Chapter 56: Coin from an Independent Hunt
"North-east pasture, past the old lime road."
The clerk pushed the cull notice across the witness table. Her pen was still wet from the wager record.
"8 field Beasts," she said. "They’ve taken sheep. Yesterday they rushed a rider near the drainage cut. Bring proof back before sunset and the Guild pays 1 Stellar Gold per carcass."
"The carcasses stay mine?"
"If you want them. We’re paying for confirmed kills, not the meat, hide, or bone."
Severin read the marked route. The old lime road crossed raised ground north-east of Greycross. A broken culvert sat at the far end of a drainage cut below it.
"What drew them there?"
"Slaughter refuse. Mostly blood. Someone keeps dumping it where rain carries it into the cut." The clerk tapped the deadline. "The farmer wants his sheep alive. We want the notice off the board before dark."
"No badge attached."
"None. Your claimant filing is enough."
Alicia leaned over the route sketch. "I can hold the horses and stay near you, Master."
Saelith touched the inked ditch with a fingernail. "Not from the bottom of that cut."
"I didn’t say I’d stand in the mud."
"The horses will if something breaks south."
Alicia’s ears turned toward her. "I’ve crossed worse."
"With a sword, perhaps. Not with 3 horses pulling different ways."
Severin pinned the notice with 2 fingers. "Alicia holds the dry ridge. Kill only what crosses south."
Her tail eased out of its tight curve. "Yes, Master."
"Saelith watches the culvert and east pasture."
Saelith lifted her hand from the sketch. "Good."
Severin signed the claimant line. The clerk sanded the ink, folded the notice, and handed it over.
"Before sunset," she said.
They left through the private yard’s south gate. The 3 horses waited at the south-east rail, sound and restless after the morning’s noise. Alicia checked every knot before mounting.
Severin led them through Greycross’s north-east gate. Alicia rode behind him on the right. Saelith kept left, watching the roadside ditch and the water marks along the verge.
The city thinned into fenced pasture, then open ground. Old white stone showed wherever wheels had bitten through the dirt. At the broken culvert, the crown of the road was dry while the lower field still held black water.
Saelith raised her hand.
They stopped on the high road.
"Fresh drag marks," she said. "Into the culvert. Old blood below us, more near the south opening."
Severin and Saelith dismounted on the high road. Alicia swung down, gathered all 3 reins, and led the horses onto a low ridge south-west of the cut. The grass held firm beneath their hooves.
Severin stepped down to the west lip of the drainage cut, facing north-east. Saelith stopped on lime gravel 4 paces behind his left shoulder. Alicia remained on the ridge, close enough to hear without bringing the horses near the mud.
Wet soil, spoiled blood, and musk thickened the air below.
Stone scraped inside the culvert.
Severin retrieved Wisdom’s Edge into his right hand.
Noon light slid along the pale blade.
The culvert erupted.
3 low Beasts drove through the opening. The lead creature clawed up the western slope with its jaws wide. Severin stepped onto the firm edge and cut across its neck. Its charge carried the body past his right boot before it collapsed in the mud.
The next Beast struck through the falling body.
Severin caught its shoulder with his left forearm and turned its weight past him. Wisdom’s Edge reversed beneath his arm and opened the throat on the return.
The third veered east.
He pivoted on his left boot. The point turned with him and entered beneath the skull. The Beast hit the bank hard enough to shake water from the grass.
More claws hammered stone. 2 Beasts burst over the eastern lip. The other 3 jammed at the broken mouth, then tore free behind them.
Severin crossed the shallow slope before the eastern Beasts could spread. His first cut dropped the nearer Beast. The other twisted away, tearing mud as it tried to circle behind him.
"East!" Saelith called.
He turned with it. Wisdom’s Edge slipped behind the jaw and came free before the body struck the ground.
The last 3 broke apart. The nearest rushed him, the eastmost clawed for the road, and the rear Beast spun back toward the culvert.
Severin cut through the rusher’s neck, turned the return along the climber’s spine, and drove the point behind the retreating Beast’s skull as it shoved into the broken stones. Claws scraped rock, slipped, and stopped.
Water dripped inside the culvert. Saelith’s bowstring settled against her sleeve. On the ridge, Alicia held the same line with all 3 horses facing the road.
Severin checked the fallen bodies. None breathed, and no eye followed him.
The Void took all 8 carcasses together. Mud and flattened grass remained where they had fallen.
He wiped the thick blood from Wisdom’s Edge with dry grass, checked the edge, and Stored the sword.
Alicia brought the horses down only after he called her. Her gaze ran over his coat, hands, and boots.
"None crossed south, Master. You’re not bleeding."
"No."
Black mud marked his right boot and the edge of his trouser leg. Nothing hurt.
Saelith looked toward the empty culvert. "The blood dump made a den out of a ditch. Leave it there and something else moves in."
"The clerk gets that with the return."
They reached Greycross in the early afternoon.
At the Guild salvage yard, Alicia tied the 3 horses to the south rail and stayed near them while Severin laid the signed notice on the service counter.
The clerk opened it. "All 8?"
"Count them." Severin tapped the marked drainage cut. "Add slaughter refuse. If it stays, the Beasts come back."
Her pen moved beneath the route. "That’ll make the farmer happy."
"It should make whoever’s dumping blood stop."
She glanced up, then pointed toward the stone inspection slab. "Fine. Let’s see the proof."
Severin retrieved the carcasses onto the slab in order. The appraiser checked each kill, then stepped back for the next. After Severin retrieved the last carcass, the clerk struck the 8th mark beside the contract.
"8 Stellar Gold bounty," she said.
The appraiser pressed a thumb against the hide. "Cuts are clean. Claws, hide, bone... enough left to sell. 17 Stellar Gold for the lot."
"Accepted."
The Guild counted 25 Stellar Gold onto the registry scale. Severin Stored the payment before he nodded to the yard workers. They hooked the carcasses from the slab and carried them through the cutting doors.
The clerk looked toward the rear wall. "You asked yesterday about a reinforced live pen."
"I need it now."
"1 Stellar Gold. We open nothing until it’s paid."
Severin retrieved 1 Stellar Gold into his palm and placed it on the counter.
Before following Severin behind the salvage yard, Alicia pulled each horse knot tight again. The 3 horses stayed at the south rail inside the enclosed Guild yard.
The live pen had stone walls on 3 sides and iron lattice overhead. Beyond its outer gate, a barred inner gate separated the keeper’s passage from the rough floor and shallow drain.
The pen keeper locked the outer gate behind them.
"Living stock comes out angry," he said.
"Rare stock?" the appraiser asked.
"Usually worse."
"Keep the inner gate shut," Severin said.
The keeper snorted. "I like breathing. It stays shut."
Severin entered alone and stopped 3 paces from the center drain, facing the inner gate. The keeper closed and barred it behind him.
Alicia stood outside the west rail nearest Severin. Saelith took the north end, where she could see the drain, inner gate, and outer gate. The appraiser stayed behind the rail with his board under his arm.
Severin retrieved the Mirehook Stalker at the center of the pen, facing east and away from the inner gate.
Its belly nearly brushed the floor beneath its low, heavy frame. Hooked foreclaws clicked apart against the stone. A clear membrane swept across the eye nearest Severin, and fine pits ran along its left and right jawlines.
The Mirehook breathed through its teeth.
Alicia’s tail went still.
The appraiser watched the Beast settle its weight. "Alive and sound. Claws whole. Eyes clear." He leaned far enough to study the jaw without crossing the rail. "Those pits are natural. I can price the body, not tell you what they do."
"Price it."
He studied the hide, teeth, breathing, and the weight gathered through its shoulders.
"Alive? About 180 Stellar Gold. Dead, much less."
"Buyer?"
"Broker, maybe. Rare live stock takes time."
"No sale."
The appraiser lowered his board. "Then why pay for the number?"
"I needed the price."
The pen keeper shifted beside the inner gate.
The Mirehook’s head snapped toward the sound.
Its claws struck stone.
"Gate!" the keeper shouted. "Keep the damned gate shut!"
The Beast launched.
Severin crossed its left side before it reached the bars. His left forearm dropped over the jaw hinge, clear of the mouth, while his right hand drove the near shoulder down.
The Mirehook twisted beneath him. A hooked foreclaw carved a white line across the floor.
Severin planted his left boot on rough stone beside the drain and pinned the upper ribs with his right knee. Its jaws opened against his forearm and found nothing to bite.
Only then did he call the Void.
Dense black mist swallowed the Mirehook whole. The body bucked beneath his grip, then vanished.
[Void Devour successful.]
[Target: Mirehook Stalker]
The pen stood empty beneath Severin’s hands.
The appraiser stared through the rail. The keeper seized the inner gate and tested the bar.
180 Stellar Gold could buy stone and doors. It couldn’t replace the Core Essence bound in the Beast, what its body might yield, or whatever memories the Void might recover.
How long?
[Noema: Estimated digestion time: 0.007 seconds, My Lord.]
Digest.
[Digestion Target: Mirehook Stalker]
[Digestion initiated.]
The echo hadn’t died before the next notification appeared.
[Digestion Target: Mirehook Stalker]
[Digestion Progress: 100%]
[Digestion complete.]
[Duplicate Original Skill detected.]
[Skill Name: Peril Alarm]
[Transferred to Void Archive.]
[New Trait Acquired.]
[Trait: Low Four-Limbed Ambush Frame]
[New Trait Acquired.]
[Trait: Hooked Foreclaws]
[New Trait Acquired.]
[Trait: Water-Sealing Eye Membrane]
[New Trait Acquired.]
[Trait: Pressure-Sensitive Jawline Pits]
[Noema: The Mirehook Stalker’s remaining 1,208 Core Essence has entered the Void Reserve, My Lord.]
The keeper opened the inner gate. Severin stepped into the passage.
Alicia came close enough to inspect his coat and hands. "It didn’t cut you, Master."
"No."
Saelith studied the white claw mark on the floor. "It never reached the bars."
The keeper pressed a hand to his chest. "My heart didn’t notice."
Back at the service counter, the Void held 198 Stellar Gold 7 Gold 3 Silver 5 Copper in Severin’s personal coin.
He took a sheet from the clerk and wrote to Tressa.
Greycross footing nearly ready. I’m examining a place we can lock. Finish the Mereford handoff before you travel.
He sealed the note and passed it across the counter.
"Next Mereford packet?"
"Before dusk." The clerk placed it inside a leather satchel with 3 other sealed packets. A corridor courier fastened the brass clasp and carried the satchel toward the front hall.
The clerk watched the courier go. Then she looked at Severin’s claimant record and the client board behind her.
She pulled down a fresh notice.
"A warehouse-house came onto the board this morning. The owner needs coin today."
"Show me."