Month 1, Day 18
Sunlight came through every gap in the hut wall when I opened my eyes. We were supposed to meet at sunrise.
"Fuck. Fuck."
I got one leg caught in the blanket, kicked free, and started digging through the clothes beside my bedroll. "Please tell me somebody washed this."
The shirt smelled of soap and old smoke. Somebody had. I pulled it on, found my trousers under the blanket, and got dressed. My old jacket came last. Hair fell into my eyes when I bent for my boots. It had grown past my ears and stood out in every direction.
Every morning started at the river. I put my face into the cold water, pushed my wet hair flat with both hands, and followed the bank toward our meeting place.
Only Mirae sat on the old log, with a folded cloth on her knees and one thumb over the hooked mark she'd copied six days ago.
"Morning," I said.
"You're late."
I sat at the far end. Water moved over the stones while Mirae rubbed the cloth once, then stopped.
"About what you said," I began. "We're going today, right? Back to the city."
"If they approve it."
"Right. Yeah." My heel tapped against the dirt. "I just thought... today would be good."
She looked at me for a moment. "You want to go back?"
"I want to know what you found." My eyes went to the cloth. "And... yeah. I want to go back."
Mirae unfolded the cloth. Once the marks were in front of her, the words came faster.
"You understand Cealith," she said. "So do I. We understand every spoken language and every script. That's been true since the first day."
"So something translates it."
"Yes." Her finger moved to the hooked symbol. "These marks don't. I can read the others in the city. These give me nothing. I saw them on the walls and cut into the bark while we climbed."
"Why?"
"I don't know. Changing the order didn't help. I set them beside readable marks, even turned the copies upside down. Nothing."
"Then why keep going?"
"At the top of the arena, there was a large tablet with two lines. These symbols were on top, and readable script was below."
"The same thing twice?"
"Yes. The breaks matched, and the tree mark sat in the same place. It was a translation."
"Could you read it?"
"I could tell the lower line was readable, but the cuts were too shallow from where I stood." Her hand closed around the cloth. "I was following the wall toward it when the laughing started and that creature..."
"Once," Rafi said behind us, out of breath. "Just once, I want to get here before you two." He dropped onto the log across from us, chest still working. "Skipped food for this. Actual food, gone, for the privilege of watching you two not talk to each other by a river."
Mirae folded the cloth without looking up. "We were talking."
"You were sitting. I've seen you sit before. This was sitting with extra silence."
"We were talking about the tablet."
"Fascinating. Riveting stuff." Rafi put both hands flat on his knees and pushed himself upright, the effort costing him more than the run had. "Meanwhile I'm dying, slowly, from lack of anything hot in a cup. This world has no coffee. Do you understand what that means? I wake up every morning and there's nothing. No smell. Just water, and whatever Daisuke's brewing, which is worse than nothing."
"You could boil leaves," I said.
"I HAVE boiled leaves. I boiled six different leaves. One of them turned my tongue a color I'm not going to discuss." He pointed at me, caught himself doing it, and pointed at Mirae instead for good measure. "Somebody in this camp needs to make it their whole personality, finding something, anything, that keeps my eyes open past noon."
"I'm late," I said, mostly to see if it would land.
Rafi stared at me. "That makes it worse. You're supposed to be the reliable one. If YOU'RE late, what hope do the rest of us even..."
Jonas came along the bank before Rafi could finish, his stick sinking into the damp ground at every other step, a flat piece of bark tucked under his arm, held a little awkwardly.
"Good, you're all here." He looked between us. "Mostly on time too."
"Define mostly," Rafi said.
"You're all breathing and none of you left yet. I'm counting that as a win."
Rafi pointed at the bark. "What'd the main arsenal give us?"
"The city." Jonas held it up, then stopped, the rest of the sentence not quite ready yet. "So, apparently. Squad leaders collect assignments there every morning, at the board, and apparently I'm one of them now."
"Since when?" I asked.
"Since yesterday. They didn't ask, they just added my name." He turned the bark over in his hands, still not looking at any of us. "Four mornings I've been going down there, and I already hate the queue. I don't even know what half the assignment words mean. There's a symbol for 'urgent' and I keep reading it as 'optional.'"
"You're a squad leader now," Rafi said, testing the word.
"I'm a guy holding a piece of bark. Don't make it bigger than it is."
Mirae stood so fast the cloth nearly slid off her knees. "They approved it?"
"Hrytsenko did. He read your report and wants the tablet copied."
"He read it himself?"
"He reads everything himself. Twice, I think. He asked me two questions about it I couldn't answer, and I had to say I don't know, sir, in front of him, which is not a sentence I enjoyed saying."
"Who comes with us?" I asked.
Jonas looked down at the assignment again, checking it for a second time. "Us. Nikita's on north watch today."
Rafi straightened. "Four. That's the number?"
"That's the number."
"Four people to a place that's already killed some of us."
"I asked for Three, they're on the wall. Five's west. The others already had orders." Jonas took his time folding the bark. "I asked twice. This is what we get. We get us."
For a few seconds, we heard only the river. Mirae put the folded cloth into her belt pouch and tightened the flap.
"I still want to go," she said.
The main arsenal filled the largest storehouse in camp. Squad leaders crowded an assignment board at one end, while turquoise weapons filled racks at the other. I signed out a tall spear and a short dagger with the same blue-green blade. The dagger went on my belt. If one of the creatures had stayed, I wanted two chances to be useful.
Outside, workers had added another stone course to the wall. Two light lines stood beyond it on fresh posts, with the grass cut low between them.
"Other squads already went down?" Rafi asked as we passed through the gate.
"Four, Six, Eight, Nine," Jonas said. "Some mapped the streets. Others brought back weapons, tools, whatever they could carry."
"How far did they get?"
"The upper rings."
"And the things?"
Jonas kept walking. "Nothing. They found no tracks or bodies, and nobody saw one."
"There were thousands."
"I know."
Rafi waited while Jonas watched the path and kept walking.
"Who's the new head?" I asked.
"Mykola Hrytsenko. He's Ukrainian, and he's an old war veteran." Jonas adjusted the bark order under his arm. "I called it a big stone. He made me start over and call it an inscribed tablet."
At the first path fork, Jonas opened a rough map from a camp sketcher. Charcoal marks showed guard posts, paths, and the old ruin gate.
At the second outer post, a young Grivar stood beside the path with one back leg wet with blood. Jonas left the map with Rafi and lowered himself onto his good knee.
"Easy. I know your leg hurts. Let me see it."
The Grivar snapped forward and caught his gloved hand. Jonas swore and pulled free.
"Leave it," Rafi said. "It bit you."
"Its leg's bleeding. Give me a minute."
Blood showed through two holes over his knuckles. "Ben would've known how to wrap that leg."
Rafi folded the map and held it against his chest. A guard came over with rope and cut roots, then helped Jonas guide the Grivar inside the post fence.
"Can you keep it here?" Jonas asked the guard. "I'll bring food tomorrow. And thicker gloves."
Rafi gave him the map. "You're really trying again tomorrow?"
"Yeah. With thicker gloves."
The tree rose above the valley before the ruin gate came into sight. At its base, I bent my neck to find the crown and the clouds below its upper branches. Four of us stood there with one map and one torch.
Rafi stopped talking when we reached the black stone around the gate. Jonas folded the map with careful fingers. Mirae held her pouch against her side and went in first.
The old stair route was open again. At the bottom, where the rough passage met the city's lowest ring, tremors from the tree's growth had split the sealed stone plate and thrown its pieces aside. Earlier squads had cleared a narrow path through them. We kept a torch burning for the stairs and the dark passage.
Daylight came through the huge opening where the tree had broken the ceiling. Pale bands crossed burned streets, cracked ring walls, and the rubble below the rising trunk. Broken roof stone covered the lower roads. A thin smell of old smoke hung in the air, days after the fire had gone out.
We heard only our boots and the torch, and under that, our own breathing, louder than it should have been. Every doorway stood empty. Somewhere above us the tree creaked once, long and low, and nobody looked up to find where. The ash under my soles stayed dry. In one stretch of it a wide black scorch mark ran the width of the street and stopped at a wall, and I kept my eyes on the path past it. Nothing moved in any street I could see.
At the city's upper ring, the temple entrance opened between the roots. Giant stairs led down to the arena's highest ring. Stone seats descended toward the central floor, dark arches opened behind them, and the trunk stood through the hole above the middle.
I looked for the huge body that had fallen across the lower rings. Broken steps and black pitted holes remained there. The body was gone.
Mirae kept moving. Halfway down the rings, a blue spearpoint showed between two slabs. Rubble covered the place where we'd left Basha, and her weapon lay inside it. Her body was gone too.
Mirae set her pouch down, pulled the spear free with both hands, and wiped grit from the blue tip. Rafi turned his face toward the nearest arch.
"I'll carry it," Mirae said.
She stood with Basha's spear in one hand and her own gear in the other. The square hatch on the central floor was open again, with the roots below it hidden in black. She gave it one glance and climbed toward the highest ring.
The wall at the top had a bare rectangular space cut into it. Fresh breaks marked every edge. Mirae touched them, then checked the floor beneath it.
"It was here." She spoke barely above a whisper. "This was the place."
Rafi moved rubble while Jonas joined him with the bad leg held straight. I walked the ring and checked the pieces thrown down the steps.
One slab lay face down beside a broken seat. Its edge fit the empty space in the wall. I scraped dust from a corner and found a cut line.
"Mirae," I called. "Here. I think this is it."
She turned so quickly Basha's spear struck the wall. Then she crossed the ring and dropped beside the slab. Dust came off under her fingers, and the next cut line appeared.
"That's it." She laughed once, short and clear, then caught my sleeve with both hands and looked straight at me. "You found it. Aleks, you found it. Thank you."
For once I didn't look away first. "We still have to turn it over."
"Yes. Right." She let go and stood. "Carefully. The upper edge is already broken."
Rafi took one corner. I took the other, and Jonas lowered himself beside us with the bad knee held out from the stone. On Rafi's count we lifted, slid the slab onto its edge, then turned it over and lowered it with the writing up.
Mirae crouched over the two carved lines. Her finger followed the readable one without touching it.
"Okay," she said. "Now we finally find out what this place is."
She leaned closer and read aloud. "The Garden of..." Her finger stopped at the broken edge.
Rafi bent over her shoulder. "Garden of WHAT?"
"The rest was on the missing corner," she said. "It's gone."
"You can't read anything else?"
"No. I only have 'The Garden of.'"
We searched every pile on the top ring. Rafi and I moved stones while Jonas checked below the seats. The missing corner never appeared.
By late afternoon, the lower rings were in shade. Jonas stopped beside the tablet and looked up through the broken roof.
"Ten more minutes," he said. "Then we leave. Those creatures keep away from light, and I'm not taking this squad through the forest after dark."
Mirae copied both lines, every break, and the shape of the missing corner onto clean cloth, then wrapped it around Basha's spearhead.
The return took the rest of the daylight. Nothing followed us, and we reached camp on the marked route while the sun still stood above the ridge.
Mykola Hrytsenko waited at the central table in the main arsenal. His military coat was buttoned to the throat while Jonas approached on the stick.
"Squad leader, give me the route and times first," he said. His voice stayed low, each word clear. "Mirae will report the tablet after you."
Jonas gave him the route and times, then stepped aside.
Hrytsenko's eyes moved to Mirae. "Go on. Tell me what the copy establishes."
Mirae unrolled the copied cloth. "At the top was... sorry. None of us could read the upper line. The lower line was a translation."
"How did you establish that?"
"Both lines shared the breaks, and the tree mark repeated in the same place. The readable line says 'The Garden of.' Everything after that was on the missing corner."
"Can you identify the place from that name?"
"No. I need more time with the other symbols."
"Can the camp act on what you copied tonight?"
Her fingers tightened at the edge of the cloth. "No."
Hrytsenko looked from the copy to Jonas. "Four hunters were outside the lines from morning until evening. You entered a site where members of this squad died, and you returned with half a name."
"We recovered Basha's spear," Jonas said. "The route and the arena were clear."
"Other squads had already cleared the route."
"They hadn't reached the tablet," Jonas said.
"I approved the risk, squad leader. What did the camp gain from it?"
Mirae drew a breath. "I can keep working. The lower line lets me compare readable marks with the upper ones. If I check the other walls..."
"Put that in the report. Mark it as a possible method, and don't call it a result yet."
The arsenal door struck the wall. A hunter stumbled in with mud to both knees and one sleeve torn open.
"Outer paths," he said. "East markers, maybe north too. Three seen. We heard more under the trees. They're moving toward the camp."
Hrytsenko's hand stopped above Mirae's cloth. "At this hour?"
"Yes. Right now."
"In the open?"
"Under the canopy. Deep cover."
Hrytsenko looked at the bright doorway, then back at the hunter. His hand closed over the edge of the table.
"They're out now? In daylight? They aren't afraid of the light anymore?"
He moved before anyone answered. "Arm every squad in this building. Send runners to the wall and both outer posts. Squad leaders, form outside."
Hunters took weapons from every rack. Squad Two formed by the east door with Cealith near the front. Three, Four, Five, Six, Eight, and Nine filled the yard, with several more behind them. Squad Twelve wasn't there.
Jonas looked at our faces. "Squad Seven can stay. We've been out since morning."
Rafi lifted his spear. "Can you stay?"
"No." Jonas tightened his grip on the stick. "Right. Stupid question. We're going."
Squad Seven joined the rear. Armed people filled the path beyond the gate, turquoise points held above their shoulders.
Beyond the cleared lanes, branches covered most of the sky. Narrow patches of sunlight covered the ground, with long stretches of shade between them. After the last post, nobody talked. Squads spread into two lines with weapons forward.
We had gone ten minutes past the marker when something came out of a ditch on my left.
"ALEKS!" Cealith shouted from the line ahead.
I turned late and drove the spearpoint into it. My left hand sat too far back on the shaft. The blue point entered its shoulder, high and shallow, and its weight drove the wood into my chest.
I went down. Behind me, the butt of the spear struck a root and caught between two thick branches. The creature pushed itself farther onto the point and reached over the shaft. One hand closed on my jacket near the throat.
"Fuck off!"
My boots slid in wet leaves. I pushed on the shaft until both shoulders burned, and the blank head kept coming closer.
Keep the point in and get a knee under you. Push.
The spear stayed wedged in the root on its own. I let go of the shaft with my right hand, grabbed for the dagger, and missed the hilt. Claws tore cloth under my chin.
"Come on. Find it."
My fingers closed on the hilt. I pulled the dagger free and stabbed under the creature's head. The first hit went sideways and cut a line across its neck. It struck my wrist and nearly took the blade.
Both hands closed around the hilt. I drove the point into the cut again, got one knee under me, and put my whole weight behind it. My arms shook. The blade went deeper one small part at a time.
"Stay down!" I screamed it into its face.
The creature threw me off. I landed on my side and kept both hands on the dagger. Its arm hit the ground beside my face, scraped once through the leaves, and stopped.
Cealith and Rafi reached us a few breaths later. By then the creature lay across the wedged spear and didn't move.
I tried to pull the dagger free. My fingers wouldn't open enough to change their grip. Both hands shook around the hilt.
Cealith dropped beside me. "Aleks. Are you cut?"
"I don't think so. The jacket. It got the jacket."
Rafi stopped over the body. "You killed it. We weren't even here yet."
"The spear got stuck in the roots."
Rafi looked at my hands. "Let go of the knife."
"I'm trying."
Cealith checked the torn cloth at my throat, looked at the creature, then nodded once and helped me sit up.
The next creature reached Squad Four, and six turquoise spearpoints entered it together. A third tried to pull back through a shaded gully, and Squad Eight closed the far end before it escaped. No one else went down. After an hour without another sighting, Hrytsenko turned the formation toward camp.
People talked again on the return. Someone near Squad Five laughed when a boot sank into mud. I kept both hands around my own shaft so nobody could see them shake.
Back in the arsenal, Hrytsenko spread the outer-path map over the same table. Mud covered the floor around it. Squad leaders marked each sighting while Cealith watched them add the points.
"They still fear the light," he said.
Hrytsenko looked up. "What confirms that?"
"None crossed open ground," Cealith said. "They stayed in ditches and under thick canopy."
Rafi touched three marks. "All three are outside the light lines. They kept to the shaded paths."
I made myself speak. "Mine came from this ditch. It follows the light line and... it never crosses the cleared ground."
Hrytsenko studied the map. "They were scouting the edges of the light lines and finding shaded approaches. The light still works. They've learned routes around it. Clear every shaded approach at first light, and double the outer watch tonight."
They'd learned how to get around the light lines. If they learned that fast, what would happen when the thing sending them finally came?