Extraordinary Zoology - Howard Tayler

TALES FROM THE MONSTERNOMICON
VOLUME 1
EXTR AORDINARY
ZOOLOGY
HOWARD TAYLER
Cover by
WAYNE ENGLAND
Illustrated by
WAYNE ENGLAND
www.privateerpress.com
CONTENTS
MAP.....................................................................................................v
PROLOGUE.......................................................................................vi
PART I: LYNUS...................................................................................1
PART II: EDREA...............................................................................47
PART III: THE MIRKAR KRIEL....................................................100
GLOSSARY......................................................................................136
MAP
PROLOGUE
The Widower’s Wood, Early Autumn, 606 AR
T he rich, peaty ground under the tiny village of Bednar rumbled,

and Nally almost dropped her bushel of walnuts. She looked to
the twisty tree line just forty paces beyond the village fence, but
nothing came pounding out of the Widower’s Wood.
“You all heard that, right?” she shouted.
In the green, the north field, the orchard, and the doorways of
their thatched-roof homes, Nally’s neighbors and family stood
staring into the woods.
Nobody said a word. Nally shivered.
“Aye, lass.” Her uncle Bairyck finally spoke. He stood at the
woodpile, his old Radcliffe Roar service carbine held at the ready
and a heavy splitting axe within easy reach. Bairyck had once felled
a charging gorax from that exact stance: one shot through the eye
with the large-bore carbine and a bloodletting sweep below its belly
with the axe as it charged. Bairyck wore three parallel scars across his
shoulder, acquired before blood loss finally laid the monster low.
Bairyck wasn’t the only one with scars. Nally’s family had been
one of a dozen to claim this fertile patch at the edge of the Widower’s
Wood a generation ago—with nothing but gumption, three
Radcliffes, and a low, sturdy fence. Trouble, typically with teeth and
extraordinary zoology
claws, was never far off, but Bednar always fought back.
Nally hurried across the small village green to her home, pausing
twice to look over her shoulder at the woods, where everyone else’s
eyes remained fixed. She set her walnut harvest next to the door,
unslung the small kindling axe at her hip, and faced the tree line
again. Whatever shook the ground was no gorax.
“Morrow preserve us,” she said. One hand gripped her axe, while
the other went to the Morrowan sunburst pendant she wore. As she
pulled it forward, the tightness of the chain against the back of her
neck was a small, sharp comfort. “Strengthen our hands, and steady
our feet, that we may master tribulation.”
The ground shook again, harder. Steady our feet, indeed. Nally
heard a groan from deep below, as if Caen itself was speaking, and
the voice of the world was quite close.
“Sounds like your house, Nally!” Bairyck yelled.
Nally turned, facing her door just a pace away. Then her house
exploded in an eruption of dark, wet earth.
vii
PART I: LYNUS
Lynus Wesselbaum gingerly turned pages as he searched for

woodcuts of carrion flies in Professor Viktor Pendrake’s laboratory.
The professor’s collection of texts was formidable. One might kill
half a day just reading the spines, and any of Pendrake’s junior
students would have been at this particular task for hours. As
Pendrake’s senior assistant, Lynus already knew what all the spines
said—and where they were.
He drew a deep breath as he paged through the book in his hand.
This end of the large, ever-cluttered laboratory smelled pleasantly like
leather covers, aging paper, and the book glue Lynus used to maintain
the tomes. He had earned the responsibility for maintenance thanks
to his habit of hauling books along on expeditions. Saddlebags and
satchels were rough enough, but over the last four years he had
dropped, thrown, and tripped over more than a few books, usually
at a dead run with something dangerous close behind.
Scholarship was terrifying. And Lynus wouldn’t trade it for
anything.
The rest of Pendrake’s lab smelled of alchemy, particularly of the
preservative sort. Pendrake insisted that no number of fresh cadavers,
old carcasses, or stripped skeletons were an excuse for the stench of
death, and the liberal application of antiputrescent agents was the
first duty assigned to new students of extraordinary zoology.
That tangy, caustic smell was strong of late. Lynus and Edrea had
been testing a theory of Lynus’, that even weeks-dead corpses could
be dated by patterns in the generations and species of blowflies.

The battered book in Lynus’ hands was a favorite of his, but he
never carried this one in the field. It looked like it had seen years
of service and had almost been eaten by a dog. The truth was more
interesting: it had seen years of service and had almost been eaten by
a two-headed dog.
Lynus held the textbook with a measure of reverence as he
thumbed through it. The binding and cover had survived the
enthusiastic mauling at the left head of Professor Pendrake’s pet, so
the volume was clearly sturdy, but it was more than just a book. It
was a symbol of what he hoped to attain in life; full of knowledge,
it had survived the worst and was too cherished to be cast aside for a
newer edition. Even though the professor could afford to replace this
tome a hundred times over, he still kept it around, telling students
like Lynus to “read around the tooth marks.”
A tricky proposition. The punctures had stretched bits of the
cover deep into the book, and the pages, less flexible than leather,
had ripped and compressed, distorting the text and the woodcuts as
much as a quarter inch around the one-inch hole. The hole, at least
for Lynus, was just as fascinating a study as the material it distorted.
And so, instead of reading around the tooth marks, Lynus found
himself reading the marks themselves, pondering the bite pressure,
tooth size, and salivary chemistry of Viktor Pendrake’s now-departed
pet.
“Distracted again?” came a voice just behind Lynus.
“Edrea!” Lynus said. “I didn’t hear you sneak up on me.” He
turned to face her, still clutching the argus-mauled tome.
Edrea Lloryrr held up a specimen jar with a single maggot writhing
across its bottom. With her other hand, she swept a strand of hair
back behind a pointed ear.
2
“You’d been gone so long I thought you might have forgotten

what the specimen looked like.” His cheeks grew warm as she arched
an eyebrow at him. “And I wasn’t sneaking, Lynus.”
“An Iosan spell, then. You have an unfair advantage.”
“I walk softly, and you weren’t paying attention.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but in truth he hadn’t been paying
attention, and that was an unhealthy habit for any of Pendrake’s
students. The professor’s field studies sent them traipsing through
some of the darkest, most dangerous wilds in western Immoren.
Some students came home with scars. Some came home maimed.
Some didn’t come home at all.
“It’s a ringback, second-instar larva, maybe a day from molting,”
he said, looking down at the book. He shrugged. “I guess I knew that
before I even opened the book. I wanted to see how the woodcut
compared to the specimen.”
“And?”
Lynus blushed again, his ears hot. Edrea was inviting him to
expound, to talk to her. With her. Even after his clumsy comment
about the magic he was still half-convinced she was using. He drew
a deep breath.
“Burrick was a fine artist, but ham-handed with tweezers and pins.
The woodcut shows distortions along the ventral axis.” He held the
page so Edrea could compare it to the worm in the jar. “He drew this
one after mounting it. Pulled a bit too hard to get it over the pin.”
Edrea smiled and nodded, but Lynus worried she was patronizing
him. She was a decade his senior and had known the professor twice
as long as he had. He was convinced that if she’d actually enrolled in
the university, she’d be the professor’s senior assistant rather than him.
How did she feel about that? Did Iosans feel jealousy the same way
people did? Was there a spell for that? Why hadn’t she ever enrolled?
Why was she looking at him with that one lifted eyebrow as if—
4
Lynus realized he was staring.

“I’m sorry,” he said, breaking off his gaze. “We’re supposed to be
testing a theory, not critiquing illustrations.” He replaced the book
on the shelf, then stepped around Edrea into the examination room.
Three large bottles of rotting meat stood on a stained metal table.
Edrea had brought them in an hour ago, after aging them on the
porch for weeks and not letting Lynus know which one was which.
“The ringback came from sample two,” he said, “which also had
eggs and adults, meaning the flesh’s first exposure to the air was
eighteen days ago.”
Edrea looked to the jars on the table, her expression flat.
Lynus held up a finger. “Wait! I almost forgot!” He grabbed a
notebook from the stand next to the table and flipped through it.
“Four days ago we had our first cold snap. That slows these fellows
down a lot.” He rubbed his nose. “Fourteen days. Fifteen at the
outside. Hmmm . . .” He scratched his head. “So close to third-
instar. Fourteen and a half.”
Edrea’s eyes widened. “Congratulations. Fourteen days and,” she
drew a watch from her pocket and nodded, “nine hours.”
Lynus felt himself grinning like a fool. A fool who, given a record
of the weather and a list of the species of carrion bug common to the
area, might tell you how long something had lain dead.
“I told you he could do it!” Viktor Pendrake strode around the
corner. “Sorry to eavesdrop. I didn’t want to spook you.”
“Err . . . thank you?” Lynus said.
“No, Lynus, thank you.” Pendrake waved at the potted meat with
a broad smile. “Put into wide practice, this could revolutionize not
just our own field of study, but a score of others. Why, Whittaker’s
course The Analysis Forensic, the one so popular with the more
ambitious among the city watch, must be rewritten from bottom
to top to allow for this entomological trick of yours, this method
5
whereby one might examine the wriggling larvae in a dead man’s

body and announce with certainty when the man became a corpse!”
Lynus shuddered at the thought of an enraged Professor Whittaker.
Pendrake pulled his glasses to the end of his nose and glowered
over them. “Of course, you will need to write your own book, instead
of reading all of everyone else’s.”
The professor chuckled, and Lynus relaxed. Entomological
forensics might make a suitable second thesis, but Pendrake’s good
mood suggested he had something more immediately adventurous
in mind.
“Professor,” Edrea said with a short bow, “I thought you were
meeting with the chancellor of archeology this hour.”
“I was interrupted.” Pendrake turned toward the entry. “Horgash!
Stop poking the dracodile bones and come meet the lad who wired
them together!”
Heavy steps sounded from around the corner, and Lynus realized
he really hadn’t been paying attention—not if Pendrake and whoever
owned those feet could have entered the lab without his noticing.
A seven-foot wall of bright colors and blue-grey skin turned the
corner. The trollkin was a full head taller than Viktor Pendrake and
half again as broad. He wore what had to be eight yards’ worth of
tartan-patterned cloth draped over one shoulder as a sash, wrapped
about his impressive girth, and hanging like a tabard.
His jaw was huge, like that of most trollkin, and a thick stripe
of long, reddish quills ran from his forehead back to the base of his
skull. He was older than most of the trollkin Lynus had met, if the
heavy studding of craggy growths on that jaw was any indication.
A pair of swords in two battered scabbards hung from a belt at his
waist, one at each side. Palm-sized, rune-marked stone talismans
hung from the cloth, the belt, and a chain around Horgash’s neck.
Judging from the numerous talismans, the swords, and his age,
6
Lynus thought, this trollkin ranked highly in their society. Perhaps

he was one of their champions, or one of the fabled sons of Bragg,
whose shouted songs could bolster a line or rend flesh.
Lynus thrust out his right hand. “Lynus Wesselbaum, senior
assistant to Professor Pendrake.”
“Horgash Bloodthroat,” the trollkin said, his right hand engulfing
Lynus’. His voice sounded like someone sawing apart a kettledrum.
Not of Bragg’s blood, then. With that wreck of a voice, he barely
sounded like a trollkin.
Horgash scratched his craggy chin. “Pendrake may have
mentioned you the last time our paths crossed. You’re the one who
got carried off by vektiss, yes?”
“Err, yes,” Lynus said. He knew Pendrake liked telling that story.
Apparently he told it even when Lynus wasn’t around. “That was
me.”
“Edrea Lloryrr.” Edrea interrupted Lynus’ embarrassment with a
nod and a bow. She too offered a hand, which Lynus thought might
vanish completely in Horgash’s grasp. The trollkin accepted her hand
lightly, and Edrea looked completely at ease, her tiny, beautiful hand
resting on the monstrous knuckle.
“A pleasure,” he rasped. “Pendrake definitely mentioned you.
Immoren is richer for you remaining uneaten by my distant dire
cousins.”
Lynus knew that story well. The tale had been enlarged, it seemed,
by Pendrake’s retelling. There had been only one dire troll that day.
Pendrake reached up and clapped Horgash on the shoulder.
“Well, then.” He turned to Edrea and Lynus. “Grab a notebook,
Lynus. Horgash tells me he may have found something new.”
They adjourned to a small study. Lynus took notes as Horgash
spoke.
“I’m a trader these days,” he began with a glance at Pendrake.
7
“Northeastern Cygnar and Llael—or what used to be Llael—from

Merywyn in the north down through the trollkin villages in the
Thornwood, then along the edge of the Widower’s Wood to Corvis.
“The roads have gotten rougher since the Khadorans took Llael.
Rougher still this summer. There’s rumor of skorne armies in the
east, and Leto has asked the kriels to arm themselves and interpose.
Anyway, I’m the only outsider some of those villages see for weeks
at a time.
“Something smashed the little village of Bednar no more than
half a day before I got there. And I mean smashed. Not one log left
atop another. I took a look around, but whatever did it was gone.
Nobody left to talk to, either. I found only six bodies. All crushed,
but not quite cold.”
Lynus looked up from his shorthand. “What about tracks?”
“Getting to it,” Horgash said. “There were a few footprints, but
they looked like the villagers’. I expected big tracks, maybe for one
of those skorne beasts, or a dracodile, or even a warjack. The ground
had been pushed around a lot, but I couldn’t find tracks. And then
I heard a distant rumble, like thunder. With the clear sky, I thought
maybe what had done this wasn’t all that far off. So I saddled back up
and rode hard for Corvis.”
Pendrake was squinting at a map in front of him. “Bednar . . .
just off the lower Northern Tradeway heading into the Widower’s
Wood?”
“The same.”
“It’s only a two-day march.”
“Professor,” Lynus said, “they were Cygnaran subjects. Shouldn’t
we alert the city garrison?”
“I did that already,” growled Horgash. “I spoke to a lieutenant.
He took some notes and sent me on my way. I got the impression
those notes weren’t going to go very far.”
8
“I can speak to Colonel Bradley, but he’ll be slow to dispatch

troops unless there’s smoke on the horizon or orders from Caspia,”
Pendrake said.
Horgash grunted.
Pendrake turned to placate the trollkin. “There’s a war on, old
friend.”
“More than one, I’d say.”
“A point I cannot argue.” Pendrake looked back down at the map.
“I’m sure the colonel will dispatch somebody eventually. And I’ll
send word. My concern is that by the time Cygnaran scouts have a
close look at Bednar, the trail will have gone cold.”
Lynus looked at Bednar on the map. It merited only the tiniest
of dots, almost swallowed up in the line demarcating the Widower’s
Wood. Yes, there were soldiers and warjacks about, but this looked
more monstrous in nature.
“It’s up to us, then,” he said.
“Indeed,” said Pendrake. “I’ll notify the garrison of our plans.
Edrea, have the stable master ready our mounts.”
“Aeshnyrr will be happy for the open road again,” she said.
“As will Codex,” Pendrake said. “Not to mention me.” He pulled
some scrip from his table and handed it to Lynus. “Now, off to
Corcoran’s with you. We need provender for three normal appetites
and one trollkin. The trail cools with every passing hour. Don’t dilly-
dally, and don’t let Corcoran foist any bulging tins on you this time.”
Lynus stood patiently in front of the wooden counter at

Corcoran’s Supply while the owner and his new assistant assembled
the order in back. After Lynus had repeated what Pendrake had told
him, Corcoran was doubtless double-checking the stock to ensure
his loyal customer didn’t get even a single bulging tin.
9
Corcoran’s assistant was an ogrun female, youngish and of

average height for her race, which meant she towered over Corcoran
and Lynus both and had to crouch to get through the seven-foot
doorframes. She ducked under one, a canvas-wrapped bundle twice
the size of a man slung over her ample shoulder.
The ogrun wore a dented, scuffed breastplate under the heavy
armored greatcoat favored by mercenaries. Similar to the one Lynus
himself wore for their imminent journey, only much larger, it seemed
an unnecessary level of protection here in the middle of civilization.
“Here ’tis, then, young sir,” said the chubby, balding shopkeeper,
peering around the ogrun. Corcoran slipped around his assistant and
waved at the massive bundle. “Two weeks’ food for two men, a wisp
of an Iosan, and a trollkin.” Corcoran winked. “And a bit of extra
thrown in for loyal customers and good friends. Kinik here will haul
it as far as you need her to.”
Kinik, easily two heads taller than Lynus, flashed him a smile
revealing broad teeth and a small pair of tusks. “Where are we going?”
“Umm . . . the cart’s right here.” Lynus thumbed over his shoulder
to the street. He was a bit puzzled by the size of the bundle, which
seemed big enough for three weeks instead of a fortnight. Lynus
had taken care of these preparations several times before, and he
was starting to get a feel for what the bundle should look like. He
wondered just how much extra had been thrown in.
Also, this was the first time Corcoran had someone else on hand
to help load the cart. Lynus was unaccustomed to that.
“You needn’t trouble,” he said, looking up at Kinik. “I’m sure I
can manage it from here to the cobbles.”
The ogrun sized him up, or rather down, arching her heavy
brows, and for a moment Lynus worried that she would sling several
hundred pounds of food on top of him and his armored greatcoat.
“You would be making two trips, maybe,” she said, a thick
10
Molgur-Og accent muddying her Cygnaran. “Or five.” She strode

out to the street. “Professor Viktor Pendrake is here?”
Her accent couldn’t be any thicker if she hailed from the Wyrmwall.
“No, he’s back at the university stables.”
“We will not keep him waiting, then!” She reached back to
Corcoran’s door and grabbed a massive polearm from where it had
been leaning.
“Wait a minute,” Lynus said. “What’s that for?”
“Corcoran said I will meet Pendrake. I worked three weeks for
room, board, provisions. Now Pendrake takes trip, and I am ready!”
This was not how “not dilly-dallying” was supposed to go. Not
at all.
“No, no, no,” Lynus said. “I don’t care what Corcoran told you.
Viktor Pendrake is in a big hurry, and he’s waiting on me.” Lynus
pointed at the back of the cart. “Just put everything in there and be
off.”
“No.” Kinik scowled so deeply Lynus thought her brows would
rub against her lower lip.
“Look, I’m sorry, but Pendrake is busy.” He fished around in
his purse and came up with a shiny Cygnaran half-crown. “Far too
busy to meet with people today. We’re headed out this very hour.
Pendrake will be back in town in a couple of weeks. Please just take
this for your trouble?”
Lynus silently scolded himself for turning that into a question.
Kinik leaned her polearm against the cart and accepted the coin.
She smiled. “For this crown, my trouble is to carry.” She shrugged,
rolled her huge shoulders to settle the bundle, and picked up her
polearm again. “You drive the mule. I will walk behind.”
He didn’t seem to have much of a choice in the matter, so
Lynus climbed onto the bench of the empty cart and drove. Kinik
followed on foot.
11
He fumed and fretted, alternating between biting his nails and

whipping Mooger the mule, who nevertheless seemed content with
the arrangement. Behind the cart, an eight-foot she-monster carried
all the provisions and a frightfully large weapon. He was sure that
everyone else on the road, whether on foot or horseback, or in carts
and wagons, was staring at him.
Lynus steered Mooger wide around an idling steamjack that
carried sawed timbers under its arms and barrels and boxes slung in
netting over its shoulders. It was part of a construction team finally
getting around to repairing one of the buildings damaged when the
skorne army had marched their giant beasts down this avenue three
years ago. But it wasn’t idling properly. The fire was too hot, and it
emitted a whistling sound.
“Hey!” he called out to the laborers on the team. “That sounds
like a bad release valve! You’re idling it too hot.”
“Shut it, whey-face.”
“I’m serious!” Lynus bunched the mule’s reins in one hand, slid
over to the right side of the bench, and pointed at the steamjack.
“That whistling. The release valve wants to let go, but it’s stuck. The
boiler is already too hot. It might crack, or worse!”
Lynus’ father was a steamo, so Lynus had learned a thing or two
about ’jacks at an early age, though he’d lacked the strength to grip
the wrenches and hammers that were the tools of that trade.
The foreman strode over to Lynus and glared up at him, holding
just such a wrench. “Look behind your wagon, junior. You’re holding
up the whole street, so whip the mule, or I’ll whip . . . uh.” The
foreman’s eyes went wide as he looked past Lynus to the left side of
the cart. Lynus turned, following his gaze.
Kinik loomed there with a frown. “Whip what?” she asked.
Oh, great. This backwoods ogrun was going to start a fight, with
Lynus right in the middle of it, and why wasn’t the foreman paying
12
attention to the whistling, which was now very loud? Lynus turned
back to the steamjack just in time to see the boiler explode.
His first thought was relief that he was still alive. Boiler explosions
are bad news, even small ones.
His second thought, very close on the heels of the first, was thank
Morrow the ’jack was facing the street, arms full, with the boiler turned
away from everybody. The fire and steam washed over a lumber pile
and only sent the ’jack forward a half step before it toppled.
His third thought, which interrupted the second with a jolt, was
panic, because suddenly he was racing away from the explosion.
Mooger had spooked, and now Mooger, Lynus, and the empty cart
were very quickly twenty paces away. Traffic had bunched up behind
them, so there was plenty of room for a frightened mule to run.
Lynus steadied himself by grabbing the bench with both hands,
and watched as the reins he’d released slid forward and off the cart.
Mooger poured on the speed. Lynus bounced on the bench as the
wagon rattled over the cobbles. He grabbed the back of the bench
with one hand, leaned forward looking for the reins, and almost went
top-over-teakettle when the wagon slowed abruptly with a distressed
“hee-HAWNNN“ in front and a grunt of exertion behind.
Lynus looked back. Kinik held the cart with one hand and her
polearm in the other. The bundle of provisions lay on the cobbles a
few paces behind her.
“I can carry supplies, or I can carry the cart.“ She grinned. “Not
both.“
Lynus dropped to the street and grabbed the reins. Kinik’s smile
was genuine, her accent somehow disarming. It was hard to stay
angry. “Thank you,” he said gruffly. He sighed. “You might as well
put the stuff in back.” He climbed back onto the bench.
Kinik loaded the provisions in the cart and then climbed in with
him. The mule whinnied in protest.
13
“If you’re riding,” Lynus said as they drove, “do I get that shiny
half-crown back?”
“I carried half the way, saved boy from a beating with wrench,
then saved the wagon, the mule, and boy from a crash,” Kinik said.
“I was expecting maybe other half of crown.”
Lynus frowned and said nothing as they rode through Corvis
toward the university. He was frustrated, and grateful, and yet more
frustrated that he had something to feel grateful for. And what was
the professor going to say?
The two- and three-story wooden buildings gave way to statelier
stone structures, then a low ivied wall, beyond which stood the proud
old Corvis University campus. Lynus turned right after the gate and
went straight to the stables.
Pendrake and Edrea had their horses, Codex and Aeshnyrr, out
and dressed alongside Lynus’ gelding, Oathammer. It was nice to be
senior enough to merit a personal horse issued by the university, but
it would have been nicer still to merit the opportunity to name it
something more noble.
Horgash stood with them, leaning against a haystack-sized pile of
furs and . . . Morrow above, Lynus thought, that’s not furs.
Horgash had a bison.
Lynus stared at it for a moment. He’d seen bison from a distance,
but they weren’t particularly extraordinary, so they never entered his
studies, let alone the lab. He had never realized just how large they
were.
“Ahem.” Professor Pendrake cleared his throat.
Pendrake, Horgash, and Edrea were staring back at him. Okay,
Horgash had a bison. That was not the matter at hand. Lynus had a
stowaway.
“I’m sorry, Professor. She insisted.” Lynus gestured at Kinik, who
was out of the cart and stretching. “She wouldn’t load the cart, she
14
almost started a fight, and then Mooger got spooked. Anyway, she
really wanted to meet you. I tried to say no. I said no a lot, in fact.”
Edrea cocked an eyebrow at Lynus, as if to suggest that he hadn’t
merely handled this incorrectly, he’d handled it in the worst possible
way. His heart sank.
Pendrake scowled at him, and Lynus’ heart found another drop-
off. “Did it occur to you that perhaps I should be the one making
that decision?”
“Umm . . .” Lynus flushed. Somewhere back there, during the
nail-biting and the mule-whipping, that had occurred to him, but
he had kept hoping the ogrun would just give up.
“‘Um’ indeed,” said Pendrake as he strode around the cart.
“Professor Viktor Pendrake,” he said, offering his hand.
“Kinik Helegroth,” said the ogrun, pumping the professor’s hand.
“I am bokur.” She gestured at the assembled group. “You are four,
but with maybe only two that carry.” Lynus suddenly felt quite small.
“Let me carry, and you are four with eight free weapon hands.”
Lynus jumped down from the cart. “Gods . . . Professor, I think
she means to come with us!”
“Obviously.” Pendrake adjusted his spectacles and looked up, way
up, to meet the ogrun’s eyes. “Your accent places you from beyond the
Wyrmwall, perhaps. You’ve come quite a distance, Kinik Helegroth.”
The ogrun nodded.
“Bokur, you say?”
She nodded more deeply, almost a bow.
“I am a professor. I need students, not vassals. Though I would be
deeply honored should you offer, I feel I must warn you in advance
that I am not the korune at the end of your bokur’s quest.”
Kinik’s face fell, and her shoulders sagged. She cast a short, sullen
glower at Lynus, as if this were somehow his fault. As frustrated as
he was, he felt terribly sorry for her. He had warned her, hadn’t he?
15
And then she straightened up, drawing herself to her full height.
“My offer stands. Bokur and student are both for learning. So I will
learn as I carry.”
Pendrake furrowed his brow. “You have a war cleaver,” he pointed
at the polearm. “Do you know how to use it?”
“I study two things,” she said. “War cleaver is one.”
“And the other?”
Kinik reached into one of the big exterior pockets of her greatcoat
and withdrew a battered, dog-eared tome. The embossed title,
Monsternomicon, was scuffed but still clearly visible.
Lynus knew that book well. He, Edrea, and numerous others
had helped Professor Viktor Pendrake research it. Some of them had
died in that effort. Eleven of the woodcuts were from Lynus’ own
hand. Only five hundred of these books had been printed on Corvis
University’s press three years ago, between the general distress of an
undead uprising and an invading army from the east, yet somehow
this wandering ogrun had gotten her hands on one of them and
walked it all the way back here.
“I study your book.”
Pendrake laughed heartily. “You are a student indeed!” he
exclaimed. “It’s decided. You shall accompany us, and since my Iosan
assistant has set the precedent,” he looked over to Edrea and winked,
“I shall, for the time being, waive the usual requirement that those
studying under me be registered, tuition-paying students at Corvis
University.”
Pendrake looked to Lynus. “Our expedition’s provisioning must
be adjusted to account for another healthy appetite. How quickly
can you see to this?”
And then Lynus realized why the provender bundle looked too
large. Corcoran had paid the ogrun in provisions.
“I think that’s already been taken care of, Professor.”
16
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
17
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
18
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.
19
“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.”
20
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
21
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.
22
“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.
The crisp autumn air was shortly pierced by the smell of rotting
flesh. Lynus shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. Oathammer
chuffed in distress, clearly no happier than he about the wafting
scent of death.
“Morrow only knows, I would have preferred to approach from
upwind,” he said, half to himself.
Pendrake raised his left hand and stopped his horse. “Morrow has
preserved us with a downwind approach. Do you smell that?”
“I can’t not smell it, Professor.”
“He means the other smell,” Edrea said.
Lynus concentrated, sniffed deeply, and caught the scent of
something that was neither autumn nor rotting meat. It was musky,
and perhaps sweaty, not as foul as the putrescence on the wind but
somehow more rancid.
“Dismount.” Pendrake slid out of his saddle and strung his lucky
bow. “Rifles at the ready, you two.”
Lynus clambered down, stiff from the ride. Edrea, he noticed,
slid from her horse with practiced ease, as if she’d been doing it for
twenty years.
“Gorax,” said Horgash. “Good nose, there, Viktor.”
Oh, that smell, thought Lynus. Not many beasts’ scents could be
caught over the stench of festering death. He should have recognized
it.
They tied their mounts to trees along the track. Lynus heard Edrea
23
whisper reassurances to Aeshnyrr. They set off on foot, staying low

and moving as quietly as they could up the road toward Bednar. It
was a skill that had saved Lynus’ life on more than one occasion.
The soft, steady crunching behind him negated any benefit of
their stealth. Kinik had no woodcraft at all. Horgash and Pendrake
were nearly inaudible, and Edrea was so silent that Lynus had to keep
looking to his left to make sure she was still there. But Kinik, who
weighed more than some horses, made a disturbing amount of noise.
“Shhh,” he said, scowling. He pointed at the ground. “Step
around the crunchy bits.”
Kinik’s face fell. “Crunchy bits are everywhere.”
Lynus noticed for the first time just how large her feet were. He
also considered for the first time, on this trip at least, how many
expeditions he’d been on that returned short by one or more students.
“Just . . . try to step on less of them.”
The trail emerged from the scrub forest at the top of the rise and
looked down on what was left of the village of Bednar. The ruins lay
in a low, lush clearing, the turf churned to mud and pushed into
low berms. The houses in the hollow were now nothing more than
splinters and thatch, spread flat. The deep greens of the fields above
the hollow to the north were just turning yellow and red, heralding
autumn’s harvest. No churning there, nor in the village orchard to
the south.
Not fifty paces beyond the flattened houses rose the misty tree
line of the Widower’s Wood.
Lynus scanned the village. This place stank of gorax, but the beasts
were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps they were hiding in the shadowed
mists of the wood. Pendrake pulled a small spyglass from his satchel
and gazed through it, no doubt able to see much more detail than
Lynus or the others.
“I think,” Pendrake said after a few moments, “that perhaps a
24
pack of gorax came through here and ate the dead. We’re smelling
scraps, and gorax saliva.”
The copious, pheromone-laced salivations of gorax were famous
for their powerful aroma. The long-snouted, knuckle-dragging
bipeds stank of sweat and filth, certainly, but even if you got close
enough to smell the pits under a gorax’s long arms, it would be the
odors coming off the spittle caked on it that would put you off your
lunch.
“Some of the homes have been flattened in place,” Edrea said.
“Gorax love the damp shade of a cave. If any cellars remain intact,
the gorax may have taken up residence.”
“No cellars in Bednar,” said Horgash. “The water table’s too high.
A cellar would fill right up.”
“Let’s head down and sweep the area, then,” Pendrake said. “Edrea,
Horgash, come with me. Lynus and Kinik, fetch our mounts.”
Fetch the horses? Lynus fumed for just a moment, then arrived at
a solution.
“Professor, what if there are gorax here? Won’t the animals be in
more danger with us?”
Pendrake grunted and nodded. “That’s true. So we all go down
together.” Lynus might be sent to fetch the horses and that bison
later, of course, but maybe Kinik and Horgash would go instead.
Edrea smiled at Lynus, and he wondered why. Then Kinik spoke,
right in his ear.
“Thank you, friend Lynus,” she said. “We will go together.
Watching Pendrake and Wesselbaum and Lloryrr search and work is
better than fetching horses.”
Lynus frowned and said nothing.
They walked down the track into the village, and the smell grew
stronger. Nervous, Lynus unslung his Radcliffe rifle, broke the breech,
and chambered a round, then shut the breech with a satisfying snap.
25
Pendrake looked back at him and raised an eyebrow, then unslung

his lucky bow.
“Does the boy know something we don’t?” Horgash said.
“If he’s got a book in front of him, almost certainly,” said Pendrake
with a grin. “And discretion has always been the better part of his
valor. But the smell is a lot stronger down here.”
Horgash drew his own firearm, a large short-barreled Vislovski
carbine that looked like it had Khadoran artillery pieces in its direct
lineage. Edrea unslung her Radcliffe as well and nodded at Lynus.
Her Iosan magic was always at her disposal, but it never hurt to be
able to put a bullet in something first.
Pendrake walked in front, with Horgash close behind him. Edrea,
Lynus, and Kinik fanned out some fifteen paces behind. They stepped
carefully, and fairly quietly—Kinik learned quickly—between and
among the destroyed homes. Some were in splinters, others appeared
to have been crushed in place. Debris, especially thatch, was strewn
everywhere. There were no bodies in sight.
“Friend Lynus,” Kinik said, “I read that the gorax has a heavy
skull, tough ribs. Where do you aim that,” she gestured at his rifle,
“to kill it?”
Lynus opened his mouth to answer, then stopped. That exact
question had been one of the very first things Lynus asked Professor
Pendrake almost five years ago. And thanks to his research with
Pendrake, the answer he could give was far more specific than the
one he had received then.
“Between the pectoral crease and the first rib below it,” he said,
pointing to his own torso, “preferably from the left side, but definitely
not from in front. An adult gorax has a wide, thick sternum.” Lynus
tapped his chest.
Kinik nodded soberly.
“Properly aimed, and with enough powder behind it, that shot
26
bursts the heart. The gorax will run maybe three more steps before
dropping dead.”
“Shhh!” said Pendrake, signaling a halt. Then he pointed. “Where
did that come from?”
A gorax pup, first season, no larger than a boot, was rolling around
in the mud and thatch, barely ten paces from Pendrake. Its snout was
still short and cute, its tusks no more than nubs, and a fluffy tuft of
mane poked out behind its ears. Straw clung to most of the rest of it,
sticking out like feathers on a baby bird.
Edrea spoke very softly. “It came from right there, Professor. You
missed it because it was tiny, asleep, and covered in straw.” She bent
her knees and twisted, without moving her feet or making a sound,
and scanned all the way around them.
“Anything?” asked Pendrake.
“No,” she said. “Let me try—” and the pup mewled in distress,
cutting her off.
Everyone was silent. Lynus held his breath.
Several bundles of thatch, still tied to unbroken rafters, rose from
behind the pup, and a large female gorax crawled out on all fours,
apparently from a burrow dug beneath the fallen roof. Her broad
snout, somewhere between feline and porcine, glistened with stinky
saliva, and the long, tangled fur of her mane was matted with mud
and blood. She blinked against the daylight, reached for the pup
with one hairy arm, and snorted, catching new scents.
She looked at Pendrake and growled, a low belly-growl that
seemed to say “I hate you” and “I want to eat you” at the same time.
Pendrake backed away slowly. “Do as I do,” he whispered, his left
hand low, his lucky bow also low in his right hand. Horgash began
backing up as well, his carbine held the same way. As nonthreateningly
as possible.
Lynus also stepped backward, and his boot squish-crunched in
27
the mud and thatch—the loudest possible step he could have taken.
He looked down to check his next step and saw a boot-sized muddy
clump of fur right next to his foot.
Morrow preserve me. Another pup.
It opened a pair of wet black eyes, stared up at Lynus, and let out
a low growl.
He looked at mama gorax. She pulled herself the rest of the way
out of the burrow and snorted again. She stood, drawing herself up
to nine feet of mud, stink, and fur, and swung her low-slung head
side to side, snorting.
Edrea took a deep breath to Lynus’ left. Had she seen the pup?
“Professor,” he said, his voice cracking between whisper and
whimper, “there’s a second pup between my feet.”
Horgash flashed Lynus an incredulous, furious glance.
“On three, run hard to your right,” said Pendrake.
Mama gorax took a step forward, still snorting, still searching.
“One.”
She drew a deep breath and stared at Lynus.
“Two.”
Her yellow gaze tracked down between his feet, and her eyes
widened.
“Three.”
Lynus froze. He was supposed to jump, supposed to run, but
mama gorax . . .
“THREE, LYNUS!” shouted Pendrake.
Lynus jumped to his left, and mama gorax roared. Then he
remembered he was supposed to go to his right, but it was too late
for that now. Mama gorax was coming, and Lynus could only hope
she was having as much trouble running in this mud as he was. The
Radcliffe that had seemed so comforting a few minutes ago was
suddenly terribly heavy.
28
A sizzling whistle ended in a meaty thump not far behind him,

and the gorax roared, her breath hot and rank. Lynus screamed and
threw his rifle. Was it shiny enough to distract an angry—
Two rifles boomed and the gorax screamed in pain, spittle and
stink splattering the back of Lynus’ head. Morrow, it was close
enough to bite, he could expect teeth or claws any moment.
A huge hand came at him from his right. Before he could dodge,
he realized it was in a sleeve.
Kinik!
She grabbed his right arm and yanked him hard to the right. He
flung his hands out to break his fall, but he still hit the broken turf
so hard his teeth rattled.
The gorax roared again. He heard a heavy, splashing thump and
a horrible crunch.
Silence.
Lynus rolled over and sat up.
Pendrake’s bola was wrapped around the gorax’s feet, and an arrow
sprouted from its shoulder. A vicious gash spanned the creature’s
back. Kinik stood over the fallen gorax, polearm in her left hand,
right hand on her hip. She looked back at him.
“More than three steps,” she said. “I am lucky to have a polearm
and big blades.” Her blade certainly was big, and blood-spattered.
That must have been the finishing stroke.
Lynus blew out a breath and turned toward the others, who were
running his way.
“Brilliantly bungled,” said Pendrake, shaking his head. “Mama
turned to follow you, but the angle was wrong.”
“You still managed to put an arrow into it and your bola around
it, old friend,” Horgash said. “Though I think we all know it was my
bullet to the heart that felled—“
Another roar, muffled, rose from the burrow. Everybody turned to look.
29
A wall from one of the flattened homes burst upward as another

gorax, this one a full-maned male, emerged with a frenzied roar. It
bounded up and into the clearing, then turned and glared at Lynus
and the others.
From the dark hollow under the fallen home came two more
gorax.
“Reload!” Pendrake shouted, loosing an arrow and nocking
another. Horgash and Edrea broke their rifle breeches and slid
cartridges into place.
Lynus scrambled for his own rifle amid the sounds of breeches
slamming closed and arrows taking flight.
“You know where to put bullets!” shouted Kinik. “I am a student!
Where do I put blades?”
A pair of weapons thundered, closely followed by cacophonous
roaring from charging gorax.
Lynus grabbed his rifle and looked up at the ogrun towering
above him, her enormous war cleaver at the ready. She’d shattered
the spine on a gorax that was down with two arrows and two bullets
in it, but—
“WHERE?”
Now Kinik meant to go blade-to-claw.
“Sorry . . . um . . . under the jaw and up, like pithing chickens.
And, uh . . . between the ribs“—he was interrupted by a volley of
gunfire and roars of pain—”but your blade is too wide. Umm . . .”
That huge cleaver blade wasn’t likely to pith or pierce anything unless
Kinik could drive it with enough force to crush several very sturdy
bones on the way in. Which maybe she could, but he hadn’t seen her
work yet.
Pendrake drew his sword and turned to Kinik. “Bleed,” he
pointed with a slashing motion just above her pelvis, where a gorax’s
abdominal artery ran. “Hobble,” he stepped aside and gestured
30
behind her knee, “and then stay out of reach.”

Lynus realized he hadn’t taken a shot yet. He swung his Radcliffe
up and aimed between Horgash and Pendrake, where he had a clear
view of a charging gorax. Not quite a perfect portrait of the flank,
but enough to work with. As he squeezed the trigger he noticed—
too late—mud at the base of his sight. The end of his rifle barrel
exploded. Shrapnel hit him just above his right eye.
Horgash, blades at the ready, dropped to one knee and screeched
something with a terrible gurgle.
Morrow preserve me, mud in the muzzle, and I’ve shot Horgash in
the throat.
Pendrake turned to Horgash, but the trollkin waved him away
with a hoarse snarl. “Take care of the gorax in the middle, not me.”
The three gorax bounded toward them, loping on long arms and
thick legs, foul-smelling drool pouring from their mouths. Lynus
assumed they were wounded. The one in the lead was visibly so with
three arrows in its chest. But their approach was terrifying. Lynus
stumbled to his feet and pulled his sword rig from across his back.
Casting the scabbard aside, he grasped the great sword’s hilt with
both hands and struggled to keep the tip of the heavy blade up where
it might do some good.
He braced himself for the charge, determined not to follow his
instincts and run for the horses. His skin started to tingle. He prayed
it would stay attached to him for the rest of this day and hopefully
years to come. Under the circumstances, holding his ground was the
best he could manage.
He stood like that, frozen, watching Pendrake, Kinik, and
Horgash—limping badly, but not throat-shot—meet three charging
gorax in the slaughter field of Bednar.
Horgash appeared to be in trouble. He stumbled and lowered
both his weapons as he caught himself. The smallest of the three
31
charging gorax sensed weakness, let out a roar that sprayed fetid drool,
and pounced. Horgash shifted to his left, his injury not hobbling him
as badly as it had first appeared. He raised his left sword, blocking
and catching one sweeping claw, then drove his right sword straight
up under the gorax’s jaw and into its brain.
Kinik was an apt student. She was nearly as tall as the thick-
maned monster she faced, but far more nimble. She slashed deeply
across its lower belly, just above the pelvis, and was rewarded with
a howl and a gout of blood. She ducked, rolled to the right, spun,
and swept for the back of its knees. Her blade turned, and she only
managed to trip the huge male with the flat. He quickly found his
footing, turned, and lunged. Kinik backpedaled over a muddy berm
and into the ruined village.
Pendrake, blade in his right hand, clutched something in his left.
When his quarry was just one bound away from him, Pendrake
tossed up a handful of bright Cygnaran crowns. The gorax raised one
claw to swipe at the shiny distraction, and Pendrake dove under that
arm, driving his sword between the pectoral fold and the rib below it.
That sword was sharper than it had a right to be, piercing far deeper
than any of the arrows had, and with much less effort.
The gorax bent forward, teeth and claws converging on the spot
that Pendrake deftly vacated, slipping under the beast’s left arm and
around behind it. With two sweeping strokes he hobbled the beast.
It fell to all fours, rolled onto its side, and expired.
Kinik called out from a good thirty paces away. “How long do I
stay out of reach?” She had the giant male loping in a slow, enraged
curve, a path he was clumsily painting in steaming red splotches.
“Until it falls down,” Edrea said. Lynus turned and saw her
standing next to him, her furrowed brow relaxing. Her hands were
empty—no rifle, no sword—but a ring of glowing runes spun
silently around her feet.
33
“What were you going to do if they got through?” he asked.

“Light them on fire while you stabbed them to death.” Edrea
smiled weakly. “Perhaps give myself a headache trying something
new and dangerous.” She lowered her hands and exhaled deeply. The
runes vanished. Lynus’ skin tingled again, and then the sensation
faded.
“What was that?” He had seen her wield Iosan magic in the past,
but she was always a little secretive when asked to explain it.
“Just a little toughening up. I’m quite pleased we didn’t need to
see exactly how effective it was.”
“Forty steps!” shouted Kinik. She stood over a maned mound.
“Heart and head kill is much faster. Less running.”
He turned back to Edrea, but she was already walking back up the
track toward the horses. A more detailed explanation for the tingling
skin would have to wait.
Lynus collected his Radcliffe. The barrel was split and flared
outward at the end like a withered lily. Ruined. He put his hand
up to his forehead and felt the shallow wound there. He winced.
Morrow, but that was stupid, firing with mud in the barrel.
“The boy shot me, and he’s weeping over his rifle?” Horgash was
stomping back up the slope, gorax blood all over his right hand and
arm, his own blood staining a ragged tear on his right leg. He held
a limp gorax pup by a hind leg. “Worse still, those charging gorax
crushed their own pups! There’s folks in these woods who’ll pay good
money for an unweaned gorax!”
“Money is a secondary concern at best,” said Pendrake. “Let me
tend to your leg, and then I’ll have a word with the boy.”
“I’ve ignored far worse than this scratch,” Horgash said. “But if
you’ll have the book-whelp sew up the hole in my britches while you
shout him into the ground, we can call it even.”
Lynus looked at Pendrake, and for just a moment he was relieved
34
to see no fury there. Then he recognized the expression cast over the
square-rimmed spectacles as disappointment, and his heart fell.
“You heard Horgash. There’s needle and thread in my kit if you
need it. Also, you need to strip and clean what’s left of your Radcliffe
so we can use it for parts.”
Of course. Edrea’s Radcliffe was a twin to this one.
“First, though, help Edrea collect our mounts while I collect my
thoughts.”
Lynus jogged up the trail and met Edrea coming up the other way,
leading Oathammer and Codex. He opened his mouth to speak, but
she shook her head and passed the lead lines to him.
“I’ll get the others,” she said.
He accepted the leads from Edrea and turned back up the trail,
his heart sinking with every step.
Lynus was torn as he watched Pendrake and Edrea investigate

the frame-and-thatch ruins of Bednar. On one hand, that was
just the sort of work that he loved. On the other, it left him to his
punishment in relative peace. He had his rifle disassembled in just
a few minutes. Horgash’s leggings were going to take a little more
work, but it was only tedious, not difficult. He rinsed them with
water from his canteen and began pushing the heavy needle back
and forth through equally heavy leather. The needle and thread from
Pendrake’s kit more resembled an awl and hawser. Field repair on
sturdy protective leathers wasn’t the same as darning a sock, let alone
binding a book.
After a score of stitches he looked up from his work and saw
Pendrake and Edrea moving along the flattened picket fence, walking
the perimeter.
Kinik had hauled the four gorax corpses and two dead pups to the
35
western slope, where she was poking them one-handed with her war
cleaver, her other hand holding the Monsternomicon open in front of
her. Lynus imagined himself in the same position years ago, minus
the war cleaver and the book, poking something dead to get a better
look at it, wondering if he’d ever figure out how it worked on the
inside.
Horgash curried Greta while Oathammer and Aeshnyrr looked
on with a measure of suspicion and longing. They didn’t like the
smell of this place, and they were always skittish around trollkin.
Codex was asleep on his feet, grabbing a nap in the field like a good
soldier.
Lynus finished mending Horgash’s leggings and admired the
precision with which he’d spaced the forty stitches. The heavy leather
had required more finger strength than stitching a book binding, but
he’d done good work.
Lynus carried the leggings to Horgash, who was now tending to
the bison.
“Here you are, sir,” he said. “I think I got all the blood out, too.”
Horgash accepted the bundle and eyed Lynus’ work with
narrowed, deep-set eyes. “Now they’re cleaner than the rest of me,”
he growled. “And that stitching, I’ll never afford finery to match
that.” Then he grinned, a broad affair the length of a man’s hand.
“Don’t worry if you never get around to figuring out the right end of
a rifle. You can wash and sew for your keep.”
Pendrake spoke from across the ragged green. “Oh, Lynus knows
the right end of the rifle. I just need to drill him a bit on keeping
hold of it.” The professor waved Lynus over. Lynus walked dutifully,
stepping around scattered bits of homes.
“You threw your rifle into the mud. Threw it!” Pendrake shook
his head. “You froze when I told you to move, and when you did
move, you went the wrong way.”
36
“I’m sorry, Professor.”

“Lynus, you’ve had four summers in the field with me, and that
magnificent mind of yours has you well on your way to becoming a
professor in your own right. But the spine suspended from it doesn’t
always do you credit in a fight.”
Pendrake reached out and grasped him by both shoulders.
“You need a stronger spine, boy. Morrow knows you’ve bent your
back more than any of us over the books and the lab of late. We need
to straighten you out, stand you up.” And Pendrake did stand him
straighter with that grip on his shoulders. “I’m proud to have you at
my back in a fight, boy, but my back seems to be the only place I
find you.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Lynus couldn’t think of anything else to say. He
had a head full of words, but none of them would fix this.
Pendrake sighed heavily.
“I’m sorry too.” Pendrake frowned and scratched his chin. “And
I’m not being quite fair about your spine. You stood your ground,
putting yourself between Edrea and the bloody melee, and that
counts for something.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Not much, but something. I suspect she was more help in that
fight than you were.” Softer, then, almost conspiratorially. “Did your
skin tingle? Just before the clash?”
“It . . . it did, Professor. And I saw spinning runes at her feet.”
“Good. I thought I recognized some protection. Probably
toughening us up. Might be why Horgash still has his leg.”
“Horgash has his leg,” came Edrea’s voice from across the green,
“because he is trollkin, and as such, his leg is made of stone and
stubbornness.”
Horgash laughed, the sound like a rasp on a barrel. His bison
chuffed heavily, as if it were in on the joke.
37
“More to the point,” she said, walking toward them, “I only

thought to cast after all our shots were fired.” She bowed her
head deeply. “I regret this. My failing was more than a match for
Lynus’ misfire.” She turned to Horgash and bowed deeply. “I must
apologize.”
“And I’m sorry for the wasted trip,” Horgash said with a shake of
his head. “It looks like the mysterious monster I promised you was
nothing more than a gorax pack. They smashed the place on their
first pass and came back to dig burrows later. That’s the only way I
could have missed them when I first came through. Even so, I should
have at least caught a whiff.”
“Everybody makes mistakes,” Lynus said.
“Indeed,” said Pendrake. “But Horgash did not.” He walked over
to a thatch-and-splinter pile. “What do you see here?”
Edrea spoke up. “A wattle-and-daub wall, crushed in place.”
Lynus stepped closer. The wall had been reduced to kindling and
splinters, but all of the pieces were still quite close together.
“Crushed in place!” Pendrake said. “A heavy steamjack might be
able to flatten a house in this manner, but not a gorax.”
“Professor,” Lynus said, “even in all this ripped-up ground, a
steamjack would leave sharp-edged footprints, right?” He looked
around the ruined village. “And perhaps some ash?”
“Indeed. So once again, we know what this was not.” He smiled.
“We have ourselves a genuine puzzle here. Something big flattened
this village, and pushed and churned the ground, but for all the
tracks I can find coming and going from Bednar, it might as well
have dropped out of the sky.”
Kinik looked up, wide-eyed, then began flipping through her
Monsternomicon.
Pendrake noticed. “And since the entire area hasn’t been scorched, frozen,
or otherwise blighted, I don’t suspect this is the work of one of the dragons.”
38
Kinik relaxed.
Lynus stepped over to her and pointed at the illustration she had
flipped to. “I cross-referenced several passages from The Wyrmsaga
Cycle for scale. Those little dots are people.”
Kinik stared down at the book. Lynus thought he’d done a pretty
good job with that picture. He hoped to never learn exactly how
good.
He walked over to the shattered home that the larger gorax had
been sheltering beneath. The thatched roof was gone, and the ground
around it was particularly well-churned. A bushel basket, crushed
flat, had walnuts spilling out of it. A hand axe lay pressed into the
mud.
Midday sunlight shone into the hole. Mud, blood, and scraps of
what used to be people—this was where the last of the bodies had
ended up, dragged in here by a scavenging pack of gorax. Blowflies
swarmed, and Lynus briefly considered attempting a field test of the
“carrion clock,” but thought better of climbing down there.
The hole was deep, with pooling water at the bottom. The gorax
pack would have had the opportunity to bathe, something your
average gorax didn’t do nearly often enough. Even if they’d just wash
their faces, get rid of the drool, and remove the rotting food from
their teeth, maybe they wouldn’t smell quite so foul.
Lynus stared into the hole. Teeth. There was something about the
shape of the hole. It didn’t look like any burrow he’d seen before. He
turned his head sideways. Layers of loam were stretched and pulled,
along with long, questing roots from the nearby grove of apple and
walnut trees. They weren’t dug out with gorax claws, but punched
through from below. Like an argus tooth punching through an
entomology text, stretching bits of the cover, tearing pages, dragging
the raw edges of the hole with it.
The hole in the ground looked like an exit wound.
39
“Professor Pendrake?” he said. “This isn’t a basement, and it also

isn’t a gorax burrow.”
Pendrake walked over, adjusting his glasses. “Go on.”
“Something punched up from below. Something about as big
around as this hole.”
Pendrake nodded and rubbed his chin.
Edrea, Horgash, and Kinik joined them at the edge of the hole.
The stink of the still water wafted up.
“Mother Dhunia, he’s right,” said Horgash. “Is there anything in
your book that could do this?”
“This, and worse,” Pendrake said. “I’m taking heart that this hole
seems a bit on the small side for a gorgandur to have returned.”
“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 basements for holes,” Kinik said matter-
of-factly.
“Like I said before, these people don’t have basements.” 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 scraped 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.
40
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 scraping 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
41
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, principally found in the southeastern

quarter of the Widower’s Wood,” Lynus announced, holding aloft
his small, sturdily 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.”
42
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 bloody, 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 Assistant
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 glasses
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,
43
most everyone would panic and flee for the fields.”

“I can see why you’d assume 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 pass 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
44
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.”
45
“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 god 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.”
46
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 passed 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
and—
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 circumnavigate this bit of thicket.”
The print came from what looked like a human foot, but with five
indentations past the tip of each toe—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 passage.
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
48
little hope of catching up to the Tharn—a war party on the move

certainly pushed as hard or harder than the five of them could—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 indentations—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
49
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.
“Professor,” Lynus said, “this fog is unusually thick, even for these
woods. Swamp gobbers have been known to generate fog like this to
facilitate an ambush.”
“If a Tharn war party came this way, it would have scared off
gobbers and bogrin alike,” said Pendrake. “Besides, I expect the five
of us look rather imposing, especially with Horgash and Kinik in our
number.”
Edrea spied something she hadn’t seen since entering the
woods—signs of permanent habitation. An eight-foot length of
wooden walkway jutted out of the mud. Part of a pier, perhaps, but
significantly narrower than would be comfortable for humans or
Iosans, let alone trollkin or ogrun. It was maybe three feet wide.
Barely enough room to walk single file, and none at all to get work
done loading and unloading boats.
But that width was just right for gobbers. They and their slightly
larger cousins, bogrin, would be right at home working atop this, out
over whatever nearby body of water it used to jut into.
“Well!” Pendrake said as he rode up behind Edrea. “Gobbers
indeed!”
“It looks like part of a pier,” she said, “but I haven’t found the lake
yet.”
They heard splashing, followed by a sharp curse in Molgur-Trul,
the trollkin tongue. Horgash was making a spiteful and entirely
50
dubious claim regarding Greta’s lineage.

“You mindless rug-rack!” he continued in Cygnaran. “Just because
you smell water doesn’t mean you get to drink it!”
“We’re over here,” called Pendrake.
“I can hear that,” said Horgash. “Greta was following just fine,
but I suppose thirst and pigheadedness got the best of her.”
“I found a bolt!” Kinik said. “For a ’jack, yes?”
“Let me have a look,” Lynus said.
Edrea could barely make him out, a slim, dark-grey silhouette on
horseback, just a half head taller than Kinik afoot.
“The full technical term is ‘counter-threaded joint bolt,’” Lynus
said.
“The full technical term is hardly what’s important about that
piece of hardware,” said Pendrake.
Kinik said, “Strange for a ’jack bolt to be in woods without a
’jack, yes?”
“Strange for a ’jack bolt to be in woods with a ’jack,” Lynus said.
Did he realize he was being a bit cruel?
“Not at all,” said Pendrake. “Not if this pier is any indication.
There might be a gobber village around here, and they can travel
pretty far afield scavenging.”
Horgash emerged from the depths of the mist, followed by his
bison. “Greta probably has the right idea,” he said. “Her nose is
good. I say we water our mounts here and scan the lakeshore for
more Tharn tracks. In this soft soil we might be able to get a sense of
their numbers.”
The shore was less than a dozen paces to the right of the track Edrea
had been following. It was littered with planks. A few pilings—the
remains of the pier—jutted up out of the water like stumps.
The horses agreed with Greta about the quality of the water, but
they seemed a little skittish. Aeshnyrr drank in quick nips, stepping
51
back from the edge after each pass, and Codex twitched his ears while
lapping. Sensible. There were a lot of things that might lurk under
dark, still waters like these, waiting for thirsty prey.
Oathammer had his muzzle so far into the lake, Edrea wondered
whether Lynus’ gelding was trying to drink through its nose.
“Definitely a good place to water,” Pendrake said. “I can see why
a band setting a hard pace would detour here, though they should
have topped up while moving through the stream.” The professor
scratched his chin. “Then again, the stream is a slow one, and if they
were in a hurry they’d have been kicking up silt. I certainly wouldn’t
wish my own water bags half-full of mud.”
Edrea considered their next steps. “In this mist,” she said, “we can
either stay with Greta and the horses or scan the shore for tracks. We
can’t do both without splitting up. I can’t see more than a half-dozen
paces in any direction.”
“Can’t you use your Iosan magic to see better?” Lynus asked.
Edrea sighed. She was tired, having walked all morning while
the others rode, and she’d never been able to weave vossyl liumyn
effectively when exhausted.
Not that she was about confess this.
“There is magic that will help me see through the mist, yes, but
it also helps me see through underbrush. Some of the best signs I’ve
found along this trail have been bent branches, and when I weave for
sight I’m more likely to miss those.”
“Oh,” Lynus said, “I never thought of it that way.”
“Indeed, it is truly fascinating,” said Pendrake. “But like any
imperfect or questionable experiment, if it provides us with more
information, it is preferable to remaining in ignorance. Wouldn’t you
say?”
Edrea sighed. The professor was right. And perhaps she wasn’t
that tired after all.
52
A true master arcanist might enact such a weaving with but a

thought, but she was not quite ready for that. She traced the sigils
for vossyl, an Iosan word for “sight,” in the air before her, the rune
glowing as she wove, then expanding into a ring. A deft twist of her
hand traced liumyn, a word meaning both “light” and “knowledge,”
the gesture also serving to wrap the runes about her wrist, forming a
glowing bracelet of Iosan script. Then she passed that hand across her
eyes. They watered and stung for a brief moment.
To her sight, the mist was now gone, the landscape clearly visible
out to a hundred paces but rendered in sharp shades of grey, colorless,
like an etching on tin. The water’s edge lay just two paces ahead and
to the right. The murky water was transparent to her. Amber outlines
surrounded numerous small aquatic creatures—mostly fish, but a
few frogs, and even a snake or two.
Just twenty paces along the shore to the left, wrapped around
and amid a stand of giant cypress, stood the remains of the gobber
village. The outermost structures had been smashed, but high within
that stand of trees Edrea saw intact buildings, connecting catwalks,
stairs, and more.
“I don’t see Tharn tracks,” she said, “but I found the rest of the
gobber village.” She told them of the ruined lower levels.
“Smashed like Bednar?” asked Kinik.
“A little.”
“Where is it?” asked Pendrake.
Edrea pointed. There were amber-outlined signs of life within it,
but it was all birds and rodents—nothing gobber-size. “If there were
survivors here, they’ve fled.”
“It certainly merits investigation,” Pendrake said. “Perhaps we can
learn some more about our quarry. And if we tie our team well away
from the water, they shouldn’t need a close guard.”
Pendrake, Lynus, and Kinik led the horses a dozen paces upslope
53
from the water’s edge and tied them where Horgash had Greta
tethered. Aeshnyrr relaxed, but Codex remained tense.
Edrea continued to scan the area. She hadn’t seen signs of gators,
dracodiles, or other large predators, but that didn’t mean there weren’t
any hiding beyond the range of her woven sight. She concentrated
again, reaching for the power to see farther. She thought she caught a
hint of amber far out in the water, well past what she should be able
to see. Her eyes watered. She clenched her teeth. The sigils spinning
about her wrist pulsed a little more brightly.
“Edrea, what—aaugh!” Lynus was right behind her, and suddenly
they were both in a heap on the ground. The etched-tin clarity of the
hollow went misty and grey. The mists swept back in on her vision,
a throbbing headache rushing with them.
“Scyrah’s rest,” she muttered. “Now I can’t see.”
“Sorry. I came over to see what you were looking at and caught
my foot on a root. Did I hurt you?”
“Just startled,” she said, rolling clear of the clumsy youth. She
tried to keep the anger out of her voice. “The sight is gone, and I’ve
given myself a headache.”
“That sort of disruption is unfortunately common among less
practiced arcanists,” Pendrake said, offering her a hand up along
with a wink. “Proof positive that natural ability remains secondary
to diligently focused practice.”
Edrea fumed. The professor’s jesting wink didn’t change that
he would prefer to see Edrea formally enroll at the university, as if
the seventeen years she’d spent studying the world at her own pace
counted for nothing, as if Professor Victor Pendrake, man of no
magical ability whatsoever, could teach things he could barely even
see, let alone practice. Iosan arcane tradition was older than human
civilization, not to mention Corvis University.
Worse still, “diligently focused practice” in the university
54
environment would place Edrea’s use of Iosan magic under the

scrutiny of actual spellcasting humans, something more than a few
Iosans would take exception to—the same Iosans who believed the
decline of their civilization corresponded rather too closely to the
awakening of human magical abilities for it to be mere coincidence.
Edrea identified more closely with the Seekers among her people
than with the Retribution, but even those committed to gleaning
knowledge far beyond the borders of Ios knew to keep secrets. Edrea’s
muttered curse, “Scyrah’s rest,” actually crossed the line.
Edrea blew out the breath she’d been holding, the string of
additional curses unspoken. It was unfair to be this angry. She
couldn’t tell Pendrake any of this, so how could he know better?
“Edrea?” said the professor, a note of concern in his voice. “Are
you fit to proceed?”
“Apologies, Professor,” she said. “Just . . . taking a little mental
inventory. I’ll be fine, but I won’t be seeing through the mist until
this throbbing ceases.”
“Sorry,” Lynus said, more meekly than before.
“I’ll lead,” said Horgash. He strode past Edrea and Pendrake and
quickly faded into the fog. Pendrake followed, and Edrea hurried
after him, Lynus and Kinik behind her.
They picked their way through the smashed, splintered planks at
the shore, taking additional care to stay close to one another. Horgash
led them deeper into the stand of giant cypress. Fallen debris lay
everywhere.
“Overengineered, as usual,” said Horgash, thumping on
something in the deep mists ahead. When Edrea caught up with
him, he was bouncing up and down on the third step of a flight of
steep stairs. “It may look like it was bodged together in a rush, but
this stair will hold all of us, and Greta.” Rotting ropes attached to
the bottom suggested the flight was originally devised to be lifted
55
into the trees, but it now stood permanently grounded.

They climbed the stairs, passing two destroyed landings as they
ascended. The first intact deck was twenty feet above the barely
visible floor of the marshy vale. They walked along it, navigating
meandering catwalks and peering into the high, empty habitations of
gobbers. Most of the doors were only five feet high—easy enough for
Edrea or Lynus to duck into, but little more than crawl—holes for
Horgash or Kinik. Furnishings remained, as did some larger, heavier
tools, including an anvil that Edrea couldn’t imagine any number of
gobbers maneuvering up to this height, but all the cupboards and
tables were empty.
“I figured out where that counter-threaded whatsit came from,”
Horgash said, pointing down. There at the edge of the lake lay the
wreckage of a steamjack, face up in the mud.
“That head looks like it’s from a Lancer,” said Lynus, “but the
hull is a real mongrel. Some Khadoran parts, some Morrow-knows-
what, and I think that left pauldron is part of the cow-catcher from
a railway engine.”
“It went down fighting,” Pendrake said. “I judge it to have been
knocked backward, boiler-down. If the water were just six inches
higher, perhaps during the spring rains, that would have put the fire
out and taken the ’jack right out of the fight.”
“If that’s true,” Lynus said, “then whatever happened here
happened four months ago.”
Edrea considered the signs around her and shook her head. “More
like sixteen.”
“Really?”
“Look at the splintered edge of the second-story catwalks.” She
pointed at a hairy growth one level down, back the way they’d come.
“That’s more than four months of fungus in the wrecked wood.
The ’jack fell there when the water was high, during or just after
56
the spring rains. Then there was a full summer of growth, autumn
spores, a winter, and then another full growing season.”
“Tharn arrows in Bednar,” said Kinik, “but none here. If gobbers
were fighting in the trees, arrows would be stuck in wood everywhere.”
“Maybe sixteen months ago the Tharn had different tactics,” said
Lynus.
“And a smaller pet,” Horgash said. “No flattening here.”
“Not flattened,” Edrea said, “clawed. Right there, on that tree
trunk.” The claw marks, healing from a season of tree growth, reached
almost to the level of deck they stood upon. Something huge and
hungry had attempted to scale the tree to get at the highest gobber-
sized morsels.
“As there were no claw marks in Bednar, we find no arrows here.
And from the absence of the usual bric-a-brac, I think many of the
gobbers survived, grabbed what they could, and fled,” Pendrake said.
“I think we can conclude that this was something other than a giant
burrowing serpent and a Tharn war party.”
A gurgling, huffing noise sounded out across the lake.
Lynus looked at Pendrake, wide-eyed. Pendrake scowled and
cocked his head to the side.
“That noise sounded very big,” Kinik said.
“Shhh,” said Pendrake.
“Mother Dhunia,” Horgash said. “This is an ambush. The Tharn
laid tracks for us, led us right into the middle of a fog drake’s feeding
ground.”
“Fog drake. Yes, that’s the sound,” said Pendrake.
“Not a true dragon,” Kinik said, “but big, dangerous, and can see
us even in mist, yes?”
Yes, Edrea cursed silently. She traced vossyl and was rewarded with
a single, flickering half sigil, followed by sharp pain behind her eyes.
“Exactly, Kinik. You’ve done the assigned reading,” Pendrake said.
57
“Now, reading those claw marks, we’re safe up here, but our mounts
are staked out like bait.” He began to run back along the catwalk.
“Bah!” he shouted almost immediately. “Horgash, which way to the
stairs?”
“Wurm take the stairs!” said Horgash. He dropped over the rail,
grabbed the deck on the way down, and hung from his hands for
a moment. “We’re on the third story, but gobbers are short.” He
dropped into the mist.
Kinik peered over after him, threw her war-cleaver like a spear
into the mud below, and followed.
Edrea watched her vanish and thought better of taking that
route herself. If she hung from the deck, her feet would still be a full
fourteen feet above the mud and debris below. She turned and ran
along the catwalk, quickly catching up with Pendrake.
“I remember the way,” she said, slipping past him.
“We’ll follow you, then,” said Pendrake.
The huffing sound came again, accompanied by splashing. If
Edrea could trust her sense of direction at all, the drake was headed
toward their animals.
Aeshnyrr, I’m coming.
She breathed deeply as she ran, attempting to clear her head. Past
the big room with the anvil, left around the largest tree, then straight
ahead, and she could see the stairs.
Her breathing deepened with exertion as she ran down the stairs,
and by the time she reached the bottom, the pain in her head had
subsided. She inhaled, closed her eyes, traced again. She felt the ring
of Iosan runes flare to life about her right wrist, and when she opened
her eyes she could see everything.
Outlined in amber, the horses and Greta stood straight ahead
forty paces. All stamped nervously. The shore and the pier’s pilings
lay to the left. Also left, and a bit behind Edrea, lay the sodden ruins
58
of the gobber tree-homes. The amber silhouettes of Horgash and

Kinik ran through those, slowed by the debris. Out in the lake, the
small shapes of fish, frogs, and snakes were scattering in the path of
a much larger outline.
It was a fat, vaguely reptilian silhouette with stubby wings and
a head like a snake’s, only closer to the size of a pony. Not a pony’s
head. A whole pony. This thing was huge. Abruptly, it turned, and
Edrea realized it must be hearing footfalls along the shore.
“It’s coming for us!” she shouted. “What’s the plan?”
“Poke holes in it until it stops moving,” Horgash said, running
toward her. His paired swords were in hand now, each as long as a
great sword and twice as broad.
“Edrea,” the professor said, his own ancient-looking sword in
hand, “the beast is huffing fog, thickening it. I can’t see much past
the end of my blade. This ‘poke holes’ plan needs a spotter. You can
see again?”
“I can spot, and I can shoot.” Edrea shouldered her rifle. “Everyone
form up on me!”
Lynus and Kinik came stumbling toward her, their hurried steps
hampered by poor visibility and soft ground. Kinik had retrieved her
war cleaver and held it at the ready. The enormous weapon had to
be close to six paces long from butt to blade, which was farther than
Edrea thought any of her friends could currently see in the thick fog.
“Kinik,” she said, remembering how Lynus had stumbled into
her earlier. “Stop right there. Any closer and you’ll hit one of us with
that thing.”
Kinik stopped in place.
Edrea stepped behind Pendrake and Horgash and aimed her
rifle between them, at the fog drake only she could see. “It’s
big, Professor. Too big. Coming from that way, underwater,
swimming with its wings.”
59
“Hah!” Pendrake exclaimed. “Lynus, I told you that was what

those were for! Too small for flight on any specimen we’ve examined.”
Much too small on this one, Edrea thought.
Lynus arrived at her side, great sword out and wavering, far too
large for his grip.
“Where do you need me?” he asked.
“Behind Horgash,” Edrea said. The trollkin would be more
effective leading a charge.
“Last time the boy fought behind me he shot me,” Horgash
grumbled.
Edrea made a mental note to be very careful not to shoot Horgash.
She’d only get one shot, anyway. Had to wait until the beast slowed
down a bit . . .
“It’s speeding up. I think it means to lunge out at us.”
Then the drake changed course again, and Edrea realized that by
putting Kinik out of accidental cleaver-reach, she’d staked out much
closer bait than the horses.
“Kinik! It’s coming for you, just a little to your right.” As she
shouted, Horgash started to move. “Blade up, butt down, you might
be able to—”
The fog drake burst out of the water, wings flat against its side. It
was easily three times the size of Horgash’s bison, thirty feet long, and
all thirty of those feet were airborne.
Horgash was already running toward Kinik, shouting. It was
a horrific sound, like he was screaming through a slit throat, the
Molgur-Trul words from his tongue distorted.
The drake turned its head to Horgash and twisted in the air,
presenting its throat and flank to Kinik, who took a half step back
and planted the butt of her war cleaver in the mud.
The blade, however, pointed at empty air. Even at this range, Kinik couldn’t
see what was coming. She probably couldn’t see the end of her weapon.
60
Ogrun, fog drake, and trollkin all collided in the same screeching,
screaming instant.
“Fish anatomy, not lizard!” shouted Lynus, starting forward with
his sword in front of him. “No jugular in front!”
“Take my left, lad!” Pendrake shouted and charged toward the
din.
Lynus ran behind and to the left of Pendrake, both hands gripping
the haft of his sword over his head, the trailing blade readied for a
wicked chop.
“Biggest vessels run along the spine! Hard to get to!” Lynus yelled.
Kinik was pinned in the mud beneath one of the drake’s three-
clawed feet, the center claw resting in a dent in her breastplate. She
had one hand just above the butt of her polearm, but even with one
hand and no leverage she was able to swing the massive blade around
and swat the drake’s hind flank in a failed attempt to get it to lift its
foreleg.
Edrea looked for a good target, and found none.
Horgash struck thrice at the drake’s head, leaving only shallow
wounds against the heavy scales. The creature snapped at him, clearly
hoping to brush him off so it could focus on turning Kinik into a
proper meal.
Pendrake ran to Horgash’s right and lunged at the snapping drake.
It saw him coming before he had a target and drew its head back.
Pendrake’s sword flashed through empty air.
Horgash lunged as the creature began another strike, his counter
perfectly timed and aimed straight for sensitive sinus cavities until
Lynus’ blade arrived. His overhead swing came down hard on
Horgash’s sword, deflecting it, and both blades went point-first into
the mud. The drake’s enormous head slammed into Horgash and
Lynus simultaneously, knocking them apart and five paces back.
61
Edrea had a clear shot.

She squeezed the trigger, her rifle thundered, and the drake’s left
eye exploded. The monster bellowed in rage and swung its head,
fixing its remaining eye on Edrea.
Then it charged.
Fog drakes, Edrea recalled, were swift aquatic predators but
seemed lazy on land. The advantage their fog glands provided them
meant they could usually waddle up to their next meal while it grazed
stupidly on swamp heather.
But this charge was no waddle. The fog drake was wounded and
angry.
No time to reload, no time to draw her sword. There were spells,
but . . . Edrea reversed her grip on the stock and swung the rifle like
a club.
The drake was leading with an open maw, a behavior ingrained,
perhaps, by eating prey that couldn’t see. Edrea’s swing connected
with a tooth and broke it.
She used the momentum of her swing to throw herself out of the
way. The drake barreled past her, a clawed foot just missing as it ran.
It redoubled its howling. It was certainly disoriented, running away
from the safety of the lake.
Terrified whinnying pierced the air, closely followed by a horrific
crunch.
Not running away. Running toward the easiest meal.
Edrea rolled to look. The drake had taken Codex to the ground
and was now curled atop and around him, tearing off chunks as the
poor animal shuddered. The horse’s amber outline vanished, like an
extinguished candle.
Aeshnyrr and Oathammer had broken their leads and were
galloping pell-mell up the rise and out of the hollow. Greta was
snorting and stamping, as if preparing to charge.
63
“The horses!” shouted Pendrake.

“Over here!” Edrea called back. She pulled a round from her belt
and chambered it. She snapped the breach closed and aimed again
at the fog drake, stepping to where she could see its remaining eye.
Of course, she thought, a half-second too late, that also means its
remaining eye can see me.
The drake lashed out with its tail, slamming hard into Edrea and
sending her sprawling. She lost hold of her rifle but retained the
spinning band of runes about her wrist, her arcane vision still sharp.
The rifle did not, she noted with relief, land muzzle-first in the mud.
It would be a shame to survive this only to get dressed down like
Lynus had.
“To me!” Pendrake shouted. Kinik, Horgash, and Lynus were up
and running after him.
But Pendrake was charging Greta, whose snorting was louder
than the drake’s.
“Bear left!” Edrea yelled. “And watch out for that tail!”
Pendrake stopped to reorient himself. Kinik and Horgash were
now closer to the drake than he was, with Kinik in the lead. The
ogrun seemed perfectly on target this time. Edrea guessed that the
mist thinned farther from the lake.
Kinik delivered a powerful, crouching sweep with her cleaver and
took the fog drake’s right hind leg out from under it. The blade stuck
deep in the shank.
Horgash ran straight up the drake’s back, reversed both sword-
grips as he ran, and plunged them down toward its spine.
Both swords hit scale and bone, skipping out to the sides.
The drake twisted and bucked, turning to face the others, and
Horgash flew off its neck into the mud. Kinik wrenched her blade
free but dropped to one knee with the effort.
Pendrake ran up behind Kinik as she crouched. “Kinik! Brace!”
64
She froze, then grunted in surprise as the professor planted a running

step squarely in the center of her back and leaped onto the drake’s
neck.
He too reversed his grip, one hand on the hilt of his ancient,
unnatural sword and one hand on the pommel. He thrust the blade
deep into the base of the fog drake’s long neck, piercing scale like it
was paper. The drake screamed in agony, arching its back. Pendrake
clung tightly to the sword, twisting viciously. The drake continued
to thrash.
Kinik stood and swept again with her polearm, roaring with
exertion. Her bellow almost drowned out the meaty crunch her war
cleaver made when she buried it in the bone of the drake’s left foreleg.
The drake toppled, and Pendrake rode it over, continuing to
savage the beast with the embedded blade.
Horgash came stumbling out of the mud, swords at the ready, but
by the time he reached the drake’s head the beast was still, its amber
outline gone from Edrea’s sight.
“Is everybody okay?” Lynus called into the mist.
“I feel ten years younger,” Horgash said with a broad smile.
“I feel two feet shorter,” said Kinik with a grin.
“I feel like a moment of silence,” Pendrake said, staring down at
the remains of Codex. He shook his head sadly. “Morrow, but he was
a fine animal.” He pointed up the rise. “But unless we all feel like
walking, we ought to give quick chase.”
Aeshnyrr and Oathammer hadn’t run far—just up and out of

the fog—and Horgash’s bison, Greta, hadn’t gone anywhere. Their
bolting had resulted in a few scrapes, but nothing serious.
Unfortunately, the trail Edrea had been following was
destroyed. As the mist began to fade—much of it had been the
65
fog drake’s work—no further tracks were visible.

“The Tharn have gotten away from us,” Edrea announced,
examining yet another horse-trampled bramble. “That clear, clumsy
trail is gone now.”
“No,” said Horgash. “It ended here.”
Pendrake nodded. “He’s right.”
“I’d have been right if I said something. As soon as we crossed
that ridge into the mist, I thought to myself, ‘This would be a great
spot for an ambush,’ but somebody,” he pounded his fist against his
breastplate for emphasis, “somebody has spent too many years trading
instead of leading the marching warriors.”
“I knew it!” said Lynus. He waved a tiny book up at Horgash.
“You weren’t just a warrior. You led them! And not just as a warband
leader or kithkar. You’ve got Bragg’s blood in you.”
Edrea chided herself for not figuring it out sooner. Horgash was
a fell caller, one of the warrior singers of the trollkin whose ballads
could turn the tides of battle, and whose shouts could rend flesh.
At least, he used to be, until something ruined his voice.
Horgash scowled at Lynus with a furrowed brow. Edrea thought
for just a moment he might strike the young man. Then the trollkin’s
expression softened.
“What gave me away?” he asked.
“When you jumped at that fog drake,” Lynus said, “you shouted
something, and I thought it sounded like poetry. I’ve never met
anybody who yelled poems at the enemy.”
“Lots of soldiers are poets,” Pendrake said.
Horgash rolled his eyes and turned back to Lynus. “Go on. How’d
you figure it out?”
“Well, one of the books I packed was Cole’s Guide to the Verse of
Immoren’s Trollkin. The very first section is devoted to the famous
battle calls of Bragg, and speculation regarding their impact.”
66
“No impact anymore. Not unless you count ragged breathing and
a sore throat.”
“Well, the bit you shouted was iron sinew, proven blade from
‘Ballad of the Hero.’” Lynus held the book open and pointed at the
page for emphasis. “Commonly shouted as battle is joined, Cole
says.” He closed the book and looked up at Horgash with something
approaching awe. “The way you tore into that drake, I thought
maybe you were using trollkin magic.”
“No magic, boy. Years of practice, and ten seconds of desperation.
I’ve got Bragg’s blood, yes, but his gift is gone.” Horgash lowered
his head and shook it. “I haven’t been able to call for years, but
sometimes, in the heat of a fight I still try.”
Trollkin could regenerate lost limbs, provided they survived the
initial wound. What injury could have stripped a fell caller of his
song?
Edrea had to know. “What happened to your voice, Horgash?”
The creases in the great blue brow deepened, and Horgash’s eyes
narrowed. He was looking not at Edrea, but at Pendrake.
The professor nodded. “It’s part of their legacy, too, old friend.”
“Very well then.” Horgash cleared his throat. “Fourteen years ago,
late in the winter of 592, I played cards with Saxon Orrik, and I
won.”
“Oh dear, that Saxon Orrik?” Edrea turned to Pendrake. “The one
you got court-martialed?”
“The same,” said Pendrake. “This happened after Vinter IV
pardoned him and put him to work for the Inquisition.”
“What happened to him after the coup?” Lynus asked.
“I was telling a story,” Horgash said, rasping the best roar he
could. Then, more softly, “Interruptions like this never happened
when I could call.”
Edrea sat silently and looked at the others.
67
Horgash gave a shrug. “I might have been humming a bit during

the game, just to put the others on edge. Bragg’s gift was good for a
lot of things. Still, the cards Orrik drew were his own.
“The big loser of the night was Orrik himself. He was noble
enough about it, I thought, when he bought a pitcher and poured
us drinks, but he slipped some Wurm-wrought poison or another
into mine. I don’t know what he used.” Horgash’s features darkened
to a blue-black as he scowled. “He toasted me, my victory, and my
winnings right to my face. I threw back the glass, and that bastard
said, ‘And to your last song.’”
Horgash ran his hand over his throat. “The drink burned, and
kept burning. I spat, and choked, and it burned. I drank water,
poured ale down my throat by the gallon, and it still burned. Orrik
stood there watching the whole time. Until I tried to speak, and
couldn’t. My voice was gone. Then he turned and left.”
“It shamed me when I heard of it,” Pendrake said. “I learned
much of my woodcraft under Orrik. But of kindness and decency?
There’s not a thing that cruel, infernal shade of a man could teach.”
“Don’t flog yourself on his behalf. You’re not the one who
pardoned him and turned him loose on the world again.” Horgash
gestured at Lynus. “You just make sure the rising generation turns
out more like you, and less like him.”
Lynus blanched. Edrea put her hand on his shoulder. Certainly
he knew that accidentally knocking a comrade’s sword down was
not the same as poisoning someone over cards. Even the accidental
shooting paled against that treachery.
Pendrake broke the silence. “Now that everyone knows the evils
of gambling and drink, we have work to do.” He pointed at Lynus.
“Senior assistant, I think you should demonstrate for the others
the procedure for retrieving smoke glands from a fog drake. I shall
contemplate our further course, given that we’ve lost the trail.”
68
Edrea watched with a smile as Lynus worked. He was wrist-deep

in the neck of the fog drake, lecturing like he would for a lab full
of Pendrake’s students, more confident than Edrea had seen him in
days.
“Here, then, just behind this tab of cartilage, is a tube about as big
around as my thumb. I’m following it deeper,” and he was now in to
his elbow, “until I find a sac. It’s a little bigger than a sheep’s stomach,
and right now it is . . .” he closed his eyes in concentration, “empty.”
Lynus waved at the mist, which was much thinner than when
they’d entered this vale. “An empty fog sac means all this was
generated by the drake.”
Kinik grimaced. “We have been breathing it!”
“Indeed,” said Lynus. “I never really thought of it that way.”
“Why did Dhunia not give it poison gas?” Kinik asked. “Easier
hunting, more killing.”
“Dhunia must like us better,” said Lynus. “Otherwise we’d have
all been eaten by fog drakes long ago.”
“Or maybe,” Edrea said, “some fog drakes did make poison gas,
but it was poisonous to them, too, and they all died.”
“Most poisonous creatures are immune to their own . . .” Lynus
began, sounding fully professorial. Then, more meekly, “Oh, you
were joking.”
Edrea smiled. “Sorry to usurp your moment, Lynus.”
“That wasn’t my moment,” he said, smiling back. “This is.” He
drew a scalpel from the kit at his hip and with three long, deep
strokes and a pull, laid the lower jaw and the top of the drake’s throat
wide open. Two more strokes cleared a mass of muscle, gill tissue,
and tubing.
Kinik’s eyes went wide.
69
“Sharp, isn’t it?” Lynus said, waving his scalpel. “Now, it’s a good
idea to reach in and check the sac first, because if it’s full, and you cut
it, there’s fog everywhere. I’m not quite sure how the juice works, but
it’s a mess you don’t make twice.”
“Friend Lynus,” said Kinik, pointing at the gaping wound. “If you
can cut such a hole with that tiny knife, why do you carry a too-big
sword?”
The ogrun made a good point. Edrea looked at Lynus, curious
how he’d respond.
“The little knife is for samples that aren’t trying to eat me. Living,
angry, samples? I prefer to kill them from as far off as possible. If the
rifle doesn’t do the job, the great sword gives me the next longest
reach.”
Kinik nodded.
Lynus reached into the hole his incisions had made. “Also, the
sword is intimidating. Lots of things look at that blade and decide to
find an easier meal elsewhere.”
Horgash grunted. “If you want to intimidate things with that
blade, you need to learn how to use it. The way your point bobbles,
anything brighter than a cow is going to smack the blade aside on its
way to ripping your throat out.”
Lynus withdrew the fog glands from the fog drake—each about
the size of an apple. “You’re talking about using my sword on people,”
he said. “We’re scholars of extraordinary zoology. People aren’t really
what we hunt.”
“Lynus, he has a point,” Pendrake said, patting the scabbard
where his Orgoth blade now rested. “You must be proficient with
any weapon you wield. These Tharn are dangerous, and quite a bit
brighter than cows, as evidenced by the trap they so skillfully laid for
us.”
“But are we still hunting them?” asked Lynus. “Edrea lost the trail.”
70
Edrea winced at that. She hadn’t lost the trail because of the
horses. She’d lost the trail because their quarry wanted her to lose the
trail. They’d foreseen pursuit taking a shortcut and planted obvious
prints to lead trackers of lesser woodcraft astray. Trackers like her.
“Indeed,” Pendrake said, “but there are many ways to find things
in these woods. I believe it’s time to go speak to my friend Groth.”
They moved single file through the woods. Edrea rode Aeshnyrr,
quietly thankful to be on horseback rather than straining at signs in
the brush. She worried for Pendrake, who was now afoot in front,
but the professor had insisted, and was setting a good pace. His share
of the supplies rode with Edrea, since she was the lightest among
them, and Aeshnyrr was strong.
Horgash rode Greta just behind Pendrake, the contrast in their
sizes dramatic. Kinik took up the rear, having apparently decided
that this was the position in line where all the students belonged.
And frankly, after seeing her pound the dent from her breastplate
with a single stroke from the butt of the war cleaver, Edrea was more
than happy to have the young ogrun at her back.
“Groth is a name I have heard, I think?” asked Kinik.
“He’s a friend of Pendrake’s,” Edrea said. “He recounted their
meeting in the Monsternomicon, which is likely where you heard the
name.” Kinik carried a copy of that book everywhere, a practice that
Edrea found admirable, and just a little adorable.
“Page sixty-eight,” Lynus said. “Groth is a farrow shaman.
Pendrake saved him from a dracodile, made a friend, and got that
very suit of draco-hide armor in the bargain.”
“And that,” said Edrea, “is why Lynus doesn’t carry a copy of the
Monsternomicon with him. He’s memorized it.”
“I can’t un-memorize it. Not after those months of deciphering
71
Pendrake’s handwriting. And I notice you don’t have a copy either.”

“When you’re along, I don’t need one,” Edrea said with a
completely straight face, deadpanning like few humans could.
Kinik laughed, a joyous sound punctuated with resonant snorts.
Lynus shook his head with a scowl, but the ogrun’s mirth overcame
him, and he smiled.
“Lynus?” Edrea asked, “why did you pack a book of trollkin verse
into the field?”
“It barely takes up any space,” he said.
“It takes up more space than an extra dozen scalpels at your belt,
or a specimen jar.”
“I guess it does,” he said after a moment.
“So why bring it along?”
“When I pack, I always select three books that I’m sure I won’t
need. On a long trip, I usually end up needing at least one of them.”
“That’s . . . odd.” Edrea was going to say absurd, but thought
better of it.
“I guess so. I learned it from the professor.”
“I’ve never seen him carrying extra reading material.”
“But have you watched him as he packs? He grabs his bedroll with
changes of clothing, his bow, and that old sword. Then there’s his
field kit, the specimen kit, and a fresh notebook. All that’s the same,
totally predictable if you know what kind of weather he’s expecting.
“But then there’s his satchel. I never know what he’s going to put
in it. I think he just scrapes his desk into it on his way out the door.”
“Sometimes he needs those things, Lynus.”
“Exactly! But when we’re packing, he never gives any indication as
to why he might need them.”
“Intuition?”
“I have no idea. I tried that trick a couple of times, shoving the
contents of my study desk into a sack before we set out. I never
72
needed any of it and usually lost most of it.” Lynus reached into
the satchel at his side. “But every time we went out, I found myself
wishing for some book or another that I didn’t have along with me,
and it was always something I never suspected I’d need. So I started
packing more and more books, until the professor joked about
pillaging and told me I was carrying too much.”
“I believe you still carry too much, but go on.”
“Well, I pared back to the essential references, and then, on a
whim, I decided that essentials-plus-three was a good compromise.”
He held up the book of trollkin verse. “So these days I grab three
books I haven’t read. If there’s time, I make a point of reading them
so I don’t have to bring them along next time.”
“Two more trips out and you won’t need to bring any books at
all,” Edrea said.
“Then I will take over the carrying of books,” said Kinik. “I love
to carry books.” She held up her beaten, dog-eared copy of Viktor
Pendrake’s Monsternomicon, open to the farrow entry. “I can carry
more than you, friend Lynus. I can carry all of the books.”
“That,” said Lynus wistfully, “would be traveling in style.”
Edrea liked Horgash’s choice of a campsite. They were perched on

a bluff with one sheer fifteen-foot face looking west over a creek. The
trees here were farther apart, but they were among the biggest she’d
seen yet, giants whose canopy arched densely overhead, starving the
forest floor for light.
Horgash and Pendrake walked the perimeter, gathering additional
deadfall for a fire, earnestly discussing approaches and retreats in the
event of trouble. Pendrake speared a sturdy stick into the sandy face
of the bluff and hung a lantern there, ensuring they’d be able to see
the mounts come nightfall.
73
While Lynus and Kinik made camp and laid out dinner, Edrea
walked Greta, Oathammer, and Aeshnyrr down to the creek where
they could drink and munch on the lush growth. Aeshnyrr had
picked up a deep scratch in her run through the underbrush, which
Edrea treated and wrapped.
Poor Codex, she thought. Such a noble creature. And such an
ignoble end.
Edrea gave Aeshnyrr a loving pat and climbed back up onto the
bluff.
“Again, it is dinner. And again, I do not smell bacon,” said Horgash,
eyeing the spread of canned beans, corned beef, and hardtack.
“You’d eat bacon at every meal, and then we’d have none to coax
us out of bed come breakfast,” Lynus said.
“Someone should have thought of that when provisioning this
trip,” Horgash said. “A square five meals of bacon would, I am quite
certain, help the healing along.” He made a show of rubbing the leg
where he’d been wounded by Lynus’ misfire.
“Is that still hurting?” Edrea asked. She treated Lynus to a
conspiratorial wink. “I just treated Aeshnyrr with some ointment
from the stables. It smells lovely.”
Lynus grinned at Edrea and blushed. She liked his smile when he
blushed.
Horgash laughed. “No ointment! I already smell enough like a
horse, and I’m not even riding one! I certainly don’t need to wear
their perfume.” Everyone laughed at that. Horgash’s voice might be
ruined, but he still had the skills of an entertainer.
Lynus passed tins around and the conversation stopped as mouths filled
with food. Horgash aptly demonstrated the legendary trollkin appetite,
eating more than five times as much as Edrea, and then casting about in
search of something else to consume. Even Kinik, a head taller and at least
eighty pounds heavier, looked impressed. Or perhaps distressed.
74
“I’m happy to take the third watch,” Pendrake offered. “I rise well
enough in the morning, but at my age an interrupted night’s sleep
just won’t do.”
“This bullet hole,” said Horgash, rubbing the mended spot on
his leggings, “should be all healed up tomorrow, assuming I get a
full night’s sleep on this belly full of it-still-isn’t-bacon.” He cocked
his heavy brow and looked across the waning firelight at Lynus. “I
volunteer Lynus for the second watch.”
Lynus sighed and shrugged. “Sure.” This would be his third night
in a row on second watch.
“I can watch first?” asked Kinik.
Pendrake scratched his chin, appearing to consider her offer. Edrea
knew him well enough to guess at his unspoken line of thought. Kinik
was new, but she had proven herself well during the last three days.
“The first watch is yours, Pupil Helegroth.” Pendrake continued
formally, in Molgur-Og. “I entrust my life and the lives of my friends
to you and to the long arm of your blade this night.”
Kinik beamed, and Edrea took pleasure at having guessed the
outcome, even if she hadn’t expected Pendrake to apply his knowledge
of ogrun culture so effectively.
Edrea stirred the coals and laid additional fuel near the fire for the
night’s watches as Pendrake, Horgash, and Lynus settled themselves
into their bedrolls. Then she stepped quietly over to Kinik, who was
already facing away from the campsite, adjusting her eyes.
“Kinik, may I beg a favor?”
Kinik bowed. “It honors me.”
“Wake me for the second watch. Lynus needs the sleep.”
“I will.”
“Thank you.” Edrea slipped back to the rest of the group and
into her bedroll.
75
The night had a damp chill to it, but there was no wind. Kinik
had gone back to bed several minutes ago, and her breathing had
now settled into that deep almost-snore common to ogrun.
Edrea squatted at the edge of the bluff, feet flat, knees wide—a
pose she could hold for hours. She scanned the ring of dark shadow
surrounding this clearing. The fire was quite low, embers only, and
no starlight could hope to pierce the blackness of these woods. The
mists below the bluff had thickened during the night, and even with
the glow of the lantern the creek was lost under a river of fog.
She breathed deeply and slowly, and felt for the weave of energy
above, below, behind. She closed her eyes to clear her mind of the
illusion that her eyes were of any real use in this darkness.
She opened her eyes to the weave and inhaled breath and power.
She traced vossyl. The sigil glowed brightly but gave no useful light.
She exhaled, and the runes scattered into bits of glowing script,
which Edrea twisted about her wrist with a tracing of liumyn.
The deep blackness that had been all her natural sight could discern
of the Widower’s Wood resolved into trees, clearly outlined in shades
of grey. The creek was visible too, the obscuring mists transparent.
Countless small, glowing forms appeared amid the undergrowth,
in the trees, and high above in the canopy, their silhouettes easily
identified. Hawk. Vole. Snake. Owl. She turned slowly, scanning the
bluff they were camped on, the creek bed below, and the trees on the
other side. The three mounts stood asleep. Her companions were safe
in their bedrolls, each outlined in a steady amber glow. Lynus was
not a short man, but he was slender, and compared to the others he
looked almost like a child as he slept curled in his bag.
Edrea relaxed into the spell. After a few minutes the sensation was
similar to that of her eyes having adjusted to a change in the light,
76
and she was able to maintain it with no more effort than continued
breathing, with no repeat of the headaches from this morning. It
helped that she was sitting on her heels, not running or swinging
a rifle like a club. Or trying to do both at the same time. That had
been harrowing.
The movements in the forest fascinated her. Some creatures foraged
or scavenged amid the duff and scrub, stealthily scurrying or sliding
from cover to cover. Others hunted, typically perched in branches
just below the thick braid of the canopy proper. Occasionally, there
was a flurry of movement, a collision of the glowing forms, usually
followed by the extinguishing of one of the amber silhouettes.
These patterns were comforting. If something large and dangerous
should approach from beyond the range of this sight, these smaller
creatures would scatter or freeze. Their dance of predation was a sure
sign that, for now at least, all was well.
At long last, Edrea heard Professor Pendrake stirring. She was
seeing the woods in a way he never could. She consulted her pocket
watch, an elegant yet durable Ordic piece. Two hours until dawn.
She had maintained this sight for nearly 140 minutes.
She looked over to Pendrake and watched him wake himself. His
army service, decades past, had provided him with some internal
bugler to sound the changing of the night watch, rousing him in
time for his shift.
Pendrake sat up and looked to the bedroll where Lynus soundlessly
slept. He then scanned the camp, and, squinting, looked over to
where Edrea still squatted, flat on her feet.
“I asked Kinik to wake me instead of Lynus,” she said softly,
anticipating his question.
“Ah.” Pendrake rubbed his eyes, and then with the precision
of a long-practiced ritual, removed his glasses from their case on
his knapsack and perched them on his nose. “A kindness the lad
77
merits, and which speaks well of you.”

“The forest is calm, if not exactly peaceful,” she said with a wave
of her arm that Pendrake probably could not see. “Small creatures
hiding, hunting, eating, or being eaten. To my sight, nothing stalks
us.”
“Acting on my counsel to practice that spell, then?” The professor
smiled.
Pendrake’s tone frustrated her. Especially since he was right.
“I have maintained it for the duration of my watch, Professor.
And yes, after our midday misadventures it seemed prudent to build
a bit more endurance.”
“A capital accomplishment. I’ve fought alongside arcanists before
and found their help invaluable. Indispensable, in point of fact.” He
stood and stretched. “But only the most practiced among them were
as dependable as, say, a properly maintained firearm. So keep up that
practice.”
Edrea bit her tongue. Properly maintained firearm, indeed. A bit
of mud in the wrong place and Lynus’ rifle had exploded. She had
maintained vossyl liumyn for two and a half hours now, and was quite
tired, but there was no risk whatsoever of her eyes exploding and
wounding someone.
She pushed her hair behind her ear, took a deep breath, and
brushed her anger aside. It helped nothing, and couldn’t be helped.
Besides, moments like this, where ignorance manifested, were part
of her private studies, a secret she kept all to herself. Humans did
not lead particularly long lives but had nevertheless forged vibrant
civilizations and acquired huge bodies of knowledge. Professor
Viktor Pendrake was one of the most accomplished learners and
teachers among living humans, yet he was almost a century younger
than those of comparable merit among the great Iosan houses.
How did he do it with so little time in which to work?
78
Maintaining the sight, she stood and walked a bit to the east, her
legs only now complaining about two hours of squatting. She was
suddenly quite tired, and the ache was distracting. She rubbed her
temple as the beginnings of a new headache formed. She regretted
thinking about how absurd it would be for her eyes to explode.
And then the patterns in the forest shifted. Creatures ducked into
burrows. Birds took wing. Something big was coming this way.
“Professor?” she said. “Throw something on the fire and wake the
others.”
“What do you see?” asked Pendrake. Edrea could feel a flash of
heat as he kindled the flames high for light.
“Nothing yet, but the little things are making way for something
lar . . . oh my.”
The outline was, to Edrea’s sight, similar in size to a dire troll, but
this shape was different, like a giant bipedal boar, with hooves on its
hind legs and fingered hands on its forelegs. It wore armor, too—
spiked bracers and pauldrons, and a half helmet. Like a big farrow.
A dire farrow?
After a moment, another figure came into view, a hundred paces
or so behind the first. This was a farrow of the usual scale, clearly
following the first. The big one rooted hungrily every so often.
Hunting.
“I’m up,” Lynus said. “What is it?”
“Shhh,” said Pendrake. “Edrea’s still trying to make that out for
us.”
“Two farrow, Professor.”
“We’re getting close to Groth’s home, and the village he serves.”
“Mmm-hmmm,” Edrea said. “One of these is really big. I’ve never
seen a farrow this big. Are there dire farrow?”
“Morrow, I hope not,” said Lynus.
“There will need to be another book,” said Kinik.
79
“They’re following the creek. They can’t miss us, and the big one
is hungry.”
“I’ll teach it a thing or two about hungry,” Horgash rasped wearily.
“I was dreaming of bacon.”
The big farrow paused and snorted heavily. It turned from the
creek and looked directly up at Edrea and the others. Their scent or
their firelight had finally penetrated the mist. The beast chuffed and
stamped, as if preparing to charge. Then it whimpered and looked
back over its shoulder at the smaller farrow.
“I think the little farrow is controlling the big one,” she said.
“Similar, perhaps, to the bonds among trollkin and the full trolls?”
said Pendrake.
“Hrrmph,” Horgash grunted.
“We should make ourselves look bigger?” Kinik said. “Open
coats, arms wide, stand tall?”
“Bigger might not help,” Edrea said. “The big one is half again the
size of Greta.”
“We’re not bigger, but we do have numbers,” said Pendrake. She
heard the creak as he strung his bow, followed closely by the snap-
clank of Horgash’s Vislovski, readied for firing. She thought to reach
for her own rifle and felt foolish when she remembered it was leaning
against a tree, far out of reach.
“Here you go,” Lynus said, tapping her on the shoulder. He was
holding her rifle, offering it to her.
She flashed him a smile. “Thank you.”
The big farrow stopped next to the creek. The smaller one walked
past it toward the bluff.
“Make that twice the size of Horgash’s bison,” she said. “It’s
standing down there in the mist. The little one is coming to us.
Hands are empty, raised a little bit.”
“Weapons ready, but low,” said Pendrake.
80
The farrow who stepped into the firelight was about as tall as
Professor Pendrake, but easily as broad as Horgash. Not exactly
“little” after all. Edrea revised her estimate of the bigger farrow’s size
yet again.
This one wore a heavy coat and had several bandoliers of
ammunition draped across its chest—no, ammunition and cigars. A
large-bored lever-action carbine hung at its side, the barrel cut short.
A crime, really. The action and barrel appeared Llaelese, perhaps
from a Dunmont, but was now cut down and restocked to look like
a common pig iron.
Edrea decided not to say that aloud.
“I’m Rorsh,” he said with a grunt. He thumbed back over his
shoulder. “That’s Brine.”
“Victor Pendrake.” The professor nodded, un-nocking the arrow
he had ready.
Rorsh grunted again and scratched his jowl. “Pendrake? Really?”
“You’ve heard of me?”
“Hearing Groth tell it, I thought you’d be bigger. But you do have
the coat.”
Pendrake laughed. “I do indeed. We’re on our way to see him.
How is my old friend doing?”
“Well enough. Just saw him this morning. Got breakfast.”
Rorsh looked around at the others, and Edrea wondered why his
gaze lingered on her. Oh . . . she still had a bracelet of runes spinning
around her wrist. Rorsh would have no way of knowing whether
she was readying a blast of arcane fire or just warming a bedroll. She
released the spell. Rorsh gave her a very subtle nod and then turned
back to Pendrake.
“Speaking of which, it’s almost breakfast time again.”
“We’d be happy to offer you a meal,” said Pendrake, “but I’m
afraid we didn’t bring provisions enough for your friend Brine.”
81
“Oh,” he grunted. “Well, then. How much for a horse?”

Edrea blanched.
“They’re not for sale,” Pendrake said.
“Neither is the bison,” said Horgash.
Rorsh grunted wordlessly, sounding almost exactly like a large
pig. He withdrew a cigar from his bandolier and lit it with a match
struck across his chin.
“Brine’ll just have to keep truffling. Me, I smell bacon.”
The farrow’s sense of smell must be acute, since they hadn’t had
bacon since yesterday. Then it occurred to Edrea that bacon might be
terribly offensive to farrow.
Lynus apparently had that same thought.
“Oh, Morrow take me,” he said. “I’m so sorry. It’s . . . it’s just a
thing we eat.”
Rorsh laughed. “A very tasty thing,” he said, running his tongue
along his upper teeth and across his snout for emphasis.
Pendrake and Horgash laughed along with him, then. Edrea
relaxed, and Lynus sat heavily on a camp stool.
“Breakfast is usually at dawn,” Pendrake said, “but since we’re all
awake and the fire is hot again, I suppose we can have an early start
on the very tasty bacon.”
Horgash and Lynus both groaned, simultaneously, and then looked
at each other. Edrea stifled a laugh. She then remembered exactly how
tired she was. Two hours of sleep was not going to be enough.
“Professor,” she said, “if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll take a
nap while you breakfast.” She turned to Rorsh. “Well met, Rorsh.”
Pendrake began talking, his voice a comforting sound that
Edrea had dozed off to numerous times during the winter of 602,
when she’d attempted to audit eleven classes. But she would never
tell Pendrake that. She fell asleep pondering the provisioning
necessary for giant farrow.
82
Edrea snapped awake. The sky was still dark. The fire had died
down a bit but still crackled. Everything else was silent. Nobody was
talking.
She sat up. Everyone was looking to the east. The grizzled farrow’s
ears twitched, and Edrea heard footfalls. Running hard, and coming
fast. Pendrake drew his sword, and Horgash had both of his blades
out and ready. Taking a cue from them, Edrea slipped out of her
bedroll and grabbed her rifle.
“Rorsh, are you expecting someone? Because we are not,” Pendrake
said.
“No.” The farrow gestured in the direction of the footfalls with his
pistol. “But those are farrow feet.”
The footfalls grew heavier and closer, and Edrea heard hard
breathing along with them. A young farrow burst into the firelight,
chest heaving and tongue lolling, his shirtless, furry flanks glistening
with sweat. He stopped just two steps into the camp and doubled
over, struggling for breath. A spear and two arrows protruded from
the thick, hairy ridge of his back.
“He’s injured!” Edrea said.
“Those are Tharn arrows,” said Lynus.
“Shhh,” said Pendrake.
Rorsh grunted at the newcomer in the farrow tongue.
The young farrow responded in squeals and grunts, punctuated
with pained gasps.
Rorsh shook his head and grunted again, holding out a hand as
if for coin.
The young farrow squealed weakly, tears in its eyes.
“Shhhh,” Pendrake said again, finger to his lips. “Something
followed him.”
83
Edrea drew in a deep breath and wove for sight. She was still
exhausted, but the runes spun to life about her wrist easily. The forest
resolved into sharp, tin-grey detail. Amber silhouettes again outlined
each of her companions, their mounts, the two farrow, and the huge
farrow beast, Brine.
Five more silhouettes glowed deep in the woods, each the size of
a bear, yet spiked like thistle blossoms. They moved as a group, like
wolves, only far larger. The pack fanned out, flanking the camp.
“Spine rippers,” Edrea announced. “Five of them. They’ve got the
bluff circled on three sides.”
“Morrow preserve us,” said Lynus, drawing his sword. Kinik
picked up her polearm from where it leaned against a tree.
“Gonna lose a couple of horses,” said Rorsh. He drew deeply on
his cigar and blew out a thick cloud of smoke. “Or Brine can guard
’em, and you only lose one.” Edrea heard the giant farrow stamp
and snort down by the creek, near the mounts. Oh, Aeshnyrr, that
monster sounded hungry. Edrea opened her mouth to speak.
“We need them both,” said Pendrake. “I’ll pay eighty crowns.”
“Crowns don’t feed Brine. Four hundred.”
“Five times my offer? Please. One sixty.”
“A horse is worth at least that in these woods,” Rorsh said. He
drew on his cigar. “Two fifty.”
“Two twenty cleans me out.”
“Two twenty and a pound of that bacon.”
Pendrake tossed a bag of coins at Rorsh. “Money down. Bacon
on delivery.”
“Done,” Rorsh said, catching the bag and dropping it into a coat
pocket already bulging with other things. Cylindrical things. Edrea
thought she saw fuses.
“Lynus,” Pendrake said, “what can you tell us about spine rippers?”
“Spines everywhere, thumb claw is poisonous, belly is like a long,
84
shallow mouth edged with spines. Food works its way up that track
to the true mouth. If they pounce on you, you’re food.”
“Arterial placement? With these odds we need quick kills.”
“On it.” Lynus speared his sword into the ground, grabbed his
satchel, and began digging through it.
“I bet it’s not in your trollkin songbook.”
“Stow that, Horgash,” Pendrake snapped. “Circle up while Lynus
finds us the best place to cut. You take the south side, Kinik on the
north, I’ll take the east, Edrea and Lynus in the middle. Rorsh, you
take the west, where you can see Brine and the horses.”
“Don’t need to see ’em,” Rorsh said, tapping his head and waggling
his heavy brows. “Magic.”
Edrea wondered at this. Vossyl liumyn let her see things clearly
through brush or fog, but she couldn’t actually see through the bluff.
The young farrow wheezed and collapsed. Its amber outline
flickered once, then vanished.
“Ran his dumb self to death,” muttered Rorsh.
“Those are big and very ugly,” Kinik said.
Lynus looked up and his eyes went wide. Edrea realized the spine
rippers were now close enough to the fire’s light that everyone else
could see them too. She blew out a breath and released the spell,
conserving strength for the fight to come.
“Quickly please, Lynus,” said Pendrake. “I remember that false
maw being tender, but that’s the extent of it.”
Lynus flipped furiously through a stack of papers loosely held
inside a makeshift cover of worked leather. “I’ve got dissection notes
in here somewhere.”
The spine rippers prowled the edge of the firelight, their eyes
flashing in reflected yellow as they glared at the group. A pack of
wolves would have been intimidated by six bipeds with weapons
drawn, but these beasts were too big and too hungry for that. And
85
their prey, the poor farrow who had run himself to death to deliver
a message to Rorsh, lay in plain sight. They grew bolder, moving
farther into the circle of firelight.
Edrea moved closer to Lynus traced fheyissa, the sigils for “fortress,”
in the air. She drew in as much power as she could and clenched
her fist around the symbols. A circle of runes appeared, flat on the
ground with Edrea at their center.
“We’ve only just met,” Rorsh said, “but I accept.”
“Accept what?” asked Pendrake.
“I’m weaving for protection,” Edrea said. “It reaches everybody. I
didn’t know Rorsh had a choice.”
Rorsh snorted. “I brought my own. You’ll see.”
“Found ’em!” Lynus announced. “No big arteries in front. Two
two-chambered hearts, one inside each lung, left and right of a heavy
sternum. Massive artery and vein pair running up the ventral face of
the spinal column. You’d have to break its back to sever that.”
“Or go in deep through the false mouth,” Pendrake said. “I really
had hoped to have forgotten something more convenient.”
“What’s this note here?” Lynus asked, half to himself. “Smudged
it in the lab.”
Edrea thumbed back the hammer on her rifle with a click.
Rorsh snapped a glance at her. “You fire, they pounce,” he grunted,
waving his gun. After his comment about feeding their horses to
Brine, Edrea felt pretty good about dubbing it pig iron.
“Good point,” said Pendrake. “Together, then. On three. One . . .”
A spine ripper bounded into the firelight from the north,
leaping wide of Kinik and charging Rorsh on the east. Rorsh
fired, and the beast flinched, then leaped past him over the edge
of the bluff. Edrea hoped Brine waited ready, but it was abruptly
too loud to listen for that.
86
Two more leaped, snarling, into full view, one at Kinik and one
atop the corpse of the young farrow, which it dragged out of the
firelight.
Kinik, roaring with exertion, swept her polearm toward it. The
creature veered from the blade, shifting its charge just to her right,
toward Pendrake.
For just a moment, Edrea had a clear shot. She fired, sure she hit,
but for all the spine ripper noticed she might as well have thrown
an apple at it. It leaped, pouncing on Pendrake, who ducked under
it, sweeping up with his sword as he did. The spine ripper kept
moving, streaking blood. Pendrake rose, his coat torn, but appearing
otherwise unharmed.
“Save your shots,” he snapped. “Lynus is still reading!”
Edrea broke the breech and pulled a reload from her pocket.
“Oh, I get it,” Horgash said. “We cover the boy while he looks at
pictures. Very tactical!”
Edrea chambered the round and snapped the breech shut.
“Fluid-filled sheath,” Lynus muttered. “Strongly alkaline . . .”
His eyes went wide. “Professor! They’re not immune to their own
poison!”
Four spine rippers leaped into the light at once, again skirting
those facing them in an attempt to blindside other defenders.
Edrea felt a pulse of magic wash over her as a rune-circle in farrow
script burst to life around Rorsh. He did bring his own. Edrea felt
fheyissa drift loose of Rorsh, pushed aside by the new spell.
All four rippers stumbled and slowed, as if mired in mud. “Stab
the forefeet!” Pendrake shouted. “Pierce the glands and we can dose
them with their own poison.”
Horgash parried a blow with his left blade and stabbed at a foreleg
with his right, missing entirely.
“That won’t work!” Lynus yelled. “The gland sheath neutralizes
88
the poison, like emergency antivenin!”

“Also,” Horgash said, parrying another blow and stabbing at the
ripper’s face, “the forefeet are hard to hit.”
Rorsh fired, and one of the rippers roared in pain. He slipped
his pig iron into a holster and drew a heavy, square-bladed cleaver.
Farrow-scrawl symbols spun to life about his weapon hand, and
Rorsh charged the wounded ripper.
Lynus dropped the sheaf of papers and picked up his sword.
“How are we doing?”
Rorsh’s victim shrieked in desperate agony, the noise punctuated
by heavy, wet thunks which called to mind the back of a meat market.
“We might be winning,” Edrea said as a chunk of something
sailed past her, trailing red.
Kinik held a ripper at bay. The beast seemed leery of her blade
and intimidated by her stature, which exceeded its own. Pendrake
squared off with another, lunging with his sword, inflicting small,
deep wounds.
Horgash’s blades dripped with blood. The ripper he faced retreated
from the firelight. “That’s right,” Horgash bellowed hoarsely into the
darkness. “Lick those up, and think long and hard about—oh Wurm
scat!”
A pair of spine rippers charged him, but just before reaching him
they veered right, rushing Rorsh and his butchery.
“Rorsh! Behind you!” Edrea shouted.
Rorsh spun just in time to be tackled and pinned by the first of
the pair. Edrea fired into its flank, then stared in horror as the beast’s
belly spines, the spears rimming that long, false mouth, snapped shut
on Rorsh, tearing into the farrow, puncturing and ripping.
Rorsh pulsed with magic, powerful magic, but there was no telltale
flare of rune light. For just an instant, however, Edrea faintly felt rage,
pain, and furious hatred all bound up together, streaking away.
89
And then Rorsh was free of the ripper’s maw, his wounds were
gone with no trace, and Brine squealed in agony below the bluff.
Rorsh was still pinned, but the belly spines were now folded closed
above him.
The second ripper jumped from the bluff, probably to attack
Brine, and Edrea gaped as Lynus charged the first ripper, the one still
pinning Rorsh.
Rorsh lay flat on his back, both legs and one arm trapped. With
his free hand he pulled a reddish stick from his pocket and touched
it to the cigar that continued to burn, jutting from his mouth.
“Keep the bacon,” he said. Then he reached up and wedged the
stick among the spines on the ripper’s flank.
Edrea recognized the red stick as an explosive a half second before
it went off.
A wall of sound and heat knocked her flat, smashing the breath
out of her. She shut her eyes tight, and her vision blazed with a white-
hot afterimage. Everything was silent—not the peaceful silence of an
evening in the woods of Ios, but the terrifying silence of deafness.
The protection of fheyissa escaped her as she struggled to inhale,
her diaphragm spasming. Eyes shut tight, she reached for both magic
and breath, and found neither.
There was a sound, like a distant rushing of water. It grew louder,
into a roar like a waterfall, a waterfall in a tempest. Her diaphragm
spasmed again, and then air rushed into her lungs.
“ . . . ease! Get up! I hear them coming back!”
Someone was shouting, a plaintive scream that barely reached her
over the din in her ears.
“Edrea, PLEASE!”
She opened her eyes. Spots swam in her vision, and the
waterfall in her head gave way to ringing. Lynus stood above her,
great sword in hand.
90
“You’re alive!” he said. “Professor! She’s okay!”

Edrea stood and steadied herself. “How long was I down?”
“I was counting arms and legs, not time,” Lynus said.
“Seconds, not minutes, my girl,” said Pendrake.
Edrea scanned the campsite. Two spine rippers lay dead where
Rorsh had been—one butchered with a blade, the other blackened
and shattered by the explosion. That left three out there in the dark.
Where was Rorsh? She wove vossyl for sight, and a stabbing pain shot
through her eyes.
“Are you okay?” Lynus reached out to steady her.
“I tried to see in the dark. Can’t.”
“There’s a third one dead down by the creek,” Pendrake said. “It
appears to have been pounded into a bristling pulp.”
“Rorsh and Brine ran that way after the explosion,” Lynus said.
“Edrea, your magic . . . it saved my life. I felt that blast slam hard into
me, but I was made of iron.” He grinned enthusiastically.
Edrea smiled back, but her head was still swimming with pain.
“Five of us, two of them now? Those aren’t bad odds.”
“Three of us,” said Pendrake. He pointed at Horgash and Kinik,
both staggering weakly. “Poisoned. They’ll live, but they’re out for
this fight. Lynus, keep that point up.”
Lynus’ sword point bobbed up, then drooped again. “Professor, in
my dissection notes I detailed the technique for removing spines. The
beasts can flex them, pointing them every which way. The ligaments
are sturdy, but if you twist the spine hard and bend it back, it comes
free.”
“Oh, tha’s useful,” said Horgash, his speech slurred. “Soon as this
wears off, I’ll just pluck ’em to death.”
“Excellent,” said Pendrake, but Edrea wasn’t sure if he was talking
to Horgash or Lynus. Before she could ask, a spine ripper bounded
into the firelight, stared right at Lynus’ sword, and pounced.
91
Scyrah’s rest, Edrea cursed to herself. Lynus’ point was too low, so
it came for him.
Lynus took a step backward, bumping into Edrea. She stumbled
and fell, while Lynus crouched in a sloppy approximation of a cat
stance and raised his blade. The leaping spine ripper impaled itself,
but the blade stopped just inches in, shoving Lynus backward and
down onto Edrea. He rolled as he fell, and planted the hilt of his
great sword in the ground.
The blade penetrated with a splintering crunch, parting ribs and
tearing flesh. The spine ripper screamed. It lay atop Lynus and Edrea,
its hot, rancid breath blowing in both their faces as it writhed. The
belly claws were still spread wide, stabbing the ground instead of
them.
“I think I got an artery,” Lynus said through gritted teeth. “Not as
effective as I wanted.”
The ripper planted a clawed paw barely a hand span from Edrea’s
face. It was trying to lever itself back up so it could close that belly
maw on both of them at once.
Pendrake jumped into view, both hands empty. He grabbed the
beast’s right forepaw by the thumb spine, gave it a wicked twist,
and pulled it back. There was a tearing sound, a snap, and the spine
ripper shrieked again.
Pendrake adjusted his grip on the eight-inch spine, then lunged
forward and stabbed the spine ripper with it. Edrea felt the beast
shudder and then go limp. Their poison was fast-acting, even on
them.
Pendrake turned just as the last remaining ripper came bounding
into the firelight. It pounced. Pendrake dodged, stabbed, and the
beast shrieked and fell. The professor tossed the claw aside and drew
both sword and dagger. The spine ripper stumbled backward, then
limped clumsily back into the dark.
92
Pendrake charged after it.

“Morrow, this is heavy,” Lynus said. “Edrea, can you help me
push?”
Edrea pushed, and the weight shifted slightly. She felt around for
better leverage, but there were spines everywhere. The beast twitched,
and she wondered whether it would die before the poison wore off,
or whether the horrible spines surrounding her and Lynus would
suddenly snap shut.
“Friend Lynus, be very still.” Kinik slid her war cleaver between
Lynus and the ripper and levered it off them with a grunt. The ogrun
sat heavily, turned, and retched into the fire pit.
Pendrake strode back into the camp wearing a mixture of triumph
and fury on his face. “It’s dead,” he said.
He dropped to his knees and looked Edrea squarely in the eyes.
“I’m so sorry. Aeshnyrr is dead.”
Oh, Aeshnyrr . . . Edrea felt unsteady, even though she was already
sitting down.
“Professor, what happened?” Lynus asked.
“It would appear that Rorsh, may the Wurm take him and his
indiscriminate pyrotechnics, goaded Brine into eating before they
left.”
Edrea nursed both headache and heartache as she walked that

morning. The forest seemed darker than it had yesterday. Maybe
there was cloud cover overhead. Under the canopy of the Widower’s
Wood, it was impossible to tell. Clouds would be fitting, though.
Oathammer walked ahead of her, now laden with a triple share
of the supplies. The poor gelding looked lonely, even with Lynus
walking beside him. Edrea recalled how Oathammer always sought
to walk alongside Aeshnyrr, and how Aeshnyrr loved the attention.
93
Could Edrea have saved her? Would better aim, or better

spellcasting have kept Rorsh to his word? Perhaps the filthy,
duplicitous half-boar brigand planned to steal a horse regardless. If
the fight had gone differently, could Edrea have prevented Rorsh
from . . . from butchering poor Aeshnyrr?
She had seen what was left. It didn’t bear thinking about, but
walking these dark woods in silence left little else but this sad spiral,
always circling back to the mangled remains of—
“Edrea,” Lynus said, “I think Rorsh used magic to save his life.”
Here was something else to think about. Not very far from the sad
spiral, but maybe it would spin differently. Thank you, Lynus.
Edrea took a moment to collect her thoughts.
“He used a lot of magic, and very quickly,” she said. “All of it
unfamiliar to me. Arcane practices vary rather widely. But I don’t
think it was magic, exactly.”
“Magic always has those runes, though, right? I mean, I always see
those when you cast spells.”
“In my experience, yes.”
“Well, that’s weird then. Right? His belly was ripped right open,
and then it wasn’t. No flash of magic, nothing.” Then Lynus lowered
his voice. “But at the moment his wound vanished, the big pig,
Brine, screamed in pain.”
“Oh, I heard that too. Didn’t that other ripper jump down there?”
“That happened just after. I was chasing that one, and I saw Brine
below, in the lantern light—that big belly was all torn up, just like a
spine ripper would do. Like a bigger version of Rorsh’s wound.”
Horgash grunted and turned to face Edrea and Lynus from high
atop Greta. “I’ve heard tales of trollkin shamans who could bond to
a beast so tight, they couldn’t be killed until the beast itself was slain.”
And Rorsh had said he didn’t need to see what was beyond the
bluff. That farrow butcher had a bond to Brine, something that let
94
him control his pet monster without even needing see it.
Edrea spoke, somewhat hesitantly. “I have seen something similar
with blackclads before. I thought it unique to them and their control
over wilderness beasts. So many of their ways are mysterious.”
Pendrake spoke from the head of their meandering line. “The
blackclads of the Circle are indeed notoriously reluctant to reveal
their secrets. If such a thing is possible—using a beast bond to
heal oneself—well, I can understand why they might keep it to
themselves.”
“Military advantage,” Horgash said. “Kind of like you Cygnarans
and your cortex secrets.”
Pendrake shrugged. “Perhaps there is something fundamental
shared between these practices, but we have too little data to say for
certain. There are so many differences between farrow and trollkin, let
alone the enigmatic blackclads, that I hesitate to draw firm parallels
in this matter. Not without more information.” He pointed to a
sunlit clearing ahead. “And on the subject of information, I think
I know what that young farrow was begging Rorsh for help with.”
The woods opened up into a wide glade. The thicket had been cut
away, trees felled to provide lumber for building.
The village was in splinters, the ground throughout the clearing
torn in a rippling pattern.
Edrea’s heart sank.
Lynus pointed into the mess. “Those berms look like the ones in
Bednar. Like a giant snake or worm pushed the ground around as it
crushed people.”
“My people,” came a voice from the edge of the woods. An
old farrow stepped into the sunlight. He wore furs over armor
fashioned of reptile skin. The white hair on the ridge of his back
was braided and festooned with colored beads, countless bits
of bone, and rune-inscribed chips of metal, wood, and stone.
95
“Viktor Pendrake, you have come too late.”

“Groth!” Pendrake strode forward. “Dear friend! When did this
happen? We have been tracking this beast and its masters, but lost
their trail at least two day’s travel west of here.”
“Yesterday afternoon,” the farrow said sadly. “My . . . how do you
say, skill-suckler?”
“Apprentice?” Pendrake said.
“I like skill-suckler,” said Horgash.
“My apprentice and I, we gathered herbs, and heard the
thundering, distant screaming. I sent him for help, sent him after
the wanderer Rorsh, who studded our sows and left with yesterday’s
dawn.”
Pendrake nodded sorrowfully and put his hand on Groth’s
shoulder. “Your apprentice reached our camp early this morning,
badly wounded. He spoke just a few words to Rorsh, and then his
injuries claimed him.”
Groth held up a tiny tuft of hair that had been bound with string
and thrust through a bead. “I know. I used the . . .” he scratched his
head, “far-seeking, deep-tasting.”
“I don’t know enough about the arcane to help you with the word
you’re looking for,” said Pendrake.
Edrea’s jaw dropped. There was an Iosan practice involving such
magic, a powerful scrying that allowed one to find people or things.
It required one to be familiar with who or what they sought, and in
possession of something that had been close to them. Edrea had left
Ios with only the barest knowledge of the sigils. Her instructors were
unwilling to let young students like herself reach deeply enough to
tap this power.
That it could be wielded by a farrow hermit shaman, and over
such a great distance, came as a shock.
“That’s some of your apprentice’s hair?” Lynus asked.
96
Groth nodded sadly.

“That’s brilliant!” Lynus continued. “You cut it before he left, and
then your magic could tell you how he fared!”
Tears welled in Groth’s eyes. He turned to the ruined farrow
village, reached into a pouch at his waist, and withdrew a fuzzy,
beaded cord. Dozens of tiny clumps of hair, each with a different
colored or shaped bead affixed, were strung along this cord, at least
two paces’ worth of tiny tokens.
“My children. Litters I tended. Sucklers I fed.” He drew a pattern
in the air in front of him, paused to wipe his snout with a hairy
knuckle, and continued. Runes appeared before him. Edrea did not
recognize the shapes, but she felt finely honed power pulse outward
from Groth.
“All dead,” Groth said after a moment. “Some here, some out
there. All dead.”
Such power. Not just a single seeking, but dozens. Not just living
forms, but the freshly dead. Edrea had once thought the farrow
barely sapient, but this one had just displayed tremendous strength,
control, and artistry with the weave. She expected it might take her
decades to develop similar skills, if she ever managed them at all.
Edrea shook her head with amazement at this. Then the gravity of
the situation reached her, and she felt heavy sorrow for Groth’s loss.
She had lost Aeshnyrr, but Groth had lost everything. Perhaps his
great reach was powered by his grief.
Great reach . . .
“Groth, you said ‘some out there.’ You can tell where the bodies
are?” she asked.
Groth wrinkled his snout and scowled, then nodded. “They are
swallowed whole.”
“Oh no,” said Kinik, looking around at the village. “Page
eighty-four?”
97
But how? Edrea thought, even as Lynus turned to Pendrake,

his brow furrowed.
“It does seem like the only conclusion, if it weren’t for the creature’s
size. I’ve seen the tooth you recovered; nothing that large could fit
in the burrows we’ve seen.” He rubbed one temple. “I can’t help but
think there’s something I’m missing.”
Pendrake looked somewhat chagrined, for the first time Edrea
could remember. “I’ve been thinking about that. All this time I’ve
been going on what the legends say, which is that they are no natural
beasts, immortal and unkillable, only four in number. But what if
they are just animals after all, only with a life cycle stretching untold
centuries rather than decades? What if one finally spawned? What
we witnessed could indeed be the work of a wurm—one not fully
grown.”
Edrea and Lynus shared a grim look. It was bad enough that a
monster from legend was making itself known. But if the thing could
spawn . . . Edrea shook the thought from her head. Time enough for
speculation once they had dealt with the problem at hand.
Kinik nodded and said, “Just a grub, then.”
Lynus exclaimed, “Some grub! It eats entire villages!”
“Professor,” Edrea said, “the beast travels underground, so it is
likely slow. If its masters have decided where they want it to attack
again, I should expect them to send it along the most direct course,
while they meander to lose trackers like us. But if the beast travels
straight, and we know the direction . . .” She trailed off.
“Map and compass!” Pendrake said. He thrust a hand into his
field kit and withdrew both. He flipped the map open and pointed.
“We’re here.” He indicated the small stick-farrow he’d drawn on this
map years ago. “Groth, which way ‘out there’ are the bodies of your
children?”
Groth snorted heavily and again traced a sigil in the air while
98
thumbing over the string of tokens. He closed his eyes and groaned,
as if in pain. Illegible farrow-scrawl spun glowing around him, and
Edrea felt the weave pulse and thrum, as if Groth had struck it with
a hammer. The farrow walked into the clearing and turned a slow
circle before returning to the group. He stopped and pointed to the
north and east.
Pendrake stepped alongside the farrow, adjusted the compass,
and sighted along Groth’s arm. He oriented the map beneath the
compass and stared for a moment.
“Horgash,” he said, “the line I’m drawing misses the Mirkar kriel
by less than two miles.”
“These Tharn and their monster preyed upon defenseless humans
and farrow,” Edrea said. “A trollkin village doesn’t seem like their sort
of target.”
“That village,” said Horgash, “has sent its warriors to fight
alongside Madrak Ironhide in the east.” He shook his head. “It’s
nearly as defenseless as Bednar was.”
They stood in silence, staring at the map.
Pendrake reached out with both arms, grasping Lynus and Edrea
each by a shoulder. “Then we need to get there first, and warn them.”
And we’d better do so with time to spare, Edrea thought to herself, or
we’ll merely add our own mass to the size of the monster’s meal.
The beast on page eighty-four of the Monsternomicon, the gorgandur,
was not something you fought. It was something you fled.
99
PART III: THE MIRKAR KRIEL
Cmija stood on a wooded knoll overlooking a broad, cultivated

clearing. Deeper in the forest behind him, his Tharn allies were
well-hidden from the distant eyes of the trollkin whose walled
village he surveyed.
He drew in a deep breath of midday autumn air and savored its
mild crispness. The weather was kinder here than in his homeland
among the foothills of the Glass Peaks, a kindness that made even the
hardiest of these southern people soft, at least by Cmija’s standards.
They would feed the Wurm.
The stones of this village would offer the inhabitants cover, but
when the Avatar surfaced they would be forced to flee that haven,
straight out the gate and into harvested fields. Tharn spears and
arrows would rain death upon them, and those fields would be
harvested for a second time this season.
This was Cmija’s third autumn away from his homeland, and it
would be his last in hiding. The Devourer’s Avatar grew quickly, and
more quickly still when encouraged to feed upon the living, rather
than swallowing and excreting peat like a common worm.
He touched the rune-inscribed shell shard hanging at his neck, a
sliver of the Avatar’s sacred egg. Closing his eyes, he sought a sense of
the Avatar, a connection through which he could see, feel, and draw
power.
The connection came to him at once—warmth, darkness, the
familiar press of rock and soil. Movement. The Avatar was coming,
and Cmija was still its chosen voice. The Avatar would feed again, and
soon the Circle Orboros would have no choice but to acknowledge
Cmija as voice of the Devourer Wurm, chief among the children of
Orboros. Then Cmija and the Avatar would roll forth across all of
Immoren.
Cmija had felt the wilding when particularly young and been
taken in by a reclusive blackclad of his own people, who heeded well
the voice of the Wurm. Cmija had learned at his side, become versed
in the lore of the Devourer, but then later discovered the distrust
the other blackclads had for his master. They claimed he had not
truly learned their ways, and that Cmija’s teachings were corrupt,
incomplete. They had denied him welcome among their inner circle.
He had vowed to prove them wrong.
There was movement in the trees nearer the trollkin village.
Cmija watched as five people emerged from the forest and into the
broad clearing. A trollkin rode in front, atop one of the woolly bison
common to the northern kriels. Four walked, leading a heavily laden
packhorse.
Cmija counted two firearms among the small band of travelers,
along with a single bow and several swords. The ogrun carried one
of their traditional polearms. She alone looked to be formidable in
a fight, though the mounted trollkin and the older man did carry
themselves confidently. The two skinny ones, a man and a cursed
Iosan, they were just more prey.
“Run them down, spill them,” came a woman’s voice just behind
him. It was uncanny how these Tharn could sneak, even when one
knew they were about. “Bloodtrackers ready, Cmija.”
“Hold, Iskaa. It is not yet time for bloodshed.”
“Spill by ones, spill by twos,” she growled. “Deny strength to the
trollkin.”
“And deny the Devourer further prey?”
101
“Spill—”
“The Great Wurm will rise soon enough.” He placed his hand on
the mule-deer skull Iskaa wore as a mask. “You, your sisters, and your
brethren, you have my word that bloody scraps shall fall from the
table of his feast. He shall slake your thirst.”
Iskaa growled again. Or perhaps she purred. Even after a year
among these primitive Tharn, bending their blood-worship to the
Wurm’s own turnings, Cmija remained unsure of the nuances of
their communication.
The distant group made their way across the clearing, advancing
upon the rough stone buildings of the village. Cmija smiled. Whether
they planned to stay a night or a fortnight, that weary little band
would be spending the rest of their lives here.
Lynus looked up at the stone huts and pondered the logic of

trollkin construction. When humans built with stone, they built
big—hundreds of men with dozens of steamjacks, teams of mules,
and tens of thousands of blocks of quarried stone. Castles, cathedrals,
and colleges were built with stone.
Trollkin, however, almost casually hauled rock and pounded it
into huts and hovels. Where humans would build a house of frame
and thatch, trollkin worked in stone. Maybe there was some threshold
of efficiency their stronger backs and larger hands allowed them
to cross. These sturdy homes would last for centuries, just like the
palace in Caspia, Cygnar’s border fortresses, and Corvis University.
For all Lynus knew, these homes and this low wall surrounding them
had already stood for centuries. Weather had long since obscured any
quarrying scars.
Horgash dismounted at the gate and bowed deeply to the matronly
trollkin who had strode out to meet them. She was barefoot and
102
bare-armed, wearing the colorful quitari-patterned cloth wrapped as

a sash, a belt, and a tabard in one long, complex knot. Symbolic,
perhaps, of the kriel she guided.
Lynus listened carefully, taking care to miss none of the Molgur-
Trul she and Horgash spoke.
“Jata of Mirkar kriel,” Horgash began, “I have no trade goods on
this trip for your village. I carry nothing but fresh wounds and grave
news.”
“You may enter upon the stones of your own honor, Horgash
Bloodthroat.” Jata inclined her head toward the rest of the group.
“But your companions are far removed from the kin.”
“They are kith to me,” said Horgash. “I travel with Viktor Pendrake,
warrior-scholar and high mentor in Corvis. He is a keystone, the
topmost in one of the many arches of Cygnar’s bastion of learning.
With him are three apprentices—Lynus Wesselbaum, Edrea Lloryrr,
and Kinik Helegroth.”
Lynus felt a chill as Horgash said his name, as if a portion of his
soul were being etched into an epic tale somewhere.
“All are true stone. They have fought at my side and on my behalf,”
Horgash continued. “I trust my life’s breath and kin’s blood to them.
And with both honor and great need, I beg you to place that same trust.”
Jata squinted lopsidedly, and with that furrowed, frozen wink,
eyed Lynus and each of his companions in turn. After a moment she
spoke, this time in slightly accented Caspian.
“High praise from our fallen caller. He says you’ve got stones.” She
smiled, and Lynus realized she was punning across languages. “Your
travels have left all of you worse-curried than his bison, but I still see
in you at least a small measure of what Bloodthroat claims.”
She turned back to Horgash and said, in Molgur-Trul, “Kithkar
Stershan’s lodge is empty while he and his warriors fight to the east.
Clean your friends up, wrap them as guests, and we’ll talk.”
103
Lynus was discomfited to learn that, for this deep-woods kriel, at

least, “wrap them as guests” meant that they were expected to dress
trollkin-style. A young trollkin brought a stack of patterned cloth
to them in Stershan’s lodge, and Horgash helped them wrap and tie
themselves appropriately.
The pattern on these sashes was very simple, with the same colors
as the quitari Jata wore but with none of the finer lines.
“Guest colors of the Mirkar kriel,” said Horgash.
“It’s an honor?” Lynus asked hopefully.
“Hah! The real honor is to be allowed to address the kriel wearing
your own colors. But this is several steps above not being let within
the gates at all.”
“Further evidence that despite the breadth of my travels, I haven’t
been everywhere, nor made nearly enough friends,” Pendrake said.
“I miss the more boisterous welcomes I experienced with the Klagg
kriel at Scarleforth Lake.”
“I miss my trousers,” said Lynus.
“And they miss you,” said Edrea. “They’re filthy enough that they
can stand up on their own. I half expect them to follow you out into
the street.”
Lynus sighed.
“We must sally forth without them nonetheless,” said Pendrake.
He looked quite comfortable wrapped in the long patterned cloth.
“Let your trousers guard the lodge.”
Barefoot and clothed in naught but broad lengths of colorful wool,
they walked through the village. Lynus felt small. Only the children
here were shorter than he was, and a few of the older trollkin loomed
even over Horgash.
“None of fighting age,” Edrea said quietly. “I see a few wizened
104
old warriors, but that’s it.”

Horgash grunted in assent.
“Do you want to do the talking?” asked Pendrake. “Your command
of the formal Molgur-Trul is far superior to mine.”
“There is no formal version of that tongue,” said Horgash. “We
just wrap our words around pieces of old stories. Be polite, and you’ll
do fine.”
The audience chamber was circular, with a fire pit in the center
ringed by concentric stone benches. No fire burned this afternoon,
but the room still smelled like smoke. Jata sat with four other trollkin,
chins of the males covered with the craggy growths of age.
“Sit where you will,” Jata said in Molgur-Trul. “We are prepared
to hear what you have to say.”
Lynus sat, again feeling child-sized. The benches were just a little
too large.
Pendrake remained standing and began to speak, also in the
trollkin tongue.
“A Tharn war party is making its way here, Elder. We have not
seen them, but by the signs they have left, we estimate there are at
least twenty, bent on slaughter.” He gestured toward the door. “Were
that the extent of their force, your walls would lend you significant
advantage, but the Tharn have a great burrowing beast of war with
them.”
“What kind of beast?” Jata asked.
Pendrake paused. He, Lynus, and Edrea were already sure of
what was coming. It was not something to speak of lightly. It was
something to speak of after running far, far away.
The most recent accounts of the great serpents, the gorgandur,
were forty years old, but even the oldest tales were consistent enough
that the existence of these monsters could not be denied. Even
Lynus’ little book of trollkin poetry included a tragic tale whose
105
details aligned perfectly with ancient Menite accounts, though the

two cultures had different names for this legendary horror. Adding
to the proof of its reality was the giant tooth on display at Corvis
University, recovered by the professor from an excavation of the site
of that most recent attack.
Pendrake continued. “It is a gorgandur, likely a spawn of those
legendary beasts from deep below Caen. It has flattened two small
villages and devoured the inhabitants already. I fear that the sturdiest
stones of the Mirkar will tumble beneath it.”
Jata sat silently. Pendrake looked over to Horgash, who nodded
encouragement. He continued.
“You must evacuate. The Tharn and their monster approach from
the southwest. If you travel northeast, you can rendezvous with the
forces of the combined kriels defending the borders.”
“Have you seen the gorgandur, Viktor Pendrake?” Jata asked.
“Only its tracks.”
“Have you seen those we are fighting to the east, the bloodthirsty
skorne warriors and their beasts?”
“Yes. They invaded Corvis three years ago and were repulsed.”
“That was a skirmish compared to the war now being waged.
Flattening villages is nothing. The skorne you repulsed have returned
with the strength to grind stone to powder. You would have us flee
a grass fire by running headlong into a burning forest.” She looked
at Pendrake, then at each of the others, her eyes finally stopping on
Lynus.
“You.” She pointed. “You follow this man. Tell us why we should
trust him.”
“I, um . . .” Lynus began. He quickly decided he was out of his
depth, even if his Molgur-Trul was passable. “Horgash speaks better
than I do, Elder.”
“Horgash can talk to old bones until they rise up and lead an
106
army,” said Jata. “Your Iosan companion carries herself like a sorceress
and is certainly wily with words. The ogrun behind you is flush with
the zealotry of a bokur, and I don’t want to be preached to. You,
however, I will hear.”
Lynus swallowed silently and gathered his thoughts. It was a very
short process.
“You can do this,” Edrea whispered. “You read trollkin poetry for
fun, remember.”
And then he did remember. What was it Horgash had said earlier,
about wrapping words around pieces of old stories? That book of
trollkin poetry had some old stories in it.
Lynus stood, took a deep breath, and began.
“Muthgar Preymaker hunted Grimjaw the Dire, circling through
the Thornwood for a year and a day.” Lynus used his best lecture
voice, speaking as if before an entire classroom, even though the
audience chamber only had ten people in it.
“The stories say that he never actually saw the dire troll until the
very end of the hunt, but could pick his scent from across the entire
wood, and tracked him unerringly thanks to the beast’s split toenail.
Well, Professor Viktor Pendrake has tracked dire trolls and worse all
across western Immoren, and he’s had less to work with than toenails
and body odor.”
Horgash cleared his throat to interrupt. Lynus held up a finger
and shushed him with a glare. Class was in session.
“The ballad of Muthgar Preymaker ends when he fell to the
gorgandur, and in that tale the monstrous wurm is treated with
heavy-handed symbolism, a representation of the Devourer Wurm,
and of death itself, the passage to Urcaen.
“The gorgandur is no symbol, however. If Muthgar Preymaker fell
to such a monster, it is not because death comes to us all. It is because
Muthgar did not know enough about it to know that he should flee.
107
“Viktor Pendrake wrestled a dracodile to the death and wore its

hide to your gates. He rescued a scholar of House Lloryrr from the
crushing grasp of a dire troll using two arrows, a dagger, and a flask
of whiskey. Not two days ago, he tore the poison quill from a spine
ripper, killed the beast with it, and then wielded it in a fight to the
death against the last of its pack. You ask me to tell you why you
should trust him. I cannot answer that, but I can tell you that I trust
him, and will follow him across Immoren, and beyond.”
One of the old trollkin seated with Jata grunted, leaned toward
her, and grumbled something privately. The others scowled and
frowned. Jata looked no happier.
“You would liken your schoolteacher to Muthgar Preymaker, the
great hunter of legend?” Jata asked.
In for a penny, in for a crown, thought Lynus.
“Your scribes and chroniclers retell the deeds of Muthgar and
other great heroes so your warriors can try to live up to them. Viktor
Pendrake lives up to that legend, and lives beyond it. The only
reason Pendrake’s epic song isn’t already sung louder and farther than
Preymaker’s is because I’ve been keeping good notes and preventing
exaggeration. Also, I don’t sing. But I promise you this: if there’s a
fantastic, extraordinary, or otherwise monstrous creature troubling
you, you have no better counsel, no better sword arm, no better
general than Professor Viktor Pendrake.”
The gathered elders nodded, murmuring what sounded like
assent.
Jata’s scowl deepened, and she glared—not at Lynus, but at
Horgash. “You. I don’t know how you did it, but you suckered me
into inviting a chronicler to speak. And a good one, too.”
“What?” asked Lynus. “I’m not a chronicler.”
“Actually, I think you are,” Edrea said.
Jata stood. “I am convinced.”
108
Lynus smiled.
Jata continued. “I am convinced that if the Mirkar kriel is to be
saved, Viktor Pendrake must stand and fight with us, and lead its
defense.”
Lynus stood agape. He thought he’d given a pretty good speech,
but this was not how it was supposed to turn out.
Pendrake looked over his glasses at Lynus. “It was the sword-arm
line. You were doing fine right up until that point.”
Edrea laced her boots on, glad to be back in her own clothing,
even if it wasn’t especially clean. There had been plenty of coverage in
that trollkin wrap, but her Iosan skin wasn’t well-suited to the coarse
swath. Or maybe, she admitted to herself, it had less to do with race,
and more with having grown to like soft leathers.
“Lynus, Edrea!” Pendrake called out across the lodge. “Let’s put
our heads together. Crack the books. We are not going to fight a
gorgandur without a plan.”
Lynus pulled the contents of his satchel out and began spreading
them on the table in the center of the room.
“You mean ‘put Pendrake in charge’ isn’t enough of a plan already?”
Horgash asked with a wry smile.
Lynus’ face fell. Edrea suppressed a grin. He really was adorable
when put upon like this.
“It would be a fine plan,” said Edrea, stepping to Lynus’ side, “if
Pendrake were actually in charge. Then he could very sensibly lead us
on a northward or westward exodus.”
“Indeed,” Pendrake said, stepping to Lynus’ other side and
putting an arm around him. “With my valor so excellently
touted, I’m no longer afforded the option of exercising discretion,
which is ever its most critical element. So let us dispense with
109
wishing for retreat and figure out how to fight.”

“We’ve never seen a gorgandur in battle,” Horgash said. “Any
tactics we devise are stones laid on a foundation of thatch.”
“Hmph,” said Lynus, brow furrowed. “How much stone does it
take to smash the thatch flat?”
“That’s not the point, chronicler,” Horgash said.
“Okay. How much stone does it take to smash a frame house flat?
Like in Bednar? How much weight does it take to cause the ground
to ripple into berms? Because I think that is exactly the point.”
Horgash frowned and fell silent.
Edrea considered the puzzle and sighed heavily. “I audited
Professor Kilgore’s Rudiments of Physical Mathematics lectures two
semesters ago. I wish I’d paid more attention. Or brought my notes.”
She looked at Lynus and shrugged. “Still, I might have something to
contribute.” She pulled a blank sheet of paper free of the spread and
took one of Lynus’ pencils.
“I think it can be worked out in cross-sections, using common
figures for density.” She laid out the multiplication and quickly spun
an answer out on the page.
“I’ve done something wrong,” she said. “It’s coming out too heavy
by far. At this size and density, it weighs over forty tons per pace of
length. Based on the rippling we saw, I think it’s about fifteen paces
long. If it’s that heavy, the ground would have been much more torn
up. Also, I don’t think any creature of that mass could move under
its own power.”
Kinik cleared her throat and thumped a finger against the haft of
her war cleaver. “The shaft is hollow, for strength. Maybe the monster
is hollow. Needs room to eat things?”
“That makes sense,” said Edrea, “but we can’t measure that directly.
We can only guess.”
“The berms,” Lynus said. “They were about three feet high. How
110
much weight does it take to pile a berm like that?”

Edrea stared at the page. Then she looked up at Lynus. “That
part where I said I wished I had brought my notes? I’m sure there’s a
formula for lateral displacement, but I don’t know it.”
“Soil gets pushed like that underfoot when we’re moving stones,”
said Horgash. He frowned and scowled in frustrated concentration,
an unintelligible murmur rattling in his throat.
His eyes went wide. “Quarry spars!” he announced.
“Is that a formula?” Edrea asked.
“Horgash is jumping ahead, and isn’t showing his work like you
did,” said Pendrake with a grin. “Good thinking, old friend.”
Edrea was no stonemason, nor had she spent any time around
them. “Professor, I still don’t understand.”
“If the thatch doesn’t want to get crushed by the stone, the thatch
needs a way to push back. The thatch needs leverage.”
Edrea sat on a hay bale near the stables with Lynus and Kinik,
watching as six trollkin with six fifteen-foot spars pushed against a
nearby house. The house was winning, in that it was not moving.
Quarry spars, as it turned out, were heavy wooden poles used for
levering big blocks of stone into position. Horgash and Pendrake
stood to one side of the house, coaching the spar crew.
“If Horgash had said ‘polearms,’ we would have caught on
immediately,” Lynus said.
“Horgash was a little put off by the mathematics,” Edrea said.
“And I don’t think he understands leverage. Those trollkin aren’t
using the spars as levers. They could push against the house just as
hard, probably even harder, using only their hands.”
“No, no,” said Kinik. “If the house is the snake, and the snake
rolls, a trollkin using hands is too close, and gets flat. A team with
111
spars can pin it, push it. Maybe pinned, the snake can be killed.”
Then Kinik sighed heavily. “But not that team.”
Edrea noticed Kinik clenching and unclenching her grip on her
war cleaver, scowling and frowning.
“Kinik,” said Edrea, “Horgash and Pendrake don’t really know
how to teach pole fighting, do they?”
“No. The grips are wrong. The feet are wrong. Even the eyes are
wrong.”
“Get down there and take over the lesson.”
Kinik’s eyes went wide with fear. “I am a student, not a teacher!”
“Good students are also teachers, and you know more about this
subject than anybody down there. Go show those old trollkin how
to swing a spar and knock down a house.”
Kinik nodded, set her jaw, and strode across the village.
“Pole fighting can’t be taught in a day,” said Lynus after the ogrun
was out of earshot.
“Probably not, but let’s watch.”
Kinik stepped in among the trollkin and said something, bowed
to Pendrake, then handed her war cleaver to Horgash. She took a
quarry-spar from one of the trollkin, hefted it experimentally, and
adjusted her grip.
She then began lunging and thrusting with it, first thumping
the wall of the house, then tapping the other spars, knocking two
of them from the hands of the trollkin who held them. Pendrake
laughed, his enthusiasm audible from across the village.
The next ten minutes appeared to be a lesson in grip, stance, and
coordination. Within fifteen minutes, the trollkin were following
Kinik’s lead, thrusting together and slamming the spars into the side
of the house in unison. Dust shook from among the stones. The
house’s victory was no longer certain.
“Lynus,” Edrea began. “They might just be able to pin the
112
gorgandur, but if they do, how are we supposed to kill it?”

“You remember what Pendrake wrote in the Monsternomicon,
don’t you?”
Edrea did remember. “‘I’ve never heard tell of one of these beasts
being slain, nor can I even imagine how it might be done,’” she said,
quoting the passage as best she could.
“And I can’t imagine it either. The weight of the thing, hollow or
not . . . its hide has to be incredibly durable just to support itself.”
Edrea thought about the articulated armor suits she’d seen. “If
the wurm can move, then that durable hide might be segmented. It
might have gaps in it, Lynus.”
“They have six of those poles, and maybe two dozen trollkin with
any measure of skill with swords or axes,” Lynus said. “From the
tales, the gorgandur could swallow that many people all in one go.”
Edrea opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by a
rumbling sound. She looked at the house the trollkin were, literally,
sparring against. It still stood, but the team with the spars stared at
it expectantly.
She looked at Lynus, and he stared back at her, eyes wide.
“It’s starting,” he said. “The gorgandur is here, beneath us.”
Edrea stood and pointed at the team of trollkin. “If you’re right,
they need to spread out.”
Lynus ran toward the spar-bearing trollkin, patting his hands

across his belt and shoulder as he ran. His sword was slung over his
back, ammo for the rifle he no longer carried was pouched at his
waist, and his sample-taking kit was strapped to his left hip. If they
survived this, he’d be able to take and preserve tiny shavings from a
creature the size of a row of houses.
“It’s here!” he shouted. “Beneath us! Spread out!”
113
The spar-bearers looked at Lynus, confused.

Horgash repeated Lynus’ command in Molgur-Trul, and the spar
crew complied. One of them shouted, “To arms!” far louder than
Horgash could, and that cry spread quickly as voices like kettledrums
boomed the repeated warning through the village.
Horgash drew both his swords and passed Lynus. Lynus stopped,
puzzled, then realized the trollkin was headed back to the stables. He
meant to ride Greta into battle.
Pendrake slid his unstrung bow from his back, slipped the
bowstring onto one end, dropped that end against his boot, bent the
bow, and finished stringing it – all in a continuous flowing motion.
“Thunder beneath us,” he said. “Definitely gorgandur.”
As if on cue, the rumbling sounded again, this time shaking the
ground.
Kinik shouted, “LOW!” in Molgur-Og, and six spars thumped the
ground, held out and down, ready to be raised in defense.
“Edrea said there might be gaps in the armor,” he said.
“We can only hope,” Pendrake replied.
“It gathers, then pushes in order to move,” said Edrea from behind
them. “Thunder when it pushes, silence when it—” the rumbling
and shaking of the ground cut her off.
“There!” a spar-bearer shouted, pointing. Lynus looked to where
her outstretched arm pointed. A patch of ground a dozen paces
across had swollen into a mound about four feet high at the center.
Lynus opened his mouth to speak. The mound exploded up and
out, propelled by the eruption of a black cloud of something foul.
Dirt and spattering drops of the black substance scattered for thirty
paces in every direction, showering several trollkin, including the
pointing spar-bearer.
She screamed, and Lynus stared in horror as her bluish skin began
to smoke under the corrosive sludge.
114
“That wasn’t present in Bednar,” Pendrake said in an even

tone. “But between the thunder and the sludge, this is definitely a
gorgandur.”
As if summoned by the speaking of its name, the great wurm
burst from the fresh crater. It was ten feet wide, roughly cylindrical,
and had zigzagged segmentations running around its girth, defined
by dirt-encrusted scales. Its eyeless head was heavily scaled, and its
mouth folded open with three radially symmetrical jaws.
“The picture you drew wasn’t too bad,” said Lynus, striving to
match the professor’s calm tone.
For several moments, it towered twenty feet in the air like an
undulating, armor-plated pillar, and then it toppled toward the spar-
bearers and slammed to the ground. Lynus’ teeth rattled, and dust
rose from the nearby homes.
The wurm turned to face the screaming, sludge-spattered spar-
bearer. A slight bulge had formed in the creature’s body as it bunched
itself up some five paces behind its head. Then, with terrifying speed,
it lunged forward and she disappeared into the creature’s open maw.
“Up!” Kinik shouted in Molgur. She charged the beast’s flank,
the point of her war cleaver about eight feet off the ground. Three
trollkin ran with her, and as one, the four of them slammed their
polearms into the beast’s side just behind its head.
The wurm writhed, pushing back against them, but they dug
their feet in and held firm. Lynus was amazed.
The ground shook again, and the wurm’s tail pulled up and out of
the ground. The monster was easily twenty paces long, maw to tail.
There was no way four poles on one side of its head were going to
keep it in place.
Pendrake saw the same thing. “Spars to the other side!” he
shouted in Molgur, loosing an arrow into the open mouth of the
wurm to no visible effect. The two remaining spar-bearers grabbed
115
their spars and ran, crossing in front of the beast.

It whipped its head away from the poles pinning it, however, and
the moment was lost. It rolled, twisted, slammed against a home, and
then its head shot forward to swallow the two running spar-bearers
whole. Their spars, too long to fit sideways into the monstrous maw,
splintered as the jaws snapped shut.
The ground rumbled again, rattling Lynus, who shivered with
fear. He’d been afraid before, but this was different, coming through
the ground like a damp chill, reaching up through his feet to ice his
soul. He wanted more than anything else to throw his sword to the
ground and flee.
Kinik’s spar-carrying team threw their poles and bolted, and
Kinik ran away from the wurm as well, though she kept a hold her
war cleaver as she did.
“The fear is not your own, Lynus! It’s from the beast!” shouted
Pendrake, loosing another arrow. “You can best it. Keep your sword
and your wits.”
Lynus shook his head back and forth like a dog drying itself, as if
fear were water that could be shed. It helped a little.
“What do we do?” he asked. The wurm was nearly parallel to
them now, advancing into the center of the village.
“The spars would have worked,” said Pendrake, “if we had more of
them, and seasoned troops who could swallow terror like so much cold
stew.” He looked at the fallen spars and the scattering trollkin. “But we
can’t pin it anymore. We need to figure out how to hurt it.”
A gunshot sounded from behind Lynus, to his right.
Edrea looked through the smoke along the sights of her rifle.
There were definitely gaps in the armor plating, but she’d missed.
Her round had spalled against the gorgandur’s scales.
116
“When it extends, the flesh beneath the armor is exposed,” she

shouted over the rumbling. “I haven’t figured out the timing yet!”
“Don’t bother,” said Pendrake as he loosed an arrow against the
beast’s flank. It bounced from the gorgandur’s carapace like a pebble
thrown against a cliff face. The great wurm rolled, slamming into
a stone home. Dust shook from among the stones, but the house
stood.
“They overlap in a constant direction,” Lynus said. “You’ll need to
shoot between them, from behind.”
Edrea nodded. Lynus was right. She reloaded by feel, her eyes
tracking the gorgandur as it rippled through the village.
A female trollkin, barefoot, with an axe in hand and an old shield
strapped to her back, charged the beast’s flank.
“I doubt anything vital lies an arrow’s length in,” said Pendrake.
“War cleaver can reach vital,” Kinik said.
Edrea was pleased to see the ogrun had collected her wits, even if
her recovered courage was ill-placed.
Horgash rode up on Greta. “I’d curse, but I don’t think invoking
The Wurm amid our current company is wise,” he said.
Pendrake drew his sword, that ancient Orgoth blade that always
stayed sharp. Sharp enough to cut . . .
“Lynus, Edrea . . . make sure to update the gorgandur entry in the
next edition. Get Kinik admitted to the university. Horgash, you get
these three and everybody from this side of the village through the
Tharn.”
“Professor,” Edrea began. “You—”
“Won’t live forever? No, I won’t.” He pointed at the gorgandur’s
flank, where the axe-wielding female currently hacked away, chipping
flecks of scale. “That monster is going to feast on trollkin who don’t
know well enough to flee.”
117
“Muthgar Preymaker didn’t know well enough to flee,” said Lynus.

“Well, maybe we didn’t get his whole story,” Pendrake said. “Now
go! Punch a hole for us, and I’ll either be along shortly with rest of
the evacuating kriel, or I won’t.”
Pendrake slung a satchel over his shoulder, adjusted his grip on his
sword, and ran farther into the village, moving parallel to the wurm.
Edrea watched him go. She remembered Lynus saying, just three hours
ago, that he’d follow Pendrake anywhere in Immoren. He’d spoken for
both of them in that moment, but here they were, not following.
“He told us not to follow him,” said Lynus, as if reading her mind.
“I still meant what I said.”
“I know,” she answered.
“Enough tears!” said Horgash with an ugly yell. “Edrea, cast that
seeing-spell and find us the holes in the Tharn lines.”
Edrea spun vossyl liumyn, closed her eyes—which were tearless,
she had half a mind to say to Horgash—and when she opened them,
the waning afternoon light and long shadows gave way to crisp
details in grey.
The tree line, three hundred paces away, was spotted with amber
outlines. Edrea concentrated and focused.
“There must be four dozen bloodtrackers there.” She turned a full
circle. “I can’t say where they’re thinnest, but they’re thickest in the
copse of trees on that knoll.”
“Then we know where not to run,” said Horgash.
“No!” said Lynus. “We know exactly where to run.” He pointed at
the knoll. “If somebody is controlling this beast, they’re right there,
surrounded by bodyguards while casting beast magic, or Wurm-will,
or some such.”
“That’s not an escape, that’s an assault.”
“And a fell caller doesn’t run from a fight,” Lynus said. “You’re a
warrior, a leader of warriors.”
119
“I used to be.”
“You can’t sing, and you can’t shout, but these trollkin can still
hear you. Lead them! Get us onto that knoll, and we will save this
village.”
Edrea was stirred by Lynus’ speech. Chronicler indeed.
“They are going to rain spears and arrows on us before we’re
halfway there,” Horgash said.
“Then we need thicker skin,” said Edrea, weaving fheyissa, the
fortress sigils, with both hands. She clenched a fist and swept the
resulting ring of runes into a girdle about her waist.
“Stay within about eight paces,” she said.
“How many does skin-spell work on?” asked Kinik.
Edrea thought about that and reached into the weave to test it.
“As many of my friends who stay within about eight paces.”
Horgash began shouting in Molgur-Trul. Edrea winced. It
sounded like he was hurting himself.
“We take the fight to the hill! I need axes and shields at my side!
Warriors of the kriel, to me!”
Were there any warriors here? Edrea had watched with despair as
the spar-bearers fell and fled. The kriel was in disarray, and the wurm
wrought a winding path of destruction through it.
But several older trollkin came running, battered shields and
ancient axes in hand.
“Grindar requires Gelfas’ aid!” Horgash shouted.
Edrea thought she recognized the two names from Trollkin
history.
“But in this tale,” Horgash continued, “Gelfas has no full-bloods,
no warbeasts at his side. He does not need them, because he marches
with the Grey Champions!”
Edrea had never heard of the Grey Champions. Horgash was
improvising, spinning a new tale around an old one.
120
Horgash pointed across the glade at the knoll. “The enemy

commander hides in those trees. We go to cut him to the ground,
and the trees with him if they stand in our way!”
Edrea was startled by the full-throated, robust cheer that followed.
These old trollkin, decades past their prime, were ready to live up to
the legend, and write a new one.
Horgash pointed forward with his right sword and shouted, “For
Grindar, for Gelfas, for Jata and the Glade!” and spurred Greta into
a slow run. The trollkin formed a phalanx around and behind him.
They all began to lope across the clearing.
Horgash shouted back over his shoulder at Edrea. “Keep up with
us, lass! I like what you do for my old hide!”
Edrea sprinted into the midst of the trollkin phalanx, slowed to
catch her breath, and smiled to see Lynus at her left and Kinik at her
right. Then arrows began to drop into the group, and she bent her
smile into a determined grimace.
She leaned into her stride and focused on her breathing.
Simultaneously maintaining vossyl liumyn and fheyissa was difficult,
and doing so while running was even harder. Her pulse pounded in
her ears, audible over the cacophony of a dozen pairs of feet, Greta’s
hoofbeats, and the rumbling progress of the gorgandur through the
village to the rear.
The hail of arrows intensified around her. The Tharn archers had
decided she was a threat, the spinning runes of her weave no doubt
calling attention to her. Kinik, running to Edrea’s right, moved closer
and raised her arms. What was she doing? Edrea couldn’t see through
the ogrun, could only make out the clump of amber outlines on the
knoll.
Kinik grunted, and her coat seemed to sprout half a dozen arrows.
The ogrun faltered for half a pace, but then steadied back into her
position. Edrea felt the weave flutter, the fortress of fheyissa rippling
121
in response to the volley. It began to slip away from her. Her lungs
were hot, her heart hammered in her chest, and the weave itself
developed a pulse, a rhythm.
Edrea stutter-stepped, adjusting her pace to run in time to that
pulse. Kinik shot her a concerned glance, and then looked back to
the battlefield.
The pulse of the weave, the pounding of her heart, and the pace
of her feet were all in sync. Not the unison of marching soldiers,
though. This was a rhythmic counterpoint, like a drum circle, and
with each bar, with each measure of contrapuntal hammering, she
grew stronger. With each refrain she felt greater ease in the exertion.
What had been painful cacophony was now exhilarating. Edrea
reveled in power fueled by the glorious music of the weave.
But Kinik was still taking arrows on her behalf. Edrea wove again,
swiftly. Alyshh rhya, occlusion and self. A third ring of runes spun
into the air around her.
Lynus saw a third ring of runes appear around Edrea, and then
all the runes shimmered and vanished. Edrea herself almost vanished
with them. She wasn’t invisible—not quite—but he couldn’t focus
on her, as if the new magic she was spinning forced his eyes to look
away.
The next volley of arrows was spread wider. The Tharn had lost
Edrea and were now picking different targets. Arrows dropped amid
them, and a few struck home, thumping deep into the shoulders of
the trollkin, but most bounced off.
With that thought something struck Lynus in the head, so hard he
could hear a crack. He put his hand up to his head, expecting to find
blood and brain matter, but both seemed safely contained within
his skin and skull. Thank you, Morrow, for Iosan magic, he thought.
122
It occurred to him that this was probably horrible blasphemy to

an Iosan, but there wasn’t time to ask Edrea who he should thank.
Besides her, of course.
Looking ahead he could now see figures on the knoll. They wore
animal skins, rough leathers, and bones, including animal-skull
masks and horned headdresses. Men and women, all filthy, caked
with mud and blood, and armed with bows and spears.
None of them looked like Lynus imagined a beast-handling
warlock might look. Or maybe all of them did.
“I’ve got the big one!” shouted Horgash. “I’ll break the line; you
break necks.” He dug his heels into Greta’s flanks, and the bison
sprang forward, surprising Lynus with her speed.
As one, the blue-skinned, grey-quilled phalanx leaned forward
and began a sprint, running faster than Lynus thought possible for
aged warriors. He leaned into his own run but quickly fell behind.
His sword, his armored greatcoat . . . it was all so heavy.
Edrea and Kinik kept up with the group and pulled ahead of him.
Lynus sucked air and steadied his pace. He couldn’t run that fast, but
he wouldn’t be too far behind.
Greta and Horgash entered the trees with a raspy, gurgled battle
cry and a resounding crunch, followed by screams in at least three
languages. Through gaps between the trees, Lynus could see that
Horgash had charged the largest of the Tharn, an axe-wielding
monster of a man Greta gored and flung left like a giant rag doll,
knocking down several of his fellows. Horgash, meanwhile, leaned
far to the right side and hacked deeply with his off-hand sword,
smashing through a Tharn shield and shield arm.
Then the trollkin phalanx arrived, and the wooded knoll erupted
in chaos wrought of spears, blood, axes, gore, and the limbs of both
trees and men.
Lynus couldn’t make sense of it. There was too much going on.
123
Then motion caught his eye in a still part of the copse, off to the far
left, well beyond the fray in the trees. There stood a heavily bearded
northerner dressed in dark robes—a Skirov, perhaps. He held aloft a
curious bladed staff and was ringed by spinning, glowing runes.
“There! THE LEFT!” Lynus screamed, pointing with his sword.
Edrea dropped to one knee, whipped her rifle up to her shoulder,
and fired.
The Skirov spun to his right, and a spray of blood erupted from his
shoulder. But instead of dropping or clutching the arm, he shrugged,
and with no flash of magic, no change to the runes spinning about
him, his shoulder was healed.
At that same instant a giant, inhuman scream sounded from the
village.
Perhaps, just like the farrow warlock Rorsh, this Skirov could
push his own wounds onto the beast via some magical bond, Lynus
thought. He shivered to think that this warlock might be impossible
to kill. He wouldn’t die until the gorgandur did, and the gorgandur
was sixty feet of armored horror.
Unless . . .
He had no time to shout instructions. Kinik had heard Edrea’s shot
and turned to charge at the warlock. Edrea, still kneeling, reloaded.
Lynus wouldn’t need to shout instructions. Either this warlock
was effectively immortal or the magical ability to push wounds from
himself onto the wurm granted Lynus, Edrea, and Kinik a narrow,
treacherous path through the monster’s otherwise impenetrable
scales.
A gap in the armor.
Kinik lunged, her aim as true as Edrea’s had been. The war cleaver
tore deep into the warlock’s belly and out the back and side, tearing
flesh, bowel, and cloth in a single stroke that nearly cut the man in
half. Then, fast as an eye-blink, his flesh was whole and Kinik’s blade
124
unbloodied. Again, a howl sounded from the village. At least, Lynus

hoped it was howling. The wurm might also be reveling in its repast
of defenseless trollkin, he reflected.
Kinik stopped, stunned by the magical erasure of her work. The
warlock raised a rune-wrapped hand, grinned wickedly, and pointed
at her. Lightning sprang into the air between them.
The single flash seared a long path in Lynus’ sight, connecting
Kinik’s right arm, her war cleaver, and two of the nearby trollkin.
The lightning was so fast Lynus didn’t even see it arc from one victim
to the next. There was just a flash and an afterimage spotting Lynus’
vision as three of his allies fell to the ground.
He blinked away the spots and kept running. He passed Edrea
as she fired a second time, and the fact that the carbine’s report
didn’t startle him at all testified to how bright and loud that bolt of
lightning had been.
“Eight paces!” Edrea shouted from behind him.
Lynus slowed. He did not want to face this warlock without her
support.
Edrea shouted something in Iosan. A bolt of blue-white fire seared
past Lynus and struck the warlock squarely in the chest.
Runes pulsed around the man, and the gaps in his tattered,
scorched robe revealed unblemished, unwounded flesh. Again, the
great wurm howled from the village.
The warlock turned to face Lynus and Edrea and pointed at them
as he’d pointed at Kinik. Another bolt of lightning seared Lynus’
vision. He gasped in surprise when it didn’t strike him.
Edrea gasped in pain.
Lynus’ skin tingled briefly. Edrea’s magic was gone from him.
“The greater threat dispatched, I can now chide you for fleeing a
rare honor,” the Skirov said in thickly accented Khadoran. He reached
out toward the village with his right hand, his left held before him,
125
comfortably wrapped around the haft of that wickedly bladed staff.

Runes swirled around the outstretched hand, and Lynus thought he
sensed power accumulating there. He stood, uncertain, and brought
his sword in front of him for defense.
The point bobbled and dipped.
The warlock raised an eyebrow and waved his left hand in the
direction of the melee to Lynus’ right. There was an explosion,
closely followed by the screams of trollkin and men. A scattering of
soil rained down upon Lynus.
“The Devourer would embrace you, and yet you come here, to
me? Where your death will mean nothing?”
Lynus shivered, and the point of his sword dropped farther.
“I didn’t come up here to die,” he said in passable Khadoran. He
tried to mean it, but his voice quavered. He let the point drop even
more, exaggerating the weakness he felt.
“Alas, I am afraid you—“ and then the warlock lunged.
Lynus brought the point of his sword up, and the warlock’s left
arm glided along the blade. The man hissed in pain and stepped
back, barely retaining his grip on his staff. Lynus swept and swung
as hard as he could, burying the sword deep in the warlock’s right
shoulder and jarring Lynus’ hands as the blade struck bone.
There was no exaggeration this time. His grip failed, and he let go
of the sword. It fell free of the naked, unharmed shoulder. A howl of
monstrous pain and rage rose from the village.
“Feigning weakness is effective, but only if it is, in fact, feigned,
child.” The Skirov adjusted his grip on the wickedly bladed staff.
“But that is the last of the lessons you will learn in this life.”
No rifle, no sword . . . Lynus fumbled with the sample kit at his left
hip. One of the little bottles had a mild acid in it. His fingers closed
on the slim handle of his scalpel, its blade barely the size of his thumb.
126
The warlock lunged again, and for the tiniest moment Lynus
envisioned a series of cuts arranged in sequence before him, an
unorthodox dissection plan for a very dangerous, quickly moving
cadaver.
He turned to his left, presenting his right shoulder, where the
blade of the staff glanced and caught in the heavy leather of his
greatcoat. The shock numbed Lynus’ right arm. He spun back to the
right, stepping close to the warlock, and with his left hand he traced
the short scalpel blade in a long, deep path: up the inside of the staff
arm, along the brachial artery, across the pectoral group, and up the
jugular, laying arteries wide.
The warlock screamed as blood erupted from the long, smooth
cuts in two major arteries. He staggered backward, and Lynus
despaired as the wounds closed.
Another roar of bestial anguish burst forth from below, the
gorgandur echoing the warlock’s own scream of agony as analogs of
opened arteries and severed muscle were instantly, magically inflicted
upon it.
The roar ended abruptly, not even a quarter the length of the
creature’s previous screams.
The warlock’s eyes went wide, the wound in his neck reappeared,
and blood poured out over his scorched and shredded robe. He
staggered forward as if to lunge again with the staff, but he dropped
it before he could finish the movement.
The runes whipping around him winked out, and he fell forward
into a heap.
Lynus stared. That was far worse than a dissection. Focus on the
process. What’s next? Right. He wiped his scalpel clean and sheathed
it. He bent down and retrieved his sword, then picked up the staff.
Behind him he heard Horgash roar in triumph, a cry taken up by
several other trollkin. The surviving Tharn were fleeing into the woods.
128
He looked back at Edrea and Kinik. Edrea sat up, leaned to her
left, and retched. No blood, so she wasn’t bleeding in at least three of
the dozen internal ways that could kill her.
“I think we won,” Lynus said.
Edrea nodded weakly. “I woke up, so that was my conclusion.”
Kinik groaned, and Lynus moved to crouch beside her. Smoke
rose from her right arm. Her right hand, still clutching the haft of
her polearm, was blackened and ruined. It would have to come off.
And that would take more than a scalpel.
“You’re going to be okay, Kinik. Can you walk?”
“Walk, yes.” She looked down at her arm and groaned. “Not
carry.”
Horgash hobbled over using a tree branch as a crutch.
“Horgash!” said Edrea. “You’re missing a foot!”
“On my way back through, one of the Tharn got in a good swing
and took me off Greta. She stomped him to a pulp for his trouble.”
He thumbed over his shoulder at the carnage, where Greta chuffed
and paced. Five of the eight trollkin were up, picking through the
battle-torn copse for trophies, or perhaps missing digits.
“It was too ragged to try reattaching it,” he said. “I’ll just need to
keep well-fed this winter so I can grow a new one.” He stooped a bit,
bending down to look Lynus in the eye. “I’m claiming the rest of the
expedition’s bacon. With your permission, Chronicler.”
Chronicler, Lynus thought. Chronicler. If Pendrake was dead, it
might fall to Lynus to write the end of this story.
“We need to get down to the village.”
Jata met Lynus and the others at the gate. They were a ragged,
limping band, but Jata . . . patches of her skin were blackened,
her quills were broken, and the quitari pattern cloth she wore
129
looked as if it had been used to smother a fire.

Yet for all that, she wore a smile that threatened to split her face
in two.
“You,” she said, looking at Lynus. “You will never be able to write
this tale in a way that others will believe it.” She pointed back into
the village, where a man sat on a stone block that had once belonged
to a house.
The man was shaped like Viktor Pendrake, but black as pitch
from head to toe. A pair of young trollkin were splashing buckets of
water on him. The water that pooled around the man was blackened
with whatever covered he, but he did not grow noticeably cleaner as
Lynus approached.
“Professor?”
“Yes, Lynus. In the flesh.” Pendrake sighed, his exhalation heavy
with exhaustion.
“What happened?”
“I did a very foolish thing.”
Lynus said nothing.
Pendrake drew another deep breath and continued.
“The gorgandur spit sludge only that one time. I guessed the
stuff might be mostly gone. But I know mostly isn’t the same as
completely, so I grabbed those horse ointments, slathered them on as
thick as I could, and fed myself to the wurm.”
Lynus stared, slack-jawed.
Next to him, Edrea let out a gasp. “Professor?”
“Many large creatures swallow their prey whole, relying upon
interior gastric mechanisms to manage what their teeth do not. The
sludge seemed just such a mechanism, and it gave me hope that there
would be no chewing.
“It was a tricky jump, but I didn’t get bitten in half or crushed
by those jaws. Then I was inside, and I started stabbing everything
130
within reach. And from inside, everything is within reach.” He

chuckled weakly.
Horgash laughed. “I don’t think the boy should have told you the
tale of Muthgar Preymaker.”
“Indeed. Close-quarters swordplay notwithstanding, I should
have ended up much as Preymaker did.”
“Lynus here,” Edrea said, putting her arm around him, “led us in
an attack on the wurm’s master up on the knoll.”
“No I didn’t,” Lynus protested. He felt himself blushing. “Horgash
led that attack.”
“I just happened to be in front,” said Horgash.
“Edrea, you said ‘the wurm’s master?’” Pendrake asked.
“I did.” Edrea poked Lynus and whispered, “I missed the last bit.
You tell him.”
“Right,” said Lynus. “I . . . umm . . . okay, quick version. Northern
fellow, Skirov probably, wrapped in runes. Edrea shot him twice, and
Kinik almost cut him in half. His wounds kept disappearing, and
the gorgandur screamed each time. I surmised he was using his bond
with the creature to drive those injuries onto it.”
“Hah!” said Pendrake, slapping his knee and spattering filth.
“That explains where my exit originated.”
Lynus pondered that for a moment and shuddered at the memory
of the warlock’s wide-open arteries. “I suppose that’s so. He healed
himself of all the wounds but the last one, which vanished, then
reappeared after the wurm’s death howl.”
Pendrake grinned widely, his teeth shining white. “That piece
of information is going to be referred to repeatedly.” He stood
and turned to one of the young trollkin. “Give me that.” He
upended the bucket over his head. It did about as much to the
neutralized sludge as it might have to a thick layer of ’jack grease.
He still looked like a tar-Pendrake.
131
“And it is the two of you I expect to repeat it. In classrooms. The

university can allow me a sabbatical for a season or three, and you’re
perfectly capable of taking over.”
Horgash guffawed. “The great Pendrake needs a rest?”
“Morrow help me, no!” Pendrake exclaimed. “I need to right a
great wrong! Horgash, your people were left defenseless here. Your
soldiers have been interposed between my own people and the
skorne, an enemy we have all been completely ignorant of for as long
as any record exists.”
He scraped a dollop of dark filth from his hair and flicked it to
the ground. “I cannot fight that army, nor can I persuade King Leto
to lend you more strength, but I can do a thing or two about the
ignorance. Cygnar may again be gaining my services as a scout.”
He stepped forward, looked down at his blackened, greasy
state, and pulled his assistants into a hug anyway. “No, you may
not enlist in the army. You are to take over my classes, and get
Kinik formally admitted. And in the short term, someone must
oversee the transport and dissection of the first gorgandur killed in
recorded history.”
“You’re not coming back to Corvis with us?” Edrea asked.
“Oh, I suppose I’ll have to. There are affairs to be set in order.” He
scraped another handful of filth from his hair and stared at it. “And
I suspect I am going to have to travel all the way back to Corvis in
search of a suitable soap.”
Lynus looked at the gorgandur carcass and wondered if there
was any place in the university where the reassembled scales might
be displayed. Then he considered the expedition requirements for
transporting it. He wondered absently if it might be less expensive
simply to relocate the university.
132
Edrea sat in one of the trollkin huts, cleaning her rifle. She and
the others had already cleaned themselves. And thanks to a mixture
of saddle soap and trollkin spirits, even Pendrake was clean. He had,
miraculously, applied enough of the horse ointments that he was
going to get to keep all of his skin and most of the hair on his head.
Kinik had not kept her hand, however. They’d taken turns
watching her during the night, and then Pendrake and Lynus had
performed surgery that morning. Poor thing.
Edrea applied more oil to the brush and slid it down the barrel,
searching for hidden patches of stuck powder that might foul future
shots. Pendrake, she realized, was on a similar quest. Find all the
nooks and crannies, root out the ignorance, shine light into the
darkest places. He had been swallowed whole by an almost legendary
creature just yesterday, an experience most people would choose to
follow with a quiet retirement. But not Professor Viktor Pendrake.
“Sabbatical” just meant “there are new things to learn,” his stated
altruism toward the trollkin notwithstanding.
And that, she decided, had to be the key to his brilliance. He did
go out of his way to help people using the things he learned, but his
passion lay not in the helping. It was the learning. Research wasn’t
a job. It wasn’t a calling. It was simply what he loved more than
anything else, and so he did it better than anyone else.
The great houses of Ios could do with more of that love, she
thought sadly.
She was going to miss him. He was right outside, haggling with
Jata for fresh supplies, but it felt like he was already gone.
There was rough-voiced singing outside as well, a mixture of
mourning and triumph, reminding Edrea that she was going
to miss Horgash, too. The old trollkin planned to winter here
with the Mirkar kriel. By spring, “The Chronicle of the Grey
Champions” might be carved into the krielstone here to be sung
133
by voices less skilled but less scarred than his own.

“Friend Lynus,” Kinik said. “I have a request, and I want to say I
am sorry.”
Edrea looked up. Kinik had approached the table where Lynus
has spread his books and was inspecting them for damage. A sling
supported her heavily bandaged arm, which ended in a stump just
below her elbow.
“Sorry? Wait, request what?” asked Lynus.
“I request you for korune.”
“You . . . you want me for korune?” Lynus gasped. “No, that’s not
right! You came to us so you could serve Professor Pendrake.”
“You have more glory ahead of you. Pendrake has glory mostly
behind. And you have more need. You need a strong back and long
blade at your side. You are worthy of service.”
Edrea nodded to herself. Lynus was worthy. She looked at the
ogrun and her dear human friend, wondering how this would unfold.
Kinik’s face fell. “But I am sorry. I am not good enough to serve.”
She held up her bandaged stump. “Cannot serve.”
Lynus was silent, his face grim. He stared at the floor.
“No, you can’t,” he said after a moment.
Edrea scowled. Lynus had been good to Kinik after those first
rough days, and she’d thought that perhaps . . .
“I . . .” Kinik’s expression grew even sadder.
“But not because you’re now left-handed. No, it’s worse than
that.” Lynus rubbed his knuckle up the bridge of his nose in a clear
imitation of Pendrake pushing his glasses.
“No student of mine can be permitted to waste time serving as a
sword-arm or a pack mule. No lover of books, bones, and biology
can be sworn so young to a life of shedding blood and absorbing
bullets.”
Edrea smiled, all the more as Kinik broke into a wide, tearful grin.
134
“No, you cannot serve me, because Edrea and I and Corvis
University will be serving you.”
Lynus stepped forward, reached up, and clapped Kinik on the
shoulder, another clear imitation of Pendrake.
“But once you’ve learned enough? Once you know which books
to carry? Then I will be honored to have your strong left hand at my
side.”
Kinik reached out with that left arm and pulled Lynus into an
engulfing hug.
And Edrea considered that perhaps a love of more than just
learning might be the driving force behind Corvis University’s
Department of Extraordinary Zoology.
135
GLOSSARY
blackclad: The common name used to refer to a druid of the Circle

Orboros, alluding to their propensity to wear black cloaks and robes.
Blackclads are masters of elemental magic and are rumored to be
affiliated with the Devourer Wurm.
bloodtrackers: Female Tharn warriors who prefer to employ weighted

javelins to kill their enemies from a distance, although they are also
capable melee combatants. They are most noted for their hunting
prowess, as they can channel the supernatural power of the Devourer
Wurm to augment their predatory instincts.
bogrin: Larger, stronger, and less sociable cousins of the more

common gobber race. Bogrin are more commonly found inhabiting
wilderness areas and are rarer in the cities of western Immoren.
bokur: Literally, “unsworn.” Ogrun who seek to prove their value

through combat and often by travelling the world prior to swearing
themselves to a single korune. This is a transient status in ogrun
culture that may last for years or even decades, but during which the
ogrun is thought to be incapable of earning lasting respect or being a
full member of the community.
Caen: The world containing the Iron Kingdoms, Immoren, Zu, etc.
Sometimes contrasted as the material world as opposed to the spiritual
world of Urcaen.
Caspia: The capital of Cygnar and the only human city not to fall to
the Orgoth. Also called the “City of Walls.”
Circle Orboros: A secretive ancient order of druids that is the oldest

continuous organization in human history. Although few in number,
they wield great power. Capable of summoning the forces of storm,
animating warriors of stone, and commanding the beasts of the wild,
their will is rarely resisted.
cortex: The highly arcane mechanikal device that gives a steamjack

its limited intelligence. Over time cortexes can learn from experience
and develop personality quirks.
Corvis: The northeastern Cygnaran city occupying the conjunction

of the Black River and the Dragon’s Tongue River. Also called the
“City of Ghosts.”
Cygnar: A southern kingdom ruled by King Leto Raelthorne and

bearing the Cygnus on its flag. Generally considered the most
prosperous and technologically advanced of the Iron Kingdoms.
Devourer Wurm: An ancient and terrifying primal god of natural

chaos, hunger, and predation that is described as the great ancient
enemy of Menoth. Also called the Beast of Many Shapes, the Devourer
is said to exist in every beast that hunts other living things as well
as natural destructive phenomena such as lightning, earthquakes,
floods, and wildfires. In some myths, the Wurm is seen as the male
embodiment of nature, while Dhunia is the female embodiment.
Viewed by Dhunian races as their divine father.
137
Dhunia: The primal goddess of fertility, the seasons, and nature

and thought by her adherents to be embodied by Caen itself. Her
worshipers are primarily gobbers, ogrun, and trollkin but also include
some wilderness races like the farrow. In some myths, Dhunia is seen
as the female embodiment of nature, while the Devourer Wurm is the
male embodiment. Viewed by Dhunian races as their divine mother.
dire troll: Massive trolls that stand up to eighteen feet tall, with
oversized fists, huge claws, and jutting tusks nearly two feet long.
They possess incredible strength and resilience as well as a nearly
insatiable hunger that drives them to eat almost anything they can
catch. The hunger and violence of the dire trolls is feared even by
other troll species. Only in recent memory have trollkin begun to
befriend dire trolls and employ them in battle.
dracodile: Vicious and powerful reptilian ambush predators that

dwell in swamps and marshes.
dragon: Immortal, unnatural, intelligent, and supremely powerful

supernatural creatures spawned by Lord Toruk, the first and greatest
of their number. Dragons are solitary and hostile to their progenitor
and rarely notice the affairs of lesser beings.
farrow: A boar-like race inhabiting the wild areas of Immoren, notable

for high intelligence and sophisticated tool use as well as the capacity
to learn the languages of other races. Scavenging and raiding are vital
aspects of farrow culture, which has provoked frequent conflict with
their neighbors.
fell caller: Paragons of trollkin culture and pride, these sons and
daughters of Bragg (the legendary progenitor of their bloodline) raise
their powerful voices in song to rally their allies toward heroic efforts
or shatter flesh and bone through the force of their sonic attacks.
138
fog drake: A specific breed of drake, being large territorial reptiles

unrelated to the dragons or dragonspawn they superficially resemble.
Fog drakes dwell in swamps, lakes, and marshes and are reputed to be
able to create fog to assist their hunts.
gatormen: A bipedal, intelligent reptilian race resembling their

namesake. They are among the most formidable warriors in western
Immoren, as few can rival their raw killing power; even unarmed
gatormen are fearsome due to their strong jaws and flesh-ripping teeth.
They dwell in a variety of remote swamps, marshes, and riverbanks.
gobber: A diminutive race of inquisitive, nimble, and entrepreneurial

individuals that have adapted well to the cities of men. Most gobbers
are around three feet tall. Gobbers are known to have undeniable
aptitude for mechanikal devices and alchemy.
gorgandur: Enormous monstrous serpents that dwell in deep

subterranean burrows, venturing aboveground so rarely they are
thought by many to be mythical. Their appearances are connected
with tremendous destruction and mayhem.
Immoren: The continent containing the Iron Kingdoms, Ios, Rhul,

the Skorne Empire, and the lands between them. Much of Immoren
remains unexplored, and its inhabitants have had limited contact
with other continents.
Inquisition: A Cygnaran political organization originally created to

stamp out sorcery and gather intelligence but which earned notoriety
during the reign of Vinter Raelthorne IV for its role in eliminating
the king’s political enemies and enforcing obedience through terror.
After the Lion’s Coup the organization was disbanded and declared
illegal, its members arrested, pardoned, or gone into hiding. It has
since served as a subversive group loyal to the exiled Vinter.
139
Ios/Iosan: An isolationist nation east of Llael and north of the

Bloodstone Marches, Ios was founded long before the nations of men
by survivors of a destroyed empire called Lyoss. It is inhabited by a
long-lived elven race that has suffered a long gradual decline and faces
an imminent cosmological catastrophe.
kaelram: Massive, tough-skinned herbivores with long, curving tusks.

These powerful pachyderms have sometimes been used as beasts of
burden by the Idrians on the fringes of the Protectorate of Menoth.
Khador: The northernmost of the Iron Kingdoms, once a kingdom and

now an empire. The Khadoran Empire is ruled by Empress Ayn Vanar.
kith: A trollkin extended-family group within a larger kriel. Members

of a kith are typically closely related by blood.
kithkar: A war leader of the trollkin, occupying a role similar to that

of an officer in a human army.
korune: A lord who accepts the permanent service of an ogrun

warrior. While korunes were originally themselves also ogrun, the
concept has been extended to anyone to whom an ogrun has sworn,
most commonly Rhulfolk.
kriel: The most important divisions of trollkin culture and the

equivalent of a trollkin tribe or clan, varying greatly in size but always
comprising several affiliated kith. Members of the same kriel share the
same quitari pattern on their clothing.
Lancer: A rugged yet agile Cygnaran warjack developed with an

emphasis on defense and survivability. Each is equipped with an arc
node, a vital piece of technology that allows its warcaster to cast spells
at a greater distance.
140
Lion’s Coup: The Cygnaran coup in 594 AR led by Leto Raelthorne,

who ousted his tyrannical brother Vinter IV to begin his reign. The coup
was facilitated by Leto’s position as warmaster general of the Cygnaran
Army, which allowed him to organize his loyal officers to assist in the
palace revolt and to minimize the involvement of Vinter’s loyalists.
Llael: Once the smallest and easternmost Iron Kingdom but largely
conquered during the recent Llaelese War. Llael is presently divided
between Khador, the Protectorate of Menoth, and the Llaelese Resistance.
Madrak Ironhide: The foremost chieftain of the displaced trollkin

kriels of the Thornwood Forest. Madrak eventually rises to become
one of the key leaders of the “United Kriels.”
Menite/Menoth: A worshiper of Menoth, the primal god credited

by his worshipers with the creation of aspects of the world itself,
including the division of the water from the land, the ordering of the
seasons, and most importantly, the creation of humanity. Menoth’s
gifts to humanity included fire, agriculture, masonry, and the written
word in the form of the True Law, his divine commandments. The
largest number of Menites are found in Khador and the Protectorate
of Menoth; most humans consider Menoth their creator but are not
necessarily Menites. Menite worship declined with the rise of the
faith of Morrow.
Merywyn: The former capital of Llael, presently the most important

industrial city held in the Khadoran-occupied territory.
Molgur-Og: The native language of ogrun across western Immoren,

derived from the ancient Molgur tongue. Generally only spoken
between ogrun.
141
Molgur-Trul: The native language of the trollkin, derived from the

ancient Molgur tongue.
Morrow: One of the Twins, brother to Thamar, and a god who was once
mortal but who ascended to divinity by achieving enlightenment. Also
known as the Prophet, Morrow is a benevolent god who emphasizes
self-sacrifice, good works, and honorable behavior. The organized
religion of Morrow is the largest and most widespread faith in the
Iron Kingdoms, the majority faith in Cygnar, Khador, Llael, and Ord.
The Church of Morrow has considerable wealth and influence. See
also Thamar.
ogrun: A large and physically powerful race renowned for their great
strength and honor. Most ogrun are citizens of Rhul, though they can
be found throughout the Iron Kingdoms and are also present in the
Scharde Isles serving Cryx.
Ord: The kingdom on the western coast between Khador and Cygnar,
largely neutral in the recent wars and seen as a haven for mercenary
companies.
Orgoth: A fearsome race of men from an unknown continent west

across the Meredius who invaded and enslaved western Immoren for
centuries. The Orgoth were driven out just over four hundred years ago.
quitari: Traditional tartan patterns worn by each trollkin that usually

represents the wearer’s home kriel. In recent times, some trollkin have
created new patterns or adopted the quitari of the chieftain or war
leader they serve, even if not originally from the same kriel.
Radcliffe carbine: A long-range military rifle that utilizes a five-

chambered ammo wheel.
142
Raelthorne, Vinter IV: The deposed king of Cygnar. Vinter’s skill

and ferocity in battle were exceeded only by his cruelty and paranoia.
He is considered a tyrant but is also arguably the best swordsman in
the history of Immoren.
Raelthorne, King Leto: The current king of Cygnar, Leto Raelthorne

seized the throne from his older brother Vinter IV during the Lion’s
Coup of 594 AR.
Retribution (of Scyrah): Once outlawed as dangerously radical, this

militant Iosan religious sect seeks to avenge the imminent doom of their
goddess Scyrah by killing human arcanists, whom they hold to blame.
Scarleforth Lake: A large lake south of Ios and adjacent to the

Glimmerwood within the Bloodstone Marches.
Scyrah: Once one of eight gods within the Iosan Divine Court
pantheon, representing Spring, Scyrah has become the primary
goddess of Ios. She currently languishes in a state of slow death
mirroring the steady decline of the elven race, but this is a matter not
discussed with non-Iosans.
Seekers: Members of an Iosan minority religious sect who actively

search for the solution to the mysterious ailment that has afflicted the
goddess Scyrah, which they believe likely exists outside the borders of
Ios. This motivates some Seekers to cooperate with and form alliances
with outsiders.
Skirov: Ethnic majority of the Skirovnya volozk in northern Khador.
143
skorne: A race originating from eastern Immoren that crossed the

Bloodstone Desert and Marches to make war on the west. The product
of a harsh and brutally strict culture, they seem bent on the conquest
of the Iron Kingdoms. The Skorne Empire boasts a highly disciplined
and versatile army that employs a variety of enslaved beasts to fight
alongside their soldiers.
sons of Bragg: See fell caller.
steamjack: A steam-powered mechanikal construct designed in a

variety of configurations and sizes, used for both labor and warfare
throughout the Iron Kingdoms, Cryx, and Rhul.
steamo: An informal nickname used to refer to a member of Cygnar’s

Steam & Iron Worker’s Union.
swamp gobbers: Clever and hardy diminutive gobbers found in

bogs and marshes, particularly in the eastern Thornwood and the
Widower’s Wood outside Corvis. There is no physiological distinction
between swamp gobbers and those dwelling in cities, so the term is
cultural and descriptive.
swampies: A swamp-dwelling people, usually of Morridane or

Arjun ancestry, most commonly found in Cygnar and eastern Ord.
Swampies do not consider the term pejorative but these people are
frequently subject to prejudice by city-dwellers who regard them as
unsophisticated and ignorant.
tatzylwurms: Snake-like predators notorious for their ability to leap

great distances. A versatile species with various sub-breeds, some of
which can climb surprisingly well while others are at home in aquatic
environments.
144
Tharn: Savage, man-eating humanoid tribesmen who inhabit the

depths of the Thornwood and are feared for their ferocity and their
ability to transform into a bestial form as a blessing of the Devourer
Wurm. While legend holds that they were once human, they are no
longer viewed as such, nor do they identify themselves as such.
Thornwood mauler: Fierce and powerful predators that are found in

wooded areas, maulers are known for their incredible sense of smell.
Thornwood: A large forest that was originally part of the northern

territories of Cygnar. It was recently occupied by Khador before being
beset by a large number of Cryxian forces. It remains a contested
territory and the site of many recent battles.
troll: A large, brutish species possessing limited language and inclined

toward violence motivated by hunger. They are widely considered by
humanity to be monsters, since trolls eat humans without hesitation.
They are sometimes referred to as “full-blood trolls” to differentiate
them from their trollkin cousins.
trollkin: A hardy and intelligent race that live both in their own
communities in the wilderness and within cities of man. They possess
a complex and rich culture, including their own written language.
Most trollkin worship the goddess Dhunia.
Urcaen: A mysterious cosmological realm that is the spiritual

counterpart of Caen. Most of the gods reside here, and this is also where
most souls spend the afterlife. Urcaen is divided between protected
divine domains and the hellish wilds stalked by the Devourer Wurm.
vektiss: Intelligent, insect-like creatures that hunt in packs and

paralyze their prey with poisonous bites.
145
warbeast: Casually, any powerful beast employed in war. More

technically, any supernatural beast capable of bonding to a warlock
and manifesting an animus. This term is not widely used in western
Immoren but is employed by the skorne, whose armies make heavy
use of enslaved beasts. Other groups employing warbeasts include the
Circle Orboros, the Legion of Everblight, trollkin, gatormen, and
farrow. Most warlocks require an affinity to specific types of warbeasts
to bond to them.
warjack: A highly advanced and well-armed steamjack created or

modified for war. Some warjacks use power sources other than steam
and are not technically steamjacks but are still referred to as such as a
matter of custom.
warlock: An arcanist with the ability to bond to and mentally control

savage or enslaved beasts.
Widower’s Wood: A dark and marsh-filled forest that surrounds the city
of Corvis in northern Cygnar and extends north of the city and beyond
Cygnar’s borders to the east into the edges of the Bloodstone Marches.
wilding: A spontaneous manifestation of druidic power in humans

that usually occurs at an early age and is often mistaken for madness.
The Circle Orboros is scrupulous about collecting those who manifest
the wilding, although their means of detecting this are unknown.
Wyrmwall Mountains: The largest mountain range in southwestern

Immoren, taking up a sizable portion of the kingdom of Cygnar. This
expanse is divided into a number of lesser mountain ranges, including
the Upper Wyrmwall, the Watcher Peaks, and Helmsreach.
146
About the Author
Howard Tayler writes and illustrates Schlock Mercenary

(schlockmercenary.com), co-hosts the Writing Excuses podcast
with Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, and Mary Robinette Kowal
(writingexcuses.com), and writes fantasy, horror, and science fiction in
such free time as remains. He lives with his wife (and business partner,
and fellow writer) Sandra and their four children in Orem, Utah.
He plays Trollbloods, Circle, Minions, Mercenaries, and Cygnar,

but not nearly so often as he would like. This novella was carved
at great personal sacrifice from what used to be his painting time.
Extraordinary Zoology
Copyright © 2013 Privateer Press
This book is printed under the copyright laws of the United States of America and
retains all of the protections thereof. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks herein
including , and all associated logos and slogans are property of Privateer Press, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events
is purely coincidental. No part of this publication may be stored in any retrieval
system or transmitted in any form without written permission from Privateer Press.
Duplicating any portion of the materials herein, unless specifically addressed within the
work or by written permission from Privateer Press, is strictly prohibited. In the event
that permissions are granted, such duplications shall be intended solely for personal,
noncommercial use and must maintain all copyrights, trademarks, or other notices
contained therein or preserve all marks associated thereof.
EPUB
First printing: July 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-939480-31-6
Privateer Press
13434 NE 16th Street, Suite 120
Bellevue, WA 98005
privateerpress.com
skullislandx.com

Extraordinary Zoology - Howard Tayler

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Extraordinary Zoology - Howard Tayler

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

TALES FROM THE MONSTERNOMICON

PART II: EDREA...............................................................................47

PART III: THE MIRKAR KRIEL....................................................100

The Widower’s Wood, Early Autumn, 606 AR

T he rich, peaty ground under the tiny village of Bednar rumbled,

Lynus Wesselbaum gingerly turned pages as he searched for

be dated by patterns in the generations and species of blowflies.

“You’d been gone so long I thought you might have forgotten

Lynus realized he was staring.

whereby one might examine the wriggling larvae in a dead man’s

Lynus thought, this trollkin ranked highly in their society. Perhaps

“Northeastern Cygnar and Llael—or what used to be Llael—from

“I can speak to Colonel Bradley, but he’ll be slow to dispatch

Lynus stood patiently in front of the wooden counter at

Corcoran’s assistant was an ogrun female, youngish and of

Molgur-Og accent muddying her Cygnaran. “Or five.” She strode

He fumed and fretted, alternating between biting his nails and

new direction. Did he suggest any alternatives?”

“Of course,” she continued, “if Lynus is in the room, nobody

Morrow and marrow, Lynus swore to himself. He closed his eyes

“Well, that’s just . . .” Horgash paused. “Hrmph.” He muttered

whisper reassurances to Aeshnyrr. They set off on foot, staying low

Pendrake looked back at him and raised an eyebrow, then unslung

A sizzling whistle ended in a meaty thump not far behind him,

A wall from one of the flattened homes burst upward as another

behind her knee, “and then stay out of reach.”

“What were you going to do if they got through?” he asked.

Lynus was torn as he watched Pendrake and Edrea investigate

“I’m sorry, Professor.”

“More to the point,” she said, walking toward them, “I only

“Professor Pendrake?” he said. “This isn’t a basement, and it also

“Turrigan’s banded pheasant, principally found in the southeastern

Lynus gestured around them at the smashed village. “Last night

most everyone would panic and flee for the fields.”

They made another pass through the ruined village before

in the village. The helplessness, the desperation, the despair . . . Lynus

little hope of catching up to the Tharn—a war party on the move

dubious claim regarding Greta’s lineage.

A true master arcanist might enact such a weaving with but a

environment would place Edrea’s use of Iosan magic under the

into the trees, but it now stood permanently grounded.

of the gobber tree-homes. The amber silhouettes of Horgash and

“Hah!” Pendrake exclaimed. “Lynus, I told you that was what

Edrea had a clear shot.

“The horses!” shouted Pendrake.

She froze, then grunted in surprise as the professor planted a running

Aeshnyrr and Oathammer hadn’t run far—just up and out of

fog drake’s work—no further tracks were visible.

Horgash gave a shrug. “I might have been humming a bit during

Edrea watched with a smile as Lynus worked. He was wrist-deep

Pendrake’s handwriting. And I notice you don’t have a copy either.”

Edrea liked Horgash’s choice of a campsite. They were perched on

merits, and which speaks well of you.”

“Oh,” he grunted. “Well, then. How much for a horse?”

the poison, like emergency antivenin!”

“You’re alive!” he said. “Professor! She’s okay!”

Pendrake charged after it.

Edrea nursed both headache and heartache as she walked that

Could Edrea have saved her? Would better aim, or better

“Viktor Pendrake, you have come too late.”

Groth nodded sadly.

But how? Edrea thought, even as Lynus turned to Pendrake,

Cmija stood on a wooded knoll overlooking a broad, cultivated