Night watching wasn’t an easy job, despite how David described his time spent in the watchtower. You had to constantly remain vigilant, both of the outside threats in case one of the watcher failed to spot a monster, or in the most dire case when he’s killed on the spot by a thrown dart or when a small beast invading through the embrasure unfortunately jumped at his face, using either a deadly venom to poison the victim or sharp claws to lacerate his jugular, but they also had to mind internal threats as well.

The first and most important objective of a night watcher was to ensure no nocturnal creatures bypassed their surveillance, and in case one of those approached a bit too much they had to poke it with their fire-lance. Sometimes, the monster reacted more aggressively than what they expected, forcing the guards to repel or eliminate the beast, always leaving more than one men injured in the fight.

Fortunately, they hadn’t been attacked at night since years ago, leaving only one last main priority they made sure to protect and care at all cost: the pyre. The fire was essential for many obvious reasons: to heat up the fire-lances’ blade, to warm the guards standing inside the tower, to serve as a bright lamp which could turn the whole building as a sort of beacon from the outside, helping late travellers to find their way towards the safety of the town. Nobody was stupid enough to peregrinate under the veil of the night; they were all aware of the dangers, yet sometimes you would find a fool running around on the wrong side of the walls, however, those kind of people were either too afraid to continue and retreated to the town’s gates or were quickly eaten alive by the monsters.

Ever since he started night watching, David never encountered any of those events, none of his colleagues died, nobody ventured outside the walls, and the rare nocturnal creatures they spotted were only observing them from afar before disappearing in the darkness they came from. He was never the one spotting them.

“What do those monsters look like?”

The question stirred the closer listeners, probably not expecting such question to be asked in the middle of the night.

“You never saw a picture book?”

“Of course I did, dumbass. I’m asking because they’re obviously exaggerating with the teeth. You once told us you saw one of them showing itself at the edge of the forest before it walked back to its lair, right? So tell us.”

“What the fuck are you expecting from me…”

The man scratched his chin while forcing himself to remember what he could.

“It happened long ago, when I was switching with the other group for the evening’s shift. Just when I was about to enter this cozy watchtower, I caught a strange thing in the corner of my eyes. At first I wasn’t sure what it was, because it was sitting at a hundred meters or something from us. It looked like a large bear with dark fur… I wasn’t sure at the time, so I went and grabbed the binoculars to get a better sight of the beast… And man, that wasn’t a fucking bear.”

The guards not on watch duty started to gather around, carefully listening to the tale of the veteran. Only a few of them were holding back their breath, either because of the tension or to not disturb the storyteller, the rest were only listening because it sounded interesting, even though they already knew how it ended.

“The thing was at least twice the size of the animal, and it was just sitting there observing I don’t know what in the distance. I didn’t care about it, I was only… Mesmerized, by the beast.”

“You wanted to bring it home or what?”

Someone threw a joke when the man was narrating his memory, it slightly angered him but he shrugged it off with only a displeased face.

“So I was saying… It was sitting there, staring at something. Then he probably noticed the sun was about to set so he stood up to leave… And the beast was… HUGE! Way more than what I thought! His limbs must have been five meters long, and the way it walked made me thought it was a spider crawling. Damn what a horrible sight…”

Three guards were nodding in agreement, they probably also spotted one such creature while the sun was still above the horizon, the picture must have re-emerged in their mind, giving them goosebumps simply by being reminisced of the monster’s form. Looking at it from afar filled you with an impressive feeling of dread, now imagining fighting against such creature with a mere hot stick was something else. Just thinking about struggling against such a nightmarish being could give a heart-attack to any weak-minded person once they were aware of its full appearance.

“It must have been an adult. Luckily those grown-ups know that it’s foolish to come up here, we’ll never have to face such a beast.” A man commented on the side.

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“So all that’s left for us to fight are the younger ones? That sounds alright.” A guard commented, probably picturing himself fighting back against a creature he was on par with.

“Yeah, but don’t forget they’re still monsters.”

“So what of it? The heroes who battled against them were no different from us, you know?”

“Use your brain a little, will you? Can you win against a bear?”

The man pondered on the question for a short while before giving a vague answer. A bear was a phenomenal animal, it wasn’t much of a threat yet it held enough strength to behead an adult with one swing of his paws. Adding on top of it the thick fur which was surprisingly more efficient to divert blades than what people actually expect and you obtained a fierce enemy to face.

A man could probably win against a bear with the proper equipment, here the guards were arguing on the outcome while agreeing they would go with their leather armour and their heated up fire-lance, which gave them an already huge advantage over the beast. And even then, the fight would be tough.

“Now try to remember what differentiates a monster from an animal…”

“Lifespan?”

“Oh I know! The urge to kill mankind!”

“… Magic aptitude, you retards.”

According to researchers in the field, every living being possessed a soul. Plants, animals, humanoids, even monsters. Every living being possessed both a physical and a spiritual body. The physical body was easy to understand: it represented our body made in flesh and bones, the material aspect of us which can interact with the world we could observe. As for the spiritual body, its functions were still unclear to this day, however everyone agreed on the same point: it helped them draw energy from the immaterial plane to summon magic.

But telling everyone “all you had to do is gather some energy from a plane you can’t even see nor touch and then somehow visualise the result you want to get” wasn’t helpful at all. Even worse than that, it was partially wrong, which fortunately naturally helped regulate the number of spellcasters in the kingdom in addition to the many laws implemented in order to prevent any fools to try themselves in this arcane art with no knowledge whatsoever.

This was also why animals couldn’t simply walk in and cast a random spell, as the whole process required the caster to fulfil a few conditions. Monsters fulfilled some of them, which was what made them more dangerous than a wild animal.

“Just imagine fighting against a bear, but the thing is bigger, stronger, and can even more strengthen itself with magic. You still feel like playing hero?”

Nobody argued back, half was already convinced that facing a monster was a do-or-die situation while the others were still trying to draw theories in their mind. What if… What if…

“You still think you have a chance? Okay, so everyone here who can use magic raise their hand.”

Nobody raised their hand. Nobody was proficient in magic here, they didn’t even knew how to summon magic in the first place. Wielding a fire-lance was the right choice because it was the only tool which could drastically inflict damage to monsters, but would that really suffice if the monster could use magic when you didn’t even comprehend how to do it yourself? Now realising their foolishness, everybody went silent under the gloomy atmosphere.

…

…

“HOLY SHIT!!!” One of the watchers shouted suddenly, breaking the silence inside the watch tower. “MONSTER, GUYS! MONSTER!”

As if to prove his point, a scratching noise could be heard coming from the roof. It was too loud to be made by a stranded cat or a rat.

Everybody stood up from their spot in high alert, the other watchers retreated from their seat but only a few close to the pyre had the presence of mind to pick up the heated weapon before readying themselves for anything. Everything became hectic all of a sudden, the men grew nervous as nobody could tell the whereabouts of the beast. Someone yelled the order to go outside and to find the monster; it was time to fulfil their job as night watchers and as guards of the town.

Everyone went and picked a fire-lance from the fire, then hurried themselves through the doors leading on the fortifications. Hesitation was forbidden as it could slow everyone’s pace, and thus leading to undesired casualties if the monster took advantage of the disorder. Half of the men ran towards the northern wall, David followed the group leading to the southern wall with both haste and anxiety. Meanwhile, a last one stayed inside to ring the bell, announcing to the town the night attack while also asking for reinforcements from the nearby watchtowers and caserns. Someone grumbled the veteran jinxed it with its story, nobody had the spare time to laugh at it, or to retort when thinking about it.

Once outside, the dark sky gazed back at the guards, the stars being outshined by the radiance of the fire-lances’ blade which emitted a light bright enough to also serve as a torch, illuminating the surrounding stones and allowing everyone to look for the monster. But even if they tried very hard, nobody spotted the monster: it wasn’t standing on the roof, it wasn’t climbing up or down on the wall. A guard was observing the town from atop, doing his best to catch a glimpse of a strange figure walking through the lamps’ light, but even he couldn’t see where the monster has gone.

Even though nobody knew where it disappeared, David tightened his grip on his fire-lance. He slowly became sceptical about this monster.

“Did it go away?” Someone finally asked, deducing from the clear absence of the monster’s presence.

One by one, the guards started to acknowledge that the threat may actually be gone, they were beginning to loosen the grip on their weapon until all of the tension was gone. Nothing more happened, which greatly alleviated everyone. One of the men even quietly laughed at the situation, telling everyone how they’ve actually frightened the monster with their appearance and their skewers.

As the event ended peacefully with no injured, everybody gathered inside the watchtower to continue attending their duty, throwing jokes about the monster shy nature as if their chaotic reaction contributed to it running away.

“We still need to report the incident. Theor, can you go and tell the northern watchtower that all’s fine here? David, you do the same south. I’ll go tell the captain what happened.”

“Sure thing.”

Having received his order, David once more opened the door and went for the tower located at the south of the town.