Page 66 of The Sun He Buried

One guard turns the body beside the road with his boot.

“Rogues,” he says.

Baldr crouches beside a dark shape near the wagon.

At first I think it’s a piece of fur thrown from the driver’s bench. Then I see the tail.

It’s long and thick, with a knob of pale bone at the end. Spikes circle the bone. Four curved horns lie against the road, two broken near their tips. The animal’s fur is deep blue along its back and brightens to blue-green at its belly. Blood has dried through most of it.

The body is no bigger than the hall cat.

The broken wagon says size didn’t matter.

Asta moves closer to the window. “What is that?”

Baldr hears her.

He turns so quickly that both guards nearest him raise their weapons.

“Close the curtain.”

“Baldr—”

“Now, Sól.”

His voice is tight enough that Asta’s hand stops on the curtain.

One guard says it anyway.

“Sanguir.”

Every story I heard as a child had them larger. Monsters generally grow in the telling. Their horns split mountains. Their claws opened armor. They lived in the black center of Náströnd and dropped from trees onto Skorvær throats.

Nobody mentioned round ears.

Baldr stands over the dead animal. He doesn’t touch it.

The driver shifts on his bench. “Road is clear on the left.”

“Take it slowly,” Baldr says. “Keep the horses away from the bodies.”

Asta pulls the curtain toward its hook.

Something white moves beneath the dead Sanguir’s tail.

“Stop!”

The carriage isn’t moving.

I yell it again anyway.

Baldr looks at me.

“There.”

I point through the window. A scrap of white fur disappears behind the blue body.

“There’s something under it.”