At the end of the Great Canyon, an expanse of viscous green and black swelled as though alive: the Swamp of Many Eyes. Within this mire stood only decaying corpses and dead trees. As one entered, the wind ceased to blow. The world became still, devoid of joy, and the sounds of life that stalked the Great Canyon - for it was said that no living thing may touch the waters of the swamp and emerge without the shadow of the afterlife draped over them.
Its presence in the dry Deadlands was devoid of the logic that once governed the world. And as with all things, the Hanakh tribe had a story of its peculiar origin: once, the great mother from whose womb all the vicious canyon Stalkers were born became infected with a divine disease. This pox was so virulent that she left her home and traveled for days without food, leaving her children behind. Eventually, she lay down to die – her great fall shaking the land and killing many hunters of the tribes. In her death throes, she belched the blackened, viscous bile that clung to her insides for twenty days and nights, in pain and alone. And she finally sank beneath the earth to her watery grave when she had transformed the land beyond recognition to punish the spirits that had maligned her.
At the very end of the swamp lay the tunnel that led the way to the Iron Forest, known to both the Hanakh and Guthra as a place where none may walk, at least not without the protection of a guiding spirit. Unlike the swamp, this place was made by humankind before the Deadlands ever existed. Its dangers were beyond even the imagination of the Hanakh.
Over the murky depths of the swamp, Rain-Born trudged with Jespar, her home now well and truly out of sight. No hunters would venture this far. Not even the Guthra with their fire-makers.
"I'll admit, Chief," Jespar sighed as he stood on the precipice of the corrupted waters. "This isn't the path I'd have picked out for us. What'd you say you called this place again?"
"It is known to the Tribe as the Swamp of Many-Eyes," Rain-Born replied, preparing to intone a prayer to the Great Spirit for swiftness.
"Riiiiight. Gotcha. And why, pray to tell, is it so-called-"
Rain-Born had crouched suddenly behind a dead tree wedged in the marshland, silencing her talkative companion with a hand raised with the sudden swiftness of a snake striking its prey. At Jespar's confused stare, Rain-Born pointed to the horizon before them.
As he looked, he first saw nothing, merely a miasma of decay that rose from the flowing ooze of the marsh like flickering fumes from a burning, dead corpse. Then he noticed the tiny bird perched on a puss-coated rock about a mile from their position. He felt uneasy, for some reason, as he watched it. It sat there perfectly still, occasionally pruning its feathered chest or wings with its beak. And behind it, the putrid clouds of the swamp swirled.
Something stirred within them.
All Jespar saw was the bird turn its head a fraction of an inch. And then, without warning, a thin, sinuous tentacle extended from the air and wrapped itself around the tiny creature's neck, and the bird disappeared in a tiny cloud of red with an audible pop.
The little creature's feathered torso fell into the muck below, swallowed and taken by the swelling earth.
Jespar licked his lips. "So...the air can kill us now, huh? You'd think this would surprise me, but I am a talking dog, so I guess anything's possible these days. "Kay Chief, what's the play here?"
Rain-Born watched the spot where the bird had been felled intensely. She looked as if her eyes had been trained to see. She waited till the small portion of shimmering air in the fog had dissipated before answering her companion.
""To cross the swamp of many eyes,"" she recited. ""A hunter must not see.""
At Jespar's cocked head and vacant expression, she pointed to the shimmering spots she could see in the haze that covered the marshlands.
"The Evil Ones do not wish to be seen. They wish only to see. This is their dominion. To pass, we must not look at them, for to look at them is to see their despair."
"Ohhhh, I get it." The dog nodded excitedly. "Don't look at them and they won't get you, right? You know, this reminds me of something. I can't put my paw on it, but I think this idea has been done before."
This time it was Rain-Born who looked questioningly at the meandering mongrel.
"Oh, don't mind me," he said. "Lead the way."
Rain-Born stood erect and slowly walked forward, keeping her eyes on the congealing muck that swam around her ankles. She heard the timid movements of the dog spirit behind her, keeping close step with her methodical pace.
The pair passed dead trees, animals, and the mangled carcasses of the recently deceased that had been swallowed by the earth, scraps of their flesh still clinging to their decaying bones. Rain-Born halted momentarily as she climbed over a slime-covered stone and landed on a skull that gazed up at her with hollow, dead eyes.
She felt a presence. The air stirred. The swamp around them bubbled, and the skull sank into the earth.
"Stop," she whispered.
Jespar seemed to register her shock, for he sank his paws into the ground beside her like the roots of a tree and pointed his nose at the ground. She could feel his small body shaking beside her.
She felt eyes upon her back. Then a vivid sensation struck like a blade being thrust into the back of her skull. Her head felt heavy. Her body grew weak, and her hand struggled to keep a grip on her bow. She felt she could simply let it fall and return to the earth from which all things were born. Then she could return, too. She could lie down and let her quest be fulfilled. She could leave the pain of this life behind forever...
"Chief," something called dimly, as though through a veil. "Chief!"
...No. That was not the way of the Tribe. She sought Callisto. And she would find it.
Her dagger was drawn and met resistance as she turned her hand and sliced it into something soft and sticky. She withdrew the blade and, with it, an eyeball the size of a tangerine, its pupil spinning wildly as though it only now realized it had been severed from its body.
She only briefly registered the gelatinous mass of tentacles and eyes that swirled in the air, letting out a screech of pain from some orifice unknown, before she nodded at Jespar and sprinted towards the black maw of the tunnel, the dog beside her.
Why had the eye demon assailed her mind? Why had it not left them alone?
These thoughts ran through Rain-Born's mind as quickly as they formed while she stumbled over fallen tree barks and bones submerged in the denseness of the bog, sprinting towards the tunnel. Jespar followed her closely, barking some incoherent words drowned out by the sound of the demons" incessant wailing – like that of a strangled newborn.
The swamp surged, and some five feet in front appeared a bulge of eyeballs and tentacles that extended towards her, stabbing her throat.
Her wounded hand stung. She would not have time to nock an arrow. She knew it.
And then there was a blur of white in the darkness of the swamp, and the creature was thrown aside, its hideously malformed appendage cutting through Rain-Born's braids as it missed its mark. The white thing resolved itself before Rain-Born's eyes as she drew closer to it.
"C'mon, chief!" Jespar yelled. "And don't look back!"
Pinned beneath his weight, the creature thrashed around like a wounded animal. Jespar slashed at its many eyeballs, instantly dislodging some of them from their sockets. The dog became sprayed with black ichor that clung to his fur. In a fury, the thing redirected its attack. Its coiled limb retracted back into its body, extended, and reached for the kill.
Then its shrill cry pierced the air as a dagger sliced clean through its vile appendage.
Rain-Born did not stop to retrieve her thrown weapon. Already, others would be coming for them – thoughts of vengeance for their maimed comrade swirling in their malformed heads. She scooped up Jespar (he was indeed heavier than he seemed) and ran with him to the end of this death trap, keeping her eyes trained on the tunnel, its concrete walls the only promise of safety they now had.
Behind her, she could hear their cries. She could feel their fury as they flew towards them, tentacles outstretched. She felt her back sting and knew one had sliced through her tribal vestments. She felt the blood run down her back.
Jespar's fur dripped with the ooze spewed from the felled demon, and his breath came in wheezes. She knew the evil eyes" blood could poison even the hardiest hunter. The dog would not make it. It should be left behind.
And yet she did not drop him. She trudged onward, the fury of the evil ones at her back, beginning to stagger in their sea of death and despair. But she did not relent.
And then the tunnel was before her, and she threw herself and her charge into darkness.