age. It is cold to the touch, and he runs his fingers down the length of the rough metal cylinder. He comprehends this, grasps its purpose. It was used to shoot holes in animals so you could feed your family.
He moves to the next installation, similar, but altogether more menacing. It is immense, far larger than the other specimen, and of a metal that shows less corrosion. The inner workings are jammed with rot but it is remarkably intact, its barrel extending from a long tarnished cylinder dotted with perfectly round holes, its stock solid and heavy. This machine was used to shoot holes in people, the elders have told him.
“Jack, bring the torch.”
She is standing by a door along the back wall, leading to the reliquary. Decades ago, when the village expanded its first small gardens to create the planting fields they have today, their tools kept striking worn stone blocks buried just beneath the surface of the soil. A graveyard. What few remains they found were reinterred at their own small cemetery a short walk from the village, but the stones were brought here. Jack and Lia hold hands as they enter the cramped and musty chamber, firelight jerking and twitching off the ominous stone facades.
Many in the village have old names. Jack moves to the end of the row to find the gravestone that bears his namesake and reads its dimpled and worn carvings.
JACK W. HANFIELD
2071 - 2213
May His Soul Find Peace
His fingers trace lightly across the surface of the gravestone. Next to him Lia is shivering, gooseflesh rising on her thin bare arms. Footsteps click in the main room. Lumps of fear rise in their throats and Lia lets out a short gasp.
“Ahh, here’s our two lead players now,” exclaims Llyde, Jack and Lia nearly jumping out of their skins. “You both did a fine job tonight, I thought. You’re quite the little dancer there, Lia.”
“Thank you.”
“We were just looking around, Llyde.”
“I trust you. I like coming here myself. Makes you wonder what else is out there, buried.” His vision drifts off, momentarily lost in thought. “I do need to lock up though. And your parents are looking for you out there.”
They bid Llyde goodnight and move outside, replacing the torch in its holder as they leave. They can hear their parents calling their names from down the way.
“Jaaack… Liiiaaa…”
“Coming,” they shout back, and trot off to find their parents talking down by the entrance of Lia’s cul-de-sac.
“There you two are—we thought you’d wandered off into the woods, we were about to go looking,” says Marni. “Time to turn in. Goodnight, Jack.” She bends and gives him a hug. “Goodnight, Elora.”
“Night, Marni. Come on, big Jack, let’s go.”
Jack and his mother walk through the empty promenade and onto the dirt path to their cabin. They say their goodnights and settle in, Elora sleeping behind a partitioned area in back, and Jack lying down on a straw mat in the front room. He pulls his fur coverings tighter against the deepening morning chill and falls fast asleep, dreaming of an Age when they rode enormous metallic birds into the sky and lived in high towers that touched the very clouds themselves.
In the last hour of darkness before dawn, the Nezra descend from the trees. The forward scout is the first down, waiting for the night guard to stroll by below, then dropping silently through the air and landing on his back. He slices Llyde’s throat before they hit the ground and slaps a quick hand over his mouth to mask the death moans. When Llyde is still, the man rises and removes a small whistle, which he sounds out once.
In the surrounding forest, the darkness itself seems to advance as the Nezra move forward in stealth. They enter the village. There are dozens of them, bare-skinned except for the cloths wrapped around their waists, shin-high leather boots, and belts, worn like sashes over their shoulders, with various implements attached. They move like shadows, each warrior a black hole unto himself, capable it seems of collapsing all matter and substance down into eternal annihilation and then blinking out of existence.
The scouts flash strange hand signals, pointing out certain cabins as they stalk down the promenade. The warriors crouch, their movements feline as they position themselves in front of the cabin doors. They remove thin flat metal pieces from their belts and wait. The scouts stand by until all are in place then sound out the whistle once more.