As I turned my eyes down to dig more out of the MRE packet in my hand, motion in the distance caught my eye. It wasn’t until I had my fork in my mouth that I questioned my brain’s automatic dismissal of said motion. Hold up, there aren’t any aircraft in this world.

  “In fact—” Tomas started, but I shushed him as I hurried to get my binoculars out. Much quieter, Tomas asked, “What is it?”

  “Sec,” I muttered, scanning the sky. What I found a few seconds later jerked my mental e-brake and left me squinting for several long heartbeats as I tried to explain to myself what I saw.

  When no explanation was forthcoming, I must’ve laughed because Tomas whispered, “What’s so funny?”

  “Uhm, Tomas, you know what a ferret is, right?”

  “Small, adorable little murder machines. There are several species in the area.”

  So struck by the impossibility of what I was seeing, it took a few seconds before I managed to ask, “Do any of them fly?”

  “What?”

  I might’ve giggled at his confusion. “Do any of them fly?”

  “No, why?”

  I kept my binoculars trained on what appeared to be an orange ferret with white stripes doing twists and loops through the sky while I pointed toward it with one hand. I’d originally thought it might’ve been an eastern dragon or some weird-ass sky snake at first, but it didn’t take long to figure out it was furry and now that I had ample observation time, it was clearly a ferret.

  Even with the horizon as a reference, I couldn’t quite gauge how far away it was or how fast it was moving. For a second, I was tempted to look for its shadow and use that as a guide, but as fast as it was moving and as high up as it was, I didn’t want to lose sight of it.

  “Uh, all I can say is I see something moving. Are you trying to tell me that’s a ferret?”

  “Yep. A goddamn—” The creature jerked to a sudden halt and then corkscrewed, twisting into a completely different direction, but diving at twice its previous speed. “Uh, I think it spotted something.”

  While Tomas murmured something I took as agreement, I scanned forward along its path now that it was traveling in an arrow straight line. In that path I spotted a group of horsemen as they emerged on the far side of the line of trees to my north. The ferret entered my field of view, clearly intending on executing an extremely low flying pass at speed.

  “Oh shit.” Before I could say more, a bright white flash blinded me.

  “What was that flash, Sam?”

  “I—I don’t know? It looked like—” Blinking away the afterimages, I looked for the group again. By the time I found them, five of the riders had scattered at full gallop. The remaining horse and rider pair was sprawled out on ground, motionless. A faint rumble that sounded like thunder reached us as I relayed, “They’re too far away to see, but I think that was lightning. Fuck. Tomas, it’s a goddamn lightning skyferret.”

  “Lightning. Skyferret.” Tomas muttered, a veritable sea of horror punctuating the space between the two words. “First off, ferrets don’t fly. Second, with Aoibheann as my witness, they don’t use magic, much less lightning.”

  “Holy fuck.” The ferret divebombed a rider, snatching him clean off his mount and immediately began peeling off armor and limbs as it climbed on egress.

  I numbly turned my head toward Tomas and offered my binoculars.

  Once he had them to his eyes, it took only pair of heartbeats before his mouth dropped open and disbelief twisted his face. “Sam. The ferret—it’s dismembering people. It’s the size of a fucking horse! Two horses even!”

  “I know!”

  “I—I’m sorry I doubted your sanity. Now I doubt my own.”

  “Did anyone get away?”

  The binoculars slowly came down. Now pale, Tomas slowly shook his head. “No. It’s chasing the horses down now. If that thing sees us, we’re dead, Sam.”

  “I know. Keep an eye on it,” I muttered and grabbed the message book.

  When I opened it, new text greeted me.

  Sam, sorry about this being late. I’m a bit hung over. Aoife says hi. Invited me and Cailleach to dinner after Fiachra and Millwall brought their disagreement to her. Never had mead before. Can’t say I like it, but after the last few days, the alcohol content was more important than the flavor.

  I drew three large exclamation points and immediately started writing. Jenna, sorry to interrupt. I need to know what anyone back there knows about a species of ferret in the area that flies. And uses lightning.

  A few seconds passed before she wrote back. Wait, a flying ferret? A skyferret? A lightning skyferret? You’re kidding right?

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Absolutely serious. Observed one taking apart a six-man mounted patrol in less than thirty seconds.

  BRB!

  I glanced over to Tomas while shrugging out of my pack. “Is it still chasing the horses?”

  “It’s running down the last one, I think.”

  I dug out a particular bottle Fiachra had sent along before I asked, “Is it eating the people or just tearing them apart?”

  “I can’t really tell, but—Wait. Huh, Sam, it just tore the saddle off one of the horses and flew into that batch of trees with it. Uh, it’s getting another one.”

  “What the hells is it doing, can you see?”

  Tomas shook his head. “Not really, no. There’s just enough tree cover I can’t quite make anything out.”

  I checked the message book and found the page still blank.

  We sat tight for the next few minutes as the ferret peeled the equipment off each horse and dragged them the short distance to the trees. Maybe a minute after it disappeared with the last horse, Tomas muttered, “What the? Uh, it just left with what looked like part of one of the horses. What are we planning?”

  “Well, we’re going to sit right the fuck here for the next fifteen minutes or so and see if it comes back. Once we have a better idea of what’s going on, I’m going to use this anti-scent oil Fiachra gave me and go see what I can find out from the bodies. What direction did it fly?”

  “Ah, north? More northeast than north.”

  “So, Annesport. Goddamnit.” I sighed and checked the message book.

  Per Aoife, ferrets don’t come in anything big enough to wipe out a patrol. Fiachra, on the other hand said, and I quote, ‘Fascinating find! Can he sketch it? He needs to record literally anything about it, as that’s likely a side-effect from the magic.’ I doubt either of those are answers you’re wanting. Going to leave this propped up on my desk so write when you can. Stay safe. Please, Sam.

  I spent a few long moments staring off toward the northeast before writing. Good news, still alive. As far as I can tell, also unnoticed. It flew off to the NE with one of the horses, probably to Annesport. Fun! Going to wait a hot minute in case it comes back and then investigate the corpses. Tell Fiachra good job with the scent destroying lotion, definitely coming in handy, and no I am not going to sketch the ferret. Not sure how to explain this other than the terrain is starting to feel familiar so we’re probably not far from Annesport.

  Fifteen minutes passed without the slightest disturbance or strange shape in the sky.

  After applying Fiachra’s anti-scent oil, I took a knee by Tomas and held out a piece of paper along with my rifle. “Empty the tube and swap me. While I’m reloading, sketch where the riders fell on this.”

  Tomas saved the questions until I was thumbing a different set of shells into the tube. “What are those? They look bigger.”

  “They are,” I noted while pulling a few more from the box in my pack. “They’re three-inch shells. Single solid slug instead of shot pellets.”

  Tomas’s eyes narrowed in thought. As I loaded the last one into the tube he commented, “That sounds like it’d hit a lot harder.”

  I grinned while ghost loading one onto the shell carrier after putting the final one directly into the chamber. “It does. I’m not taking any chances with that thing. If it comes back, stay down and don’t attract any attention. If we’re lucky, it might not notice me. If not, well, no need for both of us to die out here. Just finish the mission, you hear?”

  The bard squinted at me, clearly not wrapping his head around what I’d just told him. “Excuse me, what?”

  “Tomas, if slugs don’t get that thing to fuck off, that rifle isn’t going to be terribly helpful. If you stay down and quiet, you’ll probably be good. Once it’s gone, finish the mission. Look, I’m planning on coming back, but I have to set expectations so you don’t feel like you have to do something and get yourself killed too. Mission first, Tomas. Mission first. That’s why I’m leaving the rest of my shit here.”

  “Oh. Okay, yeah. Mission first.” He blinked a few times before holding out the scrap of paper and quietly adding, “Uh, Sam? Good luck.”

  I shot him a grin as I rose. “Hopefully I won’t need it.”

  Staying low, I went as quickly as I could safely manage while keeping part of my attention nailed on the sky to the northeast.

  Nearing the patch of trees, I slowed and took a knee. Fiachra’s oil felt like cheap sunscreen, weirdly thin but too thick at the same time. All that’s missing is the cheap coconut smell. Assuming the oil interfered with the ability to sweat made sense even without the weird tacky feeling covering patches of my skin, like I’d gotten fresh anti-perspirant wet.

  Just short of a minute passed before I ended the tactical pause and started forward with the shotgun up. From the edge, I could see the ferret had left piles of something on the far side.

  Walking into the wall of stench, nose-turning offal and blood, didn’t slow my advance in the slightest. Ferrets were predators and scavengers and certainly did what predators and scavengers did, so I wasn’t the least bit surprised at the smell. If anything surprised me, it was the fact the lumps were the only thing I saw up ahead. Where are the bodies?

  Suddenly deeply suspicious of the dark lumps and broken branches piled up ahead, I silently cursed the fact my magnified optics were on my rifle, not the shotgun. Instead of being a decent distance away before I recognized the lumps, I had to get much closer without the optics. Close enough that when I slowed to a numb halt, it took me a second to realize what dripped on me in the sudden wind wasn’t rain.

  My eyes went up. They widened on their own. “Fuck.”

  That single word stuck with me, repeated like a little sanity-preserving mantra the entire time I circled the pile of bitten off horse legs and mangled heads. Every time the curious part of my brain poked its head up, I bludgeoned it with that magical word and moved a little faster. I didn’t need to think about why a twenty-foot-long flying ferret would tear off limbs and rip off heads. I didn’t need to ponder the implications of an animal taking those dismembered torsos and impaling them on thick broken branches upside down like it was bleeding the bodies. I just needed to hurry the fuck up, find what I could, and get the fuck out before it came back because Tomas was right. If it saw me, I was dead and a tube full of slugs might only just piss it off.

  Giving into the growing sense of urgency, I slung the shotgun over my back, pulled out Tomas’s sketch, and broke into a trot with my eyes on the path ahead of me instead of the sky.

  If the horses’ fate had been proof of the skyferret’s ease at parting out bodies, the first corpse showed me the beast’s indifference. Calling it a corpse overstated things a bit. I’d seen bodies more intact after claymore-initiated ambushes. Limbs had been left scattered about, but other than a single leg, none of them were whole and the head was nowhere to be found.

  Not that it was easy, but I tried not to think about the ragged edges to every wound, the fact joints had been simply yanked apart instead of bitten through. Ignoring the thinned, jagged edges where metal tore, along with the bent-in divots where armor had been gripped by claws was a bit harder. Not thinking about the torn, bloody cloth or leather was easier by comparison. As inconvenient and probably unhealthy as it was, I let my brain protect my sanity while hunting for anything that looked like a container.