Osmund wasn’t thinking thoughts like, “What is a wyrm doing out in the forest?”
He also wasn’t thinking about the creature’s terrible smell, which was impressive, because if he hadn’t become a puppet in that moment commandeered by sheer terror, the stench alone would have knocked him flat on his ass.
He felt a rough pressure against his shoulder; Cemil, giving him a hard shove. “Move!” he heard, and amazingly, Osmund found the strength to obey. He scattered off the stone and over to the tree line, expecting every second that some terrible force would come crunching down on his bones.
Anaya and Banou were shrieking with fear and dismay, their hooves flailing into the air. Osmund made it to their side and quickly freed them, experience barely outmaneuvering his panic. He was strewn half across the saddle when he finally realized Cemil wasn’t with them.
Osmund wrenched his neck around so fast it hurt. Cemil was ankle-deep in the creek and his fiery sword was flashing. He was battling the creature!
No, more accurate to say he was holding it off. The flightless reptile was taller than any horse, and its long body seemed to stretch out in every direction. It had a wide flat face with rows of teeth that glinted with every gnash of its jaws, and dull, pale eyes which it aimed solely with the motions of its head. It flung its whiplike tail at Cemil mercilessly, but seemed afraid of the enchanted sword’s deadly red arc. Everywhere the blade flashed, a trail of searing fire lingered.
“Head back to the mansion!” Cemil roared at him without turning to look. “I’ll follow!” But Osmund couldn’t go even if he’d wanted to abandon Cemil to his fate. Banou was having none of it! She was still kicking and rearing, losing her mind.
Does he really think he can win against that creature?! Osmund thought desperately. Cemil might have been waiting for an opening to flee, but the wyrm wasn’t giving him an inch. They were locked in a deadly dance, but Cemil had a massive size disadvantage. One wrong move and the outcome would be decided in a heartbeat.
Osmund made a bold, desperate, crazy choice. He vaulted straight off of Banou and landed on Anaya’s back!
The massive black horse whinnied and bucked angrily, trying to throw him. Osmund barely managed to avoid being ejected from the saddle. (A lucky thing, or he might well have broken his neck!) With all his strength he managed to get both his legs around her immense frame, grasping the reins with bravery he did not feel. “Go!” he exclaimed in Meskato, and incredibly, Anaya went.
It was a gamble. He might be getting Cemil killed. As they approached the battle in a blazing gallop he cried, “Your left!”
Thank heavens Cemil understood. He angled his head back the slightest amount, enough to know when to jump. And when Anaya went blazing past, Cemil latched onto her side, evading jaws that would have crumpled his ribs like a melon.
Osmund swung around in the saddle to try and pull Cemil up behind him. For his part, the Meskato prince seemed to be powered by sheer adrenaline, wrangling himself aboard with superhuman strength after barely a few moments of struggle. “We have to kill it!” Cemil cried in his ear.
“What?!”
“There’s a village nearby. A wyrm this size would bring it to ruin!”
Sure, that was a compelling argument on paper! But between them they had one capable fighter and a very angry horse. “How?!” Osmund demanded in terror. He cast a glance behind them and saw the horrifying sight of the wyrm starting to galumph after them, its stubby lizardlike legs surprisingly swift. “There’s no way to get close!” Even a giant like Anaya would be thrown aside if she was struck by the creature’s flailing body!
“Just keep riding!” Cemil yelled in his ear. Then his arm came into Osmund’s view. “There!”
He was pointing to a wide clearing way up ahead. There was no cover for them that Osmund could see; the creature would have full reign to throw its weight around. “We should head for the trees!” Osmund cried back. “They’ll slow it down!”
But the Meskato prince only pointed more insistently. “The clearing,” he repeated. “That’s an order!”
For one brief, thrilling moment Osmund considered disobeying. He couldn’t see how Cemil’s command would amount to anything other than suicide. But, that was the thing about real princes: they inspired faith. And so, Osmund decided to have blind, dizzying, terrifying faith in him, spurring Anaya right into the clearing where they’d be vulnerable. He only prayed with all his might that they weren’t moments away from an inevitable end.
Cemil did something unexpected then. He swung one leg so that he was hanging off Anaya, and then dropped, landing to face down the monster, which would be upon him in seconds, its thundering footsteps echoing terribly throughout the hilltops as it charged. Osmund cried out, incredulous. But Cemil didn’t seem to be here just to make a meal of himself.
He whipped out the fiery sword again, this time bringing the blade slowly through the empty space in wide, deliberate movements, leaving afterimages of glowing embers in its wake. Almost as if he were writing in midair, Osmund thought, unable to look away from his place on Anaya’s back. He urged the black horse to bank left towards the trees, for the benefit of cover and so that they wouldn’t lose sight of Cemil.
Something great and terrible was happening. Whatever Cemil was doing with these gestures, it was causing the sword to glow brighter and brighter until it burned red, so bright Osmund would see it when he closed his eyelids. With captivated fear, he watched the peculiar happening all around them. The trees all swayed to the side with great creaking groans, the treetops all seeming to gravitate towards the center of the clearing, towards Cemil. It was as if a powerful force – not quite wind, but something else – were sucking everything in. Even the sky had seemed to turn grey, like the sword were drinking away the sunlight itself.
Then, there was a cracking sound so loud and sharp that Osmund thought his eardrums had popped. The sword swung towards the approaching wyrm, who was so close now that Cemil looked like a certain goner, but it wasn’t the blade itself that made contact.
Some kind of – force emanated outwards from the sword’s edge. Osmund only caught a glimpse of it, red and swift, before it entered the wyrm. But the beast had too much momentum. Its immense form made contact with Cemil at last, and there was no Meskato prince to see anymore.
Osmund made a wretched sound from his throat. He was utterly sure in that moment that he’d just watched Cemil die. The wyrm itself no longer moved by its own power: its legs dangled uselessly as its body carved a path of destruction in the shallow pond, and after that it didn’t move anymore. The eerie stillness of the grove crept back in, and then at last, the sounds of insects and birdsong.
He wasn’t aware of what he was doing. Osmund dismounted Anaya and raced on his shaky, newborn-foal legs towards the fallen wyrm, hoping against hope to find Cemil clinging to life, somehow not completely crushed. Osmund couldn’t do anything to help if he found him – he wasn’t a healer, after all – except try and get him back to the mansion where others could intervene. How, oh how had this all gone so wrong?!
But to Osmund’s amazement, out from somewhere in the strange wreckage of the creature’s body came a human figure stepping towards him. A very unmistakable, eerily calm human figure. Cemil. He was alive. He was splattered with pinks and reds and other gory matter of sickening hues but he was alive and somehow – miraculously, impossibly – he was unharmed. The sword, its glow fading fast, was still clenched tightly in his hand. With sickening turmoil in his gut, Osmund thought it looked like it had become a part of his body, bloodied metal melded to flesh and bone - but it was only a passing trick. Only his own mind, trying to comprehend the unspeakable scene.
Now that Osmund looked, he saw from this vantage point what he’d missed on the edges of the clearing. From the sides, the wyrm’s body looked intact, but when viewed from head-on he could see it was in strips. He stared emptily at the carnage. Some of its strange, grey-black insides were somehow still pulsing, and for the first time, he truly registered the stench. It was like nothing he had words to describe, and his brain at last gave up on trying to make sense of it.
Osmund bent at the waist and immediately lost both the jerky and his carefully-chewed breakfast.
He retched until his heaving lungs ached terribly. The smell was debilitating, and he couldn’t get the images out of his mind either. Cemil had not spoken. He hadn’t even moved. Only his deep, heavy breaths marked his existence, and they shared space in Osmund’s head with his own heart, thudding in his ears.
At great effort, Osmund righted himself. He stumbled towards the Meskato prince, who might’ve been a grotesque statue. “How…? Cemil! Are you, are you alright? Please answer me!”
Cemil’s pupils flicked to him briefly. He blinked. Then there was a motion. It might’ve been called a nod. Or perhaps his muscles had merely contracted. Osmund reached out as if to steady him, but his hand wavered before the dreadfulness of the other man’s clothes. “I’ll get Anaya,” he stammered instead, and went to fetch the horse.
For the first time since he’d started work at the mansion, he had to help Cemil into the saddle. The Meskato prince’s movements seemed strangely uncoordinated, his eyes hazy in a way that made Osmund feel sick again with fear. He kept his mind carefully blank as he handled Cemil’s weight and touched his polluted garments. It didn’t even occur to him to be shy about it; it was all he could do to stamp down on his reflex to vomit again.
“We should go back for Banou,” Osmund urged once they had both settled into the saddle. He felt a flare of horrible guilt for leaving the sweet chestnut mare terrified all by herself. “What if there are more of these… things out here? What if she’s hurt herself and we can’t find her?!”
“No time,” Cemil spoke at last. His voice sounded… strange. “Have to get back.”
Osmund flinched, his heart racing. “Can you ride?” he asked Cemil.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll go look for her! You go ahead— I’ll follow when I find her.”
Cemil’s tone was raw and sharp, unmoderated by his usual gentleness. “She could be gone. I can’t let you do that, it’s too dangerous.”
“She’s such a good horse,” Osmund pleaded, arguing for some reason even though Cemil’s tone had left no room for disagreement. He felt witless with anxiety. “Please. She deserves to have someone go back for her. I don’t want to just leave her. Please!”
Cemil
cursed in Meskato, and Osmund knew he was being a terrible, awful pain.
“Alright,” Cemil barked finally. “Let’s find Banou. Hurry.”
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