The neck suddenly snapped back like a whip, the wonderful song cut off by an anguished bellow. Something whispered by his ear, and his eyes caught the blur of an arrow in motion. It struck the nicwer beneath the jaw, and he saw there was already an arrow there, buried in a sort of sack or wattle he hadn’t noticed before.
He turned in the direction the arrow had come from and saw Leshya running down the street toward them, still fifty yards away.
She was supposed to still be up on the hill, but he was glad she wasn’t. He picked up the bow and ran toward Winna.
Aspar felt as if everything good in him had been ripped out—mornings waking in the ironoaks, the quiet of the deep forest, the feel of Winna’s skin—everything wonderful was gone. All that was left was the ugliest beast he had ever seen about to take a bite out of him with sharp, gleaming, serrated black teeth. With a hoarse cry, he threw himself aside, suddenly noticing a stench like the bloated belly of a long-dead horse or the breath of a vulture.
He came back up with his dirk and ax out, feeling silly. He saw it better now, as it heaved itself up on the dock. Its head was otter-like, as wedge-shaped as a viper, and twice the size of the biggest horse skull he had ever seen. Like the greffyn and the utin, it was covered in scales, but also with oily green-black fur. At first he thought its body was that of a huge snake, but even as he reckoned that, it suddenly heaved up onto the dock with short thick forepaws. The feet were webbed and had talons the length of his arm. Silent now save for a sort of gurgling whistle, it lurched toward him, dragging the rest of its mass up from the river. He backed away, unsure what to do. If he let it sing again, then he would surely walk stupidly back into its jaws, as he had almost just done.
At least he knew what had happened to the people of Whitraff. They had walked smiling down to the river and been eaten. He remembered an Ingorn story about something like this, but he couldn’t remember what it was called. He’d never much cared for stories about nonexistent creatures.
Another arrow appeared in the sack below its throat, but aside from being unable to croon its damning call, the beast seemed relatively untroubled. It was all out of the water now, except for its tail. Its rear legs were as squat as the front, and as far from them as the length of two horses, so that its belly dragged along the wooden planks. Although it looked clumsy, once on land it moved with a sudden speed Aspar wouldn’t have guessed at. It lunged at him and he dodged aside, cleaving his ax at the back of its neck. To his surprise, the blade sheared a notch in the scales, albeit not a deep one.
He was still surprised when the head swung violently into him, knocking him off his feet. He rolled, feeling as if his ribs had been cracked, and came up to find the head darting toward him once more. From his crouch Aspar twisted away, cutting at the exposed throat with his knife and feeling the tissue part in a long, ragged slash. Blood sprayed his arm, and this time he dodged the counterattack and came to his feet running.
As soon as he was clear, arrows began pelting the beast. Most were bouncing off; for now it was tucking its head down to protect its vulnerable throat. Aspar saw that Leshya and Stephen were doing the shooting.
The monster was bleeding, but not as much as Aspar had hoped. Still, after a brief hesitation, it seemed to decide it had had enough. It sprinted back to the river, slid in, and vanished beneath the surface, leaving him panting and wondering if the thing was poisonous, like the greffyn. But though he felt a mild burning where the blood had touched his skin, it was nothing like the sick and immediate fever he’d felt confronting the other beast.
Leshya and Winna were a different story. Winna was on her hands and knees vomiting and Leshya was leaning on her bow, the blue veins of her face prominent beneath her skin.
Stephen seemed fine.
Aspar went to Winna and knelt by her. “Did it touch you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
“It’ll be fine, then,” he murmured. He reached out to stroke her head.
“Don’t,” Leshya snapped. “The blood.”
Aspar stopped inches short of touching Winna, then pulled his hand back and walked away. “Werlic,” he acceded.
Leshya nodded. “The gaze of the equudscioh isn’t fatal, not like some sedhmhari, but its blood would infect us.” She cocked her head. “I wonder why it hasn’t infected you. Or why our priest here wasn’t as affected by its song as you two.”
“You know what it is?” Aspar said.
“Only from stories,” the Sefry replied.
“Do the stories explain how it could do that to us just by—by braying?” Aspar demanded. He still missed it, that sound, that perfect feeling. If he heard it again . . .
“There are certain musical notes and harmonies that can affect men so,” Stephen said. “It’s said the Black Jester created songs so powerful that entire armies ran on their own blades upon hearing them. He was inspired, they say, by a creature known as the ekhukh. In Almannish the same beast is called a nicwer, in Lierish eq odche. I think in the king’s tongue it’s nix, if I remember my phay stories.”
“Fine, I know what it’s called in five languages now,” Aspar grouched. “What is it?”
Leshya closed her eyes and swayed unsteadily. “It’s one of the sedhmhari, as I told you. It isn’t dead, you know, or likely even dying. We should retreat to the hill if we’re to discuss this. And you need to clean the blood off you, for our sakes. Even if you have some sort of immunity, we do not.”
“Werlic,” Aspar said. “Let’s do that.”
They found that despite his injury, Ehawk had crawled halfway down the hill.
“The song,” the boy gasped. “What was that?”
Aspar left the others to explain while he went to wash.
He found a small brook trickling down the hillside. He stripped off his leather cuirass and shirt and soaked them while he wiped his arm and face with a rag.
By the time he was done cleaning up, Winna and Leshya seemed to be feeling better.
When he approached, Leshya pointed down toward the river. “I saw it from up here, moving beneath the water. We should be able to see it if it emerges again.”
“Yah,” Aspar grunted. “That’s why you left your post.”
“I couldn’t shoot it from up here,” she argued. “Besides, Ehawk was still watching.”
“I’m not chastising,” Aspar said. “The three of us would be in its belly now if you hadn’t come along.”
“Why didn’t its song affect you?” Winna asked, a bit sharply.
“I’m Sefry,” Leshya rejoined. “Our ears are made differently.” She quirked an amused smile at Stephen. “I don’t care for Mannish music that much, either.”
Winna raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t pursue the matter.
Stephen did, however. “Still,” he remarked, “how could you have known it wouldn’t lure you as it did us?”
“I didn’t,” she said, “but it’s a good thing to know, isn’t it?”
Winna regarded the Sefry. “Thank you,” she said. “Thanks for saving our lives.”
Leshya shrugged. “I told you we were in this together.”
“So how do we kill it?” Aspar asked impatiently.
“I don’t think we do,” Stephen replied.
“How’s that?”
“We might be able to prick it to death, given time, but time is what we don’t have. This faneway must be nearly complete. Aspar, we have to stop them from finishing it.”
“But we have the instructions for the last fane,” Winna said.
“Yes,” Stephen said, “which only means they need to send a rider to Eslen to see the praifec. That gives us a little more time, but not until next month. The nicwer has lost its voice, and that’s its most dangerous weapon. We’ll have to leave it to the riverboaters to kill it.” He turned to Leshya. “You called it a sedhmhari. What did you mean by that? It’s a Sefry word?”