The three lanterns threw barely enough light to see five feet of road before them, and Louis strained to remember what the terrain had looked like in the daylight just this morning as he’d arrived. But he could only envision Father Apollinaris’s dirty habit trailing along the ground, sullied by a happy day of honest labor.
There was no point in searching around the edge of the light of the lanterns, as it only served to make the band more nervous than they already were. So, the three men merely cast their eyes down to their feet—to avoid loose stones and random divots—and hoped for the best. They could have walked this road entirely blind, as it was—to Father Apollinaris’s great credit—as smooth as the barrel of the gun in Louis’s coat. In this fashion, the trek out into the field, which seemed to have been much longer for the good talk with the friar along the way that morning, came to an unexpectedly abrupt end in a tacky pool of blood.
They stood around it with their lanterns. Pierrick had already seen it and only wiped his mouth, Roland stood stoically gazing down at it, hardened, Louis supposed, by years of the carnage of war. Louis, though, struggled to force his dinner to settle and remain tranquil.
Silently, the three men circled the immediate area, each piecing together what might have happened. The blood on the ground told a short story—Father Apollinaris was attacked suddenly, dragged only a few feet, then eviscerated.
“It is a miracle he survived long enough to die in the comfort of his brothers,” said Louis.
“Well, it is good to see you believe in miracles,” Roland answered.
Louis was about to reply hotly when he was interrupted.
“Over here,” Pierrick called, and the two men followed his voice.
Pierrick stood beside Father Apollinaris’s barrow. Inside lay a few hand tools deemed worthless because of the close proximity required to use them for defense. But there were also two long-handled tools: an edger and a tamp. While one could use them at a distance and the heads were of iron, they looked to be from the last century and well worn. Pierrick handed the edger to Roland and kept the tamp for himself, as he was younger and strong enough to heft and swing the heavy head if necessary. Once everyone was armed, Louis wandered away—the lantern in one hand and his revolver in the other—to explore the area a bit more.
There was little in the way of topography: just the compacted soil of the road with its paper-straight border—the work of the tamp and edger, now makeshift weapons—and the grassy fields on either side. Louis walked, his lantern illuminating only the ground beneath his feet, fading quickly into pitch on all sides. Like the night before Cheylard, the light felt isolating, and again, he felt cut off from the world, not to mention his two companions.
He drifted a little ways down the road from which they came, while the other two explored other directions. As he scrutinized the perimeter of light, Louis noticed distractedly that the boots and gaiters he’d bought so recently, just for this trip, were so scuffed and worn they looked to be as old as Father Apollinaris’s tools. His thoughts drifted, perhaps as a reprieve from the immediate tragedy—to images of his family, his friends, and Fanny. He wondered what they were all doing, this very moment, to pass the evening. Did they have clear skies, or was it raining? Were they reading by a fire? Enjoying the company of others for whom they cared and by whom the same?
Then, Louis tripped.
The road had been so meticulously compressed and cleaned of debris that he immediately blamed his own clumsy feet and awkward limbs, but instinctively returned to the spot with his lantern to inspect it. Lying there, points down and into the ground—probably from the force of Louis’s toe against it—was a strange thing. He recognized it as similar to a common, claw-shaped garden cultivator, such as the one his mother used with her potted herbs. Though this was different.
He set the lantern beside it and got down on his queasy belly to inspect it. The iron claws of the thing, instead of being bent at angles were curved and of two pieces each—one like the finger of the thing and then tipped separately with another, smaller piece that was ground to a sharpened point. The handle was of wood and just an inch or two longer than the average hand tool. Most curious, it was engraved with the crude figure of a snarling wolf. The wooden end had been drilled and a thick strip of leather was looped through the hole, as if to wear over one’s wrist for better, surer service. And as if all of this was not sufficient, it was coated in gore.
Louis brought himself to his knees, carefully lifted the thing by its leather strap, proceeded to wrap it in a handkerchief and then pocketed it. He then stood with his lantern and revolver, and was about to call out to the other men when he heard a yell.
“Here!” called Roland. “The beast!”
Louis ran, and as he did he heard first a growling, and then a vicious snarling, as a wild dog over a piece of meat. Pierrick reached Roland first. Louis heard both men shouting. As he approached, he could make out what was happening.
The two men held their weapons in front of them, their lanterns on the ground, staring into the darkness. Roland looked frantic. Whatever it was must have already attacked once and then retreated back into the shadows, as the blade of the edger was wet with blood. Beyond, in the black, an angry growl rumbled cavernously, building.
“Where is that goddamned Camisard with his goddamned pistol?” Roland bellowed.
As he ran, Louis could feel the awkward weight of the clawed thing he’d found bouncing against his hip through his coat pocket. When he finally arrived, his additional lantern gave just enough added light to reveal what it was the men cowered from.
At the edge of the light, bleeding from a wound in its side, was a massive wolf-like creature. It hung its enormous head low and glared up at the men with yellow eyes that sat strangely in their sockets, and when it blinked, it seemed less an eyelid than a fur-covered membrane that slid over the orb somewhat sideways and snapped back. Overall, it was fawn colored, except for its hackles, which began at the top of its head and trailed down its thick neck to its back and beyond—this was a reddish color, striped black. Its tail and hind legs were of a wolf’s, only significantly larger; its forelegs were thicker, longer. The four toes featured four corresponding claws which flexed and penetrated the earth beneath them and extended long past the unguicular crests, not at all like a dog or wolf, but like a cat.
Louis had to take all of this in over mere moments, for just as he arrived and had enough time to set down his lantern, the beast reared. Or, Louis thought it was rearing, when, in fact, it was only standing. The three men gawped as they watched a thing they’d never experienced before do something they’d never expected. It was certainly an action Louis had never witnessed in a wolf, or dog, or any sort of canine creature. The thing raised itself on its hind legs in such a way that didn’t seem as if it required much balancing, but was as natural as its menacing crouch. When it reached its full height, which Louis guessed to be roughly nine or ten feet, it spread its claws as wide each as a dinner plate, and its mouth gave way to rows of vicious, jagged teeth. It snarled and Louis could see the pink flesh of its throat tremble with the sound. And just as is seemed poised to strike, Louis heard a gunshot.
The thing yelped and flew back, then yapped and squealed a trail through the field to a nearby wood. Louis felt his palms throb against the butt of the pistol, aching with the recoil of its action. Smoke floated like a fog from the barrel.
“After it!” Pierrick yelled, and the two other men grabbed their lanterns and ran. Louis, though, stood for another few moments, gazing at the contraption in his hands, and finally let out the breath he’d been holding since he’d put down his lantern. His legs shook beneath him and, slowly, he lowered himself to a seated position.
Everything he’d been told in this strange land was true, and therefore everything he’d believed about the world was scattered. He could almost feel his convictions landing on the ground around him, some up facing, some down, none what they previously had been. As he sat, he felt the clawed thing in his pocket poke his outer thigh and he shifted enough to silence that sensation. After the realization that he could never trust anything ever again, his mind merely went blank. He thought of nothing—not of family, nor friends, nor even of his beloved Fanny, on whose image, in other times of crisis, he’d relied wholly. He thought nothing, neither saw, nor heard, anything—later, of those following minutes, he would only remember the sulfur smell of the shot he’d so recently fired.
By the time the two men had returned, Louis was standing and wandering around his circle of light, pistol drawn, and thinking. He’d gathered himself, but the only reason he didn’t shoot the advancing men was because they were smart enough to call ahead their approach.
“Why didn’t you follow?” Roland demanded.
Louis said nothing, only placed his pistol, hammer uncocked, into the pocket opposite the clawed thing, and picked up his lantern.
Indignant he was being ignored, Roland placed himself between Louis and the way back to the monastery.
“Protestant coward,” the old soldier hissed.
Louis, with his free hand, hauled back and slapped the man across the face, hard.
Roland’s eyes grew and his cheek reddened. Pierrick said nothing, did nothing, as though he knew exactly why Louis hadn’t gone along and chased the beast. The peasant’s eyes said to Louis, you are not from here. You’ve never seen what we’ve seen.
“Now get out of my way,” Louis said to Roland, almost calm.
The old man obeyed, and with that, they made their way back to the holy sanctuary, Pierrick wheeling Father Apollinaris’s barrow full of tools.
Sock it to me...