Extraordinary Zoology Read Online Free Page A

turned to Edrea.
    “What if somebody is protecting their territory?”
    “Somebody?” she asked. “Not something?”
    “It doesn’t need to be a beast, or beasts. This could be the work of gatormen, Tharn, or farrow.”
    “Ah.” Edrea nodded and smiled.
    “Okay, any of them probably would have carried the sheep off, but it could be jealous swampies, or bogrin . . . maybe even a trollkin war band.” He thought for a moment more. “But Horgash probably knows all the trollkin in the area, the way he wears all those kriel talismans. So my money’s on farrow.”
    Edrea nodded again. “Horgash actually suggested that while you were out recruiting.” Lynus winced and glanced at Kinik, trudging along behind them.
    Edrea leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “Don’t feel bad. You missed quite the lecture from the professor. He related incident after incident, explaining to Horgash, the stable master, and a captive audience of stable boys and horses why flattened buildings would rule out an attack by farrow.”
    Lynus smiled as he imagined the extemporaneous instruction. “Usually a lecture like that concludes with him pointing us all in a new direction. Did he suggest any alternatives?”
    Edrea laughed softly. It sounded like music. “Yes. He suggested we let you pore over your notes and mull on the matter. The professor quite respects your recall. He boasted to Horgash that you’d memorized every tome in his library.”
    Kinik interrupted, bellowing with glee. “You memorize the books?” She trotted up alongside Lynus and grinned.
    “I haven’t memorized them,” Lynus said, upset that she was intruding upon his conversation with Edrea. “I pay attention when I read them.”
    “But we suspect that Lynus has, in fact, read all of them, Kinik,” said Edrea.
    “How many is all?” asked Kinik.
    “Six hundred and fifteen bound volumes, forty-one thesis folios, and four cabinets full of loose-leaf,” Lynus said.
    Kinik went wide-eyed. “Where is your time for going outside?”
    “I read quickly.” Lynus scowled. Was Kinik chiding him for studying?
    “All books about creatures?”
    “There are actually very few of those, and none are particularly comprehensive,” Edrea said. “That’s why Pendrake saw the need for the Monsternomicon. ”
    “Then what are the others?”
    “Associated topics,” Lynus said. “Things we might need to know in order to understand the creatures we find during our many, many expeditions. Alchemy, biology, cartography, druidism—”
    “And Lynus has organized them: first by topic, then alphabetically.”
    Lynus sighed. That was true.
    “It’s okay, Lynus. Everything is much easier to find now.”
    He couldn’t tell if she was teasing or thanking him, but he wasn’t comfortable with either, not here, in front of Kinik.
    “Of course,” she continued, “if Lynus is in the room, nobody bothers to find the books on their own. They just ask him, and the book magically appears in their hands.”
    Teasing. Definitely teasing.

    They arrived at The Bodger’s Bed and Barrel just after dusk. This particular inn, one of the first along the Great Northern Tradeway between Corvis and Merywyn, was a common enough stop for Pendrake’s crew on northward trips that it felt like a home away from home to Lynus.
    The food was good, the fire warm, the stable well tended, and the beds clean. Lynus sat and stared across the common room at the glowing hearth, his eyes tired from reading.
    Fire, he thought, is a great way to destroy a village. Even farrow, those barbaric, boar-headed bipeds, would know to set fire to thatch. In fact, he couldn’t think of any intelligent or mostly intelligent group that wouldn’t resort to fire to raze a village. Maybe his epiphany about a war for territory was completely off track.
    Unless . . .
    “Friend Lynus.” Kinik’s voice startled Lynus out of his musings. “Sorry for disturbing you. Would you write your name?”
    Lynus blinked, his