Then he considered his girl and two boys. The firelight sparkled in their dark eyes. To think they had played with that woman’s hatchlings.

“I’ll be back soon enough,” he assured them. “We’re taking quarter watches is all.” Then he belted on his sword and picked up his spear. Foss, their hunting dog, rose to go with him, and Barg opened the door.

The smoke in the room curled out into the night. Barg pointed at the children. “You do your chores and get to bed and when you wake up in the morning, we’ll be off.”

“To the river or the beach?” asked his oldest.

They loved the beach. It would be a long day, but it would give them something to think about.

“The beach,” he said. “We’ll roast crabs.”

Then he shut the door behind him. He took a long drink of water from the bucket at the well then set off down the path that led to the smith’s ruin, Foss padding along at his side.

He could see the last flames of Sparrow’s house burning at the other end of the field. The fires burned low, but they still cast enough light to silhouette the remains of Sparrow’s barn and outbuildings. The smoke of the fires hung heavily in the air.

Barg glanced back at his house a few times as he walked. The shutters were latched and snug. His wife had barred the door. They would be fine.

As Barg got closer to the flames he could see that something was amiss—nobody was there. There were supposed to be ten men on each watch.

Perhaps they were all bunched up behind the barn.

He rounded the corner of the barn and looked across Sparrow’s yard.

Nothing. His wife had been right. None of the others were here.

The house and smithy had burned down to coals and ashes. Here and there a few fires still burned, but they were small. Much smaller than it appeared from his house. Still, he could feel the heat of the coals. The whole mess still produced a blistering heat.

A small flame rose at the edge of a blackened log close to him only to disappear moments later.

All was silent except for the crackling and popping of the fire. The circle of light did not extend far into the swallowing darkness.

Cowards.

He’d roust them out of bed, every one.

Then he saw someone standing in the shadows at the edge of where the house had stood. The man moved aside a log, kicking up sparks. He reached into the hot coals and pulled something out.

“Ha,” Barg called to him. “It’s good to see there’s more than one stout heart among us.”

Foss stopped and began to growl.

Then the man straightened up and turned, and Barg got a look at him in the firelight.

He was taller than anyone Barg had ever seen, but his arms and legs were thicker than they should be. And his face—it was all wrong. He had a mouth that was dark, ragged, and huge. A mouth that seemed to crack his head in two.

This was no man.

A tuft of hair on the creature’s arm caught fire. The flame sputtered, flashed, and receded into red and yellow sparks that fell to the ground.