The Unnamed Girl

Year 1506

Deep in a forest said to be the home of a violent shaman, a young girl ran for her life.

The sun was still high above the trees, but darkness followed her.

It crawled between the trunks like something alive, stretching closer with every step. Thin, shadowy hands reached out from it, grasping at the eight-year-old girl as she ran. Her hair was tangled and stuck to her face with sweat and dirt.

She stumbled again.

Her bare feet slipped on moss and roots, and she fell hard to the ground. The hambil wrapped around her waist tangled between her legs. She had no shirt to protect her, leaving every cut and bruise on her small body exposed. Blood and mud streaked her skin.

Still, she pushed herself up.

She had to keep running.

Behind her, the darkness smiled.

Shapes moved inside it. Some were small and almost human. Others were twisted, with limbs bent in ways they should not bend. Their faces were blank. Distorted limbs. Still, they grinned at her, wide and hungry, if they had mouths at all.

And behind them was the giant.

Its head swayed on a thin, bony neck, too large for its starved body. It had no eyes, only hollow sockets leaking black ichor down its sunken cheeks. Its mouth hung open in a fixed grin. Jagged teeth stuck out from its gums, with pieces of flesh still caught between them.

The girl’s breath came in broken gasps.

She looked back once.

The giant was reaching for her.

Terror gave her strength again.

She ran harder.

Her legs ached. Her chest burned. The ground ahead sloped downward, sharp and uneven, but she couldn’t slow down. Her foot caught on a root, and she fell.

Her small body rolled down the incline. Rocks scraped her skin. Branches struck her face and arms. When she finally hit the bottom, she could barely move.

Pain spread through her whole body.

She hit her own thigh with her fist, trying to force her legs to work. Her knees shook badly. Her vision blurred with tears and exhaustion.

She wasn’t fast enough.

The giant rushed forward and grabbed her.

Its massive hand closed around her torso and lifted her from the ground as if she weighed nothing.

Then it threw her.

The world spun.

A tree trunk rushed toward her.

She hit it hard.

The impact knocked the air from her lungs. Something in her chest cracked. Her left arm bent the wrong way, and hot pain shot through her shoulder. She tasted copper. Blood slipped from her lips as she collapsed against the tree, barely conscious.

The darkness crept closer.

The faceless things whispered in voices that sounded like stone grinding against stone.

The giant came toward her, each step shaking the ground. It reached down with one skeletal hand. Its fingers were long enough to wrap around her entire body.

Then it squeezed.

The girl’s eyes rolled back. Her ribs pressed inward. Her spine felt as if it would snap.

Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.

A sharp crack split the air.

Something tore through the monster’s skull. Black ichor burst from the wound, thick and dark like rotted ink. Its grip loosened instantly.

The girl slipped from its hand and began to fall.

Ding.

A bell chimed, soft and clear.

Arms caught her gently.

“Whoops. That was dangerous.”

Through her blurred vision, the girl saw brown hair, bright woven cloth, and kind eyes. The woman holding her wore traditional tribal garments that moved with the wind as she carefully lowered the child to the ground.

“Don’t worry,” the woman said softly, brushing the tangled hair away from the girl’s face. “You’re safe now.”

She straightened and reached behind her waist.

From its sheath, she drew a leaf-shaped blade: a balarao. Its silver edge caught the last of the light.

Her expression hardened as she turned toward the spirits.

Then she smiled.

Not kindly. Not gently.

She smiled wide enough to show every tooth.

“You dared step into my territory?” she asked. Her voice was calm, but something violent lived underneath it. “Are you that eager for me to send you to the underworld?”

The evil spirits hesitated.

They were hungry, but they were not blind. Even creatures like them could feel it. Something about this woman was wrong.

Still, hunger won.

The first spirit lunged.

She moved aside, almost lazily, and cut through its neck. Its head fell before the rest of its body could follow. Black liquid spilled across the forest floor.

Another came from her left. Its arms stretched too far, snapping forward to coil around her throat. She ducked beneath them, caught both wrists, and dragged the creature toward her.

Her blade entered its chest before it could scream.

More rushed in.

They died just as quickly.

The Babaylan moved like someone who had never been fully human. The spirits reached for her, but their hands closed on empty air. She read each attack before it fully formed. A twitch of a shoulder. A shift of weight. The slight bend of a crooked limb.

When three came at once, she did not retreat.

She stepped into them.

One slash opened the first. A turn of her wrist took the second. Her heel struck the third hard enough to break its form, and the balarao finished what her foot had started.

The last spirit dissolved into smoke.

For a moment, the forest was quiet.

The Babaylan straightened and rolled her shoulders. Black ichor clung to her hands, her clothes, and the side of her cheek. She flicked some of it from her fingers and sighed.

“That’s it?” she muttered. “I still wanted to stretch my legs a little more.”

Humans were not meant to kill spirits.

How could they? A person could not kill something that had never truly lived.

But the Babaylan was not an ordinary person. She stood at the edge of two worlds, close enough to the dead to hear them and close enough to the living to protect them. Since childhood, she had been trained to face the things that slipped out of darkness.

She was a Babaylan, a high priestess whose authority could stand beside any Datu’s.

But even she misjudged the giant.

Its corpse twitched.

One arm shot toward the unconscious child.

The Babaylan’s eyes widened.

“What?”

Her body moved before her thoughts could catch up. The balarao was already in motion.

“I won’t let you!”

The blade cut through flesh.

The giant’s arm dropped to the ground with a wet, heavy sound. The spirit shrieked, its voice tearing through the forest as it collapsed again.

Smoke rose from the severed limb.

The Babaylan waited for it to disappear like the others.

It did not.

The wound pulsed.

The flesh twisted, gathered, and swelled. From the torn shoulder, a new arm pushed its way out, slick with black ichor.

Before she could step back, the regenerated arm struck her.

She lifted both arms to block.

The regenerated arm slammed into her.

Her feet sank ankle-deep into the soil, but she did not fall. Before the giant could pull back, she drove the balarao into its flesh and held on.

The arm rose, dragging her with it.

She pushed off and ran along the length of its limb as if it were a fallen tree, heading straight for its face.

She stabbed the blade into one eye, then the other.

“AGHHHH!”

The giant’s scream tore through the forest. Birds burst from the nearby trees.

Still, it did not die.

The wounds simply closed again. Fresh eyes formed beneath the torn flesh.

“It keeps healing,” Leya muttered.

Her grip tightened around the balarao.

Then she smiled.

“Well, whatever. That just means more practice for me.”

She bent her knees, ready to attack again, when a small blue bird landed on her head.

“Ekk… time’s up, huh?”

Her shoulders dropped.

The bird tilted its head and studied her with one beady eye.

“Leya, focus on saving the child.”

Leya turned toward the little girl lying motionless on the ground.

She hopped in place a few times, warming her legs, then moved toward her.

“Gently. You’ll break her if you use your full strength,” the bird warned.

Leya listened and slowed.

She lifted the child with care and settled the small body over her shoulder. Then she moved as quickly as she could without shaking her too much. Every step had to be controlled. Every movement had to be light.

Behind them, the giant’s vision returned.

It saw them retreating and roared.

Leya ignored it.

The sound was only a threat. Nothing more. The spirit was weak now, and she knew it.

After what felt like an eternity of careful movement, Leya finally stopped near a tree. Her breath came hard.

“I can’t… run like this anymore,” she said between breaths. “Let me rest for a moment.”

She lowered the child against the trunk as gently as she could, then dropped beside her, panting.

For a while, Leya only stared at the girl’s face.

The child was pale beneath the dirt and blood. Her breathing was faint. Her small body looked too broken to survive much longer.

Leya’s own breathing slowed.

Then she froze.

The blue bird sensed the change in her and flew down to her shoulder.

“What’s wrong?”

“I see…” Leya whispered. “So this is why you told me to save this child."

“That’s right,” the bird said, its voice suddenly heavier. “The deities have chosen. This child will be your heir.”

Leya said nothing.

She studied the girl’s pale, dirt-streaked face.

“I understand,” she said at last. “But are you certain? This child is…”

She stopped.

The rest of the sentence stayed between them.

Nature spirits and deities rarely interfered in human affairs. When they did, it meant something important. Something that could shift the balance between the living and the dead.

Leya couldn’t question their wisdom, even if part of her wanted to.

She looked at the child again.

Then her hand slowly closed into a fist.

To anyone else, the girl would have looked ordinary. Pitiful, perhaps. Just another child running from something cruel.

But Leya was not like other humans.

Her senses reached deeper.

And beneath the blood, dirt, and broken bones, she felt it clearly.

This child reeked of evil.