The Devouring Darkness

Musty air, rot and decay, and the oppressive sense of things not yet long dead- these were the things that kept Mura away from the interior of the mountains on many days. There was nothing there for her, in the caverns where death was allowed to linger and remain and mix with life. And yet, distaste did not prevent her from taking the scent in with a long, deep breath as she looked across the fields of the underground ranch that stretched into the distance. She stood tall over the rows of Kobold farmers, industriously working away at the rows and ditches to uproot crop and replant seed. Her own stocky build was striking when compared to the diminutive lizards, and although the ceiling of the cavern was far above her, she could not help but feel constrained and closed in when looking at them.
She had returned to the settlement at the base of the mountain a half-week ago, carting a now-forgotten corpse of some threatening beast. Mura barely could spare a thought for the image of it in her mind. Had it possessed wrinkled, massive hands, as if ripped from the statues of ancient humanity and animated with a vengeance for all life? Had it roared with voices from beyond the afterlife, where no soul’s sight might pierce? She cared not any longer for what it had been, only that it was now slain.
Her return to the Bajir settlement was heralded by the customary horns, the revelry which she cared not for. But something else had stood out on her return, quite literally dragging her away from the festivities with a diminutive hand. The ranch’s owner had been stubbornly refusing to seek aid for the devastation facing their crops, and so her daughter had packed her things, stolen a sizable sum of money, and had spent the better part of the night badgering Mura for her assistance. Effective badgering at that, and the Kobold’s offer and forceful personality had eventually won out, leading Mura here.
“I’ll just be hiding in the city, if you need me… my mom, um, probably still isn’t all that happy that I raided the storeroom to hire you.” Mura turned and looked down to the child that had dragged her down into the depths with disbelief. Milleore had introduced herself in a frenzy of words and explanations and offers, far too quick for the Bajir huntress to keep up. And now she was recalcitrant, nervously edging away from the homestead she had so earnestly petitioned Mura to save.
“...no, not yet. I still need you to explain where I need to look.” At the Kobold’s confusion, she sighed softly and continued. “Do I look like a farmer to you, girl? I couldn’t tell the difference between one of your dire-weasels stomping upon the land with too much eagerness and this unknown threat unless it was pointed out to me. Explain first. Then you may have leave to hide.” Raising her hand to her brow, she cut off Milleore’s protest. “I am the hunter. You are the farmer. You will provide me with the information I need to perform my job, or I will leave you to yours with your monster still in possession of whatever limbs it may be using to cause your strife.”
Milleore placed her hands on her hips indignantly. Mura chuckled. “You’re still young, so I can’t fault you for mistakes. But I will make sure you know this before my time as your hunter is up. Take care not to waste the time of those you are paying, for they will either ask for more, or leave.” This was an exaggeration, of course, but Mura had surmised already from the child’s behavior that she would only be able to do her work properly if she brooked no argument from her employer and forced the important issues.
“Fffine. C’mon, it’s over this way… Just keep your head down, okay? I don’t want Mom to see any of this until things are fixed…” Mura’s hand was seized— she had to tamp down furiously on the urge to swat the child for that— and she was summarily dragged away from the rot and decay. This was already intriguing, because she was being brought towards plants that seemed perfectly healthy, if not a bit strange. She was no farmer, so when the patchwork of plant matter before her was presented with a pointed huff, she had to gesture to Milleore to explain. “Right, right. You don’t know, absolutely fantastic, okay, so…”
Milleore crouched down and pulled the plant out of the ground, then held it up for the huntress’s examination. “So, okay. Five moons ago, we planted this field. One crop, some sort of new grain that the weird moth people were working on. Something about being a more effective offering to their goddess because of the yield, or whatever, so of course me and Mom were interested. We know what it looks like when it’s matured. Two moons ago, we replanted. And now it looks like this.” She punctuated her sentence by pushing the misshapen stalk higher in the air towards Mura, and when that failed to get a reaction, she stamped her feet in frustration. “Just— Look, okay? See this bit here, where the white meets the green, it’s not supposed to be like that! That’s our normal crop, not what we planted! But now it’s all fused and mushed together with the new stuff, and we don’t do crossbreeding in this field!”
Mura took this in with a solemn expression. She didn’t entirely understand the farming explanation, but to be sure she had the right idea, she asked the most important question on her mind. “So… this crop is being merged with something that you didn’t plant anywhere near it. Am I understanding this correct?” At the child’s nod, she frowned. “You need to evacuate now. This ranch isn’t safe. You’ve got a Warp Winnower living nearby causing this, and that’s going to take at least another moon to get rid of.”
She watched Milleore’s eyes widen, then her face pale, then her hands tremble. At least the child understood the gravity of the situation now. “Go, tell your mother, she will need your help organizing this.” Mura closed her eyes and considered, and waited until the child’s footsteps had faded away to let out the breath she had been holding. She had told a lie. Her assertion that there was a winnower behind these events, the twisted and thrice-cursed beasts that tore reality at the seams only to stitch it together in a grotesque mockery of its original shape, was not truth.
More accurately, she did not think it was truth, despite the signs being indicative of the presence of one such beast. No, there was something wrong, she concluded. A winnower’s passage would not be so light upon the land. Where were the deep furrows, gouged from the earth in the wake of its hungering maw? Where were the trampled rows of plants, beaten into the land again and again by its many scrambling feet? This could not be a winnower. Or if it was, it was acting unlike any that had come before.
Mura’s fist closed. She would be staying under Irrum Vath for many moons to come, if these most feared beasts were beginning to evolve and adapt. There was no remedy for this situation but to travel further into the mountain and enter the Irra records for research. If any such situation had occurred before, with a winnower leaving only mutation and change in its wake and not destruction, then it would be recorded there. And if not, then the Bajir huntress would have a long, painful fight ahead of her.