“By the time you hear them, it’s probably too late.”

-Captain Jens Verdulion, 176 U.E.

 

“Come on, let’s go back,” Stephan said, descending from the landing ramp of the old wreckage.

A cursory sweep of the wreck’s interior had revealed no survivors. This came as no surprise, but it would have gnawed at his conscience to leave without making sure. He took a mental note of the wreck’s location, assuming that the captain might want to return to loot the dead.

He’d leave that to her, though. He didn’t feel the need to dirty his hands for dead men’s scraps.

“I won’t go,” Taira said.

Stephan sighed, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Listen, I get it. I really do. But you saw what happened. These lakata are dangerous, and I’m man enough to admit that I can’t properly defend you. Neither of us are fighters. So come on, before we get ourselves neck-deep in trouble. I’ll back you up against Quintilla when she returns.”

“It’ll be too late by then.”

“Sorry. That’s the best I can do. If we keep pressing on, you’ll eventually run out of anima, and we’ll lose our only advantage. You don’t want to be stuck out here once it gets dark.”

Taira hesitated, then slowly nodded. “I… I suppose.” She averted her gaze from him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I wasn’t thinking. She just… makes me mad sometimes. I shouldn’t let it affect me.”

“As I said, I completely get it,” Stephan said with a firm nod. “For now, let’s get back before we’re forced to give the locals’ hospitality another try.”

Stephan took Taira by the hand. They began to make their way back together. He wasn’t entirely sure what direction they’d come from, but he figured it was best to seem confident.

He kept his pistol at the ready, just in case.

“It’s strange,” Taira said as they walked. She kept a tight grip on his hand.

“What is?” Stephan asked.

“My sister. I don’t know what to think of her. Sometimes I want to be like her, and other times… Other times I want nothing to do with her.”

“She’s certainly different. I think everyone has their good and bad. You probably notice it more with Quintilla since you know her so well.”

“She raised me for a few years, before Vormor.”

“There you go, then. Everyone resents their parents at least a little.”

The undergrowth rustled up ahead. Stephan let go of Taira’s hand and positioned himself in front of her, leveling his gun at the shivering leaves.

“Don’t worry,” he said, ignoring his heart thumping against his ribcage. “I’ll handle this.”

Taira screamed.

“No, stay calm! I’ve got—” Stephan glanced back and cut himself off.

A lakata charged at them from behind, a stone axe held high above its head. It let out a long hiss as it closed the distance. Taira stood frozen as she gawked at the creature.

Working on pure instinct, Stephan shoved Taira to the side, leveled his pistol, and fired. He caught the creature in the shoulder. It kept going, barrelling into him. The axe went down with a whoosh, and Stephan barely had time to raise his hand to block. The stone implement caught on his Rivello and knocked it from his hand. The force made Stephan stumble back, a jolt going up his arm all the way to the shoulder.

The lakata was even uglier up close—skin scarred and lumpy, teeth full of putrid flesh scraps, eyes black and dead.

Stephan grabbed the haft of the axe, but the creature was stronger than him by far. The lakata gave a sharp tug, nearly pulling Stephan off his feet.

Stephan quickly realized he was going to lose as they grappled, but the Rivello was too far away.

There was a hiss from the second lakata behind him, but he didn’t have time to worry about that. Taira would have to find some way to deal with it, or he’d be dead in a few moments.

The axe-wielding lakata snapped its jaws, and Stephan jerked his head away. It pulled on the axe. Off-balance, Stephan was forced to let go. The lakata gave a triumphant hiss and hoisted the weapon for a finishing blow.

A thick branch struck the creature over the head, splintering on its rough skin. The lakata stumbled to the side, bleeding from one of its eyes, and dropped the axe. Taira stood behind the lakata, clutching the remains of the ruined branch in both hands.

Stephan dove for the axe, picked it up, and swung as the lakata struggled to regain its senses. The stone wedge sank deep into tough flesh, shattering ribs. The lakata sucked in a sharp breath, blood spraying from its chest onto Stephan’s suit. It keeled over and took the axe with it, ripping the weapon from his hands. A few moments later, the creature had breathed its last, growing still.

“What happened to the other one?” Stephan asked, turning.

“I handled it,” Taira said.

The second lakata fell through the air, continually passing between two portals placed atop one another. It picked up speed as it fell, gurgling with panic.

“Oh my,” Stephan said. “Uh, okay.” He went and picked up his pistol. It had a notch in the trigger guard where the axe had caught it but was otherwise completely fine. “You can let him down now, I think.” He aimed his Rivello in the vague direction of the falling creature.

Taira made a sweeping gesture with her hands and the portals dissipated. The lakata shot straight into the ground, preserving all the momentum it had built up from its long fall.

Bones cracked audibly on impact, and the lakata’s body warped around the rocks beneath it. Some of the entrails pushed through the mouth. The thing was dead.

Really dead.

Stephan cleared his throat, hesitantly holstering the pistol. “Ahem. Never do that to me, please.”

“What a fool I am,” Taira said, ignoring him. She looked between the two creatures for a moment and sighed. “There’s no peace on this wretched ball of dust. My sister’s path of blood and death is the only one.”

Stephan fumbled for something encouraging to say, but found nothing. He went over to the dead axe-wielding lakata, placed a foot on its stomach, and pulled the axe from its chest. He let the heavy implement rest on one shoulder.

“We should go,” he said, putting some softness in his tone. “That gunshot will probably attract more of them.”

Taira nodded.

“Have you got any anima left?” he asked.

“Some.”

“Good. Try to make it last.”

In the silence that settled over the forest, Stephan became aware of a faint sound. A screech like a frog being stepped on. It was faraway but distinct, making his brows furrow.

“Hear that?” he asked.

Taira nodded.

“Doesn’t sound like lakata, does it?”

“I know it.”

“What? You know that sound?”

Taira started walking in the direction of the sound. Away from the ship, Stephan was pretty sure. “Yes. Come with me.”

Not again.

He considered hauling her to the ship on his back, but he figured she would just teleport again. If she ran out of anima in the middle of this forest, they were unlikely to make their way back out again.

She knew that, too.

He followed her but made his displeasure no secret, muttering curses. He swatted at the stinging bugs that crowded to the sticky blood spots all over him.

“What are we heading towards?” Stephan asked. “What’s that sound?”

“Kithraxi,” Taira said without looking back.

“Kithraxi? You’re joking.”

“No.”

Stephan swallowed hard.

It always seems to get worse, doesn’t it?

*****

Quintilla stared down the lakata rushing towards her until she could see the light glinting in its dead eyes. She fanned her revolver, put three shots in the thing’s torso, and sidestepped the corpse as it hurtled past her.

“No headshots!” she called over the beasts’ hoarse cries. “Any ruined trophies come out of your own shares!”

Lakata poured out of the treeline, crude weapons raised. Too many to count.

But just enough to make it fun.

Kurko leveled his ship’s cannon. A spray of hot slugs sent three of the monsters flying.

Yin bounced between tree trunks, slitting throats mid-flight. The monsters swiped at her, caught only air. She tucked into a front flip, sword outstretched, and clove a lakata scalp to crotch.

“Focus, Yin!” Quintilla shouted. “That was 250 standards you just cut to bits!”

She turned her revolver on a lakata who was trying to sneak up on Kurko from the side. A bullet through the chest knocked it flat on its back.

Quintilla was already seeing money.

This is looking like it could turn into a decent chunk of change. Hell, this shit is like a vacation—I’d do it for free.

Something red flickered in her peripheral vision. Quintilla jumped to the side on instinct, whipping her head around. A globe of smoky, rust-red fire hurtled past her face, bathing her in heat before it struck the ground.

She scanned the shrinking group of lakata for the culprit. There. A beast in the back, carrying a burnt-black staff etched with crude symbols. It wore a necklace of bones which rattled as it danced to some imagined melody.

That had to be the one.

You think you know some magic, huh?

I’ll show you magic.

Quintilla raised her gun, waited for Yin to make another pass so that she had a clear shot, and fired. One of the other lakata stepped in the way of the staff-wielder, taking the bullet in the shoulder. The lakata let out a breathy yell, but a second bullet shut it up. The beast fell away, and she had a line of sight on the staff-wielder again.

The bone-clad lakata chanted something in a harsh tongue and waved its arms wildly. It cupped its hands over the tip of its staff and a flame sprang to life along the edge. It nursed the flame tenderly, whispering to it.

Quintilla pulled the trigger, but the revolver clicked empty. She ejected the spent casings and started chambering new rounds.

The staff-wielder took the ball of flame into its hands and reared back to hurl it.

Quintilla closed the cylinder with two bullets chambered and fired them with a split second’s aim. She caught the staff-wielder in the arm, and it dropped the hungry flame on itself. The fire ate up the lakata’s thick hide in seconds, swallowed its screams, reduced it to a pile of burnt-black flesh.

Black smoke rose from the dying creature, a smear of night on her vision that seemed to consume the light around it.

The crew made quick work of the remaining lakata. Yin started taking off heads and depositing them into a large sack that Kurko was holding open.

“That could have gone worse,” the first mate said. He kept his gaze firmly on the smoldering lakata as if expecting it to spring back to life. “These creatures don’t usually wield magic, do they?”

“No,” Quintilla said. “It looked odd, too. Not like any geomancy I’ve seen.”

She sauntered up to the dead staff-wielder and poked it with the tip of her boot. The flesh was stiff and unmoving beneath her foot, flaking off in black sheets. It was dead, alright. She hesitated to think what would have happened if one of those fireballs had made contact with any of the crew.

Quintilla wrested the staff from the grip of the dead lakata and gave it a curious once-over. The symbols clawed into the wood were unlike any runes she had ever seen. Jagged. Dangerous. Complex. They did remind her of something, though.

She let the staff fall to the ground and wiped her hands on a spot of unbloodied grass.

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” she said. “You’ll be happy to know that we didn’t just find lakata who were masters of the arcane.”

“And the bad?” Kurko asked.

Quintilla looked up. “They’re demon-worshippers.”

The first mate gave a dissatisfied grunt.

“These idiots didn’t discover that kind of magic on their own. Someone must have taught them.”

“A demon, you mean,” Kurko said.

Quintilla shrugged. “Most likely.”

“Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?” Yin asked, waving her blood-stained shortsword around. “How much does the governor pay for a demon head?”

“Nothing at all. No use sending good cloud chasers to their deaths for a bounty that’ll never be claimed.”

Oh. Then…”

“We turn back,” Kurko said. “While we still have that choice.”

“No,” Quintilla said firmly. “We press on. We’ve already come this far. Most people can’t handle a demon of any real caliber, but we’re not most people.”

“Have you ever, uh, fought a demon before?” Yin asked. She threw the last head in the sack and wiped her bloody hands on a bush with waxy leaves.

“Sure I have. I killed an imp once.”

Yin glanced up at Kurko. “Does that count?”

Kurko shook his head. “That does not count.”