Death of a Unicorn

“It’s as I feared.”

I stood up and faced my companions. My brother, Korren, stoic as ever, even the news of this abomination failing to crack his stern demeanour. The Priestess, Lady Brianna, tall and willowy, tears already formed in her beautiful blue-green eyes.

“Someone is killing unicorns.”

“Are you sure?” Brianna asked me, not wanting to believe me.

“These tracks do not lie, Sister.”

“No... but...” she fought the tears, but they were already spilling out. “Could you be mistaken?”

“Lady Sister... I have been a warder of this forest for ten years, an apprentice for eleven years before that. I know these tracks as though they were my own.” I fought the emotion that threatened to steal the words away. “These are the tracks of one of the older mares. She had a crack in her rear left hoof, here, you see?” I pointed to the ground, knowing they could not see what all my long years of training rendered clearer than dawn to my eyes. “And this dark patch, dug from the earth... here, her blood was spilled, and scooped up.”

Brianna began to sob then, hiding her face in her hands. The killing of a unicorn, the most blessed creature in the isles, was unthinkable. And, nevertheless, the truth.

“Kaylin,” my brother said, his voice quiet but firm. Calling me to myself. I looked up to him where he sat on his horse, one eye to the forest around us. I stood and went to him.

“What is it?”

“You didn’t say, something. You said, someone.”

“I did. There are booted track marks on the rocks.”

“Booted? Not Drakon then?”

The lizardmen of the jungle kingdoms to the South wore no boots, and he knew it as well as I.

“I am not so addled by grief, brother.”

He raised his eyebrow at that, but said nothing more.

“But why?” the Lady Sister cried then, grief rendering her words ragged and harsh. “Why would anyone do something so... so horrid?!”

“Lady... the blood of unicorns is a mightily powerful substance when used in potions of darkest magic. The horn...”

“Is of incalculable value,” Korren finished for me.

Her face changed then, from white hot grief to cold steely vengeance.

“They must pay for this... this sin,” she swore, mounting her chestnut bay.

I led the way, picking my way carefully through the forest. There weren’t many of the killers, and they were carrying the carcass. The entire carcass would be put to use - blood and organs used in dark rituals, skin used for garments, bones ground and powdered, or carved into runes. The meat would be salted or dried and sold to the decadent markets of the Far Western Kingdoms, eaten by heathens seeking yet another thrill to add to their sybaritic lust for new experiences.

The horn...

The enormity of the crime filled me with revulsion. Lady Brianna called it a sin, and it was no less than exactly that.

They would pay for their crime.