Before the Dawn

Cold. Dark. Miserable.

These words echoed through Corporal Stanley Halliday’s head as the patrol advanced through the pre-dawn gray. Frost already crawled along the barrel of his musket, and he felt the growing sensation of ice against his thigh where his knife hung.

Stanley closed the top button on his greatcoat, hoping to avoid the same fate. A light breeze blew across the meadow and through the line of British Regulars, yet even this breeze felt like daggers against his exposed cheeks. The sheets of fresh snow it stirred around his boots didn’t help either.

Ahead, Lieutenant Simpkins called a halt to consult the map. Near the head of the column, Stanley was able to hear the debate between him and Captain Wallace.

“This damn frontier has us all turned around, Captain. I told you we should have picked a settlement and waited for Larouche.”

“Our orders were to hunt down the Major and his raiders, not wait for them, Lieutenant.”

“If we catch them unaware and kill them, then what’s the difference?”

“We have no guarantee to pick the location of their next attack, and General Shirley would not look kindly on us waiting for them to strike first.”

Simpkins shook his head. “You act like he even remembers us this far beyond New York.”

“As King’s men, our duty is to pursue the enemy.” Simpkins started to speak, but Wallace held up his hand. “The map says that we should find a frozen pond once we have cleared this next row of trees. From there, we should meet our scouts.”

“Trusting savages is another mistake entirely.”

“The Oneida are at war with the Iroquois. They want us to defeat Larouche and his Indian collaborators as much as we do.” Wallace rolled up the map. “If you spent more time listening, you might develop better instincts for these frontier expeditions.”

Wallace stowed the map inside his greatcoat. “Until then, you were the only lieutenant assigned to me, so we will have to make do with each other, Simpkins.”

Rifles clattered against field packs as the forty men reshouldered their muskets and resumed marching. Stanley paused from staring at his feet to inspect the trees in front of them. Seeing the barren branches always made him think of skeletons.

Stanley pulled on his musket’s shoulder strap as the tree trunks closed in. There was no better place to ambush them than in an enclosed place like this where the fighting would be hand-to-hand.

Eyes darting back and forth in the changing light of the deep forest, Stanley noticed an opening ahead. A great pine tree stood, but its branches were as bare as the oaks surrounding it. Odd, since evergreens did not usually die in the winter.

As Stanley passed by the dead pine, he felt a breath on the back of his neck. It was not a stray breeze; it was warm. Warm and moist. Stanley spun around, but the next soldier was ten paces behind him, and Stanley continued marching. Still, the heat on his neck lingered despite the chill.

Thankfully, the trees thinned as they marched into another clearing. To Captain Wallace’s credit, a frozen pond lay off to their right. Lieutenant Simpkins called a halt.

Across the clearing, shadows detached from the trees. Five native scouts approached their column, sporting muskets of their own. Stanley tried not to wonder if they had been plundered off the bodies of dead British soldiers. Odds are high...

Captain Wallace picked his way through the knee-deep snow to hold counsel with the allied natives. Must be from the Oneida tribe he mentioned earlier, Stanley thought. Unfortunately, he was too far away to hear the discussion this time, but he imagined they were reporting where they had last seen Larouche.

A new sound reached Stanley’s ears, distinct from the murmurs at the head of the column. Something created at the higher registers of the human voice, something that sent a wholly different chill through his already frozen cheeks. A scream.

At once, the column turned. The soldier closest to the woods continued his cries as a massive shape lifted him into the air. He had dropped his rifle, leaving him with only his hands to pound against the black jaws. Blood dribbled from where fangs had pierced his abdomen.

The rest of the column drew back, but they had been trained well, and all hands went to their rifles. It gave Stanley a small assurance as he drew back the hammer on his musket and fought to control his shaking hands.

More crimson spattered across the white snow, and the soldier’s struggles lessened. Then the creature turned its diamond-shaped head skyward, swallowing the man whole.

A snake, Stanley realized with another chill. But larger than any snake he had ever seen.

“What are you oafs waiting for?” Simpkins’ voice rang out. “Kill it!”

A chorus of rifles replied, and the snake writhed left to right against the hail of musket balls. Stanley held his fire until the black abdomen stilled, and he pulled the trigger. A burst of smoke and sparks flew from the barrel, but if his shot had any effect, the snake did not show it.

The soldiers scrambled to reload, and now the beast answered their volley. It swept one man off his feet, seized another in its jaws and shook him until his legs separated from his torso. More musket shots rang out, but it continued its lethal dance through their ranks.

Ten men stood between the snake and Stanley, but it didn’t seem to matter. A soldier screamed as his arm snapped off between its jaws, a second landed beside Stanley with two gaping puncture wounds in his chest, blood spurting onto the snow. The meadow reeked with blood, and Stanley could barely breathe as his heart threatened to tear its way out of his chest.

Just a few more seconds. Stanley yanked the ram rod out of the barrel, throwing it aside as he scrambled to raise the musket. The snake was only twenty paces away now, and he stepped backward as he aimed down the barrel. He pulled the trigger again, and this time he was close enough to hear the ping as the musket ball deflected off its black scales.

Stanley found himself staring into two round eyes somehow even darker than the scales surrounding them. Its white underbelly tensed and whipped in front of him as it snatched another one of Stanley’s comrades as he attempted to flee. Rooted to the ground, Stanley’s hands shook as he held the rifle in front of him like a spear. But he had not fixed his bayonet, and he doubted it would have made a difference.

But someone else had fixed their bayonet. The man bellowed behind him, and Stanley turned to see Lieutenant Simpkins rush past, rifle extended. The snake, currently swallowing a soldier, did not see him until his bayonet plunged into its side.

Hissing, the snake spat out its victim and tensed to strike Simpkins, but at the same time a native warrior leaped onto its neck from behind.

One of the Oneida scouts, Stanley realized. Together, the warrior struck at the head of the beast with his war club while Simpkins gouged it repeatedly with his bayonet. Furious, the snake shook its body to dislodge them, but both continued their assault, and for a moment it appeared unable to decide which man to attack first.

Emboldened, more of Stanley’s comrades rushed forward with bayonets fixed, shouting in the dawn. Stanley reached his for own, feeling a new sensation overtaking the ice in his veins.

But the snake regained its senses and swept its powerful tail across the meadow. A dozen red coats flew into the air. Stanley looked up as a man plummeted toward him, and then they struck the ground together.

----

When Stanley came to, the morning sun had risen, bringing the slightest warmth to his frozen limbs. He moved the body of the man who had knocked him out, only to find the man’s legs were missing. Perhaps that was what had saved Stanley; the beast had seen the other man’s blood covering him and mistook Stanley for another corpse.

Regardless of what happened, the snake was gone. Stanley’s relief was strangled by the scene before him. Some men had been killed but left intact, only arms or legs remained of others. Blood stained the snow all around him. The ice on the frozen pond had shattered, and a body floated in the middle face-down. Stanley grabbed a rifle from the ground, dislodging the hand still clinging to it, and reached into the water to turn the body. He found Captain Wallace, his face half torn away to the bone.

When he had finished vomiting, Stanley looked up to find a new band had appeared on the edge of the clearing. His eyes focused on the blue and white finery of the man in the center. Larouche.

Stanley scrambled to pick up the rifle, though these men would mow him down in a heartbeat. The French major picked his way through the remains of his comrades.

“There is no need for that, mon amie,” he spoke in surprisingly good English. “You know who I am, yes?”

“Larouche.” Stanley gulped, then gritted his teeth. “The butcher.”

The major shook his head beneath his wide-brimmed hat. “Here I had hoped your recent encounter may have changed your perspective. I have been raiding settlements, yes, but I am not the one slaughtering whole villages.”

“The snake?”

Larouche nodded, his combined goatee and moustache curving as he smiled. “I suppose ‘snake’ is a good word for it. My native friends here have another word for it: Gaasyendietha, though I am ruining the pronunciation. When these Oneida braves ran to us shouting its name,” he nodded to four of the five scouts Stanley’s column had met earlier, "despite the fact that they are at war with my Iroquois allies, we listened.”

Stanley shook his head. “Why are you telling me this when you’re about to kill me?”

“Because…” Larouche paused. “You have a name, yes?”

“Stanley.”

“Because, Corporal Stanley,” Larouche nodded to the emblem on Stanley’s blood-spattered coat, “some needs supersede the wars between men. Because, Corporal, we need every man to hunt this beast.”

Stanley blinked. He had faced death multiple times this morning, but still this proposed alliance seemed less believable than a monster snake. “Why would I work with a Frenchman?”

The major shook his head. “Have you heard nothing? The Gaasyendietha does not care which flag you follow. Unless we all join together to fight back, it will only see us as prey. Look what it has accomplished against trained soldiers.” Larouche spread his arms at the carnage surrounding them. “It must be stopped before it finds another settlement full of women and children. Those are its favorite, Corporal.”

Stanley did not speak for another moment. Larouche sighed. “The Oneida warriors have joined us. Surely we can reach a similar accord?” A different light entered the major’s face. “Or you refuse, and we will see how far you make it alone with that beast stalking the forest.”

Stanley lowered his rifle. “All right, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t hate the French.”

Larouche chuckled. “And I the English. But until the snake is slain, I look forward to having some British courage on our side.”

The two men shook hands. “Now, let us show you our camp. You are no use to us in this half-frozen state.”

The band of French soldiers and Iroquois warriors turned to the northwest. Stanley noticed that several remained behind, covering their flanks with rifles trained on the trees. Watching for the monster’s return.

He took one last look at the field of reddened snow and the bodies of his comrades still steaming in the winter air. Then he turned to follow Larouche.

----

To be continued in a future competition piece.