Chapter Seventeen
Seventeen
Meanwhile there came tales of the Questing Beast, and so the King and his knights rode long into the forest in order to slay him, and the Beast was fearsome wroth, but the King was so great, the Beast was full sore afeard to behold his countenance, and became quiet like the lamb, and fell flatling to his feet.
—FROM AN EARLY DRAFT OF THE QUESTS OF KING GAbrIEL AND HIS ROUND TABLE BY SIR FLORIAN ARDEN
Bridget wasn’t much of a hunter. There wasn’t anything particularly thrilling to her about letting hounds or birds do the hard work while you gave chase, claiming all the glory once you’d gored a frightened and cornered beast. At minimum, everybody involved in a fight should come to it willingly, and fairly armed.
It didn’t seem to matter that she was far from an expert, because this was far from an ordinary hunt. Their quarry was a mystery, as well as probably being a drunk man’s hallucination, and therefore likely to prove elusive.
Bridget didn’t voice any of this aloud. John and his little dog had been assigned as their guides, and he clearly took the whole thing very seriously. The dog was harder to gauge, but likely felt the same way.
They rode deeper into the wood, Gwen in the middle, Bridget taking the rear; she felt more at ease now, traveling much less conspicuously in their little party.
People were unknown factors, prone to behave in erratic and unpredictable ways.
Trees were far less concerning, and mostly stayed where they were.
“This is the place, Your Highness,” John said to Gwen, once they reached an unremarkable gap between two large bushes. He was a no-nonsense sort of man. Bridget might have liked him, if he hadn’t been so visibly affronted by her existence. “This is where I saw the Beast just last week.”
“Lovely,” said Gwen, who clearly had no idea what she was supposed to do with this information.
Bridget slid from her horse as John did the same, and Gwen caught on and dismounted as well.
Bridget moved to flank her immediately, hand on her sword hilt.
John pointed out tracks in the mud, some of them smeared beyond recognition.
To Bridget’s inexpert eye the ones that remained intact looked like fairly normal paw prints, a wide pad with four toes.
“You see here,” John said. “These are the hind feet, and these the fore, and when they overlap like this—it means the Beast was on the run.”
The dog snuffled wetly at the ground, and then his ears pricked up, and he glanced at his master for permission to start tracking.
“Your dog has a good nose for this,” Gwen said. “What’s his name?”
John looked slightly confused by the question, and then answered, “Nose.”
They mounted up again and followed on, trusting John’s keen eyesight and Nose’s nose, until they came to a sudden halt.
“Blood,” John said. He didn’t seem at all alarmed, but Bridget’s hackles went up, regardless. “And fur, you see?” She did see. Splashes of scarlet sprayed against the mud, deep claw marks, signs of a struggle. Her stomach lurched. “I’ve never come across so clear a trail—I think we must be close.”
Bridget looked to Gwen. Suddenly it felt foolish to have been glad of little company. “Should we … go and fetch the king?”
“Hmm.” Gwen only sounded slightly uneasy. “No, I think not. If the entire point was to creep up on the Beast, reinforcements will only scare it away.”
Bridget found herself rather missing Sir Hurst.
But it was easy enough to follow the trail, and they trekked on into denser, darker territory, where the noise of their horses was hushed and even the birds were subdued, until they came to a small clearing.
The dog led them to the hollow of a tree, and they dismounted and stood looking at the opening of a den, a glint of bone visible through the churned mud, which was splashed with gore.
It wasn’t a huge den. That had to be a good sign.
Bridget drew her sword, and John his knife. There was a particular color that blood made against dark mud, surprisingly bright where you might expect it to fade away. Bridget had grown very familiar with that color on the battlefield. Now it made her feel instantly queasy.
“If the Beast is within, I’ve a sack ready,” John said, sounding somewhat excited. “To bag it.”
“Do you think it’ll take kindly to being … bagged?” Gwen ventured.
Bridget had been thinking the same thing. “Get back on your horse,” she said to Gwen—and then when she saw Gwen’s raised eyebrows, she added, “Please. I’d feel … better, if you did.”
Gwen did, because she was stubborn but not stupid, and John retrieved the rough sacking from his saddlebag and stood at the ready.
His dog, who had been vibrating with excitement, was given the signal to go—and Bridget watched with fists clenched as he wriggled into the darkness on his belly, happily following orders that might lead him to his doom.
It’s just a dog, Bridget thought, palms sweaty inside her gauntlets. Stop being weird about it.
But what was a knight if not an obedient dog scenting blood, hungry for the death of their master’s choosing?
“Will he be all right?” she asked, and John scoffed.
“Nose? He’s tough. Tougher than any knight you know, I’d wager.”
So Bridget put her faith in Nose. There was quiet but for the distant scuffling of paws, and then suddenly a great deal of commotion; it sounded like a tiny scream of outrage, almost human, rising in pitch and then cut short.
Bridget took a half step back without meaning to, gripped by unknown horror.
Something was hurt. Dying, perhaps. There was more scuffling, and the wet, thudding displacement of large quantities of earth.
“He won’t kill the Beast, will he?” Gwen said anxiously.
“He’s a good boy,” John replied, but the longer they waited, the less certain he looked.
Bridget caught Gwen’s eye, and knew they were both thinking the same thing: What if the Beast has killed him?
There was a quiet growl. More of the damp dirt around the entrance crumbled and fell, and then suddenly Nose was there, his white fur smeared with dark blood, dragging something far bigger than himself out of the den.
It was a dark-colored cat. Or … it was shaped like a cat. It was far too big, comically big, and yet it had the gangle and enormous, disproportionate paws of a juvenile. Its face, once it came into view, was similarly kittenish, and extremely outraged.
“That’s it, Nose, drop it, good boy,” John said, and the moment Nose released the creature, it found itself encased in burlap and scooped up.
“But … that’s a cat,” Gwen said, as the bag writhed with fury.
“Wildcat,” John said, red with effort as he tried to secure his loot. “Or … wildkitten.”
“Is it hurt?” Bridget said. “What about all the blood?” It smelled terrible. Like hot, rotted metal. Bridget couldn’t understand why the others didn’t seem bothered by it.
John succeeded in tying the bag shut, then placed it on the ground to flail as he inspected Nose.
“That blood isn’t fresh,” he said. “I reckon there’s something dead down there. Nose, get.”
Nose plunged back into the undergrowth, and within a few short minutes, returned tailfirst dragging something much larger: a heap of fur, a long limb. He backed off, tail wagging. John went to have a look, and came back shaking his head.
“That’s the mother cat, I’d wager, and it’s dead. Gored by something.”
“Oh, poor thing,” said Gwen, earning her an odd look from John.
Nose’s ears pricked up again, and this time he didn’t wait for permission before dashing off into the bushes. John didn’t seem to mind.
Gwen was still frowning down at the den’s deceased occupant. “So … was that the Beast? Or was it killed by the Beast?”
John, affronted, drew himself up to his full height. “The Beast has the body of a lion and the wings of a dragon, and it is black as night.”
“That dead cat is sort of black, in places,” Bridget pointed out. “And enormous.”
Diplomatic as always, Gwen ventured, “Are you quite sure this couldn’t have been the Beast? I mean, we haven’t seen all of it, it might have wings. Or maybe … maybe whatever killed it chewed them off. And now it’s dead, so perhaps your livestock will be safe.”
John relented slightly. “Suppose it might,” he said. “We’ll have to bring some of the boys in, dig this out, get a good look at it. But yeah. I suppose it might have been the Beast.”