The Terrible Business with the Loch Ness monster

6. Fighting

They reached the place of the attack about an hour later. They had been traveling by foot again for the last half an hour, to not get the borrowed horses to close to the water, as the monster seemed to have an equal taste for humans and horses and Victoria was firm on the point that she was going to return them.

"I can't return them if they're dead, now can I?" she argued. Heather agreed.

She hadn't said much since their fight, and Heather was getting more and more anxious. She had no idea what would happen now, what the plan was, what she was going to do, or even how she was going to do it. What if Victoria was so angry at her she wouldn't tell her? Perhaps she would just leave her somewhere as bait, disappear and then wait for the monster to attack, without telling Heather about it? Consciously she knew she was being unfair again, but she couldn't help her thoughts from wonder.

At the scene of the crime, not much of the crime was left. The carriage was gone, and so were the bodies, but there was still a disturbing amount of blood on the ground, that hadn't been there when Heather left. The monster had obviously had a fest right there, and there were marks of dragging leading from the road into the Loch, where the fest had continued.

"that's some beaver." Victoria said under her breath. She sounded almost fascinated by it as she looked at the evidence of the slaughter of Heather's family.

"yeah, what do we do about it?" Heather asked impatiently. Victoria looked up at her from where she was kneeling beside a dried puddle of blood.

"I can't believe there's an actual monster in the Loch." She beamed, bad mood all but forgotten, it seemed. "ye' made it sound like it was just a monster in the area, but it actually lives in the Loch!"

"well, I didn't know where it lived, it didn't leave any adresscard." Heather answered.

"how rude." Victoria kept poking the blood.

"isn't it? But what will we do about it?" Heather was starting to get uncomfortable with her morbid fascination, and needed her to stop right now. Luckily, she did. Victoria rose to her feet and pointed at the tracks.

"we will follow the brink of the Loch and see if we can find where it's hiding, then we lure it out of whatever cave it's living in, and kill it." She said, nodding thoughtfully to herself.

"sounds easy enough" Heather thought.

"oh, I doubt it." Victoria said, which was not very reassuring, Heather thought. "but the simplest plans are usually the best."

"well then, we better get going." Heather stated, trying her best to keep any trembles out of her voice to not show how scared she was.

"that's the spirit." Victoria grinned. "but hold on a second, I have something for you." Form her belt she drew a short sward, with the blade covered in strange runes and symbols, and held it out to Heather. Heather stared at it in confusion. "take it!" Victoria said and waved it a bit in front of Heather. "you might need it when we find Nessie." Heather took the blade carefully, holding it a bit away from her so she wouldn't accidently nick herself. Victoria looked at her and gave a shot laugh before she came over and took it away from Heather.

"no, ye' can't hold it like that!" she said, and then placed the sword in her hand. "ye' need a strong grip, and come confidence. If ye' hold it like you're scared of it, you're going to drop it, and that's no good, is it?" she placed her own hand over Heather's, and guided her fingers into the right grip, and Heather really tried to hold it firmly.

"thank you..?" she couldn't really make it sound as sincere as she would have liked it to sound, her nerves were taking over, but she meant well. "but will I be able to use it?" she asked.