68°28'14.7"N 55°18'11.9"E– Vangurey, Nenetsia

  27.05.2024 – 04.15 UTC +03.00

  Every kilometer mattered. Every second, and every turn.

  ??galej reaches her.

  I was ??galej. My chosen last name and how everyone knew me. I had used my t?vny gort, my quiet voice. I had to let the Pyrisbyd?mos, the Spark Hunters, know. She was my quarry.

  I turned the handlebars and leaned to the left. The motorcycle’s hexed wheels spun on the snow. They would not stop turning until we had her, I knew that. A light, whispering breeze reached my ears as response.

  Yushkov listens. Execute on sight.

  This was the plan. I could not let her get near. I had to execute her on sight.

  I twisted the handlebars in anticipation. I had eagerly waited for this pain to finish. This hunt. It would soon.

  Yushkov asks to confirm.

  The sun was low. It had never set, but its orange hue cast long shadows as I sped through the rocky paths. These roads were not made for a chase, nor this light for execution. The hills in front of me were covered in mist. Her tricks, desperate and unnecessary, but in her desolation, I am sure they provided some comfort. Some delusion she could fight back.

  ??galej confirms.

  I sent my message back and sped up even faster, past a sign pointing to the nearest village. Maybe, after this was over, I could rest there, in Vangurey.

  I could almost hear my disgruntled uncle warning me not to spend a night north of Pechora. My ?v?s would say:

  Don’t sleep too close to the sun, Ilyas.

  “Don’t sleep too close to the sun,” I repeated the mantra. It felt incomplete without uttering my name, but nobody had heard this since he died. And nobody should. Only the dead.

  Why was I thinking of the dead?

  The wheels sparked, warning me of Cursed danger, and I pulled the brakes. Just at the right moment. By the time the motorcycle halted, its front wheel was half a meter off the edge of a small cliff.

  I looked around me. I had driven right into the mist, and I had completely zoned out, thinking of death. Now, the fog had taken away my vision. I could only see three or four meters in front of me, and I could not see my feet or the ground.

  I lowered the motorcycle carefully, and I dismounted.

  My right hand reached behind my back to grab the handle of Lopt??. A lumberjack’s axe. I knew no gun or bullet would be useful anyway.

  “Witch, end the games. My friend here has an appointment with your face,” I bellowed in Russian, making sure the fog would carry and not hinder my voice. I need not shout, I knew she was somewhere here.

  She thought she had the upper hand.

  The mist turned grayer as it got thicker.

  “I said. End the…”

  A woman’s figure, dressed in gray, passed right in front of me. I almost waved Lopt??, but I held back. It was a distraction, an illusion.

  “…the games. That is enough.” I said, but quieter now. I needed all my senses ready. With my left hand, I grabbed my motorcycle helmet and pulled it off my head, letting it fall to the ground. My right hand still held Lopt?? tight.

  “Do not make it harder than it needs to be,” I said. It was a cliché, but it often worked. She would not be the first witch to decide she had had enough of fighting. Some surrendered. The last one, he had ended it himself.

  The mist swirled as letters formed, scattered around me.

  ?? ?? ?? ?? ??? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ??????

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  “Always the proud men,” her voice almost sang, reading out the signs. I turned behind me, only to confront more of the same mist. She had spoken in my tongue, a dialect I had heard only back below the river.

  “What are you doing so far from é?va? Aren’t you tired of running? It goes no further.”

  It indeed didn’t. We had reached the area where all the rivers spilled into the Arctic Ocean. More of the Hunters had surrounded the area, so even if she fought me, there was nowhere to run. She could only choose how she died.

  I respected that.

  The letters disappeared, and another figure made of mist tried to charge at me from my left flank.

  I would not risk it. I swung my axe, splitting the grey figure in half. The cloud split and dark red, almost tar black, liquid spilled over the crack. The figure melted back into the ghostly mist, retreating.

  It had only begun. Two more grey ones, all covered by a condensed cloudy layer, charged at me, flanking me from both sides.

  I charged back at one of them, my Lopt?? sweeping through its illusory head, splitting it open. Again, dark liquid sprang from the point of contact, and I felt the essence of the fog squelching against my axe.

  I could not help but smirk. If those grey things were all she could do, she would tire me, yes, but I was not in danger.

  I spun around as the second grey one was a split-second away from reaching me. The axe’s blunt side hit its head, and as the fog dispersed, the dark red liquid followed.

  Three more grey ones, shorter but faster, jumped right from the mist on my right. I stepped back and then kicked the first one with all my force. It landed back under my foot.

  Dark red liquid exploded from its chest and covered the ground. I stayed put on top of it as the other two came at me. They had no eyes, but I imagined them bright with fury. Lopt?? helped me cut them in half. Their dark water had now painted my arms and chest.

  The fog encircling me retreated slightly, as if it were deciding its next move. I had not even broken a sweat.

  I looked left and right, waiting for the next hit. Today, she would die, and no more innocents would.

  “What if you need to choose both, ??galej.” Her voice was unencumbered by the dense fog, echoing around me.

  Choose both?

  More letters shone brightly, shaped by the humidity. All of them, scattered around the fog, but forming a very familiar word. My name:

  ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ??

  Each one lit up as the eerie voice pronounced my name. The hair on my arms rose. She did not guess my name; she knew it. The way she pronounced the e, the way she unnecessarily prolonged the a. Only people from the past called me like that.

  Only people who were dead.

  I held my axe with both hands, my knuckles tightening.

  This was a coincidence. She spoke Zyrian, and she was even one of the I?vatas, she must have been. Maybe she had heard the name before. Maybe she even knew of me, and she was capable of pronouncing my name.

  Four more grey ones spawned from the mist, and at that moment, all my doubts were dispelled. She hadn’t named me; she had called me. She didn’t just read my name.

  She summoned me. As if she truly knew who I was.

  “You can finish this,” her voice came from the grey ones. Their shapes were identical, all four women-like curves. Long hair of clouds spawned and floated at the top end of their figures, making them seem like fog spilled over to take their shape. Their bodies and faces were covered by the humidity. Their moves were identical, but mirrored in pairs.

  “Stay back, vodyanitsa. Siren of the river.”

  “You can only kill me if I come close. You can’t hesitate now, ??galej.”

  Two of the grey maidens stepped sideways first with their right leg. The other two, with their left. They were surrounding me, remaining right at the edge of my vision.

  A breeze carried Yushkov’s quiet voice through the fog.

  Yushkov asks. Did you execute?

  “Did you execute me, ??galej?” Her voice mimicked the message, down to the worried tone. Was she mocking me? Taunting me? To what end?

  One of the maidens lunged. A lunatic unearthly voice, akin to a child’s screaming laughter and a woman’s lament, yelled:

  EXECUTE ME!

  Lopt?? almost had a will of its own, carrying my arms with unnatural strength and splitting the first grey maiden in half. A fountain of dark red liquid sprang from her, and for a moment, I saw a woman’s dead eyes behind the mist.

  EXECUTE ME!

  The second grey maiden had the same scream but carried the pain of madness in it. I cut her head off before she could even finish the words.

  A thought crossed my mind: every slash of blood tastes more real than the last.

  EXECUTE ME!

  Letters lit up around me as the third maiden ran to me. Her screaming was not a threat, nor a mockery. She was crying for help.

  Three pairs of eyes, each one even more real than the last. Terrified at my blade, emptier after the strike. And now it was time for the last one.

  The mist pulled away in an instant, as if lifted away by an invisible hand that decided it was enough. In its traces, it revealed a swarm of bodies, all maimed by an axe. My axe.

  And where the last maiden stood before, now was a woman covered in blood.

  The eyes were real this time. Their horror was their own.

  And somehow, even though I never had so before.

  I hesitated.