to propose a truce, when the Wildlanders were concerned. One did not surrender of his own initiative.
The old man raised his hand too, and that was the end of it. They brutally shifted back to hospitality, going as far as smiling at them. Diego felt his guts tying in a knot. The thought of them turning against them again made him nervous. What if he didn’t react fast enough next time? He wanted to get out of there, but his duty commanded otherwise.
“Thank you,” Jack whispered.
The nobleman turned to his teammate and looked down at him, even though he was a head taller. “This wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so helpless,” he spat. “You can be shy all you want when you’re on leave, but next time this happens, you’d better say no or strip, because I won’t help.”
Jack looked at his feet like a little boy, which angered Diego even more. An odd feeling for someone who usually loved to impose his will upon others. His teammates just weren’t really “others” to him anymore. Being angry at Jack tasted like disappointment, much like when he was angry at himself.
The two men remained close to each other as a precaution, but they didn’t talk or look at each other for the remainder of the afternoon, until Thompson and Daya came back. The Wildlanders gathered to start processing the quarry into useful or edible materials.
“What happened?” the Sergeant Major asked right away. She wasn’t one to care for internal conflict.
“We had a misunderstanding with the locals.” Diego sighed. “It’s resolved, though.”
“I hope you haven’t wasted your energy,” Daya retorted.
“Why?” he asked. “Did you find something?”
“Something found us.” Thompson closed her eyes for a second. “We aren’t sure what it was, but it’s definitely carnivorous.”
“Another gen-mod?”
“I don’t know, but I couldn’t find a footprint,” Thompson replied. “It stalked us back to the camp, we could feel its magic.”
Diego frowned. His magic was the most accurate when it came to that kind of thing. He was surprised the Sergeant Major didn’t order him to scan the area right away. She shook her head when she met his eyes.
“We think it might not know it’s been spotted.”
“You want to set up a trap?”
She nodded. “Daya is going to stray away from the camp tonight. We’ll follow under your veil.”
“That doesn’t change,” he joked.
“Please, Dom, let me set better enchantments on her first, this time,” Jack pleaded.
“No. It may notice the fresh magic,” Thompson said.
Diego imagined how peaceful the world must have been when animals were untouched by magic. The fact that the Sergeant Major couldn’t identify the species wasn’t reassuring, but the fact that the local Wildlanders didn’t seem to know either was terrifying. With all the wildlife he had seen, gen-mods didn’t look as terrible as they did when he lived in the city. Nature had more potent ways of enhancing its children than humans did. Nobody really knew how often it happened, or how long it took, but since the beginning of the 21st century, the fauna had changed in a terrifying manner.
“We should prepare a group for this evening, then.” Diego just wanted to know what to do.
“I don’t want to implicate Frank and his people.” Thompson shook her head. “We can’t afford to be around him and his men if we take any casualties.”
“Don’t you think they can hear us?” Diego frowned. “They might just follow us.”
“They’re spooked,” Daya said. “They argued whether or not to let the quarry behind and head back to the settlement. Nothing is more important to them than survival.”
He clenched his jaws. Duty might have trumped survival in Daya’s sick mind, but it didn’t in his. Diego had no intention of dying for the Emperor – or anyone else for that matter.
“Daya is right. It’s an opportunity. If we can prove ourselves as hunters when they, themselves, must assume the posture of a prey, they’ll consider us as their own.”
“How so?” Jack asked with more curiosity than doubt.
“They have no sense of nationality,” she said. “If you prove yourself, you’re one of them.”
“Is that how you came to live with them, Dom?” Diego asked.
As much as she loved to teach them about the place, Thompson never trusted them with her personal life. The nobleman had been tempted to use Authority to learn more about her time as a Wildlander, but he knew that would have made it impossible for him to stay under her command. Diego did not want to crawl around under the supervision of anyone else, so he’d learned to shut up at times.
“I want to be clear. We kill that thing. An autopsy is all we need for now, I don’t want to take any risk.” Thompson looked at Daya more particularly. “No matter what it does.”
The warrior nodded. “Yes, Dom.”
“Yes, Dom,” Diego and Jack repeated.
“Okay. I suggest you all use this opportunity to see what life looks like in a Wildlanders’ settlement.”
“No strategy, then?” Diego wondered.
“We’d be discussing that if we knew what the curse is creeping in the shadows. I’d rather see good improvisation than bad planning.” She smiled. “You managed to resolve an issue with these guys without a single decapitation, that’s something.”
He frowned. Was that how she did it? The answer never came.
Unlike Jack, and Daya to a minor extent, Diego had no interest in the incantations Wildlanders used to dry meat after they’d eaten the majority of it during their banquet. The folkloric attitude of the savages wasn’t in the least bit alluring. Some of their women were, but after the little problem they’d had with Jack, he just wasn’t in the mood. And it wasn’t professional…because he cared about that, of course.
The evening proved as boring as the afternoon spent ignoring his teammate. That’s until he spotted a shadow near the settlement. Silent, he observed until the animal came closer, with several of its brethren. The nobleman knew it wasn’t what had followed the hunters when he recognized the wolves. The Wildlanders had left a pile of refuse from their hunt near the furthest tent from their activities, which the scavengers happily fed off. These weren’t dogs, though, not pets. But there were predators with which the savages had a strange, almost affectionate relationship. This translated into accusations of bestiality from some people in the Empire, but that was nonsense. Most of the Wildlanders didn’t even look at the animals they’d make an offering to, it was just common practice, in a way. That’s how they did things.
Diego closed his eyes. The stress had burdened him all afternoon long and now he was tired. How else could he explain his sudden interest in the savages’ tradition? He forced out a yawn and lay near the fire.
Daya punched him in the abdomen, softly – by her standards. He opened his eyes, unsure if he’d really slept, and immediately got up. His teammates were all there. Thompson was sipping from a wooden bowl what appeared to be stew. They waited about fifteen minutes before Daya finally exited the settlement which, despite the late hour, still harbored some activity. The word must have travelled amongst the locals, because no one even tried to inquire as to where she was going. They just cared about being together, whatever happened to the Imperials who were staying over.
Twenty yards away from the camp, Diego started to feel like this was a bad idea. He couldn’t quite spot the predator as his commanding officer could, but he felt scared, in an unnatural way. He suspected his subconscious for a while, but about a hundred yards later, he spotted the epicenter of his unease, his stomach. His magic retched inside him as though there was something so foul in the air it couldn’t breathe. Yet, no matter how repulsed it was, Diego had never felt it more alive, more powerful.
Suddenly, light evaded the world. From darkness, the forest went to pitch black, much like under the spell of a Shadow Dog. Blind, the nobleman stopped in his tracks and maintained the veil as tight as he could. If something wanted
to go unseen, he sure didn’t want it to see him either. His only doubt was whether or not to pull Daya under his veil.
Jack’s magic pierced through and split the spell with a methodic slash, causing it to crumble. What Diego saw then was nothing he’d expected.
Fangs, claws, and yellow eyes weren’t uncommon in the forest, but no one expected to see them on a human…or something that seemed to be human, at least. Daya unsheathed her dagger, ready to strike whenever the thing would charge her, but it didn’t. Instead it looked at her with a monstrous grin.
“You think I want to eat you?” it cocked its beastly head. “Have you any idea how you’d taste?” A loud snarl erupted from its throat in lieu of a laugh.
It obviously caught Daya by surprise, because she neither replied nor moved.
“I know you’re not alone.” As the monster spoke those words, Diego felt Jack being physically and magically pulled from under his veil. The young technician suddenly reappeared with a small yelp. Two other humanoids had sneaked behind him and were now holding him, their sharp nails digging in his arms.
Surely, Diego could bind them, but he would only be repeating his teammate’s mistake, letting his magic seep from under the veil.
The thing tapped its nose with the tip of its claw. “Excellent sense of smell.”
“I’m going to…” Daya started, threatening.
A bestial laughter interrupted her, that of a dozen of these monsters, unveiling all around her…all around them,