Poachers were your monsters of the previous world. Fire starters of forests, killers of the animal kingdoms, and destroyers of entire ecosystems. Back then, they were the tormenters of activists but providers of the rich. They had not only fought nature but also against their own fellow men. Many wars started because of these hated people, and many protectors had failed to eradicate their kind. But in apocalyptic Alluvium, these monsters became the heroes.
Coursier stilled his breathe as the billow of flapping wings flew passed his post. Beneath the protection of netting and dead foliage, the Hawker tightened on the grip of his sniper rifle and slowed his heart beat when the gargantuan pigeon dropped down on the deer entrails. Coursier was at a prone position, nestle just a few degrees south to where he had laid his trap in an open field. Normally, the mutated bird was keen of their surroundings, feral as they are throughout the years. But because they’ve grown in size, the size of her buffalo, Coffee, the avians lost their survival instincts and abused their evolution on eroded trash and the humans specifically.
Coursier most daintily hate the peckers. The controlled anger he claimed was one of the many lessons he learned when the beasts stormed a city as large as the capital years ago. They worked with a flock and it wasn’t a surprise when another fowl came from the same direction of the first and chowed. Fortunately, they ate slow. Their beaks were hardly poking their meal after each angle of their eyes on the prey. And the Hawker had prepared four cattle. All of which he had hunted hours into the night and placed in a circumference. Another swooped in, this one of larger build and bigger chest, who pecked on its comrade and snacked at the remaining head. The same fatso claimed one of the other and but swallowed the doe in one gulp. Coursier’s open hand played over his trap’s switch, his patience thinning as the bore angled for the last pile of carcass.
Arriving on time before class, it was fortunate when another creature arrived. Ungraciously, it was not Coursier wanted it to be.
Stumbling heatedly from the bleak forest, a dark heavy shadow stormed drunklike to the open. Its bulky heft, its three feet raggedly balancing from its missing other, took all the avians’ attentions as it was forced to crash to earth.
Like the pigeons, Coursier’s eyes strained inside his heat-sensor scope. The lump was lengthy and wide as a shack, its dark continence moving within the scope and undetected. So, as what experienced Hawkers do, Coursier had to pull from his firearm and started packing quietly. Similar to a wisp of air, the Hawker slipped his rifle to its sheath, silently latching the clasp of the cartridge and bundled the netting to its bag.
That cold thing that he had slowly desert of course was an unbreathing. No Hawker was eager enough to hunt down such beasts, and so forth, swallowing his regret, Coursier wrapped his fingers on the trap’s switch for a few seconds before flipping the head. Coursier did not wait when wire strappings cinched in the field, followed by a snap and the pigeons cooing in the distance to the net encasing them. No lattice was going to hold an unbreathing, so it wasn’t long for the Hawker to crawl like a dead worm back to camp, and to hear the grizzly march of the unbreathing on its prey. How expensive it was to Coursier’s ears when the netting tore and the stupid birds cawing through the tearing of flesh.
Dawn was just rising in the horizon when the Hawker arrived at camp. Kith, who was still worried of their explosive cargo, had stranded away from the site and stole up high on a dry tree. He still had sight on their companion’s tent and he himself was nearing nod when Coursier ordered, “Gather your things, we leave–now...”
The Hawker paused when he did not find the man he was addressing. For Kith, he gave the veteran a moment to his owns thoughts. His bothered amble signaled danger that was just at a run, but Kit was not going to throw off his immediate advantage point if there was some thing following the old geezer.
But Hawkers are very well-known for their predatory skills, so Kith did not fall off from surprise when the trapper’s eyes found his perch. However, the old man immediately reminded the youth of his rank. When Coursier’s brows furrowed, Kith knew his lag to reacting to his orders triggered insubordination.
“Get down there, idiot,” the Hawker quietly hissed before sauntering off to his carriage and buffalo. “We need to make distance before the unbreathing reaches our camp”.
Hopping to from the fifteen-meter bark, Kith left his tree with a flourish, from one branch to the next, before coming down to alluvium with the gentlest touch. Coursier was just about to load up his crates when he gave another swift order, “Wake the lass and help her pack.”
Accepting the command, Kith turned towards the tent. Unlike him who had watched half of the night, Kith knew the woman had a wonderful sleep. Considering that her sniffling ended just about an hour ago and the sun was now summersaulting in the east. Reorganizing his own agenda for the day, Kith just had his hand inside the tent flap when a hand pulled him over.
Pulled was an exaggeration. The woman’s tight grip on his arm was barely making him sway when Kith stepped in in his on volition. She had an average height but most women struggle when they latch on his long warm. And for a recently paralyzed patient, the woman was a wonder when she continued to endure her hold as though her other arm, covered even if, was bleeding and dripping blood.
Curiosity stole seconds of their circumstance. Both of them were still in awe with how in the hell they were pulling these off on one another when a growl was heard from outside.
