The Golden Queen by David Farland

Instinctively, Orick knew that these two had battled such monsters before.
    Indeed, the man leaned close to the woman, and Orick caught his words. “It called for other vanquishers. We must hurry into the woods. We can’t stay.”
    “What of our horses?” she asked.
    “They will do us no good in the forest, in the dark. Better to leave them.”
    The woman nodded. Her companion rushed back into the inn, came out with two packs. He gave the woman a pack and she immediately headed north up the road.
    But for one moment, the warrior stood, pulled out his naked sword gleaming in the starlight. He looked right at Orick, as if to thank him, and raised the sword in a silent salute. Then he spun and rushed into the night.
    A crowd gathered around Orick, congratulating him, and men brought out their torches. Orick warned that other such monsters might be about, and soon the men formed up into a militia and set to guarding the edges of town. A boy ran to the parsonage to wake Father Heany, who took one look at the creature and pronounced that it must be some unrepentant sinner, transmogrified by God in retaliation for its unholy deeds.
    Many of the townspeople stood by, congratulating Orick, yet Orick himself wondered at what he had done. Who had he helped? What evil plans had the monster harbored? Orick knew so little about the creature—only that the beast’s flesh was made of tougher stuff than anything he had ever sunk his teeth into. As townspeople brought their lanterns close to look at the beast, Orick smelled its torn flesh. It had an oily scent, not like any land beast, but more like a fish, yet without the putrid fishy flavor.
    When he looked at the ropey coils of torn muscle, he saw that each fiber was like a tiny thread of white. Yet when he looked into the creature’s face, aside from the heavy jaws and sharp teeth, it looked to be human, a young boy perhaps.
    Orick did not know what the monster was, but others knew. Orick stared up the north road that led to the deep forest of Coille Sidhe, the direction that the two strangers had run. The vanquishers would be there, hunting the strangers, and Orick knew they would need help. He decided to leave as soon as Gallen returned.
    Orick looked up at the moonlit sky, wondering what had taken Gallen so long.

Chapter 3
    An hour before dawn, Gallen urged the mare under the canopy of Seamus O’Connor’s house. His home had grown from a great oak, and at this time of the year the dead leaves in the canopy rustled in the wind under the starlight. Other oak houses, planted generations ago, grew near in a cluster, so the O’Connor farm—inhabited by several families of O’Connors—was more like a grove of houses. Here in the wilds, such groves gave one a sense of security, with people all around—though they were really little more than firetraps. Eventually, if the family didn’t leave, they’d get burned out.
    As Gallen neared the house, a watch owl swooped near his head, shouting “Who are you?” Gallen gave his name, fearing that the raptor might rake him with its talons. A candle burning in the O’Connor window bore testimony that Seamus’s wife Biddy had waited up for him.
    Seamus was in a bad way. He kept crying out at visions and couldn’t answer a simple question.
    Gallen slid from the saddle and shouted for help, then lugged Seamus to the house. Biddy unbolted the front door, and soon Gallen had him laid out on the sturdy kitchen table and all seven of Seamus’s children got up. Brothers and aunts and cousins poured in from the other houses in the grove. Soon the house bustled with crying children. They gathered around Seamus and hugged his hand, wiping their snotty noses on his sleeve.
    Biddy sent her oldest daughter Claire for the priest while her son Patrick fetched the doctor. Gallen watched Patrick make ready to leave. The boy didn’t hurry—instead he just skulked away, lazy to go out. Patrick had a likeness to his father, but was still just a