The Beast of Frostrun (The Kingdom of Dragons Book 2)

II - Leaps and Bounds

By the time they talked to the eighth person who told them their own theory about what was going on, which was some variation of everything they had already heard, Rhenor was about ready to either visit the local tavern or to kill himself. Kaz seemed to be having a good time, though. With how intimidated he had been by the idea of being seen publicly anywhere, it was nice to see him let down his guard a bit.

"It tried to get inside your house?" Kaz asked the woman. Rhenor hadn't been paying attention aside from noting that she was very pretty. And apparently she was the wife of the local village chief. Rhen already had cynical theories about why that was.

"Yes, almost broke the door," she said, sounding delighted for some reason. This village, called Frostrun as they'd found out a while ago, must have been a very quiet place. Or its inhabitants were just insane. "I can show you if you'd like. I think ours was the latest house to be attacked, but the beast didn't get inside. Our doors are well reinforced, you see."

Rhenor tried not to roll his eyes at that. He hadn't been listening and even with this little information he could tell this was a stuck-up person with money. They were all the same, although hearing one of them brag about how strong their doors were was a new level of absurd.

"Oh yes, please. We would like to see," Kaz said happily. It really didn't take much for Kaz to become fascinated. It was usually charming, but right now it made Rhenor just a bit irritated. And by a bit he meant a lot. But he kept quiet and just followed behind as the woman and Kaz walked to the other side of the village to gawk at the door.

And then he ended up gawking at it too as soon as he laid his eyes on it. The large, heavy-looking door had deep gashes in it. There were scratches all over the surface, and wood chips and large splinters stuck from the door in a way that touching it would no doubt hurt quite a bit.

To be honest, Rhenor hadn't truly believed there was something magical going on until now. They had seen one other break-in, and nothing about it suggested it couldn't have just been a thief. But this.... Well, this had made him far less skeptical.

"Amazing," Kaz muttered as he ran his finger down one of the deepest gashes. "The size of these...."

"Quite fearsome, aren't they?" the woman asked with something akin to excitement. Rhenor sighed.

"Yes, but this also suggests that the creature who had done this was much bigger than anything I know of living in these parts," Kaz said, turning around to look at Rhen. "I think we should stay the night and try to see the creature for ourselves."

As much as Rhenor wanted to argue that this wasn't their problem to deal with, it wasn't like they had anywhere they needed to be right at this moment, and so he just nodded. He had been expecting something like that to happen anyway, but now he was also cautious. If this creature truly was supernatural, he doubted his bow and arrows would do much to protect them.

But then again, perhaps it didn't want to hurt anyone. It hadn't yet, after all, and it easily could have, assuming the villagers' stories weren't exaggerated beyond recognition. And Rhenor didn't think they were, judging by the damage this door had taken.

"Would you be able to get rid of the cat?" the woman asked, now sounding somehow even more interested. "I mean, it is nice to have something interesting happen in Frostrun for once, but being awoken at night so often is getting a bit tiresome."

Kaz looked back at Rhenor, clearly wanting him to comment. But the woman spoke again before he could add anything.

"We could pay you, of course."

Rhenor sighed, looking up into the windows of the two-story house. A middle-aged man was watching them above with annoyance and suspicion. Probably the woman's husband, then. "We'll see what we can do."