He’d only made it two steps away when Cutter was on him, grabbing a fistful of his hair. The man cried out, trying to break free, both of his hands pawing at Cutter’s wrist. It made no difference. Cutter took his time, walking toward the nearest table and dragging his hapless victim behind him. Then he paused, lifting the man up, and the man, seeing what he intended, renewed his struggles, screaming and crying for help.
Maeve wanted to help him. After all, these men were just hurting, that was all. They had suffered greatly in the past night, and in the middle of winter, with so many of their fellow villagers dead and unable to contribute to the community as was so necessary in a small village, they would be hard pressed even to survive the coming days. She did not wish to make their lives any harder, wanted Cutter to stop, to let it go, but she, like the rest of those standing in the common room of the inn, was frozen into shocked silence as she stared at the swift, brutal violence of the fight. But then, it wasn’t really a fight, no more than the guillotine fought the man lying beneath it, and in due course things proceeded in the only way they could. The one being executed never won, never could win, and this, then, was like that.
Cutter flexed, his thick, muscled arms suddenly writhing with veins as he raised the man’s head up and then pivoted, bringing it down into the table with bone-shattering force. The man’s panicked whimpers quickly went silent, and he fell backward, straight as a board, to collapse on the common room floor.
Silence followed then save for Cutter’s rasping breaths as everyone watched this man, this beast which had been let loose amongst them, which had snuck inside wearing the mask of a man. They were afraid, all of them, afraid that this man, this beast who seemed possessed of so much fury might find that fury undiminished in the wake of what he had perpetrated on his attackers and would seek to vent it elsewhere.
Maeve did not blame them, for they were right to be afraid. She, too, felt the icy tendrils of fear spreading through her just as she had so many years ago, and she knew that more than once the man’s anger had done exactly what the people gathered in the common room feared—had driven him on past the original target of his ire.
She stood there, hoping that it would stop, that this would be the end of it, but she saw him studying the men lying on their backs and knew that this time, he did not mean to stop. This time, they would not be so lucky. If he was to be stopped, something or someone would have to stop him. She had seen it done a few times before, a few when the unlucky man or woman who had dared interpose themselves between him and the objects of his wrath survived the attempt, but usually the man raged on until his own exhaustion brought him down.
She considered waiting on that, for they had journeyed far, slept little, and that, coupled with the fact that he had just fought three men, ought to mean that he must feeling at least some of the exhaustion that she herself felt. True, the man often struck her not as a man at all but some revenant who traveled through the world, never slowing, caring for nothing, stopping for nothing but only adhering to some unexplainable directive, some grim purpose which would see him traveling onward through the world, leaving a path of blood and the dead behind him long after she and those others he knew were dead and gone.
Still, when he made no move toward the men, she had a brief hope that he might let it go after all, that he might be finished. The three men would wake up—most likely, at least—with terrible headaches and some bruises and pains to remind them of how close they had come to death. Miserable, hurting, but alive. Or so she believed.
That was when he reached for his axe.
***
His chest heaved not with exertion—or at least not mostly that—but with anger. The man lay beneath him. He did not know his name, and he did not care, knew only that he was his enemy, knew only that the beast was loose, and that it was far from satisfied. He reached for the axe hanging on his back, his hand tightening around the handle, preparing to draw it loose, preparing to end the threat the man represented.
That was when he felt a hand on his wrist, and he spun, thinking that one of the man’s companions had risen, meaning to resume the fight. He growled, his free hand knotting into a fist. But it was not one of the men standing before him. It was a woman, one that, even in his anger, he recognized.
“No,” she said. “It’s enough, Bernard. You’ve done enough.”
That name. He had not heard it in a long time—in years, in fact—and the hearing of it pulled him back to himself. He blinked groggily, feeling as if he were waking from a dream. He glanced around him, saw the terrified faces watching him, all of them cringing away as if he might attack them at any moment. He saw, too, the three men lying on the ground. Unconscious? Dead? He turned back to Maeve who was still studying him, trying to decide, perhaps, if he were done, if the beast had chosen, of its own will, to slip back into its fitful slumber for the time being.
How many times had they stood thus, with her watching him, afraid of him and right to be? Bodies lying around
