Marilius seemed more nervous than usual. Instead of just slowing his horse, he brought it completely to a stop. “Let’s wait here,” he said. “It’ll be dark by the time we get deep enough into the valley.”
“Wait?” said Cricket. “For what?”
“For it to find us,” said Marilius. “It comes out at night, remember? It probably already knows we’re here.”
I looked ahead, studying the dell and surrounding hills. “We’ll find its lair,” I told Marilius. “Better to kill it while it sleeps than have it find us first.”
“The valley’s full of caves, Lukien. We’ll be groping around like blind men. Better to wait till morning, when it’s light.”
“There’s enough sunlight to get started,” I said. I looked at Marilius, not wanting to embarrass him. Yes, he was afraid, but there was something else, too. “We should go on. . don’t you think?”
“Let’s go,” said Cricket anxiously. “Before it wakes up!”
“Look at those cliffs,” said Marilius, pointing ahead. “If we enter the dell it’ll be able to trap us. It may already know we’re here. We should stay where there’s room to fight.”
It was worth considering. The hills did indeed close in around the dell, but I wanted to see it for myself. “Fallon said it only comes at night, right?”
Reluctantly, Marilius nodded.
“Then maybe it only can come out at night. Maybe it sleeps during the day, like a rass.”
“The day’s almost over, Lukien. If the monster hasn’t wakened yet then it soon will. I say we stay and wait for it here, out in the open.”
“Oh, let’s decide!” said Cricket. “Before it finds us!”
“Easy, squire. The last time I went off without thinking I got my neck broken, remember?” I looked west toward the setting sun, then ahead toward the dell. Bare minutes of sunlight remained. We could strike a camp, I thought. . But no.
“We go on,” I decided. “If this thing does have a lair we should find it.”
Cricket bounced in her saddle. “I’m ready.”
Marilius frowned. “Me first, then,” he said. At his side hung the beat-up sword he’d spent the night sharpening. He drew the blade as he urged his horse slowly forward, his eyes lighting up like embers. I didn’t need to tell Cricket to stay close. She stuck beside me as I followed Marilius, my ears alert to every breeze and chirping bird. I sensed Malator inside my sword, felt his essence searching out in front of me.
Malator? Anything?
Yes.
His certainty startled me. Where? Do you see it?
This place. . He paused as if looking around. This is where it comes from.
Is it awake?
It’s. . alive.
Where is it, Malator? Does it see us?
Malator fell silent. I could almost feel him putting up a hand to quiet me. I thought of slowing down, maybe stopping until he answered, but Marilius was already far ahead. Cricket rode next to me, stiff with fear.
“Breathe,” I whispered.
With one giant sigh she let out the air she’d been holding.
It’s hiding, said Malator finally.
I nodded. A trap. What is it, Malator?
A monster, Lukien. Just like they said.
“Marilius,” I called out. “It’s up ahead.”
Marilius snapped his head around. “How do you know?”
“I just do. It’s not sleeping. It’s waiting for us in the dell.”
“Waiting for the darkness, I bet.” Marilius reined in his horse. “What do you want to do?”
“Find it,” I said. “Let it think it has us trapped.” At last I drew my sword, angered at the thought of being stalked. Marilius brought his horse around again, about to continue. He sniffed the air.
“Ugh! What the hell is that?”
The shifting breeze carried the smell over to Cricket and me. Cricket hurried a hand over her mouth.
“Fate above!” She turned away, shutting her eyes and clamping shut her nose.
I barely had to inhale-the stench struck me all at once. The smell of rot, like an open grave. Marilius strained to control his dancing horse. The breeze rolled out of the dell, bearing with it the unimaginable stink. Cricket pulled up her cape to shield her face. I held my breath as I wondered what it was.
“The monster?” Cricket guessed.
“No, it didn’t stink,” said Marilius. “Only corpses smell like that!”
I’d trudged through enough battlefields to know he was right. “Malator,” I said out loud, “What else do you see?”
Malator was quiet, but I could feel his confusion. Find it, Lukien.
“But what is it?”
I cannot say.
“Cannot?” I spat. “Or won’t?”
I’m not a god, Lukien. I don’t know everything. Find it for yourself.
His answer wasn’t angry, just matter of fact, and I was too confused to argue. I drove my horse forward, catching up to Marilius and urging him onward. Together with Cricket we rode for the dell, staring at the long-faced hills. The trees tightened around us, funneling us forward, the stench growing more unbearable. A fly flittered past me, then another and more, until I spotted a swarm of them ahead, and the heap of flesh they feasted on.
“God’s death!” screeched Marilius. He moved to block Cricket’s way, but she’d already seen it. Her face flashed purple, then up came her breakfast, right over the side of her pony.
I left them behind, moving up slowly, forgetting the monster as I spied the hill of body parts. Bones and rags of skin sat rotting in a pile, withers-high to my horse. I stared, disgusted and confounded, watched by the dead eye of a half-chewed human skull. An outstretched arm beckoned me with rigored fingers. Blood-crusted fur and bits of people wriggled with maggots. I saw an antler in the pile sticking up like a flag, the scrap of a uniform caught in its tines. Decaying entrails dripped watery bile into the soil. I choked down a rush of vomit.
“Cricket, don’t come closer,” I shouted.
“Oh, don’t!” She turned away from the heap completely, wiping the puke from her mouth. She waved at me with her free hand. “Just get away from it!”
But I was too shocked to look away. Blood never bothered me but this did. I stared, watching the maggots bring the mass to life, the squirming of old bowels and shit. Behind me Marilius was saying something. Cricket kept puking, and Malator. .
Lukien!
Why didn’t I hear him? It was only when the mound started moving that I realized Malator was shouting. My horse wheeled beneath me, ready to bolt. The mound of bones and bodies shivered, shedding flesh and scurrying the flies. Malator hollered in my brain, warning me back. I just stared like a dullard. Slowly, impossibly, the hill tumbled toward me, surrounding the hooves of my snorting horse as the creature emerged, rising up out of the limbs and cast-off bones.
No good gods had created the thing I saw. It was wholly unnatural, made from the very skeletons and skins it had burrowed beneath. It climbed into the sky, towering over me astride my horse, its bony head the stolen skull of an ox. A ladder of broken spines made its backbone, the ribs of its varied victims forming its chest. Four legs protruded from its vaguely human shape, the two in front capped at the knees by mismatched skulls, the other pair dangling behind it. It made its arms from borrowed bones, using goat horns for fingers. In fact the thing was armored in bones, human and otherwise, an absurd and ghastly mishmash of corpses hung with rags of flesh.
This was the thing stalking my dreams. Nine feet over the ground, its dead-eyed ox head looked at me. I searched for a heart inside its ribs but saw instead a glowing darkness. Nothing alive seemed within it. I spun Zephyr free of the filth around his hooves, out where I could fight. Cricket and Marilius started toward me.
“Back!” I cried.
They reined in their mounts. The creature, whatever it was, pulled free of the stinking mound, then stopped as if guarding the dell.