The Hunt Begins

Silva never returned to Lunari after the battle. When he got near the city, he received word that the military had essentially locked down the city to find him. He had attempted to murder the king of an allied nation after all. So he had turned right around and headed back toward the mountains.

None in Lunaria knew the mountains like Silva Darkmoon. He knew every path, game trail, landmark, and even natural formation within the mountain range. He spent all his time in these mountains as a child, and even now he still came here when he needed to refill on poison. He was always careful to leave the animals he found alone, especially wolves. He had always loved animals far more than humans, and had a respect for wolves since he was 9.

Currently, he had resolved to stay up here in the mountains for a few days until the search had died down a bit and he could slip into the city unnoticed. Once inside, he would never be found. He had too many contacts and disguises in place to allow that to happen. The military had erred by not catching him immediately, three years ago. They had given him time to dig into the city, to get roots and connections that would make it incredibly difficult to find him if he wanted to remain hidden.

He passed the time up in the mountains by training. He didn't really care about his loss at the hands of Emperor Ryu Shinra. He had known from the start that he wouldn't win. In fact, he had actually sat up and laughed when Ryu rode away. There was nothing he could do about it. The only thing there was to do was train and improve himself further. In the city, he was the ruthless Dark Moon, but up here, he was just Silva.

He had taken off his armor and trained physically in the bitter cold of the mountains. His muscles were already well conditioned, and couldn't be much improved on with his body alone, but it helped to keep them in shape. He did the standard bodily routines of pushups, sit ups, and pull ups. He used the natural rocks and bolders in the area to work on upper body strength, and climbed some of the particuarly rocky faces of the mountains to work on his leg strength.

After strength training, he practiced his archery, which he was already deadly accurate at, and his knife throwing, which again, he almost never missed. He had set up three targets made of cloth attached to rocks. In the exact center of each piece, he drew a bullseye with the clay on the ground, and fired off. He switched between his bow and daggers. He tried it while running, rolling, dodging, and over all every way he could think of. Every single shot hit exactly where he wanted it to. Eleven years of training with weaponry had not gone to waste. To his disdain, he realized he was at his physical peak.

He was as strong, fast, and accurate as he could become through natural means. There was no way for him to improve by himself, and the thought that someone could be so much better than him as Ryu Shinra disheartened him. He thought about what he could do differently. He needed to figure out why he wasn't improving, yet there were others who were stronger and faster than him.

The answer hit him like a truck. Magic. It was his weak spot, and his downfall. Thinking back on his fight with Ryu, most of the reasons why he was so helpless was because of his magic barrages. Magic was what he could do differently. It was also his biggest problem.

When he was younger, he had been told by multiple people that he had a natural affinity for Ice magic. Indeed, Ice magic came to him naturally, and he found it easy to cast. The problem was the after effect. Anything more than a simple spell would fatigue him, so completely and fully that he couldn't even think straight, let alone swing a sword. It was a setback that kept him from ever using it in battle. It was a condition he had never heard of before, and couldn't help but wonder why it happened.

He closed his eyes, and tapped into the magical energy within him. This part he had no problem with, it was actually simple. Then he raised his hand, and shot an icicle from the palm of his hand, at one of the targets. It hit exactly where his hand had been pointed. For an instant, he felt fine, and no after effects seemed to surface from the basic spell.

Then it happened.

All the strength in his body seemed to leave him, and he collapsed to the ground, falling on one knee. His vision blurred, and he was unable to see for a brief instant. He honestly thought he would pass out from the casting. When it passed, he was kneeling there, shirtless, in the snow, trembling from exhaustion.

It was frustrating. He had never heard of anything like this ever happening to a mage before. Even people without a natural affinity to any given element could have done that spell with no problem, yet Silva couldn't even stand after it. It was a mystery he had pondered for years, and one he was no closer to finding than when he started.

He thought again on the battle with Ryu Shinra, and realized something that troubled him. His thoughts had conflicted upon themselves again, and once again they did so when Ryu was around him. He had heard legends of the Scaradian Regalia, Kongxulung, and it's abilities to mess with the mind of those near it. Did Ryu have it in his posession? No, Silva decided. He was reasonably certain that Ryu didn't have it. If he did, chances are he would have used it and Silva would be dead.

Of course, even if Ryu thought Silva wasn't worth using the god-weapon on, there is still the fact that he said the force wave he had produced was a tenth of his power. There is no way that would even be a hundrenth if he had a Regalia. Plus the fact that the Regalias had been hidden for a thousand years, and the odds that Ryu had found The Dragon of the Void were so slim it wasn't even worth calculating. Although, this Dragon Emperor was different than his father had been. No, his conflicting thoughts were the result of something else.

Thinking back on it, it was almost as though he became a completely different person when Ryu Shinra was involved. His hatred seemed to take on a personality of it's own. Silva found himself slightly worried, was he going insane? It was not like him for his emotions to have much of an effect on his actions, at least, not since that day..... three years ago.

He shook his head clear of such thoughts. He wasn't that person anymore. He didn't have any love or kindness left in him, or if he did, he was hated too much to put it to use. All he needed was to become the best he could be. He couldn't afford to regret his old life.

A cold breeze blew through him, and he was reminded of just how cold it was up here in the mountains where it seemed winter was eternal. Night was coming, and the moon was just beginning to rise above the horizon. No man would stay out in the open without a fire at night here, the temperatures often dropped far below freezing.

Silva paused. Another breeze blew by him, but this time he was certain he could hear something. A whispering seemed to be in the howling of nature's breath, a chorus of voices he couldn't make out in the wind. He got the idea that perhaps the spirits of his beloved moon were calling to him, then the wind stopped and he thought logically.

He shivered a bit, then flexed his muscles. No ordinary man would stay out in the mountains after dark, but Silva was no ordinary man, and he had a physical wall to punch through.

Fenris was panting hard, as he had been running all day. The pass between the mountains was long and narrow, and his group had been chased by a Heraclian formation for hours. The wedge formation the enemy army had formed was able to punch through any defensive line, despite how well maintained it was. Fenris had retreated, and now he and his twenty men fan back toward Lunaria, the Heraclians never far behind.

The formation stretched to each wall of the pass, and Heraclians, ever full of endurance, showed no signs of tiring. The Lunarians were falling to exhaustion, and Fenris knew it was only a matter of time before they caught up.

It's what he was counting on.

Once he got to a certain spot, he ordered his small group to turn around and fight. At the same time, his real group, the Lunarian Wolves, leapt out of their hiding places on top of the pass and jumped into the Heraclian formation. So stunned were the enemy soldiers by the surprise attack that their formation broke. Lunarians weren't supposed to be offensive. They shouldn't launch surprise ambushes like this. It's what Fenris had planned on.

That was the beauty of the Wolves. Lunaria's elite fighting unit was all about turning the tide of the battle. They were only ever sent where the situation was desperate. Though technically, in the eyes of the military, they were simply the 54th regiment of the Lunarian Army, their name carried renown throughout all Lunaria. It was every young soldier's dream to join the Wolves, to join that exclusive brotherhood.

Fenris watched as Orphius, the Wolves' sole battlemage, summoned a blizzard to blind the enemies, while also raining down huge hailstones to crush them. It was amazing how much one mage could change the course of a battle. He grinned at Orphius, then took the life of another Heraclian soldier. He loved this.

Of course, he would have loved it even more if his old friend were fighting beside him. How he missed him. The Wolves were the best Lunaria had to offer, and Silva Darkmoon was arguably the best Wolf to ever be. He always seemed to know just what to do to maximize damage, and knew exactly where he was needed. He had been a fine Brother Wolf, but then he became a rouge.

Fenris's thoughts were interrupted. The battle was won, and the line secured. A messenger was hurrying toward him. The message he was given told him to meet General Cato Sicarius as soon as he could get there. Naturally, Fenris ignored the note and checked to see if his brothers had received any major wounds. Once he was satisfied, he ran to the General's tent.

When he got there, he  was admitted at once. General Sicarius was the leader of the largest of Lunaria's armies. Fenris had never been called to him before, because he was still technically a squire.

"Please, sit down." Said the 36-year old General. His face was marred with battle scars, and his complexion was gruff. When he spoke, he spoke with an air of superiority, which also seemed to shine in his numerous war medals. "Fenris Anderson?"

"That would be me, sir." Fenris didn't understand what was going on. Why had he been called here by the General?

"It is come to my attention that you are a prominent figure among the 54th regiment. Have you heard this before?"

"Yes sir! We call our selves the Lunarian Wolves, and they recognize me as their leader." This caused the General to look up and raise an eyebrow.

"That is not an officially assigned name. And last I checked, I believe Lieutenant Sampson was in charge of the 54th, not Fenris Anderson."

"On paper he is sir. However, he doesn't follow us into battle and most of the commands fall upon me. If Sampson told them all to kill me, and I asked them to take their own lives, they would kill themselves."

"Is that a threat soldier?"

"No sir." Fenris replied, using that wolfish grin of his. "Just merely saying that ranks aren't all that they seem."

"This is ridiculous," Sicarious stated. "You are a squire in the Lunarian Army. You are in the 54th regiment, and you are not a leader of any kind. You are however, incredibly skilled at tracking. I believe you may have heard of a man formerly from your 'Wolves' as you call them named Silva Darkmoon?"

Fenris's heart sunk. He had been waiting for three years for official news on Silva. Rumors weren't enough to go by. Was Sicarius going to tell him that he had finally been captured? "Yes sir." He replied.

"He has become a wanted rouge. Officially, a search has been conducted for the past three years, but everyone who found a lead ended up dead. He's been pretty low on our threat scale, what with the two front war and all, but now things have changed.

"A nobleman was found dead at his own party last week. In his hands was the signature calling card of Silva Darkmoon. Now, orders have just come in from the king. In a battle yesterday on the Solarian front, Emperor Ryu Shinra helped to turn the tide of the war. Apparently, at the end of the battle, Darkmoon tried and failed to assassinate him. The king wants him found and killed at all costs. To attack a King of an allied country is to attack the King himself, and now we have to find him."

"And you want me to join the investigation?" Fenris asked, his voice uneasy of the thought of trying to kill his best friend.

"I want you to lead it. You will be removed from your current regiment and briefed on all the information gathered on Darkmoon so far in the morning. You are dismissed soldier."

"But sir, I must pro-"

"Dismissed." Sicarius turned his back, making it clear he wasn't going to talk any longer. Fenris was in turmoil. He couldn't resist an order from a direct superior, but he neither wanted to leave the Wolves nor hunt Silva.

Unfortunately, it didn't look like he had much of a choice. He just hoped Silva would come out of this okay.

He walked out of the General's tent, and headed for his own. He needed to pack.

"Oh Silva," he muttered, "what have you done to yourself?"

The next day, Fenris had been shown to the investigation group. He still wasn't happy about being reassigned, but he had promised the Wolves that he would return and he wouldn't keep them waiting long. Due to his foul mood, it was no surprise he wanted to get out right away.

After the situation report, Fenris picked twenty strong young soldiers to accompany him on a forward scouting mission. Lunari had been locked down, and Fenris was certain that even Silva Darkmoon wouldn't try and get into that impregnable city at this time. Fenris knew Silva like no other, and knew exactly where he would be. In the mountains.

As a child, Fenris spent a fair amount of times in the mountains with Silva. He may not have had nearly as much knowledge about them as Silva, but he knew a good amount of the paths that led into them. He figured these would be a good place to start.

He led the men into the mountains a few hours after sunrise. They intended on searching all day.

"So," one of the men behind him was asking, "do you think we'll find him?"

"I don't know." Said the man next to him. "If this Silva character is as good as they say, we could search for months and never find him."

"Bah, you don't really believe that, do ya?"

"Well, I don't know. They say he took on the Scaradian Emperor, and lived."

"He probably wasn't worth killing in Shinra's eyes." It was at this Fenris had heard enough.

"Look." He said simply, his anger rising. "It would be a grave mistake to underestimate Silva Darkmoon. He used to be a Wolf, and the best damn Wolf to ever be at that. He knows just about every conventional way to kill a man, and will often do it before you ever realize you're in danger. He's no novice in hand to hand combat either, and pray his sword doesn't come within reach of you." He didn't know why, but he didn't like to hear his good old friend badmouthed like that.

"Well, how would you know all that mr. Fe-" The man suddenly cut off.

Fenris turned around, and saw a black-shafted arrow sticking out of the man's throat. He drew his sword, and immediately looked around the surrounding area. It was too rocky to get a good fix on where the shot had come from. He was still searching when two more men behind him dropped.

Fenris looked at his men, and saw they were readying one of their defensive formations. After all, Silva was known to work alone, and the arrows appeared to come from only one bow. Fenris nodded his approval, then silently snuck up around the rocks.

He had just checked around the first rock, when he saw something both amazing and terrible. A black clad shape jumped down from a rock, into the middle of the formation. Fenris saw the glint of a sword and dagger, and watched as two men immediately in the middle fell down. In the ensuing seconds, Fenris couldn't make out the specific moves, but he knew exactly where Silva was. There were several sounds of steel clashing on steel, but it appeared Silva had the advantage.

Silva was one man. As long as he could keep moving about the soldiers and either kill or parry the attackers coming at him, only one or two of Fenris's men could actually swing at him. The rest were confided due to the rocks and other allies. Within five minutes, all twenty of the men Fenris had brought were lying dead. Most with wicked sword or dagger wounds.

Fenris looked around, but Silva was out of sight again. He didn't like not knowing where he was, or whether or not he was hostile. He had just begun to creep around his rock when he got his answer.

Fenris was turned around and slammed against the rock. His arm was twisted behind him, and his other arm was between him and the rock. He felt the extreme cold of a scarily familiar blade press the back of his skull. This is it, he thought. This is the end of my life.

"Achoo." Then the pressure holding him against the rock was gone. Fenris was surprised. Had he just heard a sneeze? He was more than confused. Why had Silva let him live, when he had so mercilessly slaughtered the others?

Once again, he looked for answers, but all he saw were the bodies of his men, and all he heard was the howling of the wind.

Silva was gone.

Silva sniffled as he looked down at the carnage he had wrought. This did not sit well with him. The military was actively looking for him, and they were actually taking it seriously for once. Worse still, the Wolves were, in at least some small way, involved.

It was absolute foolery.

Silva couldn't believe how poorly the judgement behind the hunt was. Lunaria was currently at war with two very powerful nations, at the same time, on different fronts. All the military might of Lunaria was no doubt being pushed to its limits in these two wars, which they were barely holding out in the first place. Lunaria simply didn't have enough manpower to lock down the city, and actively search the mountains for him at the same time.

He wondered what had caused the sudden change in the military's opinion of him. Seemingly overnight, he went from a minor nuisance to the number 1 most wanted. He pondered this for a moment. Surely his attack of Ryu Shinra had something to do with it, but seeing as he lost, it shouldn't have had this much effect.

Then he got it. It was a matter of image. Silva had been given a job by the king, which he had more than carried out. He was never supposed to survive going into enemy lines, but the king underestimated Silva's abilities to blend into the surroundings. And then there was the fight.

Ryu Shinra was an emperor of a nation. More than that, he was also likely more powerful than the current Lunarian king. Ryu had agreed to help out on the battlefield, only to be attacked by a wanted criminal whom the Lunarian king had asked to be there. It must have done a number on the Lunarian monarch's pride. Silva needed to be eliminated at all costs, for daring to insult a king.

Silva shook his head in disgust, holding back another sniffle. That was no way to run things. Especially not in times of war. Not when people were dying, not when the state of the kingdom was at risk.

Silva sneezed. As he did, he looked down again at the bodies of the dead soldiers lying beneath him. He had lost three arrows, but he still had twenty-one more, and all his poisoned ones. It had been a laughably simple ambush. Perhaps his training was paying off after all. It was a loss to the kingdom. These twenty dead men could have served in the fight against Solaria.

Fenris had almost been among them.

Silva shuddered. Both from the wind, and from the thought that he had nearly killed Fenris. If it hadn't been for that last minute sneeze, he likely would have never seen the dagger he had been holding, and would have ended his life. It had been far too close for comfort.

He began to wonder why Fenris had been there. He took his job as a Wolf very seriously, and would never abandon them. Silva hadn't spoken to Fenris in three years, and he didn't even know if he was the same Fenris. After all, Silva had changed so much, why shouldn't Fenris? Was that it? Was Fenris leading the hunt because he hated Silva now?

Not likely, Silva decided. The Fenris he knew would never pursue a grudge without the Wolves behind him. He was probably being forced to the hunt because of he tracking skills. Silva almost smiled as he realized the irony of that. Only he and Fenris knew of Fenris's "condition" as they liked to call it, and so only they knew the secret to Fenris's strength and tracking skills.

Of course, that didn't mean Fenris wasn't enjoying the hunt now that he was a part of it. Silva really didn't know if Fenris hated him or not, and despite himself, that bugged him. He frowned. This would not due. Fenris coming back into his life was not something he could allow. It would be too painful for both of them. Despite being enemies now, Silva doubted he could bring himself to harm Fenris. Or any of the Wolves for that matter, the brotherhood between them was just too strong.

Another sneeze brought him to reality. Staying up all night to train had not been one of his smartest ideas. While he was sure he would never complain of the cold ever again, he had also caught a damn cold. Being sick in the mountains was not good, by any means. Even the faintest trace of sickness would attract predators. Luckily, Silva knew of a plant which could cue minor ailments like colds in a matter of hours. It was near a cave he had been meaning to visit anyway.

Silva looked up, to see a mass of storm clouds. A storm was coming, and a bad one at that. He would have to hurry if he wanted to get there before the storm hit. He checked his traveling pouch, checking to see the meat he had packed was still fresh.

He forgot about Fenris for the moment. There was nothing he could do about it now, it was far out of his control. The Hunt for the Dark Moon had begun, and he intended to give them a good chase.