Beorn was a couple of hours ride on the winding road to Algested. The sun beat down from overhead providing a warm respite from the cold that held the north in its grasp during the winter. He wouldn’t be enjoying it for long since the dirt-packed path led to the foot of the Angoran Mountains; winding around the smaller peaks of the range. The village was close to another set of mines, though these had long run dry.

The ranger had noticed only a single set of horse prints marking the way along his path through the forest. It disappeared for stretches of the road, wandering into the forest but always returning. Beorn narrowed his eyes and kept his senses on high alert, the innkeeper had confirmed that no one from Strendur had dared come close or travel this road. That meant these tracks -- someone else was heading in the same direction he was. He couldn’t be sure if they were friend or foe and with his recent luck, he’d lean towards the latter.

'Why would anyone head this way after hearing about missing merchants and a wyvern?'

Wilhelmina quipped, 'The same reason you are, I presume.'

Beorn's eyebrows climbed higher, 'Fair enough.'

'You know, most creatures run away from danger, not go searching for something bigger, stronger, and meaner than them on purpose.'

The ranger chuckled at that, 'What? Getting worried about me now? Isn't it too late for that?'

He could feel his companion's embarrassment through their shared bond, 'Well… I was certain you'd be able to survive those dangers. And now with the dragon blessing; I don't much care to spend another thousand years asleep waiting for someone able to bond with me.'

Wilhelmina continued with a faint voice, 'Besides you've promised to search for my family, it wouldn't do for you to die before you fulfill your promise to this princess.'

Beorn felt warm at the emotions behind Wilhelmina's concern for him, 'I did promise Castellan Gunnhildr to take care of the bounties.'

'You would help the villagers regardless. Even though we may have only spent a short time together I know you well enough Beorn. Even though you could just leave this to someone else—you won't.'

'Well, it's better me than some untrained villager going to his death or some unreliable sell-sword ripping them off,' Beorn weighed his hefty purse, 'I've been paid pretty well after all.'

'That paltry amount of gold is not worth my life… or yours.'

The ranger shrugged and checked that his weapons were in easy reach as he proceeded slowly along the path.

Ever since overhearing the group from yesterday something about this whole situation had been nagging at him, Beorn knew better than to discount his instincts by now, hopefully, he’d get some answers once he reached the location of the attack. The road looked like it had not seen any travelers tread its surface for a few months, with wild shrubbery creeping in on the sides and tufts of grass breaking through the hard-packed dirt. Contact between the villages had been interrupted by the wyvern for a while now; enough to alarm the inhabitants of Strendur and request the garrison at Ingoldtshold. Evidently, Rollo and his crew had been worthless in assuaging the fear of the villagers.

Beorn smelled the site of the attack before even coming into view of the small clearing some distance from the path. The thick metallic tang of blood hit him in a sudden wave, his stomach rebelled threatening to expel the contents of his hearty lunch. Beorn closed his eyes and swallowed hard pressing down the acidic bile that burned his throat. After a moment of holding his breath and calming his hammering heart, he managed to recover and separate the sickening smell of death from the fresh breeze and shut it out. Even Tyvjyo shied away from proceeding further into the opening, Beorn patted his flank and the steadfast stallion trotted forwards, snorting and hesitant but he complied with the rangers urging.

As he made his way into the clearing proper, he noticed the horse prints from before return. The ranger stood still for a moment trying to hear anything out of the ordinary — breathing, heartbeats anything that would warn him to an ambush.

Nothing but the wind rustling through the forest.

Beorn continued into the clearing, the ranger noticed the abandoned wagons in the middle curved around a fire pit. They could provide no protection to their owners though, blood was splattered across the side of the wagons, their canvas roofs were ripped to shreds and rotting produce lay in broken wooden boxes broken across the dirt. Prints of scaly clawed limbs intersected with human footprints trying to flee into the forest, but they only made it to the border. No one, not even the horses had survived.

Beorn's blood ran cold at the scene before him, he could very well imagine what havoc a fully grown wyvern could wreak on unprepared victims. At least there wasn't a threat of it returning this soon after feeding on the poor victims. But that nagging feeling had recovered in full force. Something wasn't right with this scene.

Beorn dismounted and got closer to the wreckage. He really didn't want to get any closer, but his instincts were now ringing a bell in his head, he just needed his conscious mind to catch up to what his brain had already noticed. He examined it for a while before it hit him.

The scene was too clean.

There was a lot of blood splattered around but no corpses and no body parts. The wyvern would've fed on the horses and left the carcass to rot but there was nothing. It wouldn't have made multiple trips just to carry off the humans either. No wyvern acted like this. When an adult wyvern established a territory it usually carried out rabid attacks on any settlements inside what it perceived as its belonging. Any intrusions into its territory were also met with immediate retaliation. The Angoran mountains provided a perfect place for a nest and this road ran close to them, it made sense that the wyvern had attacked the clueless merchants, but this wasn't it.

Beorn quickly made his way into the underbrush. It took him fifteen minutes to find faint traces of armored feet in the soft mud protected under a particularly thick bush. Further searching netted him a few scraps of clothing, torn by nettles branches. There had been men here, and their traces had been wiped clean along and it would've fooled most observers. This wasn't only the work of a wyvern, there were men that had cleaned up all signs of the attack. There were two reasons the ranger figured these men were here, to hide the fact that a wyvern had attacked the merchants. Which made no sense.

Beorn shuddered at the only other possibility he could think of; the men who'd left these traces had somehow led the wyvern here. And both possibilities meant they had found a way to control the monster; maybe not completely but at least enough to prevent it from attacking them, there was no telling what they could do with it.

A few feet away he spotted mulched leaves under heavy hoof prints, his predecessor seemed to have come to the same conclusion Beorn had. He wanted to follow the tracks and find out who they belonged to, but… the ranger shook his head, he had a bad feeling about this whole mess, he decided to first check up on Algested.

It was another half an hour of following the road to Algested that Beorn heard voices in the forest, snatched of conversation floating on the wind.

Two adult men, he judged from their pitch. Probably sentries.

He slowly turned around taking care not to urge Tyvjyo too fast, although he was well beyond the range of any human hearing there was no harm in being safe. He led the stallion into some thickets where he could tie him out of sight of the road. Taking his pack and weapons with him, he fed Tyvjyo some feed and water from the saddlebags before patting his snout, "Stay quiet buddy, I'll be back soon." Tyvjyo nickered and licked his hand before folding his legs and lying down. He was still tired from the forced march just a day before. Beorn promised himself that he'd give the stallion more time to rest once he'd gotten to the bottom of this. He brushed the tracks he'd left in case anyone came down the road and made his way to the village.

Beorn silenced his footsteps, slowed down, and threaded through the forest, being mindful of the branches and leaves that littered the forest floor. He was thankful at the measure of control he'd acquired over his newfound strength with his exercises, along with his enhanced senses and his shifting cloak, Beorn was a ghost, with only a slight whisper of brushed leaves to indicate his presence.

Their tone hadn't changed which indicated they had felt nothing amiss, though he was still too far to make out what they were talking about. He crept closer and hid behind a large fern once he heard their footsteps crunching the debris that lay on the forest floor. Two men walked into view, they wore ragged hide armor and tattered cloth. Their weapons looked to be better maintained than their clothes, they were also paying attention to observing their surroundings despite their conversation.

"I'm telling you that village gives me the creeps. Why do we have to stay there?"

"Didn't look like it a month ago. Anyways the boss man says we wait in the village and that’s what we do. Let's just finish our rounds, it's starting to get dark."

Beorn scowled

These men were here a month ago? And they definitely aren't regular armed villagers.

He crouched lower and waited until they passed. Beorn decided to creep past them and try and find out what had happened in the village. These men were too organized, he did not want to risk them noticing the missing patrol.

Beorn's progress was slow. He snuck past two more patrols and a hidden sentry unnoticed. With the earlier patrol, that put the size of the group somewhere around fifteen to twenty men.

The sun had dipped below the horizon completely enveloping the forest in a dull gloom. The crickets and other nocturnal inhabitants filled the forest with their sounds when Beorn finally reached the wooden walls of Algested — what was left of them.

The gate was shredded into matchsticks and the other walls bore signs of destruction similar to the wagons he'd seen earlier. From his vantage point, he could see that the village was smaller than Strendur but there was no sign of any villagers going about their business; only a bonfire was visible in the center of the village with ten armed men milling about, throwing ghastly shadows on what wreckage was left of the houses that surrounded it. The fetid smell of death and gore mingled with the sharp tang of unwashed sweat, iron, and the aromas of cooking flesh and alcohol combined with the overpowering smell of burnt wood. The breeze carried the heady mixture of smell towards Beorn which stopped him in his tracks and set his eyes watering.

The village of Algested was dead and its killers were currently occupying its husk.

Beorn's worst fears were realized, this group was somehow working with a wyvern and they had attacked the village. Beorn gripped his daggers until the veins of his hand stood out, his breathing became ragged and his eyes bloodshot as he looked upon the men, no animals that had caused this.

Beorn took out his bow and strung it, 'These scum!'

Wilhelmina felt the turmoil in the ranger's emotions, 'Calm down Beorn. Take deep breaths.'

Not heeding her advice, he retrieved an arrow from his quiver and notched it on his string, 'They don't deserve to live after what they've done.'

'You kill three of them and then what? Face the rest without a plan? Don’t you want to know how they controlled the wyvern?’

Beorn ground his teeth before reluctantly relaxing his arm, 'You're right.'

'Of course, I am.'

He placed the arrow back into his quiver and unstrung his bow, 'I'll have to create some chaos,' Beorn smiled, his eyes reflecting the flickering flames of the bonfire, 'and I have just the thing for that.'

He took out the box that held the gnomish smoke bombs and retrieved two of them and slipped them in his pocket. The marvelous little things would be perfect for what he had in mind. He crept past the unguarded remains of the gate, it looked like the group held great confidence in their patrols.

The only structures left standing were those made of bricks. The others, which was half the village, were made of wood and had been turned to black ash and ruin. The dusk provided him the perfect cover as he made use of the growing shadows to get closer to the bonfire.

He slowly crept close enough to make out the individual features on the bandits and was thankful for the absence of the wyvern. These men looked trained and organized and fighting ten of them would be tough enough without a big flying lizard in the mix.

The leader was easy to spot, he was the cleanest of the bunch with a glistening bald head and a rough beard on a plain middle-aged face, he wore proper armor and a hauberk of mail that glittered in the light of the fire. Beorn memorized the locations of where the others stood and hid in one of the houses that had a line of sight with the fire.

It was time to prepare, Beorn unstrapped his sword from his back and lay it on the ground. Next, he strung his bow and lay it next to the sword along with five arrows. The ranger closed his eyes, slowed his heartbeat, and focused on the targets.

He winced as he tore a strip from the sleeve of his new shirt and wrapped it around his mouth and nose. It wasn't perfect but at least it'd stop him from inhaling most of the smoke.

As the ranger readied his arm to lob the bomb into the fire, he saw the leader throw his mug on the ground splashing beer across the ground and shout, "Where the fuck is that rat Rollo? He should have been here by now!"

Beorn paused, 'Rollo? The thug from Strendur… looks like he's involved as well. I’ll have to keep a couple alive for some questions.'

His jaw set and his eyes hard, Beorn threw the tiny ball into the fire.