The orthros paused, its hackles rising into sharp spikes, its snarls unable to be contained by clenched teeth and its eyes locked onto Judd.

“Here puppy, puppy, puppy,” Judd teased as he tried to move away from the others and keep its attention on him, “I’m not going to hurt…”

The orthros lunged at him and he swung his sword, clipping its shoulder as he darted to one side, scratches from its foreclaws scoring across his left pauldron. Immediately the fight with Dalain returned to him for the orthros was the same strength to speed ratio. It was fast and the weight of its blow nearly sent Judd spinning. Judd turned to face it only to find it was already flying at him and he was thrown backwards, the orthros above him, snapping both its jaws only inches from his face, his sword the only thing keeping it from crushing his skull.

“Judd!”

The orthros yelped, an arrow from the bow of Verne striking it in its right flank. It jerked and Judd was able to free himself and grasped his sword, determined not to be surprised by the two headed dog’s attack again. The left head snarled at Verne who was standing on a barrel, having hoisted Aalis onto a thatched roof. The right head twisted the other way, hearing Giordi bark at Caste, the minstrel reaching down to the cleric, trying to pull him onto a roof.

The orthros, with two separate heads with their own ideas, snapped and snarled at each other then looked at Judd as he took a step closer.

“Call it!” He yelled, holding his sword out in front, keeping the orthros at bay. “All of you!”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Giordi grunted, grabbing Caste’s hand.

“Here boy, here…” Aalis cried and the orthros tried to look at her.

“Fine.” Giordi let go of Caste’s hand, stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled hard.

The orthros, fighting against itself, twisted to glower at Giordi, seeing the defenceless Caste jump and squirm, a tantalising piece of calf appearing as his tunic became twisted. The orthros licked both sets of jagged teeth in its salivating jaws. Caste screeched and almost launched himself up the side of the house, the force pushing Giordi over and then the thatched roof, unaccustomed to anything heavier than rain and pigeons, collapsed beneath them, dropping both into the house with a fantastic clatter.

The orthros’ attention was no longer divided. It couldn’t reach the girl on the roof, the one on the barrel had stabbing sticks and the man in front had a sharpened blade but there were two defenceless, possibly broken, dinners scrambling about helplessly in what looked like a meal box to the orthros.

It turned, no longer caring about Judd and bounded towards the house.

Judd leapt onto the bucket, stepped on the edge of the well and launched himself into the air just as the orthros ran in front of him and he brought his sword down hard.

The left head of the orthros hit the ground, Judd’s reach unable to cut through both. The right head howled and began to run around, its screams of pain and rage louder than the thunder that was rolling overhead, the advance of the storm unseen until now. Judd was transfixed in a horrifying way, unable to take his eyes off the one headed dog that was scrabbling around, snapping, biting, snarling but at no one, unable to escape its own agony.

“Kill it, Judd!” Aalis cried. “Please, end its misery!”

Judd blinked, jolted out of his fixation and ran to the orthros, severing the other head from its body. The headless form collapsed onto the ground with a few unnerving twitches. Judd couldn’t help but stare, shaking with the horror of it. He was pushed aside as Aalis ran forward, kneeling by its side. Her shoulders shook as she wept…

…and then the sky joined her.

Judd’s skin prickled at the timing of it, the way the clouds were weeping with Aalis as though they felt her pain. Judd staggered backwards, underneath the fringe of the thatched roof of the house Caste and Giordi had disappeared into. Giordi had extricated himself from the tangle of straw, limbs and ceiling beams, brushing himself down.

“She’s mourning the death of a monster?” He asked a little too loudly and bluntly.

Aalis’ shoulders went rigid, her head lifting. Though they couldn’t see her expression, they could hear her voice.

“I am mourning the life of the animal lost to the depravity of Maul…that it became this…thing…” She put her arms around her body. “It did not deserve this…”

Judd swallowed. He felt terrible. The orthros’ death had been gruesome and he wouldn’t be surprised if he had nightmares about it for weeks to come…but even he hadn’t considered that the monster might have once been a normal dog.

“We’ll bury it.” He blurted, wishing in some way to show some respect and tenderness after dispatching the monster so cruelly.

Aalis shook her head and turned towards him. “No. Burn it.”

“But I thought…”

“I was sad because of the life that was ruined…but this deformation,” she looked back at the body, now lying in mud as the rain poured down, “must be burned or else its blood will seep into the earth and poison the ground.”

“Of course.”

“I reckon it was the dog poisoning the trees.” Verne ducked his head beneath the edge of the house. “Peeing on them, marking its territory.”

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“Just like the goblins.”

“Only their tactic was diluted by the water and dispersed by the flow of the river.” Aalis shivered, her shoulders and back soaked.

“We’re not going to be able to make a fire now,” Judd sighed, “but there might be a hearth large enough in the fort.”

“Does that mean we have to touch it?” Verne shuddered.

“We’ll put the three…bits…into a sack and throw the whole thing into the fire.”

“Not before I get my proof of conquest.” Caste grunted, tugging his tunic straight. He gave Giordi a glare as if he was responsible for their tumble through the roof then he and Verne ran into the rain and retrieved their packs. Everyone watched as Caste retrieved a small, very sharp, saw and his pliers, donned his apron and mask and cut off one of the orthros’ paws.

“That’s a pretty big paw…” Judd swallowed down the bile in his throat as Caste dabbed the blood onto the knighthood quest parchment, the circle turning blue. “Hey Caste, I don’t suppose that would also count as my ‘monster of unnatural size’?”

“It’s beast, not monster,” Caste corrected mercilessly, putting the paw into the box of unpleasant trophies, “so in order to qualify, the creature itself must be just large.”

“And a two headed dog, though the size of a small horse, just doesn’t cut it?”

“Two heads,” Caste explained, “it was, as Aalis put it, deformed or an aberration. Besides, as big as it was, it’s not exactly ‘abnormally’ big.”

“You mean Judd would have to kill a giant serpent with no ‘abnormal’,” Giordi used his fingers to mimic and mock Caste’s own gesture, “abilities apart from being enormous?”

“Correct.” Caste stood up and folded his arms, staring at the body with clinical concern. “I am surprised…”

“About what?”

“That it really wasn’t that big of a threat.” He turned at all of their scoffing laughs.

“Says the man trying to climb up onto a roof to escape it.” Giordi snorted.

“I’m not saying it wasn’t dangerous,” Caste eyed him sharply, “but look around you…this place is deserted…” They did so, the rain turning all detail into a haze but if anything, it just made the village seem all the more…abandoned. “Judd managed to kill the orthros on his first attempt. Fort Sol had a contingent of soldiers and an experienced knight protecting it.”

“It does seem strange that the orthros alone managed to wipe out an entire village…” Verne murmured.

“Maybe they aren’t dead,” Judd shrugged, “maybe they took refuge in the fort.”

His reasoning was thin but no one pointed it out. The pieces of orthros were gingerly handled and put into a sack found in the house whose roof they’d destroyed. Giordi complained about having to be the one to drag it but after being told he could do that or wield the sword, he stopped whinging and they walked towards the fort.

There was no moat of water or tar. The gates opened into the village with no other barrier however they were shut and probably barred on the inside. The keep of the fort was a great deal closer than any of the other forts they had come across and Caste explained that, rather than have a lower and upper bailey, the smallness of Fort Sol meant it only had a courtyard. Unfortunately, it was inaccessible by the main gates which were shut, locked and likely barred for there was no give when they pushed and no answer to the bell.

“There should be a side door,” Caste insisted, “so that people can leave without needing to open the gates, thereby exposing the courtyard and the rest of the fort to attack.”

“Is that it?” Verne pointed to a door that might have been harder to find if the hedge that had been planted at the base of the fort hadn’t withered and died, leaving only sticks climbing the walls with no leaves to obscure. Judd tried the handle and the door swung inwards.

“Promising.” He jerked his head. “Let’s get out of the rain at least. We’ll try to figure out the mystery of the abandoned village once we’re dry.”

The door opened into a narrow passage, making it impossible for a large force to enter the fort without being bottlenecked and cut down. Judd’s armour made him quite wide so he had to turn sideways and shuffle along it, up a flight of stairs in an awkward crab climb and still further until he reached another door. It was heavy to open as though a weight was leaning against it. He heaved on it then, turned and grasped the door’s edge, allowing the others to quickly enter before the large tapestry, which hung from the wall, pushed the door back into place, making it almost impossible to find unless you knew what you were looking for.

“We must have circumvented the courtyard and come out in the main hall…” Caste breathed.

The tapestry was one of eight hanging from the walls of the main hall of the keep. Stone was notoriously unfeeling and cold so the tapestries were there to keep the chill out. They had faded over the many years since being made and due to the expense of the material and work that went into making one, it was likely that the tapestries had been hanging on the walls since the fort had been constructed. There were two hearths on either side of the length of the main hall, large enough for fires of impressive size to burn in and keep the residents, at least those who were in the hall, warm.

However, they were dull and dark, along with all the torches that were carefully arranged so as not to be anywhere near the tapestries. The main hall had an A-frame roof with beams crisscrossing overhead where the vertical wall met the slanted ceiling. Thick blankets of holey gossamer were draped from the beams and some of the strands hung down. While it might have been intended to give the hall a glamourous air, the scabby nature of it spoke of neglect and indifference.

There was even a hole in the roof, parts of broken beams and shattered tiles in a puddle of water that was pooling from the rain. It wasn’t a big hole and from the discarded bucket nearby, it looked as though, rather than repair the roof damage, the drip had simply been addressed and the hole, ignored.

At the far end of the hall there was a dais and another hearth situated at the back of it, also unlit and disused. High above, set into the stone, no doubt at great expense, was a stained glass window circle, panels of coloured glass held fast inside heavy black lines. The colour of the panels was dull from the lack of bright sunshine and the ones at the centre just looked like a nondescript black blob.

“So…this isn’t creepy at all…” Giordi breathed.

“You said this was one of the minor forts?” Verne looked around, shaking his head.

“Yes.” Caste shivered, his tunic soaked through.

Verne whistled softly. “I can’t imagine what one of the major forts looks like…”

“Fort Sol has only tried to mimic the prestige of other forts,” Caste explained, “the wall forts are ten times as grand and even then, they’re not even comparable to the castle of Astaril which is more beautiful and elegant by far.”

“That’s just because it doesn’t need to be made ugly by monster killing fortifications.” Giordi pointed out, dumping the bag with the deceased orthros in it near one of the side hearths for future burning.

“What is that?” Aalis asked, pointing.

Judd peered along Aalis’ line of sight. “Looks like a sack…suspended from the ceiling over…well, I’m going to call it a throne.”

“Knights do love their ‘lordship’ perks.” Caste muttered as they advanced through the hall.

“Given Sir Bobellion’s lack of taste in decor, it could be anything.” Giordi crinkled his nose in disdain. “Drapes with holes in them, faded tapestries…he probably serves meat half raw with no cutlery.”

Judd ignored Giordi’s critique of Sir Bobellion’s decorative style and tried to focus. “Verne, I need your eyes…Verne?”

Verne was standing by a wall, fingering one of the strands that hung from the white drapes. “It’s the same stuff from the gate…” He had to stick it to itself to get it off his fingers. “Sticky rope.”

“Is that sack made of the same stuff? It seems to be suspended by it…” Judd’s eyes were hardly deficient but Verne had proven to have brilliant vision and the archer came up beside him and stared into the gloom.