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“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” Borjis said, “No critter did that.” He pointed up and our eyes all followed. Hanging from a spruce were a pair of legs comically twisting in the wind, the laces of the boots laced together to hold the limbs on the limb of the tree.

“Killer has a sense of humor, at least,” Pavel said. She was one of three women on this hunt. I, her sister, was the second. I stood behind her, trying to swallow the sour vomit in my throat from the smell. The campsite was littered with bodies. Most mangled, torn apart, suffering from weeks of nature feasting on them. The legs were the most well preserved thing in the camp. A crow flew over and tried to cling to them while she picked at the severed ends for meat. A gust picked up from the sea and threw her off, the bird squawking in protest.

“Someone shimmy up there and get that thing down,” Borjis said. He was leading our hunting party of two dozen. An older man, his salt and pepper beard hid a long scar on his jaw, nose at an awkward bent from being broken when he was a boy, and his skin a deeper tan than most this far north.

“Hey, isn’t it lead by example?” Shucher said. He was a scrawny man, worthless in a fight. His real prize were the three hounds big and shaggy enough to defend their master from a bear and trained to track game. Two were sitting down obediently while the third tugged on his leash, reaching for an exposed femur.

“I am, I’m showing you how to give orders. Tie your mutts up somewhere and get those things down so we don’t attract any bears,” Borjis said.

Shucher tried to put up a fuss but he was ignored.

Borjis turned and said, “You, new girl. What’s your name again?”

He was addressing the strangest person in our party. A woman, tall with a darker complexion than anyone here would ever manage. Her hair kept so short she was almost bald. Her features weren’t pretty, but handsome. I’m not sure if she intended to pass herself off for a boy or not. “Pho,” she said. One of maybe four words I’d heard from her. The camp did not phase, despite being the youngest here. Only eighteen according to my sister. If Pavel hadn’t spoken for her, she would not be here right now. Literally. We caught her following us last night. Pavel was the only reason she didn’t end up dead.

“Well, Pho, since you wanted to be here with us so bad. Start collecting the other remains around camp. Then go out and find a place to bury them.”

This camp was the third like this. A crew of workers originally sent by the King of Fausdiv to take a survey. The king wanted to build a dyke in the salt marshes along the coast to push back the water and resettle the Kenorlan refugees out here. Those strange foreigners had the same complexion as Pho did, and I wondered briefly if she was one… Regardless, the camps each got attacked. When word never got back about the survey, this is what they found. With all his armies drawn out in a civil war with his illegitimate, bastard brother, the King put down a bounty and Borjis won the contract. If we could bring back proof of the killers’ demise and ensure the safety of the next team of workers, we’d all get to be a little richer. Cut between two dozen, we’d each have enough money to keep ourselves fat through the winter. Pho wouldn’t be getting paid, but the girl didn’t seem to care. She was dragging a body by its single leg over to the edge of what used to be the camp.

When she dumped it there, Borjis said, “Out a little farther. Don’t want the smell attracting anything while were sleeping.”

She picked it up and walked a hundred paces farther, this time stepping into the mud where the tide had recently receded. The body disappeared in the tall, thriving weeds.

Borjis gave orders to make camp. Pavel said to him, “You know that girl will be out their all night.”

“Good, we need the bait.”

“You think some animal did this?”

“No, but if there’s some killer lurking about in this swamp, a lonely girl is a fine prize.”

I shuddered and decided to change the subject for them. “Shouldn’t we set up our own tents?”

“Your sister is right,” Borjis said. He squeezed Pavel’s arm. “See you tonight?”

“Only if I’m bored…”

They were interrupted when the legs from the tree fell next to them. Pavel started and from above Schucher was laughing.

“You trying to lose your cut you little piece of shit!” Borjis yelled up at him.

Schucher said, “Wow boss, it was just a joke. You should just leg go of it.” He cracked up so much he almost fell. While the two argued, Pho grabbed both legs and carried them over her shoulder. She spared me a glance, and, for a moment, I felt like the pig at market. Appraised by this woman. I turned my back on her.

“Just why did she follow us?” I whispered so no one around the camp would hear us while Pavel sat behind me in our tent, our heads just brushing against the canvas.

“To make her riches, I suppose.” Pavel was brushing my hair in a nightly ritual more for her than me. “Perhaps she’s hoping someone will die and she can fill their spot?”

“What if she’s one of those Kenorlans?”

“Oh come now, you’ve seen those people before. Pho’s much too serious. Plus her nose is too flat, if I had to guess she came from somewhere farther south. Like the empire.”

“No one from the empire should be interested in our worthless swamp,” I said.

“Honestly Kavatchka, what would our mother say if she heard you speak like that about our home?” It was not far from any truth. Fausdiv was a coastal backwater, barely large enough to be acknowledged as a kingdom. Even the puny city-state of Dorek in the mountains north of us was taken more seriously as a state than we were. Besides, our mother had been dead for years, killed one winter by pneumonia.

Up until Pavel met Borjis, our lives had been as bleak as that winter.

I did not mention how our mother would feel about us being at the mercy of a man’s affections. I was more worried when Borjis would eventually set his eyes on me. I was twenty-two, and he twice my age. I’d impressed him already with my willingness to learn his craft, even if he didn’t realize the reason behind it was my own independence. I could not speak for my sister’s plans when that day would come. Some days, I almost thought she loved him.

“It’s Kav,” I grumbled. My mother named me after what we called a birch bent low by an ice storm. She thought they were beautiful. I wanted nothing to do with something that kneels.

“You will always be Kavatchka to me,” Pavel said.

I grunted and she retrieved a hand mirror from her bag in the corner and held it out in front of me. “With hair that falls like yours, you should be proud of such a pretty name.”

My hair went past my shoulder blades. The last time I cut it Pavel had made all sorts of threats to keep it from happening again. Long, shiny hair was a woman’s beauty. My face screwed up in a scowl. We both had our mothers pronounced cheekbones, but I did not, thank the Gods of the Storm, have my sister’s freckles. My lips were also not as full as hers and were chapped from all the nervous chewing I did to them throughout the day. My mouth had been lined with sores for years now.

“Do you want it braided or in a bun?”

“The bun is harder to grab.”

“Always acting like you’ll need to defend yourself. That’s what Borjis is for. A braid is easier to sleep with, too. I’ll probably have to do the bun all over again with how much you toss and turn in your sleep.”

I did not bother arguing. While she worked my hair into a tight bun, I asked, “Are you going to see him tonight?”

“I’m not sure… it has been a week so perhaps I will.”

“Don’t want his cock to get too dry—”

I gasped when Pavel tugged on my hair, my eyes watering while she said, “Never insult a woman who has your hair in her hands.”

“Sorry, sorry, just please, let go—”

This time a noise outside interrupted me. A heavy thwump, like a body fell out of the spruce in the middle of the camp. Someone yelled, “Company!” A pistol fired, the bullet missed. We knew because it went through our tent. Heavy footsteps outside, someone drawing a sword. Pavel, her hands still in my hair tugging me to the ground yelling, “Get the fuck down.” She might as well been trying to hold down with Schucher’s hounds with how quickly I pulled away, my hair falling in a tumble while I grabbed the old, relic of a sword Borjis gave me a year ago. Pavel tried grabbing me again, yelling, “What do you think you’re doing?”

All Borjis’ training made me much stronger than her. I threw her off and snarled, “Pulling my weight.”

I left the scabbard in the tent, short sword in my hand as I stepped out and into a nightmare.

On the opposite side of camp was a hulking beast, standing like a man but much bigger. Wet fur and mud covered the grey hide. It’s hair looked coarse, almost sharp. The light from the campfire, the two lanterns, and the starlight illuminated its head plenty. A beak like muzzle, I didn’t know the animal at the time, but later, the first time I saw a crocodile I almost screamed thinking it was this beast waiting in the water. The large jaws held a man in them, by the throat, most of the head there as well, with only the scalp visible. The body was kicking in the air and the arms held onto the muzzle so all the weight wouldn’t be on the head. By the time I realized the man was still alive it was too late, the jaws crushed his skull like a grape and blood rushed down the now limp body’s shoulders.

Any bravado I might have had drained away with it.

The beast dropped the body and to my left I heard Borjis curse. I was not the only one around the camp who saw what happened. Several men had roused from their tents. The other guard I heard moaning on the ground not too far away from me, belly ripped open and entrails soaking on the ground. Gods. Borjis yelled, “Surround it before it gets away.”

I wondered if the beast took Pho in the night. If so, I hoped it was quick.

The beast had no plans to run away. It charged the closest man, Dairgis who only had a pistol in his hand. He managed to fire the weapon and the bullet ripped into the beast’s shoulder, staggering it a moment. A moment Dairgis wasted trying to reload the now worthless pistol. I was the next closest person, and, more out of fear that my sister and me would be next if I didn’t act, I charged toward the two. The beast tackled Dairgis; I saw its claws sink into his chest as if it were water. Dairgis screamed, ribs snapped. Someone else fired a gun and the iron ball barely made the creature flinch. Then I was upon the monster, running so fast I just let the blade plow into the beast’s side. A guttural snarl, my grip on the sword so strong I was lifted with it when the beast jumped up, hanging right under its shoulder, feet dangling from the ground as it swung me around. My sword was ripped out in the motion, tearing out a chunk of flesh from the beast’s back before I hung in the air, only an instant, but long enough for one of its beam-thick arms to strike me and throw me away. I landed on my back, the breath knocked out of me and light filling my vision. I lost my sword.

My vision cleared quick enough for me to see the monster leaping toward me before a figure stepped over me, swinging the heavy, knotted end of a branch. It was Pho. She struck the monster in the jaw, but all she did was disorient it a moment. Its full weight still fell on top of her, or so I thought. One moment the beast was about to land on top of us, then it was thrown away. In the stunned second where I processed still being alive, I realized Pho had fallen back, put her feet up and used the monster’s momentum to throw it over us, somersaulting backwards onto her knees.

More guns went off when the surprised beast landed in a heap. By now the whole camp was awake and surrounded it. Blood poured from several fresh holes in its hide. The pain slowed it down. Two men managed to throw a weighted net over its shocked body. I realized someone was pulling me to my feet. It was Pho again. She helped me stand up. Only now did I notice I shook so much I could not manage my two feet by myself. Pho still remained calm. Unnervingly so. We watched several men with spears start thrusting through the net as the beast kicked and thrashed. Howling and snarling as more hunters continued to reload and unload their muskets and pistols into the monster. It managed to snap two of the spears with its thrashing before a bullet finally took it threw the head, smashing the front of its muzzle and exploding into its skull. It went limp after that. We all stood there on edge, watching, waiting. It was only now that I heard Schucher’s hounds barking wildly, or just beneath that, my sister trying to sooth Dairgis as the man whimpered in pain.

Borjis approached the body with a saw in hand. He said, “Pull off that net.”

Two of the men dragged it away, and we all watched while Borjis, slowly, deliberately, sawed off its head. He held it up for the camp to see, the mangled remains still twice the size of a man’s head. “The bounty is ours, boys!”

A ragged cheer rose up in the camp.

Barely audible beneath it, Pho whispered, “It’s not over.”

“Was very brave of you to go in there like that. It’s up to Lord Morlen now to decide if Dairgis lives or dies, but he and who knows who else would be dead if you—”

“It was stupid, foolhardy, brash…” Pavel said as she made the bun in my hair. We were sitting by the campfire with Borjis. The monster had been wrapped in the canvas. What was left of it. The men cut off all its toes and fingers for trophies. Schucher took a whole leg. Borjis had the head by his feet, sitting on a log with us while the men milled about. The action left everyone too jittery to sleep, and no one wanted to celebrate until they knew nothing else would jump from the dark.

Borjis said, “It is good to see all that training not go to waste.”

“Good that Pho stepped in and saved you when she did,” Pavel added. Pho stood a few paces away, watching Schucher with his hounds. He was feeding the leg to his dogs. I could hear him encouraging the mutts with, “That’s it, get a taste for its blood in case there’s another...”

Borjis said, “Hey girl.” Pho faced us. “Your bravery will not go unrewarded. You have a place among us and will get a fair cut once we are back in the capital.”

Pho didn’t respond.

Pavel finished with my hair. “There. Try not to ruin all my hard work by getting into any more fights.”

I said, “If you let me cut it you wouldn’t have anything to worry about. That’s why Pho probably keeps hers short.”

Pho grunted.

I went to her side. She still stared at the dogs. I whispered, “What do you know that they don’t?”

“That the beast you saw was not the real monster.”

Borjis asked, “What are you two going on about?”

Whatever Pho was hiding, Borjis and the rest of the camp needed to know. I said, “I think Pho knows something. After we killed the beast, she said this wasn’t over.”

Borjis stood as well and grabbed Pho’s shoulder, turning her around. “Is that so? You know, we don’t really know how long you been out here. Could be you knew this would happen and—”

Pho was as tall as Borjis. Not many men in the camp were. When she removed his hand, he was so taken aback he forgot to finish his sentence. It was possible no woman ever stood up to him before. Either way. It stung. Left him quivering like a fly in a web. Pho just said, “That dog, the one over there with the spot on its eye. We need to kill it.”

“Is your head trapped in a storm?” Borjis asked, all of us baffled.

“The creature you thought you killed is still alive, hiding in that dog.”

Borjis turned to us. “Is she making any sense to you?”

Pho turned away, and Borjis reached for her wrist but she broke his grip and marched to Schucher. Schucher only turned his head when Borjis yelled, “Don’t turn away from me woman!” Schucher still kneeling, Pho planted her boot on his shoulder and shoved him into the dirt. Two of his dogs didn’t move to defend his master, the third with the spot made to attack. Pho had grabbed the pistol from Schucher’s belt at the same time. She whacked the mutt in its face when it tried to lunge, and when it struggled on the ground to get up, Pho checked to see if the pistol was loaded. Then she pulled the hammer back and blew open the dog’s skull.

“You crazy witch!” Schucher yelled, so shrill he sounded like a little boy. Borjis and several men descended on her, knocking her to the ground.

“You lose your mind out here or something?” Borjis snarled.

I tried to intervene but Pavel grabbed me and said, “Don’t.” Two of the men held her down while Schucher kicked her in the ribs.

“Fucking tie her up and restrain her before she kills a person next time,” Borjis said.

“I’m gonna slice open her throat that fucking—”

Borjis grabbed Schucher by the throat and squeezed hard enough to make the smaller man cough. “I will decide what we do with her.” I realized the only thing keeping Pho alive was Borjis’ fear that she actually did know something. Borjis, afraid. Everyone was up and wild in the camp now. Borjis had Pho dragged to the opposite end of the camp, hands and feet hog-tied together. Pavel tried to calm Borjis down, while several of the men kept Schucher away from Pho, promising the man he’d get his revenge. The few that remained on watch got yelled at by Borjis, asked if they saw anything. A fog was moving into the camp and the tide began to push back up. The little islet where the original crew of workers made camp was about to be surrounded by water. Only knee deep in the worst places, but even in the early fall, trying to wade through it would certainly mean hypothermia. I wondered if more of those beasts lived here. How well they swam.

I realized I was trembling like before. Pavel approached me and took my hand in hers. She said, “You look like a doe in a den of wolves.”

“You don’t think we should get out of here before the tide comes?”

“Borjis says if we leave before we know there’s more monsters out there, we may end up having to traipse back. And we don’t have the money for that.” She squeezed my hand. “Stop that.”

“What?”

“You’re chewing your lip.”

“Right, sorry.” Deep breath. I needed to sit down. “Does Borjis want me to take a watch?” I had no plan to, but if I didn’t offer it may come across that I wouldn’t if asked.

“You’ve done enough tonight, Kavatchka.”

I ignored her using my full name. Right now, I felt like a birch bent low by an unstoppable weight. Besides, I felt a headache begin to throb behind my eyes. Too much stress. I needed sleep. I spared Pho a glance. She was not struggling, her eyes closed and almost looked relax. Like she slept like that every night.

Pavel led me to our tent and I crawled inside, falling asleep so quick I didn’t know if Pavel joined me or not.

My pounding head woke me. The ache much worse now, worse enough the rest my body felt minor and distant. Getting tossed around last night left me with pains up and down, bruises all over, I’m sure. But none of it felt as bad as my head. I groaned, a pitiful animal-death sound. I’d not even opened my eyes.

Pavel wasn’t in the tent when I did. I rolled over, shivering, worried that on top of everything else I might catch a fever out here and die. The pain, something about it made me too restless to sleep. I couldn’t curl up and obliterate the world around me—the pain only got worse when I tried. Relief came from getting up. I’d not taken off any of my clothes and slept on my cheek, so my hair was still pulled up. The outside dirt and dew sunk its fanged cold in my hands as I crawled from the tent. The pain relieving like a lure, as if I moved to my cure. I got up and felt dizzy, I realized I faced Pho, and she, she stared right at me. She said nothing, but I knew she wanted me to approach. Something in her eyes, like an order from Borjis. All in her eyes. The pain lifted with each step like a fog until I regained my senses, standing right next to her.

It was dawn, I realized. And the fog in my head was not nearly as thick as the one around us now. I couldn’t see beyond the lantern twenty paces away that marked the opposite end of the camp. Pho brought my attention back to her when she said, “We need to talk.”

“What happened last night?” The general stink of mud and salt did not obscure the smell of death from the mutt and the beast. Both bodies still in the camp.

My question was incredibly open ended, but Pho knew exactly what I asked. “I was hoping to flush the creature out. It had taken the dog’s place.”

“Borjis was right, your head is trapped in a storm.”

Pho sighed, as if the explanation was too exhausting for to bother with. “Sit down.” I was sitting before I had time to think about it. “You’re the only person in this camp I can trust, but it’s clear you don’t trust me.”

“Because you make no sense.”

“No, you just won’t believe anything you haven’t seen first.”

“It wasn’t prayer that kept me alive this long.”

“See Schucher over there?” Pho said.

Changing the subject, but I bit anyways. “What about him?” He was sitting next to the dog’s corpse. Petting its still intact hide, a total shell. Both the man and the dog. He probably cared more about those dogs than his mother.

“When he is killed, I need you to remain calm. You’re going to free me and stay by my side.”

“Killed from what? Are one of those beasts out there now—how do you—”

She shushed me and hissed, “You wanted a demonstration and you’re about to get one. Watch.”

Schucher screamed. Pathetic, boyish screaming. I saw his hand on the dog still, no, his arm, halfway to the elbow. The rest in the dog somehow and Schucher screaming like mad. He was desperately trying to pull his arm free, beating against the hide of the corpse with his free hand. Those in their tent were rushing out. I saw Pavel come out of Borjis’, right behind the man. The three men on watch had reached Schucher first. I’m not sure what happened next. Fast as an arrow from a bow, something black and thorny pushed out of the dog, thick as an arm and ending in a sharpened tip. Most of the people saw it in the camp, those limbs shot through the three men who made to help Schucher. In one side and out the other, like punching a quill through parchment.

Now Schucher wasn’t the only one making pained animal noises.

The men were flung off and through the camp. One of the bodies crashed a tent, another into a pair of hunters loading their muskets. The third landed right next to me and Pho. He landed on the ground so hard, blood from the hole in his gut, splashed across my legs.

Pho nudged me with her feet, voice mundane beneath the action in the camp. “Well, do you want to untie me?”

I groped for her ropes, not looking away from what was happening in front of me. No one could. By now Schucher’s whole arm had been devoured and he’d gone silent. Dead or in shock. Either way, no one would be helping him now. I wanted to cry. I couldn’t understand this and wanted to look away, but I was afraid if I did something would kill me next. I took the small knife from my belt and cut Pho’s ropes once I had them firmly in hand, only going by touch. I almost sliced my thumb open when the rope snapped. Borjis called out, “Don’t get close and forget about Schucher. Just unload into it, everything we have.”

The tentacles lashed and snapped, but didn’t go too far out. Pho grabbed my shoulder and pulled me close so her mouth was next to my ear. “Listen well. The only reason I’m here is to kill that beast.” Even under the withering hail of fire, the dog stood up. The head still missing. When a bullet blew off half a leg, one of those black vines shot from the body to support the weight. By the time it was standing, Shucher’s head had been pulled into its body. Like a snake slowly swallowing a bird. This time the hole became big enough I could see the throbbing black mass, like those vines, as it coiled and constricted, swallowing the man Pho was still talking, “I do not know why he is here. But he will kill you all. He will devour you like Schucher there if he has to and take your skin to lure in his next victims.” I nearly vomited, I realized the more Schucher fell into that beast, the more it swelled in size. Like whatever flesh Borjis ripped away his own man replaced. The dog started running then, to the nearby tree where Schucher’s other dogs cowered in fear. Unable to flee with the leashes tied to that tree, they were snapped up together with a single vine. Both dogs howling before the vine crushed them, and, with its prizes, the beast fled into the fog.

A few more shots followed it, but Borjis yelled, “Hold your fire dammit. Save some ammo for when it comes back!”

Pho never stopped telling me through all this, “Watch. It will try to come back as the creature that you saw last night, but that is not its true form. It is killing you all for its own amusement, if it wanted to we’d all be dead by that first night.” General panic began to set in. Everyone too busy to notice us as Pho said, “That is its weakness.”

I turned on her and hissed, “How can you be so fucking calm right now?”

“Because I can sense him. He is a hundred paces outside the camp, recovering and planning his next move. We have a few minutes before he acts.”

“You can sense that thing?” She opened her mouth but I said, “Forget it, whatever. You can be a bog witch for all I care. Why are you going to let it make the first move?”

“Because if we pursue him, he will know for certain who I am and flee. We will never have the chance to kill him. We need to lay a trap. Here,” she gently pulled my forehead to hers and my head exploded into aching pain when they touched. Hot irons pushed up through the back of my skull. My whole body went numb and rigid for a moment. Then I lost everything. My vision went dark, my ears empty, the smell of salt and mud gone. Even the pain went. When it all came back at once, it was so overwhelming that I turned away from Pho and vomited.

Pho said, “There. Now I will be able to keep in touch with you. You must stay here, pretend that I fled into the fog when you cut me loose.”

I finished retching. When I wiped my mouth and turned, Pho said, “Do you understand?” I understood little right now. I heard Pho as if she talked to me in an open field, I understood her clearer than ever before. But she spoke without opening her mouth.

“You… what are you?”

“To your people, mine were known as spirit runners.”

A legend, a myth. The Melanian Empire massacred their people a century ago. The whole continent knew about the killings. A methodical slaughter like that hadn’t happened before then. Rumors of survivors always existed but… what was she doing out here? Who was she hunting?

It did not matter. Pho warned me, “He’s coming. Stay alive.” She retreated into the fog and everything else in the camp swept back into the lonely island Pho had made for the two of us. Head spinning, I heard something moving through the water. When I turned, Borjis had an old claymore in his hands. Everyone saw the beast’s shape in the fog, some of the men fired even as Borjis shouted, “Wait until it gets closer—” The monster leapt into the air, flying much too far for something its size. It had lunged for Borjis, but the old man wasn’t stupid. He jumped to the side, already lifting the sword in his hands as the beast landed next to him. But the beast rolled as soon as its paws hit the ground. I noticed now the monster was different, its no longer a uniform color, now cobbled together from the three dogs. Grey, brown, black and white. The monster ignored Borjis and ran straight for my sister.

I moved before Borjis even finished his missed swing, before Pavel even screamed. I had nothing but the knife I cut Pho’s ropes with. Damn that woman. How did she expect me to just watch that thing devour my kin? The beast noticed me before it reached Pavel and twisted mid-stride to me. Apparently it remembered. Had a score to settle. It was big, I couldn’t outrun it. I dived before one of its oversized hands swiped at me. Its momentum and mine, its wide stance—I went right under it, and the beast was so busy reaching for me it did not notice Havel bringing down his next heavy swing like an axe. The blow connected on the beast’s shoulder blade. I turned back to Pavel, jumping to my feet and grabbing her. Borjis said, “Fire!” Several guns in the camp went off at once. I found my sword planted by my tent and grabbed it. I told Pavel, “Stay back,” and pushed her way, facing the beast again to see it breaking for the fog. One of our hunters in its way. The man tried to run, but the beast, those long terrible arms, snatched him up by the throat. He didn’t so much as cry out. They both disappeared into the fog.

Then we all got to hear his screams.

The man screamed for help but no one did a thing. Everyone waited for orders from Borjis. He stabbed his sword in the ground and shouted, “Fuck! Leave Verben, if we go out there we’ll be making it even easier for that monster.” We all listened to Verben go from desperate screams to pained moans. Bones snapped. Then he relented. For a time, all we heard was our breathing, the stirring waters, and the sounds of bones crushed by a set of powerful jaws. And it occurred to me then, like a stone dropping, that it wanted us to hear it.

Pavel was sobbing behind me. She tried whispering a prayer, “Lord Morlen, please deliver us from this storm that—”

“Keep your mouth shut,” Borjis snarled. The beast had stopped. We couldn’t hear it anymore. Borjis pulled his sword from the dirt. “No one make a noise unless you know where it’s coming from. Pavel, climb the spruce with your sister. Both of you stay up there until this is over.”

I didn’t move. Pavel grabbed my arm, but I gave her a look and said, “Just go.” She did not argue. Borjis offered a hand and boosted her up to the nearest branch. He studied me for a moment but didn’t force me to follow.

Pho said to me, “Would you be able to do it? To put your life before your sister’s?” In my head again. What sort of question was— “It will test you. Toy with you all. You’ve already gotten its attention twice now. It’s interest…”

If we made it through this I would kill that woman. I approached Borjis while everyone kept scanning the fog. I whispered, “This thing, Borjis. It’s toying with us.”

He glared at me. “What gave it away? The legs in the tree, the bodies piling up one by one?” He sneered. “Stupid… you should join your sister. A woman shouldn’t be involved in this bloody business… Speaking of, where’s Pho?”

I blushed and looked down at my feet. “I freed her when Schucher… um… she ran when everything started happening.”

Borjis grunted. “If that beast didn’t get her, exposure will.” The quiet was broken by a long shriek. Guttural. Bestial. Bellowed from the throat of something neither human nor animal. Borjis added quietly, “Maybe that’s them now.”

“Please.” Pho’s contempt was so great I felt it smoldering in me. “The men of your lands are pathetic. If I could trust them to believe me, I would ask for their help.”

And I knew she spoke the truth. Borjis would never let some strange woman, one not even from Fausdiv, take control out of his hands. All of this, all of it was because, like the night before, Borjis chose to ignore Pho before she even spoke. Now I knew it wasn’t Pho’s contempt, but mine coiling smoke in my chest.

It didn’t matter, really. In the next moment, we heard movement from the water again. “Shit,” Borjis muttered. It was coming at us at a gallop, running like a bear on all fours. It looked even bigger. I wondered how big it would be if it ate all of us. It broke into view, the men it was after running away. This time it went for the nearest hunter. It was so big now that it could lift its pawed-foot over my head and it did just that to the unfortunate man it caught. He went down under a massive paw. His head crushed like boulder dropped on it. The nearest man bravely rushed in with a wood axe. In a blur, the beast twisted and grabbed his raised hands—I heard his arms snap. The beast pulled him into the air and slammed the man into the ground. Several of the hunters opened fire. One clipped the monster in the head again, taking out half its face. It didn’t go down.

“Does anything fucking work?” Borjis barked at the thing while it threw the body still in its grip at the next closest hunter. The beast made for the spruce. Borjis stepped forward with his sword point tilted like he intended to stab the beast mid-charge. I didn’t get in his way. He stepped forward, thrusting out and somehow hit the charging beast in its throat, its own momentum ripping the blade through the throat and nearly beheading it. The monster lurched and actually began to fall over. Borjis pushed forward with his shoulder to roll the dead weight off of him so he didn’t get trampled. It slammed into the spruce, shaking the limbs and making my sister cry out. “The only way to slow him down is to keep him in pain,” Pho warned.

The hand by my foot began twitching and forced an involuntary yelp from me. I stomped on the hand, but it was a laughable attempt. The thing was the size of my ribcage. Without thinking, I began hacking at its wrist. I snapped the bone and was about to sever the hand completely when Borjis grabbed my arm. The camp had gathered around. Pavel still waited in the tree. I tried to bring my sword down again but Borjis said, “It’s over, Kav. Get a hold of yourself.”

“We can’t let up, if we do—”

“Don’t bother with him, he just thinks you’re being emotional. Step away, now,” Pho again. Too late. The back of the monster exploded with more of those black vines. I watched Borjis eyes go wide, still looking at me. Stunned? Maybe it was just the body’s natural reaction to sudden pain, one of those vines took him through the back and broke out through his ribs. Blood exploded over us both. I almost vomited. Borjis wasn’t the only one struck. Five more men had been taken by this monster. Borjis dropped his sword, I was knocked backwards onto my back by the sudden motion of the beast’s body standing up. That broke the rest of our crew, the few hunters still on their feet ran into the woods. The broken body of the beast stood there for a moment. Then the vines retreated and smaller ones worked from within. I watched it pull its head back into place, its hand. Even the face a bullet took off. That black mass seemed to knit it back together until it was whole. The six newest victims scattered around the spruce, dead or dying. Just the two of us. My sister still helpless in her tree. I needed to stand. To act.

The monster hunched over me, its hands pinned mine down. Almost carefully, like it knew its full weight would smash them completely. Its nostrils twitched, the end of its muzzle a dog’s nose. Probably taken from one of Schucher’s mutts. I realized it was smelling me, there was a low growl and then it opened its mouth in a shriek. It was like a cannon going off next to me. I knew I was kicking, thrashing, and cursing, but I couldn’t hear anything because of the intense ringing in my ears. Spit and the meaty breath flew into my face. I saw its many teeth: canines, much too small for a beast its size, with flatter looking human teeth mixed in. The beast was interrupted. Losing its balance when something fell on it—Pavel. I saw my sister fall beside us. That stupid fool. She should have run. She should have—

The beast forgot about me. It scooped her up in one of its hands and ran back into the fog. I was screaming her name. On my feet, running out of the camp, following the noise of the beast moving through water. The cold making me gasp as I sloshed into it. I waded quickly as I could when I heard a pistol sound off. My sister’s groaning voice. I found her on the shore of another sand bank. Smaller this time. My sister, on the ground, shivered uncontrollably.

“Pavel!” I ran to her, accidentally splashing water on her and making her flinch as I wrapped her in my arms.

She shivered the entire time as I helped her stand. She said, “That fucking… I was afraid to shoot it in the tree, see? Afraid I’d miss or the bullet would go through it into you so I just dropped and I thought I was dead—I thought that fucking monster wanted to rape me but then I managed to grab the pistol Borjis gave me and—oh Morlen… Borjis…”

“It’s okay, Pavel. We’re getting out of here. We’re alive, that’s all that matters.”

“After all that’s happened, you’re delusional if you still think that’s your sister,” Pho’s voice, cold and unsympathetic. “I’m sorry, but if you wish to survive, you must ready yourself for what comes next.”

I said, “We should head back to camp. We will need supplies or something much simpler will kill us.”

“You know the way?”

I did, vaguely. Just go back the way I came. I don’t know why I suggested the camp, but it made sense. We would not get far without even the tools to make a fire. I only hoped the beast was only territorial, that perhaps it would feast on the dead while we ran away. I chewed on my lip so much I didn’t even notice until I tasted blood. I spat in the water, amazed that was all I shed so far.

We reached the camp, both of us shivering now from the cold setting in through our wet leggings. Even if the monster waited long enough for us to gather supplies, we’d freeze to death if it didn’t let us dry out and warm up first. It was difficult to walk through the camp with Pavel clinging to my side, so I set Pavel down by the campfire. No one had tended to it since Schucher died. Now only embers remained.

I said, “Just stay right here. I will get some supplies for the road.”

Pavel licked her lips and nodded, trying to swallow her tears.

Pho said, “It is time.”

I still refused to believe her. Refused to—Pavel grabbed my wet coat sleeve and said, “Wait. Kav, just… give me a moment and I’ll help.”

I felt like someone who lived in a room for years and one day returned to find some stranger rearranged the furniture. Pavel never called me “Kav.” Gods of the Storm, Pho was right.

“Pavel?”

“Yes?”

“Tell me again, what happened to the monster?”

Pavel stared at me for moment, mouth hanging open, dumbfounded. Then she smiled. With the tear streaks marking her freckled face, she smiled. Her dimples wide and her teeth. A smile. She laughed. “Oh, you’re better at this than I thought. This is why I saved you for last.” I tried to back away but Pavel snatched my wrist and yanked me close, her grip strong enough to leave a bruise and make me gasp. “I wanted to surprise you, maybe have an intimate moment, and then my flesh breaks with spines or claws. I really wanted to see your face. Let you think you were safe, almost escaped, just to see how you broke…”

“Fuck you.” I spat on her face. “Make it quick.”

Pho said, “Lock your other hand in place with the one he has. Keep him talking.”

I did as Pho said, trembling all over. At this point I was beyond fear. All I had left was anger at what this monster took from me. How it dared to speak in my sister’s voice, with her face.

“Oh no, I know what I want to do… how about a goodbye kiss for your sister?” Pavel’s tongue began to pour from her mouth. Out her lips and to the ground, going pink to black, full of barbs and thorns. She was still smiling when she said, “Well?”

“Now.”

I dug my feet in and ripped myself out of her grip, pulling so hard I fell backward when I got away. I tried to get up but that tongue wrapped around my ankle, I heard wet laughter behind me, but when I looked over my shoulder I saw something crash into Pavel. It was a lantern, the oil spilling all over, glass cutting into her skin. She grunted. But before she could even turn her head Pho had reached us, charging forward with a sword, the blade went in beneath the shoulder, almost to the hilt before Pho used her momentum to roll over Pavel, hands still on the sword. She pulled the beast into the air, over her shoulder, and slammed its body right on top of the embers of the fire. Pho probably broke the monster’s ribs with the force it took to pull it into the air like that. The monster, my sister, went up in flames when the embers touched the lantern oil soaked into her coat. A pained shriek bloomed from their mouth, growing louder, angrier before Pho pulled a pistol from her belt and blew apart Pavel’s face.

“I hate listening to that.”

Using the knife I still had on my belt, I cut the now limp appendage still wrapped around my ankle. Pho was using the sword to stab at parts of the thrashing, burning mess. She said to me, “Get that claymore over here. We need to pin this down.”

“Is she not dead?”

“Your sister’s been dead for almost an hour.”

“Not Pavel, that monster?”

Pho stabbed it again. “This beast? He does not die. Not in the way you see life and death. Now, the claymore.” While I did, Pho removed her cloak and lit it in the flames before she dropped it on the body. She added, “After you’ve done that, start gathering things to burn. We can’t let this fire go out.”

I brought the claymore over. I had to use both hands, but I stabbed it through the middle of the squirming mass in the flames, pushing the blade into the dirt until the handguard pressed against the monster. The flames burnt my hands, but it was worth pushing the whole blade through that bastard.

Me and Pho sat next to each other. The fire now burned bright. The stink of all the dead bodies almost overtook the smell of the charring flesh before us. Crows swept all around the camp, taking part in a feast. I realized this was the first time I even heard a bird since the beast first appeared last night. Me and Pho only just now sat down. A stack of wood to my left, another to Pho’s right. She offered me a canteen she had retrieved.

While I drank she said, “I’m sorry, about all of this.”

I sealed the canteen and gave it back to her. “You did not lead me here. Or anyone else.”

“Just as well, if I could have saved the others—”

“I knew Borjis wouldn’t listen to you. My sister was the only one who…” I trailed off. I did not want to think about Pavel right now. “So, spirit runner, is Pho your real name?”

“It is enough of a name.”

“And this monster, does it have a name?”

“An old one. In your language, it translates into ‘the silence that moves.’”

I scoffed. “It was anything but silent.”

Pho threw a wooden plank into the flames. “You are not a spirit runner, you would not understand. I can hear every living thing… its voice. From the spruce behind us to the fungus growing on its base. But these monsters? They are a black mass in this world that’s neither living nor dead, that has no true shape. ”

“They?”

“They are few in number, perhaps a dozen spread across the continent. Most of the time they take the place of kings, religious leaders. Whatever suits their fancy.”

“And murdering people suited this one?”

Pho shrugged. “He is old as my people are, and my people are ancient. I imagine he did this because it was one of the few things he hadn’t done yet. Even they can grow bored.”

“He sounds like a god.”

“If it makes you feel better, then you can say we are killing a god. To me, I’m removing a stain.”

“So are we really killing him with this?”

“Not really. That is the trouble. But by reducing him to ash, scattering that ash into the ocean… it will take centuries for him to regenerate.”

I was silent. All of this was too much for me. I reached over and added the broken hafts of a spear to the fire. “So I cannot even kill the monster that killed my sister.”

Pho said, “Sadly, no.”

I sighed. I was too tired to even dwell on my grief. My whole body ached, but I would stay awake with Pho until this was finished. “Will you spend your whole life doing this?”

“My people are the only ones who can sense them. It is my duty.”

“Have you come across any others? How often—”

“This was the first I found. And until I sensed him, I was not sure I’d even find one.”

I was not surprised this was her first. She was so young to sound so old. But considering where she must have come from… well, I was not surprised. “Must be lonely work.”

“The whole world sings around me, I’m never—”

“Oh shut up with that nonsense,” I said. “What I mean is… I want to help you.”

Pho looked at me. “You know what you’re asking for, don’t you? We could spend our whole lives wandering and not find another creature. Or we could be dead by this time next year.”

“They stole my sister. They stole my life. I want to return the favor,” I said. Although, a week ago the life this monster had stolen had little prospects.

“Very well,” Pho said.

I offered my hand and we shook. “It is good to have a sister again, even if it is just a sister in arms.”

Reluctantly, Pho smiled. “Will you leave your hair like that? I knew you wanted to cut it—”

“No, I couldn’t do that to Pavel. If her ghost saw me with short hair she’d haunt me until we both died.”

“I will not be able to brush it for you like her.”

“I will teach you, if you teach me how you fight like you do,” I said.

Pho chuckled. “A fair trade… You know, it will be good to have company.”

An idea sparked for me. “That’s it.”

“Hmm?”

“Company, I’m going to start a company. It won’t just be the two of us hunting these creatures.”

“Start a company with what? I don’t think anything in this camp is worth the effort it’d take to carry back and sell.”

“I can think of one thing.”

I went to Borjis’ now collapsed tent; the poles and stakes in the pile of firewood. I took a bundle by the tent and dropped it in Pho’s lap. She unraveled it enough to see what was inside and laughed. The voice light and melodic. I wanted to hear it laugh more in the years to come.

I smiled and wrapped the head Borjis sawed off the night before and put it beside us while we watched the fire. “If nothing else, we do have a fat bounty to collect.”

Pho laughed again, and I recognized it as an animal laughter. The simple joy of being alive in spite of everything. It was infectious. Death all around and somehow, someway, we had survived. I couldn’t help but join her in that moment.