Although he had of course bathed, Tristan was wearing pretty much the same clothes he’d had on the day before, complete with quiver and dirks. He had replaced the red-stained trousers with another clean pair just like them this morning and tucked them into his knee boots, as was his habit. But now, of course, he was covered from his boots to his shoulders in dirt again.
Tristan moved a pebble back and forth across the ground with the toe of one of his boots, groaning inwardly. He had come here to forget his responsibilities for a while, not to be reminded of them. And he knew that Frederick was only trying to help, no doubt partly at the urging of Shailiha. But he was in no mood to discuss his experiences, let alone at liberty to. His heart was aching at the thought of not being able to return to the Caves. And how could he ever make anyone else understand what he had been through yesterday, when he didn’t even understand it himself? It depressed him to know that few answers would be quick in coming from the wizards, given the tone and substance of his meeting with them yesterday. He turned his gaze upon the one hundred or so men of the Royal Guard who were training in various weapons in the large expanse of the courtyard, and once again his heart yearned for the simple life of a soldier. He looked back up at Frederick. “I can’t tell you about yesterday,” he said bluntly, shaking his head in frustration. “I don’t even understand what happened myself. I just have to try to accept the fact that I am to become king whether I like it or not. But I have decided to spend the last few days of my so-called freedom here with you, on the training fields. I’ve had enough of wizards and schooling to last me for the rest of my life, and if they don’t like it, I don’t particularly care.” He knew full well that what he meant was only his formal schooling, rather than any training in the craft that they might give him. The desire for that burned fiercely in his being, but it was not something he could explain to Frederick, a person of unendowed blood. And once again it depressed him to know that, given the wizards’ tone of yesterday, no doubt his training in the craft was probably even farther away than ever.
He looked down at himself. There wasn’t much right now about his life that he felt he could truly control, except perhaps for the way he looked. These clothes not only reminded him of the falls, but more accurately reflected his real personality than any of the pompous robes they could bestow upon him. He turned back to Frederick.
“As far as my clothing is concerned, I may just stay in these for a while, maybe even after I’m king.” He paused as a small smile finally started to come back to his lips. Leaning in conspiratorially to Frederick, he said, “After I’m king, I expect they would have a very hard time getting me out of them, anyway.”
The rumble of thunder interrupted him. But it wasn’t thunder—rather, something like it but not quite exactly the same. As Tristan and Frederick began to look around, the noise became louder, and the closer it came the more it seemed to turn into a kind of great rushing roar of moving air. They could feel the wind against their faces now as they turned to look. But before either one of them could discern the source of the noise, something else happened.
The sun disappeared, and the courtyard was bathed in darkness.
Stunned, they both turned to try to find the cause of the great shadow. Tristan automatically put a hand over his eyes in anticipation of looking into the sun, but the sun wasn’t there.
Something was blocking it.
It was then that the awful creature flew out of the direct line of the sun and came to rest noisily upon the wall of the courtyard, directly before them and approximately thirty feet above the ground. A deafening, semi-human scream came from it, as if it wished to announce its presence.
Tristan grabbed Frederick by the shoulders and dragged him back to the center of the training grounds, away from the hideous beast. “Get Wigg!” he screamed into Frederick’s ear. “Now! Run!”
Frederick looked into Tristan’s eyes in seeming incomprehension and then suddenly was gone, running as fast as he could toward the archway in the wall on the opposite side of the yard.
Tristan turned back to the thing that had perched on the wall and stared dumbly at it in disbelief. Wigg, you must hurry, he heard his brain scream back at him.
It was like a giant bird of prey, but there ended any similarity to anything Tristan had ever seen. Perched upon the wall, it had to be at least thirty feet high from its claws to the top of its head. Its claws were the talons of eagles, but each individual talon was at least a meter long, and each foot had four instead of the three a Eutracian eagle would have. The black feathers were huge, each of them at least two to three meters long, and were ruffled and unpreened, seeming to lie upon the great bird in disarray. The thing screamed again, the sound so deafening that for a moment afterward he could hear nothing else, not even the hurried shouting of orders by the officers of the Guard who were standing behind him. It was the unnerving call of a hawk in flight coupled with the insane screams of a terrified woman, and it reverberated throughout the entire courtyard. Several of the Guard came to stand between him and the awful thing, ready to protect him with their lives, if necessary.
It screamed yet again as it extended its horrible wings and jumped to the left a little, trying to find a more advantageous position upon the wall. The wings stretched to each side at least twice as far as its body was tall; dark and grotesque, they were covered with black scales instead of feathers. The sickening stench that came to Tristan’s nostrils every time it spread its wings was overpowering. But the most terrifying part of the beast was the head itself: It had the face of a woman.
And it appeared to be insane.
The face was ancient, gray, and wrinkled in a thousand places. Dark, sunken eyes not unlike those of a bird peered out from deep pockets, and the gray hair was brittle, long, and coarse, flying this way and that with the wind.
Again it stretched its wings and let forth a scream. Tristan could now clearly make out what he thought he had seen at first, but had not wanted to believe. Two rows of yellow pointed teeth lined the inside of the creature’s mouth, each tooth at least six inches long. They showed ominously each time the thing screamed. And below the chin was an equally disturbing feature: a gullet. Dark, wrinkled skin loosely hung down, swaying sloppily with each movement of the creature’s head. Occasionally the beast would duck down and sideways just like a bird, its movements jerky and hesitant, but incredibly fast. The thing moved its head again, and Tristan saw the leathery sides of its throat come together and then once again separate.
Its gullet was empty.
Then, without warning, it jumped down into the courtyard with lightning speed and grabbed one of the Guard in the four sharp talons of its right foot. It brought the screaming and bloody soldier up before its beady eyes and looked at the man curiously, turning its horrible head this way and that before half jumping, half flying back to the top of the wall.
Tristan had already begun to run to the rack of longbows and arrows, but by the time he turned back, it was too late.
Holding the screaming soldier in its talons, the monster pushed him into the giant maw of its mouth and hungrily bit him in two. It screamed again as if in pain, then tore off the breastplate that covered the man’s chest and threw it angrily into the courtyard. Greedily it began to devour the lower half of the body.
Several feet of the still-screaming soldier’s intestines fell to the courtyard floor, awash in blood.