The Domicus and his men approached in multicolored green outfits, the Domicus himself the only one wearing proper plate armor. It was the way of things, to protect only the important few. The plate was green, covered in a layer of dark cloth and interwoven leaves strung together that covered the chest and back. Truly, he seemed to embody the image of a forest knight. Would have, rather, if not for the splatters of red, and the smell of blood.

“You are the sir Domicus, I take it?”

The man nodded, his helmet rattling at the movement. “I am. Did they not bother to write my name?”

“This visit of mine… well, let’s just say that I am not here on official business. Ah, the name is Nalmet, Beastmaster of Rhades, though I’ve come here from Sansbrook,” he said, extending a hand.

“Casser,” the knight said, gripping Nalmet’s hand in his own. “May I ask what you are here for then, Beastmaster? I don’t imagine news should have spread in such a manner.” His wits were about him, at least. If only there were many like him, rather than the few he had dealt with till now.

“I’m here by request of a member of the royal family. They are quite interested in these creatures.” The man, Casser, chuckled, his men following suit, forming a chorus of laughs.

“You’re in luck. I still happen to have the blood of one on me,” he said. Nalmet felt his face uncontrollably shape itself into a look of surprise, his attention immediately moving down to the red stains.

“When did this happen? Is it dead? May I see it?” The words fell out of him, his composure breaking itself apart. He stopped himself, pulling the pieces back together, but he’d already made it clear. He was very excited.

“It’s dead, alright. Follow them, I have to attend to my arm. Bastard broke it, you see.” He followed the knights, passing through the village. The buildings were small, perhaps enough to house three or four adults uncomfortably, and no two were of dissimilar size, from what he could see. The frontier was harsh, and Nalmet was not envious of their lot in life. He rarely felt envy to begin with, but this was another matter.

They came upon the Khor soon enough, at the outskirts of the village near the tree-line, the excitement draining away the more he looked. It was smaller than Galal. Far smaller, perhaps three meters in height. The Khor were a sizable race, but compared to the four meter Galal, it was childlike in comparison.

“You don’t seem as excited,” one of the unnamed soldiers said. The others gave stern looks to the soldier, no doubt ready to berate him.

“I will admit, it is not what I expected. Smaller than the one I am used to dealing with.” They looked at him, open mouthed and wide eyed. “It is still of interest, however. May I?”

“Go ahead.”

He stepped to the corpse. It was riddled with bloody punctures, the dripping blood beginning to thicken and dry. Its horns were curved back, though they did not curl back to the front as Galal’s did. The musculature was less prominent, the fur thinner. He felt its chest with a hand, tracing the outlines of its ribs.

“How is the hunting in this area?” The question seemed to catch the knight’s men off guard, one answering after a moment of thought.

“Poor. There are deer, but no elk or moose, and the deer are few. I assume the beasts have been getting the majority.”

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“Well, I am of the belief that this one is malnourished. Starved, even.” Their faces told him what he already knew. Shock, disbelief, fright.

“Are you certain?”

“As much as I can be. The fur is thin and easily pulled away, and I can feel the ribs beneath the fur.” He stood, moving down the Khor’s body. “Then look here. The testacles are shrunken as small as a mans, the hooves are misshapen. I can’t say it was on the verge of death, but it would have been in a few more months. Weeks, if the hunting was bad.”

The men looked at him, then at one another. A single one, malnourished and weakened, had almost killed them, and there were yet more still in the woods.

“Do you have word of reinforcements?” one of them asked. It was understandable, the fear. Even Nalmet had felt it before. A Beastmaster knew best of all that beasts were not so easily predicted. They could lash out at any moment. Their situations were different, but all the same, fear was fear.

He shook his head. “I do not.” None of the soldiers could maintain eye contact after that. They were warriors, men used to fighting and ready to lay them down, but even they wouldn’t just throw their lives away. Not for a village.

“May I dissect it?” He pointed to the Khor, their attention falling on its corpse.

“Go for it,” one said, no sooner a dagger and leather case appearing in Nalmet’s hands. He worked slowly, analyzing the chest first, peering into its wounds as he shaved away coagulated blood. The dagger pierced flesh, slicing the torso into section before the blade slipped between skin and muscle. He separated the two, pulling the skin to the sides and revealing the musculature underneath, as well as a series of organs.

“Gruesome work, isn’t it?”

“Certainly. Blood, organs, fluids most men don’t even know is inside them. It is a gorey thing, but necessary to learning.” He pulled at the Khor’s intestines, removing them from the body, a hand feeling along their length with a light squeeze. Next, he removed a scalpel from the leather case, lightly cutting the stomach open and depositing its contents onto the ground next to the beast.

He looked up to the men, two with their faces turned away as another watched with interest. “It seems I was correct,” he said.

“How can you tell?”

“There’s little fat, and practically no digested food. At the very least, it hasn’t eaten in several days.” He moved on, positioning himself near the beasts head.

“What are you doing now?”

“Checking the brain,” he said curtly, his blade slicing through skin and peeling it off, revealing a bloodied skull. Nalmet reached into the leather case once again, this time removing a saw. He aligned it with the skull, moving it back and forth, forming a circular incision around the skulls top. He produced yet more tools, a hammer and chisel, sliding the chisel nicely within the sawed cracks and beating the hammer against it, pushing it deeper into the skull.

Nalmet twisted the instrument, forcing the pieces of skull apart with a crackling noise. He repeated the action, beating the chisel into the skull and pushing the pieces apart, until finally he popped the skull top off, horns and all. He continued on, removing pieces of skull until finally all the remained was the brain and the dura mater surrounding it.

“Not what I thought the inside of head would look like.” Most wouldn’t, but Nalmet ignored the man’s words, his blade carefully slicing through the layer of skin surrounding the brain. The brain itself was mostly unremarkable in features, no different than most, perhaps more wrinkled than the average animal. The only thing astounding about it was its size.

“It seems my suspicions have been confirmed,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“The brain, look at its size. Big, isn’t it?” There was no denying it. It was large, on par with the size of a man’s head, maybe larger. “Now, while not always accurate, the larger the brain of an animal is compared to the size of its body, the smarter it will be. Humans like us are no different, our brains being on the larger end.”

“So what does this tell you.”

“Nothing that I didn’t expect. It’s intelligent. I’m sure you saw that yourself.” None of the men argued. It had been true. A giant beast it was, but it had used a weapon. A crude one, no better than a big stick, but a weapon nonetheless. “And while this is only a guess, from what I can see,” he said, “they are about as smart as us.”