“No.” Fillion shook his head. After a moment, he turned to Aeron and said, “Val was only eighteen. Not very much older than me, or you.” He paused and smiled. “Everyone liked him. We all called him Val. He had freckles, you know? Like the gods had smacked him on the nose with a paintbrush. And we all made fun of him for it. I don’t even remember why. But he didn’t mind. In fact, he laughed along with us. He was that type of guy.
“There is a girl he liked, Rua. She’s really pretty. And she liked him. We all knew he was going to ask for her hand.” Fillion looked at the piece of dried grass he had been twirling in his fingers. “He never got the chance.”
Aeron stared at the piece of hay.
“It’s got me thinking, you know? Maybe . . . maybe we shouldn’t waste time. Life can be shorter than you expect. If there is something you really enjoy doing, or someone you really care about . . .” He threw the bit of hay and said, “Well, we just shouldn’t waste time.”
Aeron nodded to himself and looked back up at the beam of light. The dust mote was gone. Had he been wasting time?
The sound of Anaya’s powerful wings broke the silence.
I am here.
On my way, Aeron said.
Fillion looked at the large barn doors. “If my life does get cut short, at least I will have been able to see a dragon, right?”
“There is that,” Aeron agreed.
He stood up and slowly made his way to the doors, thinking again on Fillion’s words. He had never really thought about things like that before. While it was true that he had decided to be more careful so that he wouldn’t do something stupid, like get himself killed and leave Anaya alone, he had never seriously thought about how an outside force could end his life. He hadn’t wanted to think about it.
How had he been spending his life anyway? Studying magic lately, and taking care of Anaya. Those were worthwhile things, weren’t they? Not only that, he was with the best people in the world. And the idea of someone to share his life with? Well, he had Anaya, and they shared pretty much everything.
He suddenly remembered a girl at Caer Iron that he had had a major crush on, Cella. Whenever she had talked to him, he had gotten a heart-pounding, excited feeling. That feeling, it was different from what he felt with Anaya. Aeron would have to think on that more at some point when he had time.
Having reached the large doors, he slid one of them open and saw Anaya in front of the fenced-in area.
Are you troubled? she asked, looking at him.
No, love. He slid the door closed behind Fillion and headed through the corral. I’m just thinking about stuff. I’m fine. And you? Did you have any trouble finding us?
Not at all. She looked around, her interest drawn by various things about the farmstead.
Aeron walked up to her, hugged her, and patted her on the neck. He noticed that Fillion had stayed back a bit.
“Sh-she’s big,” the young guide stammered, staring at Anaya.
Aeron cocked his head and looked at Anaya critically. “Well, her body is longer than a horse. She’s a little wider than a horse, too, and almost as tall at the shoulder.”
“She’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” Fillion’s eyes darted here and there over Anaya, trying to take her in all at once.
Anaya rumbled happily at the compliment and said, He is . . . nice. This place is nice.
Aeron smiled and stroked her neck. The sound of a door closing drew his attention to the farmhouse. Millinith was walking down the steps while Etran helped Gurt walk along the porch. The brothers stopped at the top of the steps, staring at Anaya.
After retrieving her tools, Millinith looked over to the brothers and asked, “Where did you put the nahual?”
“Oh,” Etran said, “let me get my brother back inside, and I can show you.” He helped Gurt back into the farmhouse and then a few minutes later quickly made his way down the steps. “I dragged it across the road over here. I didn’t want it near us anymore.” He lead them beyond the rough road to a crude mound of snow under a tree.
Millinith pulled out a pair of thin leather gloves and put them on. The gloves were odd, though, as they didn’t appear to have any seams. Aeron didn’t have time to think on them much, because she then squatted next to the mound and carefully removed snow from it until the entire creature was exposed. Its head and upper body were near Millinith, its legs extending toward him. He saw its mouth and again remembered his dream.
“This is perfect,” Millinith said. “You did exactly the right thing placing it in the snow. It looks like it just died.”
Aeron gritted his teeth and squatted next to Millinith, the creatures lower body in front of him. He was not going to let the nightmare keep him from his new task.
“Don’t,” Millinith said, looking at him and putting her hand out between him and the beast, “touch anything.”
He nodded, looking at the ugly creature. That was an instruction he could easily follow. He wrinkled his nose. The thing stank. It was similar to the stench in his dream, but less powerful, thankfully. Even so, he soon had to breathe through his mouth to avoid gagging.
“The stench is horrible,” he said.
Millinith nodded, her nose scrunched up. “It is pretty amazingly bad. This must be the stink people have reported. I can’t believe everyone didn’t describe this as completely terrible.” She cleared the area under her of snow and kneeled next to the creature. “I had not smelled this before. It must fade after a few days. I’m almost sorry I can smell it now.”
She removed various tools and items from two leather carry cases and started her examination. She began by straightening the creature’s limbs. Aeron watched as she struggled to adjust its arms and legs. The body must be somewhat stiff, Aeron realized. Though whether from death or a night spent under a pile of snow, he couldn’t say. After she was satisfied with its position, she grabbed a measure tape and started measuring the thing. But then she stopped, frowning. She glanced at Aeron for a moment and then a smile spread over her face.
“Aeron, if you could grab the notebook and pencil from my satchel, I need you to take notes as I dictate them to you.” She watched him as he dug in her satchel and said, “Things will go much faster this way. I can focus on examining and you can take down my notes.”
Aeron grabbed the items, and after she directed him to where in the notebook she wanted him to write, they began.
“Sulday, Primory 24, 1874,” Millinith began. “Etran and Gurt’s farmstead, near Cotter’s Grove. Examination of nahual corpse.”
Aeron wrote as quickly and as neatly as he could.
“Length from top of skull to chin, nine inches,” Millinith began, before rattling off several more measurements of the beast’s head.
She was done with the head fairly quickly, Aeron studiously writing everything down. She then measured its limbs, hands, feet, fingers and toes, if they could be called that, along with the torso, waist, neck, shoulders and more. She measured everything that could possibly be measured. Eventually, she was finished. She rolled up the measure tape and placed it aside.
She then grabbed the creature’s head in both her hands and rotated it slowly back and forth, examining the gaping wound on top.
“Your brother is quite strong,” she said. “This wound is deep and is definitely what killed the beast.”
Etran nodded, with no small amount of satisfaction.
Millinith carefully stuck a small probe into the opening in the skull and poked around inside. “Brain appears similar to other animals.”
Aeron wrote those words down. She had spoken them using the near-monotone he recognized as her dictating to him.
She grabbed a magnifying lens and turned the head so she could see it in the sunlight. “It is folded, and appears to have the same layers too.” She grabbed a small thin knife and slowly and carefully made a very thin slice of the brain.
“Aeron, open that box,” she pointed to the item in question, “and remove two of the thin glass
plates from it. Be careful, they are delicate. And handle them from the edges only, please.”
Aeron did as she requested, being careful as he removed the one inch by three inch glass sheets.
“Now, hold one out for me, flat.”
He did so, and she carefully placed the thin slice of brain upon it. She then put the thin knife down and said, “Carefully place the slide on the ground and, if you could, grab that bottle there.” She indicated a small bottle, a little stout thing with a dropper top. “Open it, and place one drop of the liquid on the slice of brain.”
Aeron carefully did as instructed.
“Now, place the other glass plate on top, being careful not to get any of the liquid on you.”
Aeron carefully picked up the slide with the brain slice, making sure to keep it level so the small amount of liquid would not run off or get on his fingers. He then grabbed the second slide and placed it on top.
“Good. Now, take that item there,” she pointed to a small frame-like device among the items she had placed on the ground, “and slip the glass slides into it. Can you see the little gap, there? They go into the slit.”
“Yes, I see it.” He aligned the thin glass plates with the small gap in the frame and slid them into it. There was a quiet ‘click,’ and he felt a momentary pulse of magic.
Millinith smiled.“Excellent. You can set that down now. Let’s continue, shall we?”
Aeron, somewhat disturbed by the whole slice-of-brain procedure, swallowed and nodded.
Millinith turned her attention to the nahual’s mouth. Using another small probe, she opened the mouth to poke around within. The beast’s lips slowly slid back, revealing the swirled milkiness of the very big teeth as Millinith pulled them back with the probe. The large teeth held a terrifying fascination for Aeron.
“Same mix of teeth as seen before. Sharp wide slicing teeth and sturdy molars for chewing and grinding.”
Aeron jotted down her dictation as she continued to examine the mouth and then its neck and shoulders.
Millinith slid the arms of the creature off its body, to the side, and stared at the torso for a moment. She began feeling the chest of the creature.
“There doesn’t appear to be—wait a moment.” She moved her hands more slowly and carefully as she probed the chest of the creature with her fingers. “Yes, there are breasts. They are not very large, and they are difficult to see under the thin fur, but she does have them.”
Aeron grimaced and wrote her words down. He tried not to think more about the creature before him as he waited for Millinith to continue.
“We need to trade places, Aeron,” she said. She moved to his spot near the creature’s waist and he moved up near its head. “And, if you would, please face away. You might find the next parts of the examination a little, ah, disturbing.” She looked up at Fillion. “You too. Please wait back there, if you would,” she said, pointing toward the farmhouse.
Fillion frowned and said, “You don’t have to tell me twice. That thing puts a worm up my spine as it is.” He quickly moved away, focusing his attention instead on Anaya.
Aeron started to turn away from the nahual, but not before he saw Millinith spread its legs a bit. The fur that covered most of its body thankfully prevented him from seeing much of anything, but it didn’t stop his lightning-quick imagination. He stood and closed his eyes a moment, shuddering, as he finished turning away.
“There is a vaginal opening, similar in outward structure to mammals, though somewhat less defined.”
Aeron heard a sharp intake of breath, probably from Etran. He couldn’t blame the man. He wrote the words down but tried as hard as he could to not understand them. After a few minutes, she moved on to the other opening, but spent much less time on it.
Even though Aeron didn’t think it could get any worse, it did. He began hearing weirdly soft tearing sounds. It wasn’t until Millinith began dictating about internal organs and structures that he realized she was now dissecting the creature and the soft sounds he was hearing were her cutting into its flesh. Of course, he should have realized that was what was happening when he had noticed the stink get worse.
He shuddered a little bit again. Come on Aeron, he thought. This isn’t so bad. And it’s going to help us beat these evil things. He continued to take down her dictation.
You do not like what you are doing.
Anaya’s voice brought him out of the terrible business he was writing down. No, sweet-heart, I don’t. But it will help fight nahual, so I can take it.
When she is done, we can do something fun. Anaya’s quiet comforting voice made him want to hug her right then and there.
I’ll be very happy to do something fun, once we are done at this place.
Eventually it was over and Millinith stood, complaining about her knees. “I really need to start bringing a low seat of some kind so I don’t abuse my knees so.” She removed her gloves, turning them inside out as she pulled them off, and tossed them on the body. “You may burn that now, if you wish. And I thank you again for your foresight in placing it in the snow. I have learned many new things and was able to confirm a few things as well, examining this nearly pristine corpse.”
Etran stared at Millinith a moment and said, “You have my utmost respect. I have never seen such a thorough examination of a creature before.”
Millinith smiled grimly and bowed her head slightly.
“You and me both,” Aeron said. “I don’t know how you do that,” he said to Millinith.
“You really are trying to find out everything you can,” Etran said. “I thank you.” He looked at Aeron, respect etched in the lines around his eyes. “Both of you.”
Aeron was a little surprised and nodded to the man. He’d only taken her dictation down. Though, it was gruesome toward the end.
“That is our purpose,” Millinith said, gravely. “To find a way to fight these evil creatures.” She squatted down and put away her tools, standing again after she was done. “I’d like to see the side of the barn now, if you please?”
Etran nodded and lead them between the house and the large barn. He stopped several feet from the side door.
“Wait a moment, please, do not go past here,” she said to everyone as she looked around the snow-covered ground. “There was no snow last night, so I hope to see—yes! Tracks!” She pointed excitedly to tracks in the snow. Although there was a total jumble of tracks, footprints and drag marks near the side door, evidence of the terrible events of the night before, off to the side there was a single line of tracks that stretched away from them.
“Alright,” she said, “let’s see where they go, but please keep clear of them. I want to study them later to hopefully determine the creature’s stride.”
They quickly followed the tracks as they lead farther behind the house and barn.
“Ulthis’ great maze. What was it doing?” Etran asked as they all stopped. The nahual tracks farther back wandered about in a crazy fashion. They went back and forth behind the barn and house.
“Almost like it was searching,” Aeron said. “Looking to the house and barn.”
“Indeed,” Millinith agreed. “It checked them over and over. Eventually, it found that Valin was alone.” She glanced briefly at Etran, sympathy on her face. “Come. Let’s see if we can determine by which way it came.”
She lead them farther back, examining the tracks carefully as she went. “Keep an eye out for tracks that lead here from the woods.”
They spent a few minutes looking around the edge of the yard until Fillion called out.
“I think I found them,” he said and waved his arm.
“Good work,” Millinith said after she verified the tracks. “Let’s see where they lead us.”
The tracks were in a remarkably straight line, only veering off their linear path to avoid an obstacle here and there.
“This is astonishing,” Millinith said, trudging through the snow. “It knew exactly where it was going. Note how it didn’t wand
er at all, it made a beeline to the farmstead.”
“Almost like it’s been there before,” Aeron said, as they walked along the line of tracks.
Millinith nodded. “Possibly. It might have scouted the farm before, perhaps many times. Or, perhaps they can sense us.” She shook her head. “At any rate, on this particular night, for some reason, it struck.”
They followed the tracks for quite some time.
“It’s been at least an hour,” Fillion said, annoyed. “Will these ever lead to anything?”
“We must be patient,” Millinith replied. “I have never had a chance to follow their tracks. When it isn’t winter, their tracks are impossible to follow. They are very skilled at not leaving any sign of their passage. And during the winter, there has always been a snowstorm before I arrived.” She looked at the frustrated boy. “If you like, you can head back, alone.”
“No,” he said quickly. “No, I, I’m fine.”
She smiled, and they continued to follow the tracks.
Several minutes later, the trail lead to an area where another set of tracks met with it.
“How many of them are there out here?” Etran asked, concern plain on his face.
“When was the last time it snowed?” Millinith asked.
“Six nights ago,” Fillion replied, nervously scanning the trees surrounding them.
“It is possible, then, that they are all from the same nahual,” Millinith said. “There aren’t many tracks in that other trail. Let’s continue on. But be on your guard,” she cautioned. “From all we know, they are solitary hunters, but we know nothing yet about whether they dwell alone.”
“You hope the trail leads to its home?” Etran looked at her, surprised.
“I do.”
The slushy path eventually lead around a large tree and stopped at the mouth of a tunnel dug in a low rise, the side of a modest hill. The tunnel was just big enough, it looked like, to squeeze into, and there were bits of root hanging in the crude opening.
“It dug a den, like a bear?” Etran whispered.
“Or, it took over a bear den,” Millinith said, quietly. “Though they do have powerful claws, so digging shouldn’t be a problem for them.”
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