Bare Your Teeth, Wicked Ones

6. Danger and Taunting Destruction

William

A thick fog hung over the forest, unnatural and creeping further up the trees. The snow never ceased. Drifting softly then in a violent storm. The cold reached to William's knees and bit through his nerves. They wouldn't risk Charmaine's flames though. Not in the open where something may see them. He remained vigilant, waiting for danger to make its move.

Finally, they came upon the monster's corpse laying broken among shards of evergreen. Creatures feasted upon the carcass over the days. Footprints led to and from the heap of meat. Once white snowflakes melted into red pools. The beast's gut had been shredded by teeth and mostly devoured. Rib bones peaked through a leather hide. The other eye had been gnawed away and the skin picked clean from the two back legs. The tail had been ripped off entirely, strewn about the area in pieces. A familiar stench encircled the beast.

"Sulfur," William noted under his breath. He smelled it as they marched through the woods. That gave him a nagging suspicion that the scent didn't come from the Deadlands, but rather the beasts themselves. They could have circled the encampment waiting for an appropriate time to strike.

Charmaine slipped away from William, showing her own interest in the monster. He kept a watchful eye on her and the two fae now circling the carcass. Nicholas approached the creature first, eyes alight in ways that made William vastly uncomfortable. Though most things fae did made him vastly uncomfortable, so this wasn't any unexpected news.

"Fearworn saw use in the ratwings," Nicholas remarked. He observed one of the wings so thin it was nearly transparent. Two claws sharpened to razors decorated the ends of each appendage. He pinched one claw between his fingers as if he suspected it secreted poisons like the stinger. They did not and he dropped them.

"Creating a flock of flying beasts to dive on an unsuspecting army is a tactic he would use," he added. "Certainly would do more damage than even a hundred ratwings."

"But why did this one shoot acid and not the other? The beast had every opportunity to fire upon me, or the mortal." Arden inquired from somewhere behind the corpse.

Charmaine rolled her eyes. Neither were surprised that Arden didn't recall her name. She gave him two middle fingers behind his back. William stifled a chuckle and rubbed his shoulder. Though the wound healed, an ache remained that the cold didn't help. The sage settled into a warm tea would have helped, but all had been used on Nicholas, which William sorely regretted.

"I suspect these are monsters in the work, not quite perfected." Nicholas lifted a hind leg that looked far too big for one of his size to hold. Fae had unnatural physical abilities, capable of wielding the great weight as if it were nothing. He leaned closer, inspecting the area.

Grimacing, William muttered, "Why are you staring at the monster's groin?"

"It doesn't have one," Nicholas replied.

His interest momentarily piqued, William shuffled forward. The beast had a smooth backside, save for a rectal area. Then Nicholas dropped the leg. His nails grew into sharp spears.

"You may want to step back. This will get messy," Nicholas warned.

"Guts do not bother me."

"What does?"

"Nothing I will ever share with you."

Nicholas snickered and cut further into the beast. The stench grew. More guts and blood oozed into the forest floor. Snow melted in heaps of steam. Nicholas cut and dug. After a moment of squishy inspection accompanied by soft murmuring, he retreated from the interior.

"I don't see reproductive organs either, which I doubt Fearworn wants. He needs beasts to multiply on their own to grow an army," he declared while waving his arm. The filth splattered on the ground and evaporated from his arm in a wave of bubbling heat.