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He kisses her forehead. “The horde will come. They will consume. They will leave.”
I lean back. “What do you mean, consume?”
“They’re predators.”
My sister and I laugh. We’ve heard the myth a million times, but our father, the king’s historian, has been searching for these creatures for over ten turns, well before anyone ever mentioned them. He kept returning empty-handed, and as punishment, a few turns back, the king chopped off his head.
Now, whenever anyone talks about devastated villages, devoured corpses, and ravenous creatures, they say it’s the horde. But if our father found nothing, despite the threat to his life, they don’t exist.
“There’s no such thing as the horde or predators,” I say.
“I saw them.” He points to his bloodshot blue eye, and I note the crusted blood under his fingernails. “A creature with teeth the size of my fingers, claws, fur, bright red eyes, ripping through my buddy’s guts…and eating.”
“Gross,” Mag says.
The soldier stumbles toward the stairs. “The horde is coming.”
“If they’re coming, why are you still here?” I ask. He’s full of shit.
“Nowhere to run. The king will kill me anyway. I’d rather my family think I died in battle than have them watch my beheading in the square.”
The soldier’s footsteps echo in the now-silent bar. The last patrons, a family with a small boy, throw silvers on the table and rush out the double doors.
“Hey,” Mag shouts as she runs after them. “Hey, come back! He’s crazy. Don’t listen to him.”
“The horde is coming!” the boy yells, and with that, the refugees passing on the road before the inn scramble. Screaming and yelling ensues as people start trampling one another, surging toward the road that leads to the bridge.
Mag waves her arms. “Stop, stop! There is no horde. It’s just people like us playing dress-up.”
Grabbing the tray, I start clearing the table, knowing Mag can’t stop the madness. The word “horde” throws people into a frenzy. That’s because they don’t know the king like we do. Our father told us of the king’s ruthlessness and that the king would protect his land, if not his people. He wouldn’t allow the horde to pillage and seize his land, not after he conquered it with blood and magic.
Besides, the king commands medeisars, creatures of magic nobody can defeat. The predatory horde, even if they weren’t a myth (and they are) are no match for those creatures or for the king, who is said to be able to kill thousands with a single sweep of his hand. Father has seen it, and so I believe it.
Despite the danger to his life, my father couldn’t find the horde.
They don’t exist.
“They’re a myth,” I say out loud into an empty tavern.
Mag returns, grabs a bottle of our cheapest whiskey, and sits at the bar. She pours a pair of shooters.
We down them, then slam the glasses on the bar top. Whiskey burns down my throat, and I chase it with water.
“Let’s clean up,” Mag says and starts unraveling her messy braid. “You wake up early and peel the potatoes, and I’ll cook breakfast.”
“For our one guest?”
She smiles. “And us.”
I smile back. “And us.”
She presses a warm callused palm over my cheek and pecks my nose. “Me and you, sister,” she says. “We keep going no matter what. Right?”
“Right.”
“The horde is a myth,” she says.
“The horde is a myth. The monsters are a myth,” I repeat. No, really, they are.
