“Salena wanted to bite and kill,” I mumbled. My three friends stared at me, their faces hovering above. Coming to my senses, I realized I was still in the little shack, sprawled in the bed. My head throbbed. I remembered Molly hitting me with her axe.

  “I hit you with my axe,” Molly said, in case I’d forgotten.

  “Yeah, no shit. I remember.”

  “You fell, like, right down. I really clocked you.” She had all the pride of a good dog that’s done a fine thing.

  “What the fuck did you hit me for?” Before she could answer, I looked to Fridu and Gerik and asked, “What the fuck did she hit me for?”

  “What the fuck were you just saying about my mom?” Molly asked, brushing aside my “you attacked me with an axe” concerns.

  “I had a weird dream about her,” I said. “Probably because you caved in my head with your axe.”

  “Bullshit. I barely dented you. And did you seriously just have a wet dream about my mom?”

  “What the fuck? No! Who said that? I think it was another suppressed memory. I’ve been remembering times Salena did real magic and then made me forget.”

  “Maybe I should keep hitting you if it brings back your memories?” She gripped her axe tighter and loomed over the bed.

  “What happened in the dream?” Fridu asked, stepping in front of Molly. Gerik was by the stairs, impatiently gazing down them and then back to us. The dog was curled up on the bed on my feet, looking to whoever was talking at any given time, ready to bolt from the bed if scolded.

  I said, “Salena and I were going for ice cream. A shitload of foxes came out from nowhere. Salena turned into a massive tiger and destroyed the shit out of them. But she was having mental problems. Something about the Fox Geas. Her fox tattoos were alive and eating her brain. Destroying her sanity.”

  “That’s what a Fox Geas does,” the witch said. Her voice was low and she was trying to sound casual, but of course the elephant in the room was the foxes on my flesh. “That’s why I had Molly knock you out. Your mind was . . . shifting? I was afraid you were going to attack us.”

  “I think I was,” I admitted. “Something felt wrong in my head.” Fridu put a hand of support on my shoulder. Molly surprised me by putting down her axe and sitting on the side of the bed. Her fingers moved through my hair in a gentle massage. The dog settled firmly on the bed, taking her social cues from Molly, who was clearly demonstrating that sitting on the bed was allowed.

  “I’ll have to be relentlessly prepared to smack you upside the head until we solve this,” Molly told me, but her voice was kind and her fingers kept moving through my hair.

  “I remembered something,” I told the two women. Gerik was sitting on the edge of the stairs, his feet hanging over the side.

  “What?” Fridu asked.

  “In my dream. Salena said the blurred man’s name. Fector Candleman.”

  “Candleman?” Molly hissed. “Him? That’s… fucked up. He was my father’s friend. I’ve heard stories of them hunting together. Wild boars. Black Fanged Deer. I didn’t think he was very powerful?”

  “Maybe he’s hiding it,” Fridu said. “Assassins rarely reveal their secrets.”

  “We’ll just need to find him, then,” Molly said. “Pummel his nuts until he admits everything. And then I’ll decapitate him.”

  Molly, talking of chopping off a man’s head and definitely not kidding, kept her fingers running through my hair. She was unthinkably violent and wonderfully kind, all at the same time.

  I thought of Candleman and if he’d been the one to goad my father into death, and if he’d been the one to inspire the fear I’d seen in Salena’s eyes, and to curse me with the Fox Geas and burn my babysitter alive. If so, Molly would have to be quick with her axe, because I wanted his head for my own. So, I guess there was an enormous amount of violence lurking inside me, too. Maybe Molly and I weren’t so different.

  “Your mother talked about something she’d stolen,” I said. “Something she’d hidden where she hoped I’d grow up and find it.”

  “What was it?” Molly asked.

  “She wouldn’t say. Or at least didn’t.”

  “Mom did love her secrets,” Molly said. She leaned closer and parted the hair where she’d clocked me with her axe. “Ah,” she said. “There’s only a little blood.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her. I didn’t want her to feel bad.

  “I just actually thought there’d be more,” she said, disappointed, and then slapped my chest. “You’re being lazy, Josh. Get up. We need to break that door down.”

  “Pretty sure I can pick the lock,” Gerik said. He slid off the edge and down onto the steps, peering up over the edge at us.

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  “More fun to break it,” Molly argued.

  “More smart to pick it,” Gerik said, and disappeared from view. I stood slowly, checking to see if I had my balance. Everything seemed okay.

  “This thing with the weird rage?” I said, looking to Fridu. “How often is this going to happen?”

  “Hard to say. Maybe once every few days, but increasing in frequency until, the end I guess.” Her voice dwindled as she tried to talk about my impending death in the politest way possible. There weren’t a lot of options for that.

  “Oh shit!” Gerik swore from down below, out of sight, in the staircase. His hand appeared on the edge and he vaulted up into view.

  “Ostriches!” he yelled.

  “What?” I said.

  “Say again?” Molly told him.

  “Excuse me?” Fridu said. But it was then that the first of the ostriches appeared. Or at least a head. And neck. It came rising up from below like a cobra. Maybe seven feet of ostrich neck, topped by a fanged ostrich head, eyes glowing red.

  “Fuck me!” I screamed, with my heart pounding. The dog started barking and Molly leapt forward, swinging her axe with a strength and accuracy that would’ve certainly decapitated the demonic ostrich if the neck hadn’t dodged her in snakelike fashion. The miss overbalanced Molly and she stumbled, then tripped on the dog as it leapt from bed, and the barbarian girl fell flat on her face and then bounced over the edge of the stairs to disappear from view.

  “Shit!” I yelled. Hurrying toward the stairs, I collided with the dog, the battle’s designated obstacle. I managed to keep my balance but dropped the dagger I hadn’t even known I was holding. I slid to a stop and snapped it back up as the dog dove under the bed for cover. When I turned back to the stairs I saw several ostrich heads rising up from below, like kelp undulating in the surf.

  “What the fuck are those?” Fridu asked.

  “How the fuck am I supposed to know?” I yelled, but of course there was a way for me to know, and it was only a moment before the twisting necks were intermixed with glowing words, floating in midair.

  Dark Ostrich

  Level: 4  Health points: 26

  Attack Class: 5  Defense Class: 2

  Attack: 1d4-1 (peck)

  Special Attacks: Constrict. Dark Ostriches can forgo their attack to

  Constrict, wrapping their necks around a victim on a successful hit.

  Victims may save vs. Strength at a -4 to escape for no damage.

  A failed save leads to 1d4 of damage, and an automatic hit the next round

  unless victim makes a Strength check. Successive rounds of constriction

  stack an additional 1d4 to damage each round. Wing Buffet: Victims are

  buffeted by the Dark Ostrich’s wings, causing 1d4-1 of damage along with a Confusion spell. A successful save versus Intelligence negates the Confusion

  spell, with the roll receiving a -1 penalty for any additional

  Dark Ostriches within a ten-foot radius.

  It was a lot of information that I frankly had no time to read, because Molly had fallen down the stairs and could be in trouble, while the rest of us hadn’t fallen down the stairs and were certainly in trouble.

  One of the ostriches struck out at Fridu but she managed to block it with a glowing magical shield, though the impact still knocked the dwarf on her ass. Another of the heads lashed out at me and I jabbed out my dagger with both hands, closing my eyes and turning to the side. However dubious my strategy, it worked, because the ostrich impaled its head on my dagger. The neck went limp and fell to the floor like a long, thick rope. Dust puffed up. The dog whined.

  “Well struck!” Gerik called out.

  “Total accident!” I admitted, and then some dumbass lizard part of my brain decided I needed to save Molly in the most dramatic way possible, so I dove over the side of the stairs like some action movie hero and bounced down the stairs like a complete fucking idiot. Luckily, there were ostrich bodies to break my fall. I stood up and stabbed one. It bled in my face, hard, like in retaliation. I reached up and grabbed one of the necks, trying to strangle the bird. It responded by kicking me into the side of the wall in a very persuasive manner. I slammed into the dirt and stone, slid down a couple feet, then was stuck fast against the wall by the press of the birds. I was still holding one of the necks in my hands and still hadn’t spotted Molly.

  “Molly?” I yelled.

  “Josh?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Stuffed up some ostrich’s asshole!” she shouted. I wasn’t sure if she was serious. In a world of magic, who knew what might happen? But then one of the birds shivered and Molly’s axe flashed a few inches in front of my nose, nicking the stone side of the stairs and sending sparks flying. One of the birds had been in the path of the axe, and the bird didn’t win the dispute against the cold steel. It fell to the floor in a splash of slippery things, and the ostrich next to me moved back into the space, allowing me to fall to the stone steps, somehow managing to land both on my feet and also my face.

  “Shit!” I yelled. I still had a grip on the ostrich’s neck. It decided to argue the point. The head swooped down to stare in my eyes, and the neck wrapped around me like a snake. Molly was laughing. Something was on fire. The dog was barking and whining. There was a sudden black void next to me, and then the neck wrapped around me was cut into pieces by a blade that also cut shallowly into my chest.

  “Fuck,” Gerik said, speaking from the darkness. “Sorry. Close quarters.” Before I could respond another ostrich slapped Gerik against the wall. The ostriches’ necks were unthinkably long and their bodies were small, like boa constrictor heads on baby ostrich bodies. I hugged one of the ostriches against me, ignoring how the feathers cut into me, and I slammed it against the wall again and again, stopping now and then to do some stabbing.

  Tentacles of flames wrapped around another ostrich before turning into a multitude of hands that ripped the neck free from the base. I kept being buffeted against the birds’ bodies, against the wall, and against the stairs. Everything was chaos. I think I was screaming. It was a mass melee in what amounted to a phone booth. The dog had moved to the side of the stairs and was barking down. I had half my mind focused on remembering not to unleash any lightning or fireballs, and another half of my attention concentrating on casting my Speak With Animals spell, specifically so that I could call the birds “assholes,” which I idiotically thought Needed To Be Done.

  “Assholes!” I screamed at them, knowing they could understand me, now.

  “Kill!” they yelled in unison. “Intruders die! All intruders die!” I stabbed another ostrich, driving my dagger in its chest. It fell to the stairs and bounced down the steps to the iron door, nearly wiping me out. I had to grab another bird’s neck for balance. Two more ostriches rose magically up from the stairs like ghosts from below in a moment that indicated the birds were endless, wearing us down, intent on murdering me and my friends.

  “Kill!” the birds yelled. The voices were harsh. Guttural. Their words bubbled from their throats. “Kill! Kill! Strangle and break!”

  “This is so fucking funny!” the dog at the top of the stairs barked out.

  “Eh?” I said.

  “What fucking idiots!” the dog yelled. “Kill them all, my beautiful birds!”

  “What?” I said, looking to the dog.

  “Oh, shit,” it said, looking down to me.