He only had a second to look at it before the head rolled onto a protruding rock and shattered into a hundred pieces of compressed ash.
It took him several seconds of watching dusty chunks roll down the side of the mountain until he could pick his jaw up off the floor.
‘Lords above… there’s no way…’
Tariq’s heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest as he sprung into action, pulling himself up onto the lip of the outcropping where the Gargoyles had made their nest.
Only, there weren’t any Gargoyles there.
It was completely empty, save for the lingering smell of meat that had long since rotted away and the gentle ‘whoosh’ of wind blowing up from the valley below.
‘This can’t be real.’ His mind tried to reason as he looked about. ‘Did they move nests?’
There were signs of Gargoyle activity all about: thick claw marks dug haphazardly into mountain rocks and a variety of bone splinters from various animals spread around.
The initial wave of shock receded as he tried to rise above the panic slowly setting in. He pressed his wet snout, hoping to find some logical explanation. The metallic scent of old blood and the cloying odor of stagnant water assaulted his senses with such force he could taste it.
He listened, his heart pounding in his chest, for the reassuring thump of their dormant hearts as the organs beat once every five minutes during their daytime slumbers.
Nothing. Only pure, terrifying silence.
‘No. Oh, no. No. No. No. No NO. NO. NO!’ His animal was riding his frustration and confusion as he shook his head back and forth, his pacing steps tight and agitated.
‘Feek! Al’ama!’ Curses in several languages were rolling out of him with the rumbling of a storm cloud as his wolf-life vocal cords growled and barked.
Questions clawed at his mind, each unanswered one a spark to the powder keg that was his rage.
Where was the flock?
How long have they been gone?
Did they fight among themselves?
What happened to the human?
His paw connected with something hard and half buried in the dust with a crunch. He felt the air leave his lungs as he realized it was a gargoyle finger, the curve of the long claw unmistakable despite its deteriorated condition.
He stared at it, the animal anger within him momentarily checked by the need to fix the situation. He had to control himself. Not giving in to the animal was the only thing keeping him sane.
‘There must be something. She would have been brought here regardless of if she was dead or alive. Look for clues, find answers, and leave this godforsaken place.’
First, the facts.
The scent of Gargoyle was faded, so obviously it had been some time since they left, at least twenty-four hours or so.
There were body parts of at least two of the creatures, indicating some sort of struggle. Gargoyle’s granite bodies became brittle as they turned to ash on death, the dust that would normally disintegrate, becoming calcified and turning to a soft limestone material.
While pieces would normally break off during the calcification of the ash, they were not typically smooth and even like how the head he’d seen was so cleanly cut through.
‘They didn’t get caught too long in the sun and die from the UV rays. There must have been some sort of fight.’
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Did they fight over the mother’s body?
It was typical for territorial creatures like Gargoyles to fight each other for dominance and establish a pecking order over their food.
But if that were the case, there would have been a winner still here when he climbed up.
Slowly, he circled the nest as he looked for possible clues he hadn’t noticed last time.
There were several scratch marks in the rocks and against the mountain side that indicated the usual wear and tear that monsters of this nature generally made. A small hollow on the side of the mountain wasn’t large enough that a human could crouch there for shelter happened to have more densely packed marks.
It might have been because this was usually where the lead Gargoyle would roost, but he couldn’t say for sure.
What he did notice this time around was that among the various marks left by the creatures was a straight, ridged gouge that seemed to overlap the random claw marks, indicating that it was a fresher mark than the others.
Typically, Gargoyles marks indicated four digits - five if they were deeper and using their thumb claws.
This was a single line cut evenly at exact angles, as if done by a machine.
When he pressed his nose into one, he caught the faint scent of steel and ozone, like a storm that was rumbling in the distance.
‘Whatever made this wasn’t a Gargoyle. But, what?’
His initial assessment would have said that it was the mark of a weapon like a sword, but that would have been impossible.
Someone would have had to come up here with a sword, and no one was coming up here intentionally with a clunky, loud weapon like that. They would have needed to be brought in by air, which meant they would have been dead when they arrived.
‘Let’s say that someone with a sword managed to survive the flight and keep the Gargoyle from ripping their intestines out of their stomach. Let’s even say they brought a sword with them on the flight - that would have still pitted them seven to one. So where’s the body? Lords, where’s the sword?’
Among the various pieces of fabric and materials strewn about the nest, there was no sign of a weapon that would have made a lovely pillow for a roosting Gargoyle.
Not to mention, he hadn’t picked up on any other scents as he’d been climbing up, so if by some miracle all the creatures were killed, whatever had done them in didn’t climb down.
‘Facts, Tariq. What are the facts? We know there was a struggle. It’s possible that something with a weapon was involved, but I cannot say for certain. What we do know is one of three things happened. One, they fought each other and abandoned the nest, which means they’re still out there, and I have to go and bloody find them again.’
He groaned to himself at that prospect.
‘Two, The Chosen have some new far-range tactical weapons that would have killed the Gargoyles from a distance. If that’s the case, then I want twenty of whatever it is. Or option three, something that uses a weapon but has no scent had found the nest and managed to kill the entire flock on its own before flying away to whatever fantasy world it had been conjured from.’
If he’d been in his more human form, he’d be pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to fight off a migraine.
‘So… nothing. I have nothing. No answers, no leads, no directions. Nothing. Dammit.’
Mentally and physically exhausted, Tariq couldn’t help but lie down, one paw rubbing at his snout with a whine.
He sighed, then immediately sneezed as his exhale kicked up dusty ash.
‘Alright, then what now? No bones, no leverage. What’s worse, there’s no way to hide that an entire flock of Gargoyles just vanished off the face of the Earth. The Blessed might take Athens tonight without their help, but Lizzie will want them for the offensive on the next Sect target.’
Thoughts of abandoning his cover within the Blessed played through his mind as he tried to figure out his next move.
It was a tempting thought, to be sure - to ride off into the sunset and leave this mess for some other poor, unfortunate idiot to clean up.
He could happily turn his back on the factions and their chaos to focus on those that had his support.
But that part of him that was still the noble Prince Tariq Al-Hashimi lifted its head from the darkness of his soul with a disapproving frown.
With a groan, he stood back on his feet and shook the dust from his fur.
‘I cannot stop now. Not when I had done so much and killed so many. It took decades to get this far up the chain with the Blessed. I cannot let all that I have sacrificed be for nothing.’
With a firm resolution on what he had to do, Tariq began to sniff out any dust-covered chunks of Gargoyle that had held together. Those that were small enough, he crushed beneath his paws and then kicked over the side of the nest for the wind to carry away. He used his snout for the larger pieces that were too big and pushed them over the edge and let them fall into the abyss below.
‘Someone may come up here after me to verify the nest is empty. There can be no evidence of their demise. Let them think that the flock abandoned the nest for parts unknown.’
He did another circle to ensure he hadn’t missed anything, then used his tail and paws to distort his tracks in the loose sand and gravel to remove the traces of his initial search. After he’d completed that, he retraced his tracks so if anyone came to look for what had happened, they would see from his much fresher tracks that he was not the culprit of whatever may have happened to the flock.
Satisfied with his work, Tariq began the long, tedious journey back down the mountain, leaving behind only a curious mystery to the fate of a flock of Gargoyles and any thoughts he had of getting out of this mess easily.