The Monster Who Loved Him

The Ridgeback Maw had chosen its ground well. Henry crouched behind a shelf of broken stone and watched the creature pace along the ravine’s edge below. It was larger than the guild report had suggested, broad through the shoulders, plated from skull to tail in overlapping ridges of dark bone. One foreleg dragged half a beat behind the other. Old injury, maybe recent strain. More important was the pattern in the dirt: claw marks along the upper trail, churned soil beside the drop, blood where the woodcutters had tried to climb.

It had not merely chased them. It had driven them there.

“Tabitha,” Henry said.

She shifted beside him, bow already in hand. “I see the jaw.”

“Not yet. It turns left when it charges.”

“Because of the leg.”

He nodded once. Below, three men clung to a narrow shelf above the ravine floor. One had blood down his trouser leg. Another was trying to hold him upright. The third stared at the monster with the fixed expression of a man who had already imagined his own death too many times.

Drenen waited farther upslope with his satchel open, his staff laid across his knees.

Henry looked at him. “When it turns, get to the shelf.”

Drenen’s mouth tightened. “And when it turns toward me?”

“It won’t.”

Tabitha glanced over. “That is not an answer.”

“It’s the useful part of one.”

He rose before either could continue.

The Maw heard him immediately. Its head snapped up, jaw opening around two rows of yellow teeth. Henry stepped into the open and struck his sword against the rim of his shield. The sound carried across the ravine.

“Come on, then.”

The beast came at him faster than its size suggested, claws biting into stone, plated shoulders rolling beneath its hide. Henry waited. Too early and it would correct. Too late and he would be underneath several hundred pounds of armor and teeth.

Three strides.

Two.

He shifted right.

The Maw followed, then its bad foreleg hit uneven ground and the body turned left exactly as he expected.

Tabitha’s arrow vanished beneath its jaw.

The beast screamed and twisted, but did not fall.

“Again,” Henry called.

A second arrow struck near the first. The Maw staggered. Henry closed before it could recover, drove his sword into the softer seam behind its foreleg, and felt the blade catch between ribs.

The creature convulsed. Its tail smashed across the ground hard enough to scatter stones. Henry pulled free and backed away.

Then Drenen moved, and Henry saw the mistake before the healer did. The Maw had not lost sight of the trapped men. It had merely lost interest in Henry.

Its head swung toward Drenen.

“Back!”

Drenen froze for half a second.

Too long.

Henry crossed the distance at a run and drove his shield between them just as the Maw lunged. The impact lifted him from his feet. Pain burst through his left shoulder. He hit the ground, rolled once, and heard Tabitha curse.

The Maw’s claws scraped across the shield’s face. Henry planted a boot against its chest and shoved enough to turn its weight aside.

“Now.”

Tabitha’s third arrow punched through the eye.

Henry came up on one knee and drove his sword beneath the jaw where the first two arrows had opened the flesh. The Maw collapsed, shuddered once, then went still.

For several breaths, nobody moved. Henry pulled his sword free and looked toward the ravine.

“The men.”

Drenen was already staring at him instead. “Your shoulder.”

“Bruised.”

“You were thrown six feet.”

“Five.”

Tabitha climbed down from the rocks. “Wonderful. He can still count. We can discharge him.”

Henry ignored both of them and started toward the trapped woodcutters. His shoulder protested when he raised the shield. That meant Drenen would complain if he noticed, so Henry lowered it before the healer could.

The injured woodcutter had a deep cut across his calf, ugly but clean enough. Drenen knelt beside him once they had all reached safe ground.

“You’re lucky,” Drenen said.

The man looked at the dead Maw and then at Henry. “Aye.”

Henry checked the other two for blood, shock, or signs of a fall. Neither had anything worse than scrapes. Only when all three were walking did he turn back toward the road.

Drenen caught his sleeve.

“Sit.”

“I can walk.”

“I did not ask.”

Henry looked at the healer’s expression, then at Tabitha’s.

She folded her arms.

He sat on a rock.

Drenen pressed careful fingers around the left shoulder. Henry kept his face still.

“That hurts,” Drenen said.

“It’s tender.”

“That is what people say when they want healers to leave them alone.”

“Does it work?”

“No.”

“Pity.”

Tabitha made a sound that might have been a laugh and went to recover her arrows.

By the time they reached the village, the sun was low behind the hills. Someone had seen them coming from the watch platform. The bell rang twice, and people spilled into the road before Henry had passed the first cottage.

He disliked that part.

The relief he understood. The cheering he could have done without.

“Sir Henry!”

A boy no older than ten ran alongside them until his mother caught him by the collar.

“You’re the one who killed the marsh wyrm at Bellwater!”

Henry remembered Bellwater mostly as three days of rain, bad boots, and a wyrm that smelled worse dead than alive.

“Tabitha put the killing shot into this one,” he said.

The boy turned toward her at once.

Tabitha shot Henry an annoyed look as half the children changed direction and crowded around her instead.

“That was deliberate.”

“Yes.”

The village elder met them near the well, clasped Henry’s hand in both of his, thanked him twice, thanked the guild, then thanked him again.

Henry endured it.

The guild’s local agent arrived with the sealed contract and a leather purse. “Full bounty. Plus the recovery bonus for the woodcutters.”

“Divide it three ways,” Henry said.

He signed the completion line. While the man counted coins, Henry noticed a woman standing behind the crowd with two children. She wore black despite the dust. One of the children held her hand. The other had both arms wrapped around her skirt.

Henry had seen the posture before.

“Who?”

The elder followed his gaze. His expression changed.

“Widow of the first man the beast took.”

Henry looked at the purse in his hand.

Tabitha saw it happen. “Henry.”

He ignored her and crossed the road.

The widow stiffened when he approached.

“Ma’am?”

She nodded.

Henry held out most of his share.

She stared at it. “Sir, I can’t—”

“You can.”

“The village already took a collection.”

“Then this will last longer.”

Her eyes filled.

Henry looked away before she could thank him.

When he returned, Tabitha was waiting with her hands on her hips.

“Your left vambrace is split.”

“It still closes.”

“Your shield rim is bent.”

“It still stops teeth.”

“Your shoulder needs rest.”

“That one isn’t equipment.”

“It is the only part of this conversation you seem determined to replace.”

Henry tied the remaining coins into his belt pouch.

“They cannot eat my armor.”

Tabitha stared at him for a moment, then turned to Drenen. “You deal with him.”

“I have been trying for nine years.”

The elder offered them rooms for the night. Good beds, hot food, no charge.

Henry thanked him and declined.

Tabitha waited until they were beyond the last cottage before speaking.

“We could have stayed.”

“We finished the work.”

“That is not the same thing.”

Henry adjusted the strap across his chest. The movement pulled at his shoulder.

“Next guild post is two days east.”

Drenen sighed behind him.

The road narrowed as evening settled into the trees. The country felt familiar in ways Henry could not place. Granite outcrops. Tall black pines. A stream running somewhere below the road.

He had traveled through these hills years ago. Many years.

He might have remembered more if the horses had not started acting strangely.

Tabitha’s mare tossed her head.

Henry slowed.

“What?” she asked.

He raised a hand.

Something moved through the trees to their left.

Not close. Not far enough.

A branch shifted at a height well above his own head.

Henry dismounted.

Drenen looked toward the woods. “Maw?”

“Wrong weight.”

He crouched near the road’s edge.

There was a print in the damp soil. Five toes, claw marks, broad enough that his hand would not cover half of it.

Henry stood.

“Off the road.”

They led the horses into a small clearing bordered by stone on two sides. Better footing. Fewer approaches.

Tabitha nocked an arrow.

Drenen moved behind them.

Henry drew his sword with his right hand. His left shoulder throbbed when he raised the shield.

The woods went still.

Then the thing stepped between the trees, and Henry’s attention narrowed immediately to the details that mattered.

It stood upright and towered over him by nearly two feet, broad enough through the chest to make the surrounding trees seem narrow. Long fur covered its body. Six separate horns swept from its head. Catlike ears rose between them. Its hands ended in dark claws, and when its mouth opened slightly, he caught the gleam of sharp teeth.

Demon, Henry thought, but he had no name for it. No classification. No memory of any bestiary plate that matched what stood before him.

That bothered him more than the claws.

He stepped in front of Tabitha and Drenen.

The creature’s eyes fixed on him.

Henry raised his sword.

For one long moment, neither moved. Then the creature’s expression changed. The tension went out of its face. Its ears lifted. Something warm and startled entered its eyes.

When it spoke, its human speech was accented but clear.

“Henry?”