The Vassal caught his breath for a moment, then took the black hilt into his hand. The red cloth fell away and lay limp in the cabinet as the Sword came to life within his grasp. He held it, and it danced with incredible lightness.
“You can be sure,” the Vassal breathed to Aron, “that no harm will come to those in the town. I’ve often wondered if this day would come again, or if the Baron and his men would take this blade away first. But I have put them off, and the day has come….”
“Maybe it won’t come to the town….” Aron said, not knowing what else to say. Then he remembered that the beast was hungry for him. The beast would come. He nearly cried, looking into the Vassal’s eyes, but those cold green eyes stayed fixed on the blade before them. Unimaginable now was the resignation Aron had seen in those eyes not one day ago.
“Aron,” he said, eyes unmoving. “You stay back here in case we need anything.”
The back room was small and dark and filled by a short thick wood table and wet brown dust. There was just one small window. Aron sat, and suddenly was confined. There was nothing he could do here but play with his hands. His heart told him to rise and do something, or say something to the Vassal, but he stayed seated.
Sounds came from the other room.
“What has happened?” The words were from Takani. Aron heard no response. “So it is true?” Now he heard whispering. “Yes. Yes. Yes….”
Takani slipped quietly into Aron’s room. He shuffled hunching to the tableside, his body small and vulnerable in the dark morning.
“So…” he breathed. There was a long silence as he looked Aron over. “Your friend… I am very sorry, my child.”
Aron remembered Klin. He said nothing.
“The Vassal tells me you have met Nero also.”
Aron nodded mutely.
“For the sake of Aren-Nath, child, tell me, tell me what happened last night, and tell me the whole story.”
Aron was silent for a long moment.
“It came out of a book,” he finally choked.
“A book?”
“He heard us in his house. I was climbing over shelves of his books to get away. One book fell down to the floor and opened. I looked down. It was inside the book….”
“What? The beast?”
“Yes. The book fell open and I saw it on the page.”
“Then it is beast of magic!” Takani flew to his feet. “Vassal! Your riding-beasts! I must have them! I must reach Nero to know what manner of magic we face! If I cannot reach Nero we all are in peril!”
The Vassal stepped to the doorway, nodding slowly. Takani darted around him. The Vassal followed him out. There was whispering, an exchange.
“Send no man with me! By the power of the gods it would do no good! I must ride alone!”
“If your best men can do no good, what can we hope for, what can we hope for?” a woman’s voice which Aron had not heard before cried out.
“Our boy had no chance…” a man sobbed.
Klin’s parents were in the other room.
The Vassal stood silently, facing the wall.
“I am gone! Hold me back no longer!”
Takani fled the room.
Klin’s mother shuffled slowly to the door of Aron’s room. Her eyes were on the verge of tears.
Every able man of the town took a post about the perimeter. Some had brought axes or hoes or rusty heirloom swords forged for ancient wars long forgotten. The Vassal had told them that all these would be useless. If the beast came there would be no stopping it, and they should not even try, unless it got hold of a woman or a child. Then of course the men knew what they would do.
The townsfolk cried as they heard about what Cainy had found in the forest. There were few in the town who had not known Klin.
The men fingered their weapons nervously, resting the fighting ends in the mud and staring down thoughtfully. The older ones remembered the beast of Takani’s song and thought of their friends who had died before Yordenko’s Sword had bitten the hell-beast’s spongy flesh.
They thought of the wounds Yordenko had sustained in that battle, and remembered seeing his young body gashed and burnt, being taken by flatwagon to those who knew the mysteries of Draffut.
Then the men of the town recalled their duty and turned their gazes outward to the forest again. They did not expect it would be over quickly. They could not even know that the beast would come. Aron had told no one for what it hungered. They waited.
“Where is he?”
It was Father’s voice from the other room. Aron jumped and ran to see him, to fly into his arms. He stood tall in the doorway to the Square, his face haggard yet intent. Aron ran and grabbed him.
“But where is Mother?”
Then he saw her coming towards the door. Her strong arms carried Cainy, and the hard determination in her eyes did not soften until they met his own.
A woodsman emerging from the forest heard warning shouts from the watchful men on the town walls. The men crowded him as he came to the gate.
“I saw movement in the woods,” he told them. “That thing you’re looking for… well, it shouldn’t be hard to find….”
Not an hour had passed when the breach was made, just paces from that spot. A young man had seen some motion amongst the trunks of forest trees and called the others around to look.
“There it is! Gods!”
The young man’s father had told him to run and get the Vassal. The young man had watched his father’s gaze turn quietly back towards the vague hulking form which staggered from the trees and towards the town wall. He had seen his father fingering his ancient weapon, but the creature stood the height of two men, its body utterly unnatural, and even the young man knew that no ordinary sword could be enough. He turned and ran.
Aron heard the cries from the far side of town.
In a minute the young man was at the door panting.
“It’s here,” he gasped.
The Vassal looked up and took a step towards the young man at the door. Then he stopped himself and went to Aron.
“It’s not your fault,” he said firmly. The Sword was now on his belt. It hummed and began to sing in a high tone as keen as its edge. It jutted out behind him and bounced against his leg as he strode into the Square.
Aron’s parents said nothing. Perhaps they were awed by the Vassal and his Sword. But Aron wanted to tell them that he knew it was himself the beast was after-that if only he gave his own life right now the town would be saved. He wanted to ask them if he should do it. He wanted to tell them he had just killed the Vassal. He had taken the beast here, led it here, it could smell him, and he had brought it, brought it for the selfish hope that the Vassal could kill it with an easy thrust of his Sword-or the hope that, at least, Aron would not have to face the beast’s jaws alone, in the forest, with no one to die with him or hear him die….
“I have to go,” he said, and broke for the door. Again he had no choice but to keep running away from his mother’s cries.
There was mud, slippery mud, and old men running.
“It’s come, it’s come, it’s over by the Schoolroom….” they cried out to him. One tried to pick him up and carry him in flight, but Aron easily broke free and ran toward the Schoolroom.
Women corralled children through the streets and away from danger. Aaron ran through them and around them.
In the distance stood the Schoolroom. Closer, to the right, the young man who had brought the news to the Vassal knelt by his father, who was fallen and bloody in the mud.
The Sword keened its constant song of fate, and below this Aron heard the earthly sounds of shouting men who waved poles and axes. Aron could see that the beast and the Vassal were about to engage.
The beast caught Aron’s scent on the wind and looked straight up at him, its mouth gaping, its hideous black eyes embedded in dark flesh at the top of its broad head. It took one shuffling step in the direction of its prey. The Vassal circled to cut it off, the delicate Sword dancing in his ready hand.