Extraordinary Zoology Part 4

"This hole is small?" Kinik stared down at the festering pool.

"Small enough that the rest of us missed it," Pendrake said. "Good eye, Lynus. Good eye."

Edrea stared into the hole, then strode back toward the center of Bednar, stepping lightly over the ridges of buckled ground and torn sod. "If it punched up there and left no track through the trees, then it must have burrowed back down someplace else." She looked at Kinik and winked. "Or it flew away."

"We need to check more bas.e.m.e.nts for holes," Kinik said matter-of-factly.

"Like I said before, these people don't have bas.e.m.e.nts." Horgash shook his head and gestured at the wet mess. "Too close to the water table. Any good hole will silt in and fill up, just like this one did."

"Horgash, did Bednar have a well?" Pendrake asked.

"Aye. It used to be right in the middle of that pond. Oh."

Lynus looked at the "pond," and saw it for what it was. The banks were all sc.r.a.ped down and in. The water was black with mud and debris. Whatever had burst out from under the home with the walnuts had left Bednar by burrowing where the village well had been.

Edrea spoke first. "Now that we know what to look for, the track is an obvious one, but even the most experienced woodsman would be hard-pressed to follow it any farther."

"Indeed," Pendrake said.

Lynus frowned. If it wasn't big enough to be a gorgandur, perhaps it was a new breed of Thornwood mauler or a burrowing species of troll. But there were no footprints. Were there giant versions of the toxic tatzylwurm?

"People in Bednar," said Kinik, "they had guns, yes?"

"They did," Horgash said. "A couple of older carbines, Cygnaran surplus from Vinter's era. I offered to buy them last year, trade them up to proper hunting rifles, but Bairyck wouldn't hear it. Pride, plus they were just sc.r.a.ping by. Make do or do without, he said."

"Oh," she said. "But so few. They used bows too?"

Edrea stepped over to Kinik. "You've found something. You don't need to wait until you know what it means before you share it with us."

Kinik held up half an arrow. "It was hiding in the splinters."

The head was gone, broken off and lost somewhere, and the fletching was muddy, but it was obviously an arrow.

Edrea accepted it and splashed some water from her canteen over the fletching. She stared at it, then looked over to Lynus.

"What kind of feather is this?"

He took the arrow and examined it. The mud had soaked in and sullied the lighter colors, and the fletching was made from small parts of what had been the full feathers, but a clear, banded pattern remained.

He imagined that pattern on multiple feathers. Broad, stiff, flight feathers? Tail feathers? Yes, definitely tail feathers . . . for display. Fletching needed to guide the arrow, but it could also be pretty.

He walked over to his satchel and dug for a sketchbook. What was that pretty pheasant he'd seen two summers ago? He turned pages, sometimes flipping the sketchbook upside down, sometimes flipping the arrow over.

"At least it's a proper picture book he's lost in," said Horgash.

"Shhh," Pendrake said. "He's not lost. He's never lost in a book."

"Kinik, let's you and I cast about for more of these arrows," Edrea said.

Lynus ignored them. Their conversation barely registered now that he was reading, seeking . . . He turned pages, rotated his sketches, and shook his head. It wasn't here. He dug a small bound tome out of his pack.

"Dhunia help us, is he going to read all of them?"

Lynus kept reading. Hunting.

"Turrigan's banded pheasant, princ.i.p.ally found in the southeastern quarter of the Widower's Wood," Lynus announced, holding aloft his small, st.u.r.dily crafted copy of Velden Ornithologie. "This pattern is quite distinctive."

The others were sitting on camp stools in the late-afternoon sun. Kinik had three more muddy, feathered shafts in her hand, and Lynus could see that the striped fletching was from the same type of bird.

Horgash scowled. "These arrows still could have been anybody's."

"Actually, no," said Lynus. "After cleaning this one I got a better sense of the heft of the thing. They're dwarfed by Kinik's hands, but in my own hand this one is obviously quite thick-shafted." He walked over to Kinik and looked at the others. "As are these. A bow capable of launching such heavy arrows with killing force would have a draw strength greater than most men could pull. Farrow favor firearms, and gatormen use spears. That leaves only the Tharn. They're not really men. Not anymore."

Lynus gestured around them at the smashed village. "Last night I was wondering why, if this was a fight over territory, the village hadn't been burned. Well the Tharn, Wurm take them and their blood magic, don't set fire to things."

Horgash stood up angrily. "If these shafts are as good as them writing their b.l.o.o.d.y, blood-drinking name on the arrows, why'd you make us wait for twenty minutes while you kept reading about the muddy bird?"

"Because," Pendrake said with a smile, "Lynus likes to get the whole answer." He strode forward, took the half arrow from Lynus, and pointed it at the tree line. "We have the arrows and the unburned village placing the Tharn at this scene, and thanks to Senior a.s.sistant Wesselbaum, we can be relatively certain that this particular band of blood-drinkers is from the eastern quarter of these woods."

Kinik scratched her head. "Friend Lynus, was the village smashed by Tharn, or by burrowing thing?"

That was a good question.

"Tharn didn't smash the village with arrows, but they definitely loosed arrows into it," he said.

But why? he thought. Were they shooting at the beast?

"Tharn magic is poorly understood," Edrea said, "but there have been rumors of them forming magical bonds with beasts."

Pendrake withdrew a kerchief from his pocket and began wiping his spectacles. "Reviewing some of my recent conversations with those among the Circle," the professor said, "I believe they may have accidentally intimated the same sorts of things." He put his gla.s.ses back on. "I imagine, though, that my reputation discouraged them from being as open with me in these matters as I might have liked."

Lynus had a horrible thought.

"Suppose the Tharn did bond with a burrowing beast large enough to smash houses. If it burst into the center of the village, most everyone would panic and flee for the fields."

"I can see why you'd a.s.sume that, whelp," Horgash said with a scowl.

"He's right, Horgash. And I see where he's going with this," said Pendrake. He nodded for Lynus to continue.

"But as they flee, a volley of Tharn arrows starts dropping them, and they are corralled back into the village. When it's over, the Tharn leave, gathering the arrows they can find and covering their tracks. They might also cover any tracks the beast left here in the village."

Horgash looked around the village and scratched at the stony growths on his chin. "When he tells the story that way, I wonder why I didn't see it before."

"And that," said Pendrake, "is the benefit of six years at Corvis University."

Lynus knew he'd made a mess of things today, but in that moment he felt taller than any ogrun, and as regal as a Raelthorne.

They made another pa.s.s through the ruined village before packing out. Lynus was walking through the scattered walnuts near the hole when a glint of metal caught his eye. A bit of fine chain. He reached down and pulled on it, drawing a Morrowan sunburst medallion from the mud. The clasp on the chain was broken, but it was obviously intended to be worn as a necklace, probably a woman's if the weight of chain was any indication.

He imagined one of the villagers clutching it to her chest in terror, praying for deliverance, and instead getting smashed into Urcaen, the world beyond.

He considered what that must have been like for these people, a monster rampaging among them, crushing them and their homes, and all the while Tharn arrows dropping among them, pinning them in the village. The helplessness, the desperation, the despair . . . Lynus shuddered. Then he felt a steely resolve, and the kindling of a small fire of anger.

"Mount up!" called Pendrake. "The trail grows cold, but Morrow willing, we'll follow it!"

Lynus climbed onto Oathammer. Was he angry at Morrow, the monster, or the Tharn? The oiled bits salvaged from his rifle clinked together in their bag as he settled into the saddle, and he realized he was angry with himself.

They sat in their saddles, Horgash on the back of that enormous bison, Kinik standing next to Edrea, and together surveyed the village from the tree line of the Widower's Wood. The late-afternoon sun cast long shadows, but the hollow of Bednar was not yet in the shade. In this light, and from this angle, the contours of the churned ground looked like crisscrossing ripples. They seemed familiar, but Lynus couldn't quite place the pattern.

"Remember those sand serpents, the little ones, east of Sul?" Edrea asked.

"Tiny teeth, wicked poison," Lynus said. "I was sick for three days."

"The wavy pattern of soil and pushed berms calls to my mind the tracks those snakes would make in the sand."

"Curse these old eyes!" Pendrake said. "Edrea's right! Our burrowing monster didn't leave footprints for others to cover. It's a serpentine beast, able to travel unseen, untrackable underground. But here above, its tracks are large enough to not be seen as such."

"You must move far away to see tracks instead of little dirt-hills," said Kinik.

Berms, Lynus thought. Edrea just used the word. It is berms.

"But still not so large as a gorgandur," Pendrake said. "Praise Morrow for sparing us that dark future."

"On the subject of dark futures," said Horgash, "the sun is low, and our quarry has a long head start." He pointed to a spot on the trail that looked, to Lynus' eye, like any other. "But once they got well away from the village, they did indeed leave some tracks."

"Lead on, then," said Pendrake, and they crossed into the misty woods. Lynus grasped the small medallion between his thumb and knuckle, and an old prayer came to his lips, unbidden.

"Strengthen our hands and steady our feet," he said, "that we may master tribulation."

"It is a lovely prayer," Edrea said, "but you might consider granting your G.o.d a bit less room to weasel out of the deal."

Lynus thought for a moment. ". . . that we may master tribulation, and that we may track this particular tribulation, and put an end to it."

PART II: EDREA.

Edrea Lloryrr cast her eyes up into the twisted, leafy canopy of the Widower's Wood, thrilled at the momentary sensation of vertigo as she strode amid the ancient, towering trees. This deep in the woods the canopy arched overhead like a vaulted ceiling, nearly a bowshot away, and that ceiling was itself probably a bowshot thick. Yesterday they'd pa.s.sed a downed tree that had been a full hundred paces from rotting root-ball to tapered tip.

The canopy blotted out the brilliance of the afternoon light, leaving a diffuse, grey-green dimness below. Drifting patches of mist and thickets of heavy scrub further obscured her view. Even in the broadest of daylight, the Widower's Wood was a dark place.

The forest also swallowed sound. Edrea could hear Pendrake riding Codex a dozen paces behind her, and could make out Aeshnyrr's soft stepping as she trailed the professor on a lead, but she had to strain to hear anything beyond that.

Well, anything except Kinik. The poor ogrun creaked and clomped louder than any two of their mounts put together. Louder than Oathammer eating, even.

Edrea lowered her gaze and scanned again. If she was right, the Tharn had detoured to run up the middle of a stream for almost a day's travel, hoping to throw off whatever pursuit Cygnar might muster. An effective tactic, but that stream meandered quite a bit. Edrea had suggested a shortcut, a straight path, in hopes of gaining ground.

If they didn't pick up the trail soon, they would need to go back anda"

The bent branch and clear footprint caught her eye from six paces away.

"Hah!" she exclaimed. "I do believe I've picked them up again!"

"Well done, Edrea!" said Pendrake. "Take a moment to refine your hypothesis while Codex and I circ.u.mnavigate this bit of thicket."

The print came from what looked like a human foot, but with five indentations past the tip of each toea"toenails thickened and grown into claws as formidable as any beast's. Tharn, and unmistakably so.

That foot had landed heavily in soft peat, the outer edge digging deeply, suggesting a turn. She looked where it led and saw more bent branches.

The Tharn must have thought their day of splashing and wading would shake all pursuit, because this trail was obvious. Hypothesis refined, she thought with a smile as Pendrake arrived behind her.

"They turned here and headed over the rise." She pointed to the clear signs of pa.s.sage.

Pendrake rode up alongside her, leaned low in the saddle, and adjusted his spectacles.

"Astutely concluded," he said, nodding.

"Hah!" said Horgash, the exclamation a rasping bark. "I can make that trail out from back here."

His voice pained Edrea, not for what he said, but because it sounded like it hurt him to speak. Trollkin voices were almost always great and booming, at once loud and melodious. Horgash's sounded like his throat was full of scabs.

"Up and over, then," said Pendrake. "Gained ground doesn't grant us the luxury of dallying over an obvious track."

Edrea nodded and strode up the trail. They'd been pushing hard, tracking for twelve hours each day. Pendrake had expressed little hope of catching up to the Tharna"a war party on the move certainly pushed as hard or harder than the five of them coulda"but it wouldn't do to let the trail go cold. This shortcut was likely only worth a half day's gain.

The new track led over a small rise and into an enormous hollow. The bottom of the hollow was invisible, obscured by what looked like a long lake of fog. The trees were farther apart here but grouped into tight stands, and the canopy above remained unbroken.

Edrea stopped at the top of the rise. Heavy mist and forest shadow meant it was going to be difficult for the others to see down there. She could weave sight for herself, but that might prove a bit of a strain atop the fast pace of the day. Her exultation at picking up the trail faded as fatigue caught back up to her. It was hard to outrun.

"I suspect," said Pendrake, riding up and stopping beside her, "they came this way for water." He pointed at one of the stands of trees thrusting upward from the mist toward the center of the hollow. "Giant bald cypress. Growing, no doubt, out of the body of water from which this heavy vapor originates."

Edrea drew in a deep breath and started forward again, picking her way carefully down into the hollow. Descending into the mist was like wading into murky water. From above, it was a slowly rippling, pale grey boundary. Below, everything was dim, and Edrea could only see a few paces in front of her. But that was far enough to show her another bent branch.

"The mist is thick, but I still have the trail."

"Good," Pendrake said. "I'll keep you in sight as we follow."

Edrea continued her descent. After another dozen paces, the ground leveled out and became soggy. She scanned the soft ground and spied several small, water-filled indentationsa"more footprints.

She squatted and examined them closely. The toe-and-claw pattern was still visible. In some soils, that detail would dissolve in just a few hours. She pinched a bit of the loamy soil, rubbing it between her fingers. It held its shape better than sand or loose soil would.

"We are very definitely catching up. These prints were made sometime yesterday."

"Excellent work, Edrea!" Pendrake said. "At times like these, I wish you were a student, so I could reward you with high marks."

High praise was enough, but Edrea chose to revel in the moment rather than say so.