~The Prelude, Chapter Four: And so it Begins...~

Four score and seven years ago... I don't actually remember 47 years in the past, as I wasn't born yet.

Time passed, and it wasn't until eight days after my encounter with the horror that I was able to go back to the Veil. I found the broken pen still broken, and the tracks of the poachers almost too old to follow, but being curious by nature, I was more than willing to follow them. The poacher's path led me deep into the forest, I crossed two small creeks on my journey, had to detour around fallen logs many times, and once lost the trail when it went into some undergrowth. Eventually I gave up on the chase, as it was going increasingly more northwards than I liked. This was territory outside of the Guild's power, and I wanted nothing to do with it. I gave up the chase. Returning home I found Crash still asleep in the shadow of my small hut. I had my herding duties to attend to, so I guess I should share with you just what a monster herder does... I still had half the day after my hike in the forest, so I saddled up Crash, and took off to investigate the grazing area of my Lord's aptonoth. I found them all sedately grazing on a hilltop overlooking Castle Town, and I preceded to check every grazing area, checking up on the shepherd's on duty. I had been doing this for a couple hours when I got a report that some rhenoplos had gotten loose across town, and were wreaking havoc in old Mrs. Parson's garden. She had a big garden, the biggest in town, so I knew it would be hard to capture them. When I arrived I found it was five rhenoplos that had escaped. Now rhenoplos are more stubborn than any creature you will come across, darn things will charge a diablos if they see it. There was a trick we herders knew to calm a rhenoplos; they responded to a herdsman's specially crafted herding stick. The herding stick is basically a piece of wood, with a propeller in a small cage on the tip. Now all of this wasn't special at all, but the propeller had small bells that had small akishi seeds in them. Akishi seeds were very rare, in fact only we herders knew how to find them. These seeds created a type of high pitched ringing that would affect any monster smaller than a bird wyvern, and lull it into a sleepy stupor. Now successfully made harmless all one needed to do was get behind the rhenoplos and herd it to a pen. Easy, right? Wrong. If you didn't get that stick down fast enough you would get run over by a rhenoplos before you could say wyverian.

I put down three herding sticks, and got behind a bush for a few seconds, then I got out and began to herd each rhenoplos until I had them all back up in the pen they had escaped from-it was right across the street from Mrs. Parson's garden. By now it was approaching dinner time, so I headed for home on Crash, dodging any low branches that he "didn't see". I ate a small supper with Crash making horrible noises in the background, and got out a good book to read. Yes I could read, most people who can afford to learn can read, and I had just finished my last year in school eight years ago. I read the book, and dozed off. Now this was how my life had been going for the past five years, and it was only interrupted every once in a while when there was a herd of aptonoth that got lost and they needed every herder they could find to track them down, or when a predator appeared, and they needed herders to calm and shelter the animals until the hunters had slain the monster. In short I was bored a lot of the time. I wanted to have this kind of life in my forties and fifties, not now when I had an urge to explore beyond every hill in sight. Destiny has a funny way of showing us our course in life, and I was contemplating my boredom one day when a friend of mine knocked on my door.

"Quel, are you there?!" said a voice outside my hut.

"Coming! Oh! It's you Aegrid, what can I do for you?" replied I.

Aegrid was an old friend of mine. He was the Mr. Derminster's second in command in the Castle McCully stables.

"Well ye see there's this urgent package that must be delivered to the Sorcerer's in Castoq, but the messenger's mount has broken a leg. So..." said Aegrid.

"They need Crash, because everyone around here knows he is the fastest, and hardiest mount for three leagues." I guessed.

"Aye."

"Don't have a choice, do I?"

"No..."

"Eh, as long as the messenger takes care of Crash, I'm fine with it."

"Grraahh." said Crash in dismay.

The rider showed up not too long after, ans with him came two knights from the castle. Two knights I knew from reputation as being bastards; not literally, but figuratively.

"This is the beast I shall be riding?" asked the messenger, in a voice filled with scorn.

"Yup." said I, deadpan.

"Well I suppose he'll do. There aren't any large monsters in this area after all."

My mind flashed back to the horror chasing me and Crash. I snapped out of it to watch as the two knights helped the messenger to mount, apparently it was urgent business. As soon as he sat in the saddle Crash got a queer look in his eyes that I knew all to well, and bucked like a mad bronco, sending the messenger flying on his third leap. The messenger landed in a rose bush off to the side of my hut. His curses were most eloquent as he rose out of that bush, covered in mini thorn wounds.

"I'll have its head!" he said.

"This is the only mount in the whole area for leagues who can possibly deliver the message in time!" replied one of the bastard knights. "You can't kill it!"

"But he can't even ride it." replied the other knight to his friend's side.

"Well if I can't then who can?" asked the messenger.

Every eye turned to look at me.

"Oh no! No, no, no! I'm not doing it, you can't make me! I've got other duties to attend to here at the castle!"

Ten minutes later I was sitting on Crash with a hastily packed meal, a suspicious package in my saddlebag, and a two day ride to Castoq.