by Pedro Urvi
“That’s definitely strange. And didn’t anybody find traces of a large predator? It must have left some.”
The Chief nodded. “There were, but they say they were the prints of a deformed, gigantic foot.” He was shaking his head as if he were unable to believe it.
Lasgol narrowed his eyes. “That’s even stranger.”
“I couldn’t see them myself” – the Chief indicated his bad leg – “but that’s what three shepherds and the village tracker told me.”
“Could I speak to the tracker? It could be very helpful.”
Dolstar shook his head again. “He’s one of the ones who’s missing. He went to follow the trail. I told him to be very careful. He never came back. Which means that this thing, whatever it is, is very dangerous. Milstren was an expert hunter and tracker. On top of that, he was very experienced. He wouldn’t have let a panther or a bear take him by surprise.”
Lasgol scratched his temple thoughtfully. “It’s true, it does sound strange, but I’m sure there must be some logical explanation.”
“I hope so. People are restless. There are all kinds of rumors in the village. People are talking about monsters and sorcery …”
“I don’t believe it’s anything like that. I’m sure it’ll be a bear or a white tiger that’s more aggressive than usual. It’s something that can happen with some animals.”
“And the tracks?”
“Until I see them I can’t confirm anything, but I very much doubt whether they’re the footprints of a giant or a monster. They probably got blurred in the rain, or some other animal stepped over them.”
Dolstar shrugged. “It’s something strange. I can feel that, and I’ve normally got a sense for these things. The day of the battle, I felt something bad was going to happen, and look at what happened … we lost the war, Arnold died and I was left crippled and sick. You’d better be very careful. I know you’re a Ranger and they prepare you for things like this, because that’s why I sent for one of you, but even so, I’d be twice as careful if I were you.”
“I will,” Lasgol promised. He did not like the situation either. His experience and knowledge told him that he was confronted by a case of a large, aggressive predator, but when there were rumors and strange stories, it was usually for some reason.
“I’ll mark the area Milstren went to track on a map,” the Chief said, and took one from one side of the table. He indicated an area some way to the north and west of the village. “It’s a very mountainous area, difficult to reach. There’s a pass here, and then you can go up via this area. Beyond that, not many venture. The mountains are very high and very steep.”
“Does anybody live there?”
The Chief shook his head. “No-one. It’s high mountain country. Very few venture there. From this front line of mountains on toward the north, it’s all steep and hard to get to. The people around here don’t climb those mountains. They’re treacherous. By autumn they’re impracticable, and in winter they’re impossible to reach.”
Lasgol nodded. “The Norghanian highlands. So, do they think the predator came down from there?”
“That’s what Milstren thought. He told me he thought it must have come down in spring to feed further south, as far as our part of the world.”
“If that’s the case, then as soon as it’s caught enough food it’ll go back to the mountains for the winter, and it’ll be gone.”
“Maybe. Either way, I’d rather catch it now and not have the same problem all over again next spring. Good men have died, and farmers and shepherds are losing cattle they depend on to survive, particularly now after the war where so many people have suffered. Hunger’s waiting in the wings, and things are dire for them. The economy’s in a bad state, and the nobles have raised taxes to counter the economic disaster the war’s meant for them. The last thing my villagers need is more trouble.”
“I’ll make sure the predator doesn’t bother these good people anymore, so they can focus on bringing up their families.”
“That’s the only way we’ll manage to rebuild and get the West on its feet again. We’ve got to protect them. If I could, I’d be in those mountains myself, hunting that beast.” The Chief shook his head with an expression of enormous frustration. He punched his bad leg twice with his fist, and grunted with pain.
“This is a job for a Ranger. I’ll deal with it. I won’t fail these people.”
“Very true. I’m glad they’ve sent me a Ranger. I didn’t have much hope, quite honestly. I know you’re needed all across the kingdom, and you’ve lost a lot of people yourselves in the war too.”
“Yes, that’s very true.”
“Good luck,” Dolstar said, and in his eyes Lasgol read that he was resting all his hopes on him.
Outside the house, he saw that a small crowd was watching him from the square. Apparently word had spread that he had come to deal with the problem of the disappearances. News spreads fast in villages. Lasgol nodded to them, mounted Trotter and left the square amid the murmurs and whispers of the locals.
We’re heading north, he transmitted to his faithful pony.
Trotter shook his head in agreement and set off in the direction of the mountains. Once they were out of sight of inquisitive eyes, Lasgol used his Gift to call his two animal friends.
Where are you?
There was a moment of silence, and he looked carefully at the forest that rose ahead of him. He wondered whether they were in there, or further east, where he could glimpse another, less dense, area of forest.
East, came Camu’s message.
We’re heading north. Come and meet me. I’m at the way into the forest.
Camu and Ona did not take long to appear at a run from the east, and he gave them a summary of his conversation with Chief Dolstar.
Mystery! Fun! Camu exclaimed.
Ona moaned unhappily. She did not like mysteries at all.
It could be very dangerous, Lasgol warned them.
Mystery, wild animal, fun.
Lasgol shook his head in despair. Let’s be very careful. All right?
All right, Camu responded. He was already starting his happy dance.
Ona on the other hand was not dancing. She was not very happy about the mission,
Lasgol breathed out heavily. In fact, he sensed something ominous himself. They went on into the forest, in the direction of the mountains.
Chapter 4
When they reached the foot of the mountains, Lasgol had no doubt that the Chief’s words had been accurate: the climb was going to be a hard one. Before starting, he wanted to make sure that the predator had indeed come down from somewhere beyond the first ranges, so he decided to track the area until he found proof.
We’re going to track the area, he told his comrades.
Camu stared at him with interest in his bulging eyes. What look for?
I’d say we’re looking at a mountain tiger or a bear. That makes most sense, so let’s search for prints of either of them. If you find the prints of a panther it could be that too, although it sounds less likely to me …
Ona moaned in protest, as if she did not believe it could be one of her species.
Some panthers can be very aggressive, Lasgol reminded her.
Her moan of protest turned into one of acceptance.
We’re also looking for signs of dead cows or sheep. He stared at the great rocky wall beside him. If they were hunted it must have been on this side, and it must have left tracks and remains.
Men?
Yes, any sign of dead men too … I’d like to think they’re still alive, but if they’ve been attacked by a large predator and then disappeared … they’re almost certainly dead. Let’s try to stay optimistic, we might still find them alive. Yeah, let’s be positive, we might be lucky.
Camu and Ona did not look so optimistic. They gave no sign of how they felt, but he could read it in their eyes. Little by little he realized that he was getting better at sensing what his two friends were feeling or thinking. Camu was already c
apable of transmitting some of his own feelings, but even when he did not intend to, as was the case now, Lasgol could sense them. Ona was as transparent as the water of some high mountain stream. Her emotions were always deeply sensitive, and because she did not hide them they were very easy to pick up. In fact, he had more difficulty with Trotter, who did not show his emotions unless he was scared. It seemed curious to Lasgol that out of the three of them, it was the quietest one who was the hardest to read.
He dismounted and patted his faithful pony. Lasgol knew that each animal was in a different world, so that the differences between his ability to communicate with each of them were enormous. He had no idea know why this was so, or whether he would be able to get better at it, but that was what magic was like: a complete enigma. On the other hand, he knew that when he made an effort, he got results, as his dear friend Egil had often told him he would.
Follow us, but stay calm, he transmitted to Trotter, who nodded and moved away to graze.
We’ll separate so that we can cover more terrain. Camu, you go east. Ona, you go west. We’ll start by tracking at the foot of the mountain, then we’ll each go in our own direction. Understood?
Understood, Camu transmitted, with a feeling of happiness. Ona stiffened and took up a tracking stance.
Right. Remember that we’re looking for a very dangerous animal, so go very carefully. If you see anything, run back to tell me and don’t go near it. Is that clear?
Clear, Camu transmitted at once, and Lasgol knew that he would almost certainly not follow any of his instructions.
Camu …
I good.
You’d better be …
Camu grinned back at him, looking as though he had never so much as broken a plate in his life.
Lasgol gave in. Be very careful and tell me if you see anything suspicious.
Lasgol was confident of his friends’ skills. Ona’s sense of smell and vision were outstanding, not to mention her enviable natural cat-instincts. One of the things he had been intending to do was to watch her closely and try to copy her. Today was not the right time for it, but later, in a less dangerous situation, he would try.
Camu was nowhere near as good at either tracking or catching prey. Lasgol did not have the heart to tell him this, because the little fellow was convinced that he was as good as Ona. Better in fact. In any case, he would probably not accept the fact, he was so stubborn. In spite of this, he was very useful in tasks like this, and it was because he had a prodigious sense of sight, which meant that he was able to pick out what both Lasgol and Ona sometimes overlooked. This was why Lasgol sent Camu tracking. He was aware that he would not find any fresh tracks, but he was able to distinguish people, animals and very large objects at great distances and amid dense foliage.
They went on for half a day, without any luck. Lasgol had always been good at tracking, and now with everything he had learnt at the Camp, and then in the Shelter he was one of the best, with his Tireless Tracker specialty to prove it. Even so, he found no sign of a great predator or its victims. Then he remembered one of Master Gisli’s teachings: man or beast, they all need to drink sooner or later. He had seen the river on the map and knew it was not far away, so that he soon reached it. It was five paces or so wide, shallow, calmly-flowing and without much of a current. He looked up to follow its course as it descended from the mountains and crossed a couple of forests, some meadows and several cultivated fields until it reached a village in the distance. As far as he could see, it went through the village and on to the south.
He began to search downriver, in the direction of the green meadows, to see if he could find any unusual footprints. If the beast had attacked cows and sheep, it must have been in the meadows. He hoped that with a bit of luck, it would have stopped to drink before or after its hunt. In order to check both sides of the river he was forced to get into the water and cross. It only came up to his waist, and hence did not bother him too much. The temperature was not too cold, so that he did not need to worry about catching a cold if he did not dry himself immediately, which he did not do because he was too intent on his search. He realized that now he was able to notice things he would have overlooked before: prints as small as those of squirrels, or even birds that had alighted on the ground. As for those of larger animals, like foxes, hares and deer, they leapt to the eye so clearly that they seemed to scream at him. He was also able to pick out droppings and tell how old they were and what animal they were from, as well as what direction they had come from or gone to, as well as who had caught whom. Wildlife was like that, very real and harsh. But among all those trails, there was not a single one of any large predators.
Finally, after covering some distance to the south, he came upon the tracks of a wolf. Could a wolf be the cause of all the trouble in the village? The prints were those of a large adult male, but they were clear and definite, with nothing strange about them. A wolf could have killed the sheep, it was true, and even cows if it was very aggressive, but – several humans? In a civilized area? Besides, this was a solitary wolf, not part of a pack. If there were several of them it would make sense, since they could kill people and whole flocks, although it was not usual in inhabited areas like this. Now he was really puzzled. He decided to follow the tracks. He did not find this difficult as they were clear, and in the animal’s passage through the scrub-vegetation it had broken several branches.
It did not take him long to find it. Dead. It was lying beside an oak. Lasgol knelt beside the animal and took a good look at it. It was a large, strong specimen, and its back was broken. It had not been a man who had killed it – there was no doubt about that – but neither had it been an animal. There were no marks of claws or fangs on its body, not a single wound. It was as if something had snapped it in two as you might snap a branch across your knee. Before, Lasgol had found this business strange; now he found it incomprehensible and extraordinary. He searched for marks on the tree, in case some external force had thrown the wolf against the tree and broken its back in the process. Nothing. Not a single mark. He scratched his head, feeling that he was missing something. The clues must be there in front of him, it was just that he could not see them.
He moved back a little to try and see the scene from further back, which was a technique that helped him a lot when he could not manage to see what was in front of him. Nothing. He took some tracking dust from his Ranger belt and spread it around to reveal tracks that might otherwise pass unnoticed. Nothing there either. He tried several more advanced Tireless Tracker techniques, but they all turned out to be useless. One thing was clear: something had killed that wolf, and it was not anything normal, which worried him greatly.
He sat down on the ground and went over the situation in his mind. He thought of magic. A Mage of Air could have done it. His scholarly friend Egil had told him that Magi who used the elements as a basis for their magic could create very powerful spells. It occurred to Lasgol that a Mage of Air could have hurled the animal through the air with a strong gust of wind. The wolf’s back could have been broken when it hit the ground after the attack. Yes, that could have been it. Egil had explained that all elemental magic left traces of the element used in an attack. It could not be a Mage of Fire, since there were no marks of burning on the body. Nor could it have been a Mage of Water, since there were no marks of freezing on the carcass. A Mage of Earth did not fit either, because the body showed no signs of the impact of stones or earth.
Yes, a Mage of Air, casting a powerful spell in the form of a gust of wind, might very well have done this. He checked the ground underneath. A new disappointment. The wolf had certainly hit the ground hard, but Lasgol seriously doubted that the impact would have killed it, since the mark on the ground was a shallow one.
He sighed in frustration and stood up. One thing was clear: something had hurled it there from a distance, because there was no noticeable mark anywhere near. He decided to follow a hunch and looked by the riverside. If the attacker had been a Mage, there was no ne
ed for him to have come by the riverside, unless he had stopped for water. If so, there would be prints at the spot where he had crouched down. He went back to the river and tracked, without losing sight of the wolf’s body.
Once again he hit on something strange and puzzling. The print was not on the riverbank, but in the river itself. He stepped into the water and bent down to examine the print closely. What he found left him perplexed. It was not the footprint of a Mage, or a bear, or a mountain tiger. It was the print of something bigger, and what was worse, he did not know what kind of creature it could be. He scratched his head, remembering Master Gisli’s teachings. Now he understood why the Chief had described the tracks as those of a deformed giant. The print was too big for any animal Lasgol knew, and the shape certainly looked like a deformed foot. One thing was clear: from the size of the print, its depth in the riverbed and the fact that the water had not erased it, it was clearly a very heavy creature. He decided to call his friends. He did not want them to come upon the creature, whatever it might be.
Camu, Ona, Trotter. To me!
He waited beside the wolf’s carcass and called them a couple more times. It was odd that all three were able to find their way to the source of the mental message. It was as if he were to shout at the top of his voice, and they were able to identify the origin of the shout. It even happened with Trotter. It was part of his Animal Communication skill. At first, he had only been able to communicate with them at very short distances. Now, with use, and the efforts he had made to increase his range, the distance had grown considerably, although not as much as he would have liked. And yet he was unable to locate his friends, particularly Camu when he sent a message back that he was on his way. This frustrated him, because if they could, surely he himself ought to be able to.
Ona was the first to arrive. She sniffed and at once located the wolf’s body. She moaned and stiffened, staring fixedly at it.
Easy, girl, I already checked it, Lasgol told her. He stroked her head, doing his best to calm her.