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"Hammel, why are you acting this way? What is wrong?" Dad asked his old friend, who gave him an aggrieved hug.
"I can't take this anymore. Day in and day out, people come to me with inane and petty problems… I thought I would be able to sit back, happily manage a town, and kill anything that comes to attack the town. I did not know that I would be put in charge of grown children who would continuously complain to me if they did not wipe their ass properly!" Sir Hammel complained.
With an understanding look, Dad returned the hug and said to his old friend, "Idiots come with the territory, my friend. But since you feel so strongly about it, I will try to find you someone to help you administrate."
After talking some more, we realized that it was rather late in the day, so we decided to set up camp next to Sir Hammel's tent before going for a walk to see how things were going.
During our walk around the town, we noticed that the craftsmen, artisans, merchants, and vendors were actively operating out of their tents while awaiting the construction of their shop houses. The only establishments running at limited capacity were the service establishments, like inns. So, in the meantime, those just functioned as taverns for all the working men and women in town to wet their lips after a hard day's work.
Seeing that everything was in order, we retired for the day.
***
"Sir Hammel! Sir Hammel! Urgent news!"
I was awakened in the middle of the night by a commotion occurring outside my tent.
When I pulled back my tent flap, there were two guards holding up a bloodied and barely conscious man with a bloody, tied-off stump for a left arm.
A moment later, Dad's and Sir Hammel's tent flaps were thrown open to see what was going on. "What's all this then?" Sir Hammel asked with a sheathed sword in hand.
"Sir, this man said his village was attacked by a flying beast three days ago." one of the guards said.
This news woke all of us up from our sleepiness as Sir Hammel closed in on the injured man, "Tell me, in detail, what happened."
"The sky… from the sky, M'lord." The trembling man started, "M-M'lord… beggin' yer pardon, I swear on me mam's grave, I seen it—an' it weren't no dream nor drunkin' fancy. It come from the skies, like a great bolt from the gods. Wings wide as the barn doors, beatin' the air like thunder, I tell ye!
It had the head of a bird, sharp-beaked like a hawk that's tasted meat, but the eyes… oh, them eyes was full o' thinkin'. Smarter'n a man, it was. Front claws like scythes, glintin' in the sun, and hind legs like a warhorse, thick and muscled.
It come down on us, tore up poor Wilfrid in a blink. Didn't even chew, just snapped an' jumped onto another of us. I threw me staff at it, stupid I know, but me arms moved before me wits caught up. It swiped me with its claw, took me arm clean off. If it weren't for old Hob's spookin' it with an arrow, I reckon I'd be naught but a red stain in the grass. Arrow din do much though, bounced right off it did."
As the bloodied man rambled on, I constructed the creature in my mind. Head of a bird, with wings, has front claws, and hind legs like a horse… a griffin? No, hind legs are wrong.
"Hippogriff…" I mumbled out, but apparently I did it during a lull in the conversation, so everyone heard me.
"What was that, son?" Dad asked.
"Hippogriff… from what this man described, I think what attacked them is a hippogriff." I said.
Hearing what I said, Sir Hammel went inside his tent, and there was the sound of rummaging for a couple of minutes before he came out, flipping through a bestiary. He turned the book to the wounded man when he got to a particular page. "Is this what attacked your village?"
After squinting a little, the man nodded, "Aye, M'lord, that's the beasty that attacked me village."
***
At the break of dawn, me, Dad, his knights, along with Sir Hammel, and the mercenaries we hired to escort the caravan rode out to the village from which the survivor came. Turns out, the village was one that we visited before we reached Duhof.
We would have preferred that the trackers and hunters we sent for a few days ago to handle it, but by the time they get in contact with us, there may be more casualties. So the beast forced us to take action.
When we arrived at the destroyed village, we saw that the gates were still locked, so we had to send one of the soldiers to climb over the wall and open it from the inside.
When we got in, the only thing we found was collapsed tents, signs of many scuffles, claw marks, and blood, lots of dried blood splattered all over the place. But surprisingly, besides a few rotting limbs lying around, there were no bodies around.
When we asked the mercenary scout what this could mean, he excused himself to check around the village first.
When he came back, he gave us some grim news. "From here, there are blood droplets heading east over the walls and into the woods. But that is not the worrying part; what worries me is why a beast would kill so many people? Even if it is a hippogriff, beasts like that do not kill unnecessarily. Eating two grown men would have been enough to sate its hunger, yet it killed and carried off a village of what was it? Twenty people?
The only reason I can think of that a beast would carry away such excessive amounts of food is if it was feeding its young, and even that is excessive for a clutch of hippogriff chicks."
Dad rubbed his chin as he pondered, "This is indeed unusual behavior for a beast. But regardless, this must be investigated post haste. And since this beast has tasted human blood and killed a whole village, it must be put down as soon as possible."
Dad promised the mercenary group a reward if the hippogriff's nest was located, and they gladly accepted.