Free Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher Page B

its neck. A thanadent’s talons might have been capable of inflicting such a wound, but when one of the great mountain beasts took a kill, it either devoured it on the spot or else dragged it off to a secluded lair to feed. Wolves—even the great wolves of the savage, barbarian infested wilds east of the Calderon Valley—could not have struck and killed so cleanly. And besides, any predator would have begun to devour the lamb. Beasts did not kill for sport.

    The ground around the lamb was grossly disturbed. Tavi checked around quickly for tracks, but he found only the hoof-marks of the sheep and then some marks he was not familiar with, and could not even be sure were tracks. One partially disturbed track may have been the outline of a human heel, but it could as easily have been the result of a round stone being rolled out of its place.

    Tavi rose, puzzled, and found two more corpses laying on the ground between the first lamb and Dodger’s refuge in the thicket—another lamb and a ewe, both dead of similar massive, clean wounds. A powerful fury might have been capable of causing those wounds, but furies rarely attacked animals without being compelled to do so by their crafter. If an animal had not done the killings, only a man could have. He would need a viciously sharp blade—a long hunting knife or a sword, and might need fury-enhanced strength to help as well.

    But the frontier valley rarely had visitors, and none of the hold-folk wandered through the pine barrens. Garados’s looming presence made the land for miles about it seem heavy with apprehension, and it was nearly impossible to get a good night’s sleep so near the old mountain.

    Tavi looked up and frowned at Dodger, who remained in the entrance to the thicket, horns presented in warning, and Tavi suddenly felt afraid. What could have struck down those sheep that way? “Uncle?” Tavi called. His voice cracked a little. “Something is wrong.”

    Bernard approached, frowning, his eyes taking in Dodger and the flock, then the dead sheep upon the ground. Tavi watched his uncle take it in, and then Bernard’s eyes widened. He rose and drew the short, heavy sword of the legionare from his belt. “Tavi. Come over to me.”

    “What?”

    Bernard’s voice took on a sharp edge of anger and command that Tavi had never heard in uncle before. “Now.”

    Tavi’s heart began to pound in his chest, and he obeyed. “What about the flock?”

    “Forget them,” Bernard said, his voice crisp and cold. “We’re leaving.”

    “But we’ll lose the sheep. We can’t just leave them here.”

    Bernard passed the sword to Tavi, scanning slowly around them, and fitted an arrow to the string of his bow. “Keep the point low. Put your other hand on the small of my back and leave it there.”

    Tavi’s fear rose sharply, but he forced it away and obeyed his uncle. “What’s wrong? Why are we leaving?”

    “Because we want to get out of the barrens alive.” Bernard started pacing silently away from the thicket, his face set in concentration.

    “Alive? Uncle, what could—”

    Bernard tensed abruptly and spun to one side, lifting his bow.

    Tavi turned with him and saw a flash of motion beyond a small stand of young trees before them. “What is th—”

    There was a hissing wail from their opposite side. Tavi whipped his head around, but his uncle was slower, spinning his entire body with his bow at arm’s length, an arrow drawn back to his cheek. Tavi could do little but watch their attacker come.

    It looked like a bird—if a bird could be eight feet tall and mounted on a pair of long, powerful legs, thicker and stronger-looking than a racing horse’s, and tipped with wicked claws. Its head sat on the end of a long, powerful, flexible neck, and sported a hawk’s beak, enlarged many times, sharp-looking and viciously hooked. Its feathers were colored in all dark browns and blacks, though its eyes were a brilliant shade of gold.

    The bird bounded