“Nolan said at the time it was that little girl he picked up recently who did it…” The Headman tilted his head and thought for a moment. “But Emmo says he was scared out of his wits and talking nonsense…”
“That little girl?” Berli considered. “I’ve seen her plenty.”
“So… do you really think she could kill that many forest gray jackals?”
“Hard to say… Under normal circumstances it’s impossible, but since this touches on demonic possession…” Berli murmured.
“Do you know where she comes from? They say Nolan rescued her out of a bear’s belly—if you think about it, is that even possible?”
“As for where she comes from, I’d made inquiries with Baron Norlon’s house. A very young lady has gone missing there lately, so I suspected it was her… In another two days the Baron’s people should arrive to identify her.”
I stood quiet outside the window, listening to the two of them talk, listening to Mr. Berli pacing back and forth inside the chapel, his steps going tip-tap on the floor.
“Here’s what we’ll do: that young lady who’s suspected of being Baron Norlon’s daughter—keep her under watch first. Don’t let her wander. When the Baron’s men arrive, they can confirm her identity—and as for Emmo, we need to find him quickly. Alive we see the man; dead we see the corpse.”
Berli gave his ruling. The Headman agreed over and over, then hurried out of the chapel as well—presumably to carry out Mr. Berli’s instructions.
To think that mild, amiable face would carry such weight—enough that even the Headman listens to him.
“So… they’re going to come arrest Clytia in a bit?” I thought. It sounded like they meant to hold her until that so-called Baron Norlon sent someone to verify who she was.
If Clytia really were that so-called young lady of Norlon’s, leaving things to them wouldn’t be bad. Unfortunately, that’s outsiders’ wishful thinking, quite far from the truth. Once the misunderstanding is punctured, will it turn into a medieval witch-hunt, with Clytia condemned as the demon-possessed culprit and executed?
Would it still be in time, at a moment like this, to report the Duke of Erandel’s name? Ordinary villagers of course know the officials and lords directly over them, and the annual three-day festival on the Emperor’s birthday helps fix the reigning Emperor’s honored name in their minds.
But a border duke who doesn’t merit a holiday and has nothing to do with birth, marriage, death, or the price of grain and oil—would such a man even be known here?
I was pessimistic.
In that case, we should run. This is no longer any restful haven—you heard what they said just now, didn’t you, Clytia?
I thought in silence, hoping Clytia could hear me, but of course that was impossible—the gray-haired girl stayed motionless, sitting under the chapel’s side window, hugging her knees and staring blankly.
What should I do?
…
Time trickled by. My first agitation slowly turned to astonishment.
Call it a blind spot under the lamp? Clytia hadn’t gone anywhere—she’d just sat behind the chapel nearly all day, and not a single person discovered her.
Ah—granted, it was Mr. Berli’s neglected dead grass that gave some cover. But those people coming and going—couldn’t even one of them pause and actually look?
During this time I heard the Headman come to the chapel several more times to report to Mr. Berli. Emmo still seemed to have no trace, and as for Clytia—of course they could never find her.
Dusk thickened; the light dimmed. In the winter night wind, Clytia drew herself tight and, without knowing it, fell asleep.
“Sleeping out here at night will kill you with cold, won’t it?” I thought. The Veylins—men and women alike—favor drinking to keep out the cold. Every winter there’s word of someone drinking themselves into a stupor and freezing to death in the snow.
So—I stretched out a body gone stiff with cold, worked my joints slowly, and when the warm blood had begun to move a little through my limbs, I got to my feet.
“It’s fully dark—that makes it easier for me to move.” I looked up. There was no moon tonight. Using the darkness, I slipped out beyond the chapel grounds.
Where to?
Because of the frequent incidents these past two days, the Headman had formed the villagers into squads to patrol the village in shifts through the night. Hiding by the roadside, I watched torch-bearing villagers swaggering through the lanes.
Run for it? I’d heard there was a free city nearby called Romern—maybe I could send a letter to the Erandel Duchy from there.
“Right, and there’s this…” I lowered my head to the poetry book in my hand. So Clytia had brought it out? Muscle habit had me gripping it without thinking the whole time.
“Return it?”
A chill night wind blew past. Staring at the book, I calmed down.
There was no question running was a bad plan. Even if I got out of the village, I didn’t know the road to Romern. And Clytia could wake up at any moment—if we were in the wild when that happened, we couldn’t guarantee our safety.
“Mm… I need a helper.” I was tucked under the eaves of a clay-tile house by the road, weighing the way forward, when I saw Diya walk down the lane ahead.
“With a food basket… going to bring Nolan a meal?”
I watched her back and followed from a distance, seeing Diya turn into a spacious courtyard.
That must be the Headman’s house, right? They were keeping Nolan there, I’d heard. The moment she stepped in, dogs burst into barking, and the Headman’s shouts to hush them came one after another.
My heart moved—I wanted to slip in after her. But just then a patrol of villagers came along, forcing me to dart into a side alley. I’d barely let out a breath when I saw them chatting and laughing as they turned right down the very alley where I’d hidden.
Just my luck. I watched them come and could only run deeper into the lane, trying to find some place to hide. It was dark, so they probably hadn’t seen me yet, but I could see their torches snapping and flaring as they closed in.
Then I smelled charred wood.
I cut through a path between farmhouses and came out before a patch of pitch-black ruins. This had to be Emmo’s house, burned last night. With nowhere else to hide, I crouched and wormed my way through fallen beams into the dwelling whose earthen walls were scorched black.
The gaps hardly fit a body; even with Clytia’s slight frame it was a strain, and I had to curl up tight.
I prayed they would hurry on, but things rarely go as one wishes. Through the cracks in the rubble I watched the patrol circle the ruins a few times, then stop and talk in front of them.
“Brother, someone just died here. It’s too eerie. Let’s finish the round and go back.”
“Listen to you—hold out a bit and we can sleep after this shift.”
“Ugh… it’s only Emmo. No need to fuss this much. For all we know he died in the fire already.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. They didn’t find Hunter Emmo’s body at the scene.”
“Then it burned to ash. To bone grit. Nothing left.”
“How could that be? There’d be some trace no matter what.”
“How is it impossible? Doesn’t the Catechist always say, ‘The Church teaches us to do good to others and see others as ourselves’? Hunter Emmo was so harsh all the time—maybe he was punished by God and dragged into purgatory by a demon—”
“What are you babbling? Keep throwing curses around and, whatever happens to Hunter Emmo, I think you’re the one headed for purgatory—”
“Ow… I was just talking with you, big brother… You’re no fun.”
I licked my dry lips and watched them. It felt like nearly an hour before they finally turned away.
There might be another shift, so I had to move now—just as I thought that, I heard a rustle under the rubble nearby.
Then, from beneath a collapsed beam across the way, a twisted figure crept out, on all fours in a grotesque posture, slowly drawing up behind those villagers.
It was the way a carnivore stalks from behind—
Thump!
“What was that!”
The last man spun around—and saw nothing behind him but emptiness.
“Don’t spook yourself. Let’s go.”
“Okay…” He cast a few uneasy glances back, then caught up to his companions.
Flattened among the debris, I controlled my breathing and saw the creature’s shadow. With inhuman agility it had just now leapt in an instant behind an earthen wall to the side.
When it was about to spring, I’d thrown a pebble and struck it, drawing its attention away.
It seemed to have lost interest in the villagers and began sniffing around the ruins—so far it hadn’t found me.
I studied its shape. The head resembled some kind of canid, but the body had humanlike limbs. The muscles of its back and arms bulged unnaturally. It was practically a werewolf out of legend.
Then I saw clearly—ah, that was Hunter Emmo. Or at least, the torn beast-hide on its body marked it as what had been Hunter Emmo.
How had he become this? I rifled through the Abyssal knowledge the Evil God had granted: injecting a beast’s vital blood into a human body to induce mutation; grafting human organs onto a beast to synthesize a monster—or mixing the souls of man and beast, with bodily alterations besides, to manufacture a creature monstrous in both body and mind.
But in the end, creating species is the prerogative of gods. Monsters made by human presumption mostly live mere months at the longest, hours at the shortest. This jackal-were Emmo had become was likely one such product.
“Could be tied to a black sorcerer… Don’t tell me Ross… If it’s him there’s no need to tangle with it… It’ll die on its own anyway.” That was what I thought—when my heart lurched.
I felt it. The Seed of the Evil God—till now a presence scarcely there—suddenly insisted on itself from within.
From the whirlpool in my heart it sent up a hunger—conveyed in a pre-verbal urge that pressed against me, eager, insistent:
Destroy it.