Making peace with Levanta gave me the best night’s sleep I’d had in weeks. I slept like a log until about fifteen minutes before my alarm and I was perfectly content to get up. Stubbing my hoof on a box of shovels did nothing but drive the last lingering remnants of sleep away. Even the mist-like drizzle couldn’t keep my spirits down; rather, I felt refreshed, like I’d just taken a shower. Today, I thought, I could take on the world, or at least find those predator dens.
Which meant it came as a greater shock to find Cascadia pacing back and forth in front of my office, breathing heavily and constantly glancing at the clock. She looked over when she heard my first footfall and was at my side so quickly I’d swear she teleported. She was talking before I could ask the obvious.
“We found another body.”
Even accounting for the thin path we were moving along, Cascadia trotted through the rainy forest with the sure-footedness that can only come from extensive travel in uneven terrain like this and lots of experience in picking out your hoof placement quickly. Heck, that sort of thing was one half of my job, and I had trouble keeping up with her.
“Mountain lion. Prismic Beam found it at seven this morning,” Cascadia said, brushing aside a fern. “She was heading out to a cottage for the day and taking this path-” Her next hoof landed slightly louder. “-like she always does. It’s got the same general injuries as the others, far as I can tell.”
“Any chance on the time of death?” I wasn’t holding my breath, but you never know.
“Maybe. Clearwater was headed there first and said she’d test it for rigor mortis. But Beam said a friend of hers had come back from the cottage last night at… eight, I think, also along this path, and hadn’t mentioned anything, so it’s unlikely to be more than eleven hours dead.”
A chance, at least. Trying to gauge the time of death of an animal in these situations was terrible.
The trip didn’t take much time, but my heart was pounding in my throat all the while. I finally had something concrete to work on, not just words on a page. There was always the possibility that whoever had written the reports had missed something important. They weren’t trained for this sort of thing.
When we got to the body, the mountain lion was lying on its side across the path; one leg was clearly broken and it already looked like some of its ribs had been crushed. Clearwater was standing by, watching another policepony — her name was Blue Canary, if I remembered correctly — attempt to manipulate the legs. Thanks to rigor mortis, they were awfully stiff. By the time we arrived, she’d given up. “It’s hard to tell,” she said to Clearwater, “but I’m guessing it’s been dead about nine, nine and a half hours. No less than eight.”
Clearwater nodded. “Good. That’s what I thought.”
“Step aside,” Cascadia said gruffly. “Ranger coming through.” She waved me forward and put up a shield to serve as a makeshift umbrella.
I crouched next to the body and started taking it in. Fortunately, even the near-constant rain couldn’t wash away wounds. It was the same as the others: lots of blunt force trauma and some broken limbs. I pulled up one of the mountain lion’s lips and cringed; a lot of its teeth had been knocked out. A little bit of searching found the obligatory bite wound: inside one of the thighs, near the femoral artery. I moved the limbs, or tried to; Clearwater and Blue Canary were right, rigor mortis was setting in. Canary’s guess of about nine hours more or less matched up with mine (I went for closer to ten).
“Notice anything strange?” Cascadia asked after a minute or so.
“Hush,” I said, waving a hoof at her. “Working.”
But although, in pure facts, it wasn’t that different from what I’d read, something felt… off. I was missing something, I knew it. And I wouldn’t pick up on that “something” unless it was important. I prodded the body, squirmed around to look at the head, examined the ears. The offness kept nagging at me, and I wasn’t-
I looked inside the ears again. They were both the same pale color. That was it. “I need a knife,” I said, holding out a hoof. “A sharp one. Something to shave the fur.”
Somepony, I didn’t know who, quickly had a razor strapped around my fetlock. I lifted up the lion’s body and began shaving it near the bottom, working my way up. Nopony said anything, but I imagined them looking quizzically at each other. I soon had a large patch of skin exposed on the bottom, very pale beneath the fur. I bit my lip and shaved upwards. Still that pale, uniform pink. Stranger and stranger. “So it was found like this?” I asked. “It hasn’t been moved since?”
“Right,” said Cascadia.
“And you two.” I pointed at Clearwater and Blue Canary. “You’re pretty sure the time of death was between eight and eleven hours ago?”
The two of them looked at each other. Blue Canary nodded and Clearwater said, “Yes. Almost certain.”
“So how come I’m not seeing any livor mortis?”
Cascadia was at my side in an instant, staring at the exposed skin. “Son of a bitch,” she muttered, “you’re right.”
When something dies, the heart obviously stops beating and the muscles surrounding blood vessels relax. With nothing pumping it, blood begins to settle in the lowest parts of the body and leak out of the vessels, bruising the skin. This condition is known as livor mortis, or lividity. Gradually, the blood coagulates, staying in place even if the body is moved. Lividity is generally most visible starting six hours after death.
The skin of the mountain lion was pale all around. It should’ve been prime time to see livor mortis, and yet there wasn’t a single sign of it.
“So,” I mumbled unconvincingly to myself, “either something spent the last few hours moving the body around to keep the blood from settling, or there isn’t enough blood to be seen through the skin.”
“‘Not enough blood’?” said Cascadia incredulously, mirroring my own thoughts. “But that would require the body to be almost completely exsanguinated!”
“Do you have any better ideas?”
“You’re the ranger! You’re the one who’s supposed to know-”
“Whoa, hey!” Clearwater stepped between us. “Break it up, you two! This isn’t a pissing contest!”
Cascadia opened her mouth, snapped it shut, folded her ears, and cringed away. “Sorry,” she mumbled, maybe-maybe-not honestly. “Frustrated.” She rumpled her mane and pawed at the ground.
“Uh, guys?” asked Blue Canary.
“Apology accepted,” I said, ignoring Canary, “but just because I’m-”
“Guys?”
“-the expert doesn’t-”
“Easy, Swan,” cautioned Clearwater.
“Guys?”
“-mean I automa-”
“HEY!”
We all broke out of our bubbles; Blue Canary was on the ground again, examining the broken skin on the mountain lion. She pointed at the wound. “That seems a little clean, don’t you think?”
And once I’d taken a second look, I couldn’t believe I’d missed it. The fur around the wound was matted with dried blood, true. But for an arterial wound, it was almost hideously clean. The cougar’s entire leg should’ve been soaked with blood. I’d never run the numbers, but I estimated that a mountain lion’s femoral artery pumped about fifty gallons of blood a minute. Where was all that blood?
The blood was being taken or drunk or… something. That was the only-
“What do you think?” Cascadia asked. It didn’t sound directed at anypony.
“I don’t know,” said Blue Canary, “but now that I think about it, I don’t think the other bodies were bloody, either. Maybe.”
That was the only op-
“Are you sure you’re not making iktus up?” asked Clearwater.
“No.”
“No, she’s right,” said Cascadia. “There definitely wasn’t that much blood.”
I bit my tongue. Something harvesting the blood w-
“I remember wondering why the wound on the first animal was so clean,” continued Cascadia. “And after that, it slipped into the background.”
“Huh,” said Clearwater. “So i-”
I put on the best Boss Voice I could muster. “Can you guys quiet down for a second? I need to think.”
Everypony else promptly shut up, and I started pacing, taking in the near-silence of the forest. Honestly, there wasn’t much new here. In fact, it just raised further questions. Why take only blood? Was it needed for some form of magic? But the wound was messy, not nice and neat. And why the broken limbs? If the blood was required for something, maybe there was a requirement in taking it, something invol-
I stopped, my neck stiff and my ears pivoting. The only thing I could hear was the wind blowing through the trees.
“So…” Cascadia coughed exaggeratedly. “Did you-”
“Where’re the birds?”
The ears of everypony else stood straight up. They started looking around as birdsong failed to reach their ears; I don’t know if they noticed, but Cascadia and Blue Canary took a few steps towards each other. They knew as well as I did how completely unnatural a silent forest is.
“We should get the body out of here,” said Blue Canary, a little quietly.
“Right,” said Cascadia. “You head back to the station; Boysenberry might need some help. I’ll get a cart.” Canary took off and Cascadia looked sideways at me. “Do you need to look at it any more?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m not going back into town. I need to-”
“Hunt for predator dens?” asked Cascadia. “Clearwater mentioned it. That’s fine.”
“And we have a map of some old ones,” Clearwater added. “It’s about ten years out of date, but I thought it’d help.” She fished said map out of her saddlebags and spread it on the ground in front of me. I vaguely recognized it as the area of northwest of Delta, marked with several big red circles and X’s. “We’re here,” she said, pointing.
“A few miles north-northeast,” I thought aloud, looking at the closest mark. Unfortunately, what kind of animal it was hadn’t been marked. “Great. Thanks. Still up for hunting?”
“Of course,” Clearwater said with a grin.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” said Cascadia. She trotted off down the path.
We oriented ourselves with a compass and set off into the forest. After a minute or so, I glanced at Clearwater. I couldn’t see any sign that she was on anything less than her A game. She was moving across the uneven terrain with a confident hoof. “No hangover?” I asked.
“Hmm? Oh, from the 190 drink, yeah?” Clearwater laughed. “Oh, there’s a hangover, all right. I just had it already yesterday evening. Lots of alcohol in a small space, lots of hangover in a small space.”
“Yeowch.”
“Times about a thousand.”
“So… why?”
“Machismo, I think. I was the youngest foal in my family and had four older brothers. Maybe they wore off on me.” Clearwater held out a wing and traced a thin scar along it. “I do have these stallionly scars, but I am a policemare…”
“You could’ve become a policemare because they rubbed off on you,” I suggested.
Clearwater just shrugged.
“Me, I became a ranger just because I wanted to,” I rambled. With the current line of conversation, it seemed relevant. “I’d always been an outdoorsy kid, got an outdoorsy cutie mark, loved my outdoorsy classes in school, so I shipped myself off for a bachelor’s in earthcrafting the second I got the chance. Never regretted it since.” Even with my first transfer, I’d never regretted my career; I just regretted not being able to weasel out of the transfer.
“So if you’re so outdoorsy, how’d you get a name like ‘Swan Dive’?”
“Mom said Dad was on a seapony kick at the time for some reason and wanted a water-based name. When Dad got into something, he got into it.”
“That’s what she said.”
I clapped a hoof to my mouth. “That’s terrible. And wonderful.”
Getting to the general area of the den didn’t take too long, especially since we kept the conversation going. It also wasn’t too hard to find the den itself, in spite of the vagueness of the map. There was a large cleft at the bottom of a small cliff, perfect for something to wiggle into and hide from the rain.
“Wolf den,” I muttered to myself. I jumped from leg to leg as I psyched myself up. They shouldn’t attack me, not as long as I didn’t jump on them, but I was walking into a wolf den. Stupidity and desperation were close bedfellows.
“What makes you th- How do you know it’s a wolf den?” asked Clearwater.
“Pawprints, for one.” I pointed at a dry patch of dirt, where the outlines of wolves’ prints were barely visible and overlapping each other. “And the fissure’s facing south. Gray wolf dens almost always face to the south. The entrances get more sun that way, which keeps them clear of snow in the winter.” I pulled out a light gem necklace from my saddlebags and rattled it to light it up. I’d’ve much preferred a lantern, but this was sufficient.
“Wow. Never knew that,” said Clearwater. She glanced at the sun, just above the horizon, and I could see the compass needle spinning in her head.
“Could you do me a favor and stay outside?” I asked as I peered into the cave. “No offense, but you’re not trained for fighting or communicating with wolves.”
“Yeah, sure.” Clearwater stepped back and clamped her wings tightly to her sides.
“Thanks. Shouldn’t be too long.” I rattled the light gem again — I don’t know why I do that — and crept into the den. Thankfully, this one was being used. The tracks were even clearer inside and I could smell the smell of a lot of wolves passing by. The ceiling was lower and I had to duck to keep my mane from getting snagged on rock formations. I didn’t bother trying to hide my hoofsteps. If I did, the wolves might think I was trying to sneak up on them, and… well.
About fifty feet inside, the cave widened into something a bit more spacious. A large pile of fur was curled up in the middle: a family of wolves. Parents and… seven cubs, it looked like. Two from last year’s litter. I told myself that this ought to be good, but I couldn’t ignore the bones scattered around the space.
I cleared my throat. “Um, hello? Mr. Alpha?” I didn’t go so far as to go forward and try to poke the wolves awake; I’m not that good/stupid yet.
Some angry, mumbled chuffing. You didn’t need to be a ranger to interpret that.
“Look, I need to talk to you. This is important. Mr. Alpha? Mrs. Alpha?”
More chuffing. A female lifted her head, glared at me, and yawned. She plodded over to me.
“Thanks. Sorry to wake you up — don’t look at me like that, I am! — but I need to ask you a few questions.” I slapped a few bits of dirt out of my mane. “And can we do it outside? My neck’s getting sore.”
Clearwater gaped when I emerged from the den with a placid wolf in tow, but didn’t say anything. I sat down right outside the den and turned to the wolf. She kept staring at me and growling. Not in aggression, simple displeasure, the same way ponies snap at you if you wake them up too early. So, to show her who was boss, I walked up and stuffed her muzzle into my mouth.
Clearwater yelped and the wolf froze. After a moment, the latter pulled her muzzle out and stared in confusion. Dominance displays like that normally didn’t come from ponies.
“Yeah,” I said. “I can talk the talk.” I held my breath, hoping that she wouldn’t try to make me walk the walk. Muzzle grabbing wasn’t a major act of dominance, but if she decided to challenge it… “Look, I promise I’ll go away if you answer some of my questions, okay?”
A resigned huff. Basically, «If insisted. Cat.» At least, I hoped that was what it meant. My Gray Wolf was really rusty. Still, “cat” was a common wolf epithet for… let’s say “unpleasant person”, so I must’ve been doing alright.
“So. You know how something’s been killing animals around here for the past few months?”
Angry barks and growls. «Stupid cats dead! Good for wolves! DESERVED it!»
“Well, maybe they did-” -they didn’t- “-but wolves also died! Don’t you want to keep your cubs safe?”
The wolf looked over her shoulder into the den. She folded her ears back and whimpered quietly. To me, she gave a complex series of barks, growls, and other doggy noises. «Wolves bears cats dying for summers. Why care now?»
I stopped myself from responding immediately and saying something stupid. Summers? That meant “years”. That couldn’t be right. I must’ve misheard. But when I tried to go through similar-sounding vocalizations and similar-looking behavior, none of the words I found fit the context. I breathed slowly and picked my next words carefully, to avoid being condescending. I hoped. “Summers? But we’ve only been finding the bodies for moons.”
Whimper, pawing at the ground, soft yips. «Only found bodies for moons.»
…Oh, no. What if this wasn’t the start of it? What if this was just when Delta started finding the bodies?
Two barks, and the wolf set off at a slow run. «Follow.»
“She wants us to follow her,” I said to Clearwater. I ran after the wolf, shoving through the undergrowth that the wolf casually slipped around.
The sound of snapping twigs behind me told me that Clearwater was following not too far behind. “You understood all that?” she asked.
“I… think so, yeah. My Animal’s not too great.”
“And you bit a wolf on the face. …Skookum.”
I decided to take that as a compliment. “You just need to know how to speak their language. It’s a gentle dominance behavior. She kept trying to give me crap for waking her up, and I was saying that I wasn’t going to take her crap.”
“Yeah, but… Wolf. Face.”
I grunted vaguely. “She says animals have been dying out here for years. Do you know anything about that?”
“What- years? No, I… I don’t think I heard anything about that. Hmm.”
“Has the population of any animal seemed a bit low?”
“I don’t know. I don’t… think so…”
I restrained my groan, mainly because I didn’t want Clearwater to think my frustration was directed at her. I swear, it was like the universe kept throwing me curveballs even though I’d already been beaned.
I can’t remember how long it took for us to reach our destination. An hour or two. About halfway through, Clearwater had stopped galloping and started gliding. I didn’t say anything; she was good at flying, I was good at enduring. Eventually, the wolf bounded to a slow walk and came to a halt ahead of us. She whimpered and barked at a thin ravine. «Down there. Bad place.»
I took a look. From the edge, the ravine looked more like a ditch; no more than fifteen feet deep and with ragged, rocky sides that’d be easy to climb, even rain-slicked. A trickle of water was running through the mud at the bottom, but I couldn’t see anything else besides a skinny cave entrance. “I’m going down there,” I said. “You two play nice.”
Clearwater and the wolf looked at me, then at each other. They each took a step back as I clambered over the edge.
The runoff was cold and went straight to my bones, but I paid it no mind. I re-ignited my light gem and shone it over the entrance. Unfortunately, thanks to the temporary stream, all traces of use had been washed away. Maybe that was why this particular location had been chosen. I shone the light into the cave. Just a few yards down, the passage turned out sight. I couldn’t hear anything but a slight buzzing that might’ve been in my head. Swallowing, I wiggled into the rift.
At first, the walls were the expected jagged rock, poking into me on both sides, but the moment I turned the corner, they flattened out, almost like the passage had been carved. The smooth walls did nothing to soothe my nerves. I slid along, acutely aware that the buzzing wasn’t just me, and was slowly building. I took a breath and caught a whiff of the unmistakable stench of rotten meat.
The second stretch was longer than the first, with another jink at the end. I rattled my light gem again, even though it was shining as brightly as it could. The smell grew stronger. Much stronger. I almost pulled my jacket over my muzzle for a makeshift filter. The tunnel slowly broadened. The buzzing kept redoubling over and over. When I rounded the final corner, I nearly gasped in shock.
A giant cavern, shaped vaguely like a giant bowl, filled with bones. Thousands of them. All of them big, all of them from predators, all of them unbroken. There must’ve been the bodies of over a hundred animals. Swarms of flies wheeled around through the air, picking bloodless flesh from the remains that still had meat. The smell… holy Celestia, it drilled straight to my brain like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I slammed my hoof to my nose and almost vomited right there.
The wolf was right. This had been going on for years.
My insides were still writhing when I exited the charnel house and climbed out of the gully. I took several long, deep breaths to purge the stench from my system. It barely helped. My knees kept knocking together. Still, I waved off Clearwater. “I’m okay,” I gasped. One final inhale, and I stood up straight. “I just had a bit of a shock.”
“What’s down there?” Clearwater asked nervously. She edged over to the ravine, then edged back without looking down.
“The trash heap of a sunblasted slaughterhouse. The bodies of dozens of dead animals.” To the wolf, I said, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
The wolf growled softly. In this case, she didn’t like being right.
“You wouldn’t happen to know what’s doing this, would you?”
«Cold ones. Vile ones. Smell… wrong.»
Animals. So valuable, yet so infuriating. They were like six-year-old foals or mathematicians, giving you the answer to your questions and absolutely nothing more. “Who are the ‘cold ones’?”
The wolf bared her teeth. «Ponies.»