The Beast of Maug Maurai, Part One: The Culling Read Online Free PDF Page B

Wyann. The knights had shed
the long, cumbersome halberds when they had stepped into the forest. They
waited with drawn swords and lanterns at their feet.
    Murrogar pointed to a massive elm 
“Sir Gorith, take position behind that.”
    “Gorin,” said the knight. “It’s
Gorin, not Gorith.”
    “Truly?” said Murrogar. “Fascinating.
What sort of name is Gorin? Andraen? Nox?”
    “It’s Embryan sir. My family was—“
    Sir Bederant shoved Gorin toward the
elm. “He doesn’t care, you fool.”
    Fifty yards away, the crossbowman
moaned and begged for death. The four warriors hunched down as leaves crackled
somewhere in front of them. Sir Bederant held three fingers to his antlered
helmet in a silent plea to Lojenwyne.
    Murrogar whispered loud enough for
all three knights to hear. “When it shows itself, I’m going to go at it from
the front with Bederant and Wyann. Gorin, you get behind it and drive that
sword up its arse so deep that I’ll be able to read the inscription.” He
pointed to a clump of birch trees. “Bederant, strike from the left, over there.
Wyann, from the right, behind that rock.”
    Sir Wyann donned his battered helmet
and hissed at Murrogar, “I don’t take orders from a soldier.” He sloshed
through dry leaves to the clump of birches and took position on the left,
beside Sir Bederant. Murrogar spared a moment to decide how he would kill the
knight when this was all over.
    The crossbowman cried out again, his
voice pitched high and breaking. Murrogar wondered if he could get to the man
to end his suffering. He glanced back toward the west, toward where the nobles
had run. If the creature got past him now there would be carnage. But a score
of dead branches splintered and cracked not more than thirty yards in front of
him. The air fouled with the odor of rotting flesh. Then glowing green patches
moved in the darkness, the suggestion of a creature rising onto its haunches.
    A silence thick as murder settled
between the warriors and Beast.
    Black Murrogar howled, shattering the
silence, and charged. The monster dropped to all six legs. It howled back, and
Murrogar’s cry became a chirp by comparison. The creature coiled all six of its
powerful legs, lowered its spined head and leaped from more than twenty yards away.
It was all Murrogar could do to throw himself to one side.
    Nothing is that fast.
    Sir Gorin charged from behind the elm
shouting, then fell quietly, blood spurting from beneath a shattered
breastplate.
    But it is .
    Sir Wyann and Sir Bederant leaped
from behind the birch trees. The creature knocked them backward and they
tumbled like dice. It leaped after them and snatched Sir Wyann off the forest
floor.
     Murrogar ran at the Beast, knowing
he wouldn’t be fast enough to save the knight. But a shape lunged from behind
the creature. A spearman.
    One of them must have come back . Brave lad .
    The spearman, less than five feet
from the monster, thrust his greatspear toward the creature’s flank. The
monster whirled out of reach an instant before the spearhead struck home. It
hurled Sir Wyann toward Murrogar and scooped up the spearman with a hiss.
    Murrogar spun away from Sir Wyann’s
airborne body. The knight’s plated leg crashed against Murrogar’s arm and the
old soldier’s sword tumbled to the leaves.
    The Beast  clutched the spearmen in
the long hands of its foremost limbs. The spearman’s arms were held high and
his legs low so that the spearman was stretched taught like a string before the
creature’s jaws. The Beast’s tail swept forward. A stinger the size of a dagger
punched through the leather armor and into the spearman’s abdomen. The man’s
screams trailed off into gurgles.
    Black Murrogar couldn’t find his
sword so he picked up a loose stone and hurled it at the monster. The Beast
avoided it with a shift to one side. It left the stinger in the spearman’s
abdomen for another heartbeat. Then it dropped the soldier with a hiss, it’s
breath a gust