The Bone Quill by Carole E. Barrowman, John Barrowman

inside such a tranquil Impressionist painting, for God’s sake?’
    ‘Whatever’s happening, I’m sure they will find a way out of it,’ said Renard as reassuringly as he could. ‘We’ve underestimated the twins’ powers before.’
    Much as I underestimated their father’s
. The words hung unspoken in the air.

NINETEEN
     
    Skinner’s Bog
    Auchinmurn Isle
    Middle Ages
     
    S olon was dumbfounded to hear the Viking girl’s voice sniping in his head. An unfortunate reaction that served to reinforce the girl’s impression of his stupidity.
    His skin was tingling, his pulse quickening, and his throat felt as if he was swallowing sawdust. In a nervous rush, he returned to jamming his pouch with rowan berries, even stuffing a few sprigs into the pockets of his leather tunic like a madman.
    What is your name?
    ‘Solon,’ he replied out loud, cautiously.
    Since arriving at the monastery, the only other person Solon had been able to hear clearly in his head was Brother Renard. He had always assumed that this was on account of Brother Renard’s abilities and the relationship they had as master and novice.
    ‘Solon,’ she said, nodding.
    The exertion of pulling up against the tree had opened the wound on her arm again. Solon reached out to help, but she pushed him away and, with more difficulty, stood up. She was too unsteady on her feet. Solon caught her before she fell against the sharp branches of the tree or, worse, face first into the muck of Skinner’s Bog.
    ‘And your name?’ he asked, quickly releasing her from his arms. Would she be able to understand his question?
    ‘I am called Carik Grimsdóttir,’ she replied. She sensed Solon’s puzzlement. ‘My mother taught me your language. She once lived on this land.’
    ‘Was your mother captured? Taken during a raid?’
    Solon was about to speak again when she put her fingers to her lips to silence him. The darkness over the bog was thickening, the smell of rotting flesh once more rising from the muck.
    ‘The creature is returning. I can hear it,’ she said.
    ‘Was it the creature who injured you?’
    She nodded. Solon could hear only his and Carik’s breathing. They stood in silence for a moment.
    ‘We need to leave this bog,’ said Solon, taking a step out into the knee-deep muck. ‘The monks have great powers. They will be able to heal you.’
    ‘But I am your enemy,’ she said, surprised.
    Solon looked at the beautiful girl staring back at him. ‘You’re not my enemy.’
    Without warning, Carik lunged at Solon, pulling him back and out of the bog. Solon flinched as he heard the horrible sucking sounds, the same noises he had heard earlier in the dark. The Grendel was almost upon them. Its low growls carried in a cold wind that cut across the grassy mound, bending the branches of the rowan tree to the ground. The blackness had become a heavy canopy.
    We are trapped, Solon. How could one beast surround us?
    That’s the nature of the Grendel,
answered Solon, so naturally that he surprised himself.
It is
made of the blackness that’s only found beyond death.
    A guzzling noise shattered the darkness in front of them. The Grendel, the mud-monster, the spirit-stalker, rose up out of the bog in a swirling tornado of foul mud and flaming red eyes.
    Its body was made up of layers of wet clay, as if it had been formed on a potter’s wheel deep under the bog, and it had no front or hind legs – only a shapeless form trailing behind it, devouring vegetation and sucking up everything in its wake.
    The Grendel’s head rose higher and higher out of the bog, expanding until it was more massive than the ground on which Solon and Carik were cowering.
    Carik unsheathed her dagger, flipped her cape behind her shoulders, raised her head and prepared to battle the beast. Solon knew she must be terrified and in awful pain, yet he could feel an unswerving calm emanating from her. Carik’s strength fed his imagination.
    Tearing a piece of bark from the rowan