “The hunt… The hunt is over?”

The woman tensed, eyes narrowing as she slowly levelled her spear. “Congratulations, it would seem the rumours about wolves' ears are true.”

The girls jumped back, levelling spears as Khukri snapped her pocket open and removed the pouch. She hastily pulled the drawstrings open and slid free a folded paper. With trembling fingers, she flipped it open. “Stupid asshole...” she muttered, paper crunching as her grip tightened.

“I said we go back.” Issac’s Whip insisted, spear edging closer. “Don’t make me put you down, wolf.”

“No,” Khukri said, glaring at the woman. “Issac ordered you to follow the trail with me.”

“They ran into a river!” Perch insisted. “There’s no trail to follow! He’s gone.”

Khukri looked down at the wrinkled paper, viewing the familiar scene of buildings and docks propped up over the ocean. In Sven’s perfect detail, Via’s ship, the Ambition, floated lazily in a charcoal sea, marred by a scrawled arrow in blue ink coming from an antler leaden stick figure. “I’m a tracking specialist,” she reminded the girl confidently. “Maybe you can’t see the trail, but I can. Now, we move.”

***

Khukri and the girls crouched outside the port, watching as the sun sunk below the water and left them in ever-increasing darkness. She twitched, impatient eyes focused on the barely visible ships still at the docks. “We-”

“We wait,” Perch snapped. “Master says we wait, so we wait.”

“If they set sail-”

Several spearpoints jutted her way while Perch tapped the rope hanging from her belt. “Either you wait, or we tie you back up.”

Nervously, Khukri grit her teeth and sat back down, watching from cover as wagons rolled into port. Honestly, Via probably didn’t come straight through the forest as they had, but returned to the outpost, loaded his unconscious body into an insulated crate, and sent it to her ship by wagon. Master probably rolled down that road while Khukri sat mere metres away, and she’d simply failed to notice. Unfortunately, many wagons passed by, and she’d only get one accusation before they had proof she’d lost the trail.

“Perch!” Another of Issac’s girls darted through the woods, quickly followed by fourteen familiar faces.

Perch jumped to her feet, examining the newcomers. “Who’s this?”

“This is Maya. She’s the Whip to the highest-ranked premium pack. Issac issued a 24-hour emergency confiscation.”

Maya stepped forward, shaking Perch’s hand and offering Khukri a smile.

“What about our pack?” Perch asked.

“Master orders you to return to the outpost and turn yourself over to security for questioning,” Maya said, folding her hands behind her back. “He’s explained the situation, and my girls have extensive experience with wolves. We’ll take over from here.”

Perch looked to the girl who’d led Maya here for confirmation, then made a sharp gesture, causing her packmates to snap to attention. “We’ll leave it to you then.” Her gaze shifted from Maya to Khukri, softening slightly. “Good luck, Khukri.” Then, they were gone.

Khukri rose, smiling gratefully at her old pack.

“Hey Khukri,” Annah said, shouldering her spear as she came close. “Abyssal drake scale armour? I guess hunting for royalty has its perks.”

The smile faded from Khukri’s lips. As desperately as she wanted to see her friends, Master’s life, and her own, were on precariously muddy footing. “He needs to keep me safe, I’m his only one.” She turned, looking back into the port, assuring herself The Ambition hadn’t left yet.

“Yeah, I heard about that,” Annah scoffed, gaze roaming the pack before settling on Maya. “Can’t we bring Khukri back into the pack for now? Keep her from turning if the worst happens?”

“No,” Khukri said. “Master is my owner, his authority is the only one I’ll respect.”

A few girls nodded approvingly as Maya approached, clapping Khukri on the shoulder. “Well, what’re we waiting for then? Let’s go save this royal of yours.”