Russell pulled over a stool to sit across from Royce and Hadrian. Lighting a long clay pipe with a thin sliver of wood, he commented, “So, you two are here to help Theron kill the monster?”
“We’ll do what we can,” Hadrian replied.
Russell puffed hard on his pipe to ensure it lit and then crushed the burning tip of the wooden sliver into the dirt floor. “Theron is over fifty years old. He knows the sharp end of a pitchfork from the handle, but I don’t ’spect he’s ever held a sword. Now you two look to me like the kind of fellas that have seen a fight up close and Hadrian here not only has a sword—he’s got three. A man carries three swords he, like as not, knows how to use ’em. Seems to me, a couple fellas like you could do more than just help an old man get himself killed.”
“Russell!” Lena reprimanded. “They’re our guests. Why don’t you scald them with hot water while you’re at it?”
“I just don’t want to see that damn fool kill himself. If the margrave and his knights didn’t stand a chance, how well will Theron do out there? An old man with that scythe of his. What’s he trying to prove? How brave he is?”
“He’s not trying to prove anything,” Esrahaddon said suddenly and his voice silenced the room like a plate dropping. “He’s trying to kill himself.”
“What?” Russell asked.
“He’s right,” Hadrian said, “I’ve seen it before. Soldiers—career soldiers—brave men just reach a point where it’s all too much. It can be anything that sets them off—one too many deaths, a friend dying, or even something as trivial as a change in the weather. I knew a man once who led charges in dozens of battles. It wasn’t until a dog he befriended was butchered for food that he gave up. Of course, a fighter like that can’t surrender, can’t just quit. He needs to go out swinging. So they rush in unguarded, picking a battle they can’t win.”
“Then I needn’t have wasted your time,” Thrace said. “If my father doesn’t want to live—whatever is in the tower can’t save him.”
Hadrian regretted speaking and added, “Every day your father is alive there is the chance he can find hope again.”
“Your father will be fine, Thrace,” Lena told her. “That man is tough as granite. You’ll see.”
“Mom,” one of the kids from the loft called.
Lena ignored the child. “You shouldn’t listen to these people talking about your father that way. They don’t know him.”
“Mom.”
“Honestly, telling a poor girl something like that right after she’s lost her family.”
“Mom!”
“What on earth is it, Tad?” Lena nearly screamed at the child.
“The sheep. Look at the sheep.”
Everyone noticed it then. Crowded into the corner of the room, the sheep were quiet through the meal. A content wooly pile that Hadrian forgot was there. Now they pushed each other struggling against the wooden board Russell had put up. The little bell around Mammy’s neck rang as the goat shifted uneasily. One of the pigs bolted for the door and Thrace and Lena tackled it just in time.
“Kids. Get down here!” Lena shouted in a whisper.
The three children descended the ladder with precision movements, veterans of many drills. Their mother gathered them near her in the center of the house. Russell got off his stool and doused the fire with the wash water.
Darkness enveloped them. No one spoke. Outside the crickets stopped chirping. The frogs fell silent an instant later. The animals continued to shift and stomp. Another pig bolted. Hadrian heard its little feet skitter across the dirt floor in the direction of the door. Beside him he felt Royce move, then silence.
“Here, someone take this,” Royce whispered. Tad crawled toward the sound and took the pig from him.
They waited.
The sound began faint and hollow. A puffing, thought Hadrian, like bellows stoking a furnace. It grew nearer, louder, less airy—deep and powerful. The sound rose overhead and Hadrian instinctively looked up, but found only the darkness of the ceiling. His hands moved to the pommels of his swords.
Thrump. Thrump. Thrump.
They sat huddled in the darkness, listening, as the sound withdrew then grew louder once more. A pause—total silence. Inside the house, even the sound of breathing vanished.
Crack!
Hadrian jumped at the loud burst as if a tree across the common exploded. Snapping, tearing, splintering, a war of violent noise erupted. A scream. A woman’s voice. The shriek cut across the common, hysterical and frantic.
“Oh dear Maribor! That’s Mae,” Lena cried.
Hadrian leapt to his feet. Royce was already up.
“Don’t bother,” Esrahaddon told them. “She’s dead, and there’s nothing you can do. The monster cannot be harmed by your weapons. It—”
The two were out the door.
Royce was quicker and raced across the common toward the little house of Mae Drundel. Hadrian could not see a thing and found himself blindly chasing Royce’s footfalls.
The cries stopped—a harsh, abrupt end.
Royce halted and Hadrian nearly plowed through him.
“What is it?”
“Roof is ripped away. There’s blood all over the walls. She’s gone. It’s gone.”
“It? Did you see something?”
“Through a patch in the canopy—just for a second, but it was enough.”
Chapter 5: The Citadel
Royce and Esrahaddon left at first light, following a small trail out of the village. Ever since they arrived in Dahlgren, Royce had noticed a distant sound, a dull, constant noise. As they approached the river, the sound grew into a roar. The Nidwalden was massive—an expanse of tumultuous green water flowing swiftly, racing by and bursting against rocks. Royce stood for a moment just staring. He spotted a branch out in the middle, a black and gray fist of leaves bobbing helplessly against the current. It sped along, riding through gaps in the boulders, ripping over rocks until it vanished into a cloud of white. In the center, he saw something tall rising up, most of it lost in the mist and tree branches that extended over the water.
“We need to go farther down river,” Esrahaddon explained as he led Royce to a narrower trail that hugged the bank. River grass grew along the edge, glistening with dew and songbirds sang shrill melodies in the soft morning breeze. Even with the thundering river, and the vivid memory of a roofless home and bloodstained walls, the place felt tranquil.