I Loaded the Occult Panel

The shadow stood dead center in the wind gap and planted the staff.

”Flanders. A new patch opened up recently.”

The clearing fell quiet for two seconds, then erupted into a chaotic clamor again.

”Lots of goods over there,” the young man swinging the axe blurted out first.

”I smelled it from all the way up here. One night is enough to feed us for ten years.”

”Shut up, it’s not your turn yet.”

”Can’t anyone speak in the court?”

”You can, but you have to wait in line.”

”We don’t go to battlefields.”

The dozens of hands gripping leashes spoke at once, their voices perfectly aligned.”Walburg is a clearing hunt. Tonight, we drive out those who lingered all winter and refused to leave. The new dead on the battlefield will be collected by others; we don’t snatch from someone else’s pot.”

”We haven’t broken that rule in three hundred years.”

”Three hundred and twenty years.”

”Here we go again.”

Mixed in was a muffled voice, right in the middle of a story about how his ship capsized at sea that year, before someone shoved him back down: ”It’s not your turn.”

”Just let me finish this sentence.”

”You haven’t finished that sentence in six hundred years.”

The shadow waited until their bickering died down to speak.

”Then let me ask you this first: who is collecting the dead on that ground tonight?”

Silence fell over the wind gap.

”The Church’s verdicts are written according to each person’s cause of death. The way these tens of thousands died tonight is new; the Church’s books don’t have a record of it yet. The military roster won’t be copied until tomorrow morning. Right now, their names are locked in a drawer in the Quartermaster Department, and the key is in the pocket of a second lieutenant who has already run six li away. Their families don’t know yet. The letters won’t be sent for another three days.”

It thumped the staff against the ground.

”No one is standing by that pot. The pot is empty.”

”An empty pot still belongs to someone else,” someone said.

”Then let’s talk about the second matter,” the shadow said, continuing its attempt to persuade them.

”Tonight is a clearing hunt, so I am not asking you to collect the dead.”

The dozens of hands gripping the leashes relaxed at the same time.

”Over that patch of land, the layer of the material realm has scattered with the wind, but the layer behind the veil remains. It festered throughout the winter, trapping tens of thousands underneath, sealing them in so they can’t get out or move on.”

The shadow paused there.

”It lingers and refuses to leave. Isn’t this exactly what you all came out to drive away tonight?”

For the first time, the chorus of voices didn’t immediately fire back.

”...He talked us right back around,” someone whispered in the back.

”Don’t let him finish. If you listen to the end, you’ll start thinking he makes sense.”

”I already do.”

”Then you’re doomed.”

An older one pulled his hood down over his ears.

”I’m not listening to a third sentence.”

”No matter how well you spin it, the hounds can’t drive them.”

The dozens of hands spoke in unison again, and this time even their final syllables lined up perfectly.

”Tens of thousands died at the exact same moment. One cause of death means one scent. When the hounds catch the scent, all they smell is a solid wall. They can’t pick out the doors in it.”

”If they bite a living one by mistake, the punishment falls on the hand holding the leash.”

”We don’t go to battlefields because we can’t tell them apart.”

”I will sort them for you,” the shadow said.

A few short chuckles rang out across the clearing. They weren’t harsh, but ultimately, not a single one of them believed him.

Among the dozens of hands gripping leashes, one flicked its finger downward.

A hound darted out from the pack, plunged into the darkness below, and soon resurfaced with something in its jaws.

It was a wisp of something that had just drifted up from below, so thin it was translucent. It hung motionless in the hound’s mouth, completely cold.

Richard made the shadow maintain the outward demeanor of a master, but internally he was already sweating bullets.

The shadow pressed the wisp of spirit from its body against it, peeling it back layer by layer.

The outermost layer was cold, so cold it seemed to have already stopped.

The next layer down, something was still retracting at an agonizingly slow pace.

And in the very deepest layer, half an unexhaled breath remained trapped.

Thank goodness. It was a good thing his Perception had recently broken through to maxed-out Lv4, otherwise he really might have made a fool of himself.

The shadow reached out and took the wisp from the hound’s jaws.

”This one is still breathing. Throw it back.”

”The hound considers it dead.”

”The hound smells a scent. He was pinned under something for so long that the smell came out first, while the person is still behind it.”

The shadow turned its hand over. ”Throw it back. Count to twenty.”

The hand gave its wrist a flick.

The thin wisp slid off the shadow’s palm and dropped back into the blackness below.

At seventeen, someone coughed down below.

It was a very faint cough, almost entirely drowned out by the sound of tens of thousands of hooves pawing the ground.

No one in the clearing spoke.

The hand gripping the leash flicked downward again.

This time, the hound dragged up a figure in an old military uniform, the hem caked in a crust of mud.

”And this one?”

”This one is dead. Dead for three days.”

”...Correct.”

”Tested you twice, and you got it right both times.”

”Luck,” muttered the young man with the axe.

”You can sort one.” The hand holding the leash ignored the youth. ”What about tens of thousands?”

”I won’t sort them one by one.”

”Then how will you sort them?”

The shadow held the Caduceus out horizontally.

The two golden snakes coiled along the staff shifted apart, revealing an incredibly narrow slit between them.

”I will draw a line for you. I will chant, and they will walk on their own. Those who can pass through this staff are gone; those who can’t are still breathing. The hounds won’t need to sniff—they just need to squat on either side.”

”Chant what?”

”I’ll tell you when we get there.”

”And if you can’t chant it once we arrive?”

”Then I will run with you all night,” the shadow said. ”The lord of the hunt’s exact words.”

Someone burst out laughing.

”How do we split the take?” the young man finally got his turn, his voice even louder than before.

”He wants a share? A living man wants a share?”

”I earn my own merit. Just count my share in when you divide the take.”

In his wicker chair, Richard tightened his fingers slightly.

”And if you sort them wrong?” the hand gripping the leash asked. This was the most serious question yet.

”The punishment falls on me.”

The clearing fell silent again.

”Not on the hand holding the leash?”

”It won’t.”

The dozens of hands exchanged glances with one another, visibly swayed.

”You reek of the living.” The one holding a chunk of charred wood suddenly stopped laughing. ”You’ve got people down there, don’t you?”

”I do.”

”How many?”

”Three. At least three.”

”So you’re here to beg us to look after them.”

”If that’s what I were begging for, I wouldn’t need to convene the court,” the shadow said. ”A quiet word with the ones holding the leashes would have been enough.”

”The last time someone pointed the way for us was three hundred years ago.”

”How did that turn out?”

”We collected him, too.”

”Did he point the wrong way?”

”No, he pointed the right way.” The tip of the charred wood tapped against its chin. ”He just talked too much.”

As the crowd murmured amongst themselves, the procession had already changed direction, speeding toward their destination.

The Wild Hunt moved rapidly through the sky. Before long, the strait appeared below them, gleaming pitch-black.

Every light was extinguished; only a few troop transports left white wakes across the water.

No one discussed business on the way.

The one on the right started rambling about his drowning again.

”That year at sea, when the ship went down, I was still clutching a shoe in my hand...”

”Last time you said it was a bucket.”

”I said bucket the year before last.”

”It’s been six hundred years. You can’t even remember what you were holding.”

”I remember it was a very good shoe,” he insisted stubbornly.

”Sheepskin, tightly stitched. I saved up for two summers to trade for it.”

”What is your name?” the shadow asked.

The voice fell silent for a long time.

”...I don’t remember,” he said. ”But I remember the shoe.”

The entire procession burst into laughter.

Back in the courtyard, the gas lamp had almost burned out.

Richard sat perfectly still in the wicker chair, his eyes closed.

Gerard unbuttoned his own coat, shook it out, and draped it over his grandson.

The old man tucked the collar in for him, then stepped back behind the veranda pillar and stood still.

...

At a quarter to five, the eleven men of the Division Directly Attached Unit fanned out across a low hill two li to the south.

Lieutenant Colonel Ord blew out the first gust.

That gust of wind manifested right off the ground, hugging the trenches as it pushed north.

A second gust pressed down on the first, and a third pressed down on the second.

Dozens of gusts stacked together, flipping that entire yellowish-green wall over.

Cheers erupted from the men below the hill.

Ord watched how the wall looked after it flipped up.

It unfurled thin and wide in midair, then began to sink back down.

He compressed his last breath into the very depths of his lungs.

The Gale lineage stored air in their lungs, pressurizing it to the limit before expelling it all in one breath.

He gathered this breath for eleven full seconds, holding it in until his chest cavity felt like it was stuffed with a block of red-hot iron.

He expelled it.

What he expelled was bitten by that yellowish-green haze, and once bitten, it was not returned.

Ord stood on the low hill with his mouth open. A soft crack echoed from the Steel Prosthetic Arm on his left side; the signature artifact had cracked.

Further away, from several spots to the south and one from an indistinguishable direction, identical soft cracks echoed almost simultaneously.

Several of the eleven men turned their heads to look at him.

The lieutenant colonel opened his mouth.

For someone in the Gale lineage who had reached his level, the vocal cords had long since been compressed out of shape.

Most of the orders he had given over the years relied on his adjutant to relay, along with hand signals and glaring.

There was no other choice. Conventional countermeasures were ineffective, so they could only activate their trump card.