So far we had kept pace with the creature, no more than twenty or thirty yards behind it at any point. Now, suddenly, it took me by surprise and accelerated away from us; it was moving as fast as it had on the surface.

How was that possible?

Maybe the earth under the green was softer, I thought. Perhaps the creature was propelled by a frantic bloodlust as it neared its prey . . . but all that mattered was that we confront it before it had fully emerged from its burrow.

I sprinted after it, jostling an aproned man aside, dodging between the stalls and onto the grass. Suddenly there was a terrible scream from the center of the green. I saw three black tentacles coiling and swaying high in the air above a herd of cattle. Meanwhile, a farmer was running toward the pen, no doubt fearing for his stock.

Seconds later, the terrified cows broke through the hurdles that enclosed them, scattering them like matchwood, and stampeded toward us. The farmer turned on his heel and ran for his life.

Grimalkin and I stood shoulder to shoulder, while Jenny stayed close behind. The witch assassin had drawn two of her blades and I raised my staff, pointing the blade toward the approaching animals. They were big long-horned cattle and could easily trample us into the ground. When I was young, at least two local farmers had been charged by their own cattle; one had died, and the other had never walked again without the aid of a stick.

However, we stood firm, and at the very last moment, just as I thought we were going to be impaled by their horns, the beasts parted like two curtains being drawn aside. They passed on either side of us, splattering us with clods of mud.

But as they thundered away, another scream rent the air.

The vartek was about thirty yards ahead of us, and I saw that it had taken a cow in its huge mouth; it was shaking it as a dog shakes a rat. It had grown since we last saw it aboveground, and its three tentacles, with their sharp bone tips, now reached at least twenty feet into the air.

I saw that another cow had been injured. It was bellowing with pain and trying to rise, but it was missing a leg, and the stump was spurting blood.

As we ran forward, the first animal gave another cry, and we heard the crunching of bone as the vartek closed its jaws, cutting it clean in two. As the bloodied halves fell onto the grass, the monstrous creature seized the other injured cow.

This was what saved our lives as we prepared to attack. With its mouth full, the vartek couldn’t spit globules of acid at us.

Grimalkin reached it first and thrust a blade into the bulbous right eye, twisting the weapon as she did so in order to do maximum damage. Meanwhile I went for the other eye, stabbing deep into it with the blade of my staff.