Page 16 of The Iron Vow

Anira stiffened. “It is coming,” she whispered, sounding terrified. “It is coming. Forgive me!”

In an explosion of feathers, she changed into a crow and flapped away into the darkness.

Keirran looked toward the lake, grimaced, and drew his sword. “Fighting another Nightmare,” he muttered. “I don’t think I’m ever going to enjoy this.”

“Oh, why not, princeling?” Puck brandished his daggers and grinned. “You don’t like getting your head stomped in by the nastiest, scariest, creepiest monsters ever to come out of the mind of the literal Nightmare King? Can’t imagine why.”

Cautiously, we walked toward the black waters. A ragged mist hung over the surface, trailing tendrils of fog that writhed into the air. As we watched, the mist scattered, as if blown away by a strong wind. The waters close to the bank started to bubble, and I put a hand on my sword hilt, ready for whatever horrific monster exploded from beneath the surface.

A cat walked out of the lake.

We all paused in wary confusion. The feline was skinny, emaciated, its short fur dripping wet and fallen out in places. Its eyes were bulging and white, its jaws hanging slack. It looked like a drowned cat, come back to life for revenge on the person who killed it. An extremely long tail trailed behind it, and for a moment, I thought the tail was so long it continued back into the waters of the lake. But then the tail twitched, flinging away water drops, and the illusion was lost.

“Uhhhh...” Puck’s voice broke the wary silence. “Okay, I’m just gonna come out and say it, then. What the hell is this? Is this the super scary Nightmare Anira was so afraid of? A dead cat? I mean...” He gazed down at the feline and wrinkled his nose. “It’s a little disturbing, sure, and I bet Furball would think it’s an unholy abomination, but I wouldn’t call it a Nightmare. Though I guess catsarenightmares to most birds.”

The dead cat hissed at him. Most of its teeth, I saw, were rotted out of its head, and the bones of one front paw showed through its fur. It crouched to spring away or attack, and a glittering shard of ice flashed through the air, striking the creature through the head and impaling it to the earth. I blinked and glanced at Ash, but it was Keirran who lowered his arm.

“We had to kill it,” he said as his gaze met mine. “I wanted to put it out of its misery quickly. That is, however, the very last of my glamour. I won’t be throwing anything else.”

The cat slid down the icicle. Its body seemed to dissolve, flesh and skin peeling away, until only the skeletal remains of a cat were left, still speared through by the melting ice.

Puck snorted. “Easiest Nightmare we’ve ever killed,” he said cheerfully. “Who’s ready to head back and tell Anira the good news?”

Nyx frowned at him. “You know that wasn’t the real Nightmare, Goodfellow,” she said. “That’s not the end of it.”

“Oh, I know.” Puck sighed. “I was just hoping.”

The waters of the lake shuddered. Tiny ripples grew to larger waves that caused the scum and algae on the surface to bob wildly. Dark water splashed over the banks, and we all took a step back, as something huge emerged from the depths.

A bulky form pushed itself out of the water and lurched toward us, and I frowned. It looked like an enormous burlap bag, dripping with algae and bound with frayed rope. The sack itself wriggled and pulsed, as if hundreds of creatures trapped within were fighting to get out. Faint cries could be heard coming from the bag, desperate screams and yowls, making my stomach curl.

A head rose out of the water, bony and terrible, the half-rotted skull of a gigantic cat. White pinprick eyes peered from hollow eye sockets, yellow fangs jutted from exposed bone, and bits of wet fur clung to it as the massive head turned toward us and bared its teeth.

Nyx shook her head as the enormous Nightmare beast opened its bony jaws with a wail that made my teeth vibrate. “Does this count as Nightmare-worthy, Goodfellow?”

“Um, yep yep.” Puck backed up, raising his daggers. “Definitely Nightmare-worthy. Completely, disturbingly, I-didn’t-need-to-sleep-ever-again Nightmare-worthy.”

The giant cat thing stepped onto the bank. Bony paws and hooked talons sank into the mud at the edge of the water. Algae hung from its body like green ropes, dripping water to the ground as it prowled forward. Behind the head, the burlap sack that was its body continued to writhe and throb, the muffled voices of hundreds of cats echoing in the damp air.

Beside me, Ash raised his sword. “Keirran, you’re with me,” he said. “We’re going straight in. Goodfellow, Nyx, hit it hard while it’s distracted with us. Meghan...?”

I nodded and took a quick breath to calm my heart. “I’ll back you up.”

The Nightmare cat screamed, a shriek that seemed to pierce right through my skull. It pounced, claws ripping deep gouges in the earth, but Ash and Keirran were already moving. Springing forward, they both dodged aside as the Nightmare lunged, ice blade and steel sword striking in unison. Keirran’s weapon struck the monster’s front leg as it swiped at him, and Ash’s blade shot forward, hitting the creature in the side of the throat. Both weapons struck bone, leaving gashes across the surface of the skeleton, but not seeming to harm it. The Nightmare cat spun with feline grace, lashing out at Keirran, and the Forgotten King twisted away as those claws raked at him.

As it went after my son, I raced forward, leaped at the cat, and drove the point of my steel sword deep into the glowing eye socket. The tip struck the back of the skull, and the monster cat screeched as it whirled on me. This close, it stank of rot and death and wet fur, and I stifled the urge to gag as I retreated from the lashing talons.

With a yell, Puck dropped onto the monster’s head from above and sank his daggers into the furry half of the decaying skull. They plunged deep, and when he pulled them out again, black ooze clung to the blades. “Oh, gross!” he yelped, leaping off as the Nightmare reared up with a shriek that sounded more enraged than hurt. Rolling to his feet, Puck shook his blades violently. “Ew, Nightmare brain juice, that’s just nasty. Well, looks like the ambush is out.”

The Nightmare stalked forward. Keirran lunged in, joining us as his sword clanged off the bony part of the cat’s skull, making it hiss and shake its head. “I hate fighting undead things,” he muttered as we leaped away from the questing claws. “You can never seem to hurt them. How do you kill something that’s already a corpse?”

“Look for weak spots,” I replied, dodging a talon and cutting my sword at the monster’s chest. At the burlap bag that made up its body. The cat’s head poked out of the top, but except for its limbs and tail, everything else was hidden in the sack. “The Nightmare in Stilt Town had a heart we had to destroy. Maybe it’s the same here. Head, heart, brain, core, something like that.”

“Well, it’s definitely not following the ‘stab them in the brain’ rule,” Puck stated, ducking beneath a bony claw. “What’s that saying for a zombie apocalypse? ‘If you don’t see a hole in the corpse’s head, put one there’? I don’t think it applies to this big ugly.”

The cat leaped back as my sword stabbed toward its body, and its blank, hollow-eyed glare turned on me. It opened its jaws with a scream, just as Ash came in from the side, leaped toward its skull, and brought his sword slashing down on its neck. The ice blade sheared cleanly through the spine, and the Nightmare gave one last yowl before its head dropped heavily to the ground, landing with a splat in the mud. Its jaws clenched and unclenched, as if trying to scream in rage, but then the pinprick lights in its eye sockets dimmed, and the head finally stopped moving. The headless body staggered, and we backed away, waiting for it to fall.

It did not fall.

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