Chapter 30: HECTOR. Sticks and stones

The bruise on my cheek swelled awfully today, making it hard for me to speak, despite all my efforts to put cool stones to it. The inside of my lips stung, too, and the back of my head felt like there was another head growing out of it. At least I could still see from both eyes. Small blessings.

My stomach gnawed at me, reminding that the only thing I ate since yesterday morning was a couple of apples an old matron gave to me out of pity. I didn't like to accept handouts, but I was too hungry, and I knew I would need my strength for the monster.

'I am ready. I am ready. I am ready.'

The thought, the prayer, felt like a lie on my tongue. I wasn't ready, and every minute the monster didn't appear made the tension in my muscles feel even worse. The sun was high by now. What if the monster didn't come at all? What if I was wrong?

It would be good, but at the same time, I irrationally wanted for something to happen just so I could stop waiting. Never before the day felt so long.

Even the goats looked tense. We grazed on another meadow today, but even so, they often stopped their chewing of the grass to look around, their nostrils fluttering to catch scents of the predators. They also looked out for the monster.

My eyes grew tired from peering into the grass, but I didn't dare to even blink too much. The monster was fast, and easy to miss amongst the greenery. I had to be vigilant, but it was hard. There were so many distractions.

There! A movement in the grass. Was it wind, or was it the monster, crawling stealthily towards my father's goats? I picked up a stone from a pile I prepared this morning and threw it into the disturbance, but nothing happened.

A false alarm, then. I relaxed gradually, and it was in that moment, that a wind blew from another side, parting the grass. Through the opened curtain of it, I saw the monster, holding a stone I threw in my hand, and our eyes met.

It saw me too.

Before I could even scream, the monster threw the stone at me. With a panicked cry, I dodged, already hearing the thunderous beating of the monster's wings. I picked another stone and looked up again just in time to see the monster grasping one of the panicked goats by its haunches.

"Go away, monster!" I shouted, throwing the stone and forgetting all about my split lip and my swollen cheek. My blood roared in my ears almost louder than the monster's wings.

The stone flew at the monster, hitting it in the shoulder. It hissed, and with deliberate motion, pierced the goat's neck with something that looked like a spike growing out of the monster's wrist. The goat let out one last bleat and fell, convulsing.

Then the monster stood straight on the ground, turned towards me and bared its sharp, sharp teeth.

I froze with another stone in my hand. I already failed to protect my goats. Three had run away, and one died, and this all was the monster's fault! A surge of bitter rage made me move again, just as the monster did the same.

This time, my stone landed right in the monster's chest. It staggered just several steps away from me. It was close enough that I noticed it wore a rough loincloth with a rope belt and had a dagger—but the spike on its wrist looked much deadlier.

It looked exactly like the descriptions of kobolds that I've heard of: a child-sized human-lizard, except that one had wings, and I've never heard anyone mention spikes. It was no kobold, at least no normal kobold, and my stones couldn't do more than make it angrier.

It certainly looked furious right now. At the same time, my fury disappeared, replaced by a surge of blood-chilling fear and mind-erasing panic.

"No!" I shouted and, without even a thought about trying to pick up and throw another stone, ran away. "Help! Help!"

"Hector? What's going on?" someone shouted from a nearby hill.

I was so close to the village, I could see it from here. I just had to run a little. Every step I waited to hear the thunderous beating come from behind me, but I didn't dare to look over my shoulder. I just ran and ran, feeling like I was flying myself, and stopped only when I reached a group of women next to a stream.

Heaps of linens lied around—it was a washing day today, wasn't it?—but I was much more interested in the women themselves, and the way they held their cloth-beating sticks like clubs. Only with a calmness that their support gave me did I dare to look behind me.

There was no trace of the monster. No one to beat. Except for me.

⠀⠀

"You shouldn't have left Hector to look after your animals all on his own," Magda, the headman's wife, berated my father. "What do you expect from the boy, that he would beat the monster with his bare hands? It's pure luck that the monster didn't eat the boy himself! Stop blaming him for the death of your wife, stop drinking and remarry, after all! You could've made a fortune on woodworking if you actually worked a day in your life, but you just cling to your goats. Hah!"

"Don't talk to me about what I should and shouldn't do. There's no monster! The lazy gnat just keep losing the goats and finds up something to throw the blame on. Don't you trust his tales. I don't want to hear another word from you," my father spat and threw the door closed right before Magda's nose. Then he turned to me.