"You check it."

"No, you check it."

"It must be dead. Right?"

"How the hell would I know, Merlin? I've never seen one of those things before. Do you even know what it is?"

"Gwaine, I haven't read all of Gaius' books, you know. Arthur keeps me too busy."

The knight inched forward and poked the creature they had managed to kill with the tip of his sword. Merlin had whacked it over the head with a large branch he'd picked up, distracting it, and Gwaine had stabbed it through what they hoped was the heart. It was truly a creature out of a person's worst nightmares. It was the size of a mastiff but couldn't seem to decide if it wanted to be a bird or a lizard. Was that a bit of horse thrown in around the hind leg area? It certainly looked as if it had a horse's tail. The feathered front legs had claws about six inches long, and the reptilian muzzle had fangs set in a full set of teeth.

"Gods, I really hope this thing was some sort of magical construct of Morgana's or Morgause's and doesn't have a set of parents that will miss it."

Gwaine grinned at the slightly green manservant. "Bet you never thought you'd be saying something like that, eh?"

Merlin snorted, "No, never crossed my mind." He leaned over the body a bit. "Maybe we should just go now. Rejoin the rest of the patrol."

"They're probably wondering why it's taken us so long to get armfuls of firewood."

"You realize they won't believe us, right?"

"Not unless we have proof."

Both men just stared at the body of the whatever it was that they had killed, neither moving or saying a word about what they could do. "You have the sword, Gwaine."

Gwaine looked down at the hunk of fashioned metal in his hand. "Your point?"

"So hack off the head or something."

Gwaine shuddered. "No, mate. I don't think so." The two men were back at an impasse. "Kind of makes you miss the pheasants."

Merlin grinned around the nausea roiling his stomach. The smell of this thing was just wrong. He was about to respond when he heard a footstep behind him. He looked around and saw Arthur pushing a branch aside. "What are you two doing? You've been away for half an hour." He stepped forward a bit and stopped dead in his tracks. "What is that?"

"Dead. Now, anyway." Gwaine stood straight as he let Arthur look at the thing he and Merlin killed. Merlin just shrugged.

Arthur looked from the creature to each man. "Maybe we shouldn't make camp here tonight. There's a good spot a few miles downriver that would make an excellent campsite. The horses can take it if we walk them."

"Sounds good to me."

"I have no problem with a few miles walk right now." Gwaine stepped around the creature and clapped Merlin on the shoulder as he led the man away. "Nice job with that branch, Merlin. Going to let it go anytime soon?"

"Maybe in a few miles."

They say NaNoWriMo is good for the soul. I say it leads to crackish stories like this, instead.