Page 135 of A Touch of Poison
I waited. I saw nothing.
I crept out.
Saddles and tack littered the floor. It hadn’t been torn apart, but the leather had gone pale and dry, and when I nudged a harness with my toe, it disintegrated.
I picked my way through the debris in silence. Even the steel tips of the hunting spears were dull and grey like lumps of ore, rather than the polished steel they’d been when I arrived. They didn’t flake apart with a touch, but I tested one under my foot and it crumbled like charcoal.
Then I realised.
No magic vibrated against my skin.
The Horror had fed on every enchanted object here. Did that make it stronger? More dangerous?
Bastian had told me they’d been used as weapons in the war, but I hadn’t asked for specifics, especially not when he’d been in such distress from his father’smemories.
I edged out of the shelter and…
Every part of me froze.
There was no sign of the Horror, no, but I stood in the midst of its aftermath.
Blood pooled across every inch of the yard. Entrails, legs, antlered heads—they lay strewn over the ground. Bodies sat in the doorways of their stables, like they’d been dragged out and torn open.
I couldn’t do anything more than stare, but as I did, I realised… nothing was missing. The Horror hadn’t killed these stags and hinds to eat them. And their remains weren’t sucked dry as the saddles had been. It hadn’t fed on their magic.
It had just… torn them apart. For fun? Out of anger at being unable to find me?
Was this my fault?
My legs wobbled and I fell to a crouch, covering my mouth to try and hold in my gasping breaths. A dozen deer. Gone because I’d led that monster here.
“I’m sorry.” It came out again and again, then I threw up as the full stench of death and blood and the Horror filled my throat and somehow made this all the more real.
I vomited until there was nothing left but to spit bitter bile on the ground.
Emptiness felt better.
Numb and no longer trembling, I pulled myself upright. In the cupboard, I found some leather scraps and used one to tie my hair back. I deposited my cloak inside, remembering how it had interfered with my draw.
Clear water sat in a trough at the far end of the yard, untainted by deer blood. I rinsed out my mouth and washed the sweat from my face. As the ripples stilled, I caught my reflection staring back at me.
Afraid and yet determined. Practical. Ready.
Was this who I was?
I touched the surface and let her dissolve into ripples.
Squeezing my bow, I straightened. By Horror, crowd, or poison, I was not dying today.
Overhead, the sun began its descent to its early solstice evening.
51
Bastian
Nine. That was how many Horrors had entered the city.
It had taken us what felt like a lifetime to fell the first one we’d found, and we’d lost two guards to it.
