It cloudcried torrentially over the plains south of Felsia. The low to the ground bushes sporting crowns of hard and resistant leaves gathered water in small pools, which allowed amphibians, insects and even some fishes to proliferate. Said fishes got their wobbly eyes out of the small pools at the heart of the plants and observed the world as they gathered air on their lungs and spread their pectoral fins. Then, making use of their powerful tails, they sprung out of the pool they resided currently in while flapping their powerful, long, wing-like fins. This way they clumsily flew and glided to a new pool, richer in insects or tadpoles to eat.

And among this highway of flying fishes and croaking frogs, the Felsian soldiers trudged on. The cloudcrying quickly erased their footprints, restituting the virginity of the land. The Felsian plains were a place of wonder only preserved by their almost comical inhospitality. Sometimes it was the mud, other times it was the blood sucking insects that waited patiently between high grasses, a while in a once it was a swarm of fishes frantically mating midair.

Yet, while Ehavi, among others, complained and cursed whatever deity was causing the downpour, she followed. Unseen, as she could only be. Her long, palmed extremities afforded her a silent and careful step.

The ravens saw her, with her convoluted ultraviolet patterns, but the Felsians, sons and daughters of the divine, lacked such privilege. And she fostered no ill will, in the way a dog following someone on the street doesn’t mean the animal intends to attack that person. Soldiers were rare there, and soldiers couldn’t see her even if she was not completely aware of that fact. Of the one that some beings had eyesight, that is, because she didn't. Eyeballs, those she did have; invisible eyes are useless eyes. So she followed the heat trails. She followed the smells. She followed the sound of the mud swallowing their boots.

Ald looked back now and then, because the others also did sometimes, and he couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling of being followed. None of them could, not even Gleur.

“How long until we find our quarry?” asked Ehavi.

“Nobody knows. Some like cloudcrying, others hide from it.”

“For a seasoned soldier, you surely know no shit about hunting, huh?” she said.

Gleur thought about not answering. He needn’t discipline his insolent sister, as the wilderness would do it on its own. Yet, it was never a negative to inform people.

“There are a few misshapen out here because we, soldiers, do our jobs. Without us, nobody would have the guts to exile our niblings and soon enough deformity would overrun Felsia,” he shouted so his voice would overcome the whistling of the storm and reach her.

He thanked the Mother for granting him the foresight to leave the wagon back at the encampment, too. He carried a cage on his back, and the way back was not that long, if they went on a straight line. This is because the idea wasn’t to stray deeper into the plains, but to patrol the surroundings of the encampment.

Ald looked back once more, and after a few seconds, spoke.

“Gleur, something we cannot see follows us.”

“Ah, yes, he or she likes to do that. How did you notice?”

“The water, there is a bubble of… dry air, following us since a while ago. It’s hard to notice but clearly there.”

Gleur palmed Ald’s wet back. “Good, very good. That is the kind of quick thinking that keeps you alive in the furthest lands.” He pointed to his left, to the south, to bring the point home… or away from home. “Howbeit, and this goes for everyone, we will not harm the thing that follows. We call it Ghost, it never even touched a Felsian, and it knows my name. Ghost, what am I called?”

“Glur,” she said, perking up, with most of the company looking at the shifting space devoid of cloudcrydrops confused and slightly terrified.

“Good, that’s why we spare your life. It’s kind of sentient, gentlepeople. Not a quarry for us. It will just follow out of curiosity, so ignore it.”

“You reveal to us that we may not even be capable of seeing these things we have to hunt, and expect us to take it calmly?” protested Ehavi, walking in front of Gleur to face him.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“It’s the bare minimum I expect. You know very well that misshapen ones sometimes defy the laws of logic. Now, step in line, or you will make me reconsider offering at least one Felsian to Father, sister.”

She shut up, not without showing her teeth, and stomped back into her place on the formation.

And here is a funny thing about the water-saturated soil of Felsian plains: it fosters innumerable lifeforms. Not only algae, fungi, worms and insects, but wonders like the glasstones, that are nothing more nor nothing less than colonies of freshwater radiolarians that slowly grow underground, creating beautiful structures of transparent silica.

And among the glasstones, him.

And high above, looking down below, as far from the floor as deep he was buried into it, him.

And converging at the surface, where one of the spearmen had just stepped, the claws ascended, the claws descended. They opened a gash through his boots and flesh, making him fall over the mud as he screamed in pain, and everyone else to turn and watch with trembling eyelids the form that now floated above their heads.

His mycelium-like flesh constantly coiled around the falling water drops, slowing them down. He appeared to be holding on delicate columns of water, shifting, moving his claws or teeth —it was difficult defining if the sharp, curved, bony appendages belonged to a mouth or a hand, or neither— and circling, always circling above their heads like a vulture.

Meanwhile, the injured soldier screamed in pain.

“Scatter! Ehavi, Ald, tend to Halge’s wound and carry him to the camp.” Gleur ordered, instant before stepping back to dodge the convergence between the fangs/claws of the sky and those of the earth. “Mother, what is this thing?” he mumbled as he tried to regain his balance.

Ald unsheathed his sword and, cautiously, walked up to his screaming brother.

“Don’t cut it, brother, don’t cut it!” Halge pleaded, and started crawling away with his elbows, his mangled lower leg rendering him unable to stand.

“I won’t,” he assured, arriving to his side a second before Ehavi did. They both watched the thing flying above, or rather… climbing, from water drop to water drop, a monkey moving about the overstory of a forest.

He quickly descended, he quickly ascended, with the intent of finishing the job and granting Halge a swift death. Ald prepared to swing his sword over his head, intending to cut the creature in two, but when it arrived, the edge of the weapon gently caressed the form of the attacker, that flowed around the weapon and continued his way towards Halge’s chest. Even wounded, the fallen Felsian had the lucidity to try and roll in the mud, getting out of the way in the last fraction of a second, feeling the sharp bits of the misshapen scratch his back.

Ald turned just in time to notice that, as the thing took flight again, a few bubbles came out of the muddy ground. Yet none of the claws/teeth of the creature were smeared with mud.

Still scattered to have better maneuverability, the rest of the group surrounded the fallen soldier, with Gleur holding out his cudgel and stepping in front of Ald and Ehavi.

“I think I have an idea, Gleur,” Ald said, calmer than he should have been.

“Please, you couldn’t hit it when it flew straight over you,” sneered Ehavi.

“That thing… it has a friend. Something lurks underground and tells it were to attack. When it comes, I need you all to plunge your spears into the mud.”

Gleur glared at him like he had just spoken madmen words. “Feel free to do it with your sword.”

“And if I am right but I miss? The thing in the air can’t be cut; it’s like trying to stab a tangle, a cloud. What good would your weapons do against it?”

Gleur scoffed “If I am wrong, someone may die. If you are wrong, someone may die, Ald. Your shoulders are strong enough for a farmer, but won’t carry the weight of a dead brother or sister.”

Ald felt the handle of his sword digging into his palm. “Fine, I won’t miss, then. So neither my shoulders nor yours would carry that heavy load.”

Gleur raised his upper lip. He considered Ald was being stupid. Not for the idea on how to beat the misshapen, as Gleur assumed Ald had very good reasons to theorize like he did. No, it was far simpler, it was the stupidity of they who impose upon themselves certain responsibilities they can choose to be free from.

So many Felsians, so much flesh gathered for him.

He charged again. His mycelium-flesh had millions of inconspicuous, microscopic eyes, bringing him the necessary sight for the strikes to be precise, lethal. Son, he would feed on Halge’s corpse. And then on the next, and the next, and the next!

He would, if he could ignore the spears and the cudgels swinging and stabbing at his form. He could. He would, if he could slip through Gleur’s powerful fingers that tried to grasp at him. And it couldn’t have been easier. He would, if he could avoid Ald’s sword, which got swiftly plunged into the mud just as he passed overhead. And this, precisely this, he couldn’t.

He squirmed underground, impaled by the farmer’s blade. And, as if it were a mirror, he squirmed above, stuck in the parcel of air above Alds head.

Ald laughed, ducking to avoid the thing’s sharp appendages. He sunk and twisted the blade. “Die, maggot,” he spat, grinding his teeth.

The creature above seemed to take a jump, and ald felt the sword come free of whatever it was stuck into, below the mud. Clumsily the creature began circling around the air, elevating into the clouds as it squirmed, but didn’t shriek. He made no noise, and that was the most terrifying part: this predator was completely silent.

When he got lost into the sky, the soldiers cheered and patted Ald on the back.

“I am sorry, Ald,” said Gleur, “now that the threat is gone, tend to Halge, lest he keeps suffering.”