The legendary Samca: a spirit being born of despair and abandonment, forged in misery. She troubles pregnant women and young children with ailments, and has no fear of iron. This spirit is known as a shapeshifter, and will often take the form of a wild pig in the daytime. She can be driven away by having all of her names repeated in her presence. The afflicted home must be anointed with apotrophaic script denouncing every one of her names. Each afflicted individual must carry an amulet with her names at all times. Eventually, Samca will move on, unable to harm the bearers of her names.

  From the journal of Drago? Buh?scu

  With the house warded against her, Samca had one target left to her to vent her frustrations: the boy.

  “Coman!” Dragos shouted, lunging off the bench.

  The boy barely had time to recognize Dragos leaping at him before he was swept off his feet. The monstrous boar squealed a grating sound that rattled the breath in Dragos's chest. Coman shrieked in his ear.

  The pig veered to follow Dragos's dash around the corner of the house.

  “Roof!” Dragos choked, grabbing the child’s rough clothing and shoving his skinny frame upward. The side of the burdei sloped low, near the ground, but hopefully higher than Samca could reach in her current form.

  Coman’s heel kicked off his hip as the boy twisted in his arms, snatching at the thatch. Dragos was thrust back, off balance. He crashed into the damp ground as Samca tore through the spot he’d been standing, tusks slashing at the air.

  The boy scrambled upwards, gripping bound stacks of thatch. He looked down, eyes round with horror.

  Dragos hit the patchy ground, sliding on wet, flattened grasses and mud. He tucked his legs away from the charging boar and rolled to his feet.

  Dimi came running from the fields, a pitchfork in hand. He staggered to a stop at the yard, staring as the big wild pig scrambled around and snorted, sniffing the air, its tiny red eyes questing for the boy.

  It squealed in frustration beneath the fringe of roofing where the boy perched precariously, staring down at it, the mist dampening his dirty face enough that streaks drizzled down his cheeks. The beast pawed the ground beside the burdei.

  Dragos glanced from him to the pig, who seemed uninterested in anyone else. Good.

  His box was around the front, and he had nothing in it that would help this matter, anyhow. He grasped the pouch at his side and pulled his clawed gloves out as he stared at the pig.

  The folly of the choice wasn’t lost on him.

  He could leave. Yet he still buckled his gloves with steady fingers.

  The anatomy of a pig was dismal. His talons couldn’t bite deep enough for a killing blow without exact positioning. Still, he stalked toward the corner of the house, flexing fingers around the iron boning.

  “Samca! Give up! This house is protected!” Dragos bellowed.

  The boar’s flaring nostrils turned toward him.

  She squealed angrily, capering back and forth in front of Coman, who perched on the roof and stared down at her, hugging himself. The farmer broke out of his frozen stare, approaching with his wooden pitchfork in both hands, like a spear.

  The man’s trembling weapon suggested he’d never hunted wild pig before.

  “Between the eyes,” Dragos murmured, not daring to shout it. This was no ordinary beast.

  “Shoo!” Dimi barked, jabbing the pitchfork tines at the massive pig. “Get on with ya! Back to the forest!”

  Samca turned, burning red orbs fixing on the hapless farmer. With a rageful squeal, she charged.

  Dimi’s pitchfork was all there was between them. The pig’s head thrashed the wooden tool aside. Dimi barely flung himself out of the way in time, rolling in the mud.

  The makeshift weapon clattered to the ground.

  Dimi threw his arm over his face as Samca wheeled about. Coman skittered to the edge of the roof, screaming a wordless cry of denial and despair.

  Dragos squinted against the sudden glare of a sun ray that pierced the misty clouds in a blaze of blinding light, even from the depths of his hood.

  Light cascaded over Dimi and Samca.

  At the edge of the roof, Coman shrieked—Dragos's head snapped around to spot the boy slip on the wet thatching, gangly arms flailing.

  Coman hit the ground with a wet thud.

  Samca whirled, attention instantly latched onto the boy, the target of her boundless ire. A piggish snort of delight expelled from her thick nostrils.

  Dragos ran for the pitchfork, a better weapon than the clawed gloves he wore.

  A flash burst in front of Samca forced the pig into a surprised dodge. Dragos stopped dead, in awe.

  Flutters of color gathered over the fallen form of Coman. The boy curled in on himself, arms around his head, and above him, a mosaic of light glittered.

  Two spots as brilliant as the sun stared menacingly at the angry boar, a crystalline growl rattled across the field. Ice-bright teeth flashed in a radiant bark.

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  Samca squealed and scattered mud with her cloven toes as she raced at the boy, head down. She ducked, slamming her tusks upward into the sun dog’s chest.

  The sun dog’s maw snapped down, teeth embedding into the boar’s bristling back. Coman rolled away as the two wrestled. Samca’s face buried in the other’s belly, the sun dog twisting the huge pig’s spine.

  The two toppled and rolled, thrashing in the mud.

  “Sorina!” Coman sobbed, crab-crawling away from the wrestling Unspoken.

  Dragos skirted the fight and snapped up the pitchfork from where it had fallen. Dimi got to his hands and knees, mouth agape at the madness before him. His mud-slicked head shook as if to deny what he saw.

  The wanderer hefted the pitchfork. It was decent. His gaze flicked to the fight and to the clouds above. They shifted, slowly eating at the shaft of light that allowed the sun dog to manifest in the world. In seconds, the ray would be gone, and so too would Coman’s protector.

  The rest was up to him.

  The dog snarled and thrashed, tearing at the boar’s back, the fiery plume of its tail aglow with summer like a streak of icy clouds—faded. The sun dog’s body shimmered as clouds sealed closed. The faint sound of tiny crystals crackling vanished.

  Samca lay on the ground, heaving and bloodied, neck and spine ragged with bite marks. Dragos flipped the pitchfork to present the butt forward. He stepped between the struggling beast and the weeping boy.

  The dark pig gained its feet again, splattered with gore. Blazing eyes fixed again on the child that had denied her the life of a mother. Dragos felt her gaze cut through him, as if he were made of paper.

  Inconsequential to her.

  Denying her mother and child was denying her power. Dragos smiled viciously as she charged. He jabbed the butt-end of the pitchfork right between her eyes. Wood shattered. Blood flew.

  Bone showed through skin peeled back by the impact. Dragos found himself thrust back, the tool lost to his rattled grip.

  He slammed into Coman, who’d been crawling away. The boy collapsed beneath his weight with a sudden grunt.

  He didn’t think, couldn’t. Reaction was instinct. He brought a knee up under the boar’s chin and leaned his head back. He punched both bladed fists at the pig’s eyes.

  Iron screeched over bone and jabbed into the Unspoken’s eyeballs like jelly sliced with a knife.

  The boar screamed with a voice unnervingly close to a woman’s. He yanked his hands away before her head thrashed, teeth gnashing. Dragos brought his other knee up to slam into her chin. He kicked both feet at her barrel of a chest, doing nothing to push her back. Only slowing her.

  A loud clang rang out. Behind the Nerostit?, Dimi raised a shovel to whack at the monster again. The farmer’s tool came down with a meaty ring. The man howled, “Get out!”

  Adrenaline surged. Dragos saw with his mind’s eye.

  The spirit-boar, the woman, and the empty rage that drove the Unspoken like obsession. The unbroken cycle of misery existed as a reality in this spirit named Samca.

  Her teeth snapped at him, tusks gouged the dirt beside his thigh. He kicked a leg out to keep her head from dipping to his belly, to keep his guts on the inside of his flesh.

  She could no longer see, but he stared into the bloodied, ruined sockets anyway.

  In the drone used for spellcasting, he spoke, “Nicosda, Avezuha, Gluviana, Prava, Vestitia, Scorcoila, Tiha, Navadaraia, Hatavu, Valnomia, Sina, Miha, Grompa, Slalo, Necauza, Hulila, Huva, Ghiana—Samca. Leave. You are banished from this place!”

  The pig’s scream was that of a woman, this time.

  Despair and anger wove a cry deeper than soul. She did not retreat. Neither did she cease fighting.

  Instead, mid-snap of her jaws, she vanished. The boar was gone, leaving Dimi standing over him, his shovel raised over his head, a perplexed look on the farmer’s face.

  Dragos sat up, off Coman, who crawled away. He and the farmer looked around. There was no sign of the massive boar that had just torn up the farmyard.

  The boar’s blood disappeared from him, his claws, and the ground.

  Slowly, Dragos eased to his feet and tugged his hood back into place.

  “Is it—is it gone?” Coman asked, his breath hitching with lingering fear.

  Dragos didn’t answer right away. He turned slowly, looking at the weft of the world. The spirits of the Unspoken sparkled everywhere but gave no clarity. Finally, he glanced between father and son.

  “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “If the child is born well, things may be alright. Still. Make yourself the same amulet you made for your mother. Just in case. Samca knows you, and until you’re grown, and the baby is as well, she may continue to hunt you. And… if you marry, make one for your wife.”

  The boy’s mouth fell open. Dragos gave him a slow, solemn nod. A child doesn’t think so far ahead, but spirits weren’t bound by time.

  Grudges passed through generations, followed bloodlines, and did not know peace.

  Dimi’s eyes fell to the scrap of paper left drying on the small bench. Somehow, despite all the turmoil, it had not been upset. He strode over to it and lifted it with great care.

  Coman looked at the clouds. “Is Sorina alright?”

  “Likely so. She’s like Samca, not truly made of flesh. Such things aren’t easily sundered,” Dragos said, looking at the unbroken clouds above. “She’s very fond of you. That’s both a blessing and a curse, Coman. People don’t trust those of us who understand these things.”

  Coman frowned, as if he wanted to argue. He hesitated, and as his gaze flicked around the shadowed features in Dragos's hood, he seemed to have a dark epiphany. His shoulders sank. “I’ll be careful.”

  “You must be, because Sorina can not understand human fear,” Dragos said, his tone both kind and grave.

  The boy nodded, his stringy brown hair dangling from his forehead.

  “Coman!” A shout came from the house. Dimi had gone inside while the two of them were discussing things. He burst out and pointed at the houses beyond the fields. “Get the midwife!”

  The boy’s eyes widened, and he took off at a run.

  Dragos took himself to the barn to stay out of sight. From the loft, he watched the youngster return with a stout woman, healthy in her years. The ribbons braided into her hair fluttered as she walked with purpose beside the boy.

  Dragos leaned in the dimness, listening. As the afternoon eased into twilight, the voices grew hushed. Dimi and Coman appeared outside holding cups that plumed steam. The darkness stretched. A few sharp cries rang out, followed by the midwife’s calmer voice.

  Silence swelled like overripe fruit.

  The midwife poked her head out the door. Dimi followed her in. A few minutes later, another wavering scream rose, higher and higher. Coman’s arms wrapped around himself, sitting alone on the bench where he’d penned the amulet to protect his mother.

  A low, anguished roar erupted, followed by tiny, gasping cries.

  Dragos bowed his head. He’d never met the woman he’d tried to help. Now, he was sure he never would.

  “Lumina s?-?i fie pa?ii, Doamn?,” he murmured into the dark.

  were something, you know? Something mythic.

  Zgavra will come and charm you into being its wife if you don't do the following:

  It's what zmeu do. The link opens a new window.

  Burdei (boor-DAY): A type of pit-house or half-dug out shelter, combining sod house and log cabin build concepts.

  (SAM-kah): Romanian mythical being who curses women and children

  Nerostit? (neh-ross-TEE-teh): Calruthian word for all things unnatural or strange, synonymous with Unspoken. Places, events, and situations can be referred to as this, as well as beings.

  (loo-MEE-nee-leh suh-tsheef-YEH PAH-shee do-AHM-nuh): may the light guide your steps, Lady.