A Cold Investigation (part 2)

Writers: AL, Yvonne
Date Posted: 31st July 2008

Characters: Zathris, Dorrik, Harop
Description: Zathris and Dorrik investigate the death of the ovines.
Location: Amber Hills Hold
Date: month 10, day 22 of Turn 4

Zathris

Harop snorted. "Huh. No respect." He began to shovel, and after a
moment Dorrik followed his lead. The snow was heavy and damp but as
easy to move as air - when compared to the frozen ground they soon
hit. Dorrik soon stripped out of his jacket and beads of sweat were
forming on his brow as he chipped at the ground. Harop, despite his
complaints, dug willingly enough... or tried to. It was near
impossible to get the edge of the shovel into the dirt, and they had
better luck chipping at it than digging.

"Shards... how cold has it _been_ here?!" Dorrik asked finally. His
breath steamed white in the air as he leaned on his shovel.

The cotholder shrugged. "Cold enough to freeze. Shouldn't go down more
than a foot, though."

"Shards... I need to transfer back to the coast," the Beastcrafter
muttered. He picked up his shovel again and started to dig. They worked
in silence for a while until Harop's shovel hit unfrozen dirt, and
then soon after, a mouldering fleece. Thankfully there was little to
no smell as they worked to dig out the dead animals. Bones showed
through the dirt, and the dirt was smeared red with blood. Dorrik
knelt beside the carcasses to take a better look, then glanced back up
at the cotholder. "This one was butchered!"

"Sharding right it was! One broke its leg and I had to kill it -
wouldn't heal." Harop spat on the frozen ground. "The others... I
butchered 'em to feed to my canines. I en't going to eat 'em myself,
but they're not going to waste out here, either. And I told you I was
an honest man. All that work, and for nothing."

Dorrik shook his head. "How many canines do you have?"

"Five working canines to manage my flocks, three retired, and three to
train this spring for sale the next year."

Zathris dropped his shovel and rubbed his hands together. Freezing,
yes, and his hands were getting numb. His toes were faring a bit
better since they were shoved into boots, but it wouldn't be too much
longer before the cold assaulted them as well. "Can you verify the
broken leg?" Zathris asked, doing his best to keep his teeth from
chattering.

Dorrik shrugged helplessly and began running his hands up and down the
legs of the ovine before him. "Which leg was it?"

"Left foreleg," the cotholder said.

The Beastcrafter was silent for a moment as he worked. "Well... the
beast's so frozen it's hard to tell, and there's a lot of shovel
damage, but... I'm relatively sure that there was a fracture. I'd have
to do a necropsy to be positive that it was sustained pre-mortem,
but... I _think_ there's a fracture. What happened to the rest of
them, Harop?"

"They got sick, so I killed 'em."

"Yes, I know that!" Dorrik snapped, then visibly cooled his temper.
"I'm sorry. Exactly _how_ did they get sick?"

Harop looked exasperated. "They get the shits, and then they waste
away. So I killed 'em before they got too lean to be of any use, and
to cull the sick ones. We don't have our own sharding beastcrafter out
here, so we make due with what we have!"

"What about the ovines from last turn?" Zathris asked, wondering if
jumping up and down would help keep him warm or just make him look
ridiculous. The holder probably already thought him a fool, so it
would probably be best to refrain. "What happened to them? How did
they get sick?"

"Same sharding thing."

"Sounds like a parasite," Dorrik said, "but like I said, I can't tell
unless I do a full necropsy. Of course, parasites like that are pretty
easy to cure..."

"If you're a _Beastcrafter_," Harop said sharply. "I don't have the
time or the medicines to bother - its better to cull 'em before it
spreads to the rest of my sharding flock!"

Zathris was getting more and more annoyed with Harop's tone. Yet, at
the same time, he understood what Harop meant. When one was in charge
of a large flock and didn't have the resources readily available, as
Harop evidently didn't, it was often prudent to just take care of the
problem the best way you could.

Of course, the fact that this problem seemed to occur the same time
every turn still bugged Zathris. Something just didn't seem right.
"And the turn before that?" He queried.

"I just _told_ you. Same sharding thing!"

"You're not helping your case." Zathris snapped, glaring at the
holder. He motioned to Dorrik to step away from the man out of
earshot. "I'd like your opinion on this matter, Dorrik. Do you think
he speaks the truth? Is there some sort of parasite that is, perhaps,
only active during a certain time of the turn?" Zathris thought such
a thing was unlikely, but his knowledge with beasts and what parasites
they suffer from was severely limited.

Dorrik spread his arms wide and shrugged. "Well... that depends on how
he keeps his flock, really. If they're in a barn or shed during the
coldest days or in bad weather, the likelihood of disease or parasites
is higher, but if he keeps them outside all the time, the cold weather
tends to kill off parasites before they can travel between hosts.
I'm... not sure whether he's a liar or not, and the fact that he's
butchered his sick animals means that I probably wouldn't get much out
of a necropsy, anyway. It makes me suspicious that he's feeding sick
animals to his canines, though. Lets find out if he sheds them at all,
and then get a count of his flock before we head for home."

Zathris nodded, then moved back over to where Harop stood, defiant.
"Where do you keep your ovines during the winter Harop?" He glanced
over at Dorrik, then back to the holder. "Do you keep them inside or
out?"

"Mostly they stay out, but there's a barn for bad weather and a few
shelters in the hills we can put them in if there's a storm or if it
gets cold," Harop said.

"Were they inside or outside before they got sick?"

"I don't remember. They only stay indoors during the worst weather,
anyway."

The answer honestly didn't really help matters. "Well, I'll file a
report and we'll get back to you in a sevenday or so." Zathris and
Dorrik had a long ride, and the assistant steward felt that he would
benefit from taking the advice of the beastcrafter.

Last updated on the August 1st 2008

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A Cold Investigation (part 2)