Out of the sun, in the shade of a willow tree, Pyrik poured over the current map of the known territories within the Veldt Empire. Three months ago, their holdings to the east only reached as far as the Arklay Mountain Range, however, two new territories—Oxington and Mirwich—had sprung out of the latest military campaign. The slivers of land recaptured could hardly be called territories, compared to the massive portions carved out after the final boot touched seawater on the southern coast. She could not blame the decision to mark the little progress as a victory, though. Past the Arklay was the labyrinthian maze of a city ruin where the buildings loomed tall, the streets were cramped, forcing the soldiers to be herded in like long pigs for slaughter. The fighting had to be unenviable, even to Pyrik who would sooner die than yield from a fight. She shuddered at the thought of an army of beasts attacking from high and low. With all things considered, the minuscule land recaptured was a victory.

Pyrik drank some water from her canteen. She took note of the two new territories as next destinations as her gaze drifted down the map.

The northern and western territories had exhausted her interest months ago. She was currently approaching a place called Limbardo in Arlong, a southern territory, after passing through the farm where she had killed the rinderpest. Something called out to her there, stronger and louder than any other place she visited. The pull was magnetic, like the animal instinct of a migratory bird. No longer was she groping around blindly. There was finally direction. Pyrik took another swig from her canteen, folded the map neatly, then slipped them into her pack. The settlement was still a league away, and she would rather reach the place before the blazing sky was dyed ink-black. The woodlands might appear to be empty while the sun was watching, though once day dipped into night, there was no telling what kind of beast could be roaming in the shadows. It could be another monster like the rinderpest. Or something worse. Conjured from the black like a nightmare distilled into a malformed creature. And there was no way of knowing the shape of that beast, how many assortment of limbs it had, the structure of its horrendous skull, until her axe and bayonet rendered it to pieces for study. The roads had no kerosene lamps.

Yet, in spite of the horizon starting to bruise with dusk, Pyrik fought to move at a striding pace. A gentle current was weaving through the crowd of trees, lightening the swelter off of her shoulders. The leaves rustled like paper chimes as the branches danced along to the light wind. The calm was a lovely thing that Pyrik cherished, as much as keeping her black powder dry or her blunderbuss in working order. She breathed out a sigh tinged with melancholy. She found the quiet to be an ill-fitting scene for a player like her, a girl who still did not know her role in the world. The costume she wore might say a Jaeger, yet when she massaged the two sides of her temple, there had to be more to her than the role she played. Some heart was lost during those early months when the calling was but a whisper, faint as the whisps of a lingering question. Or not a word at all as she traveled north. Pyrik considered returning to the cabin, the forest, Darius. Yet home could never be the same again. The voice inside sought to that. She stayed course, later traveling south. Sometimes it took some aimless wandering to untangle the right way. Now that the calling and the way was clear, she might soon learn the nature of the inside voice and pin it with a name.

Names have a power, Darius would say. The voice inside will have no power over me if I know its name.

The current ran a hand through her hair, kind and gentle, like a playful child. A few strands came free from her braided bun, tickling her forehead. Pyrik giggled as she brushed it behind her ear.

The road made for fine company rather than any one place. The scenery was always changing, never old, continually new. A horse would be nice, though. A brave companion who could ease her from all the walking and carry her pack. The thought was more and more tempting with each passing league, with each passing day. She had not expected to still be on the road after so long.

Pyrik was considering the cost of a horse when an ashy odor carried by the light wind caught her attention. Smoke was snaking up the sky. A forest fire immediately came to mind, though the stench of burning flesh was unmistakable. Something horrible was happening down the road. She fully cocked and readied her blunderbuss at her side, then pulled out the long axe from her pack. The stench was becoming stronger. Sickeningly so. The black, undulating tower grew larger as she walked closer toward the source.

The smoke was coming from somewhere deep within a wheat field after emerging from the woodlands. The wheat had gone untouched by scythes and were rotting by the acres. A roaring fire could be heard as Pyrik treaded lightly through the ranks of rotten wheat. Murmurs too. Many figures could be vaguely made out through the wheat, moving and shifting, difficult to define from a distance. As they gradually took shape during her approach, she brought up her blunderbuss, prepared to blow away anything insidious to a gorey paste.

Gathered around a bonfire was a rough-and-tumbled group of five clad in armets, hooded clay-red overcoats, and brown breeches tucked into black leather boots. They had flintlock rifles and pistols, swords and bayonets. Some had the upper buttons of their overcoats opened, revealing the beige brigandine vest and grey undershirt. Others kept them closed. All of them were Hospitallers, part of a military and natural philosophical organization tasked with the protection of the empire against all supernatural horrors. And yet the bodies that burned in the bonfire were undeniably human.

Two Hospitallers were talking to each other when one of them patted the other on the arm, and pointed to Pyrik with a leather-gloved finger. Rest of the heads turned. Their total, undivided attention was placed on her and the blunderbuss aimed at them.

“Am I interrupting something?” Pyrik asked while their hands crept toward pistols and swords.

“No. About done now, actually. Just waiting for the pyre to stop burning,” said the Hospitaller who pointed at her, his voice made tinny by his helmet.

“I didn’t know you folks dealt with humans too.”

“Only when they’ve gone mad like rabid dogs, and hemorrhaging from all ends. Some of the bodies here also include a few of my comrades who died serving our order. Does the answer satisfy you, or will I be joining that pyre soon?” he said, gesturing for his compatriots with a dismissive wave. They took their hands off their weapons.

Pyrik lowered her gun. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. If you’ve seen what I’ve seen, you wouldn’t be so quick to apologize. You don’t intend to pass through Limbardo, do you?”

“Is there something that I should be worried about?”

“Not if you turn around and leave. The settlement’s been struck by an unknown illness, and beasts are suspected to be the cause of the outbreak. So, until the situation is resolved, no one is allowed in or out of the town. Unless you want to be carted off to the pyre, that is.”

There had to be at least a dozen diseased bodies burning in the pyre. A few limbs snapped and shifted like logs spent to ash. Townsfolk would normally turn to a Jaeger when a situation could not be handled on their own, however, whatever chaos that mired the town had to be particularly dire if the Hospitallers were called in. And the situation appeared to be barely managed.

The specialists who stood before her had helmets that were scratched, dented, and the one doned by the Hospitaller who was talking to her had a caved-in visor. All of the mending done to their hooded overcoats resembled more like a patchwork quilt worn by vagabonds, and the patches of dried blood stained its clay-red colour.

“Why don’t I offer you my services? Get this whole calamity resolved so I can pass through the town,” Pyrik said.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but aren’t you a little too young to be a Jaeger?” The Hospitaller asked.

“This doesn’t appear to think so.” Pyrik dug out the bronze medallion engraved with the Jaeger’s sigil—a shield crossed with a sword and musket—from her long coat and showed it to the Hospitaller.

The longer that he inspected the medallion, the more sweaty her fingers became. The long road she came from would soon be dark. Her other hand polished the trigger of her gun, she had no intentions of retreading old ground. Not when the answers she sought to find laid ahead.

“Hmm. Maybe you could be of some use, perhaps change our captain’s mind on a few things.” The Hospitaller pulled back his hood, and then took off his helmet. Underneath was a man with short, messy blonde hair and the shadow of stubble. His hazel eyes looked keen like a hound, and his triangular face exuded the stoic strength of a marble pillar. “My name is Haldane,” he said in a soft yet gruff voice, offering his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Jaeger.”

She breathed out a sigh, shook his hand. He had a firm, vice-strong grip. “You can call me Pyrik.”

“Alright, Pyrik. I suppose I should show you the red forest before nightfall.”