The Wandering God

36 Lead A Dog Into the Village 3/4

引狗入寨
Yǐn gǒu rù zhài
To lead a dog into the village.
To introduce a potential source of trouble.

*~*~*~*~*~*

"Shit—" said Zakhar, hastily backing away from the barn wall.

CRA-CRACK.

With a splintering crash, a long, thin arm broke through the wooden plank wall, reaching toward Zakhar.

CLANGG.

There was a sound like metal cymbals being brought together, like a brass gong being struck, as the arm met the barrier created by Sanli's lanterns. Zih, like ripples on turquoise water, appeared and shimmered across an invisible surface, a wall that only kept out those things seeking to harm those within.

The zih shook, and shimmered, but the barrier held.

Zakhar breathed in, unaware that he had been holding his breath.

The arm still hung through the broken gap in the barn wall. It was long, at least as long as Zakhar was tall, and with too many joints, as though a second and third segment had been added.

The skin of the arm was a sickly sallow yellow, with strange purple and black marks surfacing here and there that looked like ink frozen in ice. Like bruising on a corpse.

The smell of festering meat reached their noses.

But the hand at the end of the arm was the most disturbing of all. Five long jet black nails topped skeletal fingers. The hand was warped, and emaciated, and wrong, but it was a hand that might have been human once. Had been human.

The five travelers standing in the barn watched the hand. Carefully, almost gently, long black nails traced along the barrier, sending blue colored zih flicking every which way like scattering fish. It did this for a while, as though figuring out from touch what it had encountered. Then the arm withdrew.

Zakhar still stood frozen with the others, listening to the horses anxious whinnying. No more sounds came from outside, but blue light still blazed from the princes lanterns. All eyes in the barn were fixed on the jagged square of night the creature had opened.

At last the nervous horses settled, and the light from Sanli's blue lanterns was extinguished.

Zakhar shakily returned to the fire and sat beside Ao.

"Well, I don't plan to sleep tonight," said Ao.

"You can take first watch then," said Kageyama. "About time you took a turn."

A dazed silence fell over the company, and as one they stared into the fire. Zakhar realized Captain Duan was not among them.

He followed Kageyama's wary eyes, to where the daquan stood beside his dun horse. The captain had put the animal's saddle on its back, and was tightening the girth.

"What are you doing?" called Kageyama suspiciously. "Come sit back down."

"Ah, sometimes the weight of the saddle calms him," said Captain Duan, with a grin. "Just trying to get him settled." The daquan slowly walked away from the horse and returned to the fire, standing behind the barrel he had sat on earlier.

"Sit down," commanded Kageyama.

"I can't really settle after all that excitement," said the daquan with a shrug.

There was something... wrong. A manic gleam that Zakhar knew too well shone in the daquan's eyes.

He cares not what happens to him. He just seeks violence.