Extraordinary Zoology Part 13

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 b.e.s.t.i.a.l anguish burst forth from below, the gorgandur echoing the warlock's own scream of agony as a.n.a.logs 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.

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.

"Horgas.h.!.+" 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 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 splas.h.i.+ng 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 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 blus.h.i.+ng. "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 s.h.i.+ning 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.

"And it is the two of you I expect to repeat it. In cla.s.srooms. 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 sc.r.a.ped 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 a.s.sistants into a hug anyway. "No, you may not enlist in the army. You are to take over my cla.s.ses, 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 sc.r.a.ped 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 carca.s.s and wondered if there was any place in the university where the rea.s.sembled 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.

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, s.h.i.+ne 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 pa.s.sion 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 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 pus.h.i.+ng his gla.s.ses.

"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.

"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.

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 G.o.d 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.

Dhunia: The primal G.o.ddess of fertility, the seasons, and nature and thought by her adherents to be embodied by Caen itself. Her wors.h.i.+pers 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: Ma.s.sive 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 sp.a.w.ned 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.

fog drake: A specific breed of drake, being large territorial reptiles unrelated to the dragons or dragonsp.a.w.n they superficially resemble. Fog drakes dwell in swamps, lakes, and marshes and are reputed to be able to create fog to a.s.sist 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.