The Matryoshka Child
Prologue-Evil Spirits
Hara was shaken awake by her parents in the middle of the night, and as her eyes opened she was bundled into the hidden exit of the cave. She did not ask any questions as her mother grabbed her and almost pulled her into the back of the recess, as her father and the tribe's other men took up their spears and knives with looks of grim determination in their eyes. She remained silent as she and the other women and children scrambled through the small tunnel that was their escape route, and did not complain when she scraped her knee on the rough stone floor or knocked her head on the ceiling.
There were raiders coming in the night, and survival depended on silence.
After a few minutes of crawling, they had broken free of the tunnel, onto the ridgeline above the cave where they could flee to their hiding places in the forest around them. Below her, Hara could hear the sounds of battle, the screams of the dying, yet as she listened, there was something wrong. She knew such noises all to well, but as she listened she could hear a regular, snapping thud, like the beating of the drum, and a sharp, high pitched cracking. A moment later a deep, ear-piercing shriek split the night air, the sound ragged and scraping, terrifying in its volume. The small flight of refugees paused at that, exchanging fearful glances as they wondered what could be its source; no raider could make that noise, and several of the women murmured the holy words out of reflex before ushering the children on.
No mere raiders had come this night; the spirits of the dead were abroad, and they prayed for the survival of the menfolk below as they distracted the flight of their women and children. Once they were certain they were hidden, the men too would flee, the tribe melting away into the darkness; that was their plan, but if ghosts were descending upon them, things would be different.
There were angry mutterings from one or two of the fugitives, questioning why the shaman's rituals had not worked. The dissenters were silenced soon enough as they focussed on getting away from the angry ghosts that had descended upon their home. They clambered over the roots and fallen trees of the forest, pushing aside underbrush, keeping a wary eye for any stinging insects or snakes underfoot. The moon was shining bright, grey light filtering through the canopy. Hara shivered in the chilly night air, pulling the skins she wore tight around her and wishing she still had her blanket of gazelle hide with her to keep her warm. Her mother laid a hand on her shoulder, and Hara resolved to be brave.
Ahead of them, there was a scream.
Something had cut them off, a dreadful apparition with blue fire burning in its eyes, the light low to the ground. There was a snarl like that of a hunting cat, and a snap; one of the women fell to the ground, bleeding from a wound in her head, and as more lights from the hunting phantoms emerged from the undergrowth and scrambled through the trees, they panicked.
Hara's mother yelled at her to run as the small huddle of fugitives dissolved in a mess of screaming panicked yelling, before she jerked as if struck by a thrown spear. She toppled to the ground, a bleeding hole punched through her chest, and Hara screamed as a monster loomed into view behind her. It ran on four legs, stance loping and low like that of a jackal, glowing blue fires illuminating a head that split into the curved, sideways jaws of an ant, carved from some reflective, shining stone. Glowing spines protruded from its back, quivering in anticipation as it saw her.
She fled, turning and sprinting through the undergrowth as the spirit followed her, snarling and snapping at her heels. She saw another one of them speed towards her from her left, strong claws gripping trees and carrying it towards her branch-to-branch. She changed course, sprinting away from it, gasping for breath as she heard more of its kin snarling and yapping behind her.
At some point, her flight through the darkness of the forest led her to the plains. The moon and stars were shining bright, illuminating the open landscape, and as she glanced skywards she saw more glowing blue lights, more spirits circling in the sky on flaming rings. Desperately hoping they would not notice her, she ran onwards, hunched low to afford some measure of cover.
She stifled a cry of pain as she stepped on a rock and cut her foot, limping onwards. A glance over her shoulder to see more of the stone jackals fanning out across the grasslands behind her and she picked up her pace despite the pain, murmuring the holy words in the hope that they would not see her.
There was a hollow in the ground ahead of her, a hiding space, and she slid into it, grateful for the refuge and uncaring for any scorpions or snakes that might use it as a den. She curled up into a tight ball, hardly daring to breath as she heard the footsteps of the phantoms hunting her. Their yapping and barks sounded across the plains as she hid, the noise pressing forwards, forwards, to her left and right. A dark, shining shape loped past her, the blue flame in its head lighting up the ground and grass around it. Hara shuffled tighter into her hiding place, squeezing against herself as it paused; she could see the short, stubby tail of the thing twitch as it looked around, and it bounded on. As soon as it grew quiet, she let out the breath she had been holding.
She loosened the grip on her legs, bare feet pressing against the dirt floor as she dared to breath once more. For a few moments, she sat there, resolving to wait until the sun was up and then see what she might do. There would be others hiding, she was sure of that; these spirits might not have caught the rest of them.
The huge, clawed foot stamped down just before the edge of her hiding place, and a figure born of nightmare loomed into view.
It was of the same shining stone as the jackal-spirits had been cut from, its shape a humanoid one but far taller than any man, with its shoulders armoured in a shining carapace like that of a beetle. Some kind of mask, recessed in between its huge, hunched, curved shoulders covered what face it had, and one hand held an oversized knife of blue light. The other reached out and grabbed Hara before she could flee, massive and cold fingers closing around her arm and lifting her up. Without ceremony she was flung over its broad shoulders and left to dangle there, jogging and jolting on its back as it climbed back over the hollow and strode across the plains.
She was carried back towards the entrance of the cave that the tribe had used as a shelter, and there was the stench of death on the air. Bodies and blood were on the ground, and Hara closed her eyes, twisting into the phantom's back to try and look away. She didn't want to see her father's face amongst those of the dead.
A moment later, she was swung off its shoulders and dumped onto the floor. The other children were there, surrounded by a cordon of the huge monsters, and they huddled together, shivering and whimpering. A glance around her showed Hara that every child of the tribe was there, even the infants, but none of the adults were there. She shivered as she imagined what they might have in store for them; were they to be made into slaves in the spirit world, the main dish of some monstrous feast, something even worse?
Two of the giants stepped aside and from between them another figure emerged. This one was smaller than its brethren, slighter in its build, but from the deference they showed it, it was clear that it was in charge. It was formed of the same reflective, shining stone as the other ghosts, its head a boxy mask of two diagonal squares separated by a burning blue line, and it paused before them. As it did so, Hara saw that its cuboid arms were apart from its body, floating next to the shoulder on a rounded joint but somehow not even brushing it.
A line of blue light sprang from where its face would be, sweeping over the huddled children, before it nodded. It pointed at Hara and gave an order in some strange language; one of the giants picked her up and dragged her away as the spirit left the circle. Before it, a whirl of blue light, its centre a black pit, span into being, and it stepped through, disappearing into the unknown.
As she was dragged into the realm of ghosts, struggling and kicking all the while, she could hear the other spirits finishing off the remnants of her tribe.