Eve of the Summer Festival

[Okay, that wraps it up for paradigm testing. As expected, orienting by hand is the easiest to handle. The free form one also isn't so bad; it could probably be used on a case-by-case basis.]

{Yeah, being able to ride the sword is really cool.}

By now, Tau had been in the village for about a week. Each day was almost identical to the last. She would get up in the morning and head to Father Dawson's clinic to practice using her sword, return to Mrs.Bentley's for a brief lunch, and head back to talk and help Rebecca out with the clinic work. When Rebecca heads home to make dinner, Tau would head over to the lumber mill for some alone time. Before sunset, she would return to Mrs. Bentley's for dinner.

Today, again alone at the lumber mill, She and Neu were testing some of the movement paradigms they had come up with for the third time.

The first model that they settled on split the control of the sword's movements between the two of them. With Tau's left hand as the anchor for the orientation of the sword, Neu needed only to worry about three variables to adjust the position of the sword: distance perpendicular from the palm, distance parallel to the palm from the tip of the hand, and the angle of the sword from the direction of the fingers. Tau would bring the sword to the appropriate cutting or blocking angle relative to her body, and Neu would move the sword through the corresponding plane by adjusting those three variables. With a little communication and practice, the act of manipulating the sword became almost as natural as just swinging a stick around.

The other movement mode which showed promise was the free form mode. By identifying an object in the environment as the anchor, Neu operates the sword in the traditional method. Since Tau was no longer the anchor, she could now move without messing up Neu's movement of the sword. However, if the anchor is moved, Neu's movements will still be affected. Moreover, Neu can only use clearly defined entities as anchors. For instance, while Neu can set a specific stone on the ground to be the anchor, Neu cannot just set the ground, in general, to be the anchor as it is an entity too abstract to have a meaningful relative position for the sword to move.

With free form mode, letting Neu do all the work, Tau could simply sit on the sword and have him fly her around. As long as the anchor remained within the range of their domain, they could go wherever they wanted.

{I can't wait to see the look on Father Dawson's face when I whip this out next time at practice!}

With the tests concluded, Tau headed back for dinner. It was chicken soup with bread, as usual; Tau could smell it from the doorway. Strangely, Jacob had not yet returned from work. So, Tau waited with Mrs. Bentley at the dinner table.

"Good day?" Mrs. Bentley asked as Tau took a seat at the table.

"Yeah!" Tau agreed, "I figured out some new things with this sword. I can't wait to show Father Dawson tomorrow. He'll be so surprised."

"Hmm? But the harvest festival is tomorrow. I doubt the clinic will even be open. Everyone will be spending the day having fun. There will be a bunch of events and even merchant stalls selling all sorts of goods from the capital. It only comes around three times a year! You'll at least go to take a look, won't you?"

Now that Tau thought about it, Rebecca did mention something about it earlier in the day, but given that they were especially busy with the work at the clinic, Tau didn't think much of it.

"You should take the opportunity to make some friends with the other village girls your age," Mrs. Bentley continued, "The only person your age you are familiar with is still just Rebecca, right? Honestly, the two of you should learn to socialize more."

Tau nodded slowly, not sure what to expect from the festival.

"Still, though, where is Jacob? He's old enough that he shouldn't be getting lost anymore... What could be the holdup? The soup will get cold soon..."

"Should I go and look for him?" Tau offered.

"No need," Jacob called out, opening the door, "I'm back."

"What kept you?" Mrs. Bentley pressed, filling another bowl with soup and placing it on the table.

"The merchants are running late," Jacob replied, taking a seat at the table, "We waited for them at the square all afternoon, but they didn't show."

"Oh no, what about the festival tomorrow?"

"There shouldn't be too much trouble," Jacob said between bites of bread, "A messenger from the merchant train arrived last night to confirm that they were still on track to arrive on time. Even if something has happened since then, they won't be too far off. So, the festival will still happen. We'll just have to go help out with the setup of the stalls tomorrow instead."

"Do you think they might have had an unfortunate encounter?" Mrs. Bentley asked, concerned.

Jacob sighed, "It's possible. We sent the messenger back to make sure. One way or another, we'll know in the morning."

"What do you mean 'an unfortunate encounter'?" Tau asked.

Mrs. Bentley and Jacob both froze and stared at Tau. The atmosphere of the room instantly became chilly.

"Ah, right, you wouldn't know," Jacob responded calmly, "What I mean is that they may have run into demons."

The loathing charged into that last word hung in the air for a while, seemingly echoing around the room. Tau had heard the stories from Rebecca, about terrible beings that drove people insane and spread death and disease. The plague that happened several years ago was confirmed to have been caused by just a single demon.

{If just one could do that… an encounter with multiple demons...}

"Please let it just be one..." Tau muttered.

"Huh?"

Jacob and Mrs. Bentley both looked confused.

"Ah, I mean it would be better to just have run into a single demon instead of a group," Tau said frantically, "Of course, it would be best not to run into any, but with the way you said 'demons,' I just thought that if there is an encounter, it would be better if there was only one…?"

Tau's voice trailed off. Her face felt hot.

[Smooth.]

{Shush Neu!}

Unexpectedly, Jacob started to laugh. Mrs. Bentley started to chuckle as well.

"Well," Jacob said, still smiling, "I certainly agree that running into just one is better than running into a bunch."

"Yeah," Mrs. Bentley agreed, " Whatever the case, the festival is still tomorrow. Get a good night's rest, and then play hard!"

"Someone's acting young for their age," Jacob commented.

"Of course," Mrs. Bentley replied, "it was during the summer festival that your father first asked me out to dance. Speaking of which, you should ask Mia-"

"Okay, sorry, my fault. Let's just end that conversation there and get back to dinner now."

This time it was Tau's turn to laugh.

"Oh, if not, Camelia here is quite the looker too, you know."

"Mother, please."

From then on, dinner resumed in the usual lighthearted tone. The three of them turned in early in anticipation of the day to come. Even Neu was tired, having spent the last few nights furiously brainstorming control schemes for the sword. Tau let him rest, planning to pass the night in silence.

Unfortunately, things wouldn't be so easy. Sometime past midnight, the three of them were awoken by a rapid knocking on the door. Jacob sprang up instantly to get the door, slipping into his clothes midstep. Tau was right behind him.

"Cam!" Rebecca exclaimed as the door opened, "We need you at the clinic right away!"

Her clothes and hands were stained with drying blood. The panting in her breath revealed that she had run here in a hurry.

"What's going on?" Mrs. Bentley called from the doorway of the bedroom, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"We have injured from the merchant train," Rebecca continued between gasps for air, "Badly and a lot."

Tau nodded and went out the door with Rebecca.

"Can I help?" Jacob asked as the two of them turned to leave.

"Sure, but hurry," Rebecca said without looking back.

The two of them ran off through the darkness towards the clinic first as Jacob had to explain to a half-awake Mrs. Bentley what the situation was.

Tau could see the clinic from quite the distance before she reached it. Torchlight danced around the entire building. Tau caught a glimpse of several bodies laid out in the grass of the backyard and several people tending to them before being rushed into the clinic by Rebecca.

The scene inside made Tau want to vomit. A rusty smell of blood mixed with a repugnantly sweet scent of decay to create the unique odor filling the air. Father Dawson was cutting away at a man on the surgery table. The man's screams were muffled by the gag in his mouth, and if not for the other two men holding him down, his wild jerking would have surely thrown himself off the table.

Tau couldn't get a more detailed look, however, as Rebecca quickly put her to work. Having her mix creams and pastes to stem bleeding and ward off infection respectively. As she worked, crushing flowers, people would rush in and out of the room, taking the medicine to the injured outside along with scraps of cloth for bandages.

The clinic's stock of herbs was quickly being depleted. Tau tried not to think about it as the stalks of flowers that were used to make paste dealing with infection decreased to a number she could count on her hands. Still, the people from outside would come looking for more. And then the box was empty.

Tau turned to look towards the operating table. The man on the table had gone limb. The two villagers who had been holding him down hung their heads as Father Dawson felt for a pulse. Tau watched as he sighed and shook his head.

Looking closer as the two villagers carried out the body, she realized that it was a different man than the one she had seen when she had first come in.

"Hey, Cam!" Rebecca shouted, popping into the clinic, "Don't just stand there! Keep-"

And then she saw the empty boxes, clenched her teeth, and went back outside.

"Ms. Hart," Father Dawson said in a weary voice, "Thanks for your help here. Please see if there's anything you can do outside."

Tau slipped out as the two villagers from before came back inside carrying a woman who was already limb and sweating profusely.

The scene outside seemed to have calmed down compared to before. The few people who remained were stationed around four of the patients in the middle of the backyard. The bodies of the dead were lined up by the tree line. Rebecca was bent over a basin of water, trying to wash out as much blood as she could from a pile of blood-soaked cloth bandages. Although, given how saturated the water already was with blood, it seemed like a hopeless task.

Tau saw Jacob standing alone by the line of bodies, and seeing that there wasn't much left to do, she walked over to join him.

Jacob was looking down at a particularly marred corpse. The body was missing almost its entire right leg. Three sets of long gashes stretched from the man's chest to his lower abdomen, with some organs spilling out. The torchlight didn't illuminate the man's face, but Tau could see the dark stain of dried blood that covered most of the man's lower face and neck. From the body's placement in the line, Tau guessed that this man must have been one of the first to die.

"This was the messenger," Jacob said softly, "From what I hear from the others, he was the one who led this group here through the night. He even held on just enough to deliver some crucial information. 'Fifty people. Two demons. Five miles.' were his last words."

Out of the fifty people in the merchant train, seventeen had made it to the village that night. Of those seventeen, only five were still alive. And two demons were at large within five miles of the village. Soon, it would be sunrise and the summer harvest festival would begin. But the village was in no mood to celebrate.