Extraordinary Zoology Read Online Free PDF

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. 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 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