Chapter 3 #2
The monster rolled on the ground. Mud entered her nose and eyes. It smelled of dead flesh everywhere. But Yuma did not stop strangling the monster. She straightened her back and heard a dull crack, and the monster’s neck went limp.
Was its neck broken? Perhaps. And yet the monster, its neck hanging like an old rope, stood back up.
It wasn’t a living beast after all—just a carcass reanimated by the false life bestowed by the Grim King.
It suddenly leaped into the air with Yuma still on its back.
The dead stench hit Yuma’s face with every flap of the wings, and she squeezed the monster’s neck tighter.
Not to kill, this time, but to keep herself from falling.
The monster flew slowly into the air, its head hanging on its broken neck.
The ground grew farther away. There were bolts embedded in one eye and the forehead of the monster, but the remaining three eyes were still open—did it even see with those empty milky eyes?
Yuma looked down to see Falco’s carcass far below as well as the herders with their machetes drawn, rushing to her aid too late.
A few pointed in the air and shouted. Her eyesight blurred, and her fingers grew weak.
But so did the wings of the monster. Yuma hugged the undead beast’s neck tight and closed her eyes as she and the monster crashed to the ground.
A shock, incomparably greater than the last, thudded through her, making her lose her grip and bounce off the monster before rolling to a stop.
Something burst inside her. How much better it would have been if she’d lost consciousness …
The herders surrounded the monster but did not dare approach it further. Two of them galloped toward her on their horses.
Yuma, trying not to seem injured, stood up as gracefully as she could. Then, slowly but steadily, she walked to where Falco lay and closed his big eyes before she unhooked the hat from the saddle, placed it on her head, and drew her machete from its sheath.
The monster flailed on the ground. Once upon a time, it might have been a formidable predator in a faraway land, flying free in the sky in search of prey.
But now it was sending up its rotting stench on the steppe, dying a second death.
With its remaining three cloudy eyes, it stared at Yuma as she walked up to it.
Holding her machete with both hands, she struck down on its neck. Again. And again.
The head was finally lopped off, and the monster was no more.
She wanted to collapse there and then, but the other herders were watching. Piercing the ground with her blade, she leaned on it as she slowly sat down on the ground. Black, bloody lumps oozed from the neck of the monster. Its stench no longer registered in her mind.
“Chief…”
A herder had come down from his horse, and all the others followed his lead. They approached, slowly. Ashamed.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
Her whole body ached, but she tried not to show it.
They had a long time before the herding would be over for that year, and the job was difficult enough without having to contend with low morale.
Aidan, whom Yuma had noted missing until this moment, was now present, his scarred face as somber as ever.
She said, “What of the kitchen carriage? And the Host?”
“Safe. The oroxen are also calm.”
“And Jed?” The memory of him struggling to breathe flashed through her mind.
“Dead.”
The rain abated. The clouds overhead thinned, and the light of the early evening slowly returned. Maybe it had been the monster that had turned the sky to darkness.
“We have to collect Jed’s body.” Yuma stood up. “Bring me a new horse. Aston should be fine. Anyone riding him?”
“Who would dare ride him but you, Chief?” said young Rizona with a weak smile. She was thankfully unhurt.
“Good. Bring him to me.”
Aidan watched Rizona get back on her horse and ride off to the kitchen carriage before approaching Yuma. There were still raindrops dripping from his mustache.
“How injured are you?”
The half of his face that was blue and dead had no expression, but the other half was vivid with worry.
“Not badly.” She tried a smile.
“You must go see the Host.”
“If I do, I must be on horseback.” She gave a brief glance at the herders and looked back at him. Aidan, understanding, nodded.
“This won’t be the last we hear from the Grim King,” he warned.
“We can pay our tithe next year. But we need to make clear our objection to what happened last winter.”
A few herders brought her the saddle they carefully removed from Falco, then retrieved her crossbow as well. Yuma pinched her hat by the brim and nodded to them in thanks.
Aidan waited until the herders were out of earshot before saying, “You said that before we left Danras. I won’t speak more on the matter, but you know I’m concerned.”
“About what?” Yuma asked blithely.
“The Grim King is not a horse nor orox. Whipping him on the snout will not teach him to behave.”
Yuma took a deep breath to argue the point, but that brought on a spasm of pain. As she gripped her chest and grimaced, Aidan averted his gaze and subtly offered his elbow. Yuma took it as she straightened herself.
She followed Aidan’s gaze to the west to see Rizona leading Aston by the reins toward them. The western sky was, as it should be at this hour, now awash in yellow and red.
“Aidan. Ask the Host to prepare for treatment.”
“Prepare? You’re not going to him now?”
“I want to see Jed first.”
Yuma took the reins from Rizona as they approached. Aston’s drenched hide shone gold, reflecting the setting sun. Yuma gritted her teeth as she hauled her saddle on the horse’s back and secured it. She mounted the horse with great pain in her chest and stomach, but at least she didn’t fall off.
Aidan turned his horse toward the Host’s carriage, and Rizona led Yuma to where Jed lay.
The younger woman glanced up at Yuma from time to time—Yuma was focused on hiding her pain, but much later Yuma would realize they were not looks of worry but looks of awe.
Her deed would be spoken of by many fires in the days to come, and by the time they reached Danras, the story of how she defeated the undead monster would pass into legend.
But Jed would never hear this story or add to it. The monster had left a long gash on his body. He no longer breathed, nor did he bleed. His face was drained of life.
“I thought something had passed over me and then in the next second, Jed was gone,” Rizona said, her eyes fixed on the body.
Jed had not been much older than Rizona—since he completed his first herding the year before, it was tradition that this summer would be heralded as his coming of age.
Yuma looked at Rizona, worried about the effect Jed’s death might have on her.
She dismounted. Jed’s horse was still breathing.
How helpless it looked, panting there on the ground.
If it hadn’t gotten up by now, it probably had a broken leg.
A human with a broken leg only needs rest until the bone sets again.
But when a horse breaks its leg, the bone tends to shatter, snapping tendons and tearing muscles.
Such incidents mostly end in a painful death.
Yuma raised her crossbow and pulled the loading lever.
Before she approached the horse, Yuma glanced at Rizona, watching as the girl observed the proper rite of backing away on her horse and turning to look in the opposite direction.
Jed’s horse was called Spera. He was a six-year-old stallion that was sweet as a lamb and as fast as a rabbit.
In her mind, she drew an X using Spera’s ears and eyes as origin points.
She aimed a little above where the lines intersected and placed her crossbow there.
She pulled the trigger. Spera spasmed once.
His breathing slowed. Yuma watched until he breathed no more.
Footsteps approached.
“Rizona, you should be looking away.” But when she turned, it wasn’t Rizona who was standing there. Rizona was still sitting on her horse, turned away from her.
The one who stood behind her was Jed.