Murtagh

“Doesn’t feel like it.” Murtagh eyed the lake. Drifting some distance from the slate overhang was his bow. Or what was left of it. The string was broken, and the wood charred to a twisted cinder. The spells bound to the weapon protected it from many things, but the full heat of dragonfire wasn’t one of them.

He sighed. In one night he’d lost two of his three weapons. All he had left was Zar’roc, which was formidable, but not exactly helpful if he wanted to shoot from a distance or carve a piece of bacon.

Speaking of carving…He went to Thorn and unbuckled the lowest saddlebag. Its contents, he was pleased to see, were still dry, a consequence of the spell he’d cast after the torrent he and Thorn had gotten caught in early last year.

Murtagh pulled out Zar’roc and walked over to Muckmaw’s corpse. He stood looking at the glistening mass of flesh for a minute, judging the best place to cut. Just how much of the fish did the guards want? There wasn’t a clear distinction between head and neck on the animal.

“We’ll need something to wrap the head in,” he said. “I don’t want to use my blanket, but—”

Thorn stalked past and dipped his snout into the lake. With water streaming from his chops, he deposited Murtagh’s soggy cloak at his feet.

Murtagh picked it up with one hand. Holes and long tears let moonlight shine through the felted wool. He sighed again. “I hope it’s big enough.”

Zar’roc wasn’t a two-handed sword—at times Murtagh missed the proportions of his old bastard sword—but he wrapped his off hand around the pommel and raised the weapon above his head, like an executioner about to deliver the final, fatal blow. He inhaled, and then swung the sword down with a loud “Huh!”

The crimson blade sliced through Muckmaw’s bony hide and the dark meat underneath with hardly any resistance. The fish was so large, though, that Murtagh was only able to cut through a third of its neck on the first blow.

He lifted Zar’roc again, and again slashed downward.

It took four cuts to decapitate the fish. Separated from the body, Muckmaw’s head was nearly as wide as Murtagh was tall; he could barely wrap his arms around it if he tried.

The fish’s giant saucer-dish eyes stared at him, pale and blank, devoid of motive force, but with what he felt was a certain accusatory expression.

“To all things an end,” Murtagh murmured, and put a hand on the beast’s cold forehead.

The scale, said Thorn.

“Ah.” Murtagh took up Zar’roc again and pressed the tip against Muckmaw’s belly, just below the fish’s ribs. With a whisper of a sound, he sliced open the giant sturgeon, and a length of grey, wormlike intestine fell slopping around his boots in great slippery coils.

He grimaced and held his breath as he felt along the intestine until he found the stomach. Another quick cut, and the stomach opened to reveal a ghastly collection of smaller fish, frogs, half-digested eels, and even some branches. And buried amid the reeking refuse, Glaedr’s golden scale, bright as a polished plate.

Murtagh leaned Zar’roc against the curved side of Muckmaw’s corpse and fetched a piece of cloth from Thorn’s saddlebags. With it, he removed the scale from the pile of filth before quickly retreating. Sickened, he leaned over and retched, though nothing came up but bile and regret.

He poured a handful of dry dirt over the scale, shook it off, and then stowed it in the saddlebags before returning to Muckmaw’s head and body.

He’d just started to wrap the head in his ruined cloak when a pair of voices echoed across the shifting water. He looked up. A small coracle was approaching, and in it, two men working the paddles. Night fishers, drawn by the noise and light.

A wave of exhaustion passed through Murtagh. He was out of energy to deal with more problems. Nevertheless, he squared his shoulders and, with his left hand, reached behind the bulk of Muckmaw’s body and grabbed Zar’roc, careful to keep the sword hidden.

“Don’t make any sudden movem—” he said, glancing at Thorn.

The dragon had vanished. Murtagh stiffened, but then he searched with his mind and realized that Thorn had simply dropped back into the shadows behind the lake and was lying flat among the brambles that grew along the top of the banks.

For a creature so large, he could be remarkably quiet.

Murtagh looked back at the boat.

“Ho there!” called one of the men when they were about fifty feet from shore. Grey streaked his beard, and his shoulders were heavy from years of rowing. His companion put up his oars, lifted an oil lantern, and unshuttered it, releasing a key of yellow light that illuminated Murtagh, and Muckmaw’s corpse beside him.

Murtagh shaded his eyes with his free hand. He could see the men gaping at him. He could only imagine what he looked like, covered in mud, blood, and fish slime.

“Wh-who goes?” said the greybeard, stuttering slightly.

The other man said, “We heard a commotion fit t’ raise th’ dead, but…”