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“How about we focus on the situation at hand?” Charles rolled his eyes at me. “And we save worrying about when and what comes after for, you know, afterward?”
Heat flooded my cheeks. He was absolutely right. They needed to concentrate, and I intentionally distracted them from focusing on the monster at hand. Fully shamed, I looked down at the ground. I swallowed hard before I managed to say, “Sure.”
“Okay, if there’s nothing else?” Truett nodded his head toward the road. I wondered if they traveled the kingdom so frequently they just knew the way to get everywhere, or did he only have a sense of general direction? I sighed, as it just meant yet another question I wouldn’t be asking. It wasn’t like they wanted to get to know me, so I shouldn’t try to get to know them.
But really, it was a fascinating query. How much did they know about everywhere? Did they stop everywhere? Did they find cabins in every city-state? What if they didn’t have a place to stay? Did they always carry tents? I currently carried a tent, not wanting to share theirs.
“Hey,” Oliver got my attention. “Where is your head right now?”
I glanced up, realizing we arrived. “I, ah…A great deal of the time, I’m not in the here and now. I think all kinds of things and drift off on tangents. Only in my own head, though, so don’t worry. You’ll never have to listen to them. I don’t bore others.”
I saw them begin to dismount, so I slid off my own horse, then led it toward where they allowed theirs to graze. My horse seemed to like theirs, which was nice. I smiled to myself, remembering how Jayne once said my horse was snooty and only liked me. With my unwanted husbands’ horses, my mare seemed to have transformed into a social butterfly.
Maybe she just didn’t like Jayne’s horse.
Frederick stood next to me, also watching the horses. I didn’t believe he liked me any more than the others did. While doped up on whatever he smoked that night, he seemed more than willing to blast me alongside his fellow Warriors. Still, he seemed more attentive to me than the others were, which made me wonder if he got assigned the position by his friends or if he chose to be the one stuck following me around.
I turned to him. “How will you kill it?” I wished my visions showed me more than the location of the impending battle.
“Mothmen have to be burned, which they’re abundantly aware of when we fight them. They’re smarter than the flying beasts you saw at the manor. This creature will fight back, and it can seriously wound or kill us if we’re not smart about it. Even if it just nicks us, the pain is so extreme, people sometimes die from otherwise minor wounds.” He rocked back on his feet. “But that’s never happened to us. We’re good at this.”
Interesting. “How will you burn it?”
He pulled a device off his back which looked like a portable torch. “If we rub this hard against the ground, it lights up for a bit. Works well enough to burn him, anyway. Are you hungry?”
“No. Not at all. Thank you.” I shook my head. “I rarely eat in the middle of the day.
Charles turned from digging in his bag to look at me. “You don’t need to stop to be fed at noon each day?”
What a ridiculous notion. “No.”
Frederick leaned against a tree. “The daughters of the Baron in my city-state didn’t know what was going on with my family or particularly care either way. The Baron took a moderate interest, enough to make sure we paid our share of taxes, but I don’t remember them knowing anything else about us or our lives.”
I could ask him where he grew up and the name of the Baron, but it was unlikely I would know them anyway. I didn’t really know anyone outside of our region. “I think that would be sad. I like to know who I live near, and if I can be of service. I like to do that, too. Should I ever be in need, I hope they would turn up for me. They were all terribly upset when they thought I didn’t match at Hawkseye. You guys must be very confusing for them.”
He outright smiled. “We got some strange looks. And your sister? Is she the same?”
“Jayne is shy, but she is more focused than me, and honestly she is a gem of the world. Your son and his group are lucky to have her. She’s the most amazing woman I know, outside of Mama.”
He didn’t answer me. Instead, his gaze went upward then they all moved seemingly at once. Only then did I see it—the mothman. Oh boy. I thought I knew what to expect, since I saw the monster beforehand, but I wasn’t prepared. In the distance, the people on horseback approached who would’ve been attacked, if we weren’t here about to waylay their fate.
Other than the flying beasts and the green creature, I’d never seen monsters in person before, but the thing before me somehow seemed utterly different.
“Stay here,” Frederick told me as he stepped away. “This will hopefully be over quickly.”
They came together around Truett. The mothman got closer but they didn’t seem particularly worried about it. I recognized their technique from when they fought the flying beasts. Okay, I thought, taking a few slow breaths to calm my bouncing pulse. If they intend to be blasé about this and not rush, then I will do the same. I sat down below the tree. I would just wait. Is this how Carissa has spent her whole life? I imagined her sitting under trees and on hills while her husbands talked in a circle and ignored the fact that monsters were about to attack. No wonder she looked so lonely.
I picked up a stick and started poking the ground hard. I made an S in the dirt and looked back at the sky. The monster approached, and at least the guys were moving. The mothman saw them and circled them instead of the people with horses who would have died. I leaned toward the fight, completely engaged in watching it play out..
Although the Warriors wore bows, arrows, and torches on their backs, they weren’t using them yet. Instead, they walked calmly toward the mothman as if they were approaching a goat in a field or the chickens in our coop. What are they doing? In the face of this mess, I would probably not be as composed as they were. Of course, if they lost, I could be dealing with things myself. What percentage of Warriors’ wives died when their husbands fell? Is there a guidebook I can read?
The flying nightmare circled them, yes, but it didn’t seem to be trying to immediately harm them. In fact, it almost looked like it was... playing with them? Was this some kind of torment? Or to see if he wanted to kill and eat them? Why hadn’t I read more about them before we left the house? Did our lending library have books on this subject? I might find some and put them there, if we didn’t, lest some future daughter find herself in our situation.
As it got closer, I could see the mothman wasn’t like any creature I had ever seen. Its enormous wings spanned ten feet in each direction. Its black, shimmering feathers swirled with colors in the sunlight with as many magical rainbows as oil on water. My visions hadn’t done the monster justice. He was really fucking scary.
And then he dove. Right at Oliver, who quickly stepped out of the way, pulling out his sword and slashing at it. He must have hit the wing, but still the creature took back to the sky. They had to be burned. Did they have to be brought down first?
I got to my feet. This sort of event shouldn’t take place while I sat and watched. This wasn’t a theater show.
