Chapter 162: Something Dropped a Mule From the Sky

Dinner was stew.

Raven didn’t ask what kind of meat was in it. After the last few weeks, knowing that it had been cooked and that Predation wasn’t displaying any notifications over the bowl was enough.

They sat around a long table inside the main building with the workers, guards, three wagon drivers, Taren, the healer, Roland, Valeria, and Raven all squeezed together.

For a while, nobody talked about monsters.

Roland told them about an old escort job where he had agreed to protect a merchant transporting twenty crates of extremely expensive perfume.

"And what happened?" one of the workers asked.

Roland pointed toward a small scar near his jaw.

"Bandits."

"For perfume?"

"They didn’t know it was perfume."

Valeria took a drink from the wine she had bought in Kharad.

"Then what did they think he was carrying?"

"The merchant hired enough guards that everyone assumed it was jewelry."

Raven continued eating while Roland went on.

"We were attacked six times."

"Six?" Taren asked.

"Six."

"How much was the perfume worth?"

Roland named the amount.

Raven finally looked up.

"At that price, it practically was jewelry."

"Exactly. Then one of the wagons overturned."

Valeria was already smiling.

"No."

"Yes."

"Did the crates break?"

"Eleven of them."

A collective groan went around the table.

Roland raised one hand.

"That wasn’t the worst part."

"What was worse?" the healer asked.

"The smell."

Even Raven smiled at that.

"For three days," Roland continued, "every bandit in the region could find us from kilometers away. Nobody needed a tracker. They just followed the scent of expensive flowers and bad decisions."

Valeria laughed.

"And the merchant?"

"He cried."

"That seems reasonable."

"Then he tried to charge us for the broken crates."

Raven set down his spoon.

"Did the contract include responsibility for damaged cargo?"

Roland pointed at him.

"That was exactly what I asked."

"And?"

"No."

Raven nodded.

"Then it was his problem."

"I knew you’d understand."

Valeria’s hand moved toward Raven’s bowl.

He saw it and waited.

She stole a piece of meat.

Raven looked at her.

Valeria ate it.

"You have your own bowl."

"Yours looked better."

"It’s the same stew."

"Then you haven’t lost anything important."

Raven looked at the empty spot where the meat had been.

"That is not how ownership works."

"I can pay you for it."

"I don’t need payment for one piece of meat."

"Then there was no problem."

Raven opened his mouth, then stopped when he noticed Roland and two of the workers watching them.

He pointed his spoon at Valeria.

"That logic is terrible."

She smiled.

"And yet I still have the meat."

Raven recognized the phrase immediately.

"That was deliberate."

"Of course."

Roland looked between them.

"Did I miss something?"

"Yes," Raven said.

"No," Valeria said at the same time.

Roland decided to continue eating.

Once again, a good decision.

For nearly twenty minutes, nothing important happened.

They ate and talked. One of the workers explained that South Relay would eventually need an entirely new pulley system for the well, Roland asked where horse feed was cheapest farther south, and Valeria criticized the wine while Taren defended it with far more conviction than Raven thought the wine deserved.

Raven finished his bowl and asked for more.

Valeria noticed.

She said nothing.

That was more suspicious than a comment would have been.

Raven looked at her.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No."

"I didn’t say anything."

"Exactly."

Valeria smiled.

"I’m learning restraint."

Raven didn’t believe her.

Then one of the horses whinnied outside.

The conversation didn’t stop immediately. Horses made noise.

Another answered, louder this time, and a third animal slammed hard enough against the newly repaired corral gate that several people at the table went quiet.

Raven set down his spoon.

Predator’s Instinct didn’t react.

There was no hostile intent nearby.

Not yet.

Taren stood.

"They did that last night."

The room fell silent.

Raven headed for the door. He didn’t take the rifle, but he did take his knife.

Valeria followed him, while Roland already had his bow in hand by the time they stepped outside.

The night was clear, with two moons casting enough light to outline the terrain around the relay. The horses moved restlessly inside the repaired corral, and one had its ears pressed completely backward.

Raven checked the ground first, then the horizon.

Nothing.

Only then did he look up.

A shadow crossed one of the moons.

Its silhouette was far too large to belong to an ordinary bird. They couldn’t make out details at that distance, only broad wings, a heavy central body, and something long trailing behind it.

The creature passed high enough overhead that an ordinary bow had no realistic chance of reaching it.

Valeria raised one hand as blood began gathering around her fingers.

Raven shook his head.

"No."

"I can try—"

"Too far."

Roland raised his bow anyway and tracked the shadow for several seconds before lowering it.

"I don’t have that shot."

The creature never descended. It crossed overhead once, then disappeared behind a rocky formation to the west.

The horses took almost a full minute to settle.

Taren looked at Raven.

"Does that count as confirmation?"

"It confirms something large is flying around here."

"What was it?"

"I don’t know."

Valeria glanced toward the main building, where Raven had left the long rifle case.

"You could have used the rifle."

"No."

"Too far?"

"That too."

"Then why not?"

"I’m not spending an experimental round on a shadow that isn’t attacking us."

Roland smiled.

"The economic requirement."

"Among others."

Raven waited several minutes, but nothing returned and Predator’s Instinct remained quiet.

Eventually, he went back inside.

"Double the watch."

Taren nodded.

"You think it’ll return?"

Raven looked once more toward the darkness.

Something had taken three animals from the same relay and was still circling the area.

He didn’t need much more information than that.

"Yes."

It didn’t return that night.

At least not while Raven was awake.

He slept for four hours. Valeria took one watch, Roland another, and the relay guards covered the remaining shifts.

By sunrise, South Relay was still intact.

So were all the horses.

Raven considered that a victory.

Then Taren started shouting outside.

"Raven!"

Raven opened his eyes.

There wasn’t enough panic in the man’s voice to suggest an immediate attack, but he put on his boots anyway.

Outside, Taren stood beside the main building with two workers staring at the ground.

Valeria arrived a few seconds later while adjusting one sleeve, and Roland came behind her.

"What happened?"

Taren pointed.

One of the new beams was broken.

It wasn’t the one supporting the repaired section of roof, but a thick spare beam they had left resting on supports beside the wall for installation that morning.

Raven approached and studied the damage.

The beam had been snapped through the middle by impact rather than cut or bitten. There were no claw marks. The center had been crushed, and splinters around the break had been driven sharply downward.

He checked the ground beneath it.

A shallow depression had formed in the dirt, with several stones displaced around the impact point.

Something had struck from above.

Valeria crouched beside the beam.

"It doesn’t look like anything landed."

"No."

Roland looked around.

"Then what did this?"

Raven followed the direction of the splintering. The impact had been almost vertical, though not perfectly so. Whatever had hit the beam had come from slightly west.

He looked up at the clear morning sky.

Then he noticed something several meters away.

A dark stain stretched across the stone.

Raven walked toward it.

Blood.

Not much, but enough.

Several strands of coarse brown hair lay nearby.

Taren went pale.

"No."

Raven looked at him.

"What?"

The supervisor pointed toward the corrals.

"That’s mule hair."

Roland understood first.

"The one that disappeared?"

Taren didn’t answer.

Raven looked back toward the broken beam, then at the impact site.

It hadn’t been a claw strike.

It hadn’t been a magical attack.

Something heavy had fallen out of the sky.

Valeria joined him.

"Do you think it was accidental?"

Raven looked at the blood, then at the shattered timber, and finally toward the western mountains.

"No."

Taren swallowed.

"Then what fell?"

Raven took a few seconds to answer.

Not because he didn’t have a possibility in mind.

Because he didn’t like it.

"Part of whatever it took."

Roland stared at the broken beam.

"Is it leaving us food?"

Raven shook his head.

"Or dropping what it doesn’t want."

Valeria looked toward the sky.

"That’s worse."

Raven agreed.

The previous night, something large enough to lift livestock had crossed above South Relay. By morning, part of one of its earlier kills had come back down with enough force to snap a new support beam in half.

Their contract still only required them to protect the wagons and keep the relay operational during the initial repairs.

Technically, nothing about that had changed.

Practically, it had.

If something could drop part of a mule hard enough to destroy a beam, it could do the same thing to a wagon.

Or a person.

Raven crouched beside the impact site.

Predator’s Instinct still detected no nearby threat, and the sky remained empty.

For now.

Valeria watched him.

"Still think it isn’t our problem?"

Raven ran two fingers along one of the splinters driven downward by the impact.

"I still think nobody is paying us to hunt it."

Roland exhaled.

"That sounded like there was a ’but’ coming."

Raven stood.

"But they are paying us to keep this relay operational."

Valeria smiled slowly.

"Ah."

Raven didn’t return the smile.

They still didn’t know what was above them. He didn’t know its Level, its species, whether there was only one, or whether it would return before they finished the contract.

And he had exactly zero intention of spending ammunition until he understood the situation.

"First, we finish the roof."

Roland looked at the shattered beam.

"And after that?"

Raven raised his eyes toward the empty sky.

"Then we find out what keeps dropping things out of it."