Pitt walked along, hands in the pockets of his coat. He sniffed the scent of water on the air. Something else was mixed in with the water. He couldn't make out what it could be.

He decided to put the smell out of mind. Either he would remember what it reminded him of, or he wouldn't. He had another worry on his mind that was more important.

How big of a river monster was he thinking about clearing out of the way for the ferry town?

He hoped it was something small and easy to run off. Killing something huge would present a problem for the town almost as bad as a living monster.

Either way, killing the thing would allow commerce to move which would allow people to travel again. And no one had to know what he had done so he could keep his anonymity.

Pitt paused when he saw a giant bulk lift out of the river ahead of him. He tried to think of which monster was waiting for him to approach. Maybe it was some kind of giant snapping turtle. They were known for their bad tempers.

He walked closer. He knew he presented a tempting target. He was just a man in a coat. Any monster worth its salt would think he was good eating. He doubted he had long before it decided what it wanted to do to him.

A triangular head lifted out of the water. It was joined by ten more. Smoke drifted from the pairs of eyes and the mouths full of jagged teeth.

“A hydra,” said Pitt. He shook his head. Of course it would be a river dragon with multiple heads to breathe fire at him.

He definitely needed a sword to handle this. He didn't want to rip the heads off with his bare hands.

“Nice hydra,” said Pitt. He tried to look nonthreatening to the giant lizard. “How's it going?”

The eleven mouths roared as one. Lances of acidic flame fell on the target. The prey was tiny, but might be enough to tide it over until it could raid the nearby prey areas. The natural weapons dug up the bank of the river, but missed the target.

Pitt stood to one side. He shook his head. Of course it would attack. It was a monster, and monsters didn't know the meaning of don't do that. Destruction was their jobs, and they did that well.

Killing monsters was his job, and he liked to think he excelled at it.

Pitt looked around at something he could use as a weapon. He didn't want to go into the river unless he had to do that. The rushing water would make his footing uncertain and he wanted stability if he had to face eleven heads of doom.

He spotted a rock the size of his fist. It wasn't much. He picked it up as he tried to decide where he should use it to his advantage.

The eleven heads readied themselves for another attack. They seemed astounded to have missed on their first try. Maybe their usual targets weren't that fast.

Pitt fired the rock first. He didn't aim for any head. He aimed for the body of the beast. The stone glowed as it sliced through the air. Then it punched into the body of the hydra on impact.

The hydra writhed in pain. It wasn't ready to give up. It could heal from such a puny wound with enough time and food. It had plenty of that on this stretch of the water.

Still something woke in its heart. Maybe it should move out in the deeper water and get away from this human. He seemed more dangerous than the other humans it had eaten when it had raided their wagons.

The hydra decided a fighting retreat was in order. It breathed out its bad breath as its forelegs pushed it out in the water. When the river was deep enough, it would submerge and give its nature a chance to heal up from the attack.

Pitt picked up another rock after a quick search for something to throw. He hefted the bigger weight as he judged the expanding distance between him and his enemy. He pulled his arm back, and then released the stone in a move like a ballista throwing its load at full power.

Most hydras expect prey to run, go for the heads where its main weapons were, or stand back and shoot ineffectual arrows or throw javelins at it. This hydra had already been wounded by this particular human throwing a rock. It wanted nothing to do with a bigger rock heading for it. It tried to dive for deeper water in the middle of the river.

The stone caught it in the middle of its body. The impact rocked it on its stumpy legs as the missile kept going out the other side. It dropped into the deeper water. It had never been wounded so bad in its life. It needed to get to the bottom where it could rest and recover.

Pitt watched the dying beast try to swim to safety. He regretted having to put it down, but he had volunteered to protect humanity from monsters, even stupid ones who didn't know better. He stood on the bank of the river and watched for signs of his enemy.

The water turned black as the hydra's blood ran from the four wounds that had been inflicted on it. The bulk surfaced after the creature died. It floated down the river. It was someone else's problem now.

Pitt could do one more thing to mitigate the fish kill that was bound to happen downstream from where he stood.

He rolled up a cigarette and took a couple of puffs from it. He flipped it out in the middle of the black stain moving downstream. Instantly the oily substance caught fire and burned green while he watched. He rolled up another cigarette and smoked as the flame hit the monster's corpse and started eating into it while it floated away.

Pitt finished his cigarette and took the bearing he needed. He headed into the woods away from where he had killed the hydra. He looked back and saw someone from town riding down to see what had happened.

He hoped the guy took credit for the dead hydra burning in the middle of the river. That would help him more than anything.

And Pitt didn't want any credit interfering with the quiet semi-retirement he enjoyed. Word spreading about Roland the Cutter still being around would be a pain to deal with and he didn't want to deal with it. He was reasonably sure the Orcs wouldn't tell anyone outside their tribe, but men were gossips. Once someone knew, the whole town would know.

Pitt looked back one more time after walking among the trees for a few minutes. He couldn't see the river, or the road. He did see a column of green flame and dark smoke lighting up the sky.

He hoped he hadn't made a mistake burning the monster corpse. Things could come from that. He decided that he had killed the one monster within reach. Anything else would have to be handled by knights, clerics, and mages.

He turned and walked deeper into the trees. The sun would be going down in a few hours. He needed to make as much time as he could to reach the next town. He hadn't been out in this part of the world in a long time. He didn't know if there was another town on the line he was walking.

At least he knew he was on a true course to the Highlands. His god wouldn't stoop to lying about that. It was beneath the judge of the dead.

Pitt walked deeper and deeper in the trees as he forced himself along a straight line. He believed that he would come out of the other side of the forest on a plain that led to the foothills leading to his mountains. Then he could keep his eye on his goal getting nearer without having to use the sun to navigate.

He might be able to pick up a horse to carry him along if he came across a farm, or a ranch of some kind. Someone must supply the region with food. Merchants must have some place to gather their wares to carry to the settlements around.

On the other hand White Plains might have been the biggest demand for food around and the city was probably still pulling itself out of the devastation that Neil had caused. A whole new industry would have to grow to help the city repair itself.

Trust Neil to come up with a dumb scheme like that to try to join the Eternal Court. What made him think the gods would just sit still for the mass sacrifice he was trying to pull off.

Despite not liking to be yanked around, Pitt conceded that he had needed to do something to help stop the threat before it turned into a festering wound on the world. He was glad that he put Neil down in the pit where demons came from. Putting down the King had been a bonus.

Hopefully anyone else with the same idea would think twice before they tried a scheme like that.

Pitt paused when he reached a clearing. The sun had reached the edge of the horizon. He spotted a house in the distance. He wondered who would put something like that out here away from anyone who would like to look at it.

He rolled up a cigarette and took a moment to smoke before he kept going. Something about the house said it was trouble. Maybe he should go around and pick up the line again when the sun was up and giving him a marker to use.

He turned over options as the paper burned away. He could sleep right where he was. It wouldn't be his first time sleeping out in the middle of nowhere before heading into trouble when the next day arrived.

He might need the rest if the house had people who didn't like people walking across their land. They might take exception to his presence.

It wouldn't be the first time he had dealt with the more monstrous humans he had come across in his years of fighting.

Sometimes humans were worse than the monsters just trying to eat and survive.