Page 56 of Heart of Night and Fire

“Believe me, none of us like it. When we tried to enforce a ban, a few got it in their heads to go into the swamps and poach demons to sell on the black market, but the betting put a stop to that. It’s the lesser of two evils.”

Zarya threw a dark look at the revelers, who paid her no attention, then followed the line of her battalion to the other side of the wall.

There they found a long stretch of open plain that ended in a line of trees, already long with shadows. Above them, Zarya could hear the chatter and whoops of the onlookers.

“Spread out!” Vikram called as the Khada and the recruits positioned themselves at equidistant points in front of the wall. Zarya and Yasen moved to their positions and faced the forest.

The sky was midnight blue, a river of stars thick overhead. It was nothing like the dream forest that occupied her waking thoughts. That forest was a soft caress of silk. The one she stood before now was a monster sharpening its teeth.

“What do we do now?” Zarya asked.

“We wait,” Yasen replied, giving her a sidelong glance. “Maybe if I’d told you this was really just a lot of standing around, you would have listened to me.”

She tossed him a dirty look. “No, I wouldn’t have.”

He sighed as though she were the source of all his troubles. She ignored him, keeping her head up and scanning the trees for movement.

Hours later, Zarya was feeling the effects of being awake all night. Her feet were starting to ache, and they had seen nothing yet. Yasen must have been thinking along the same lines because he glanced down at her with a look of concern. “You all right?”

“Fine,” she said, lifting her chin and forcing herself to stand a little straighter.

“Told you it was boring,” he said.

“You said it was dangerous.”

He lifted his shoulders as though the difference didn’t matter, and she resisted the urge to make a snide remark. She shifted on her feet, wishing she were in her comfy bed back at the haveli and wondering if Yasen had been right after all. She had definitely been expecting a little more action than this. How much longer would they have to stay out here?

Even the carousing from the gamblers above had subdued to a hush, and she wondered if any of them were still awake. It would serve them right if they were all too exhausted to do anything tomorrow without the benefit of any entertainment to show for it.

Zarya was stretching a tense muscle in her neck when a rustle in the distant trees caught her attention, along with that unmistakable queasiness that signaled a demon’s presence. She looked around, wondering if anyone else had noticed the sound. A few heads had swung towards the snap of a branch, and now she was sure she hadn’t imagined it.

Pushing down a cresting wave of nausea, she pulled the sword from the sheath on her back, the zing of metal filling the quiet air. She looked to Yasen, who was also staring at the forest.

He grinned and drew his blade from his hip. “It’s showtime.”

Zarya scanned the horizon, watching intently for signs of movement.

Then she saw them—vetala.

Either her childhood memories had softened over time, or these things had become even more grotesque over the years. They were much taller than she remembered, their limbs too long and narrow to support their oversized heads. They walked with a stilted gait, their necks swaying from the weight, but they were also advancing at a surprising and alarming rate.

Some said they were reanimated corpses inhabited by vetala spirits, while others said they were born like this, mindless, aggressive, and violent. Whatever they were, their skin was an unnatural shade of bluish-black, like dead bodies that had been left unattended for too long, their mouths filled with jagged teeth, perfect for feasting on the flesh of their victims.

“What do we do?” Zarya asked as Yasen took a step forward.

The guard was advancing, and she stepped up, keeping herself in the line and trying to ignore the nausea currently swelling up her throat.

“We stick ’em full of holes,” Yasen said, and tossed her a wry grin. “They’re especially vulnerable right under the rib cage. Stab and then—” He jerked his sword up in a slicing motion. “Cutting their heads off is pretty effective, too.”

Zarya nodded, licking her dry lips, nervousness settling into her limbs. She had faced plenty of the blight’s demons, but there was a wildness in the air that set the hairs on her neck standing up. She remembered what Yasen had said about them growing bolder and more feral.

She could hear the vetalas now, beyond the rustling shuffle of their uneven gait. They made low guttural sounds like they were trying to send a message. If she listened closely, she thought she could make out a word or two, but when she tried to focus, they slipped away into garbled strings of nothing.

“Charge!” came Vikram’s cry from further down the wall, and then, as one, the Khada and the recruits stirred into action. Zarya ran for the forest, heading towards a group of vetalas who lumbered past the tree line. Remembering Yasen’s advice, she launched herself at the first one she reached and, with a roar and an almighty heave, gutted it through the torso before slashing upward as it collapsed at her feet.

But she was surrounded on all sides. The vetalas’ mouths were open, making those strange sounds looping through her thoughts like she was dangling off the edge of a message. She shook her head to clear them away, steadied her stance, and raised her sword. She swung, heaved, and gutted until a pile of vetalas surrounded her in a grotesque wreath of dead limbs.

Yasen was nearby, dealing with his own group of demons, smears of black blood splashed across his cheek and hair. Zarya’s own armor was splattered with dark blood, the smell making her gag. Taking a deep breath and focusing her mind, she regrouped and jumped in to help cut down the remaining demons.