I come out of my reverie in time to see Peggy behead her Beast. Iranti Kuroo are one of the biggest threats to Hunters and Trackers. Lifelike hallucinations of the people we miss most are hard to resist. Unknowing Hunters could stay in the same spot forever, while the Kuroo feasts on them, saving their brain for last.
Elena is stock still, looking at the Kuroo that grabbed her. Its eyes pulse black and purple and red as it stares into hers. It clacks its curled and jagged beak in anticipation. So distracted by its protentional prey, it doesn’t notice when my arrow flies. It’s pinned to the tree, the Kuroo’s echoing screech pulling Elena from her vision.
Faster than I thought she could move, her whips are around its neck and she pulls it down with a hard flick. Its neck snaps and she pulls her whips back. She looks equal parts shaken and livid.
“Where are we?” Peggy asks. Her eyes are scanning the trees and ground. “We’ve moved.”
“No,” Elena says. “We couldn’t have. Iranti Kuroos don’t cause their prey to move.”
“Then something else did it,” she says. Elena digs into her bag and starts flipping through one of her notebooks. I look to the ground. The tracks we were following are gone. Only smooth ground and Beast tracks.
I look at Peggy and she’s quietly wiping her knife on a cloth. She’s squatting, her head down and hair falling over her shoulder as she works. It’s not unusual for her to care for her weapons immediately after battle, but something is off. Her hands are shaking.
I squat next to her earning a small tsk from Elena as she moves closer to my light. “Peggy?”
She stops for a moment before continuing. “What?”
“Who did you see?”
She’s quiet. After a few seconds I don’t think she’s going to answer, but her voice is a whisper as she says, “Antonia.”
“Fein,” I say. Her head flicks up. “I know. I thought it’d be Dad, but I suppose some wounds never heal the way we think they do.”
“Sorry,” she says. She digs her knife into the ground, drawing a line. “I know it couldn’t have been easy.”
“No,” I say, watching Elena furiously page through another book. “But it’s harder for you, I’m sure. I don’t have to see Fein anywhere but my dreams. You get to see Antonia when we get back. Knowing what her last moment looks like… That’s something else.”
“Yeah, well,” she says. “It’s not the first time I’ve seen something like that.”
“Hardly makes it any easier.”
“Sirens!” Elena says. She claps a hand over her mouth before squatting down with us. In a lower voice she says, “It must have been sirens. That’s the only Beast that could have gotten us to move without realizing it.”
“Sirens don’t cohabitate with anything,” Peggy says. She uses her knife to draw the rough shape of the Valley. It looks like a jagged knife wound in the earth. She draws a small circle near the center and taps it. “Their lake is here and we’re here.” She points close to the edge. “There’s no way we would have made it far enough to encounter a Siren.”
Elena bites her top lip, brows furrowed. “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s the only thing that would make sense given the circumstances. No other Valley Beast is capable of doing something like that and Yvanna can verify that we’ve moved.”
“Yes,” I say. “The previous parties tracks are gone, but the more pressing concern is that we didn’t leave any tracks, however we got here.”
Their eyes widen and they look behind us. There are the tracks from our scuffle with the Kuroo, but nothing else. Not even a break in the trees where something might have flown.
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“There’s one more explanation,” I say. “Magic.”
“That’s impossible,” Elena says. “There are no witches or wizards are stupid enough to come to the Valley. Not unless they were being paid well enough to fund their experiments and supplies forever.”
“I’ve met some very stupid wizards in my day,” Peggy says.
“We can figure this out,” I say. “Will you both stand watch while I commune?”
Peggy stands and motions for Elena to do the same. “What are you going to do?”
“Talk to Nkam and see if he has any insights.”
She stands, her whips at the ready. “Does he really talk to you?”
“When he wants to.” I sit, cross my legs, and close my eyes. My mind calms as I breathe. Nkam sits with me, breathes with me, when I meditate. He cannot always be with me, but I can feel his presence. Now, I can’t feel anything. His laugh and his smile are too far from me.
The breeze changes for just a moment. His voice whispers, barely audible, “May my light find you even in the dark.”
I open my eyes. “He can’t reach me. The Valley is too dense here.” Peggy helps me to my feet.
Elena pales. “What? We’re too far for the gods to reach us? Even you?”
“I’m only a conduit,” I say, dusting off my clothes. “Unless I’m interested in being possessed or overloaded, Nkam will not be able to help us anymore than he already is.” The fact that I’m still glowing is a testament to how much he cares.
“I can climb the tree,” Peggy says. “Get a lay of the land and figure out what I can see.”
“You’re asking to be attacked if you do that,” Elena says. “Every flying Beast will attack you and we didn’t even bring climbing tools.”
Peggy reaches into the pack she keeps on her belt and pulls out two thick strips of leather. She wraps them around her hands. “Problem solved. Keep your eyes open down here.” She gives Elena another stern look, then starts climbing.
We stand in silence for a moment, the only sound coming from the cold ground shifting under Elena’s weight.
She looks up, but Peggy is already out of sight. “Will she be alright?” she asks. “I’ve always been told not to climb the trees without proper equipment. It’s an easy way to get you hurt and noticed.”
“True,” I say, setting my sights on…something. I can’t tell what it is, only that it’s clicking joints make a wet, unnerving sound as it drags its way across the ground. I let my arrow fly, and it pins it, black blood flowing thickly to the ground. I dig my arrow out of the Beast before its blood erodes it further. “But Peggy is the exception. Every time we’ve come down here, she climbs the trees and every time she gets better at it. Only thing she can’t control is whether or not there are any flying Beasts but she likes her chances.”
Elena remains nervous next to me as the minutes pass, her heel bouncing as it almost hits the ground.
It was interesting seeing her like this. Even on my first trip down, I wasn’t as nervous as she is. I was scared, of course, but I managed to keep it contained until we made it out again. It was part of the training Priya gave everything.
“Be afraid,” she’d said. “Be afraid and terrified and anxious. I only demand that you don’t let your fear weaken you. Be ready and move surely, but by the gods let yourself be afraid. You’ll die otherwise.”
The only time Elena seems in control of herself is when Valley Beasts are involved.
“Yvanna.” Her voice is soft but insistent. I turn and see she’s staring at something on the ground. Following her line of sight, I see that it’s one of the Kuroos. It’s the one that she killed, its neck twisted so hard it’s hanging on by stringy muscle. “What does that look like to you?”
I stare for a moment, trying to see what she sees, but it looks like it always does. “An Iranti Kuroo.”
She steps away, shadows immediately making her face starker as my light recedes. From her bag, she produces something small and silver. It looks like a piercing, but she flicks her wrist, and it extends about two feet. She takes another step and reaches out before stabbing the Kuroo’s wing and dragging it closer to us.
She squats down, slipping on gloves I hadn’t seen her take out. She picks at it, examining the wings, the body, the beak. It’s the first time I’ve seen a dead Beast up close. I hope it’s my last as the smell is even worse in death. The distance and mask helped, but with it only a few feet away, my mouth started to water as I choke back a gag.
Above us the tree rustles and I swing my bow up. After a moment of squinting, I see Peggy’s boot. She drops down once she’s close and shakes her head. Dead leaves fly from her hair and she wipes a new cut on her forehead.
“We’re damn near in the middle,” she says. “I can see the Sirens’ Lake from up there and it’s not too far north of us. Thesgrea and Naunne are likely equidistant from us.”
“Meaning we’ve walked or run or were teleported over twenty miles.”
“Meaning, we’re screwed,” Peggy corrects. “There’s one other thing, but I don’t think it’s good. About a mile west, there’s a clearing. I couldn’t tell from up there what was there, but it looked like a village of sorts. What,” she says, finally looking down at Elena, “is she doing to that thing?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “She—”
“Shit,” Elena mutters. She has it spread on the ground like it’s ready for dissection. In her hands, she holds its head beaks forced apart as she stares into its mouth. “Shit!” It’s louder this time and she takes her metal rod and stabs its eyes. Viscous red and black blood pours out and I finally know what she meant.
Valley Beasts bleed black.