The Despair of Kurta

“I’ve never seen such panic over a man eater before,” Harold commented, watching the distant townsfolk dance in the gloom of a purple twilight about the towering flames of six bonfires set at the edge of the forest in a queer display of misguided paganism. A passing breeze brought the aroma of smoke from the distant fires, coupled with the smell of earth from the fields, and a hint of the rank odor of the swamp that lay just beyond the trees. “Of course, if what you tell me is true, this will be the most prolific leopard I have ever hunted.”
“It isn’t a leopard,” Governor Dalin said quickly, from his chair to Harold’s left.
“A bear?” Harold asked, though he doubted it. Despite the warmth of summer that still clung desperately to each day, autumn was steadily drawing to a close and the chill of winter was settling into the evenings. The bears should have been preparing for their long sleep.
“No,” the Governor said gravely, “It isn’t a bear.”
“What else could it be?”
Dalin could only sigh, tossing back the cup in his hand and draining the remainder of its contents in a single gulp. “The villagers think it’s a demon,” he said at last, “The abbot is inclined to agree, but the monks and the townsfolk are handling their suspicions very differently.” He waved a hand toward the wild display across the field and added, “As you can see.”
“What has happened?” Harold asked.
“At first it attacked two boys as they walked along the edge of the swamp in the forest. One child managed to escape as the monster devoured his friend. Then it began taking hunters. Men would disappear and parties that went searching for them would find signs of struggle, an area covered in strange tracks, but no bodies. Then the traders and caravans bringing goods to our town stopped coming. At first, it was because they too were victims of the creature. We would ride out and find the wagons overturned and the horses slaughtered. Again, no bodies. Now I’ve been receiving word that no further supply will be sent along the road until we have dealt with our problem.”
“One of the two boys first attacked survived,” Harold said, “Wasn’t he able to say what attacked him?”
“Oh yes,” the Governor said, “and that madness you see across the field is the result. The boy claimed that he and his friend first thought they saw an old man sitting at the bank of a stagnant pool. As they approached, however, they could see that the creature only had the face of a man. Its body was like that of a lion. The boy said that he and his friend were caught in the power of the monster’s eyes. Yet when the creature began to approach, it made a rattling sound which shook the boys free of its spell and they fled. The boy who managed to escape said that he heard the creature laughing as they ran, and then his friend cried out. He paused long enough to look back and see the other boy sprawled in a puddle with several thorns sticking in his back.”
“Thorns?” Harold asked, incredulous, “The boy is mad. There exists no such creature like what they saw. His friend was devoured by a leopard. The child’s mind has been crazed by fear.”

Governor Dalin set his cup aside on a small table and picked up a heavy leather bound tome, opening to a page marked by a crimson colored ribbon. With a wave of his hand he summoned one of the servants waiting nearby to come forward with a lamp before handing the book to Harold. The poacher, like most low born men, could not make sense of the scrawling letters that covered the page, but what caught his attention was a woodcut illustration near the top. The picture was of a creature, featuring the head of a man, the body of a lion, and a long sinewy tail with a barbed tip.
“What is this?” he asked
“The Manticorus,” the governor replied.
Harold laughed, closing the book and handing it back to the old man. “You can’t be serious.”
“The boy is no more educated than you,” Dalin scolded, arching a thin eyebrow, “This book is from my private collection. No one has seen it except myself, and now you, yet the child’s description matches the image perfectly. How could he imagine what he has never seen?”
A sound drifted toward the Governor’s mansion. Soft, seemingly carried by the wind at first, it quickly grew in volume, increasing to a stirring crescendo that sent a shiver along Harold’s spine and drew his attention back to the bon fires and the dark forest beyond. The sound was similar to the trilling of a flute matched with the clean clear burst of a trumpet. At first, Harold thought the villagers had added new instruments to their revelry, and then he realized that the drums had fallen silent, along with the rest of the world. Heaven itself seem to pause as the sound died away to echoes, only to rise again a moment later.
“Then there is that,” the Governor murmured at Harold’s back. “Every night the monster cries out in its melodious voice. I have often wondered, these past weeks, how such a beautiful sound can come from such a beast.”
“How would I kill this thing?” Harold wondered
“You should know,” the governor said, “you are not the first hunter to answer my summons.”
Harold turned, trying to ignore the continued cries of the monster in the woods, “Oh?”
The governor nodded, “But you are the first to arrive.”
It took a moment for the gravity of the implication to strike. When it did, Harold felt as though he’d taken a punch to the gut.
“The creature has left the bodies of the others out for us to see,” Governor Dalin said severely, “Where it fed on those who tried to pass through the woods before, now it hunts for pleasure, mocking us in our attempts to fight back. You are the only one it has allowed to pass.”
“Why me,” Harold asked, breaking into a cold sweat at the thought of having passed through the monster’s territory, so close to the jaws of death, “I’m a confessed poacher, a hunter,  just a man.”
“I think it fears you, “the Governor replied, “But I cannot say as to why. At any rate, you’re here now, which means you’re the man for the job.”
“What if I say no?”
“I’m a desperate man, my friend,” the Governor said sadly, “If you refuse me, and remain in this town, I’ll have you condemned as a wizard. I’ll claim you summoned the creature, and that you only came here to see the result of your work. My people will tear you apart before sunrise.”
Harold felt suddenly very cold. There was a monster at his back, stalking the dark pathways of the woods beyond the town, and another monster sat before him, looking deceptively like a balding fat man. Harold rubbed long calloused fingers through the sand colored locks of his hair, weighing his options.
“You are free to leave,” Dalin continued, “But something tells me that the monster will not let you pass through its land a second time unscathed.”
Something told Harold the same thing. “Damned if I do,” he reasoned, “Damned if I don’t.”
“Crude,” Governor Dalin said, nodded his ponderous head slowly, “But appropriate.”

“Just how do you propose I kill this creature,” the poacher asked.
The governor shrugged and said, “The book I have doesn’t mention any particular strengths or weaknesses. A bow and arrow, or a blade should suffice. But, “he raised a hand, summoning a second servant over to them. This servant was a young woman, hooded to hide her face. She carried something covered in a sheet of white linen laid out over her upraised hands. “I have something that might help you, nonetheless.”
Reaching up and taking the covered object from the woman with an almost reverent grasp, Dalin pulled the cloth aside to reveal a bow. The hour of day had reached that final threshold before crossing into night. The landscape had darkened, changing the bonfires into beacons of refuge surrounded on all sides. The sky, however, still held to the last motes of daylight in dim hues of violet and pink. In that light, the bow in the Governor’s hands gleamed darkly, black as ebony. The governor raised the weapon, lifting it for Harold to reach out and take it. Harold hefted its weight, feeling a strange heat emanate from the glossy surface. Despite having a smooth texture, the weapon’s surface was ridged, like the horn of a ram.
“That bow,” the governor was saying, “came to me from a dear friend who lived in the city of Silene in Libya. It was crafted from the horn of the dragon slain by Saint George.”
As the servant carrying the lamp lifted it closer so that Harold could inspect the dragon horn bow in the light, a strange notion occurred to him. He could not say from what unconscious part of him the thought emerged, but it suddenly seemed as though the weapon liked the flame.
“Do you like it?” the Governor asked.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Harold breathed.
“I promise you, sir,” Dalin said, “You’ll never see its like anywhere else, but if you can kill the manticore, that bow will be yours.”

***************************

The raucous cry of a raven shattered the morning stillness. Harold paused beneath the trunk of an old maple tree and watched the bird take flight through the canopy of red, gold, and green. A long night haunted by the consistent trumpeting of the manticore had given way to slate grey skies and promises of rain. The cloud strained sunlight did little to shake off the night’s chill, and seemed to sap the very color from Harold’s surroundings. The air carried a brittle silence which unnerved the hunter. A healthy forest should have been alive in all the minute little ways that people typically overlooked. Since setting out at first light, however, the crow was so far the first sign of any living thing that Harold had seen. Reaching to the quiver over his shoulder, the hunter drew an arrow and knocked it to the string of the dragon horn bow, taking what comfort he could from the weapon. The arrow had a broad tip, bladed and barbed for heavy damage. The Governor had commissioned them from the town’s Fletcher for Harold’s use. The Fletcher had also warned Harold that the tips were poisoned, but did not confide in him the nature of the venom.

The ground sloped down and away from the maple tree at a steep angle. Harold picked his way down the incline carefully to prevent a fall and move as quietly as possible. He paused at the base of the slope where the ground gave way to a dark pool of water which, judging by the stench, marked the edge of the swamp. The ground sunk beneath Harold’s boots and he knelt to survey the earth around him or other tracks.

“Hunter.”
 
If not for the unnatural stillness, Harold might have missed the whispered word. A quick glance at the woods ahead of him and to each side revealed nothing, but a sudden rattling sound drew his attention back up the slope toward the maple tree. At first, it appeared as though an old man were sitting at the base of the trunk. The creature’s face was too narrow, however. Its brow was too high and too broad, its cheeks looked sunken, giving it an almost goat like appearance due to the little tuft of fur sprouting from its chin. A cleft split the creature’s upper lip and continued up the broad flat nose, dividing two wide nostrils. Most telling were the eyes. They were blue, much like Harold’s own, but the monster’s pupils were wide and black like twin abyssal pools trying to pull him under. The manticore’s long tail snaked into view over the creature’s shoulder. In appearance, Harold thought it resembled the tail of a snow leopard, but long thin spines grew from amidst the thick tuft of fur at the tip, which trembled, causing the spines to rattle.

Harold turned, forcing himself free of the creature’s gaze and he took aim with the bow and drew the fletching of the arrow to his cheek. The bow had a strength like nothing he had ever shot before and Harold did not try to hold it, loosing the arrow purely on instinct alone. The manticore leapt and the shaft whistled harmlessly beneath the monster’s belly as it seemed to soar down the hill toward the hunter. Harold rolled at the last second, came to his knees and spun about, swinging the bow out ahead of him. The manticore had landed in the spot he was standing in a moment before and as it turned to pursue him, the bow caught the side of the monster’s face, jarring its head to one side. As it turned back to face him, the creature bared six rows of small needle like teeth and screamed. Harold had never heard a woman scream while being murdered, but he imagined that the two sounds were not dissimilar. He hastily backed away, keeping his front to the beast as he drew another arrow and fit it to the bow. The manticore leapt again, easily covering the distance between them. Harold dove desperately out of the way, dropping his arrow into the muck. The creature turned, slashing at him with hooked claws that tipped the ends of long digits, giving the creature’s forepaws the appearance of hands. A second rake split the front of Harold’s leather armor and sent him stumbling backward. A root caught his heel and Harold completely lost his footing, landing hard on his back with the mud with a loud sploot. The bow flew from his hand, landing somewhere nearby, but out of sight.  The manticore’s laughter echoed all around him, like the cackle of a madman, chilling Harold with the realization that he was about to die. The manticore seemed to sense this, and so it took its time as it advanced on him, its lips lifted in the mimicry of a smile. Harold groped at his belt for his knife, but found the scabbard empty. Again the creature laughed, drawing closer, its eyes ablaze with some strange inner light. As Harold scrambled to back away from the monster, his elbow touched something in the mud. Glancing toward his arm, he saw the black gleam of the dragon horn bow.

Sensing the hunter’s renewed hope, the Manticore snarled, setting a paw on Harold’s chest to pin the man for the killing bite. With a scream of his own, desperate and afraid, Harold clutched the shaft of the bow and swung at the monster’s face. The weapon shuddered in Harold’s hands and the beast screamed as it staggered off him. Harold rose quickly to his feet and swung at the manticore again, using the bow as a club to beat the monster back. It cowed beneath each blow, howling and gnashing its teeth. The was grinning madly, feeling in control of the fight for the first time, until something struck him across the shoulder, knocking the breath from his lungs with sudden searing pain. He had forgotten the creature’s tail. As he stumbled away, he reached around behind him and felt the ends of several long barbs buried in his flesh. He swallowed back the urged to vomit and shook his head to clear his blurring vision. The creature seemed to be doing something similar, attempting to recover from the beating it had just received. Slowly, Harold reached over his shoulder for the quiver at his back. His teeth grit against the pain as he felt for his arrows, finding one of the shafts and drawing it free. Carefully, he knocked it against the string and pulled. The manticore lifted its monstrous head and snarled, opening its mouth and trumpeting in its haunting, melodious voice. Harold’s arms shook violently against the pain and the power of the bow, but somehow he brought the arrow to his cheek and released the string. The Manticore’s call changed to a strangled yelp as the arrow feathered the creature’s throat beneath its chin. The monster’s tail rattled threateningly, but the manticore’s eyes were already dimming. The tail twitched once more and then fell limp. The manticore turned, took several staggering steps away, and toppled into a pool.