We found and put in their pens four goats out of five, and no matter how long I ran around the planes and hills, there was not a trace of the fifth one. Not even a single bone. The only proof that it didn’t disappear into nowhere were a few drops of blood sprinkled on blades of grass.
“You are a good boy, Hector, and we do believe you, but if this monster of yours can fly, then there’s no chance for us to catch it,” Rovan the blacksmith said to me when the searching party began to disperse. He patted me on the back with enough force that I almost fell. “You know we can’t afford to pay adventurers for killing it, either. If we only didn’t have that wheat plague last year…” He sighed, shook his head, and walked away.
“Can’t nothing be done, then?” I threw the desperate question at the backs of the other villagers. “What if it returns?”
It made several people turn their heads towards me, but they had nothing more to give me than shrugs and apologetic glances that made me bristle. Pity was for wimps, and I was a man. Almost. One person, though, stopped for long enough to speak.
“If it returns, we will send someone with a report to the Guild. They might decide to pay for an extermination mission in our stead,” Tobias the headman said. “Go to your father, Hector, and be careful out there. If this monster stole a goat, it can steal a thin kid like you.”
“I’m not a kid, and I’m not thin,” I murmured at his back, my fists clenching at my sides. I wasn’t the strongest boy out there, but I wasn’t starving, thanks to my father.
My father whom would find me and would be even angrier that I didn’t return to him before he had to go out and look for me. With a sick feeling in my stomach, I walked towards my home.
It wasn’t the biggest one, but it was well-built, and had a shed attached to it. When there was work and wood available, my father carved stuff out of it: furniture, ornaments and even houses sometimes. He built ours and even carved birds onto its door. It was all before I grew big enough to remember things, though. A long, long time ago.
My hand froze on the doorknob. The effort I had to spend to force myself to open the door was almost physical, and I regretted ever coming here in the next moment.
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My father was inside, pacing back and forth through the main room, and as soon as his eyes fell on me, his square face turned red with anger.
“Hector, you gnat, come here! The entire village talks about some ‘monster’ you’ve seen, and you might’ve fooled them, but I won’t let you go without punishment for letting a goat wander off. You know how much they cost! You know we can’t afford it if we want to keep fed through the winter, Hector! You know what happens with lazy gnats like you!”
I approached him on wooden legs, knowing well enough that any resistance or excuses only made him angrier when he was in that state. As soon as I drew closer, a dizzying slap fell on my cheek. I gasped and stepped back, my eyes tearing up, but my father caught me by the collar. On reflex, my hands rose to his, but he slapped my fingers aside without looking away from my eyes.
Like I was only a gnat, just like my father told me.
“Don’t look at me so pitifully, Hector. You are just digging your own grave. If I won’t have enough to feed us both in the winter, I will just let you starve. I will throw you out of this house, and you will have to beg at the city, because this is the only thing lazy gnats like you can do!”
He threw me to the floor in his fury, like he was already throwing me out, and I cried out when my head hit the ground. My father continued to pace around, but I didn’t hurry to get up. Instead, I slowly crawled away from him, never looking away.
There was a salty taste in my mouth, and when I probed with my tongue, I found the slap cut the inner side of my lip on my teeth. I cringed. Wounds in my mouth were the most inconvenient ones, and I couldn’t even put on it any of the healing salve I saved.
My cheek stung mercilessly, and I knew it would bruise, but at least there wasn’t any blood on the back of my head when I probed that place. Just a bump there. Maybe it won’t be so bad, after all…
“Don’t think this was all your punishment, Hector. If I didn’t need you to look after the goats, I’d made stripes out of your back!” He came towards me and booted me into the ribs. The kick landed on my hands that I turned around me protectively. Seeing this, my father spat on me, the disgusting glob landing somewhere on my shoulder. “What a waste of space. You are sleeping with the goats today, do you hear me? And forget about dinner!”
No dinner and no bed. At least goats were a better company than my father, even after I let the monster take one from me. I still felt lucky. It could’ve been rods… I knew it would be if I lose another goat, and I knew that the monster—whatever it was—would return.
There wasn’t even a doubt about it in my mind as I, still not standing up because it would make my father angrier, crawled out of the house. The monster would return and I would have to be ready.