The Beast Sinister - Part #2
Gerald Ryan
Issue #3 (May 2008)
Enoch’s horse snorted and bucked, moving away from the shadowed side of the lane.
“Hold, Nightwind! My poor head can’t take this commotion.”
A rustling in the trees and bushes caught my ear. I turned Little Moon back toward the sound and we stopped at the edge of the road to peer into the gray shadow. Little Moon’s nostrils flared. She backed away in fright. Her eyes rolled and showed white.
“Little Moon! Calm! For Goodman’s sake, calm!”
We pulled hard on the reins to keep them from bolting. I shuddered, unconsciously making the Goodman’s Cross over my breast. I wished I had attended temple services last week.
I smelled it then. The wet stink of matted fur. Enoch and I dismounted and listened. All was unnaturally quiet, except for—something in the tree line.
“There, Liam.”
Enoch pointed to movement to our left and I heard a heavy, shuffling sound. He held our horses while I dismounted and took a step toward the sound. It stopped.
“Who goes there? Who approaches Liam, son of Jeroch? By the Goodman’s Arms, I’ll--”
The brush parted. Taloned hands spread branches. Two cat’s eyed pupils set in a vaguely human head stared at me with the unsettling intelligence of an Oustlander Beast. Coarse brows wrinkled in that hairy face as the head tilted, then nodded in recognition. It rose from its crouch in the brush but did not advance toward me. Around its waist, it wore a torn, black sash. Through animal teeth and palate, the creature half spoke, half growled a greeting.
“Liam, son of Jeroch.”
It knew me.
I peered through the vegetation and saw two pendants hanging on its hairy, muscled torso and caught my breath. One pendant was decorated with the crest of the House of Fescher. This was the Beast Sinister, Fescher’s own changeling, dispatched to settle a blood feud.
The Beast nodded to the west toward our estate and then clutched the other pendant in its hand. I looked more closely at the medallion it grasped. It was emblazoned with the same crest as the pendant I wore about my own neck. From behind me, I heard Enoch swallow audibly.
Alarm bells rang from the Keep. At the sound, The Beast bowed to me and disappeared into the tree line. I listened to the sound of his departure through the bush and raised my eyes in the direction of its retreat, toward the spires of Count Fescher’s Castle set high in the Sacred Mountains. I did not move for several moments. Enoch shook me.
“Liam. We must hurry to the Keep.”
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