Sorcerer Hunters
"Starstone"
Chapter XIV
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"Carrot," Big Momma said, her voice gentle as she looked at him. She looked at the others, naming them in turn. "Gateau. Chocolate. Tira."
Gateau clenched his fists. Marron's name would have been last. He remembered how the young mage, small as he was, tended to disappear behind his own bulky body, only to poke his head out and step forward when Big Momma finally called attention to him.
Bulky was the only way he could think of his body now. Should he, Gateau Mocha, not have made a much better target for Zaha Torte? Surely a better, bigger target than one small, slender mage. How could Torte have missed this hulking great body, so much of a bulkier target... He touched his fingers to his collar, where he felt the invisible amulet that he had managed to salvage from Marron's shredded body. It was all he had, and the normally cool metal felt faintly warm on his fingertips.
"Your bodies are healed from your battle three months ago," the goddess said. "Although I know that the wounds in your hearts still bleed." She pressed her hands to her chest and looked down. "They bleed for me as well."
Dota observed the team of sorcerer hunters sadly. They had been such a carefree group just a year ago. Carrot maintained a pretense of indifference that belied his new sense of self-preservation. Chocolate no longer fawned over Carrot, and distanced herself from her sister. Tira had developed lines under her eyes from sleepless nights and worry. And Gateau no longer joked or preened, carrying himself straight and silent wherever he went.
The cherub missed Marron's calming effect on the team and his pretty smile. She missed the old sorcerer hunters.
"I must ask you to hold to your vows as sorcerer hunters," Big Momma went on. "The continent still needs your help–there are still many sorcerers out there who prey on the parsoners. I need you, and they need you, to stand for them once again."
A puff of smoke announced the arrival of the Knight Mille Feuille. He bowed to the gathered sorcerer hunters, and to Big Momma. "I am sorry to interrupt," he apologized. "But I must inform you that I have completed part of the mission you set me on." With a nod from the goddess, he continued. "It is as you thought. There is a starstone in the world once again. But it has not yet used enough power for us to locate it."
Dota gasped, and Big Momma put a hand to her mouth, as if shocked. "I was afraid it would be so..." the goddess murmured. She shook her head and turned back to face the quartet of hunters, spreading her arms to the broken team. "Please, put aside your pain, to help relieve those who cannot help themselves."
When the four hunters were gone, the goddess turned to her Knight. "I... had forgotten," she apologized. "And I would never have thought that he would do such a thing."
"Don't apologize to me," Mille Feuille recommended, raising an eyebrow. His voice was unusually reflective. "I forgot as well. It has been... more than centuries. Perhaps, though, this time we will be the ones to reap what we have sown." He bowed and excused himself from her presense.
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Gateau ticked them off on his fingers. "Eight sorcerers last week. Five the week before. Last month it was like twenty or thirty or, or... I don't know! We just did another two yesterday. When is it going to stop?" he demanded, glaring up at the vision of Big Momma.
It was just the goddess, Dota, and the brawny blond. His hair was growing long, and was half-pulled back in an unkempt ponytail. They stood in the giant antechamber, Gateau's voice echoing.
"The sorcerers will never stop, Gateau," Big Momma told him. "All I can do is hope for time to grant my teams of sorcerer hunters respite."
"I don't want respite," Gateau spat at her. "I want to get out of this job."
"Gateau..."
"I hate this job, Big Momma!" he yelled. "I can't do this anymore! Take a look at your precious team–it's falling apart!"
The goddess sighed. "I know that, Gateau."
The tall blond fumed. "So why do you keep–"
"There is no one else," Big Momma informed him firmly. "And by the vows you took when you became sorcerer hunters, you must defend the common people against sorcerers as long as you are able."
"I'd take that vow back in... in a half a second, if I could," Gateau growled. "This is useless! It's not getting any better out there!" he roared. "I don't think it ever will!"
Dota winced, and Big Momma sighed heavily. "You sound... like another hunter I knew once."
"Yeah?" he demanded. "Who?"
"Zaha Torte."
Gateau took a sharp breath, then exhaled loudly through his nose. The warmth from Marron's pendant around his neck counteracted the chill that ran down his spine at the sound of Zaha Torte's name. "I hope I never become like him," he told her, teeth clenched, "But right now I can't say I've got a lot of faith in the system."
"I do understand, Gateau," she said. "I do. Are you any happier to know that more children are being trained even as we speak, to become sorcerer hunters once they have completed their lessons?" He snorted, and she shook her head. "The world will always need sorcerer hunters, Gateau. But you are right–your team has seen more in the past year and a half than most teams see in ten years."
"What are you going to do, Big Momma?" Dota asked.
With a smile at the small cherub, the goddess replied, "In six months I will disband your team, Gateau. I will work you hard until then, but after that, I shall release you from your vows as sorcerer hunters."
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