- The Nature of the Beast
He pushed through the last, dense line of pines, the branches slapping sharply against the hardened leather of his jerkin, into a heather-adorned slope. The ground here shifted abruptly from damp, yielding earth to sun-baked granite, forcing a quicker, more deliberate climb. The breeze was noticeably cooler at this height, a high-altitude chill carrying the clean, sharp scent of pine needles and nothing else - no woodsmoke, no trace of human cooking.
The lodge sat silent, almost invisible, among a tight cluster of ancient, twisted pines and grey-green shrubs just ahead. This final stretch was the most dangerous: a short break of open sky that flattened the slope entirely, allowing anyone inside the lodge to clearly see who was approaching from the woods below.
Rurik felt a prickle of exposure on his neck as he traversed the space; it was an advantage when the lodge was assuredly out of use, a mortal peril otherwise. His boots, thick with the mountain mud, made a loud, unnerving crunch on the brittle surface of the slope. He resisted the urge to break into a sprint, forcing himself to move with a measured, predatory caution.
He pushed the door open gently with his boot, but the dry, tortured groan of the old plank door was a single betrayal that seemed to echo in the chamber’s close quiet. Rurik’s heart pounded, a frantic rhythm against the stillness.
The triangle of cold daylight expanded, slicing through the stale air that smelled of damp pine and cold wax, and fell onto the vibrant tumble of red hair that framed Sigrid’s fair skin and serene, slightly serious expression. She was nestled deep in the shaggy, iron-grey wolf fur of her jacket, which was adorned with large, primitive claw- or tooth-like decorations hanging from the front.
The garment gave her the look of a beautiful, formidable predator, a contrast to the chill of the unlit room. Rurik, still damp with sweat under his hide jerkin, had to swallow his discomfort; the smooth skin of her exposed arms, so close to a woman who was not his wife, made the back of his neck prickle.
He shifted his eyes to the rough-hewn table, scarred by knives and years, where a stack of leather-bound, foxed-page tomes lay open, their bulk seeming to press the silence down.
Her light green eyes flashed up at him. Her voice, low and certain, was less a request than a hammer blow to his chest: “You’re here. Sit.”
She indicated the chair opposite. He drew it out, the chair leg scraping against the unpolished flagstones with a shrieking sound that made his teeth ache, an act of defiant carelessness.
It was strange. While he was used to deferring in the village, he wasn’t sure anyone had ever told him what to do before out here in the high, brutal quiet.
Sigrid flipped open the first of the tomes. The leather was supple, the pages of thick, practical parchment.
“What is this?”
“I want you to see if you can find your monster.”
Rurik took the book. He flipped over the pages, his thumb running over the familiar, dry parchment. Each one showed a sketch of a creature - its distinctive features, its tracks, its known habits. Most were variations of the boars, wolves, and mountain cats he had hunted since childhood. His breath hitched in his chest with every turn, a blend of hope and dread.
He kept turning the parchment, his sense of urgency giving way to a mounting certainty.
“Anything?” Sigrid asked, her voice calm.
“No.” Rurik kept turning until the pages ran out and then slammed the cover shut against the table with a frustrated clack. He sat back in the chair, his damp clothes slumping against the rough wood. “So we’ve learned nothing.”
Sigrid let out a mischievous grin, the tension in the room breaking like thin ice. “On the contrary, we’ve learned much.”
She retrieved the book and, with an air of ceremony, replaced it with another. This second tome was larger, bound in dark, age-hardened leather, and smelled faintly of dust and burnt resin.
“Try this one.”
Rurik pulled aside the cover and worked his way through the first few pages. These sketches were not of things he had seen for himself. They were only the feverish, chaotic scribbles of ancient terrors - the inhabitants of fairy tales created to keep curious children from wandering too far from the fire.
He felt a cold, familiar dread settle over him. His fingers worked on their own, the pages whispering under his touch until the parchment suddenly ran out. He looked down, his eyes wide, and then slammed his palm flat on the page with a jarring thud.
The sketch showed a thing with a deer skull mangled together with a bear jaw and a cluster of other bony heads. The flesh was part fur, part bone, and part wood and vine.
“That is it.” Rurik’s voice was a low, ragged rasp, the words choked out with absolute, terrifying certainty.
He looked at the name Lashliche and then at the creature’s simple, stark description: “the horror that stalks the darkest depths of the forest”. It wasn’t much to go on.
“It is a name. But nothing about how to kill it. How does this help?” Rurik asked, the dry, sour taste of his frustration filling his mouth.
Sigrid didn’t answer immediately. She closed the heavy book with a slow, definite thud that made Rurik flinch. “Because it proves something.” She jabbed her finger at the embossed lettering on the tome’s spine, *Terrors of the Wolf Moon*. “This comes out on the Wolf Moon. Not the Hunters’ Moon.”
Involuntarily, Rurik cast one eye to the door, where the daylight spilled in under the crack. There were no intervening shadows of someone passing.
“You heard Morten. Everyone says it’s still the Hunters’ Moon.” Rurik shook his head, the denial a habit.
“They say this because it should take many years to pass from the Hunters’ Moon to the Wolf Moon. But what if something has changed? What if the Wolf Moon has come early and we don’t even know it?” Her light green eyes were intense, demanding that he accept the terrifying premise.
“What makes you so sure?”
“I have seen things. Things that should not happen under the Hunters’ Moon.”
“What things?”
“It does not matter. What does matter is now we have a pattern.” Sigrid leaned forward, her elbows on the table, her breath smelling faintly of wintermint.
“What good does it do? Your father does not believe it. Even if he might be persuaded, Morten would pour honey in his ear to change his mind.”
“You don’t understand them. They are not fools. But they have made a decision that at this time, the truth is something worse than a lie.” The line was spoken with the cold, precise logic of a noble who understood power.
“Why do this?”
“They fear what the other clans will say or do. If they do not believe, my father is thought a fool. This is weakness. If they do believe, they could see our lands as weak and vulnerable, and they will come calling.” She drew her lips into a tight, grim line.
“Then if this is true, why help me? Your father would be right to hide the truth.”
“But they are wrong about what they hide. They think what you saw was an exception.” Sigrid lifted her gaze to the ceiling, a silent rebuke to the mountain and the world. “I know different.”
“Then tell your father. He will listen to you more than me.”
“But I am still only a daughter. What Jarl changes his mind because his daughter says so? What would other Jarls think of that?” Her voice was edged with the bitterness of her limited power.
“So even when he’s wrong, we cannot tell him he is wrong.” The realisation hit Rurik with the weight of his own heavy armour.
“Yes.”
“What can we do?”
“We do not convince him. We convince everyone else. Walk into the hall with proof so strong that a hundred eyes see it.”
Rurik closed his eyes heavily, the scent of dust and resin pungent in his nostrils. “Proof,” he repeated, the single word thick with dread and exhaustion.
“Yes.”
“The creature’s head?”
“What better proof?”
“And how do we kill it to get its head?”
Sigrid finally smiled, a swift, cruel flash of white in the dim room. “That is why I need a hunter.”
“You need a hero from legends for this.”
Sigrid let a smile cross her face. “Maybe for the kill. But we are not ready for that.”
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“I agree.” Rurik’s exhaustion was clear in his voice.
“What I need now is someone who can observe, think, understand the nature of the beast he tracks.”
Rurik prodded the page of the lore book. The parchment felt thin and brittle under his thumb. “But no one knows this.”
“You do. You have seen it. We should start with what you have seen and know.”
Rurik conceded in the face of her clarity. “It is of great size. As tall as a man with another man on his shoulders.”
“Is it cumbersome?”
“No. But it does not chase like a bear.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is hard to outrun a bear because it goes onto four legs and can run as fast as you. But this thing stands upright like a man. I almost outran it with Ainur on my shoulders.”
“Almost?”
“It hit me with its arm.” Rurik winced, instinctively touching the deep bruise beneath his shoulder armour. “Its claws went through leather armour.”
“But not through your skin?”
“No. The bruising is bad but I was spared that.”
“Then we know armour offers at least a little protection from this thing.”
“I would not depend on this.”
“What else?”
“It was cold; so cold that there was mist though it is summer. The air itself felt thick and suffocating with it.”
“You said before it is strong. And you stuck it with two arrows.”
“And they did naught but distract it for a moment.”
“They bounced off or stuck?”
“They stuck but it was like trying to shoot a tree.” Rurik went silent, remembering the dull, shocking thud of the arrow hitting the creature’s unyielding hide. Sigrid nodded and hummed, her eyes focused on the implications.
“This is a lot. You have learned more about this creature than all our legends already.” She stood and stretched her legs, her graceful movement a stark contrast to Rurik’s tense posture. Rurik looked out the window at the flash of pink skin and quickly looked away.
“What of its character? What does it want? What does it fear?”
“I saw no fear. It kills. It killed a deer and it tried to kill us. I think it eats.”
“Why do you think it eats?”
“The way it was with the deer carcass. It was possessive, like a predator.”
Erik the smith listened as Rurik described what he wanted with a mixture of interest and amusement.
“Can you do this?” Rurik checked.
“I can. Can you pay for it?”
“I have some silver.” More accurately Sigrid had as much silver as he could possibly need.
“You know the Jarl has given work to every smith in Highhold. This will take time away from that.”
“You said it. The Jarl is using every smith. He does not depend on you. I do.”
Erik shook his head and smiled. “Not fair, Rurik.” He shrugged. “But Hilda would be very angry with me if I let a bear kill you. It won’t be cheap but I will do this for you.”
“Remember. The metal plates cannot clink. I must make no sound.”
“Yes, Rurik. I know how to make armour for hunters. Go on. Get out of here before I decide your coin is no good.”
“May I use your grindstone?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
Rurik set his axe head to the grindstone and turned the wheel with his foot. The metal gave a long scraping howl and sparks flew from the edge, catching the smell of burnt coal and cold iron. Arrows had not stopped the Lashliche, but flesh, bone, and wood alike all gave way to a keen axe blade if struck with the right force.
He sharpened his blade to an almost invisible edge, then wiped the soot and water from the steel and left the hot, deafening roar of the forge, stepping out onto the rocky, wind-swept path connecting the main settlement clusters.
Next up was Lars, the fletcher. Rurik found his small, timber-framed workshop perched precariously above a white-water river, the sound of the rushing water a ceaseless, natural roar. Lars’s workbench was littered with feathers and thin, clean shavings of spruce. If Erik was sceptical, Lars was halfway to offended by Rurik’s suggestions.
“You want bodkins and you want a hollow shaft? What creature are you hunting? Do you know how arrows work even?”
“I do.”
“It seems you need reminding. If you want a bodkin, it means you need to penetrate armour. You want force and you want it to go deep. But with a hollow shaft you lose the force, the arrow is too light and it will shatter on contact. Everything you gained from the bodkin, you now lose.”
“In fact, I want a pinhole through the arrow head as well.”
This addition made Lars’s shoulders relax, but his eyes narrowed. “Ah, you are making poisoned arrows? A strange move for a hunter.”
“I don’t intend to eat this thing.”
“You seek the bear? A broadhead would be better for a bear.”
“’Tis no normal bear.”
“I suppose I should not question a hunter on this, but I can advise better if I know what I’m doing. Do you want to fill the whole shaft with poison?”
“Something like that.”
“You should know, this will throw off the flight. Your shots will be wild.” Lars held up a shaft, sighting down its length with a professional frown. “You lose all predictability. The slosh of the liquid inside… anything over twenty yards and the motion will change the flight in ways you cannot predict.”
“Twenty yards is plenty.”
Lars exhaled, the sound barely audible over the river’s perpetual thunder. “I wouldn’t want to do what you do.”
“I don’t want to do it either,” Rurik said with a chuckle that held no humour. “But someone must.”
Rurik rolled over in his bed. “It’s time,” he said to Hilda.
Hilda lay still in the pale gloom of the hut. “I will tell the children you went hunting if you are not back before they wake.”
“It is not a lie.”
Rurik left his hut and followed the same path he had taken with Torvin and Ainur before, albeit an hour earlier. Night had yet to give way to the lighter hues that promised the dawn. Moonlight laced through the pine needles. Off the track, where he had seen her that morning, was Sigrid. Rurik stopped at once seeing a full back and rump of pale skin in the silver glow.
She peered over her shoulder and seeing it was him appeared quite unbothered. While Rurik looked at the earth, she reached down and threw on her fur jacket and wrapped a loose cloth around her waist. She then picked up a backpack and placed it carefully under a fallen log.
“What is in there?” Rurik asked. Relieved to have some other focus than her attire.
“My dress, of course.” She laughed lightly. “Do you think I walk around the longhall like this?”
“You would be better off in armour.”
Sigrid smiled as if he had said something funny but did not elaborate as to why. “Where do we go from here?”
“Across the ravine and then head north.”
At the small bridge, Rurik looked down. That rushing water had saved him last time. It could just as easily have dashed him and Ainur to pieces. He did not want to have to rely on it again.
Pre-dawn shades of blue were taking over from the silver of the moon as they pressed through the bracken, drier two days on than it had been then. The deer tracks they had followed had been destroyed by other animals walking over them. It mattered not, Rurik knew where they were going.
The dell by the pool fed by slender waterfalls had changed too. The branch where the deer had been impaled had been wrenched from the tree and now sat broken on the earth.
“This is the place?” Sigrid inquired, seeing him crouch down by the branch. Rurik nodded. “Do you see anything useful?”
“It’s what I can’t see.” He answered, continuing to search the bushes.
“What is that?”
“Any carcass, or bones from that deer. The Lashliche either took it away or…” He faltered.
“Or what?” Sigrid demanded.
“Or it consumed it entirely. Right down to the last fragment of bone. Let’s hope it was the first. If it moved its kill that might leave a trail.”
Rurik knelt down by a piece of squashed bracken. This was not the way he had fled. It hadn’t been caused by him or the Lashliche when it pursued. His hand brushed away dust and twigs and his fingernail scraped the ground, coming up crusted red. “We’re in luck.”
Sigrid followed him, following the trail of smeared gore in turn. Swiftly and certainly as he was able to do this, it occurred to him that it required no great hunting skills. There was nothing remotely subtle about the passage of the carcass through the woodland. Every leaf and passing trunk seemed to be splattered with tell-tale red trails until they dropped into a ravine of red clay-like mud and still brown water. The noise of flies was audible and the stench of decay went straight into their nostrils.
Rurik held up his hand, waving Sigrid back. “Wait.”air
“Is this the lair?”
There was indeed a cave ahead and that was where the smell seemed to be emanating from.
“This is not right.” He cursed himself for letting the thrill of discovery override his evaluation. “The Lashliche is tall and immensely strong. It would not need to drag that deer. It could have carried it in one hand.”
Sigrid looked around. “The air is not cold.”
“I don’t think this is the Lashliche’s lair. We should go.” Rurik advised. Sigrid did not argue. They turned back to the steep bank they had climbed down. Rurik set one foot upon the earthen side when he saw the movement in the muddy pool. A shape, something like a head. “Get back!”
The surface broke and a thing splashed out of it moaning and spitting water and filth. He did not need to see a lore book to recognise this creature - a ghoul. Its human-like form reached towards him with its thick and jagged nails, dripping red clay. Rurik jumped back from its grasp and freed his axe. “Go!” He shouted to Sigrid.
The ghoul lunged forward showing its full frame. Rurik had seen human bodies when they were left to rot. It started from the outside, flesh peeled back until only the bones remained. Ghouls were the opposite.
While the bones deformed and sank inwards, the flesh stayed firm, becoming weathered and swollen and grey. Noses flattened to nothing, ears fell away, eyes shrank behind the swelling lids until they were nothing but dark slits. Where some parts fell away others compensated. Teeth grew large and denser, finger and toenails hardened to claws.
The ghoul attacked, Rurik swung. The axe tore through the flabby flesh and softened bones all the way to its spine, where the blade stuck shaking back to the handle.
Earth burst apart and there was another in his face. Rurik punched it instinctively and then drew his scramasax just in time to stop its gnashing teeth. For a moment, they looked at each other. The ghoul’s yellow eyeballs moving in alarm, the scramasax splitting his face in a sickening smile.
They struggled. Rurik was stronger and he was the one to land on top, pressing his weight onto the scramasax with both hands, forcing it out through the back of the ghoul’s skull. Rurik’s hands were lost in a sea of foul-smelling, black blood. Vomit lurched in his throat. But he could not stop.
There was a scream. A third ghoul burrowed out of the bank of clay Sigrid was trying to climb. She hit the ground with a thud. Rurik was already running but there was nothing he could do to stop the ghoul leaping on top of her. She raised her arm to stop the bite. The teeth sank down onto her arm.
And hit bark.