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GOLDEN FERNS

Oskar Fuchs


The unit moved forward as fast as the terrain allowed. According to coordinates from a drone, contact with the subjects should be made soon. The Międzylesie team tactically split into five-member groups with the intention of attacking simultaneously from multiple sides and catching the designated targets in crossfire. They acted quietly, only gesturing to each other for communication. One last time, out of habit, they checked the magazines of their automatic weapons and set off.

The third group was led by Jacek Klackowitcz. His men were able to work together exemplarily well; the result of years of hard training could be recognized at a glance even by a complete layman. They moved quickly and confidently among the ancient spruces, covering each other and making excellent use of the terrain. Klackowitcz moved to the front position of the triangle formation, raised his hand and clenched his fingers into a fist. He leaned his shoulder against the trunk of a massive spruce tree to keep from staggering and stared at the scene before him, unable to speak, paralyzed by its sheer brutality.

Corpses of his fellow Hunters lay in an unnatural position on the reddened pine needles, limbs either twisted out of joint or even severed. The contents of their abdominal cavities were scattered about, and their shattered rib cages testified to the incredible destructive power of their attackers. The extent of the injuries was consistent with an anti-personnel mine or artillery attack, but that was out of the question here. The surrounding forest was completely silent; they had not heard a single shot or scream.

Then the wind blew against the branches and shook them furiously. Jacek decided not to break radio silence for now. He attached a thermal imaging clip-on to the optics of his weapon and used it to scan the area. The bodies of the killed Hunters were still warm; they must have died a short time ago. Nothing. He looked around again, only to suddenly freeze, cold sweat beginning to trickle down his back. Very slowly, he raised his head and looked above him, where the rapidly darkening evening sky was visible through the branches of the spruce.

They were there. He didn’t count them, but there were at least a dozen. They attacked in a split second. Jacek had no time to think about anything, reflexes taking over his body. He dodged, took aim and fired. He hit the first hunched figure mid-jump. The projectiles shook her muscular body, but didn’t stop her. Klackowitcz cursed and hit his target with two more rounds.

A short stocky figure with incredibly dirty and matted hair stopped in front of Jacek and bared sharp, yellowed teeth. She was nearly naked, except for a primitive loincloth, so the hits were clearly visible. Only the wounds stopped bleeding immediately, and the creature’s body expelled the bullets, healing the last traces of the hits only a second later.

Kurwa,” Klackowitcz whispered in disbelief, emptying the rest of the clip as well. That was all he could manage. The figure reached him in a single, nearly twenty-feet leap and lunged at him. He felt his bones snap and screamed in pain as the tremendous force ripped his arms from his shoulder joints. His own brain betrayed him as Jacek remained completely conscious instead of merciful unconsciousness. He saw several ugly faces above him, a cruel sneer on their lips.

Then the world went black, and the great loss of blood finally brought Klackowitcz into the arms of merciful death.

* * *

An icy wind shook the leafless birch trees and lightning bolts came down from the sky. The symbolic drizzle turned into a regular thunderstorm. I still held the shovel in my hand and looked at the too-fresh grave breaking the monotony of the yellowed leaves. Around me, sharpened, about three feet-high pikes were stuck into the ground. I smelled the scent of wet fur and noticed light-footed shadows with green glowing eyes moving between the white-black trunks.

“No,” I answered their unspoken question. “Your time is yet to come. Be on guard for now. I’ll be back soon.” The rain beat on the broad brim of my hat, running down it in cold trickles. A muddy puddle formed under my heavy boots. The ground exhaled mist.

My mouth went dry and bile rose up my throat, choking me, as did the growing anger that gripped me like a straitjacket. This was personal. With a snap of my fingers, I crushed the handle of the shovel and threw it away. The longer I looked at the grave, the more I wanted to do some really nasty things to whoever was responsible for this. I had more than enough experience with this. They wanted it; they would get it. I’ll figure out who did it.

“Uncle, will you go get Daddy now?” A little girl with long blonde hair and innocent blue eyes tugged on my sleeve.

“It’s early, he’ll be very weak,” I replied, even forcing myself to smile.

“But I have a very bad feeling,” she said grimly, wrinkling her nose.

“All right. I’ll go there, you wait here. It’s dry and warm here.” I took her hand and led her to a big cabin.

“What if they come when you’re not here?” she worried.

“They won’t, Katie,” I assured her. “I give you my word on that.”

She nodded contentedly. “Mommy said that once you make a promise, you never break it.”

* * *

I stood by and watched the hospital. Raindrops drummed on the windows of the buildings, reporting to me whether the ones I was looking for were inside their rooms or not. But then I saw them.

Two nurses were hurrying across the parking lot at a fast pace. I recognized them immediately. They couldn’t outsmart me. But this was a complete novelty in their otherwise very straightforward strategy. They could disguise themselves as people! It crossed my mind that if those two were going to feed, they would leave a terrible mess behind them as usual. I created an electrostatic field over the hospital and let it discharge. The nurses became two charred, smoking statues. Asphalt boiled around them and sprayed out into the surrounding area. Several nearby vehicles caught fire. The boiled water enveloped everything in a cloud of steam within moments.

I transported myself to a quiet room on the first floor. At the same time, a large dose of static electricity was released into the wiring, destroying the CCTV system throughout the building. The man on the bed was deeply asleep. His arms were laid along his body and several tubes led from them to the IV stands. I closed my eyes and concentrated fully. The patient and the reclining bed slowly transitioned from a material state to an ectoplasmic spirit and dissolved. The vital signs monitors began to beep, confused and unnecessarily loud.

There was a long scream from the corridor, and then many more. Suddenly, however, there was an uncomfortable silence. A good ten seconds later, the door flew open and a burned nurse stood in it. I decided to call her Crispy. Although she had already partially recovered, she didn’t look good at all. She immediately lunged at me, but a hit of my fist threw her back. I felt her bones loosen under my fist, which was an unexpectedly pleasant sensation. She hit the wall hard, fell to the ground, but immediately rolled to her feet and attacked again with a deep guttural growl. By that time I had taken out an acacia stake, cut to a sharp point, as long as my forearm. Only a second later I thrust it between the fake nurse’s shoulder and neck. She dropped to the floor, giving me a hateful look. The fluids leaking from her body began to spread around her.

“Uughm?” Crispy wondered as she found her body refusing to obey and her regeneration completely halted. She gritted her pointed teeth and grunted. Then she began to choke. For to most magical creatures, acacia wood was violently poisonous, and the same was true of the acacia honey that coated the tip of the stake. Her companion appeared in the doorway only a split second later. She screamed until the window panes cracked, and the displays of all the instruments did the same. At least the annoying beeping had stopped.

“Hi, Crusty,” I greeted her and smiled. Because she looked like burnt toasted bread. It was better that they came to me after all. Chasing them through the woods would have been much harder. Besides, they always formed packs.

The air rippled as a hypnotic attack swept through the room. I deflected it easily. This could work on the common folk; I, on the other hand, couldn’t be counted among them. On the contrary. Crusty, however, was quite annoyed by this. She bared her teeth at me, and a piece of her charred lip fell off in the process. It left a disgusting pink stain. The nurse crouched down, and even through her thick dark hair, I could see the strong muscles in her legs tense up. Then she lunged for me.

I moved out of the way and checked on her collapsed sister. A large dark puddle had spread beneath her, red bubbles were forming at her nose, foam was coming out of her mouth, and her eyes were rolled back. She wasn’t acting it out, so I could give my full attention to her friend. She swung her hand at me, missed, but her long fingernails tore the plaster off the wall and revealed the bricks. I blocked the next blow, grabbed her wrist and crushed it. She screamed, tried to bite me, and then kicked me too. I caught her leg and backed away. The nurse lost her balance and fell.

I grabbed her ankle with both hands and pulled her towards the door. She struggled; her fingernails carved deep furrows in the linoleum. She grabbed a chair and immediately threw it at me. The furniture may have missed its target, but the creature managed to kick me, throwing me into the hallway, where my body hit the wall so hard that my imprint was left in it. I staggered back, knocking fallen plaster and chunks of broken brick off my shoulders. And then I saw it.

Dead bodies in hospital gowns and medical uniforms covered the entire corridor. Among them I saw two overturned material carts, and a little further on there were crutches, walkers or IV stands. From the door I flew out of, a head peeked out, and then the nurse was out. I threw what was closest at her. Coincidentally, it was a wheelchair. It was a perfect hit. It crashed with the nurse mid-leap, which would put a panther to shame. The collision went better for the wheelchair; Crusty rolled over onto her stomach, but before she could get up, I kicked her in the ribs with a run. She skidded almost twenty feet across the blood-slick floor. She lay helpless and whimpering—I must have damaged her spinal cord with the kick. By the time I reached her, she had recovered enough to start moving her left arm again. I pulled out another acacia stake and finished the job.

I looked around. One thing was clear: this was a cardinal screw-up. The quiet times were over. I wondered how they were going to cover up this massacre and who they were going to put in charge at TEFLON, the acronym for the Secret European Fund for Hunter Bounties and Reparations.

I grabbed the ugly fake nurses by their ankles and disappeared from the hospital.

* * *

It was raining hard. I stood again in front of the grave and at my feet lay Crusty and her sister Crispy. They weren’t pretty names, but I hated it when things got mixed up, so I had a compulsive need to somehow distinguish them from each other, even with made-up nicknames.

I tore off Crispy’s head and impaled it on one of the pikes. Her eyelids fluttered and her blackened lips moved slightly. She also got a tic under her right eye. Crusty was much calmer. I watched them intently for several long moments.

I figured I had plenty of time, so I decided to go see Katie and her father. But I didn’t leave the sisters unattended, even though they were technically dead. I didn’t trust them that much.

I went back to the cabin. There was a large fireplace opposite the entrance and a bed with a patient to the left of it. He was holding Katie’s hand and crying. When he saw me, he looked up and fear appeared on his face. I didn’t know how much his wife had told him about me, but apparently enough to start worrying.

“Why are the yezinkas after your family?” I asked him without any attempt at politeness. Because I never liked him.

“I don’t know, I swear I don’t know!” he groaned.

Katie looked at me reproachfully. I ignored it. He was there and he didn’t protect my sister. That was all I needed to know. I considered it an injustice that he survived. It should have been the other way around. That’s it. End of discussion.

“Then why did they try to kill you twice? The first time could have been an accident, but they came straight to the hospital to get you,” I said bluntly. At the same time, I checked the situation at the grave through the wolfish eyes of my guards. So far, it looked all right. The vicious forest animals had just begun to feast on the two headless bodies. And they came to eat in abundance.

Katie’s father, unable to bear my reproachful look, averted his eyes and his bearded face twisted. “I really don’t know. And why isn’t . . . ?” He couldn’t finish his sentence and shuddered. Then he collapsed back onto the pillow and fell asleep.

“You sure helped me,” I grumbled.

I took a needle and thread from a drawer under the table and headed back to the grave. It was high time. Crispy and Crunchy were beginning to wake up. Nervous twitches ran across their swollen faces. I didn’t want to be cursed, so I secured myself against them and sewed the first yezinka’s eyelids and lips shut. Several magpies perched on nearby branches began to loudly scold me for interrupting their feast.

“Uncle, may I?” Katie asked, holding out her hand.

After a moment’s hesitation, I handed her the thread and needle. “Tighten the stitches properly,” I warned her.

She didn’t answer me, but instead got to work. I had to admit that she was doing much better and also faster than me. I looked at my niece and lost myself in thoughts. She never once looked up from her work, finishing stitching the right eye with a professional knot.

The word spread quickly that two elite teams of Hunters were massacred by the yezinkas in Poland. It actually happened on the other side of mountains. Then they ran here. But this wasn’t their preferred hunting ground. Someone deliberately sent them here and then told them where to go on their various expeditions. The question was who and why. I haven’t even found the main camp of the yezinkas yet; they were able to camouflage themselves really well. Or they were being camouflaged. Also, at the hospital, I only gained a lot of new questions and a minimum of answers. My brother-in-law didn’t know anything, or kept it to himself. Which, to me, was all the same.

I frowned and shook my head to shut out the intrusive thought of Katie’s father. A double grave would have looked much more romantic to me. Yezinkas, as far as I knew, didn’t clean their teeth, and my bitten brother-in-law could, with a little luck, die of sepsis . . . It made me feel better. But it didn’t last long.

A fat jay perched on a nearby branch. It tilted its head to the left and burped so hard its feathers fluffed up. “Sorry, these earthworms are getting too fat lately. It’s making me sick to my gallbladder,” it apologized demurely. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

“Well, out with it,” I sighed.

“Hunters are camped at Štírovník,” it declared importantly.

I cast a critical glance at Crispy and Crusty. Katie had done an excellent job.

“Yes, I know that,” I assured the jay.

The bird shrugged cheekily and burped again. “It’s none of my business, but you should go see them. Or they’ll soon burn the place down to ashes and level the whole forest.”

“You’re a professional denunciator, not Sibyl,” I warned the jay distantly, but at the same time I spread my mind wider.

What I saw made me curse. The bird wisely remained silent. But it didn’t last long.

“Ranger? Are you going to crack down on the Hunters and yezinkas like you did with Hansmichl when he was chasing after your sister?” the jay wanted to know, hopping excitedly on a branch. “It’s been quiet for too long!”

The jay really made me angry with that remark. It knew instantly that it had gone too far, because my eyes began to glow green, as did those of my guardian wolves.

“I have to do something somewhere else,” it peeped, and then, unexpectedly quick for its size, it disappeared from sight.

Katie turned to me. “Who is this Hansmichl and what did he have to do with my mom?”

I cleared my throat. “That’s not a story for little girls.”

“And when will I be old enough to hear it?”

“Never.”

* * *

That story happened a long time ago. It took place in times when there were no Hunters, and therefore the law of the mightiest was in effect. Both among humans and among the creatures now called supernaturals, or more simply, monsters.

My sister Katherine has grown into unusual beauty. And since she was to receive almost half of the Eagle Mountains as a dowry, she had no shortage of suitors. To put it very politely, not all of them had honorable intentions. The most annoying and also the most troublesome was a mountain spirit who called himself Hansmichl. He was a rather powerful being, full of mischief and greed. My sister was stalked and terrorized by this Hansmichl. Each time she refused him, his behavior got worse. But the final straw was when he brazenly followed her to my house. He broke down the door, came in and sat down at my table. He claimed to be Katherine’s husband and behaved very arrogantly. He wore expensive clothes, iron rings on his fingers, and spat on the floor. He had always been used to being feared by everyone.

I asked him to give me a written promise that he would never speak to Katherine again and would avoid her until he died. He refused, became angry, and wanted to strike me with the heavy club he always carried. But he didn’t realize that these mountains belong to me and he has no power or rights here. So I took him on a little trip. I tied him to a tree at the top of the peak called Palice, and then all I had to do was wait for the wild pigs to leave their wallows for their evening meal. Hansmichl scolded me at first, thinking I was just trying to scare him. But when the boars and sows were eating the meat off his legs, his attitude quickly changed and he began to beg for mercy. I only took him up on his offer when the hungry wild boars got higher up and chewed out his testicles. Afterwards, he was more than happy to sign a paper promising to give up Katherine for good. From then on, Hansmichl wore a long coat and high boots, so that it would not be obvious how he was affected by the feast of the wild pigs.

For a long time this story was told even among the common people, and that was enough to keep the peace in my woods. I, Ranger, guardian of the Eagle Mountains, had become forgotten as time passed. People were much fonder of Katherine, whom they loved and worshipped as a princess. It suited me. I rarely appeared among the people. Mostly in the rain and when it was necessary to punish poachers and those who would destroy the forest. But I never spoke to them. Katherine got married in the meantime, to Rampušák. We didn’t click well; he was a dry and obnoxious nag, laughing at his own jokes. Eventually they moved to Deštná in the Eagle Mountains and we gradually broke off all contact. They only got in touch a few years ago, when their daughter was born. They asked me to be her godfather. After long hesitation, I accepted the offer. I found that they were now living among humans and trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. They managed to do that until they were attacked by the yezinkas.

Katherine called me for help, but unfortunately I got there too late. She died in my arms; she only had enough time to tell me who did it. Rampušák became a widower and ended up in the hospital, badly bitten. So I buried my beloved sister and took Katie in temporarily to protect her while her father was recovering.

And now it was time for me to go see those Hunters.

* * *

If there was one thing I really hated, it was someone destroying my forest. The government-hired Hunters of nonhumans reveled in it. They deployed their special photo traps capable of scanning the surroundings in several different spectrums, laying motion detectors and landmines or remote-controlled shooting nests. And above it all flew drones designed not only to monitor but also to destroy live targets. Snipers took over high ground and specialist soldiers measured the signal strength in controlled segments where their teams were to advance. This place wasn’t as lively even when Emperor Franz Josef came here for maneuvers.

The Hunters took a meadow for themselves near the railroad from Rudoltice to Česká Třebová and set up their big black SUVs and operational tents covered with camouflage nets. I watched all this with considerable displeasure. I wasn’t afraid that they might be able to discover my cabin, but they could have done a lot of damage to the trees and the land.

A man walked past me with a spectrum detector. He stopped and looked around. He couldn’t physically see me. Unless it was raining, I was perfectly intangible. His device still found me. The man tapped his finger several times on the display and frowned. I stood close behind him and looked over his shoulder. I saw myself as a blue dot that glowed prettily in the very center of the screen.

“Damned piece of junk, it must be broken again,” the guy muttered. “You can’t rely on these technicians. It shows someone standing right here.” He looked around again, then restarted the machine.

When the machine started up again, the blue dot—that is, me—was still there. But then a large group of other dots appeared. Blood red and pulsating. They were closing in fast. The man pulled out a phone with a shaky hand and tried to punch in a number. His fingers wouldn’t listen.

Nearby, I heard shouting and then gunfire. I moved over there; it was only two hundred yards away. There were already three yezinkas feeding. They had managed to gouge out their victims’ eyes, as was their custom, and were now stuffing them in their wide mouths. They were blissfully munching away, thick saliva running down their chins. The eldest of them stiffened and sniffed. She had a face full of deep wrinkles, a bald spot on the top of her conical head, and very crooked legs. She looked in my direction and growled something to her younger sisters.

The ground began to tremble, broken trees cracked, and then suddenly a tank swept across the yezinkas at tremendous speed. I stared at it in disbelief. What kind of a madman had the courage to drive a tank through my forest and spray a completely stupid sign saying Ostrava on it? The yezinkas pushed in the dirt were certainly even more surprised than I was. The weight of the multi-ton war machine crushed their joints and bones to a pulp. I decided to try to make something of the situation for myself. The creatures would regenerate in minutes and all the efforts of the mad driver, whoever they were, would be completely wasted.

I summoned the rain, and materialized with the first drops. I pulled the yezinkas out of the trail of tracks, laid them on top of each other and rolled them up like pancakes. I then banded everything very tightly with the blackberry tendrils that grew just a few steps to the left, and pierced the whole package with three acacia stakes for good measure. Gunfire, booming explosions and roars filled the forest. It was high time to get out.

I returned home with my catch. The wolves greeted me enthusiastically, rubbing against my legs, sniffing the flat little yezinkas and poking them with their wide, wet snouts. They were demanding a hunt. I promised them that their time would come soon. I didn’t waste time and got to work. First the sewing, then the fun. I wanted to see for myself how our famous and praised Hunters fared in battle. Because the ones in Poland ended up in pieces.

And I was also going to make sure that no one ever drove a tank through my woods again.

* * *

I stitched up the last yezinka’s eyes. The skull had managed to grow back, but it hadn’t been able to recover its original shape, so what I’d impaled on the stake next to the grave was more suited to a museum of curiosities, a panopticon of freaks, or a nightmare.

It was dark. The moon was rising in the sky, showering the forests with silver light. A small piece of dirt on the grave lifted and pushed away a pebble that rolled down. Then a long, shiny stem slid out and unfurled. More followed, and in a few minutes the grave was covered with golden ferns. I took that as a good sign. My sister used to love them.

I headed for the meadow where the Hunters had camped earlier. There was an almost imperceptible misty haze hovering over it. The result did not please me in the least. In spite of careful preparation and undeniable technical superiority, the humans got brutally beaten. Not again. I walked among torn and fallen tents, burnt blast spots, overturned vehicles and partially gnawed corpses with no eyes. I noticed that a large number of the bodies had been bitten by something much larger than yezinkas. So they had an ally. The bites themselves exhibited abnormal dental patterns and grip strength. I also found traces of the creature. The prints were very large, humanoid, but quite unlike orc or ogre prints.

I finished examining the site. I was quite surprised to find several magical weapons. I’d heard there were a few among the Hunters, but I’d thought it was just a rumor until now. I examined them carefully, but didn’t touch them. These things were extremely expensive, very effective, but also highly whimsical. And from a purely practical point of view, if they proved they couldn’t stop the yezinkas, they were useless to me anyway. I’ll let the cleanup team take them when they arrive.

In the meantime, I decided to change my tactics from observation to intervention, because as long as the yezinkas were wandering through the woods, they were attracting Hunters. I therefore adopted a wolf form, the only physically tangible form I used when it wasn’t raining. I didn’t need rain now, for it would wash away the scents and the tracks. The sounds of the forest were suddenly louder, the air brought a lot of interesting information, and the grass was cold under my paws. I bent down to the big print, sucked in the air and tasted it. I smelled of a yezinka, a corpse, and three kinds of magic. Earth, sign and control. There was a very faint human scent attached to the last one. I stored it in my memory. Now I’ll never forget it in any of its forms.

Long-legged shadows with green glowing eyes stepped out of the forest. There were many of them, almost a hundred and a half. I smiled and greeted them. It was shaping up to be a good hunt today. A young owl perched a little uncertainly on a nearby spruce and watched me with atypically bright blue eyes.

She was very talented, she figured out how to do it all by herself . . . just like her mom.

The hunt started.

* * *

I ran with the pack among the trees that cast their long shadows in the moonlight. The cool air carried many interesting smells, but we were only interested in one. The prey couldn’t be far away; the tracks were getting fresher. We finally caught up with the yezinkas and surprised them while feeding. They dragged the bodies of the Hunters to a place called Dubina and were feasting on them. It looked like some kind of victory banquet. Nearby lay the reddened rocks and sticks with which they had smashed their victims’ heads to get at the brains, their second favorite delicacy after the eyes. In the same primitive way, they had broken ribs and chests to get to the hearts. With sickle-shaped claws, they now opened the bellies of the dead to eat the liver. This must have been at least the fourth course.

The yezinkas stared in disbelief at the great beasts that had emerged from the night in utter silence. The cold air formed clouds of steam at the wolves’ mouths, and their long pink tongues hung over their sharp teeth.

The pack attacked at once, their superiority overwhelming. And though the yezinkas thrashed and bit and scratched around them, it was no use. A few tried to climb the nearest trees, but didn’t make it that far. Except for one. She climbed to what she thought was a safe height, then made a wailing sound that could have easily been a warning or a cry for help. But at that moment, the owl’s talons scratched her face. The yezinka lost her balance and tumbled backwards, where the wolves claimed her after she hit the ground.

This was a great success. Twelve yezinkas. Not bad at all. I waited for the wolves to feed and called in the rain. We needed to move the trophies and prevent the yezinkas from telling their sisters what happened here.

There was a surprise waiting for me at the grave. Katie stood there, visibly grown and matured. A needle and thread were in her hand, more sharpened pikes for heads were impaled in the ground, and new acacia spears were leaning against a nearby twisted large birch tree. I impaled the heads of the yezinkas on the pikes and looked again at my niece. “Really, just like your mother,” I murmured, just to cover my embarrassment and say something.

“I’ll take care of it, Uncle,” she smiled, tossing a strand of long blond hair out of her face. “I’ll come back to you after I sew them up.”

“I don’t know if that’s appropriate. Your father probably wouldn’t approve of you wanting to get involved.”

The wind ruffled the golden ferns on the grave. “He might not, but as you can see, Mommy doesn’t mind,” Katie didn’t give in and began stitching together the first set of eyelids.

* * *

I returned to the pack. Now I was going to solve the rest of the problems. And for that, I needed some perspective. On a sudden impulse, I opted for a physical move to the location, not a magical one. A little movement never hurt anyone, quite the opposite. And in wolf form, movement was one of the greatest joys. So I ascended a rocky trail copying a contour line in the hilly terrain. It followed a forest path with a raised grassy central strip created by passing heavy cars of foresters. I stood still and listened.

The distant rumble was getting closer. I retreated among the trees and watched curiously to see what would happen. From around a bend, a harsh glare cut through the darkness and a thundering roar shook the forest. Then screaming yezinkas ran past. They were running very fast indeed, and with good reason.

They were being chased by a tank. The dark green armor was worn down by the years, the paint peeling in many places, exposing rust spots of various sizes. The forward movement of the machine, though very brisk, was accompanied by a ghostly creaking and deafening screeching, indicative of neglected or inadequate maintenance.

I immediately remembered that this was also one of the things I intended to solve. No Hunters were going to be driving around my woods in this vehicle with a totally stupid name. Ostrava! Phew. It didn’t even really exist! That rolling, stinking piece of iron could have been called Brno or Balanced State Budget and it would have worked out the same.

The tank disappeared around the bend in the road. I felt droplets of badly burnt diesel landing on my skin. It made me angry. Morally and environmentally, it was absolutely necessary to disable this vehicle. Even if someone was using it to hunt yezinkas.

First, the vehicle had to be stopped. I looked up at the sky, which immediately clouded over, and a storm like no one had seen in years began. In a few minutes, the roads here became torrents, but of mud instead of water. As I already knew, neither tractors and Tatras nor foresters’ V3S could pass through it.

There was as much light as if it was still daytime, the sky was struck by one lightning bolt after another, and no words could be heard over the downpour. I liked it.

I returned to my human form, took off my hat and turned my face toward the rain.

* * *

I found the tank two turns away. It had cut a path up a steep hill, flipped on its side and slid down the hillside. It broke several trees in the process, and the turret hit a large beech with five trunks twisted together. The armored vehicle left a deep trough in the hillside resembling a brown scar. Nearly twenty deranged yezinkas were running around the tank, hysterically pounding it with sticks and stones. A few even climbed on top of the overturned war machine, jumping on it and hurling obscene insults. Every now and then, however, one of them slipped and ended up on her back in the mud next to the armored vehicle, hitting herself on the protruding, twiggy roots.

I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time.

After a good hour of frantic assault, the yezinkas got tired. They stood near the tank and discussed it vividly. I gathered this from the expressive gesticulation that supplemented the monsters’ speech. And just at that moment one of the hatches opened, a small hand appeared and threw two round things in an arc in the middle of the yezinkas. Night immediately turned into day after the hatch closed again.

The incendiary grenades sprayed their content all over and created a cloud of burning phosphorus. The glowing gelatine clung to any surface and emitted a great deal of heat. Grass, leaves, trees and pines were burning despite the torrential rain. Then four figures in black Hunter armor emerged from the tank. There were two men and two women. I heard somewhere that if four people come out of a tank, there must be a dog as the fifth crew member. But I never saw anything like that, so either they didn’t have one, or they ate it a long time ago. But maybe the poor animal committed suicide in time so that it wouldn’t have to be locked up with them in a tank with Ostrava written on it. Personally, I leaned towards the latter version; it seemed the most likely of all.

The hunters happily fired a few short bursts among the yezinkas and seemed very satisfied with the result of their actions.

“This is an elite Fantom team, living legends, not some Polish losers, you understand?” a tall man with a short beard shouted at the fallen yezinkas. But he stopped boasting quickly, as the yezinkas began to regenerate. They stood up, and the projectiles gradually fell out of their bodies with a subtle hiss.

“Shit,” the bearded man said, using his Milkor rotary grenade launcher without hesitation. “Martin, don’t just stand there like capital Y and do something!” he shouted.

A short, fat man with a big belly nodded, let out a war cry, and his flamethrower roared like a swarm of angry forest bees. The long flame engulfed several yezinkas, which ran in all directions like great fireballs on legs. They crashed into trees and bushes, or tripped over roots, and then rolled down the hillside. But as soon as they stopped burning, they came back to take revenge on the Hunters who had tried to kill them. “Libor, they’re like some kind of crazy Terminators!” the flamethrower guy complained wryly.

“Pick up is in thirty-seven minutes at the earliest! And the extraction point is out of the woods according to the coordinates,” the smaller of the two women with an earpiece in her ear shouted over the gunfire and screaming of the yezinkas, while busily tapping something into her tablet. “We have to get there and then survive until they arrive! Do you hear me? I need a few minutes to activate Fantom’s emergency backup!”

“You’ll get ’em, Alex!” A tall blonde climbed up the side of the overturned tank at the urging of her teammates, holding the machine gun she had removed from its rack. She threw the strap over her shoulder and tossed her head defiantly. The long cartridge belt ended somewhere down by her feet.

“Thanks, Petra,” Alexandra nodded, continuing to focus on her tablet.

A large fiery flower bloomed at the end of the barrel the moment a screaming yezinka leapt at the blonde. She literally cut the attacker in half and her body hit the ground with a splash.

However, I knew from experience that even this was unfortunately not enough. In fifteen, twenty minutes at most, the yezinka would be running around again as if nothing had happened. The machine gun chewed through the entire cartridge belt in less than a minute and fell silent. The last of the fired brass cartridges hit the wet ground with a hiss, inaudible because of the barking of the shots.

Setting up the second belt was a matter of moments, but the yezinkas partially regenerated during that time. They announced their determination to continue the fight with a roar and a new mass frontal assault.

“How many more grenades do we have?” Libor wanted to know. “Looks like if we cut these monsters in pieces, they’ll give up for a little while!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Alexandra told him. “Everybody get in the tank right now! The drones should be here in . . . three! Two!” She slipped into the tank first and everyone else followed her as fast as they could.

Multiple quiet, buzzing sounds came in overhead, similar to when bats fly. This was followed by loud clicks of electric motor switches, and then small-caliber overhead rotary machine guns began their deadly chant. The yezinkas were caught in the crossfire. Projectiles tore chunks of flesh from their bodies, shattering bones and tearing ligaments. The show was ended by air-to-surface missiles, smaller in size but no less devastating than their larger counterparts.

Humans and Hunters in particular have obviously worked on their weapons and equipment in recent years. With that kind of tenacity, they might be able to beat the yezinkas after all. The massacre lasted almost eight minutes. All the while, hundreds and thousands of red-hot bullets rained down from the dark sky, hissing like a squashed viper on contact with the rain. As silently as the drones flew in, they disappeared again.

The team climbed out of the tank. Again there were four of them, and again they had no dog.

“We’re out of here, there’s no better chance,” the blonde announced. “Take only the bare essentials, we’re running for our lives. It’s all about speed. We’ll come back for the rest in the daylight and much better armed.”

“That goes for your scrap too, Martin! Throw it away! It’s got an empty tank anyway, and you’re having trouble running even a mile straight!” his big bearded teammate warned the little man.

“Don’t call my flalalalalamememethrower scrap!” the little man retorted, stammering with indignation.

The yezinkas may have been a mass of mush at the moment, but even that was beginning to come together.

“Move it!” Alex urged them impatiently.

“I should have stuck to cleaning nuclear reactors,” Martin sighed, reluctantly dropping the flamethrower from his back.

“Woe is me, why didn’t I marry Keanu Reeves?” laughed Petra.

Martin was offended. “You mean I’m whining?”

“You’re not whining,” Alex replied instead of the blonde. “Instead, you’re always making up stuff like an old fart.” One of the lying yezinkas squealed, arching her back, and they hear the sound of her bones grinding together. At the same time, heavily deformed projectiles began to pop out of her body.

“Even the silver didn’t work, they’re already regenerating,” Libor noticed. “So the fun is over, kids, let’s go! You can argue later. The GPS says to go that way.” He waved his hand to indicate the direction and ran first into the darkness.

* * *

A blue-eyed owl fluttered in front of me. I raised my left arm and she sat on it.

“Uncle, you must help them,” she told me urgently.

“Why?” I wanted to know.

“They don’t know how to kill the yezinkas! They will lose! The yezinkas will catch them before they get out of the forest!”

“It’s very likely,” I nodded. “But you don’t have to worry about anything; I’ll catch the yezinkas then.”

“Uncle, please, please, help them! You can’t let them die.”

“There’s nothing to be done, Katie. I help them, and then they’ll put me at the top of their TEFLON list and hunt me. I’m glad my existence has been forgotten, and that’s the way it will stay.”

“But they are the good guys! Just like you. Will you think of something to help them? They don’t even have to see you. Please!”

She must have inherited this humanity from my sister, otherwise I couldn’t explain it. Okay. For once in my life, I could afford to be the good guy.

But really, just once.

* * *

The Fantom team had a huge advantage in that the route to its destination, the pick-up point, was mostly downhill. They were not very good at running anyway, stumbling over branches, losing their balance on the roots and snorting like a pig leaving a beechmast feast. My guards and I had a lot of fun at that. We kept a safe distance from them and watched their every move. A wolf’s run was economical, light and fast compared to that of a man.

“Libor huffs the most!” Martin hissed during one brief slowdown.

“Me?” the bearded man protested, rubbing his drooling chin. “Do you want to lose your bonuses?”

“Oh, I was wrong, it was Alex!” the fat man decided on the lesser of two evils, trying at all costs to distract from his poor physical condition.

“You’re not huffing because you are basically rolling all the way for now, fatty,” retorted the heavily panting Alexandra, standing in a slight hunch with her palms resting on her knees.

That’s when I got word from the guards that the first yezinka was catching up to us. I switched from my wolf form to a human form, prepared an acacia stake, and stood in the middle of the path.

“Hello, Roasty,” I said politely as she approached. Instead of starting to brake, she accelerated, jumped, and attacked with bared teeth and outstretched fingers, which on most yezinkas ended in long, dirty fingernails, so that in addition to scratching, they threatened their victims with several kinds of nasty infections and diseases, such as tetanus and jaundice. I let a long zigzag green bolt of lightning strike her down, illuminating the area with a ghostly light for a few seconds. I pierced the charred body, carried her to the grave, and there I severed her head, which went very well in her roasted state. So much, in fact, that the ears of the yezinka remained in my hands. I sniffed my dirty hands and frowned.

“It smells like burnt frying oil,” I said in disgust, and stuck her head on the nearest available pike. In the soft glow of the golden ferns, an owl appeared, flying silently. Just above the ground, it transformed into a human form and Katie gracefully hopped on the grass. Then she clung to my neck.

“You’re wonderful, Uncle, I’ll sew her up right now . . . ”

I didn’t say anything. I picked up some new acacia stakes and four spears and went to finish what I had started.

The Hunters haven’t run nearly as far as I would have expected. The human race may have risen technically since the time of Maria Theresa, but it has clearly decayed physically, which does not bode well for its future. I joined the wolves again. In the meantime, they’ve torn apart two yezinkas. I stabbed them and carried them off. I had plenty of acacia stakes, which was a good thing, but I still didn’t enjoy cutting them. Hopefully this was the last yezinka invasion for a long time.

The Fantom team stopped because the fat man couldn’t continue, holding his side and making noises similar to braying. Libor and Petra tentatively took him between them and forced him to run again. Alexandra was two steps ahead of them. She stopped suddenly. A yezinka jumped down from a tree in the team’s path, having outrun us on the branches. She rolled her eyes and then blood spurted from her gaping mouth instead of a scream. She grabbed her stomach, which is where the spear I threw at her came out. The slippery blood prevented her from properly grasping the carefully smoothed shaft, so she couldn’t pull the toxic wood from the wound. Smoke trailed from her hands as the acacia honey reacted with her skin, eating it away. I added three more spears. It wasn’t a waste; I needed the team to have something to defend themselves with. I wasn’t going to clear the path completely, they also had to show some effort to survive. As the saying goes, a wise man needs just a hint . . . 

The yezinka I used to catch the spears, which now looked like a large pincushion, collapsed very quickly. I’ve decided to call her Needle. Poisoning through the abdominal cavity progressed quite fast. Instead of blood, Needle was now vomiting gastric juices, fell on her side, and was seized with tremors. Ten seconds later she fell unconscious.

“She should be regenerating, but she can’t,” Petra remarked. She cautiously approached the yezinka and wrinkled her nose. “I smell acacia,” she said, squashing Needle with a heavy boot and pulling out one of the spears. She looked around, trying to pierce the inky darkness with her gaze. The red aura of witches surrounded her. She didn’t see me, but my snarling wolves certainly didn’t escape her attention. While they were holding a yezinka by the throat to keep her from screaming, they were making such distinct sounds as they butchered her that they were impossible to miss.

“Thank you for your help and advice,” the blonde spoke aloud, adding a deep bow. I could appreciate that.

“Who are you talking to?” Libor whispered, adjusting his ballistic vest.

“Probably the ruler of the local forest. At least I think so. I can see their demonic pack of wolves protecting us. And they also showed us how to kill the yezinkas . . . ”

“I guess the rest of us should bend our backs real quick too, huh?” the bearded man asked.

“That would be good. After that let’s take the spears they gave us and get out of here fast. Their good mood may not last long.”

Young and rather wise, I assessed the blonde witch with the red aura. Katie wasn’t wrong to want me to help them. According to the wolves, though, they had a few more yezinkas in their path who had outran them and were now lying in ambush.

I was very curious to see how they would handle them.

* * *

The Fantom squad proceeded cautiously to the edge of the forest. The muddy field in front of them did not promise an easy walk, but this was the path to their rescue.

“Helicopter!” Martin shouted. “Do you hear that? They’re actually flying to get us even in this terrible weather!”

This morale boost came at just the right time. The team’s running speed picked up considerably, but the yezinkas got in their way. Two of them. They were sizing up the Hunters with disdain; they had enough experience with them already and knew they were not difficult prey.

The first yezinka grinned and lunged for Alexandra. The latter didn’t hesitate, bracing her long spear on the ground and pointing the tip at the yezinka who could no longer change the direction of her jump. Her eyes widened in horror and she gave a terrible shriek as the acacia wood passed just below her left collarbone.

Libor immediately rushed to Alex’s aid and stabbed the raging yezinka in the side. This knocked her out of the fight for good.

The other yezinka lunged at Martin. Unfortunately, he stumbled and fell on his back, but to his credit he did not drop the spear. He clutched the shaft convulsively, grimacing, his eyes closed. Petra thrust her weapon between the yezinka’s protruding shoulder blades, paralyzing her hands, which threatened to gouge out the corpulent man’s eyes. There was complete silence for several long moments, then uncontrollable laughter rumbled through the drenched forest.

For the yezinka was sitting, straddling Martin, and he was writhing beneath her to get rid of the dead weight in what looked like copulatory movements. When he saw his colleagues having fun at his expense, he started to get angry, but it didn’t help.

“You’re idiots, I’m not banging her!” the fat man yelled uncomfortably. A few flashes coming from his colleagues’ mobile devices, however, let him know that there would be an aftermath.

A helicopter appeared over the field, its nose light on. It swooped down just above the ground and lowered a rope ladder. The team ran heavily towards it, their feet encased in soggy soil. I looked after them with some satisfaction. This wasn’t a bad bunch. In the end, I was even glad that I had given in to Katie and helped them.

When the helicopter disappeared, the wolves surrounded me and demanded to be petted. They poked me with their cold snouts and gave me their big, scraggly paws. It was a good hunt today. I got rid of the yezinkas’ heads and transport myself home.

The rain had stopped and the first subtle hint of dawn appeared in the east.

* * *

I finished the last stitches, made a knot and stretched my stiff back. The door of the cabin opened, and there stood Rampušák, leaning on a twisted stick. He headed toward me. He stood silently by the grave for a long time, his tired, haggard face showing a lot of emotion.

“We’re going home,” he announced to me then, trying to sound firm.

“I won’t stop you,” I told him. “You know your limits.”

His gaze swept over the impaled yezinka’s heads and his face contorted in disgust. “I could handle it. But I have to take care of my mountains, just like you. Winter’s around the corner, and it’s going to be a lot harder this year, so I want to get started as soon as possible. Thanks for everything, brother-in-law.”

But I knew there was something else. He wasn’t the only one who heard those heavy creeping footsteps skirting the magical boundary that had always separated my home from the outside world. He didn’t want to be here when the last clash of forces will happen. And he wanted his daughter to be here even less.

Katie came out of the cabin, carrying her backpack and other belongings.

The goodbyes were quick. When she hugged me, she whispered in my ear that she’d come visit soon. I led them past the boundary and watched as they disappeared into the rays of the morning sun.

I waited a few more minutes, and then bent to the ground. The large tracks were hard to see after the rain, but I recognized the smell immediately. It must have been the same creature that had destroyed the Hunter on Štírovník. My olfactory memory confirmed it. I had to stop this from continuing to spread through my forest at all costs.

I thought about it. The solution to this problem was really simple.

I went back to my sister’s grave. The golden fern waved a greeting.

“What do you think?” I asked. A soft glow spilled from the plants into the surrounding area.

“All right, I’ll do it, little sister.”

* * *

“You guys wait among the trees for now,” I temporarily banished the wolves from the main stage, where the final part of the show would soon take place. “You’ll have my back when it gets tough.”

The rain came.

I set up a few places with prepared spears, pikes, and stakes. It took me almost an hour and a half. I was in no hurry to get anywhere, and I worked extra carefully. I checked everything repeatedly. It was time to act.

First, I let the border fall temporarily, and then I took a knife with a deer antler hilt from my pocket and cut the stitches on Crusty’s mouth. The dead yezinka immediately opened her mouth and screamed. Just as I expected and needed. The only thing I hadn’t counted on was the foul smell that wafted out of Crusty’s mouth. In the meantime, the tongue and surrounding tissues had been fully engulfed by the decay and putrefaction processes, making the smell almost unbearable. I had to retreat a good twenty paces. The other heads began to make deep grunting noises, many of them wobbling on their stakes. However, the wrist-thick pikes were stuck deep into the soil and held firm. I looked around.

Shards of thick grey mist, looking like a giant snake and smelling like three-day-old carrion, appeared among the trees. I smiled. It worked.

It wasn’t long before a startled jay flew by. It rolled its eyes and gasped. Its obese body was propelled forward through the thick rain like a feathered ball shot from a catapult or a giant slingshot. It didn’t even say hello and hurried away as far as its wings would take it. The ground began to shake as something large and heavy approached.

I restored the boundary and secured it with several insidious and unpleasant spells. The whole point of my plan was that no one could get in or out without my knowledge. And it worked. Whatever the outcome of our duel, I made sure it would never get out again. That realization brought a very pleasant sense of peace and balance to my soul that I had long lacked.

The best laid plans were always simple.

Then I grabbed one of the spears and checked the tip. It was coated with a mixture of acacia honey and bogbean, two of the most toxic plants to yezinkas. The fog reduced visibility to barely ten paces. And then two figures stopped at the golden glowing grave.

The first was an older fat man with grey hair, three chins and an aura that looked like a badly mopped floor rag, typical of necromancers. No surprise there. But the other one . . . It was ugly, much taller than any human, and shriveled. It resembled an overgrown mummy, with sunken cheeks, large protruding knuckles, and large muscles beneath the bald, dark grey, wrinkled skin. I estimated its height at just under ten feet, and the monster had sharp claws instead of fingernails, a backward-arching skull, and thick, protruding jaw full of sharp teeth. The creature’s eyes had no whites; they were emotionless and all black as asphalt pools.

Crusty screamed again. With a wave of its long arm, the monster dispersed the fog in its immediate vicinity, and in that moment it also saw the impaled heads of the yezinkas.

The large creature took Crusty’s head in its palm and put it to its ear. It shook it, as if it that could let it hear what the dead yezinka was saying better. Meanwhile, the fat man concentrated on the grave with the golden fern. He stared at it in fascination, and then raked his sparse, greasy hair. He tried to touch the ferns, but they dodged and then attacked. “It . . . bit me!” the necromancer said, surprised. He examined the wound, but it was apparently nothing serious. “Katherine, do you really think you can stop me with such circus tricks?” he said in a deep voice. “You are mistaken, and this time you will not refuse my advances. I’ll dig you out, partially revive you, and then you’ll experience something special.”

The monster uttered a wail so long the necromancer had to put his hands to his ears. He shook his head and frowned. He finally took note of something other than the golden fern.

“No, I really don’t know who this Ranger is, I’ve never heard of him. I understand that he killed all your children, but there’s nothing I can do about it when there are only disembodied heads. To be resurrected, the person in question has to be whole, you know that yourself,” he snapped at the wailing mummified creature. “Then find the guy, if he’s here, and kill him. What else can I tell you, Jadwiga?” he finished his monologue and took a folding shovel off his belt.

The monster stuttered again. The sounds was long and anguished.

“I revived you to help me, Jadwiga. Do you remember our agreement? I command you and you command the yezinkas, because you are their mother and queen. You will kill the proud Katherine and all her family, and I will give you your freedom in return. I only see one grave here. Not three. Those are the facts. Now shut up. Or you might as well go back to your tomb in the rock for another few centuries, what do you say, Jadwiga?”

The great creature crouched and fell silent. So the necromancer’s threat hadn’t fallen on deaf ears. He turned his attention back to the grave. I weighed the spear, inspected its tip, and estimated the distance and, more importantly, the angle at which it would penetrate its target. He confessed, the bastard. That was all I needed.

“So, Katherine, you will soon be mine. And remember once and for all, my golden-haired princess, when you refuse the amorous advances of a necromancer, never say ‘over my dead body,’” the fat man laughed at his own joke.

Two seconds later, I was the one laughing because the necromancer was pierced by the spear I threw at him. It landed exactly as I’d intended, entering his body through his solar plexus and exiting through his tailbone. The kinetic energy knocked the necromancer to his knees and knocked the wind out of him. The tip of the spear dug into the forest floor and prevented the mage from toppling over. The impaled body shuddered. The man now resembled a fish, opening and closing his mouth without a sound coming out.

The howls of a pack of my guards sounded quite close. Jadwiga turned around several times in confusion. At that, she casually crushed Crusty’s head with a single squeeze. Then, with lightning speed, she bent down and bit off the dying fat man’s head. Now the monster was completely free, severing all ties with the necromancer that had been formed before the revival and allowing him to control Jadwiga.

I gripped my spear, moved behind Jadwiga, and struck the point where kidneys used to be. Because of our height difference, I guided the stab from below. Dark green blood spurted out, reeking of decay and rot. I leaned on the shaft with full force. The acacia wood groaned and broke the front of the large Jadwiga’s ribcage. She roared and bent her long arm. The curved claws missed me by the proverbial hair and knocked my hat off my head. I moved to a safe distance and took another spear. The birch tree, behind which I had hidden myself behind so that I could attack at the right moment, flew away into the distance with its root ball still attached. Behind the deep hole left by the uprooted tree loomed Jadwiga. She grabbed the spearhead I had thrust into her a moment before and pulled. She pulled the whole spear out, threw it away, and no sooner did I realize that the acacia’s toxicity didn’t apply to her than she lunged at me.

I escaped by a mere half a step; the impact of the heavy body would surely have driven me into the ground. I stabbed at her exposed flank and leaned on the shaft to drive the spear as deep as I could.

It sliced through flesh and tore through guts, at least as far as I could tell from the stench that wafted from the wound. Jadwiga reared up, thrashing around furiously, her claws tearing up the ground and breaking trees. I was able to avoid four such blows. But then someone turned out the lights and my world suddenly disappeared.

I woke up to the pain as magic repaired my broken bones and also a feeling on my face. A wolf’s tongue ran over my cheek again. I gently pushed the large grey and black beast aside and staggered to my feet. This was one hell of a blow; I had possibly never received such a blow before, and I had driven heavyweights like golems, warlocks, and ogres out of my forest. Through the long corridor of broken birch trees created by the passage of my body, I caught sight of Jadwiga. She was angrily fending off the attacking wolves that prevented her from reaching me. They grabbed at her heels, nipped her calves and pretended to bite, only to retreat to safe distance.

I stretched out my arms and sucked in the ancient power of the Eagle Mountains. It was everywhere beneath the surface, a slow flow of raw magical energy, accumulated over long eras. The Třebov Walls had never had a master; they had always stood alone, but their rugged beauty mesmerized me. That’s why I took over them. I left managing the Eagle Mountains to my sister and Rampušák, but it was still I, Ranger, who was their true ruler.

The sky turned black, the icy wind howled and it became dark. In the depths of the earth something huge overturned and shook the land.

Magic was in the air; its crackling could be clearly heard. In the form of green sparks and small lights, it was discharging on tall objects. The mountains themselves came to my rescue.

When Jadwiga and I collided a few seconds later, it was she whose bones rattled and who flew backwards. She waved her long arms helplessly, and when she landed, she cried out in pain and slid back a good twenty yards. She broke through mature trees in the process, carved a deep furrow in sodden grass, and stopped within reach of the golden fern. She lay there for a moment, but then rolled heavily on her stomach to get up. I took a spear from the nearest post and threw it at Jadwiga. It went deep under her right shoulder blade, pinning her hard to the ground, and before she could do anything about it, three more pierced her. The wolves, eyes blazing, rushed to my aid again, hanging onto the monster’s arms and legs, making even the slightest defense impossible.

I headed for the grave at a brisk pace, picking up my hat in the process. The yezinka s’ heads kept mumbling and Jadwiga seemed to be taking strength from them. For all the spears in her body began to rot in an instant, and if it hadn’t been for the wolves, she probably would have gotten back on her feet and the fight could have continued anew. I knelt down on Jadwiga’s back, interlocked my fingers under her neck, let out a long breath, and at the same time leaned back sharply. The monster’s tendons and spine clenched, but did not snap. Meanwhile, Jadwiga had grown strong again, and her injuries had healed. She even threw off some of the wolves, freeing her left arm. Everything in the vicinity was once again infested with grey, sticky smelling mist. The threads preventing the yezinkas from speaking suddenly grew thinner, and they began to recite their incantations en masse.

I resisted their magic, fumbled to catch the monster’s head better, and pulled again. Jadwiga beat her arms around me, and raked the grave in the process. A blinding golden glow spilled around. The heads of the yezinkas instantly burst into flames and fell silent as either their lips melted together or their tongues charred. Their eyes popped with a loud snap, spilling out through the gaps between the stitches holding their lids together.

“Try again,” my sister’s voice rang in my ears. I obeyed and used all my strength. My head was buzzing, black spots appearing before my eyes from the exertion. I felt like I was trying to break a steel anchor rope. But I refused to give up and continued to stubbornly pull the predator’s head towards me. Suddenly her vertebrae and ligaments loosened under my hands, as did the rest of her tissue. I rolled backwards and inadvertently dropped the morbid trophy. The monster’s body shuddered, air escaped whistling from its lungs, and then it began to burn. The same fate befell the head of the great Jadwiga.

The flames also engulfed the necromancer’s fat body, slumped nearby.

I sat down on the ground, leaned my back against a broken birch tree and breathed in deeply. The wolves lounged near me, watching their surroundings with squinting eyes or licking wounds they had suffered in their fight with Jadwiga. At least an hour passed. I stood up heavily. The ferns on the grave had wilted, the stalks were withered and lay on the soggy dirt.

“Brother!”

She stood there, three paces from me, her golden dress flowing to the ground.

“Sister?”

She waved me over. Then she underwent a quick transformation, turned into a large owl, hooted, and disappeared into the trees. A single golden feather fell from her wing to the ground. I bent over, picked it up and stared at it for a long time.

The precious moment of magic and power was spoiled by an obese jay. It perched on the towering roots of the uprooted tree, puffed itself up, hiccupped twice, and shook its head gravely. “Well done, Ranger. We really gave them hell together, didn’t we?”


OSKAR FUCHS (* 1982)


A stocky guy with a big heart and an even bigger imagination, whose favorite mascot is a fox. (Don’t ask why.) He’s just as cunning as one and can handle the strangest situations in life and in stories. Although he graduated from a technical school, he has always been interested in the history and legends of his native Lanškroun, as well as the entire Hřebečsko/Schönhengstgau region, which is reflected in his work. He discovered creative writing by accident. His first attempts were pure fantasy or science fiction, but later he switched to a combination of these genres mixed with elements of action fiction. He is one of the few Czech authors who skipped the short story and writing contests phase to jump straight into novels.

The first one was a short-ish fantasy novel Frost (Frost, Epocha, 2017), where Fuchs added a few splatterpunk-themed action scenes. The protagonist is a tough war mage who is not fazed by a little spilled blood. The following novel, Hitokiri (Hitokiri, Epocha, 2018), a brutally insane action ride full of gunpowder, bullets and battle magic, unfolds in a similar vein. And Leichenberg (Leichenberg, Epocha, 2020), spiced up with themes of betrayal and revenge, also has the distinctive features of hard action. On the other hand, his latest novel The Hell Shepherd (Pekelný pastýř, Epocha, 2021) is of a different kind, as it plays with the motif of Hell and sheep in an absolutely brilliantly twisted story.

In the MHF project, Oskar was an obvious choice for the editors ever since his short story Stuhač (Pevnost 4/2021), an action sci-fi where he introduced a very specific hunting agency that can provide an extraordinary adrenaline experience. If the client has enough money and courage.



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