For a moment the thing stood looking at the carnage of the horse, the blood running from the helve down its forearms and finally dripping from its elbows into a puddle upon the ground. A sickening grin began to walk the length of its grotesque mouth as yet more drool, pink with splattered blood, fell to its chest.
It turned once more toward Wigg and raised the ax over its head for another charge.
But this time, as the battle ax reached the zenith of its swing, the wizard raised his arms and the ax was pulled out of the creature’s hands and flew sideways across the clearing like a pinwheel, landing squarely at Wigg’s feet. Shailiha watched, panic-stricken, as the old one calmly made no attempt to pick it up when the thing charged at him again, this time extending its bare hands and sharp talons.
The princess shook with the realization that the wizard was about to die before her eyes.
Instead, though, Wigg pointed to the ax and it rose hauntingly into the air. He quickly extended his fingers, and the ax flew across the clearing, end over end, in a black—and-silver blur.
With a sickening crack, one of the ax’s blades buried itself into the thing’s forehead. The creature fell over onto its back, dead. Yellowish brain matter began to ooze from the shattered skull.
Then immediately came the thunder and lightning. She thought at first she must be hallucinating, to see lightning on such a calm day. It streaked its way across the expanse of the otherwise clear sky in convoluted patterns she had never imagined possible, followed by thunder that pounded through the air, shaking everything in the forest. Then she heard a strange noise, and once again looked out at the thing that lay in the middle of the clearing—the thing that Wigg had killed.
From around its great, shattered skull came a hissing sound as the yellow fluid from its head bled out into the grass. An inexplicable shroud of fog began to rise up from the turf around the head, bringing up into the air a stench so malodorous that she was forced to lower her face, covering her nose and mouth.
Shailiha found herself dumbly looking down to find wet, sticky blood and pink pieces of horseflesh all over her clothes. Blankly rubbing her protruding abdomen, she lifted her hand to see her palm and fingers covered with the horrible mixture. She began to vomit.
The last thing she remembered was Wigg’s hands reaching up to catch her as she fell from her saddle.
The sounds of his weeping awakened her. It came from somewhere off in the distance, yet it was very distinct. How odd. Opening her eyes, she saw fluffy clouds upon the bright blue canvas of an afternoon sky, floating behind the orange and green leaves of a hypernia tree. How beautiful. But she was going to be sick again. She rolled onto her side and just let it happen. As her mind began to clear, she realized she was lying on the soft grass under a tree on one side of the clearing.
Suddenly she remembered. The clearing. The… thing. She sat bolt upright and looked around. The creature that had tried to kill Wigg still lay dead where it had fallen, the handle of the battle ax rising into the air from the thing’s smashed, grotesque forehead. The odd shroud of fog that had inexplicably gathered around it was still there. To her left, the remains of Wigg’s beheaded horse lay at pitifully impossible angles in a huge pool of its own dark-red blood. She looked down over her riding habit and gently rubbed her abdomen, praying to the Afterlife that her unborn child had not been injured. Somehow her clothes and hands had been wiped clean, or as close to clean as someone could have done under the circumstances.
She heard the sound of sobbing. Slowly rising to her feet, she was amazed to see Wigg sitting back upon his heels in the grass next to the dead creature, crying over it almost uncontrollably. With his hands covering his face and his head bent over, tears dripped from between his fingers and onto his robes, creating dark-gray blotches. His shoulders were shaking.
Shailiha walked up to the old one, trying not to look at the mangled corpse that lay between them both. Without speaking, she laid one hand upon his shoulder and bent down to look at him. Uncovering his face, the wizard finally took her hands in his, stood, and led her out of the clearing.
He took her to where he had placed the saddle and tack after removing it from the murdered horse. The saddle blanket was spread upon the ground, and Shailiha rather awkwardly sat down upon it, relieved to be off her feet, for she thought she might soon fall down, anyway. It occurred to her that she had never in her life seen a wizard cry, nor had she ever heard of one doing so.
Wigg slowly sat down next to her. Reaching out, he gently spread open the upper and lower lids of her right eye, and examined it. Satisfied, he reached into the sleeve of his robe and produced a clean, recently picked plant root.
“Suck on this from time to time, little one,” he said compassionately.
As she obediently took the root from him and placed it in her mouth, a pleasantly sweet flavor emerged.
At her questioning look he said, “It will help with the vomiting.”
His tears apparently suspended for the moment, he placed the palm of his left hand on her abdomen and closed his eyes. After several seconds, he opened them again. “Your child is well,” he said. He rubbed his hands together as he looked back out to the clearing. “We have been fortunate.”
She reached out to wipe a tear from his cheek. He had saved her life, but she understood none of what had happened.
“Wigg, what was that thing?” she asked urgently. “Why did it try to kill you?” She lowered her eyes. “And why do you cry so?” She looked out into the clearing. “It’s dead. You should be happy.”
Without speaking, Wigg rose to his feet and walked the short distance to where he had tied the princess’ mare to a tree. Reaching into the food basket tied to the saddle, he brought forth a dark green bottle of ale and returned to the blanket to sit cross-legged before Shailiha.
He removed the cork and took a long draft of the ale. His eyes went back to the corpse in the field, and he suddenly seemed to be far away. He was still looking out at the body when he finally said, “He was my friend.”
A look of shock spread over Shailiha’s face. If she had not been with child, she would have taken a drink of the ale herself. She quickly removed the root from her mouth.
“Your friend?” she exclaimed. “That hideous thing just tried to kill us!”
Wigg turned back to her, his face beginning to regain its usual strength and composure. She was relieved to see that Wigg was becoming Wigg again.
“Phillius,” he said softly. “That hideous thing, as you call it, that lies dead in the clearing at my own hand was my friend, and his name was Phillius.”
He took another draft of ale. She was glad to see him finally smiling gently into her eyes. Perhaps the ale was helping. He sighed. “It requires some explanation.” His voice had become barely audible.
Shailiha arranged her legs into a more comfortable posture, raised her eyes to the old one, and tilted her head slightly. She was willing to invest the time to hear his explanation, whatever it was, and it was clear by her demeanor that she was not to be denied.
The wizard pressed his lips together in a tight half smile and let out a deep breath as if he had been holding it in for years.
“The creature that lies dead in the field is called a blood stalker,” he began. “It is a mutant product of the Sorceresses’ War, protected from then until now by what are called time enchantments. We had thought him and all of his kind long since dead. There hasn’t been a confirmed sighting of a blood stalker in over three centuries.” He rubbed his lower lip back and forth slowly. How could one of their time enchantments have lasted this long? his racing mind asked. This should not be possible.