“To His Most Excellent Majesty,

Be your reign long and magnificent! Please rest assured that your humble servant has everything under his strict control. The rumors about some peasants allegedly wielding magical powers turned baseless, precisely as we believed. Therefore, there is nothing worth our worries. However, I must admit that some peculiar and novel creatures were indeed noticed in the Zidron mountains. These creatures resemble vulgar animals affected by an illness that worsened their appearance. Innocent freaks of nature deserve only attention and compassion but not fear. Black monks who live on my land examine and treat these poor things. They capture them and kill those too ugly to look at while keeping the rest in their possession. Among the last, we found some to have a real value. I’m sending Your Majesty five furs of a winged bear to illustrate this.

With My Most Sincere Respect,

Markus da’Rivo Berrio, baron of Kampu di Zidron.”

Excerpt from another letter written by baron Markus to His Majesty Louis the XIV, King of all Castondia, twelve years later:

“My Magnificent King, I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the gold and men that The Crown sent me. At the same time, I need to bring to your invaluable attention that the situation in the Zidron mountains has worsened beyond imaginable. The ferocious creatures keep attacking innocent people. They come in day and night alike, making the lives of peasants unbearable. Unfortunately, it is impossible to use soldiers against the foul creatures—men are horrified and have low morale, so I rely only on black monks. They have gathered a vast collection of creatures, learned a lot about them, and can always tell the best way to fight them. In such dare circumstances, may it please Your Benevolent Majesty to provide additional support to your faithful servant?”

Magical creatures appeared a few decades ago. No one knows where they came from or even what they are, but they were first sighted in the most desolate and wild areas and soon spread around the world. All of different kinds and sizes, some of the creatures resembled usual animals, some were like plants that learned how to walk, and some looked like they were born from stones. Their appearance was widely considered a sign of the end of the world. Offsprings of doom—was the most common name for them.

Fear and havoc ruled over the world for years. Magical creatures were hunted upon; they were fought with and exterminated. Most of them perished. The rest hid in the wildness of mountains and dense forests while the people slowly learned how to live side by side with them. It was only a matter of time until someone realized that these creatures could be put to use by training them to kill people…

“Here, my lord, mind the steps, please,” the dungeon master raised the torch to lit the spiral stairs in front of lord Unrico. The stairs led them into the deep dungeon, which was cut directly into the rocky basement of the monastery. Behind the massive doors, they found a set of rooms filled with a collection of unpleasant metallic instruments and a maze-like corridor with what seemed to be prison cells. But it was not people who were held there. The air was musty and thick with the smell of animals.

Young apprentices in black robes accompanying the dungeon master lit the lamps on the walls.

“Please be ready to retreat immediately if I ask, my lord,” warned the dungeon master. ”We keep here the most dangerous beasts.”

“Surprise me,” Unrico laughed, showing no fear. Although, he did feel it deep within. The new baron of Kampu di Zidron was followed by two of his most faithful guards, but even those men, hardened in battles, looked tensed and wary.

The cells in this dungeon were larger than one could expect to see in such an establishment. Most of them had narrow openings right below the ceiling, serving for ventilation. Some even had tiny barred windows.

In the first room, lord Unrico saw two steel kennels containing one dog each. The dogs looked pretty ordinary except for one odd thing: they seemed absolutely identical to the degree that evoked a feeling of strange discomfort when looking at them. Dogs started barking ferociously when they saw the dungeon master.

”What are these?” asked Unrico. “Hounds?”

”Not just any hounds, my lord, but twin hounds, as they are called.”

”Twin hounds?”

”Yes. In the wild, these creatures always stay close. They hunt together, eat together, and sleep together. They never part and seem to have an invisible connection.”

Unrico expected the dungeon to be filled with ravenous predators, not with dogs sharing strange connections. Maybe the rumors about that freaky black monks exaggerate things as usually, he thought.

”What do you mean?” Unrico asked.

”Look, my lord.”

Without any explanation, the dungeon master took a thin sword hanging on the wall and stabbed one of the dogs several times. The poor creature growled and tried to bite him. Then, it whined and finally went silent and dead. Its blood ran on the floor and down to the drainage.

Guards stepped forward to protect Unrico, but he made them a sign to back off. The dungeon master left the weapon aside and took a piece of stale meat lying on a metal plate next to the kennels. He threw the meat to the second dog. It pounced on this dubious tribute with an appetite.

”By the time we finish visiting the other cells, the first dog will be alive again,” said the Dungeon Master to Unrico, who was quite perplexed by this ritual.

”But how?”

”A mystery indeed. As long as one of the twin hounds lives and is fed well, the second regenerates quickly. And this is not the only their ability. We know for sure that they have the same consciousness. In other words…”

He is not tricking me, isn’t he?

”Show me something that has big teeth!” Unrico interrupted the monk.

”As you wish, my lord.”

They entered the next room only after a young apprentice checked that it was safe. A large section of that room was fenced off with metal bars. A beast sleeping in the enclosure looked way more dangerous than a dog. It resembled a tiger but with unnaturally long paws. The big cat was blinded.

”This is a common predator that appeared in Zidron about ten years ago. A hunting cougar we call it. It runs fast, and no one can escape it in the mountains. And no one shall dare to look it in the eyes: the beast hypnotizes the victim. It could not only force you to drop your weapon but to do more sophisticated things, like opening this enclosure, for instance.”

Unrico approached the cage, examining the animal. Such a predator indeed was dangerous whether rumors of its magical abilities were true or not.

But it is just a blinded tiger… They could show me the same in the bloody circus.

”How common is it?”

”Quite common. But nowadays, it lives further to the south and rarely comes to Zidron.”

”Could you train it as a war beast?”

”Hardly, my lord.”

The next room was much larger, but instead of one big cage, there were a number of tiny ones—around twenty—hanging from the ceiling on chains. It was not animals or songbirds sitting in them, but some plants, or, better say, roots that were poping in different directions trying to reach things around. Instruments lying on the table next to the wall served not for interrogation but gardening—it was quite a pricy collection, as all they were made of silver.

”A…” now Unrico felt excited. ”I heard about that one. It’s a ‘blooming root’!”

”Precisely, my lord,” the dungeon master nodded.

”Unbelievable. I thought it was bigger,” Unrico came to one of the cages.

”Oh, please be careful, my lord, it is deadly!” the dungeon master rushed to stop him. “And it can grow bigger, of course, if it is allowed to,” the monk added.

”It doesn’t look dangerous.”

”But it is! See…”

Several small wooden planks were lying next to the wall. The dungeon master took one with silver blacksmith tongs and brought it close to the root. The reaction was quick and impetuous. The plant grabbed the wood, cracked it, and merged with it into one piece. An uneven and phantasmagorical structure was born before their eyes in just a few moments, but the root did not touch the tongs.

”Impressive,” said Unrico. ”This one has potential.”

“You can say so, my lord… In the wild nature, a blooming root is often mistaken for a usual plant or a snake. Alas, it is a bloodthirsty monster instead. There was a true account about it attacking a peasant house. The monster turned the house into something resembling an ugly tree trunk. All the inhabitants died in agony.”

“I heard that tzar Lushee used these things in the siege of the Tagora to crack the castle walls in just a few hours.”

”That could be very well true.” nodded the dungeon master. “But you need a strong root for such a job.”

Lord Unrico saw at least a dozen of other beasts; most of them were indeed dangerous, but not in the way Unrico needed. Unfortunately, they were also rather bizarre and useless. Finally, the dungeon master showed him an amorphous spherical monster that looked like a cow’s stomach turned inside out. It was able to digest things with its skin and smelt accordingly. At that point in his tour, lord Unrico felt he had enough of magic.

“We finished… for today,” he said to the dungeon master when they left the room with the walking stomach.

“As you wish, my lord. You are welcome to return here at any time. We also have a big collection of manuscripts devoted to novel beasts. Brothers depicted many of them and described how to kill them. I’ll ask one of the boys to show you the way to the library.”

“No need,” Unrico made an authoritative gesture. He was not interested in manuscripts. Neither was he interested in simply killing these things. Oh no, Unrico dreamed about the ultimate power and the means to take it. When a few months ago, the king granted him the barony of Zidron, he knew that this was not a present but a curse. But maybe, there were ways to turn it into a blessing.

“Tell me, how is life in the Kampu di Zidron? Are these beasts indeed such a big problem, as people say, or is it just talking?” Unrico asked.

“There is a danger, but not as big as fifteen years ago, my lord. Your predecessor gave his life fighting the beasts; most of them were either killed or migrated south. Mountains there are uninhabited and ruled by monsters. Beasts don’t come out very often now. Only a few can reproduce as normal animals; others don’t breed. Therefore, we must travel far nowadays to find new examples.”

“What’s the most dangerous thing in Zidron mountains?”

“Moon wolves, for sure.”

”Do you have one of them?”

The young apprentice, dimming the lights behind them, dropped the lamp, and the sound of the broken glass accompanied the sudden darkness.

After rebuking him, the dungeon master said: ”No, my lord, we don’t have moon wolves in possession; keeping them would be unwise. It is impossible to restrain a moon wolf during the night. The premises must be well-lit, with the fire kept next to the beast. Everyone will be in mortal danger if it finds a deep shadow. We tried once, but it went wrong and cost a life of an apprentice.”

“Is it true what people say about them?”

“What exactly, my lord?”

“That they eat human hearts.”

“Precisely, my lord. The moon wolf hunts only mammals and prefers humans. It always breaks the chest of its victim into two pieces and takes the heart out. Only the heart. A peculiar diet. That is, in fact, how the previous lord of Zidron died...”

Is he mocking me? Unrico felt furious. However, the monk’s voice did not betray any irony, and Unrico calmed down. Of course, the black freak is not in the position to mock me. That must be the dungeon. It starts to get on my nerves.

”I need you to do a favor for me,” Unrico’s voice became grave.

”With pleasure, my lord, what do you wish?”

”Clean the dungeon of all the useless creatures here, except for the blooming roots. I need you to capture and bring the very different kinds of beasts: those that you can train or use somehow else in the war.”

“That is, of course, possible, but…”

“The reward will exceed all your expectations!”

“I will do my best then,” the dungeon master bowed.

Unrico headed up the ladder. He had some even more important matter to discuss with the abbot.