Monster Hunter Bloodlines - eARC by Larry Correia (read a book .txt) 📕

We hobbled faster down the path, except from the way the truck was heading directly for us, we had already been spotted. I’d retrieved Cazador from the wreck, but there were far too many of them for me to try and shoot it out.

There were two stone statues just ahead, one on each side of the path. They were so weathered that it was hard to tell, but they had to be the image of some ancient goddess. They were solid enough to stop bullets though, so we could at least hide behind them.

The truck reached the edge of the field but was far too wide to make it up the path. It stopped. A bunch of men immediately bailed out and started shooting at us. The supersonic rifle bullets made a terrifying crack as they sped past. The subsonic pistol rounds sounded like angry bees buzzing by. The only thing that kept us from getting killed was the range, but they were making up for that with volume.

Except the instant we were past the statues, the noise abruptly stopped. It was dead quiet.

We had crossed a border.

This was Fey land.

The creatures appeared all around us, lining the path. Short and tall, thick or thin, but all oddly crooked things. Hairy beasts that looked like ogres but without heads and instead with eyes in their chests and mouths on their bellies. Gnome-sized things that looked like monkeys, but with a tail that ended in an all-too-human hand. And too many other strange new things I’d never seen before, all at once, jabbering and hooting, assaulting my already battered senses.

Marching toward us was a cadre of what had to be their soldiers, because their bearing reminded me of the Fey knights I’d fought in the Nightmare Realm. Only these were seven feet tall, bronze-skinned, wearing uniforms made of animal skins and decorated with bones, and carrying strange wooden weapons that appeared organically grown rather than built, studded with obsidian spikes—but these were clearly Fey knights, and thus scary as hell.

I looked back. There was a pile of bullets lying there on the path, like they’d instantly run out of energy and just fallen out of the sky, except they were still spinning from their rifling. I had no logical explanation for that. The Fey followed different laws of physics than we did.

In the distance, the death squad had stopped shooting, and that same too-familiar officer I’d seen earlier was madly gesturing for his men to cease fire. Apparently, his orders didn’t include starting shit with the Fey. Smart. I’d seen what these things could do.

Despite the crowd of fascinating weirdness, I had to stop and check myself for bullet holes, but my luck had held. “Are you okay?”

Except Sonya was just staring at the Fey, dumbstruck, because even though half her ancestors came from a different bizarro world, she’d mostly grown up like a human, and this had just gotten weird. There was a reason Earl always preached that the most important trait a Hunter could have was a flexible mind.

“Sonya!”

“I’m fine. Fine!”

The lead Fey knight stopped right in front of us. I couldn’t see his face because he was wearing a helmet made out of the bleached skull of some kind of predator I’d never seen before. There was no greeting. No elaborate introduction. He just pointed impatiently for us to continue down the path. We were late.

Except I had to check one thing first. I aimed Cazador at the death squad leader, and then cranked the magnification on the scope all the way up to twenty-five power so I could get a better look at the man.

Impossible.

I’d only ever seen him in human form once, and that had been in the brief instant before I’d shot him in the head. Except I was absolutely certain.

I’d seen through his eyes, lived his memories, felt what he’d felt, and knew just how insane he had been five hundred years ago, and that had been before he’d been cursed by the Old Ones and turned into a force of absolute evil. There was no way he could be here now, alive and seemingly human, but there he was. I had no doubt it was him.

It was Lord Machado!

It took me a second to get over the shock but fuck that guy. I estimated the range, adjusted for the holdover and wind, flipped the safety off, put my finger on the trigger and—

The Fey knight violently slapped Cazador’s muzzle down.

“Dahk!” That had to mean no. The blank skull face looked down at me and made an angry, disapproving gesture. Killing was not allowed. Just as the death squad wasn’t allowed to start a fight with the Fey here, neither were the Fey or their guests allowed to attack the servants of the Old Ones. This was neutral ground.

Too bad the Fey were fools. They didn’t realize how dangerous Lord Machado was. If he was back, things were far worse than anyone realized. But I also had no doubt these Fey would kill me before I could get off a shot if I tried again. I put Cazador back on safe. “After you.”

As the big truck with my somehow-returned-to-life enemy drove away, the band of monsters led me and Sonya to the meeting.

* * *

It was like walking into a living castle.

The grove was made out of the thickest, greenest plant life I’d ever seen. It was probably a pretty normal place most of the time, but with Fey royalty present the plants had taken on unnatural vitality, grown at mind-bending rate, and woven themselves into intricate designs to please their queen. The forest had grown into the form of a throne room. The canopy created a dome fifty feet tall, but with plenty of gaps to let in the perfect amount of light and shadow. All the blooming flowers probably smelled nice to everybody else, but they were hell on my allergies.

There were hundreds of odd beings assembled there. Fey