The hellbeast’s tracks were rapidly filling with snow, though it was still possible to follow the deep indentations. They would disappear soon.

  Simon let Casey break trail through the snow, despite the geas’s nagging insistence that Simon should lead the way into potential danger. The other man was taller, stronger, and not limping in pain with every step. He followed closely behind, teeth gritted. The sheathed machete hanging from his belt bumped against his leg with every snow-bogged stride.

  Despite the persistently heavy snowfall, he wasn’t cold. The temperature was barely below freezing, the coat was warm, and the exertion of their travel threatened to make him sweat. He unzipped the front of the jacket partway and shook it for ventilation. His bruises ached, and the jeans rubbed at the saddle sores on the insides of his legs, but he did his best to ignore those small hurts. His ankle was worse, but it wasn’t the first nor would it be the last time that he’d had to function with it in a knot of hot pain.

  A branch snapped upward on the hillside above them. Snow sifted through the branches of a pine. Perhaps an animal had caused that, or maybe the snow had simply slid from the branches under its own weight. It was not their quarry. Hellbeasts were not subtle. If it were above them, it would have continued to cause an obvious disturbance.

  Casey whispered, “I think we’re getting closer.”

  Simon nodded, then stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled.

  “What was that for?” Casey asked, confused. Simon firmly told the geas that Casey’s reaction wasn’t worth punishing him over, and failed, but that quick stab of pain just added another layer to everything else he was feeling.

  Simon shouted, “HEY!” as loud as he could before explaining in a normal voice, “They’re attracted to movement and noise and afraid of nothing. The only time they will run is when hurt. It will have forgotten how it got injured and gone back to hunting by now.”

  “Oh. That makes them easier to find and kill, then, I guess. No need to stalk them?”

  “Yes. However, they are still dangerous prey due to their claws and venom. Death is inevitable if bitten unless one finds a skilled healer in time. The only possible cure is magical. The flesh of their victims rots from their bones while they still live.”

  “Nasty.” Casey’s flippant response did not give him much hope that the man truly understood Simon’s warning words. Simon suspected the man had little experience with certain kinds of horror.

  Water ran at the bottom of the ravine. Casey hopped over it easily, then turned and held out a hand. Simon remembered being defensive in similar situations and brushing aside offers of aid. He'd always had to work at being seen as an equal due to his lack of height, slender build, and elven heritage. However, he felt no resentment toward Casey — again, the geas was at work.

  The man’s strength and long reach did make it easier to cross without getting his feet wet.

  The tracks led up the far side of the gully and through a field full of snow-covered and thorn-laden brush, which Casey identified as ‘cat-claw’ amidst a string of profane words. Very quickly, both of them were bleeding. Feathers trickled from a long rip in the pretty purple coat’s sleeve, much to Simon’s distress, and stuck to the blood on the palm of his hand. He flicked the matted mess away with a finger, then made a fist to put pressure on the wound. It dripped for a minute before stopping.

  ~~*~~

  Tara crouched down on one knee and inspected the signs of their passage in the snow. It appeared that one of the men had injured themselves. Down from somebody’s torn coat lay scattered on the snow, and some of it was stuck together with blood.

  Wrinkling her nose at the grossness, she picked up a clump of the crimson-soaked feathers between two claws and then delicately tucked it into the breast pocket of her coat. Given the circumstances, such a trace might come in handy.

  ~~*~~

  They saw the hellbeast a few minutes later, as they navigated through dense junipers. It was only twenty yards ahead of them in a dense thicket of bushes with waxy green leaves and red flaky bark — as he’d feared, they had nearly overtaken it before seeing it.

  Also as Simon had expected, it turned around and charged as soon as it noticed them. Casey brought the pitchfork up and braced himself. “Stupid, you said?”

  Simon, realizing Casey’s intention, only had time to object, “Not like—!”

  The hellbeast slammed into the pitchfork with the weight of a man and the speed of a charging horse, driving the tines deep. The handle was immediately ripped from Casey’s grasp, and the beast leaped at Casey’s face. Casey grabbed both forelegs and shoved them frantically backward, somehow without being bitten. The pitchfork remained speared into its chest, with the handle sticking straight out in front of it.

  Simon had a fraction of a second to reflect that Casey had zero practical fighting experience. Then the pitchfork handle whacked Simon on the right elbow with a shocking burst of pain as the creature spun to attack Casey again. Simon’s sword hand immediately went numb, he stumbled awkwardly onto his injured ankle, and the machete disappeared into a deep drift of snow.

  Casey kicked the hellbeast backward. It snapped at his foot but didn’t connect. The big man then managed to get the katana out of its sheath and swung with surprisingly good form and power at the beast’s neck as it leaped at him again. His blow was solid. The katana broke with a loud spang! Blood sprayed.

  Simon found the machete by touch in the snow, and as the hellbeast darted past him, he aimed a flat, sweeping strike at the beast’s right leg with his left hand. The blow was clumsy as he was right-handed, and the machete was very dull. It parted flesh and stuck in the stifle joint without going all the way through, and was yanked from his hand.

  With a snarl, the hellbeast whirled about and lunged for Simon. He put all his weight on his injured leg and kicked it in the head with his good foot. Jaws closed around his boot, nearly yanking it off, but its small, serrated teeth did not penetrate to the skin.

  Casey grabbed for the pitchfork handle, as the implement was still protruding from the hellbeast’s chest, and used it to shove the beast away from Simon. It thrashed and jerked, and the tines came free. Casey immediately stabbed it again in the gut, but the hellbeast bolted into the trees, leaving a trail of gore and churned snow behind.

  “That went well,” Casey said sourly. “It’s headed for the goat farm—”

  A mechanical coughing noise erupted from the trees, accompanied by a deep voice growling, “Start, damnit!” Then, a snarl of sound similar to the engine of the truck, but higher-pitched, split the silence.

  The hellbeast screeched.

  The stranger exclaimed, “Fuck! Gross!”

  After several moments of odd grinding noises, the engine quit. Silence descended.

  Casey said sourly, “There's chainsaw behind the seat of the truck. I never even thought about it.”

  Simon took a deep breath, did not ask Casey about any other weapons he might have forgotten about for fear of saying something untoward that would trigger the damned geas, steeled himself against the pain in his ankle, stomped his good foot back into his boot, flexed the still-tingling fingers of his right hand, and limped toward the source of the noise.

  ~~*~~

  At the top of the hill, they found what was left of the creature. The head had been completely removed, as had all four legs, with ragged and mangled cuts. The torso and severed limbs twitched and thrashed about, and the mouth still snapped, but it was very definitely dead.

  “Uh.” Casey stared at the still-moving remains. “How long does it do that?”

  “Until dawn of the following day, when the spells that animate it dissipate.” Simon studied the bloody snow and shredded flesh. “Effective weapon, to do that much damage. Could it be carried by a man on horseback?”

  “For what, jousting with chain saws?... just no. No. That's worthy of a horror-movie villain.” Casey prodded a writhing leg with his toe. “Do we need to do something with the carcass? Will it poison animals?”

  “There is no direct threat unless someone is exceedingly foolish and allows the severed head to bite them. It will latch on, and removing it generally requires breaking the jaw. The meat is not poisonous. I ate an entire hellbeast over the course of a month and lived to tell the tale.”

  “You what?”

  Simon sighed and wondered why he’d told Casey about that. Surely, revealing the more desperate details of his past wasn’t required by the geas? He elaborated, “It’s somewhat difficult to hunt most animals with just a sword, but the hellbeast came after me. It was one of several fortuitous windfalls that helped me survive the winter. I did wait for the meat to stop moving before cooking it.”

  “Uh. What did it taste like?”

  “Like a snake, but more fishy.”

  “I’ve never eaten snake.”

  Simon glanced at him sideways. He wondered if Casey understood the full implications of eating hellbeast. Though no more intelligent than a reptile, the species had been created by dark magic, using Eastland prisoners of war, by elven sorcerers. They’d turned the newly created monsters against an invading Eastland army. Some of the hellbeasts had survived the ensuing carnage and were now a chronic problem in the remotest parts of the mountains.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Simon had done what he had to for survival, but he had broken many taboos in the process.

  Casey picked up a stick and poked the hellbeast bits with it. Simon decided not to enlighten him on that grim bit of history. Instead, he said, “I ate quite a few serpents last autumn before the land froze. Fish were the biggest part of my menu in the winter, as they could be caught through the ice. When there was nothing else, I consumed the bark of trees, pine needles, and carrion. Once, I found the well-gnawed bones of a cow and cracked them open for the marrow. When my mule died, I ate off the remains for a month until wild dogs drove me from the carcass. Anything I could consume without undue harm, I did. In the end, I even ate the leather of my belt and sword sheath. I’m not sure I’ll ever view food the same way.”

  “Well, you’ll have plenty to eat for as long as you live with me.” Casey flashed him a smile.

  “I look forward to it. Your pancakes are far more delicious than bark.”

  “I should hope so... it looks as if the man who killed the hell beast went that way.” Casey pointed off through the trees, where an obvious trail had been cut through the snow.

  Simon turned his attention to the tracks and, glad to get away from the hideously dismembered corpse, he shuffled over to look at them. His ankle hurt like fire.

  The tracks were widely spaced, with each round footprint farther apart than any man’s stride. He said, “Not a man, Casey.”

  “Looks like lion tracks... but I heard a person swearing. And that chainsaw.”

  No cat walked on two legs, nor were their tracks this large. Otherwise, the footprints could have been mistaken for the back feet of a large feline. Simon said, heart pounding, “A grimalkin, I believe.”

  “What’s a grimalkin? I mean, I know the word means cat, but it’s very old-fashioned. I think the magical universal translator might be glitching on us.”

  "Grimalkin is slang derived from a word for a housecat, so it’s likely an accurate enough translation. They are a race of cat-like people, usually standing around six to seven feet tall.”

  “There’s nothing like that on Earth. We should follow him and make sure he doesn’t attack anyone.”

  Simon fought the compulsion to agree with Casey and said, “A grimalkin is not like a hellbeast.”

  “How so?” Casey said in a calm, curious tone. The geas abated.

  Simon zipped up the front of his jacket as high as it would go and tucked his hands in his pockets. He was getting cold as they stood around talking. “Generally speaking, they are not a threat unless provoked, as they prefer to avoid contact with people. However, they are also universally gifted with magic and are formidable warriors.

  “When I was fifteen, I took part in a hunt for a small band which was enacting deadly revenge upon Yienry’s smallholders after the holders killed one of their number. While they had been wronged, they couldn’t be allowed to kill people who were uninvolved in the crime against them.”

  Simon took a deep breath, fighting back rising grief and horror as he recalled that day. With effort, keeping his expression neutral, he continued, “We numbered two score, all well-armed and experienced. Twelve of our party came across hemlock and consumed it with the enthusiasm of pigs at a trough. Another four jumped into an icy mountain torrent and drowned. Six wandered into the night, and their bodies were found in the morning, unmarked but already stiffening in death.”

  Simon looked sideways at Casey, struck by an impulse to tell him everything. However, he simply concluded, “Forced by enchantment to believe all were enemies, the remaining survivors slaughtered one another until only I remained alive.”

  Casey reached a hand out and squeezed his shoulder. “That sounds horrific.”

  Most days, Simon wished he’d been the one to lose the last, desperate fight, but he’d always been the better swordsman.

  Casey asked no questions, to Simon’s relief. Instead, he said, “If this grimalkin is not causing problems, my counsel would be to ignore his presence. He will come to us should he want to talk. I have no doubt he has observed our presence and actions here and knows us to be potential allies.”

  “I wonder where he’s hiding?”

  Simon shrugged. “Grimalkin are masters of survival and are as elusive as the cats they resemble. It is difficult to say.”

  “Huh. Okay, well, I guess we should start heading back.” Casey turned toward the truck.

  Simon tried to follow. He took two stumbling strides, and his ankle seized up. He made a small, involuntary sound of pain.

  “Damnit.” Casey plunged back through the snow, then turned around and presented his back to Simon. “Hop on. You weigh about as much as a wet feather.”

  As that had been a direct order, Simon scrambled up onto Casey’s strong back, wrapping his legs around the man’s waist and gripping Casey’s shoulders with his hands. He would have declined otherwise, and not just because being carried like a child was humiliating.

  Casey held onto Simon’s legs and hitched him higher with minimal effort. As he detoured around the large patch of cat-claw, Casey said, “Hey. I’m sorry sending you home didn’t work out. I see how you keep flinching when you talk to me. That’s the geas, right?”

  “It is structured so that my anxieties feed the spell. For me, perhaps it is worse than it would be for most other men.”

  “How so?”

  He said, “My entire life, I’ve needed awareness of the unvoiced wishes of all around me. I had to please as many people as possible and avoid angering the rest.”

  Casey slid down a hillside and landed nimbly at the bottom of the ravine, despite Simon’s weight on his back. Simon, startled, clutched Casey’s shoulders a bit tighter. “I’d be in big trouble if I had to live like that. I’m always aware of people’s moods; it’s part of my mojo. I just don’t think it’s always my job to manage their feelings for them.”

  “Hm. You come from a different world than I do. Sensitivity to others was a necessity for me to avoid severe repercussions. Unfortunately, I also see annoyance or dislike where no such emotions truly exist. I am ... oversensitive, sometimes, and paranoid of what others may think.”

  “You have social anxiety,” Casey said casually, as if unsurprised. “And in a world where sometimes the persecution was real, that must have been hell.”

  "Yes.” Simon couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of his voice that Casey had understood so swiftly. "No matter what, Lady Ellia and her sons sometimes found fault. I do not know why she hated me with such persistence. I behaved with the utmost grace and manners around her, for Yienry’s sake. Had I ever given her true cause, she would have had grounds to discharge me from service to the family — as she did to every single servant or liege who treated me with any degree of affection as a child.”

  Casey said, "Ellia sounds like a real bitch. I’d be a mess too, with that sort of pressure.”

  "You sound as if you also have familiarity with anxiety in social settings?”

  “Not me. Avery is pretty bad. It’s his story to tell, and he’s got more going on than just that, but perhaps you’d benefit from talking to each other.”

  Simon said nothing. How was he supposed to talk about private feelings with a man he’d very nearly killed?

  Fortunately, Casey didn’t seem to expect a response. Casey added, “I’ve gone to counseling sessions with Avery to learn how to support him, and he’s on medication for anxiety. He’s doing really well now, but that wasn’t always the case.”

  Casey forged ahead, easily hopped over the water despite Simon’s weight on his back, and then started up the far side. He was breathing a little hard, but he added, “Sorry to go off on a tangent. You’re saying your perceptions of my feelings can trigger the geas, even if they’re not accurate?”

  Simon nodded, then realized Casey couldn’t see him, and said, “Yes. That is part of how geas spells are structured. It has three components. One part affects my heart. It causes me to have affection and loyalty to you, and to instinctively trust you. I can attest that part is definitely in play, Casey. I’m not exactly a trusting kind of man.”

  “Uh. I am so sorry about that.”

  “You do seem trustworthy, so likely no harm done,” Simon assured him, with a bit of humor forced into his voice. If Casey became upset, that would trigger the geas.

  He continued, “The second part is a hard requirement that I must follow your direct orders. Thirdly, and this is where my own neurosis comes into play: There’s a significant compulsion to anticipate and accommodate your unspoken wishes and desires. There's also a requirement that I defend you at all costs, unless you order otherwise or if your wishes conflict with mine. Do note that if you die, so do I.”

  “This is so messed up.” The terrain had flattened out. Now Casey was walking downhill toward the truck, visible in the distance through the falling snow as a white blob.

  “I agree, not just because the geas makes me agree.” Again, Casey didn’t react to his attempt at humor. Had it even registered?

  “What can I do to help you?” Casey’s long legs were making quick work of the distance back to the truck. “Look, Simon, until we understand the book better, I don’t think we should try more spells. You’re stuck here.”

  He didn’t think being ‘trapped’ on Earth was such a bad thing, but he said nothing — the geas might be triggered if he disagreed with Casey’s preference to send him home.

  Casey clambered over some rocks hidden by the snow before continuing, “I guess we’ve got two options. I could find you somewhere else to live, or we could work on communicating extremely well with each other. You can take your time to think about which you prefer.”

  It only took him an instant to say, “I’d like to stay with you, but I want to earn my keep for my own self-respect. I’m no parasite to leech off your goodwill.”

  “You don’t have to work. I’m responsible for you since I brought you here. I’m sorry we couldn’t send you home ...”

  Now he felt a need to soothe Casey’s concerns. It allowed him to assure the man, “I’m not sorry. Do not regret it too much. I was trying to leave my country with little regard for where I would end up, so long as it was far away. Living here, in your world, is not so different from what I envisioned and seems to have some real advantages.”

  Casey said teasingly, “Advantages like indoor plumbing?”

  “I must confess a fondness for hot water from a tap, yes.” Simon found himself smiling for real. “And pancakes, and your internet, and trucks, and doorknobs, and a thousand other things I’ve discovered in just two days. Also, for all practical purposes, I think perhaps I have a friend in you. That puts me far ahead of where I expected to be when I arrived utterly alone in a new land.”

  “We’re definitely going to be friends. But. Wait. Doorknobs?”

  “My world doesn’t have them.”

  “Really?” Casey said, disbelieving. “But you said you’ve got guns and steam engines. I can’t believe nobody’s invented a doorknob. That’s, like, basic.”

  “I’m certain it’s a simple mechanism. It just wasn’t thought of.”

  “If you ever change your mind and want to go home, let me know.” Casey had reached the truck, and he let Simon slide off his back. Simon landed on his good foot in snow up past his knees. He leaned against the truck’s hood. In the time it had taken them to find the hellbeast, four new inches of snow had accumulated on the top of the vehicle.

  “I will. I promise.”

  Casey pursed his lips and looked off into the distance for a long moment. A cold breeze tousled Simon's hair. Then Casey added, "My Gift likes the decision you made to stay with me — it's very unhappy about something, but I can't figure out what that is. I think it's good that we stick together, and face whatever's coming as a team, and as friends."

  Simon was startled by how good the words 'as friends' felt. The geas, surely, was behind the surge of affection in Simon's heart. It took him a second to really register the second part; Casey, a Seer, had sensed looming danger. It wasn't the sort of warning Simon was apt to ignore. He said firmly, "We will be a team. And friends. Tell me if the warning becomes more specific."

  Casey beamed at him. That happy smile made Simon's heart soar. It was definitely the geas, but it felt so good that, just for a second, he let himself bask in the warm glow of Casey's approval. Surely, it wouldn't hurt anything to enjoy the moment...