Extraordinary Zoology Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 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 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