There was nothing. Nothing—
Leela jerked out two shard pistols from underneath her cloak, one in each hand, and leveled them at the edge of the rainforest.
There was a shout somewhere on the other side of the field. Another rifle shot tore across the open ground and punched into the foliage of the rainforest.
Nali cursed out loud. She half-slid and half-climbed down the rungs embedded in the side of the tree, then ran out into the open field. Her feet splashed through the warm water.
A Gar and one of the hunters were already with Leela when Nali came up.
“Did you see anything, Wayfinder?” Leela asked without preamble.
Nali shook her head, breathless from the run. “No, nothing. Who fired?”
“I don’t know.” Leela re-holstered her pistols. She pulled her cloak back over the weapons to shield them from the rain. “Burnside take it all. Half a watch’s work wasted.”
Nali glanced over her shoulder and saw several more figures running across the flooded field towards them. She turned her head back towards the edge of the rainforest, careful to keep the muzzle of her rifle angled down out and of the pouring rain. “I’ll look around.”
“Go ahead.” Leela gestured to the hunter standing beside here. “Holna, go with her. Both of you stay within earshot.”
Nali bristled at being ordered around like a common Gar, but she buried the feeling. There was more important work to be done.
Nali and Holna moved carefully to the edge of the jungle and began their examination.
The shard blast had taken out a small tree and half a fern plant, but there was no sign of blood or tracks. After two minutes of searching they gave up.
As they headed back to the group they heard the sound of raised voices.
“You didn’t see it,” one of the Gar’Noomren, a warrior named Zolne, was saying. “There was something moving, just inside the treeline.”
“You’re mist-struck,” one of the hunters, a woman named Illa, replied. “It was just a shadow. You shot at nothing. The whole trap is blown.”
“I’m telling you,” the Zolne responded hotly, “there was something there.” She turned wildly, her eyes falling on Nali and Holna.
Nali shook her head. “We found nothing.”
Illa spat into the flooded field. “There, you see?” She looked at Leela. “How are we supposed to catch this beast with your Gars jumping at shadows like frightened slave children?”
Zolne threw back her cloak and snatched at the hilt of her sword. “You dare—”
Illa took a step back and swung her shard rifle down.
Leela grabbed Zolne by the arm. “Stand down,” she hissed.
Zolne’s knuckles were white where they gripped her sword handle. “I won’t be insulted by a lowlander—”
Leela tightened her hold on Zolne’s arm. “I said stand down, Gar.”
Zolne looked at her commander for a moment, then released her hold on the sword hilt. She wrenched free of Leela’s grip and spat down onto the ground in front of Illa. “You’re not worth bloodying my blade on, lowlander,” she snarled.
Nali breathed. She realized her sweaty hand was clenched tightly on the handle of her throwing knife.
Too’na, one of the other Gar’Noomren, looked around suddenly. “Where is Col’een?”
Everyone looked over at Too’na, then around at each other. No one said anything.
Above them the rain continued to hammer down from the dark sky.
The Gar was half-crouched against a tree, her shard rifle still propped against a low branch. Her head was tilted forward at an unnatural angle. Rain streamed off her blue helmet.
“Dead?” Leela rubbed her forehead. Her word was only barely a question.
Nali didn’t bother to answer. She crept around the base of the tree, being careful where she planted her feet. She bent low as her fingers searched the ground.
“I didn’t hear anything,” one of the hunters said. “I was the closest. I should have—”
“Still it,” Zolne snapped. “No one ever hears anything, do they, Gar’Mel?”
The question seemed to jolt Leela out of a spell. She looked over her shoulder at the Gar’Noomren behind her. “Zolne, keep watch at the treeline. Too’na, take Illa and return to the village. Tell them to prepare a pyre.”
“We’re running out of wood,” Zolne sneered. “Might as well wait. There will just be another body in a few hours from now any—”
Leela spun and lashed out with the butt of her shard rifle. It cracked into Zolne’s face, and the Gar tumbled to the muddy ground.
Zolne scrambled to her feet, rubbing her bruised cheek. Green blood dripped from her nose.
Nali stood. Her gaze flickered between Zolne and Leela.
“If anyone speaks like that again, I will kill them on the spot,” Leela said, her voice cold and low. “There will be no more bodies, because we are going to find this thing and kill it.” She looked down at Col’een’s lifeless form. “And we will continue to honor our dead with proper and timely burning. Is that clear?”
There was a chorus of responses from the nearby Gar’Noomren.
Zolne wiped the blood from her face. She glared at Leela.
The Gar’Mel turned her head. “Zolne?”
The Gar straightened, realizing that all eyes were on her. “Yes, Gar’Mel.”
Leela nodded. “Now go watch the field.”
Zolne gave her commander one last look, then stumbled off towards the treeline.
Nali bent back over again, searching the ground. She furrowed her brow, then examined the body itself.
Leela watched her. “Well?”
Nali ignored the question for the moment. She pushed back Col’een’s head. The Gar’s face was relaxed, almost as if she had fallen asleep. The skin was pale, a grayish-green. Nali examined the neck, then the arms.
The Gar’Mel shifted impatiently. “Wayfinder?”
Nali straightened and took a step back from the body. She removed her rifle from her shoulder and leaned it against the tree. “No tracks,” she said. Her voice was flat. “I can’t see any visible wounds, either.”
Leela sighed. “Alright, let’s get back to—”
Nali leapt up and grabbed onto a low branch. She swung herself up and began to climb up the tree quickly and skillfully.
Leela took a step forward. She stared at Nali in confusion. “What are you—?”
Nali pulled herself up onto a branch about twenty feet off the ground. She ran her fingers along the wet bark, then swung around and examined the slimy trunk of the tree. She froze for a moment, her fingers pressed against slick surface. The next instant she turned and began climbing down just as quickly as she had climbed up.
“I thought you were going to look for tracks,” Leela greeted her as soon as Nali’s feet touched the ground.
“I found some.” Nali’s wiped the rain out of her eyes. “Gather your Gar’Noomren and the hunters, Leela. We need to brief them.”
Leela gave the Wayfinder a confused look. “What’s going on?”
Nali snatched up her rifle. “Quilla was right,” she said.
The conference room was crowded. Faces, haggard and bleary from stress and lack of sleep, stared wearily at Nali.
“This is no beast.” She wished she were a better orator. Her words felt blunt and uninspired. “I believe the creature attacking the village is one of the Fallen.”
That got a reaction. Arms were unfolded, quick glances were cast between the women, a soft murmur or two was exchanged.
“Wayfinder,” Leela said, her voice calm and level. “What exactly is a ‘Fallen’?”
For a moment Nali was taken aback, then she remembered that Leela was Nevagan. “On Llathe we have a legend,” she said, putting her hands on the table in front of her. “In the great dead cities of the lowlands are…descendants of the Highborn, beings which have lived on in the ruins for untold millennia.” She took a breath. “The vast passage of time has corrupted th
em, driven them insane. They sleep for centuries, encased in their dark tombs, until something awakens them and forces them out to feed. They survive by draining the life from their victims, feeding off the energy like the karani feed off the blood of their prey. When they are satisfied, they return to their sleep until they are disturbed again.”
“A ghost story,” one of the Gars called. “Something that is told to scare children at night. The Fallen are not real, Wayfinder.”
There was a chorus of voices.
Leela turned to the group, her face hard. “Quiet,” she ordered. “Let the Wayfinder speak.”
Nali realized her hands were trembling slightly. She balled them into fists on the tabletop. “Three hundred and twenty cycles ago, a Fallen was killed by a group of Wayfinders outside the town of Bala’nor, west of the Great Boil.”
For a moment there was deathly silence.
“The Fallen…exist?” Too’na spoke from the crowd of faces.
Nali looked over at the Gar. “Yes.”
“Why have we never heard of this?” Illa stepped up to the table’s edge. “You are telling us that one of our most nightmarish legends is real? How can this be?”
“The existence of the Fallen was suppressed by order of the Jala,” Nali replied. She tried to keep her voice steady. “The knowledge has been passed down within the ranks of the Wayfinders, but we are sworn to secrecy on the matter. I am breaking a sacred vow even by telling you now.”
“You knew.”
Nali glanced at the speaker, and was unsurprised to see that it was Zolne. “I suspected.”
“But you didn’t tell us.”
Nali felt the words catch in her throat. She looked down at the table. “I had to know for sure.”
Another Gar,