Osmund’s eyes widened. “That can’t be true.”
“Look, I don’t mind,” Elric said, starting off down the path again, knowing each step brought him closer to battle with a terrifying monster. “Wynn needs to stay safe, and if I have to sacrifice myself, then so be it.”
Osmund grabbed him by the sleeve. “Listen to yourself,” he said. “What would Wynn think about what you are saying right now?”
“Wynn wouldn’t understand.” Elric hung his head. “Back in the Otherworld, Mother kept her. I had to go with Father.”
It wasn’t exactly a pleasant life. Father hardly ever talked to him growing up. When he did, it was to complain about the weather, or the fact that Elric smelled like wet sheep. Mostly he just barked at Elric to do chores and accept his lot in life. He knew his father cared for him in some way, but he was only focused on their survival.
Mother, on the other hand . . . their mother was different. Elric wished sometimes that he could have stayed with his mother all the time the way Wynn did. It was no use thinking this way. Elric sighed. “Wynn had to be cared for. I was fine on my own. I didn’t need that love. I could get by.”
And yet, the times in his childhood when he had been the most happy were the ones when he could sneak away from his responsibilities and spend a few carefree hours with his mother and sister singing songs and playing silly games that Wynn made up using sticks and rocks.
Osmund rested his hands on his ax handle. “You don’t give Wynn enough credit,” he said. “Or your mother.” He used the ax to push himself up an embankment. “Or the queen, for that matter. She may have been overprotective, but I never doubted that she loved me.”
“She barely knows me,” Elric complained. They had only been living in the Between for a few months.
“She has watched you from afar for over ten years,” Osmund stated. “She gave you her silver branch and showed you the gate. Don’t take those actions lightly. It means she believed in you.” Osmund let out a sardonic huff. “I sure didn’t.”
“She showed Wynn the gate,” he said. “Wynn was the one who knew where to go.”
“Did she?” Osmund asked. Now that Elric thought about it, when the gate appeared, Wynn was unconscious. Osmund took a cautious step forward toward a deep ditch. Something caught his attention in the bottom of it. “Come look at this.” Osmund got down on his belly and reached into the ditch with his ax. He hooked something with the curve of his blade, and lifted it up.
It was the sash from Wynn’s dress. A dried brown stain marred most of the material.
Elric’s hands shook as he lifted it off Osmund’s blade. “She’s bleeding.”
“It’s dried,” he said. “This probably happened not long after she entered the wood.”
Elric bit his lip to keep his emotions from overwhelming him. He needed a clear mind. He inhaled deeply to calm himself, but the scent of rotting meat entered his lungs. “Do you smell something?”
Osmund got to his feet and lifted his nose to the air. “Faintly, but I never had a very good sense of smell.”
Now that Elric could smell it, the scent nearly overwhelmed him. It reminded him of the animal carcass pit on the edge of the town near where Osmund lived, but there was a fouler scent that clung to the rotting odor, something oily and acrid.
Elric followed the scent under a low-hanging branch. He nearly got sick again, hoping against all hope that he wouldn’t see what he thought he might see when he ducked under the branch. In his mind he pictured a crumpled body in a ripped and dirty white dress.
When he looked up, he saw something else entirely.
The body of a pale gray reaper lay on the ground in a pool of sticky black blood. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth between its fangs as large dark flies buzzed around its dead eyes.
Osmund stepped up next to Elric and caught sight of the beast. He made to say something, but ended up gaping at the dead creature. “I don’t think Mildred did that,” he finally said.
Elric cautiously stepped forward. He poked at the creature with the tip of his sword. “Its throat has been ripped out. What could have done this?”
Osmund approached with cautious steps. “I don’t know. This is definitely not the handiwork of elves. They use much cleaner and more sophisticated weapons.” He looked at the claw marks raking the reaper’s side. “Whatever creature attacked him, it had to be enormous, at least as large as the reaper itself.”
Elric had watched the finest warrior in the queen’s guard battle this monster, and he nearly lost his life in the struggle. The only wounds he had been able to inflict had been in his animal form. “Could it have been a fairy, one who was in the form of a large animal, like a bear?”
Osmund rubbed his scruffy chin. “I’m not sure how much has changed since I left. Do fairies enter the woods now?” he asked.
“No,” Elric answered. “Never. It is forbidden.” For a brief moment he hoped against hope that the fairies had changed their minds and sent their fiercest warriors into the wood in search of Wynn and killed the reaper. But judging by the smell, the reaper had been dead at least a full day, and there was no possible way a fairy rescue party could have stumbled upon this place before him.
Osmund pinched his nose closed and looked around. “Let’s keep searching for Wynn,” he said, his voice sounding funny with his nose closed.
Elric bent and took a closer look at the creature. “This isn’t the reaper I saw attack the shield. The one at the shield had black fur and a black mane. This one is gray all over.”
Osmund stilled, dropping his hand. “If this isn’t the same reaper you saw,
