Broken But Unburnt

Chapter 2 - Calliope

Chapter 2: Calliope

Forests of Yseult Dwelling

Border of Delos and Karil

Deep in the Delosian forests, due east of the city of Jeryl, far from either the Karilish or Idorian borders, there are monsters. Vicious creatures so terrible and fearsome that they are spoken of nowhere except for in tales meant to frighten children away from wandering too far into the woods. But there is a group of people, a clan with a keep carved into the side of the Tavish Mountains, who hunt them. Calliope Barlowe is one of those people.

She was told the stories as well. They were read to her at night just before she was tucked into bed and told to dream sweetly. But the way of the Yseult, this ancient mountain-dwelling, monster-hunting clan, was not to avoid fear but rather to embrace it.

We fight that which lingers in the dark.

Ham usase ladate hain jo andhere mein rahata hai.

The words of her people. Her words.

She had been training to hunt monsters for as long as she could remember. When she was four, her father and other members of the order had erected an obstacle course for her, complete with flying daggers and treacherous stone stairs dangling precariously out of the mountain face. When she was seven, her father made her forge her own sword. A small thing, it was, and thin as a reed. But she practiced three times a day with it until her ninth birthday when he gifted her her first bow and a set of arrows and that became her focus. She faced her first beast at eleven. A Minotaur. Enormous and grotesque, wicked and brutal. By fourteen, she'd slain a basilisk, four trolls, two ogres, and a handful of hydras. Now, at seventeen, she'd developed a sort of... well, she wouldn't call it bloodlust. But she'd been itching for another hunt lately and her father had refused to take her out on all of the 'dangerous' ones, despite the fact that he'd been training her for them her entire life.

So he was off with a few of the other men hunting after a chimera and she and Sebastian were here, in the quiet woods not far from the keep, on the lookout for an adolescent cyclops that the local children had sworn was ambling around here somewhere. Her father had dismissed it as foolish local lore, claimed those kids wouldn't know a cyclops if it picked them up and tossed them into the air. But Calliope knew better. There was always a hint of truth in all of these rumors, at least, where monsters were concerned. Besides, she was bored.

Somewhere behind her, a twig snapped. Her lips spread into a cruel smile and she slowed her pace, reaching slowly and silently to the dagger at her waist. But not slowly enough. A low growl emitted from behind her. That was the groan of a cyclops if she'd ever heard it. And she had.

It lunged for her, bursting from the bushes, at the exact moment that she ducked and rolled to the side. It avoided her narrowly, loose tendrils of her curly hair blowing into her face in the breeze the attack created. She puffed out a breath and leapt to her feet. The cyclops had already recovered, redirected, and was heading straight for her again. Bouncing on her heels, she turned, and ran. It followed, the stride of its long legs worth two of her own. She wouldn't have long. It would catch up to her soon enough. But she vaulted over stones and swung under branches that the creature simply crashed through. The obstacles slowed him down, not her. Still, he was nearly matching her pace.

She was close. She could practically taste it. The shift in the air. Less stale out in the open than in the canopy of trees. A slight breeze, not even enough to notice unless you were looking for it, waiting for it. She counted trees. One. Two. Three... there. She leaped into the air, spreading her feet wide. Again, the monster didn't jump. But this time, the obstacle he ran into was a trap. A trip wire laid carefully by Calliope and Sebastian themselves just days before. From the trees above, a net fell sharply down, covering the cyclops in one fell swoop. Calliope grabbed the end of the net and ran, sliding between the creature's legs and sweeping him off of his feet before securing it on another tree nearby.