An old woman wearing a black, hooded robe with white accents is surrounded by blood. Tendrils of darkness trail from her fingers and lead to a freakishly tall empty that twitches, standing over the corpse of two more. She's breathing hard and looks up sharply at our approach.
Eyes wide, she gestures and the empty shudders, then shambles toward us.
“We’re friends!” I shout.
The empty is about to reach us anyway when Halfdan swings his axe, cutting it from collarbone to hip. The two halves fall apart with a wet sound that turns my stomach.
The woman winces, falling to her knees and clutching at her chest. Her face twists with agony as she screams again.
Miyasha lifts both palms and approaches her slowly. “Are you hurt?”
I notice James hasn’t removed his finger from the trigger of his rifle, even if he’s not pointing it at the woman.
“What was that?” I whisper as Miyasha leans down and speaks to the trembling old woman.
“Nothing natural,” he says. “Then again, what about this place is?”
“She was controlling that thing, right?” I say. “I wasn’t imagining it?”
“Sure looked like it,” James says.
Beside him, Halfdan holds his axe with a white knuckled grip. He’s not looking at the empty he just cleaved in two. He’s staring at the kneeling woman, and the big man looks afraid.
“Halfdan?” I ask.
“Draugr,” he says, eyes never leaving her. He says more in his own language, as if speaking to himself. His face tightens as if he’s deciding something, and then he subtly shifts his weight.
“Easy,” I say, sensing he’s about to do something rash. “She has a corestone. Like us. That’s all.”
I can’t tell if he’s convinced, but he at least relaxes, seeming content to wait for now. Beside him, Kato has knelt and is poking around the empty corpse, as if searching to be sure there’s no corestone.
Slowly, I pick my way through the red slush and bits of grayish meat littering the ground all around the woman. Did she take control of a living empty? Or did it die first? I’ve got questions for her, but I can see now clearly isn’t the time to ask.
Miyasha looks up and comes over to me a few steps away from the woman, lowering her voice. “Her name’s Mary. Says she was a nun in the 1800’s.” Her voice drops. “She thinks her power is a punishment. From God. Something about how she was questioning her faith before angels came and took her.”
Mary is still kneeling low, eyes closed as her fingers climb a string of rosary beads, lips forming words I can’t hear.
“We should get you back to our camp,” I say softly. “You’ll freeze out here.”
Mary looks up. “Good.”
Up close, I see she’s even older than I thought from a distance. My best guess is she’s close to seventy, but it’s hard to say for sure. She probably won’t last half an hour out here. I hesitate as I watch her go back to counting the beads. When I look back the way I came, I see the carnage caused by her power, and I can’t help wondering if bringing her to our camp is actually wise.
What if she created that empty from thin air? Or what if she took it over while it was still alive?
Miyasha studies my face. “We’ll bring her back to the outpost. I’ll keep an eye on her myself.”
I lead her a little further from the woman, voice low and urgent. “You don’t have a combat power. We bring this lady to camp, then we’ve got to leave a marked one to guard her at all times. And we don’t even know what she’s capable of yet. If we leave her here…”
“Garrick,” Miyasha says. The sudden sharpness in her eyes instantly makes me feel a rush of shame that heats my neck.
I lower my eyes, remembering this isn’t how people like Miyasha lived. The glimpses of happiness I’ve felt over the past few days come at a cost. Trust. Cooperation. All the things that would’ve got me killed in an instant back in my time.
I give the lady another look, then nod my head before I can question it. “We’ll keep two people with combat abilities on her until we’re sure we know what she’s capable of.”
James approaches, rifle still in his hands. “Problem?”
“No,” I say quickly. “But she’s clearly dangerous. We’ll need to be careful.”
James purses his lips. “I imagine a bullet would still take her down. It’ll be fine.”
Mary starts to open up as we lead her back to the outpost. “...don’t understand.”
“Not sure we really do either,” I say. “But it wasn’t angels who brought you here. I think they were aliens.” I pause when I see the confused look on her face. “Creatures from other planets.”
That doesn’t seem to make much sense to her, either. “God knew… he felt my doubts after the attack on our chapel. He felt my anger. And this is my punishment.”
“What happened back there, exactly?” I ask, keeping my tone as careful as I can.
Her eyes are out of focus for several seconds before she responds. “Those demons… one was already dead. The other two were… I think they were going to eat it. I felt the body. It was as if it was… calling to me.”
I swallow in a suddenly dry throat. Some part of me is relieved, at least. An ability to reanimate corpses is a different kind of threat than if she’d created that thing herself or taken control of it before it died.
Mary licks her dry, cracked lips before continuing. “I could feel it in my mind.” Her voice trembles, as if the horror of what she experienced is still trying to find hold. “Its memories. Who it was… it was a man. He was proud of his sheep once, and he told everyone he had no favorites, but he did.” She smiles a little wistfully, then her expression goes slack. “They took him and pumped something into his body. There were others, too. So many… for a long time, he was awake and watching.”
Mary trails off, arms clutched around her body as she shivers from the cold. Kato takes off another of his furs and drapes it over the little woman’s shoulders.
“What did he see?” I ask when she doesn’t continue.
“Some were released,” she says. “Some were given special care and moved to another area. The man and all the others left grew very sick. They changed into monstrous things, their minds dimming a little with each day.” She shakes her head. “After that, there was nothing to remember.”
From the moment I saw the blackened cavities in the chest of empties, I suspected something like her story. But hearing it confirmed… A dark cloud seems to hang over me. As much as I’ve been enjoying this strange new life, I can’t turn a blind eye to the cost.
“So those things were people?” Miyasha asks. “God… that’s horrible.”
“Sounds like we’re doing a mercy by putting them down,” James says. “I’d want a bullet in my brain if that was me, at least.”
“They infected us with something,” Miyasha says. “And they… somehow collected us across most of human history. But what’s the point of it all?”
“The spheres,” I say, offering my best guess. “Somehow, I think this is all about the spheres.”
“So why risk them with all this?” James asks, gesturing vaguely around the snow-covered forest.
“Are they really risking the spheres?” I ask. “Or just the hosts that carry them?”
The others fall silent at my question, leaving us to walk the rest of the way back to the outpost in an uncomfortable, heavy quiet.
Eventually, we return with Mary and Lana helps her into a cabin to get warm. James volunteers to keep an eye on her while Halfdan seems determined to stay close, axe constantly in his hands.
“What are you thinking?” Miyasha asks once Kato leaves us to prepare his gear for another hunt.
“A lot,” I admit. “About what James said. Why would they bother with all of this?”
Miyasha stares, then her fingertips lift to the markings on her neck, as if she’s thinking what I’m thinking.
“They give us fodder to fight. They surround us with challenges we can handle, sprinkling bigger threats farther from our outpost. It’s like it’s designed for us to be able to grow stronger. And I think if we get stronger, so do the spheres. What if that’s the whole point? They put us in a position where our survival depends on growing their stupid spheres?”
Miyasha folds her arms, eyes growing distant as she seems to digest what I’m saying.
I shake my head slowly, touching the markings on my own neck. “They’ve marked us for fucking harvest, Miyasha. I think this place—this whole thing… it’s just a farm.”
Miyasha lets out a long breath and leans against the outpost wall. She’s quiet for several beats before speaking. “Then we need to stop fighting, right? If they want us to fatten ourselves up for them, fuck them.”
“No,” I say. “We’re already in their game whether we like it or not. But I think as long as we’re getting stronger, they have no reason to collect us. So we get as strong as we can, and if they want to come collect us, we’ll make them bleed for it.”
“And what if you’re wrong?”
“Then we get strong and survive anyway. But as far as I can see, the only way we might win this is if we get stronger than they expect. Strong enough to stop them from taking these things out of our chests when the time comes.”
Miyasha opens her mouth to respond, but Bugbug perks up in his craft and zooms in front of me. I jump back and swear under my breath, startling Miyasha.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
Bugbug’s eyes dart back and forth as if he’s reading something.
“Uh,” I say, smiling a little awkwardly at Miyasha. “Gotta take a leak real quick. I’ll be right back.”
She frowns, but shrugs. “Alright?”
I move outside the wall with Bugbug following close behind. “What?” I hiss. “You’re making me look insane. They can’t see you, remember?”
“Pathetic human has just earned a clan sponsor. They are sending an emissary. Today.”
“A sponsor? What the hell does that mean?”
“A great clan has placed claim on you. It is great honor.”
“Are they going to actually help me?”
“Mmmm,” Bugbug says, as if the answer is somehow too complicated to explain.
“Will they explain what the hell all of this is about?”
“No. Emissary’s purpose is to deliver a gift, inform you of sponsorship, and leave. They will not answer stupid questions.”
“What good does being sponsored do me?”
“Emissary will explain.” Bugbug smiles, flashing his creepy little goblin teeth. The little guy looks deliriously excited, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. “Human should be excited. Sponsorship is not usually granted until—” his mouth continues moving, but the final words are cut off.
“Until what?” I ask.
Bugbug hesitates, but his eyes flick toward the distant wall.