Extraordinary Zoology (4 page)

Lynus read as he rode, which settled him. Yes, he’d been frustrated earlier, but perhaps that stemmed in part from excitement and anxiety to be headed back into the field. Now they were on the road, and while some peril or another certainly awaited, things felt right.

Oathammer wanted to walk alongside Aeshnyrr, and Aeshnyrr was amenable to that. This placed Edrea to Lynus’ left, just two arm-lengths away. Over the last few years, the two of them had spent countless hours riding just like this, discussing classes, experiments, and of course the creatures they had encountered, were likely to encounter, and would really rather not run into.

So far on this trip Edrea hadn’t said much, but Lynus had been reading. That was the other thing that usually happened during the hours on horseback. Lynus’ satchel was always full of books, notebooks, reference materials, maps, and sketches, and lately that included pages upon pages of material destined for a home between the covers of the second edition of the
Monsternomicon
.

Horgash and Pendrake rode in front. Horgash’s bison, Greta, seemed even more enormous with the seven-foot-tall trollkin on her back. Pendrake’s mount, Codex, was a large Khardic stallion, but Pendrake’s stature and Codex’s size still weren’t enough to prevent them from appearing almost comically small next to Horgash and Greta.

Kinik walked in back, her long strides easily keeping up with the horses despite the heavy pack she wore. She stood at eye level with all the riders but Horgash.

Lynus considered what Horgash had said about the attack on Bednar. He flipped through page after page of large predators, but the damage Horgash described didn’t sound predatory. A Thornwood mauler might flatten a house and trample those living in it, but it would certainly leave tracks. The same went for dire trolls. Kaelram were larger than either of those but less likely to be preying on villages and even less likely to do so without leaving tracks.

A dragon or a gorgandur could destroy a village almost absentmindedly, but there had been no sightings of dragons anywhere in Cygnar’s skies of late, and gorgandur hadn’t been reported anywhere in western Immoren in decades. Also, it didn’t do to consider chasing either of those, since there was nothing mere men could do but get out of the way of such creatures.

There were species between mere creatures and mere men, though. If this wasn’t predatory . . . He turned to Edrea.

“What if somebody is protecting their territory?”

“Somebody?” she asked. “Not something?”

“It doesn’t need to be a beast, or beasts. This could be the work of gatormen, Tharn, or farrow.”

“Ah.” Edrea nodded and smiled.

“Okay, any of them probably would have carried the sheep off, but it could be jealous swampies, or bogrin . . . maybe even a trollkin war band.” He thought for a moment more. “But Horgash probably knows all the trollkin in the area, the way he wears all those kriel talismans. So my money’s on farrow.”

Edrea nodded again. “Horgash actually suggested that while you were out recruiting.” Lynus winced and glanced at Kinik, trudging along behind them.

Edrea leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “Don’t feel bad. You missed quite the lecture from the professor. He related incident after incident, explaining to Horgash, the stable master, and a captive audience of stable boys and horses why flattened buildings would rule out an attack by farrow.”

Lynus smiled as he imagined the extemporaneous instruction. “Usually a lecture like that concludes with him pointing us all in a new direction. Did he suggest any alternatives?”

Edrea laughed softly. It sounded like music. “Yes. He suggested we let you pore over your notes and mull on the matter. The professor quite respects your recall. He boasted to Horgash that you’d memorized every tome in his library.”

Kinik interrupted, bellowing with glee. “You memorize the books?” She trotted up alongside Lynus and grinned.

“I haven’t memorized them,” Lynus said, upset that she was intruding upon his conversation with Edrea. “I pay attention when I read them.”

“But we suspect that Lynus has, in fact, read all of them, Kinik,” said Edrea.

“How many is all?” asked Kinik.

“Six hundred and fifteen bound volumes, forty-one thesis folios, and four cabinets full of loose-leaf,” Lynus said.

Kinik went wide-eyed. “Where is your time for going outside?”

“I read quickly.” Lynus scowled. Was Kinik chiding him for studying?

“All books about creatures?”

“There are actually very few of those, and none are particularly comprehensive,” Edrea said. “That’s why Pendrake saw the need for the
Monsternomicon.
”

“Then what are the others?”

“Associated topics,” Lynus said. “Things we might need to know in order to understand the creatures we find during our many,
many
expeditions. Alchemy, biology, cartography, druidism—”

“And Lynus has organized them: first by topic, then alphabetically.”

Lynus sighed. That was true.

“It’s okay, Lynus. Everything is much easier to find now.”

He couldn’t tell if she was teasing or thanking him, but he wasn’t comfortable with either, not here, in front of Kinik.

“Of course,” she continued, “if Lynus is in the room, nobody bothers to find the books on their own. They just ask him, and the book magically appears in their hands.”

Teasing. Definitely teasing.

They arrived at The Bodger’s Bed and Barrel just after dusk. This particular inn, one of the first along the Great Northern Tradeway between Corvis and Merywyn, was a common enough stop for Pendrake’s crew on northward trips that it felt like a home away from home to Lynus.

The food was good, the fire warm, the stable well tended, and the beds clean. Lynus sat and stared across the common room at the glowing hearth, his eyes tired from reading.

Fire,
he thought,
is a great way to destroy a village.
Even farrow, those barbaric, boar-headed bipeds, would know to set fire to thatch. In fact, he couldn’t think of any intelligent or mostly intelligent group that wouldn’t resort to fire to raze a village. Maybe his epiphany about a war for territory was completely off track.

Unless . . .

“Friend Lynus.” Kinik’s voice startled Lynus out of his musings. “Sorry for disturbing you. Would you write your name?”

Lynus blinked, his eyes blurring from staring at the fire. “Excuse me?”

“Your name. Would you write your name for me?”

He was baffled. “Whatever for?” And then he noticed her worn copy of the
Monsternomicon
, almost completely swallowed up in the grasp of her massive left hand.

“You helped Professor Pendrake write this book. You drew pictures.” She clutched the tome to her battered breastplate. “Your name is inside already. But not written in your hand.”

Morrow and marrow
, Lynus swore to himself. He closed his eyes as if to squeeze the rest of the hearth fire out of them.

“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said, shaking his head, his eyes still closed.

“I thought it was a splendid idea.”

Lynus opened his eyes and snapped his head up so quickly it almost hurt. Pendrake stood next to Kinik, a quill perched on his right ear along the stem of his glasses.

Pendrake continued. “King Leto asked for an inscription once. It’s a practice that honors everyone. And you ought to treat even my most junior students at least as well as I do.” He dropped his chin almost to his chest and looked down at Lynus over the rims of his glasses. “Perhaps even as well as I treated you, when you first entreated me for studies.”

“Yes sir.” Lynus fumbled around in his satchel for the quill and bottle he’d stowed.

“Use mine, lad.” He offered Lynus his quill and an open pot. “No point cleaning two of them tonight.”

Lynus took Kinik’s copy of the
Monsternomicon
from her and opened to the frontispiece. There was Viktor Pendrake’s signature, and beneath it, Edrea Lloryrr’s. Lynus dipped the quill, gave it a light touch against the side of the pot, and carefully signed his own name. It looked, to his eye, like the first thing he’d done properly all day.

The next morning they departed the Tradeway just two miles beyond The Bodger’s Bed and Barrel. The signpost marking the side road east toward tiny Bednar and the vast Widower’s Wood was so weathered it looked more like a dead tree than directions. The side road, if it could be called a road at all, was overgrown enough that Lynus wondered if the not-so-distant Widower’s Wood was reaching out to stake a claim. This path looked more like a pair of goat tracks than a proper road.

“That’s the end of the warm beds,” Horgash announced as they struck east. “No more inns, no more mead, no more hearth fires surrounded by fat merchants and wary mercenaries. It’s all bedrolls and brambles for days if we venture into the Widower’s Wood.”

“I take expeditions along tracks like these rather regularly, old friend,” said Pendrake.

“Yes, yes. I was speaking for the benefit of the young ones back there.”

“We’re among those he takes,” Lynus said. “I, for one, am no stranger to bedrolls and brambles.”

“Begging your forgiveness,” said Horgash with an exaggerated flourish. “I didn’t realize the young librarian was such a seasoned explorer.”

“I’m not a
librarian
.”

“I think he knows that,” Edrea said, her voice just above a whisper. “He pokes fun at youth, a common enough practice among folk who think they’ve gotten old.”

“I don’t just think I’m old,” said Horgash. “The mighty outcroppings upon this weathered chin announce my advancing age any time I’m unfortunate enough to see my reflection, and I’ve long since stopped trying to ignore them.”

“I’m familiar with the ravages of time,” Edrea said. “Take that signpost back there. Why, I recall when one could still see the white paint in the carved letters.”

“Hah!” said Horgash. “The Cygnarans haven’t whitewashed those letters since the Lion’s Coup.”

“Oh, has it been that long? It seems like just yesterday.” Edrea winked at Lynus as she said this. Leto had assumed the throne twelve years ago.

“Well, that’s just . . .” Horgash paused. “Hrmph.” He muttered something Lynus couldn’t make out. He might have heard the Molgur-Trul slur for “elves” in it, but it could have been the word for “apples.” Pendrake chuckled quietly, and the banter gave way to the sound of creaking saddles and clopping hooves.