“Damn it.” Hadrian looked around desperately. “I should have built the pit out in the village.”
“What about the well here?” the dwarf asked, peering into the wooden-rimmed hole.
Royce and Hadrian looked at each other.
“I feel so stupid right now,” Royce said.
Hadrian ran to the bell, grabbed hold of the dangling rope, and began to pull it. The bell, intended for the future church of Dahlgren, raised the alarm.
“Keep ringing it,” Hadrian yelled at Magnus as he and Royce raced to the houses, sweeping their cloth drapes aside and banging on the frames.
“Get out. Everyone out,” they yelled. “Your houses won’t protect you tonight. Get in the well. Everyone in the well now!”
“What’s going on?” Russell Bothwick asked, peering out into the darkness.
“No time to explain,” Hadrian shouted back. “Get in the well if you want to live.”
“But the church? They are supposed to save us,” Selen Brockton said, huddling in a blanket in the arch of her doorway.
“Are you willing to bet your life? You’re all gonna have to trust me. If I am wrong, you’ll spend one miserable night, but if I am right and you don’t listen, you’ll all die.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Theron said, storming out of the Bothwick house, buttoning his shirt, his massive figure and loud harsh voice commanding everyone’s attention. “And it had better be good enough for the lot of you too. Hadrian has done more to save this village from death in the past few days than all of us—and all of them—combined. If he says sleep in the well tonight, then by the beard of Maribor that’s what I’ll do. I don’t care if the beast was known to be dead. I’d still do it, and any of you who refuse, why, you deserve to be eaten.”
The inhabitants of Dahlgren ran to the well.
Loops were tied into the rope for footholds, and while the well was wide enough to lower four or even five people at a time, because they did not trust the strength of the windlass, they lowered them in groups of only twos and threes, depending on weight.
Although people moved quickly and orderly, obeying Hadrian’s instructions without argument, the process was excruciatingly slow. Magnus volunteered to go in and drive pegs into the walls to form footholds. Young Hal, Arvid, and Pearl, being too small to go down first, raced around the village fetching more shafts of wood for the dwarf to drive into the sides. Tad Bothwick went down and worked with Magnus, feeding him the wooden spikes as the little dwarf built makeshift platforms.
“Whoa, mister.” Tad’s voice echoed out of the mouth of the well. “I ain’t never seen no one use a hammer like that. It took six weeks to build up these walls, and I swear you look like you coulda done it in six hours.”
Outside, Hadrian, Theron, Vince, and Dillon did the work of lowering villagers in. Hadrian lined them up, sending women and children down first into the darkness, where only a single candle that Tad held for Magnus revealed anything below.
“How long?” Hadrian asked as they waited to lower the next set down.
“It would have been here by now if it had flown the moment we heard it,” Royce replied. “It must be searching the tower. That gives us some time, but I don’t know how much.”
“Get up in a tree and yell when you see it.”
When everyone was in, Hadrian lowered Theron and Dillon, leaving only Hadrian, Vince, and Royce aboveground, where they waited for Magnus to finish the last set of wall pegs. Up in a poplar tree, Royce stood out on a thin branch, scanning the sky while listening to the dwarf hammering the last stakes into place.
“Here it comes!” he shouted, spotting a shadow darting across the stars.
Seconds later the Gilarabrywn screamed from somewhere above the dark canopy of leaves and the three cringed, but nothing happened. They stood still, staring into the darkness around them, listening. Another cry ripped through the night. The Gilarabrywn flew straight for the torches of the manor house.
Royce spotted it in the night sky flying over the hill where the next challenger for the crown prepared to meet the beast. It descended, then rose once more. It issued another screech; then the beast let loose a roar and fire exploded from its mouth. Instantly, everything grew brighter as fire engulfed the hillside.
“That’s new,” Hadrian declared nervously as he watched the ghastly sight. The crowd of challengers lost their lives with hardly the time to scream. “Magnus, hurry!”
“All set. Go! Climb down,” the dwarf shouted back.
“Wait!” Tad cried. “Where’s Pearl?”
“She’s looking for wood,” Vince said. “I’ll get her.”
Hadrian grabbed his arm. “It’s too dangerous; get in the well. Royce will go.”
“I will?” Royce asked, surprised.