But even as she said it, she realized the bowstrings and feather fletchings would be drenched and ineffective in this wet weather. Merseh was normally arid, but now… Some of the herders heeded her call and raised their bows, while others drew their machetes instead. But most of them were frozen in place, trembling on their mounts.
Yuma made Falco slowly back away as she loaded the crossbow again. Calmly aiming for the monster’s milky eyes on its darting snake-like head, she pulled the trigger and hit one of its eyes.
But the monster gave no indication of having been injured. Instead, its remaining three eyes fixed on Yuma, and getting down on its winged front legs, it crawled toward her. Fast. It was at a speed that Falco could not simply back away from—Yuma turned Falco’s head in the opposite direction and spurred him on as she turned and pulled the lever on her crossbow to load it.
Despite Falco’s speed, the slithery tongue of the monster was still close enough to touch. She pulled the trigger and the fourth bolt hit it in the middle of its forehead. But the Grim King’s monster did not stop. Her heart fell to her stomach and the rain roared in her ears. Letting out a hoarse wail, the monster reared up and threw itself upon Yuma and Falco.
Yuma jumped off the horse just in time, rolling on the ground and looking up to see the monster’s teeth biting into Falco’s neck. Her crossbow landed a few steps away, and her machete was still at Falco’s side, attached to the saddle. The monster whipped its head and blood spurted from Falco like a fountain, the horse’s legs jerking pitifully. Falco and Yuma met eyes as lightning brightened the sky. She had been with him since he was born, fed him herself when his mother died soon after giving birth. The monster, as if admiring its handiwork, stared down at the dying horse. Falco ceased all movement.
The thick veil of rain obscured the other herders from her view, but it was clear enough that no one was coming to help her. The monster turned from the horse to Yuma. Its lolling blue tongue was now lying, still thrashing, at its feet—this monster had bitten off its own tongue in its frenzy to maul Falco.
Meeting its eyes, Yuma slowly got to her feet. She had noweapons, not even her hat, which was still hanging from Falco’s saddle alongside her machete. She swept back the stray hairs that fell over her eyes and quickly tied up her braid into a firm bun. The monster tilted its head once before approaching her slowly. There was nowhere to hide on this field, and no human on their own two legs could outrun this monster. Yuma carefully found a hard piece of earth to stand on in the pooling rain and straightened her back to her full height.
The enemy might be the size of an orox, but Yuma had learned how to handle oroxen from a young age. If she could get on this monster’s back and grab its neck, she might have a chance of bringing it to heel.
The monster walked to her, its claws scraping the ground. That stench again. She glimpsed the root of its severed tongue in its mouth, black blood oozing from the wound and dripping off its chin. Yuma ignored this horrifying sight and instead concentrated on the monster’s mouth and neck. The monster’s stride grew faster. It was like a wolf that had been cautious at first but couldn’t resist the smell of meat any longer.
The monster’s teeth-filled maw came at her like an arrow. Yuma swerved to the right and grabbed the monster’s neck using her left arm like a snare. Without a second thought, she jumped and mounted the shoulders of the monster. The monster almost stumbled when her full weight landed on it, and its scream slammed against her eardrums.
The Grim King’s monster reared its head to try to shake her loose, but instead lost its balance and fell to the side. Yuma’s right hand hit the ground in an effort to break her fall, but the weightof the monster made it pointless. Mud splattered everywhere. She almost lost consciousness, not to mention her hold on the monster’s neck, as pain ripped through her whole body.
The monster’s claws tried to reach her, but only the vestigial ones on the edge of its wings scratched a little at her cheek and tough leather clothes. She added her right arm around its neck and squeezed with all her might.
The monster rolled on the ground. Mud entered her nose and eyes. It smelled of dead flesh everywhere. But Yuma did not stop strangling the monster. She straightened her back and heard a dull crack, and the monster’s neck went limp.
Was its neck broken? Perhaps. And yet the monster, its neck hanging like an old rope, stood back up. It wasn’t a living beast after all—just a carcass reanimated by the false life bestowed by the Grim King. It suddenly leaped into the air with Yuma still on its back. The dead stench hit Yuma’s face with every flap of the wings, and she squeezed the monster’s neck tighter. Not to kill, this time, but to keep herself from falling.
The monster flew slowly into the air, its head hanging on its broken neck. The ground grew farther away. There were bolts embedded in one eye and the forehead of the monster, but the remaining three eyes were still open—did it even see with those empty milky eyes? Yuma looked down to see Falco’s carcass far below as well as the herders with their machetes drawn, rushing to her aid too late. A few pointed in the air and shouted. Her eyesight blurred, and her fingers grew weak.
But so did the wings of the monster. Yuma hugged the undead beast’s neck tight and closed her eyes as she and the monster crashed to the ground. A shock, incomparably greater than thelast, thudded through her, making her lose her grip and bounce off the monster before rolling to a stop. Something burst inside her. How much better it would have been if she’d lost consciousness…
The herders surrounded the monster but did not dare approach it further. Two of them galloped toward her on their horses.
Yuma, trying not to seem injured, stood up as gracefully as she could. Then, slowly but steadily, she walked to where Falco lay and closed his big eyes before she unhooked the hat from the saddle, placed it on her head, and drew her machete from its sheath.
The monster flailed on the ground. Once upon a time, it might have been a formidable predator in a faraway land, flying free in the sky in search of prey. But now it was sending up its rotting stench on the steppe, dying a second death. With its remaining three cloudy eyes, it stared at Yuma as she walked up to it. Holding her machete with both hands, she struck down on its neck. Again. And again.
The head was finally lopped off, and the monster was no more.
She wanted to collapse there and then, but the other herders were watching. Piercing the ground with her blade, she leaned on it as she slowly sat down on the ground. Black, bloody lumps oozed from the neck of the monster. Its stench no longer registered in her mind.
“Chief…”
A herder had come down from his horse, and all the others followed his lead. They approached, slowly. Ashamed.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
Her whole body ached, but she tried not to show it. They had a long time before the herding would be over for that year, andthe job was difficult enough without having to contend with low morale. Aidan, whom Yuma had noted missing until this moment, was now present, his scarred face as somber as ever.
She said, “What of the kitchen carriage? And the Host?”
“Safe. The oroxen are also calm.”
“And Jed?” The memory of him struggling to breathe flashed through her mind.
“Dead.”
The rain abated. The clouds overhead thinned, and the light of the early evening slowly returned. Maybe it had been the monster that had turned the sky to darkness.
