The bruise on my cheek swelled awfully today, making it hard for to speak, despite all my efforts to put cool stones to it. The inside of my lips stung, too, and the back of my head felt like there was another head growing out of it. At least I could still see from both eyes. Small blessings.
My stomach gnawed at , reminding that the only thing I ate since yesterday morning was a couple of apples an old matron gave to out of pity. I didn't like to accept handouts, but I was too hungry, and I knew I would need my strength for the monster.
'I am ready. I am ready. I am ready.'
The thought, the prayer, felt like a lie on my tongue. I wasn't ready, and every minute the monster didn't appear made the tension in my muscles feel even worse. The sun was high by now. What if the monster didn't co at all? What if I was wrong?
It would be good, but at the sa ti, I irrationally wanted for sothing to happen just so I could stop waiting. Never before the day felt so long.
Even the goats looked tense. We grazed on another adow today, but even so, they often stopped their chewing of the grass to look around, their nostrils fluttering to catch scents of the predators. They also looked out for the monster.
My eyes grew tired from peering into the grass, but I didn't dare to even blink too much. The monster was fast, and easy to miss amongst the greenery. I had to be vigilant, but it was hard. There were so many distractions.
There! A movent in the grass. Was it wind, or was it the monster, crawling stealthily towards my father's goats? I picked up a stone from a pile I prepared this morning and threw it into the disturbance, but nothing happened.
A false alarm, then. I relaxed gradually, and it was in that mont, that a wind blew from another side, parting the grass. Through the opened curtain of it, I saw the monster, holding a stone I threw in my hand, and our eyes t.
It saw too.
Before I could even scream, the monster threw the stone at . With a panicked cry, I dodged, already hearing the thunderous beating of the monster's wings. I picked another stone and looked up again just in ti to see the monster grasping one of the panicked goats by its haunches.
"Go away, monster!" I shouted, throwing the stone and forgetting all about my split lip and my swollen cheek. My blood roared in my ears almost louder than the monster's wings.
The stone flew at the monster, hitting it in the shoulder. It hissed, and with deliberate motion, pierced the goat's neck with sothing that looked like a spike growing out of the monster's wrist. The goat let out one last bleat and fell, convulsing.
Then the monster stood straight on the ground, turned towards and bared its sharp, sharp teeth.
I froze with another stone in my hand. I already failed to protect my goats. Three had run away, and one died, and this all was the monster's fault! A surge of bitter rage made move again, just as the monster did the sa.
This ti, my stone landed right in the monster's chest. It staggered just several steps away from . It was close enough that I noticed it wore a rough loincloth with a rope belt and had a dagger—but the spike on its wrist looked much deadlier.
It looked exactly like the descriptions of kobolds that I've heard of: a child-sized human-lizard, except that one had wings, and I've never heard anyone ntion spikes. It was no kobold, at least no normal kobold, and my stones couldn't do more than make it angrier.
It certainly looked furious right now. At the sa ti, my fury disappeared, replaced by a surge of blood-chilling fear and mind-erasing panic.
"No!" I shouted and, without even a thought about trying to pick up and throw another stone, ran away. "Help! Help!"
"Hector? What's going on?" soone shouted from a nearby hill.
I was so close to the village, I could see it from here. I just had to run a little. Every step I waited to hear the thunderous beating co from behind , but I didn't dare to look over my shoulder. I just ran and ran, feeling like I was flying myself, and stopped only when I reached a group of won next to a stream.
Heaps of linens lied around—it was a washing day today, wasn't it?—but I was much more interested in the won themselves, and the way they held their cloth-beating sticks like clubs. Only with a calmness that their support gave did I dare to look behind .
There was no trace of the monster. No one to beat. Except for .
⠀⠀
"You shouldn't have left Hector to look after your animals all on his own," Magda, the headman's wife, berated my father. "What do you expect from the boy, that he would beat the monster with his bare hands? It's pure luck that the monster didn't eat the boy himself! Stop blaming him for the death of your wife, stop drinking and remarry, after all! You could've made a fortune on woodworking if you actually worked a day in your life, but you just cling to your goats. Hah!"
"Don't talk to about what I should and shouldn't do. There's no monster! The lazy gnat just keep losing the goats and finds up sothing to throw the bla on. Don't you trust his tales. I don't want to hear another word from you," my father spat and threw the door closed right before Magda's nose. Then he turned to .
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