Osmund wasn’t thinking thoughts like, “What is a wyrm doing out in the forest?”

He also wasn’t thinking about the creature’s terrible smell, which was impressive, because if he hadn’t become a puppet in that moment commandeered by sheer terror, the stench alone would have knocked him flat.

He felt a rough pressure against his shoulder; Cemil, giving him a hard shove. “Move!” he heard, and amazingly, Osmund found the strength to obey. He scattered off the stone and over to the tree line, expecting every second that some terrible force would come crunching down on his bones.

Anaya and Banu were shrieking in distress, their hooves flailing into the air. Osmund made it to their side and quickly freed them, experience barely outmaneuvering his panic. He was strewn half across the saddle when he finally realized Cemil wasn’t with them.

Osmund wrenched his neck around so fast it hurt. Cemil was ankle-deep in the creek and his fiery sword was flashing. He was battling the creature!

No, more accurate to say he was holding it off. The flightless reptile was taller than any horse, and its long body seemed to stretch out in every direction. It had a wide flat face with rows of teeth that glinted with every gnash of its jaws, and dull, pale eyes which it aimed solely with the motions of its head. It hounded Cemil mercilessly, but seemed afraid of the enchanted sword’s deadly red arc. Everywhere the blade flashed, a trail of searing fire lingered.

“Head back!” Cemil roared at him without turning to look. “I’ll follow!” But Osmund couldn’t go even if he’d wanted to abandon Cemil to his fate. Banu was having none of it! She was still kicking and rearing, losing her mind.

Does he really think he can win against that creature?! Cemil might have been waiting for an opening to flee, but the wyrm wasn’t giving him an inch. They were locked in a deadly dance, but Cemil had a massive size disadvantage. One wrong move and the outcome would be decided in a heartbeat.

Osmund made a bold, desperate, crazy choice. He vaulted straight off of Banu and landed on Anaya’s back!

The massive black horse whinnied and bucked angrily, trying to throw him. Osmund barely managed to avoid being ejected from the saddle, and likely breaking his neck in the process. With all his strength he managed to get both legs around her immense frame, grasping the reins with bravery he did not feel. “Go!” he exclaimed in Meskato, and incredibly, Anaya went.

It was a gamble. He might be getting Cemil killed. As they approached the battle in a blazing gallop he cried, “Your left!”

Thank heavens Cemil understood. He angled his head back the slightest amount, and when Anaya went blazing past, Cemil latched onto her side, evading jaws that would have crumpled his ribs like a melon.

Osmund swung around in the saddle to try and pull Cemil up behind him. The Meskato prince seemed to be powered by sheer adrenaline, wrangling himself aboard with superhuman strength after barely a few moments of struggle. “We have to kill it!” Cemil cried in his ear.

“What?!”

“There’s a village nearby. A wyrm this size could cause ruin!”

Sure, that was a compelling argument on paper! But between them they had one capable fighter, a very angry horse, and a very scared Tolmishman. “How?!” Osmund demanded shrilly. He cast a glance over his shoulder for a horrifying sight of the wyrm starting to galumph after them, its stubby lizardlike legs surprisingly swift. “There’s no way to get close!” Even a giant like Anaya would be thrown aside if she was struck by the creature’s flailing body!

“Just keep riding!” Cemil yelled in his ear. His arm came into Osmund’s view. “There!”

He was pointing to a wide clearing way up ahead. There was no cover for them that Osmund could see; the creature would be free to throw its weight around. “We should head for the trees!” Osmund cried back. “They’ll slow it down!”

But the Meskato prince only pointed more insistently. “The clearing,” he repeated. “That’s a command!”

For one brief, thrilling moment Osmund considered disobeying. He couldn’t see how Cemil’s order would amount to anything other than suicide. But, that was the thing about real princes: they inspired faith. And so, Osmund decided to have blind, dizzying, terrifying faith in him, spurring Anaya right into the clearing where they’d be vulnerable.

Cemil did something unexpected then. He swung one leg so that he was hanging off Anaya, and dropped down to the ground.

“Cemil!” Osmund cried into the wind, powerless to do anything but crane his neck and look on in terror as the Meskato prince rose from his knees to face down the monster, which would be upon him in seconds, its thundering footsteps echoing throughout the gorge as it charged.

But Cemil didn’t seem to be here just to make a meal of himself.

Clenching the hilt tightly with both hands, he lifted the fiery blade aloft. Osmund urged the black horse to bank left towards the trees, for the benefit of cover, and so that they wouldn’t lose sight of Cemil.

Something great and terrible was happening. The Meskato prince was outwardly still, yet the sword blazed brighter and brighter, so bright Osmund would see it behind closed eyelids. He looked on, mesmerized with fear, at the peculiar way nature itself seemed to bend to his will. The trunks of ancient oaks swayed to the side with great creaking groans, the treetops all gravitating towards the center of the clearing, towards Cemil. It was as if a powerful force—not quite wind, but something else—were sucking everything in. Even the sky had become ashen grey, like the sword were drinking away the very sunlight.

There was a cracking sound so loud and sharp that Osmund thought his eardrums had popped. The sword’s edge swung towards the advancing wyrm, but it wasn’t the blade itself that made contact.

Some kind of—force emanated outwards from the sword’s edge. Osmund only caught a glimpse of it, red and swift, before it entered the wyrm. But the beast had too much momentum. Its immense form made contact with Cemil at last, and there was no Meskato prince to see anymore.

Osmund made a wretched sound from his throat. He was sure in that moment that he’d just watched Cemil die. The wyrm itself no longer moved by its own power: its legs trailed uselessly as its body carved a path of destruction in the shallow water of the gorge, and after that, it was still. One by one, the grove and its warped trees came back alive, animated with the sounds of insects and birdsong.

He wasn’t aware of himself as he dismounted Anaya and raced on his shaky, newborn-foal legs towards the fallen wyrm, hoping against hope to find Cemil clinging to life. Osmund couldn’t do anything to help if he found him—he wasn’t a healer, after all—except try and get him back to the mansion where others could intervene. How, oh how had this all gone so wrong?!

But to Osmund’s amazement, out from somewhere in the strange wreckage of the creature’s body stepped a human figure. A very unmistakable, eerily calm human figure. Cemil. He was splattered with gore of unmentionable hues but he was alive and somehow—miraculously, impossibly—he appeared unharmed. The sword, its glow fading fast, was still clenched tightly in his hand. It was a part of his body, bloodied metal melded to flesh and bone—but that was only a passing trick. Only Osmund’s own mind, trying to comprehend.

Now that he looked, he saw from this vantage point what he’d missed on the edges of the clearing. From the side the wyrm’s body looked intact, but when viewed from head-on he could see it was in strips. He stared emptily at the carnage. Some of its strange, grey-black insides were still impossibly pulsing, and for the first time, he truly registered the stench. It was like nothing he had words to describe, and his brain at last gave up the fight to make sense of it.

Osmund bent at the waist and immediately lost both the jerky and his carefully-chewed breakfast.

He retched until his heaving lungs ached terribly. Cemil had not spoken. He hadn’t even moved. Osmund righted himself and stumbled towards the Meskato prince, who might’ve been a grotesque statue. “How…? Cemil! Are you, are you alright? Please answer me!”

Cemil’s pupils flicked to him briefly. He blinked. Then there was a motion. It might’ve been called a nod. Or perhaps his muscles had merely contracted. Osmund reached out to steady him, but his hand wavered before the dreadfulness of the other man’s clothes. “I’ll get Anaya,” he stammered instead, and went to fetch the horse.

For the first time since he’d started work at the mansion, he had to help Cemil into the saddle. The Meskato prince’s movements seemed strangely uncoordinated, his eyes hazy in a way that made Osmund feel sick again with fear. He kept his mind carefully blank as he handled Cemil’s weight and touched his polluted garments. It didn’t even occur to him to be shy about it; it was all he could do to stamp down on his reflex to vomit again.  

“We should go back for Banu,” Osmund fretted once they were both in the saddle and on the move. He felt a flare of stabbing guilt for leaving the sweet chestnut mare terrified all by herself. “What if there are more of these…things out here?!”

“No time,” Cemil spoke at last. His voice was…odd. “Have to get back.”

Osmund’s mind worked. “Can you ride?” he called behind to Cemil.

“Mm.”

“Then I’ll look for her! You go ahead—I’ll follow when I find her.”

Cemil’s tone was raw and sharp, unmoderated by his usual gentleness. “And leave you stranded if she’s gone? I can’t let you do that, it’s dangerous.”

“She’s such a good horse,” Osmund pleaded, arguing for some reason even though he knew he was the one not making sense. “Please. She deserves to have someone go back for her. I don’t want to just leave her. Please!”

Cemil cursed in Meskato. “Alright,” he barked finally. “Let’s find Banu. Hurry.”