An unknown amount of time passed once again.

"What is that?" Isson asked. He was stood atop a mountain covered in snow, a helmet to cover his face and muffle his voice. He looked to his right at Husker, his ghost. It was a simple enough question, but one that clearly had a complicated answer. He kneeled back down, crouching over the fire pit. And the scraping sound continued, echoing in the near-silent forest around them.

Husker knew it too, his back spun, unaffected by the gathering cold and ice. "To simplify it for you, it is the Traveler."

There was a bit of silence from Isson. "You mentioned it before."

"I have. The traveler created me to find you. But it also imbued me with something more subtle. The urge to return home." The ghost blinked looking out in what looked to be an endless horizon beneath them, old ruined cities all the way until the next hills rose and fall. "I'm sorry, normally I do a better job of suppressing it."

The hunter hummed. "Why fight the urge?" Finally, a strike came true, and the fire lit, the wood he'd gathered. There were some stones to protect it from the worst of the winds. And soon enough the whole thing had caught.

"Because when I left, there was only death as the Traveler gave its last to protect us. So we ghosts could escape. And whatever it did, blunted the catastrophes at the ends of your golden age. Because there was more than one end to it. Some were by enemies, some were territorial changes. But it was all catastrophic."

Isson hummed as he stood up. "They see the fire and smoke."

Husker shook its head. "Yes, I'm detecting several signatures."

"What did it feel like?"

His ghost whirred. "Thirteen, mostly vandals and dregs. One bigger." His eye glanced up

towards their direction. "We have only a minute."

The hunter loaded his handcanon. "What did the end of the world feel like?"

Husker paused and dissipated into particles of light. "It felt...horrid...but also...exhilaration in my survival."

Isson fell silent too, standing next to the fire, wanting to be seen. Wanting them to know he didn't care as they approached. He lowered his gun, leaving it pointed at the snow, and faced the darkened shadows that he couldn't quite make out yet. Though he could see distant movement.

A little show was in order.

He knew he was getting close to something. He couldn't put his finger on it. There were trails of footprints, ones that hadn't fallen off for almost two days. Whoever they belonged too... He was hoping to find them before the blizzards that seemed to frequent this mountain range picked up again. For once it did, he knew his chances of finding another possible survivor would be lost for the foreseeable future. But of course, the fallen had picked up their trail too.

Consider this, an offer between us, if you, for some reason pick up my trail.

When the fallen emerged, they saw a single figure standing beside the light fire, at midnight with no moon to speak of, and stars as far as the eye could see. But they also saw the shells of a broken servitor, something they revered. They saw a captain bent backward, over three vandal spears sticking up from the ground.

They saw the heads of dregs and vandals similarly planted.

Truly, the work of a madman.

Isson smiled darkly underneath his helmet.

Or someone who was methodical in how to defeat an enraged overwhelming force.

It didn't take long before the first, let out a cry of anger. Their weapon leveled towards him. And once upon a time, they would've been faster on the draw then he.

But no longer.

As the dreg aimed their pistol, Isson had already clasped both hands onto the back of his handcanon, aimed, and fired.

It popped the head of the fallen clean off, some gaseous white flame seeming to leak from the hole that had been left at the base of the creature's throat.

Isson stood in place taking a vandal's rifle to his shoulder.

The hunter shot that one next.

And then they all rushed forward clambering to shoot at him and hit him with their melee weapons. The captain however began to circle their fighting, his eyes scanning the one that had been left impaled on the spears.

After his initial few skirmishes, Isson had gotten used to frightening the fallen. But out of the corner of his eyes, he could see something that changed his perception slightly. As he easily killed the first two to reach him.

The captain knelt near the dead one. It gently tugged at it, trying to remove it from the three spears, without ruining the corpse any further.

Isson only had a pain in his chest at that.

And as the nearest vandal tried to nab him with its two swords. The hunter ran his knife through the creature, and suddenly, for a moment, static shock flowed through the entirety of his arm, and it blasted the vandal away. Isson looked down at his arm watching the lightning fade completely.

What the hell?

And then a knife sparked off his helmet.

He turned his head to look at the dreg.

The dreg made a startled noise.

Then, Isson killed it with the rest, until all but the captain remained.

As soon as the fighting had stopped, it looked his way.

And there Isson waited, in the low firelight, surrounded by the fresh corpses of the other eliksni that had charged him. And the others that had held back in order to try and kill him with their rifles had also fallen into the ground.

But Isson didn't shoot the other captain as he watched.

The captain slowly arranged the body, crossing their arms over the corpse's chest. And knelt their head, and stilled for a moment of silence. They made noises, which only Isson could guess that it was their language.

But the moment was over, and the captain stood to face him and drew their swords staring the hunter down.

Isson in response reloaded his weapon.

They charged slow, at first, but picked up speed as they went.

And seven shots rang out from the handcanon.

###

Air filled Isson's lungs again with a cough, as he was brought back. He huffed and shoved the corpse off him as soon and sat up. "Damn, is that still jarring." He looked down at his chest plate, and saw the new sword sized hole in it.

I'll have to work that out later.

His eyes flicked to the dead captain.

Husker morphed into existence once more beside his head. "That was dangerous."

Isson shook his head. "The captain died thinking he'd finished me." He tapped their helmet and gestured to the holes that his weapon had punctured into their skull. "And I knew where I was shooting."

The ghost hummed. "You didn't have to wait for him."

"No I didn't." The hunter agreed. He twirled the handcannon, and holstered it as his side. He glanced around at the rest of his handiwork with the spears. He walked over to a spear and plucked it off the ground, dropping into the snow. "Let's take these down."

His ghost, for once helped out silently. No word was uttered from either of them as they worked. And Husker also said nothing when at the very end, Isson crossed the arms of the new captain that he'd fought against and killed.

The fire had nearly died, by the time they had finished.

Isson looked at his arm. "What happened when I slammed that vandal?"

The ghost hummed. "It could be something you can do on the regular. What we ghosts can do for you lightbearers is still fairly vague to me." He floated closer and looked down at his lightbearer's arm. "We can do something else about this, train you with it. Maybe make something of it."

The hunter flexed his fingers. "I think I'll have to focus for it." He knelt to retrieve his knife., pulling it free from the fallen corpse. "Train with it like the handcanon."

Husker nodded. "You are undoubtedly right. Perhaps once you rest, we can try it against that tree over there. See if we can do it again."

###

The morning was brief, as they couldn't linger if they wanted to follow the trail. Isson spent the first portion of it hitting the tree with his fists, attempting to repeat what he'd done the previous night. This was after he had cleared the mess away, wrapping the fallen corpses over with their cloaks, and letting the cold take care of it from there.

He took a breath and swung his fist again, and it thunked against the bark and wood chipped tree, more wood snapping off.

Nothing.

"Fuck." He pulled his hand back and glanced down at the tattered armored glove. It was scratched and marred now. His frown only deepened.

A wash of light, a thin and hazy white flame, made of mist, came over his wrist and knuckles as Husker flew over him to get his attention. "Perhaps some mediation would be useful." His eye narrowed and he floated more to face Isson. "But we can't do that now if we want to try and find the source of our trail."

The pain his hands had faded with the burst from his ghost. The hunter nodded quietly, cold wind blowing softly through the forest. And in the distance, a sun rose coming up from the hill. "Then let's get moving." He threw a bag over his shoulder, stuff he didn't carry he let the ghost keep in whatever storage inventory it had. Such storage costs energy he imagined.

And sure, the machine known as his ghost didn't seem to struggle with such a concept at all, he still felt it was better safer than sorry.

They trod carefully through the downslope of the mountain, towards the valley beyond. Isson had already become adept at figuring out the best ways to climb down the safest. Husker was, as always, the first to break the silence between them. "If we ever find a settlement, I think I'll make you eat something."

Isson raised an eyebrow beneath his helmet. "Why? I haven't seemed to need it thus far?"

His ghost shook his head. "It's because I'm using the light's energy to sustain you." Its eye glanced away. "I think it might be some of the reasons that you can't repeat such powers efficiently. And just so that you know, there is a sort of power system I operate under."

The hunter sighed. "Huh, reading my thoughts again are we?"

Husker hummed. "To your benefit, it seems. Eating will help me in this regard, we'll both have more power for other things if you eat regularly." His back spun and he morphed away into particles of light. "Besides, aren't you interested in eating at least once?"

Isson huffed. "It's not that I'm disinterested, it's that the opportunity hasn't really presented itself…" He glanced off to the right, watching snow being swept off the highest peak of the mountain like a cloud. An image came to his head. Not a moving one, just a flash, with nothing moving in this still shot.

Stove?

The hunter hummed. "Maybe I liked cooking once upon a time?"

###

The trail went cold almost five hours later.

"Shit." Isson looked around the clearing. The snow was thinner on this lower part of the mountain range. He could see grass poking out from beneath the thinned white layer of snow. But even still, the trail should've been easy to track. They hadn't really cared to notice the imprints they had left in the snow.

His eyes flicked up at the next wave of clouds approaching.

"Perhaps they were hoping the next round of storms would cover their tracks."

His ghost appeared beside him, after scanning all the woods around him. "Do you think the Eliksni were on their trail?"

Isson hummed. "It's possible." He glanced off the side, he could see another mountain ledge at the end of the clearing." His boots carried him that way and he looked back up the mountain range. And from this ledge, he could see where he'd been last night, a long way up the mountainside.

Husker voiced his thoughts. "They could've seen our fire last night and took precautions." He vanished. "In which case, I should probably stay hidden."

The hunter nodded. "Good idea." His eyes lingered on his campsite from the previous night. "We both made gambles and got the short end of it this time." He tilted his head. "They hoped a storm would cover their tracks, they might've even thought they would lose their fallen tales."

His ghost hummed. "They weren't exactly subtle were they?"

Isson shook his head. "And I gambled with that fire. I hoped they would have either come to meet me, since I killed the Fallen, or that they would at the very least not noticed." He chuckled at himself kicking a bit of snow off the ledge. "It also isn't much of a leap to assume that they probably also heard the gunfire."

He looked out over the vastness of the mountainside and the valley below that stretched for miles. "Yeah," He said quietly to himself. "I don't think there is anything around here for as far as the eye could see that could make as much noise as we did last night." His eyes flicked to the rocky ledge and down the sharp mountainside.

Is it possible to survive that fall?

"There is every possibility that as soon as they heard all the gunfire from last night, that they didn't bother to rest." He gestured down the mountain slope that would lead them to the valley eventually.

"A night march?"

He hummed. "So what if I jumped to make up for a lost time?"

There was a defining silence, and for a moment there was only the light breeze rustling the branches and leaves of trees. Flakes fell from their perches against the outstretched branches, lightly falling passed. The wind swayed him ever closer to the edge, his torn fallen cloak flapping around him.

Husker hummed. "With your air jumps, it is possible. But now we have something else to consider as well. They might be a lightbearer too, and thus would have jumped off themselves in order to widen their distance even further."

Isson nodded. "If they assumed we took the slope down the mountain." He rubbed the bottom of his helmet. "How many days of a headstart would that have given them?"

"Two days, plus the hours we spent sleeping the previous night."

He frowned. "Another gamble. If I arrive, and can't find the trail, then they might've taken the slope path, and learned to cover their tracks." There was a pause as he looked down the mountainside once more. "Then there is no telling if I'll ever pick it up again."

Husker was silent.

And Isson paced. "If there are tracks, then I'll be back to being about twelve hours at least, behind." He knelt fist pressing into the grass and snow. "And there is a storm coming, which will make tracking harder no matter which way I go."

His cloak flapped around him with another cold gust of wind.

"If you jump, then there is the chance we can also get ahead of them if they chose to stick to the sloping path."

A slim chance.

Isson hissed. "Fuck, and that's the best news I've had all week."

But the possibility, no matter how small, is better than nothing.

The hunter took a few back paces and geared up for a sprint, wanting to go as far as possible, he slid some the snow with his boots as he got down onto his hands and knees. The mountain obviously grew wider as it went down.

But he'd need to reach a certain point otherwise, being revived by his ghost on certain parts of the mountain would only result in falling and dying more. He took a deep breath relaxing all the tension out of his muscles.

"Good luck."

He huffed. "Thanks."

Then he bounded off, kicking up the snow behind him. The sprint at full speed was short, his boots hitting the edge of the cliff, his knees bending at the perfect time to accelerate his distance outward of the mountainside. He let out a breath as he went up for a moment, time freezing as he hung suspended in the air.

The cold air whipping around him, his cloak flowing.

And an unobscured view of the valley he was taking a short cut towards.

The adrenaline rushing through him like a sweet addictive fire. He smiled brightly beneath the helmet as the gravity started its pull on him.

He arched down and the wind picked up speeding passed him in the opposite direction.

And soon he was hurtling towards the lower slopes of the mountain. And he resisted the urge to use his second air jump early. Knowing it needed to be used to control his falling speed at just the right time.

It was a long fall.

Almost a full minute, as the wind swept up at him and his cloak.

He jumped midair. And the falling speed ground to a halt.

Still too high.

His ghost chuckled. "Not to worry, I will still be able to heal-"

Isson broke every bone in his legs upon impact.

#

There was a rush of light as Isson made a groan, testing out the movement of his right leg. "Fucking hell. I never realized how much the jump would actually stop me completely from falling. I figured that using it against the falling speed would've only slowed me down. Not stop me completely." He pressed his palms into the ground and pushed himself up. He rolled his shoulders and he stood back up. Testing his legs as he went.

Husker made a hum of disappointment. "You were planning on letting the impact kill you?" His ghost floated around his head in a way that made his eyes narrow.

Isson groaned. "It would've been less painful than surviving the fall. The purpose wasn't to survive but, rather make it easier for me to be revived. Because if I did land, without slowing down, who knows how much more difficult it would be for you to bring me back."

The ghost hummed, looking out, at the path ahead of them.

Isson shifted carefully because he still needed to control his descent. It was still a sharp downhill. He shifted and slid down a small slope using his knife to stop at something flat. Rocks shifted and fell, dislodged.

Husker's voice sounded again, staying very close to the hunter. "There are scratch marks, just by the blade of your knife."

The hunter held himself steady, and with a quick glance, he too confirmed it. He could see some prints, closer, to the center of where he was standing. The knife's drag mark he noted, was in a slightly better place than his. "It looks like whoever they are has dealt with this path more gracefully than I." Now on something more flat he stood up straight and flicked the dust from his knife, re-sheathing it. "We are on the right path at least."

But the fact they were more graceful is already telling. They've been back longer.

Isson angled himself and slid down once more following the skid marks of what he could only assume had been another pair of boots. They followed right up until the edge of another flat plateau.

The snow around him was gone, now at too low of an altitude.

And then, there was a loud whirr, as something darkened the sky.

He froze at the edge of where he was and looked up.

Something had slipped in from space, high into the atmosphere. It looked Fallen in nature, but it was nothing like the ships he'd grown used to. It was far larger than any of the ships he was familiar with. It arched low, looking like it would crash into the mountain top as it arched down towards the valley below.

"That looks like trouble," Husker commented.

Isson could faintly hear the sounds of his ghost disappearing once more. And the large vessel came a ship he was used to. Flying back towards the mountain, high up.

Right to where I had started trouble last night.

The hunter needed no further prompting and leaped off towards the valley once more. "Husker, do me a favor, and keep scanning for movement." he jumped, landing perfectly on the next flat area.

Better.

His eyes followed the trail winding the mountain slopes. Whoever he was tracking had the time to find the best, and most expedient ways to get down. The hard work had been done for him, all he had to do was follow.

###

It was almost sundown once again as he reached the base of the mountain. His legs burned from the constant moving, jumping, and impacting. He hissed as he stood up straighter and faced the forest in front of him. Only it wasn't all forest he noted. Their rundown buildings were overgrown, trees uprooted old streets, grew taller than the buildings that were hugged between all the branches and leaves around them.

Isson flicked out his handcanon. He took several steps closer to the tree line, running his fingers over a sap filled mark made into the tree's bark. Crickets coming from the old forest city beyond. Three steps in and there was no ambush.

All too preoccupied? Or maybe they really thought they lost me with their escape.

And he pressed on in silence. And there was frown forming beneath his helmet. His eyes scanned the ground, the broken twigs, and the light footprints in the soft dirt. The broken twigs that littered the ground. There was certainly a path the person he was tracking had taken, but it was getting harder to follow.

Twelve hours is quite the headstart.

"Well, at least the fallen haven't noticed." He glanced up towards the sky, expecting it tare open again in a whirl of purple and black. If not for what it seemed to bring, he would've called the sight mesmerizingly beautiful.

We know that the giant fallen ship somewhere nearby.

He heard a hum in the back of his head.

"Is the person we are tracking going to go after them?"

Isson froze, saying nothing. The first building he was approaching was large in its length, the asphalt to the storefront was overgrown with moss and numerous other things. Whatever had been said above the building's doors had long since faded, overgrown with lush green.

"A store."

He nodded. "I remember. Near the road on the other side of the mountain. There was a much smaller one." The hunter kept his handcanon low to the ground getting lower as he approached the cover of the building's overhang. Husk, give me a quick scan for anything useful."

The ghost complied with a hum, morphing in with a small whirr above Isson's open palm and fingertips. "We should be moving on if we intend on catching up."

Isson nodded, "The fallen will delay them if they're combing the forest for anything." He glanced around, watching his ghost disappear behind shelves, scanning through them with a low whizz of power. "If we are lucky. They'll hold out for some time, letting the fallen finish their activity before moving on."

Husker nodded. "Giving us a chance to catch up."

Thunder boomed and it drew Isson's eyes back outside, as the last of the sun had fallen behind the horizon. The night was soon upon them, and rain.

More difficult tracking.

"I've got a few tools. A few things I think, to make your gun's grip a bit more stable." His ghost's eye narrowed. "Though I'd advise you still, two hands until you're quite used to the weapon."

The hunter tapped the side of the building with his knuckles.

And the rain started falling.

Husker continued to zip around in the back of the story aiming to finish his search.

Isson stared into the forest city, lights in the distance, he could see. Something that would be obscured by the rain as it grew thicker. His brow furrowed.

I guess we'll see soon enough.

###