LILLE

  I glare at Bann. After a while, I chuckle and roll my eyes, turning them away from the big doofus. Folke’s eyes go wide. He probably expected me to lecture Bann, but I can’t help being relieved about everything going so well. Folke’s another doofus, but at least a clever one. He has been with us since he was a baby. Gran picked him up somewhere just before retiring from the business and raised him with all the other kids in the village. He’s lucky. For a rascal without parents or family, there are far worse shores to wash up on than ours.

  I squint once more at Bann, for good measure, but decide to let it go. They’ve just felled their first real monster. I sit down on a rock and rest my arms on my knees, dangling my hands to the ground. Ral picked the right beast. Dumb as a rock and nearly as slow. Still dangerous, obviously, but in reality not even as dangerous as hunting a boar or a bear would have been.

  “Enjoy this, but remember, this wasn’t what it always will be like. Teratomes can be much quicker, stronger. Don’t let this go to your head.”

  This is the most important lesson to be learned here. The response is three vacant stares and token nodding, before they turn back to each other.

  “That was a great shot!” Lian says.

  “But you toppled it over!” Folke says.

  “We all did good,” Bann says and slinks a glance at me.

  I chuckle again, letting it go again. Smoke rises from the pyre, thick and torpid, just barely making it up to the treetops. It looks like wool. The kids back away from it. Good. Even if breathing it wouldn’t be dangerous, the soot will stick to everything like nothing. Gran would nag for days if I brought the kids back to her black and stinking of smoked vomit.

  I’m finally starting to understand the old lady. I thought she was overprotective, fussy. It felt like she was holding me back, stopping me from proving myself. Remembering Bann charging right at a teratome and Lian dancing away from its thrashing, I feel a pang of guilt about how I thought about Gran and her coddling back when I was young. It’s not easy, sending your kids into danger.

  I’ve spent the last three years with them. They are as much my kids as anyone else’s. Bann’s and Lian’s parents visit us every once in a while, but they are city folk. They think hunting life is rustic, hearty. Good for the circulation.

  And of course it is, but that’s not the point. We’ve been here before the roads, before the fields.

  I know I should be grateful for everything the people at the godsdamned city have done. Gran is always talking about the days when she was young and there were robber barons and bandits all around the place. There are none left, now. The wizards ponce around in their ridiculous bathrobes and pointy hats, but after seeing that old guy fill a whole teratome nest with molten rock, even I have to admit that they are powerful.

  They have way too much time on their hands. That’s the problem. Enough to meddle in everyone else’s business all over the countryside.

  I glance at Lian, who’s poking a wiggling clump of translucent goo on the ground. “Toss it in with the rest. Not with your bare hand!” I groan and lean my head on the trunk of the tree whose roots I’m sitting on.

  There’s talk of the city forming a militia from adventurers. We’ve lost a few good people to adventuring. They are doing well for themselves, but it’s just that we’ve lost them. Most promise to come back. Some do. Ral did. Gran did. I guess I did, too. I never considered myself being in the business, but I guess it probably looked like I was. Too many teratome hunts, easy to mistake a simple hunter as an adventurer.

  I snicker at the thought, and Folke glances at me again. Lian and Bann are talking with each other, but Folke always has his ears and eyes open. The stupid clever boy is going to end up an adventurer. I just know it. He’s too rigid, too worried about everyone, too ambitious. He’ll hear that there’s something wrong in the world and will go try to right it. And if it happens to make him famous, that’s just a bonus that he’ll graciously try to accept.

  I close my eyes and lean back. Sunlight warms my face and I bask in the feeling. The smoke shadows me from time to time, but the crisp spring air makes the sun feel even warmer when it shines through.

  “Lille,” Folke’s voice says.

  I don’t open my eyes. “Hmm?”

  “How many teratomes have you hunted? Are they always like this?”

  “They are never like this. That’s the whole point with teratomes. You never know.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  “I know.”

  I creak open one eye and look at him. “What are you asking, Folke?”

  “It’s just… other animals are animals. A rabbit stares at you, trying to decide if it runs or hides. A fox grins at you while rubbing its stink everywhere. A jay will come and eat from your hand if you let it get to know you for a while.” He takes a small break, looking at the black smoke billowing heavily from the pyre. “That thing was just… dumb. Not a bit dumb like Gran’s cat is, but just… empty?”

  I open my other eye and squint at the bright sky. “In that case, then yes, mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  Bann and Lian have stopped talking and look to where we are. Good. I sit up and look at all three of them. “Teratomes are essentially something like... cancer. They are just clumps of flesh with too much magic in them. They siphon off mana from the water and the air and from anything they eat.” I raise my palm to stop the questions before they start. I should have left out the details. “The point is that big teratomes like these just keep mutating and growing and changing. They aren’t dangerous like a hungry wolf or a bear that’s protecting its cubs. They are dangerous like a poisonous mushroom or an erupting volcano. And the longer you leave them alone, the more dangerous they become and the more damage they do to everything around them.”

  “But what about the bearatome?” Bann asks.

  The name has to be Ral’s fault. I can’t believe anyone else would come up with something that awful. Though I guess it makes sense. “The name is actually fitting.” I groan inside as I hear myself say that, but continue. “The bear-part was an actual bear. Maybe it tried to fight the teratome and ended up losing. Maybe the teratome found the bear while it was already dead. Teratome blood can heal, but it does it by replacing broken flesh with teratome flesh, slowly taking over.” I push my fingers together while I talk, weaving them between each other and forming a ball with my hands.

  Bann shivers and I see Folke pale too. Good. Lian swallows and glances at her hand that she nearly used to pick up a piece of the dead monster.

  “The bear was sort-of alive, being digested and fused into the monster at the same time. The teratome had assimilated enough of it to start acting, thinking like one. It was no longer a dumb monster, but an animal crazy from fear and pain.”

  All three of them grimace. They understand what I’m talking about. There’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal.

  I consider for a moment. What the heck. I raise my eyebrows and point a finger at them. “That’s not the worst thing that could happen, though.”

  Three jaws drop.

  I can practically see them panting and hold back my smirk. All too easy, bless their silly little hearts. “Teratomes can mutate into anything. Sometimes they grow legs, sometimes they have teeth. And every once in a while…” I pause for a moment, because that’s what you do. “They grow brains.”

  Lian’s face droops. “Oh,” she says.

  Folke pokes her in the ribs with his elbow. He seems to get it. Of course he does. Bann still looks confused, while Folke hisses and bites at his fingernail as he thinks about what I said.

  I put more kindling into the fire. “Ever fought a centipede the size of a horse that could use baits, plan ambushes and take hostages?”

  Bann’s frown deepens. Lian rubs her ribs but at least she’s listening as well.

  “Ever tried to hunt something that can hunt back? Something smarter than you are?”

  Bann scratches the top of his head with one finger and scrunches up his eyes. “Most of the time, I’d say.”

  Lian bonks him on the head with her fist. I chuckle along as they laugh. Maybe it wasn’t a complete fluke what he did with the spear. The sounds of their laughter feel like something squeezing my heart. I can hardly breathe from happiness. Damn kids.

  Folke looks thoughtful again. He’s pouting his lips and watching the smoke. ”Where do they come from?”

  I shrug. ”Underground.”

  It’s not a great explanation, but I don’t have a better one.

  No one has.

  Folke pokes through the ashes, making sure there’s nothing left that could wriggle away. We have to gather as much of the ash as possible and take it away. The sun is already creeping down on the horizon, but there’s no rush. The forest is safe now. At least for today. Ral is certain there’s another one somewhere close. I’ll have to come back later, preferably alone. If it turns out to be not too dangerous, maybe I’ll bring some of them along when it’s time to take the monster down.

  Folke picks up something from the pile and turns it around in his hand, blowing the ash away from it.

  ”What did you find?”

  ”It’s a… badge of some sort. Metal.”

  I reach out my hand and he hands me the thing. It’s a round disc of bronze, a brooch for fastening a cloak or some other clothing, and it’s in surprisingly good condition, too. Teratomes eat anything, but I guess this one couldn’t digest metal. I wipe at it, clearing away the soot and running my thumb on the intricate engravings. Maybe Gran will nag less if I’m as black and dirty as the kids.

  The thought is forgotten and I draw in a breath as I take in what I’m seeing. ”It’s elven. The elven forests don’t have teratomes. Where did it get it, I wonder?”

  Folke’s eyes snap open, and he steps towards me. ”How do you know it’s elven? Have you been there? Tell me!”

  I was too surprised to be careful with my words. Damn. This isn’t going to help his wanderlust. I turn the brooch around in my hand. It’s delicate, exquisite. The markings depict some sort of gem, its facets spreading and curving over the brooch’s surface in a pattern that draws and leads my gaze around and around. I have to press my eyelids shut to peel my eyes off it.

  Lian and Bann materialize behind me as well. Neither of them is that fast or quiet when we’re hunting. I can feel their eyes boring into my back and the brooch in my hand. ”Teratomes are the worst,” I mutter, maybe for the hundredth time.

  Folke’s eyes practically gleam as he keeps staring at me.

  I sigh. ”Fine. Gather your gear. I’ll tell you a story on the road back.”

  They spread out, running and stumbling over themselves to pick up their bags. Bann shovels the ash into a sack, making a mess of it in his haste. Folke glances at me as he throws his bag onto his back over his head, just like I did back in the days.

  He’ll make a great adventurer.

  I squash the thought as soon as I think it. Not yet, not yet. Maybe in two or three years, when he’s twenty.

  I’ll just have to make sure he’s ready for when the call comes. For some reason, I fear it won’t be that long.