The trees rushed by in the darkness, the roars of what was undoubtedly a dragon had echoed across the valley and it inspired terror. For him, not because it was a dragon, but instead fear for his home, the village of Roake. The home that had taken him in after his parents were slain by the beasts. The last time he'd encountered one of their kind the sense of powerlessness was overwhelming and he was only a young boy then, however, that was no longer the case. His mother and father might have lost to them, but their son had sworn an oath to himself that he would not see the same fate as they had. In fact, the man who had taken him in after that event was one of the fabled "Manus Huntsmen" by descent and had had stayed true to their teachings and practices. Under this man's tutelage the young lad's fear of dragons faded with time and was replaced with not only the confidence to fight, but to kill, any dragon he came across.
The Order of Manus wasn't a group of dragon slayers, as the young boy and many others thought them to be. The reality of their order was that they were merely hunters of the highest caliber. They trained relentlessly to learn the techniques and skills necessary to hunt the most dangerous beasts one could possibly imagine. Naturally, a dragon was the top of the list for most dangerous. A thousand years ago, the Dragon Wars kicked off after they took control of the region farthest north in the Empire's lands, which resided at the foot of the mountains that were well known to belong to the dragons and a place that humans never set foot upon in respect to the powerful beasts. However, in the lore of humans, it was the dragons who descended from their mountain and launched an assault upon the Empire. When it came time to go to battle against these undeniably powerful foes, the Empire called upon the Order of Manus to lead their troops in battle.
The Order refused to aid them at first, clearly stating that they were no soldiers and weren't fit to lead soldiers in an organized battle. The Empire replied by showing them evidence to prove the rumors of dragon attacks hadn't been hearsay made up by travelers. Upon deliberation amongst themselves The Order agreed to only supply veteran huntsmen to bolster the strength of the Empires' forces. When these huntsmen took to the field, many of them fell alongside the soldiers they worked with and they learned more and more about them, until the day came that Dragon's Bow arte came into existence. Once the huntsmen stepped upon the field of the hunt with this new art, the dragon legions began to fall on the battlefield by the dozens. This slaughter of them continued on for one-hundred-and-fifty years. Until the dragons started targeting these huntsmen specifically and then wiped out their secluded home, known in in ancient texts as "Hand's Rest". It was merely a place for those huntsmen who owned no home, but were certified by the Order to have the skills necessary to become one of them. After the razing of Hand's Rest, the order's highest leader chose to disband their group and told all the huntsmen to prioritize their own lives and the needs of their families.
Regardless, many were out for blood now. The survivors of the razing were especially eager to make their the dragons pay and they then banded together in groups of two or three. These teams were called "Stalks", as in a coordinated attack tactic often employed by the huntsmen to kill more agile or tricky prey, and these teams went on the prowl for dragons. Often, in the cruelest way that was available. Many battlefield reports tell of seeing a dragon's wings suddenly ripped off and they plummeted to the ground where they were overrun by soldiers while they were either too injured from the fall to continue fighting or they were killed by huntsmen before they could recover from the stunning effect of the fall. Because of these battles, the dragon's territory has been pushed back to the foot of their mountains, where the first piece of territory they had taken was, and have been kept at bay since then. There hadn't been a coordinated large-scale attack from the dragons in over two-hundred years, but that didn't stop individual dragons from attacking isolated villages or cities if they felt bold enough.
Now, it seemed that one such dragon had decided to toy with his home and the young huntsmen wouldn't stand for this. Ried bursted through the treeline and stopped in a clearing he knew to overlook Roake what he saw shocked him. Buildings ablaze and the dragon standing atop one such building, but it seemed to be doing something strange. While he was too far away to notice the girl attacking the dragon, he did notice the dragon's jaw snap upward and the flames spewed into the skies and then the dragon took flight for a moment and then landed. "A chance..." Reid said, as he could feel the magic swirling about his body and then gathering upon his left hand. "Eis, ven, neith, ars, malnein yur ou tein..." He'd spent his whole life in training as a huntsmen for this moment, the instant where a dragon would be felled by his hand. The desire for vengeance he had held onto since he was a young boy could be sated this very night, when he'd only been late from returning from a simple hunt for food.
Raising his hand, the power surged in his left and a new power formed in his right. While invisible to the human eye, this was so potent that one could easily see the very air around it being displaced by the sheer density of the magics that occupied that spot. This arte was the culmination of all the efforts put forth by the huntsmen who died in the beginning of this war and although it was powerful, it couldn't be used as frequently as one might hope. Once per day, only one shot, that has the possibility to kill a dragon in one shot or at the very least it would be a fatal injury and the beast would be crippled with not much time left to live. The dragon then took off into the skies, attempting to flee for some reason. Regardless, Reid didn't care, as the time for his vengeance was nigh. The beast was flapping it's wings rapidly to gain altitude, however, it suddenly stopped, having sensed the powerful magic that emanated from the hills and in that moment of hesitation; death. Reid loosed the arrow which left the bow with a deep toned and resounding thump. It was as though something had slammed the earth off in the distance and the sound echoed across the still night. The arrow, hungry for dragon blood, sliced through the very air as it made it's way toward the target and then took a great big bite out of the dragon's rib cage and then greedily burrowed through it's side, consuming the dragon's heart, afterward the magic merely dissipated as though it hadn't been present.
To the viewer's of the scene, along with the sound of the arrow being loosed, the impact on the dragon's body caused it to drastically deviate from it's path and roll sideways in the air while it plummeted to the ground and the sound of it's impact on the earth was almost as loud as Reid's Dragon's Bow arte had been. The hunter, now a full fledged huntsmen by killing his first high ranked beast, felt strangely dissatisfied with this kill, but equally awe inspired by fact that he'd actually managed to kill the dragon in one shot. Reid understood what his mentor had meant now, why he said to never use the arts unless your target is in front of you. That arrow... he fould feel it's hunger and that hunger had been directed at the dragon. Which now laid in the middle of the valley, as silent as the grave.
He'd have to go and collect his mark from it later, for now, the man sprinted toward the village which still burned bright in the night. He didn't have the time to revel in his kill, or even to make a proper offering prayer as per their tradition, because there were still lives at stake. Or so he believed, as long as those buildings burned they could catch other structures on fire as well. In short order he arrived at the village, but found no survivors where he was, having entered from the far side of the village from the courtyard, and began to search the buildings he could get to for survivors.