things that creep and bind
Christie Yant
I’m carrying a dead sea serpent, and it has started to stink. It stank to begin with—of sea weed and fatty fish, and that strange wet musk that sea serpents always seem to have—but now it’s all of that plus age and rot. Tired as I am, I won’t put it down. I’ll carry it through these trackless woods and deliver it as promised. The reeking thing in this soggy sack is my duty, my burden, and my hope.
I’m a monster hunter by trade. Sometimes the monster’s alive, and sometimes it’s dead; sometimes I’m using my good yew bow to rid the land of a feared killer, and sometimes I’m poaching a rare creature from one count’s land to add to another’s menagerie. Today it’s a dead sea serpent, and the f*****g thing stinks, and I just want to get home to my Hette
