Installment 3: "What the hell is that thing?"

“What the hell is that thing?” Rider Oz muttered, pulling back his duster flap and drawing a black pistol from its weathered holster.

“We’re in Between-Planes; that narrows the possibilities down considerably,” Rider Dyb answered.

The towering thing let out a piercing shriek and lumbered toward them.

The horses snorted and clomped their hooves like judges bringing down their gavels, but they stood their ground. They were trained for war.

“Let’s flank it,” Oz said.

“Yeah. It’s big, but on horseback we’re faster,” Dyb concurred.

They urged their horses off the trail, opening eighty yards between them as they cut through the trees.

When they were nearly apace with it, what they saw through the foliage was a thing that appeared to have been carved from a single mighty tree. It towered above them like a telephone pole, tall but thin in proportion to its height. Its apex had been carved into the likeness of a raptor with a great beak. Symbols—perhaps hieroglyphs—had been painted with red wode on its chest, and though it seemed to be made of wood, its joints were fluid as flesh.

It had no neck, though, so as it looked one way then the other, it craned its whole body. Its eyes were painted on—dark blue circles daubed on whites the size of saucers, giving it a wide-eyed expression—yet somehow it could see its prey. It seemed to be aware of where both of them were, but it turned in Oz’s direction.

“Sorcel-con!” Oz yelled. “My guess—not a friendly one!”

It let out another shriek, though its wooden beak did not move. It stopped and wrenched a young pine—about ten feet high—out of the ground roots and all. Then it threw it like a javelin toward Oz.

Its aim was uncanny—the missile coursed a path through the intervening trees—and the rider barely had time to react, pulling up on the horse’s reins as the tree barreled into the ground right in front of him.

Oz had evaded the attack, but in wrenching his horse out of harm’s way he was caught full in the back by a low-hanging branch. He toppled from his horse.

The living raptor totem lurched toward the fallen rider. Oz aimed and emptied his six shots into the thing. Every shot put a divot in its chest, chipping off red paint. But it was not enough. The thing was twenty yards and closing—three more of its long strides and it would be upon him.

Another report cracked through the woods. This time the creature’s gait slowed. Each subsequent shot stiffened it further, until it came to a halt. It stood rooted in place, nothing more than a wooden totem.

Oz got up from his crouch and holstered his pistol. Dyb rode up. “You all right?”

“A tree got me,” Oz said. “Only not a walking one…Good shooting.”

“My fairy bullets f***** up whatever sorcery was animating it.” Dyb looked up at the wooden sculpture. “Good shooting on your part, too. Every shot was a bulls-eye.”

“Thought maybe if I could obscure those glyphs enough, it would de-power,” Oz said.

“Maybe would’ve worked…if you’d had a Thompson machine gun.”

“TS!” Oz called his horse to him.

“What does TS stand for?” Dyb asked.

“Tennessee Stud.”

“What’s my horse’s name?”

“Dunno. I never named it. It’s your horse. You name it.”