Zigana sat quiet on her back, listening to both horse and sea. Gitta snorted several times, the sound accompanied by the agitated up and down toss of her head, hard enough to make her bit rings rattle.
The mare’s actions sent a crawling shudder down Zigana’s back. All that snorting was a warning. Why Gitta had been so desperate to reach the shore, especially when she sensed some danger near them, she’d never know, but unlike the mare, Zigana had no wish to stay here. She tried to coax her to turn around, back to the village, but neither whistles nor clicks, heel taps or rein tugs had any effect. Gitta stood her ground as if she’d been transformed into a statue, ears pricked forward, listening for a sound no human ear could detect.
Others might judge her as stupid or mad for staying, but Zigana refused to leave her horse and return home on foot. Not only was Gitta valuable horseflesh, she was Zigana’s sister of the heart, her best friend and sometimes confidante. Still, she didn’t have to accept Gitta’s rebellion with good grace. And there were other ways to coax a stubborn horse away from its desire.
A barefoot walk back to the village in her shift would be cold and uncomfortable. Plus, if someone was out and about in the middle of the night like she was and crossed paths with her, things might become awkward fast. It would certainly stir up gossip—gossip her mother wouldn’t relish in the least.
Zigana slid off Gitta’s back, splashing into cold seawater to her shins. She froze, caught by the deadness that swallowed her senses. Reminiscent of the unpleasant grave dirt smell that abused her nostrils when she ran out to check the barn, this was less an affront to her nose and more an affront to her soul.
The waters she read during the day had been polluted with the remnants of the creature’s presence, bitter and harsh, and threaded with dark memory. Now, it felt viscous, suffocating. Like clotted blood drained from a corpse. Like her dream of Jolen drowning. The surf was always dangerous at night, cloaking fast-swimming hunters with rapacious appetites under its waves. Tonight though, the surf was oddly empty, not only of prey but of predator as well. Except one. One ancient and purposeful. They that hunted in the black were now hunted by it.
She patted Gitta’s neck, the flex of powerful equine muscle rippling under her palm. Gitta’s swiveling ears suddenly pinned back, and Zigana jumped away as her head began to snake back and forth. She paused to raise her muzzle skyward, upper lip curled back from her teeth. Long breaths surged in and out of her nostrils as she smelled the air.
“What is it, Gitta?” Zigana whispered the words, instinct warning her it was best to stay as quiet as possible. Every hair on her nape and arms stood at attention. Somewhere in the surf, the sea spider lurked, silent for now but close. Watching them watch for it.
A spindly shape suddenly erupted out of the water. It skimmed the top of the waves, racing toward the shore. Darkness hid the details, but Zigana still made out long skeletal arms and legs, a bulbous head and an open mouth filled with spiked teeth. From that open maw, a sound to make her skin shiver on her bones poured forth. The dirge—inhuman, old. Starved.
Gitta answered with an angry trumpet of her own and lunged forward in challenge, nearly yanking a stunned Zigana, who still held the reins, off her feet.
The creature trilled another call as it scuttled atop the waves, toward them. Zigana shouted the furious mare’s name above the surf’s dull roar and thrust a shoulder into the solid wall of her chest. “Back, Gitta! Back! Please!” She added a signal whistle to her command, shoving against the resistant horse.
All the skin on her back prickled in warning, and Zigana glanced over her shoulder. Bulging black eyes in a face both piscine and grotesquely human, glistened in the scatter of moonlight as the monster spidered ever closer. She sobbed. They would die, devoured as Solyom had been. She could save herself, leave Gitta to a terrible fate, and run for the safety of the dunes. But she stayed, crying and pushing for all she was worth to move the stubborn mare.
Gitta trumpeted a second time, pawed the water and quickly pivoted. Zigana moved out of the way just in time to keep from being stepped on as the mare trotted back toward the safety of the dunes. Zigana raced after her, feet flying. Behind them, an angry trill sounded, thin and sharp. She didn’t look back, not until she and Gitta were safely in the salt grass. Vipers sometimes nested there, but compared to the thing in the water shrieking for their blood, they were harmless.
Gitta’s stance was no less aggressive now, and she stomped the grass flat with her front hooves, the snake-sway of her neck fast and agitated. Zigana, winded and shaking from residual terror took her eyes off the sea creature long enough to gape at her mare, as angry and challenging as any stallion protecting a herd.
The creature didn’t venture further out of the surf, but its song rose in intensity, a beseeching call that thrummed along Zigana’s nerves and brought tears to her eyes. Sadness overwhelmed her, and she leaned against Gitta.
The moment she did, the despair evaporated, and the song was less of a song and more of a discordant wailing, as harsh on the ears as the earlier shrieks of frustrated rage over prey lost. Zigana blinked, stared at Gitta who stared back with a knowing look from one liquid brown eye, and turned once more to the thing pacing back and forth in the surf, still wailing.
She straightened away from Gitta, and the wail was a song, mournful and lost, stirring up memories from when she learned of her husband’s death to the day she watched Jolen’s wedding carriage roll away from Castle Banat. She was alone. No husband, no sister, no children. Just a wretched widow living in her parents’ house, an unwanted burden.
Gitta nudged her. The wailing returned and the despairing guilt vanished. Zigana gasped at the abruptness of it all and this time made certain she kept a hand on the mare. Whatever sorcery the monster used to coax its prey to commit suicide and virtually walk into its mouth, her horse was unmoved by it, and touching her made Zigana resistant as well.
They waited in the dunes until the creature finally gave up and crawled back toward deeper water, sinking beneath the waves until no hint of its presence remained. Zigana had wanted to run, to heave herself onto Gitta’s back and gallop back to her cottage where she’d crawl into her bed and cower under the blankets until the sun rose. But she couldn’t leave, not while that foul song echoed up and down the beach, bait to lure the unwilling and unwary to their death. She prayed no other villager would suddenly appear on the beach in response to the fatal summons, and her prayers were answered.
Her teeth chattered from both cold and fear, and she hugged the now-calm Gitta for warmth. The horse nickered and nosed her hair with her muzzle. “That is the last time I listen to you, my girl,” Zigana said. “You can kick the entire barn down for all I care. We’re not coming back so you can pick a fight with that thing.”
She led Gitta to a more level part of the beach, where the sand didn’t sink under her feet as it did at the dunes. The mare stayed perfectly still as Zigana put enough distance between them for a running start. She braced her hands on Gitta’s broad back, her momentum enough to spring upward and swing one leg over to seat herself after some squirming and grasping at the horse’s mane. She tucked her nightshift under her legs and captured the dangling reins before thumping Gitta’s side with her heels. “Let’s go home, love.”
Once at the barn, she led Gitta back to her stall. The mare nickered at Voreg, assuring her daughter all was well. Zigana closed the damaged stall door as best she could, cleaned her feet at the well pump and returned to the house. Her parents still slept, a restless sleep that made them twitch and clutch the blankets and mutter. She watched them for a moment before closing their door, certain they suffered nightmares stirred up by the sea spider’s unholy lullaby.
Her room was chilly, but she didn’t return to bed, choosing instead to drag a blanket off the mattress and wrap it around her shoulders, warming herself as she stood vigil at the small window and listened. Silence. Only blessed silence. For now.
* * *
“You’re neverto go near the beach again,” Frishi declared and slammed Zigana’s cup down on the table hard enough to make the contents slosh out puddles onto its surface. Zigana snatched the cup away before the rest ended up in her lap.
“That’s silly, Mama. We live on the coast; I trawl the Gray for our livelihood. I have to go to the beach.”
Odon gazed at her over the rim of his cup with an I-told-you-so look on a face made haggard from bad dreams and fear for his daughter’s life. Frishi had reacted exactly as he’d predicted, even worse when Zigana relayed her previous night’s mishap.
“Odon, tell her she’s forbidden to trawl from now on.” Frishi flapped her apron as she bustled around the table, snatching away the breakfast plates only to drop them in the dry sink with a clatter.
He set down his cup and captured his wife’s hand. “Sit down, beauty.”
Zigana smiled at the endearment, even as Frishi plopped into the chair adjacent to Odon’s with bad grace. Her mother wore the lines of age and hard, daily labor. Gray streaked the braid pinned at the back of her head, and her hands were red and rough. Still, Odon saw her as she had been when they first married—young, lively and beautiful enough to catch Lord Boda’s eye.
