The Turquoise Queen

to worry about catching a cold if he did not dry himself immediately, which he did not do because he was too intent on his search. He realized that now he was able to notice things he would have overlooked before: prints as small as those of squirrels, or even birds that had alighted on the ground. As for those of larger animals, like foxes, hares and deer, they leapt to the eye so clearly that they seemed to scream at him. He was also able to pick out droppings and tell how old they were and what animal they were from, as well as what direction they had come from or gone to, as well as who had caught whom. Wildlife was like that, very real and harsh. But among all those trails, there was not a single one of any large predators.

Finally, after covering some distance to the south, he came upon the tracks of a wolf. Could a wolf be the cause of all the trouble in the village? The prints were those of a large adult male, but they were clear and definite, with nothing strange about them. A wolf could have killed the sheep, it was true, and even cows if it was very aggressive, but – several humans? In a civilized area? Besides, this was a solitary wolf, not part of a pack. If there were several of them it would make sense, since they could kill people and whole flocks, although it was not usual in inhabited areas like this. Now he was really puzzled. He decided to follow the tracks. He did not find this difficult as they were clear, and in the animal’s passage through the scrub-vegetation it had broken several branches.

It did not take him long to find it. Dead. It was lying beside an oak. Lasgol knelt beside the animal and took a good look at it. It was a large, strong specimen, and its back was broken. It had not been a man who had killed it – there was no doubt about that – but neither had it been an animal. There were no marks of claws or fangs on its body, not a single wound. It was as if something had snapped it in two as you might snap a branch across your knee. Before, Lasgol had found this business strange; now he found it incomprehensible and extraordinary. He searched for marks on the tree, in case some external force had thrown the wolf against the tree and broken its back in the process. Nothing. Not a single mark. He scratched his head, feeling that he was missing something. The clues must be there in front of him, it was just that he could not see them.

He moved back a little to try and see the scene from further back, which was a technique that helped him a lot when he could not manage to see what was in front of him. Nothing. He took some tracking dust from his Ranger belt and spread it around to reveal tracks that might otherwise pass unnoticed. Nothing there either. He tried several more advanced Tireless Tracker techniques, but they all turned out to be useless. One thing was clear: something had killed that wolf, and it was not anything normal, which worried him greatly.

He sat down on the ground and went over the situation in his mind. He thought of magic. A Mage of Air could have done it. His scholarly friend Egil had told him that Magi who used the elements as a basis for their magic could create very powerful spells. It occurred to Lasgol that a Mage of Air could have hurled the animal through the air with a strong gust of wind. The wolf’s back could have been broken when it hit the ground after the attack. Yes, that could have been it. Egil had explained that all elemental magic left traces of the element used in an attack. It could not be a Mage of Fire, since there were no marks of burning on the body. Nor could it have been a Mage of Water, since there were no marks of freezing on the carcass. A Mage of Earth did not fit either, because the body showed no signs of the impact of stones or earth.

Yes, a Mage of Air, casting a powerful spell in the form of a gust of wind, might very well have done this. He checked the ground underneath. A new disappointment. The wolf had certainly hit the ground hard, but Lasgol seriously doubted that the impact would have killed it, since the mark on the ground was a shallow one.

He sighed in frustration and stood up. One thing was clear: something had hurled it there from a distance, because there was no noticeable mark anywhere near. He decided to follow a hunch and looked by the riverside. If the attacker had been a Mage, there was no need for him to have come by the riverside, unless he had stopped for water. If so, there would be prints at the spot where he had crouched down. He went back to the river and tracked, without losing sight of the wolf’s body.

Once again he hit on something strange and puzzling. The print was not on the riverbank, but in the river itself. He stepped into the water and bent down to examine the print closely. What he found left him perplexed. It was not the footprint of a Mage, or a bear, or a mountain tiger. It was the print of something bigger, and what was worse, he did not know what kind of creature it could be. He scratched his head, remembering Master Gisli’s teachings. Now he understood why the Chief had described the tracks as those of a deformed giant. The print was too big for any animal Lasgol knew, and the shape certainly looked like a deformed foot. One