Extraordinary Zoology (3 page)

Lynus stood patiently in front of the wooden counter at Corcoran’s Supply while the owner and his new assistant assembled the order in back. After Lynus had repeated what Pendrake had told him, Corcoran was doubtless double-checking the stock to ensure his loyal customer didn’t get even a single bulging tin.

Corcoran’s assistant was an ogrun female, youngish and of average height for her race, which meant she towered over Corcoran and Lynus both and had to crouch to get through the seven-foot doorframes. She ducked under one, a canvas-wrapped bundle twice the size of a man slung over her ample shoulder.

The ogrun wore a dented, scuffed breastplate under the heavy armored greatcoat favored by mercenaries. Similar to the one Lynus himself wore for their imminent journey, only much larger, it seemed an unnecessary level of protection here in the middle of civilization.

“Here ’tis, then, young sir,” said the chubby, balding shopkeeper, peering around the ogrun. Corcoran slipped around his assistant and waved at the massive bundle. “Two weeks’ food for two men, a wisp of an Iosan, and a trollkin.” Corcoran winked. “And a bit of extra thrown in for loyal customers and good friends. Kinik here will haul it as far as you need her to.”

Kinik, easily two heads taller than Lynus, flashed him a smile revealing broad teeth and a small pair of tusks. “Where are we going?”

“Umm . . . the cart’s right here.” Lynus thumbed over his shoulder to the street. He was a bit puzzled by the size of the bundle, which seemed big enough for three weeks instead of a fortnight. Lynus had taken care of these preparations several times before, and he was starting to get a feel for what the bundle should look like. He wondered just how much extra had been thrown in.

Also, this was the first time Corcoran had someone else on hand to help load the cart. Lynus was unaccustomed to that.

“You needn’t trouble,” he said, looking up at Kinik. “I’m sure I can manage it from here to the cobbles.”

The ogrun sized him up, or rather down, arching her heavy brows, and for a moment Lynus worried that she would sling several hundred pounds of food on top of him and his armored greatcoat.

“You would be making two trips, maybe,” she said, a thick Molgur-Og accent muddying her Cygnaran. “Or five.” She strode out to the street. “Professor Viktor Pendrake is here?”

Her accent couldn’t be any thicker if she hailed from the Wyrmwall.

“No, he’s back at the university stables.”

“We will not keep him waiting, then!” She reached back to Corcoran’s door and grabbed a massive polearm from where it had been leaning.

“Wait a minute,” Lynus said. “What’s that for?”

“Corcoran said I will meet Pendrake. I worked three weeks for room, board, provisions. Now Pendrake takes trip, and I am ready!”

This was not how “not dilly-dallying” was supposed to go. Not at all.

“No, no, no,” Lynus said. “I don’t care what Corcoran told you. Viktor Pendrake is in a big hurry, and he’s waiting on me.” Lynus pointed at the back of the cart. “Just put everything in there and be off.”

“No.” Kinik scowled so deeply Lynus thought her brows would rub against her lower lip.

“Look, I’m sorry, but Pendrake is busy.” He fished around in his purse and came up with a shiny Cygnaran half-crown. “Far too busy to meet with people today. We’re headed out this very hour. Pendrake will be back in town in a couple of weeks. Please just take this for your trouble?”

Lynus silently scolded himself for turning that into a question.

Kinik leaned her polearm against the cart and accepted the coin. She smiled. “For this crown, my trouble is to carry.” She shrugged, rolled her huge shoulders to settle the bundle, and picked up her polearm again. “You drive the mule. I will walk behind.”

He didn’t seem to have much of a choice in the matter, so Lynus climbed onto the bench of the empty cart and drove. Kinik followed on foot.

He fumed and fretted, alternating between biting his nails and whipping Mooger the mule, who nevertheless seemed content with the arrangement. Behind the cart, an eight-foot she-monster carried all the provisions and a frightfully large weapon. He was sure that everyone else on the road, whether on foot or horseback, or in carts and wagons, was staring at him.

Lynus steered Mooger wide around an idling steamjack that carried sawed timbers under its arms and barrels and boxes slung in netting over its shoulders. It was part of a construction team finally getting around to repairing one of the buildings damaged when the skorne army had marched their giant beasts down this avenue three years ago. But it wasn’t idling properly. The fire was too hot, and it emitted a whistling sound.

“Hey!” he called out to the laborers on the team. “That sounds like a bad release valve! You’re idling it too hot.”

“Shut it, whey-face.”

“I’m serious!” Lynus bunched the mule’s reins in one hand, slid over to the right side of the bench, and pointed at the steamjack. “That whistling. The release valve wants to let go, but it’s stuck. The boiler is already too hot. It might crack, or worse!”

Lynus’ father was a steamo, so Lynus had learned a thing or two about ’jacks at an early age, though he’d lacked the strength to grip the wrenches and hammers that were the tools of that trade.

The foreman strode over to Lynus and glared up at him, holding just such a wrench. “Look behind your wagon, junior. You’re holding up the whole street, so whip the mule, or I’ll whip . . . uh.” The foreman’s eyes went wide as he looked past Lynus to the left side of the cart. Lynus turned, following his gaze.

Kinik loomed there with a frown. “Whip what?” she asked.

Oh, great
. This backwoods ogrun was going to start a fight, with Lynus right in the middle of it, and why wasn’t the foreman paying attention to the whistling, which was now very loud? Lynus turned back to the steamjack just in time to see the boiler explode.

His first thought was relief that he was still alive. Boiler explosions are bad news, even small ones.

His second thought, very close on the heels of the first, was thank Morrow the ’jack was facing the street, arms full, with the boiler turned away from everybody. The fire and steam washed over a lumber pile and only sent the ’jack forward a half step before it toppled.

His third thought, which interrupted the second with a jolt, was panic, because suddenly he was racing away from the explosion. Mooger had spooked, and now Mooger, Lynus, and the empty cart were very quickly twenty paces away. Traffic had bunched up behind them, so there was plenty of room for a frightened mule to run.

Lynus steadied himself by grabbing the bench with both hands, and watched as the reins he’d released slid forward and off the cart.

Mooger poured on the speed. Lynus bounced on the bench as the wagon rattled over the cobbles. He grabbed the back of the bench with one hand, leaned forward looking for the reins, and almost went top-over-teakettle when the wagon slowed abruptly with a distressed “hee-HAWNNN“ in front and a grunt of exertion behind.

Lynus looked back. Kinik held the cart with one hand and her polearm in the other. The bundle of provisions lay on the cobbles a few paces behind her.

“I can carry supplies, or I can carry the cart.“ She grinned. “Not both.“

Lynus dropped to the street and grabbed the reins. Kinik’s smile was genuine, her accent somehow disarming. It was hard to stay angry. “Thank you,” he said gruffly. He sighed. “You might as well put the stuff in back.” He climbed back onto the bench.

Kinik loaded the provisions in the cart and then climbed in with him. The mule whinnied in protest.

“If you’re riding,” Lynus said as they drove, “do I get that shiny half-crown back?”

“I carried half the way, saved boy from a beating with wrench, then saved the wagon, the mule, and boy from a crash,” Kinik said. “I was expecting maybe other half of crown.”

Lynus frowned and said nothing as they rode through Corvis toward the university. He was frustrated, and grateful, and yet more frustrated that he had something to feel grateful for. And what was the professor going to say?

The two- and three-story wooden buildings gave way to statelier stone structures, then a low ivied wall, beyond which stood the proud old Corvis University campus. Lynus turned right after the gate and went straight to the stables.

Pendrake and Edrea had their horses, Codex and Aeshnyrr, out and dressed alongside Lynus’ gelding, Oathammer. It was nice to be senior enough to merit a personal horse issued by the university, but it would have been nicer still to merit the opportunity to name it something more noble.

Horgash stood with them, leaning against a haystack-sized pile of furs and . . .
Morrow above
, Lynus thought,
that’s not furs
.

Horgash had a bison.

Lynus stared at it for a moment. He’d seen bison from a distance, but they weren’t particularly extraordinary, so they never entered his studies, let alone the lab. He had never realized just how large they were.

“Ahem.” Professor Pendrake cleared his throat.

Pendrake, Horgash, and Edrea were staring back at him. Okay, Horgash had a bison. That was not the matter at hand. Lynus had a stowaway.

“I’m sorry, Professor. She insisted.” Lynus gestured at Kinik, who was out of the cart and stretching. “She wouldn’t load the cart, she almost started a fight, and then Mooger got spooked. Anyway, she really wanted to meet you. I tried to say no. I said no a lot, in fact.”

Edrea cocked an eyebrow at Lynus, as if to suggest that he hadn’t merely handled this incorrectly, he’d handled it in the worst possible way. His heart sank.

Pendrake scowled at him, and Lynus’ heart found another drop-off. “Did it occur to you that perhaps I should be the one making that decision?”

“Umm . . .” Lynus flushed. Somewhere back there, during the nail-biting and the mule-whipping, that had occurred to him, but he had kept hoping the ogrun would just give up.

“‘Um’ indeed,” said Pendrake as he strode around the cart. “Professor Viktor Pendrake,” he said, offering his hand.

“Kinik Helegroth,” said the ogrun, pumping the professor’s hand. “I am bokur.” She gestured at the assembled group. “You are four, but with maybe only two that carry.” Lynus suddenly felt quite small. “Let me carry, and you are four with eight free weapon hands.”

Lynus jumped down from the cart. “Gods . . . Professor, I think she means to come with us!”

“Obviously.” Pendrake adjusted his spectacles and looked up, way up, to meet the ogrun’s eyes. “Your accent places you from beyond the Wyrmwall, perhaps. You’ve come quite a distance, Kinik Helegroth.”

The ogrun nodded.

“Bokur, you say?”

She nodded more deeply, almost a bow.

“I am a professor. I need students, not vassals. Though I would be deeply honored should you offer, I feel I must warn you in advance that I am not the korune at the end of your bokur’s quest.”

Kinik’s face fell, and her shoulders sagged. She cast a short, sullen glower at Lynus, as if this were somehow his fault. As frustrated as he was, he felt terribly sorry for her. He had warned her, hadn’t he?

And then she straightened up, drawing herself to her full height. “My offer stands. Bokur and student are both for learning. So I will learn as I carry.”

Pendrake furrowed his brow. “You have a war cleaver,” he pointed at the polearm. “Do you know how to use it?”

“I study two things,” she said. “War cleaver is one.”

“And the other?”

Kinik reached into one of the big exterior pockets of her greatcoat and withdrew a battered, dog-eared tome. The embossed title,
Monsternomicon
, was scuffed but still clearly visible.

Lynus knew that book well. He, Edrea, and numerous others had helped Professor Viktor Pendrake research it. Some of them had died in that effort. Eleven of the woodcuts were from Lynus’ own hand. Only five hundred of these books had been printed on Corvis University’s press three years ago, between the general distress of an undead uprising and an invading army from the east, yet somehow this wandering ogrun had gotten her hands on one of them and walked it all the way back here.

“I study your book.”

Pendrake laughed heartily. “You are a student indeed!” he exclaimed. “It’s decided. You shall accompany us, and since my Iosan assistant has set the precedent,” he looked over to Edrea and winked, “I shall, for the time being, waive the usual requirement that those studying under me be registered, tuition-paying students at Corvis University.”

Pendrake looked to Lynus. “Our expedition’s provisioning must be adjusted to account for another healthy appetite. How quickly can you see to this?”

And then Lynus realized why the provender bundle looked too large. Corcoran had paid the ogrun in provisions.

“I think that’s already been taken care of, Professor.”