Chapter 6 The Monster
We take the northern trail out of the village, choosing a direction at random.
We've talked to several other dubious sources in the village, and all signs indicate that it doesn't matter what path someone is on, or what direction they're headed.
All the area around the village is the monster's hunting ground.
"I suppose if we hear singing we'll know we're in the right place," I muse as the dark pines rise over our heads.
We walk on the trail in a rough triangle, with me at the head and the others close behind.
They aren't amused by my attempt at a joke.
I suppose, being human, with no natural defenses, they're a bit frightened.
I'm wound fairly tightly myself, trying to look, listen, and smell everything at once.
Imagining how quickly I can put myself between the two of them and any danger we encounter while also shifting to my dragon form without hurting them.
The reason I haven't shifted already is the same reason I hid my face in the village.
The people around here don't need any more food for fancy, nor any more reason to break out the torches and pitchforks to drive me off.
We walk along the path in tense silence for some time, but there's no creepy, disembodied singing floating towards us from afar, no ravenous beasts in appearance.
I harrumph, frustrated.
"We need to leave the trail, head into the woods—"
"No!
" Cherry and Marton respond in unison.
I turn back to eye them, surprised at their being in agreement.
Cherry is looking nervously at the forest, specifically at the damp soil and musty residue of rotten leaves on the ground—I had forgotten, getting dirty is her greatest fear.
Marton is eyeing the trees at about man height, face uneasy as he casts glances at me.
I think he might be more worried about me getting into a fight with a vicious monster than he is about possibly becoming a monster snack himself.
Neither of them, in fact, seems all that concerned for their bodily health.
That decides me.
I take one striding step off the trail, turning to my friends with a raised eyebrow.
"Cherry, I promise that I'll find you a hot bath as soon as we return.
Marton, I promise I have no intention of getting into a fight I can't win.
If we're beset by something larger or deadlier than I am, I'll shift and we'll fly away.
"
Cherry and Marton share an uncertain glance, their expressions very different.
But when I take another step, they both follow me into the forest.
We crunch over pine needles and dead leaves, weaving through trunks, picking our way over undergrowth and under low hanging branches.
Minutes pass, then more minutes. The ground slopes up, then down again.
We're in the pass between several tall mountains, where the forest is fed by rain water and condensation flowing down from the peaks.
It's very damp, and Marton and I are both called on to ignore Cherry's frequent noises of disgust when she steps on something moist or rotten.
I know she really does hate travelling on foot, especially in the forest, but I think she mainly keeps this performance up so no one forgets she was born a princess.
She doesn't have many things to distinguish her tie to that office, other than her haughty distaste for all things common, which she reminds us of at every opportunity.
I try to respect that. I do. It certainly never makes me want to fling a handful of mud in her face.
We're several hours deep, and probably lost, in the mushy forest. Marton looks disappointed that we haven't found anything and Cherry is screeching as she scrapes the latest ecological horror off her palm, which she acquired by leaning her hand against a tree trunk as we stopped for a much-needed rest. (This is one or two breaks after I learned the word ecological from Marton, as he excitedly told us about new advances in that 'scientific field' by some scholar or another at some school in Rohus.) Cherry's cheeks are flushed as she cleans her hands once more on her already stained skirt, pink hair sticking to her with sweat, but she hasn't complained yet about being tired.
I'm feeling rather proud of her, debating on teasing her about it.
And that's when I hear the singing.
My head snaps up, and I'm momentarily startled beyond belief.
The voice is faint and distant, deep and lovely.
But it's real.
"What is it?
" asks Marton, watching me.
"You don't hear it?
" But of course he doesn't hear it. Neither of them do.
They're human. "Singing," I tell them, trying to control my gaping expression as I listen.
"I hear singing."
"Don't listen," says Marton immediately.
"Plug your ears. Don't—"
I wave him off.
"It's just singing." I listen closer, but the voice doesn't become any clearer.
It's still faint, the song unfamiliar. But it sounds ordinary.
I don't feel the uncontrollable or trancelike urge to follow it to my doom.
"I think we should move closer."
"No," Marton disagrees, although he seems torn.
"The stories specifically say that you shouldn't—"
"The stories are told by superstitious fools.
I'm a dragon. You're both friends with a dragon.
Are we afraid?"
Cherry makes a noncommittal, grumbling sort of noise, but Marton holds my gaze, seeming to search for something.
I try not to blink. Finally, he shakes his head.
"We're not afraid."
I grin, pushing off the tree I've been leaning against. "This way.
" I lead them deeper into the woods, closer to the sound of singing.
For a while, we just walk quietly, my ears cocked to pick up the melody that grows as we approach.
I know it the moment the song is loud enough for Cherry and Marton to detect.
Their eyes go wide, mouths a little slack.
I watch them anxiously for a breath, aware that it's possible the music—if it is of a mystical origin—might affect humans differently than it does me.
But Marton shakes his head clear of the surprise of it, eyes alert on the woods around us.
Cherry just blinks her wide blue eyes in the direction of the sound, then shoots me a glance.
I nod, pressing my finger to my lips. If human ears can hear the song, then the ears of any magical creature nearby can probably hear us.
Cherry nods back, swallowing.
I ease ahead once more, and the others are as quiet as they can be at my back—which, admittedly, is not very quiet.
It's like their human eyes can't see when the grounds where they're about to place their feet is rife with breakable twigs or crackling leaves.
I give Marton a pointed look when his left foot crunches down on the core of a pine cone, indicating with my eyes that he should step where I step.
He nods.
We continue, and the earthy ground grows stonier beneath our feet, the steep wall of the mountain to our right looming closer, turning into a rocky outcropping as we weave through the pines.
I can hear the sound of rushing water ahead, like a stream, and what Marton said about sirens and mermaids living near water goes through my head.
But is this singing magical?
The closer we get, the more it sounds like an ordinary man's voice, deep and smooth, but missing notes on the higher pitches.
A fine singing ability, but not an enchanted one.
I can't make out the words.
It almost seems like another language. But as we come to the edge of the woods, facing into an open clearing, I become distracted from my listening.
There is a steep cliff face at the far end of the clearing, from which a thin trickle of water falls into a round pool below.
And standing by the side of the pool, doing something that looks very much like hanging laundry on a drying line strung between two trees, is a man.
The moment my eyes land on him, the singing cuts off.
In a flash of movement too fast to see, the man is gone.
There one minute, and then disappeared before I even have time to blink.
Panic courses through me, and my eyes flit around the clearing, around the nearby woods, searching for movement, searching for a human figure, searching for a monster.
My eyes land on Marton and Cherry just behind me.
"Did you see him?" I breathe, trying to keep my voice as low as possible.
Marton shakes his head.
He didn't see, but it looks like Cherry did.
Cherry's eyes are round as moons, fixed on the clearing behind me.
I whirl, but there's nothing there. Still empty.
My heart pounds out an unsteady beat in my chest.
Shift, shift, shift, my blood entreats me.
My dragon form feels right under the surface of my skin, my claws pushing towards my fingertips, pupils dilating into raptor vision, hyper-focusing on the details of the clearing.
I could count the condensation droplets on every blade of grass by the pool if I wanted to.
But I see no sign of the man who was here not a moment ago.
He's just gone.
"You should not have come here.
" The voice comes from the cliff face to our left, smooth and deep and clearly articulated.
My friends gasp as I jerk my head towards the voice.
The man is still a man, but he crouches on a narrow ledge of the cliff above, peaking down through the trees at us.
The words are ominous, but his face is calm.
He looks young, in his middle twenties perhaps.
His hair is deep red, falling to his shoulders, his skin even and deeply tanned, almost sunburned.
His eyes are a piercing gray beneath thick brows.
Underneath his rough tunic, he appears strong and healthy.
Perfectly normal. Almost perfectly human, if he hadn't moved so quickly.
There is no sense of wrongness or monstrosity oozing out of him.
"You should not have come here," he repeats, and in a flash he is standing before us, not ten feet away in the forest before the cliff.
I put out my arms as I ease a step back, forcing my friends close together behind me.
Cherry grips my wrist with frantic strength, and Marton's hand goes to my waist protectively.
I could kill them both for clinging to me so.
I need to shift.
"We mean you no harm," I say as calmly as I can.
Something flickers in the stranger's gray eyes, but I can't say what it is.
He tips his head to the side, red hair reflecting the light like fire.
"I might mean you some, though." His gaze flicks from me to Cherry, and that's pretty much the only warning I need.
I shove my friends back with bruising force, and they go stumbling to the forest floor behind me.
In a blink, I shift, my dragon form ripping through my sturdy dress like it's made of spider silk.
I open my mouth wide on a gout of flame, but as the fire rushes out of me, I see that the man is already gone.
I only intended the fire as a warning blast, and the trees that would have been above the man's head crackle and burn as I turn to scan the area for him.
Standing in the middle of the clearing, I see a monster instead.
And it isn't a dragon.
My first thought is lion, for the beast has a flowing reddish mane around its face, a massive furred body, with four legs ending in clawed paws. But the tail that lashes behind the beast is not a lion's tail. It is plated and dark, ending in wicked looking barbs the vibrant red of blood.
And rising from the beasts back, those are wings, with red-gold feathers tufted at the base, although the membrane of the wings themselves looks leathery like a bat's. Like a dragon's.
The lion's mouth opens in a roar, and I see that it has three rows of flesh-shredding teeth.
The beast is almost as large as me, but not quite.
I slink forward out of the forest, ignoring the chattering, frantic noises of my friends behind me.
Human speech. I don't understand it nearly as well as I understand the crouching posture of the beast before me.
It's front claws flex forward as it lowers itself for a spring, eyes darting into the woods at my back. Looking for my friends.
I roar a threat, spittle flying from my maw to fall sizzling on the ground.
That redirects the beast's attention. It eyes me warily, and breaks its crouch, pacing to the left.
Like it wants to drive me to circle it, bringing itself closer to the woods behind me in the meantime.
When I don't budge, the creature paces to the right.
I bare my teeth at it, flames burbling up my throat. Smoke flows from my nostrils.
Without warning, the creature heaves itself forward in a pounce.
I rear back, but not quickly enough. It's claws scrabble at my throat, catching slightly against the ridges of my scales, but their bite doesn't piece my armor, and the beast slides to the ground, belly exposed.
I lunge, closing my jaws around its stomach, vision red with bloodlust.
I expect to feel the give of flesh, the rush of blood in my mouth. Death. But the creature's fur is impenetrable as my scales. Biting down on it is like biting down on a brick in my human form. It scrapes my teeth painfully, and I fling the creature away from me with a turn of my head, disgusted.
The lion-beast goes flying, but catches itself on all four feet, claws digging into the dirt thirty feet away. It snarls, exposing its layers of teeth. It crouches as if to spring again, and I release my fire at it once more.
This time I am watching carefully, and the movement is just this side of perceptible.
The thing heaves itself to the side with legs and wings, moving in a blur from the ground of the clearing to the cliff wall.
Its claws dig into bare stone, holding itself to the wall as easily as if it were the bark of a tree.
I leap into the sky, beating my wings to catch the wind.
I am faster in the air than on the ground, and when I swoop towards the lion-beast, breathing fire, it barely has time to dive out of the way again.
I chase it down, breathing flame the whole time as it beats its own wings, zooming through the sky above the clearing.
When it banks hard away from me, its tail lashes out, and to my intense startlement, one of the vicious red barbs on the end of its tail detaches and comes flying at me like an arrow shot from a bow.
I dive to avoid it, and the barb makes a an audible crack as it buries itself in the mountain wall behind me.
I roar in rage, heaving forward with a renewed burst of speed.
The lion dives, but not fast enough. My jaws close around its hind leg, shaking the beast savagely.
Its wings tuck, and it lashes its tail at my face.
I drop my protective eyelids, bracing. The barbed tail takes me hard in the face, and I feel an eruption of pain and moisture from the site of contact.
But that couldn't possibly be my blood. Nothing has ever pierced my scales before.
Surprised, my jaws release the beast, and it swoops away from me, screeching in fury. It spears straight for my friends below, where they are gawking through the trees at the monster battle taking place above their heads.
I dive on top of the plummeting creature, and we both go crashing to the ground, tearing up the soil, rolling in a chaos of teeth and claws, spines and barbs. We come to a stop with me atop the lion-creature, pinning it to the ground with my forelegs, breath scalding hot in the space between us.
The lion stares up at me with the same intelligent gray eyes the man wore in human form, and that sight brings me back to myself for a moment, keeping me from going for his throat. My battle lust recedes. I remember that I am human, sometimes.
This creature is a person.
As I stare down at it, something red and wet drips from my snout, splattering on the lion's maw. The substance streaks across the lion's teeth, and its eyes widen with something very like horror.
In a blink, the creature below me is a human man once more.