Stikora

It had been a rough three months since Jared the Dragon Slayer and Zede the Ferocious had seen their homes. They had left on a mission to free some merchants who were being held captive by a herd of monstrous creatures the likes of which even Jared had never seen. Jared and Zede arrived in time to save most of the merchants and, as usual, denied all payment. They were heading back home when they were side-tracked by a troll who was ransacking a small village, a gang of goblins who had taken refuge in a dark cave and were dragging travelers from the road to either enslave them or eat them, depending on their size, and as the lead goblin had said, their tenderness, and finally a dragon had sought them out when they were about a week from their village, seeking vengeance on a relative they had vanquished a few years earlier. So, they were eager to get home and rest for a few days before their services were required again, and they were not at all pleased when they were yet again side-tracked.
They had camped out on a hill that was within sight of the small house they shared outside of the village of Chan, planning to make the final stretch of the journey at dawn. No sooner had Zede begun roasting his catch of rabbit meat over the fire when they heard a man desperately calling out Jared's name as he ran towards them on the road.
"Jared!" he shouted. "Thank heaven, it is you! You have to help me!"
He reached the fire and the ever suspicious Zede had him tackled and pinned before he could catch his breath. Jared went over and told the dwarf to release him.
"It could be a trick, Jared!" Zede protested.
"It's not," Jared said. This was good enough for Zede, who was well aware of Jared's ability to sense evil. Jared sensed something strange from this man, but nothing dangerous. Zede stood and the man got up and brushed himself off.
"I've been looking for you for days," he said. "The villagers told me that you were gone on a mission, but that you would return soon. I've been waiting nearly a week."
"What can we do for you?" Jared asked him.
"My name is David," he said, "and I am being terrorized in my own home by some sort of demon or monster."
"In your home?" Zede asked.
"Yes!" David said. His eyes were wide with terror and he looked around warily as if whatever was haunting his house could hear him. "It's huge and monstrous and it's demanding flesh! I've been able to ward it off with animals like dogs or goats, but it told me that it wants human meat and if I don't find something to feed it soon, it will eat me."
"How did it get in your house?" Jared asked him.
"I...I don't know," David said. "I just woke up one night and it was there!"
Jared pondered this for a moment. It wasn't unheard of for such creatures to come into a home unannounced and uninvited and start terrorizing the occupants. He had heard the same story dozens of times. But this time something was wrong. He could sense something from the desperate man begging his help that told the dragon slayer that David knew exactly how the monster had gotten into his home. He wouldn't say anything yet. If it proved important, he would press David for answers later. Right now, the priority was to rid the house of the monster and, if possible, kill it before it harmed anyone.
"Where do you live?" Jared asked. Zede sighed. The dwarf had been hoping to get home soon and sleep in his own bed. But they had a job to do and Zede knew that they must do it.
"About a day's journey to the north," David replied. "Will you please help me."
"Of course," Jared said. "We'll leave in the morning. Now, my friend here has caught us some dinner, if you would care to join us."
Zede split the meat between the three of them and when they were done eating, David curled up a few feet from the fire and fell into a fast sleep. Zede sat next to Jared.
"Blasted monster!" he grumbled. "I want to go home!"
"So do I, Zede," Jared said. "But you know the life we've chosen can be inconvenient at times."
"Aye," the dwarf said. "What kind of beast do you think this is?"
"I don't know," Jared said. "But one thing I do know is that David isn't telling us everything."
"You think he's in league with this beast?" Zede asked.
"No," Jared said. "I would have sensed that. But there is something. He feels guilty about something. He knows how that monster got into his home, and if it does harm somebody, he will feel responsible."
* * * * *
The next morning they set off away from Chan to the north. David described the monster as they traveled. From its description, Jared was quite certain that it was a Stikora, a cave dwelling creature, half demon and half bear, which fed on human flesh and was purely evil. It would also be very difficult to kill. Jared didn't mention it to David, but he knew that Stikoras hardly ever ventured from their caves. These enchanted creatures were all but invincible in their own lairs and quite vulnerable outside of them. No Stikora would venture out of its cave unless it was in desperate need of food. Unless David lived so close to a cave that he could spit into it from his back porch, Jared was sure that this monster didn't just wander into his house one night while he slept.
"And it's how big?" Jared asked.
"Ten feet high at least," David said. "It was smaller when...it was smaller before, but since it made me start feeding it, it's grown very quickly. It's filling my entire front room now. Do you think that you can kill it, Jared?"
"We've killed bigger things," Zede said proudly.
"And since it's out of its cave," Jared said, eyeing David closely for a reaction, "we should have no trouble with it."
"Yeah," David said, turning away slightly as they walked. "That's good."
"David," Jared said, "is there something you should tell me?"
"No," David replied. "No, nothing. I've told you everything."
Jared let it rest again, but he was convinced now that whatever David was hiding would be essential to this monster's defeat. Zede knew it too, and the usually chatty dwarf became very cold toward their companion, barely answering his questions with a grunt.
They reached a small cottage in a clearing about twelve hours after they left and David said that it was his home. It looked normal enough from the outside, but Jared knew immediately that a great evil was inside. He could sense its total depravity and an almost overwhelming hunger. He also sensed something else that frightened him. He had come across Stikoras before, and whenever he found one away from its own cave it was always on edge, very cautious, even afraid in its vulnerability. Jared sensed nothing like that here. What he felt inside that house was a completely secure beast, unafraid of anything. The Stikora considered David's home to be his lair, and judging by its strength and power, it was right.
Jared had never tried to vanquish one inside its cave before. They were no threat as long as no one wandered in or they didn't come out for some reason. He wasn't sure if even he could defeat a secure Stikora.
"Well," David said, almost pleading, "aren't you going to go in there and kill it?"
"We sure are!" Zede said, sword drawn, but Jared put a hand on his shoulder and stopped the dwarf's charge.
"Wait, Zede," Jared said. He turned to David. "There is something that you haven't told me, David, and unless you are completely honest with me, I cannot help you."
"What?" David asked. Jared turned to leave and Zede, obviously disappointed that there would be no bloodshed that day, followed. David ran after them. "I told you everything!"
"Do not lie to me," Jared said, never turning back. "You know of my power. I can sense your dishonesty."
"But, Jared!"
Zede turned around and grabbed the man's shirt collar. Pulling him down so that he could look into his terrified eyes, "If Jared says you are lying, then you are lying. And if you are lying, we cannot help you. Now, if you're in league with that beast-"
"I'm not!" David shouted. "I swear it!"
Jared turned then and said, "Then what is it I sense? Why does the Stikora consider your home its lair?"
"I don't know," David said. "Maybe because it's been there since..."
"Since when?" Zede demanded.
David looked at the ground and sighed. When he looked back up again, there were tears in his eyes and Jared sensed that he was about to be completely honest with him at last.
"Since I brought him there."
"Since you what?" Zede asked.
"Of course," Jared said. "It makes sense now."
"What makes sense?" Zede asked. "Are you going to tell me what's going on here? Are we going to kill something or what?"
"Calm down, Zede," Jared said. "If David tells us the truth now, we may indeed kill something today."
Zede smiled. "Go on, then," he told David, "and pray it's not you we slay tonight!"
"About a year ago," David began, "I was visiting a friend in a nearby village. On my way home I was caught in a rainstorm and spent the night in a cave for shelter. I had checked it out and it seemed safe. I was woken up in the middle of the night by something small and furry scurrying against my leg. I looked down, and there it was."
"The Stikora," Jared said. David nodded.
"And you didn't know what it was?" Zede asked.
"I knew exactly what it was," David said. "I had seen one before when I was a child. In fact, I barely escaped it. But this one was so small and helpless. Just a baby. It was actually kind of cute."
"Cute?" Zede asked. "That beastly thing? Those monsters would gladly eat a nursery full of babies for a midnight snack, and you thought it was cute? Well, I'll be a fairy princess!"
"It was so small," David repeated. "I thought I could tame it. I thought that if I raised it from a baby and only fed it small animals, it wouldn't grow into a man eating demon-beast."
"You thought that you could control it?" Jared asked.
"I did for a while," David said. "I thought it actually liked me. As long as I provided it with mice and small birds, it would let me hold it, pet it. Then it started growing. I had to feed it rats, then cats, dogs, sheep, and goats. A month ago it was no longer satisfied with anything smaller than a full grown cow. I used to have livestock here, but as you can see," he pointed back to his house, surrounded by an acre of empty land. There was no animal to be seen. "It still acted like it liked me though. I hadn't realized it yet, but it was controlling me. My life was spent finding food for it. I could still pet it and play with it, though it was bigger than me, and it still looked kind of cute to me.
"Two weeks ago, it spoke. It had never done that before. I was almost proud of it, especially when it called me 'father,' but it told me that it was tired of animal meat and it wanted human. It told me to bring it a human child within a week or else it would eat me!"
"And so you left to find us," Jared said.
"Not yet," he said. "I spent a day or two trying to figure out where I would find a child."
"You did what?" Zede yelled, reaching for his weapon.
"I told you, it was controlling me!" David said quickly. "It didn't cast a spell on me or anything, but it might as well have! I loved it! I wanted to please it. I thought that maybe just one child wouldn't be terribly missed and then it would get its manlust out of its system and return to cattle."
"Don't tell me you-" Zede began.
"He didn't, Zede," Jared said. "I would know."
"He's right," David said. "I didn't feed it a child. I came to my senses and my own thoughts scared me. I realized that what I had in my house was no longer a cute little pet. It was a full grown demonspawn monster and it was pure evil. I couldn't control it, I couldn't satisfy it, and I if allowed myself to continue serving it, I would be no better than it was."
"So then you came for us?" Zede asked.
"Not yet," he said again. "I told you, I loved it. I didn't want to lose it. So I tried to reason with it. I told it that I couldn't bring it a human child, but I would get whatever else it wanted. I tried to remind it that I had brought it up since it was a baby and that it considered me its father. I hoped that I wouldn't have to get rid of it. It turned on me. It told me that the house was his lair and that I was a guest there. If I didn't feed it, it would feed on me. I told it to get out, but it didn't obey me. For the first time since I brought it home that day, it didn't obey me! It did this to me..." he rolled up his left shirt sleeve to reveal a freshly healing wound that Jared immediately recognized as the bite of a full grown Stikora's six inch fangs.
"And that's when I left to find you."
"Thank you for your honesty," Jared told the man, "but you know that you are a fool. No man can tame a beast like that. What made you think you could control it? Especially knowing exactly what you were dealing with!"
"It was so small!"
"Yeah, well it grew, didn't it?" Zede said. "Monsters and demons like that always do. You should have left it in that cave. You should have dragged it out and killed it. Instead, you raised it, loved it, and before you knew it, had become its slave!"
"I know!" David cried. "I know! And I know I don't deserve your help! But please, I don't know what else to do. Can you kill it?"
"I don't know," Jared admitted.
"Can you at least get it out of my house?" he asked.
"We'll try," Jared said.
"What?" Zede asked his friend. "Are you daft, man? A full grown Stikora in its own lair? You might as well go against as army of dragons with nothing but a wooden spoon! That man took the thing into its home. I say that we leave it there. He got himself into this mess, let him get himself out!"
"We've never turned away from someone who asked for our help," Jared told him. "We've even helped those who have refused our help. I agree that David got himself caught up in this through his own folly. He's admitted that himself. But now he realizes his mistakes and is willing to do whatever it takes to rectify them before somebody gets killed." He turned to David, "Are you not?"
"I am!" David said. "I swear it by the stars themselves! Whatever it takes!"
"Good," Jared said. "Let's go."
He started heading back to the cottage and the other two followed. The evil and the power coming from that small structure was almost overwhelming Jared as he approached and for the first time in a long time, he felt real fear. But, for the first time in a long time, he knew that he wouldn't have to face the monster himself.
"Zede," he told the dwarf, "start a fire."
"You want to eat now?"
"Not for food," Jared said. "Start a fire and bring me a torch."
The good wizard who guided the two dragon slayers and had provided them with their magic arrows had also given Zede a bag of seeds that when broken sparked. If that spark came across any combustible material, it would catch fire. He did this now on a small pile of leaves and soon a good sized fire was burning. He took a branch from a nearby tree, set its tip ablaze, and brought the torch to Jared.
"What are you going to do?" David asked him.
"Nothing," Jared said. He held the torch out to David. "You are going to burn your house to the ground."
"What?" David asked. "I've lived here for twenty years!"
"Unless you want that beast to control you for the rest of your life," Jared told him, "you will burn the house down."
David didn't take the torch. He stared at the flames as if he had never seen fire before. "Do I have to do this? Isn't there some other way?"
"It's not your house anymore," Jared said. "It's the Stikora's lair. You can always rebuild. You can rebuild the house and your life, but not if that thing is still there. Stikora's are powerful, and once they have a grip on you, you can never be free. You must kill it, and in order to kill it, you have to get it out of its lair."
"Then get it out of there!" David yelled. "I'll kill it myself if you can get it out!"
"I can't," Jared said. "It's power is greater than anything I can do while it is in its own home, especially since you invited it in and gave it free run of the place. But if you take away the lair, the monster is as weak as an ordinary animal and can be defeated." David still hesitated and the flame was almost flickering out. "You said that you would do whatever it took. Now, do it!"
David took the torch from the dragon slayer. Slowly, he approached his cottage. A deafening roar came from inside as the Stikora realized what was about to happen. The roar seemed to penetrate David's heart as a child's cry would his mother's, but he still held the torch to the straw of the cottage's roof. Seconds later, the roof was aflame and the fire would soon consume the entire building. The monster continued to roar in rage and they could make out its frightening shape among the flames as it thrashed about. The flames wouldn't kill it, but being connected to the home as it was, its destruction was agonizing to the beast, as was the knowledge that once the house was gone, so would be most of its strength and power.
"Are you sure this will work?" David asked.
"All Stikora's were defeated in a glorious battle centuries ago," Jared said, though this knowledge was common, especially to a man like David who was familiar with the creatures. "That is why they are stuck inside their caves. That defeat robbed them of their power and their control over anyone who doesn't willfully give it over, like you did. Away from the shelter you provided it, it will be just another defeated monster awaiting the final blow."
"Which I have to give?" David said. This was only half a question. Jared nodded and reached for the dagger he kept on his belt. He handed the weapon to David.
"Zede and I will subdue the beast," he said. "Then, you strike. Since it is your master, only your blow can kill it. Are you ready?"
"No," David said, looking sadly at the blade in his hand, "but I'll do it anyway."
The house burned for about half an hour, then was nothing but ash. David watched as everything he had was consumed in the flames. In the center of the ashes was what looked like a gigantic bear with blood red horns on its head and along its spine. It was curled up in a ball, growling in rage.
"Now, Zede!" Jared said. Jared and Zede approached the monster. In its cave, it would have been invincible. With its protection gone, it had the strength of any other bear its size, which was still great, but nothing that Jared and Zede couldn't handle. When they got close enough to strike at it with their weapons, the thing rose up and gave a roar that shook the leaves in the nearby trees. It swung at Zede, who rolled out of its way and struck at it with his sword, wounding its arm. It then turned on Jared, who held his axe ready. Knowing that he was incapable of killing the animal, he brought the axe down, burying it in the giant head. It fell under the blow and lay there moaning. Zede came to it and stuck his sword deep into its back.
Had this monster not had a human slave, it would have been dead. But in controlling David, it had given him a small portion of its power. Now, that slave had to make the final decision to free himself from the demonbeast. David came slowly to the animal with the dagger in his hand. He raised it high over his head, ready to strike the beast between its shining red eyes, and paused.
"What's wrong?" Zede asked. "Kill the blasted thing!"
"I can't do it," David said. "I still love it."
The Stikora looked up at David and said in an almost childlike voice, "Father? I love you!"
"Don't listen to it!" Jared told him. "It doesn't love you! It would eat you in a second if we hadn't beat it down! Now, kill the monster, unless you want to be its slave for the rest of your life!"
"Father?" the monster said again.
"I am not your father," David said, and he brought the knife down hard, driving it between the Stikora's eyes. "And I am no longer your slave!"
The Stikora let out a hideous shriek as its massive body shook, throwing the dragon slayer and the dwarf from its back. Then, it burst into red flames and was consumed, leaving nothing but smoking red dust. It was dead.
David fell backwards to the ground and began to weep. Even Jared with his magical sense couldn't tell if David was weeping for the lost beast or because he was finally free. Maybe it was both. He stood and walked to the man.
"You did well," Jared said. "You lost everything you had, but that is the price you had to pay for this folly of yours. Now, you can rebuild your life. But remember, next time some little demon comes across your path, you cannot control evil. Try, and it will control you. Had you rid yourself of the Stikora a year ago, or better yet, had you never invited it into your home in the first place, you would not have had to suffer so."
David nodded. He handed the dagger up to Jared. It was stained with black blood and smoking. Jared took the blade and threw it into the Stikora's ashes where it also was consumed with red flames and disappeared.
"Come, Zede," Jared said. "Let's go home."
The two left David in the clearing besides the remnants of his life. They could hear the sound of his weeping for about half an hour. When they finally got away from the sound, Zede grunted.
"That fool," he said. "What would make him think he could handle even a little demon?"
"Evil is deceptive," Jared said. "I have no doubt that the baby Stikora was indeed cute. He honestly loved that monster too. I wouldn't be surprised if he went out in search of another one."
"You don't think he learned his lesson?"
"I hope he has," Jared said. "Only time will tell. But if he does give his life over to evil again, I don't think anybody will be able to help him."