“Wait - wait, slow down.”
She stood before the gardener of Lady Heysan's estate. He was a balding man, with wrinkled and blotchy skin. A wine stain birthmark covered half of his face, and that in some circumstances might have ended with someone staring at him. But Stare … she was used to folk staring at her. She was never going to let a single thing as a birthmark mar her perception of someone.
The gardener pressed his lips together, shutting himself up. His keen hands gripped the pole of his hoe firmly as he waited for Stare to entirely understand. For about a full minute he had now been ranting at her.
“So you're saying the killing of fowl in the city started … weeks ago?!”
He nodded, “Aye mi’lady,” he said in a thick northern accent. “I’ well, i’ ... yeah.”
Stare blinked, and then let out the gasp that had been building. “Ansaldo's balls above,” she whispered. “When was the first?”
“Well, yeh ken, there's foxes and aither vermin who’ll ge’ 'em bu’ … firs’ unexplained un … I guess, yeh’d say, fae whi’ I ken … three weeks ago?”
Three weeks. For three weeks there had been unexpected killings of fowl in the city. Slowly building until a few nights ago when their own on the Elssmith estate had been mercilessly slaughtered in one night. And what was more - their bodies were left. Some had been ravaged, yes, the meat torn off by whatever scavengers and carrion feeders could get to it, but none had ever been dragged away. It was as if some madman had danced through, getting more and more murderous as the nights went on. First, there had been the entire coop on the Flotterby estate, belonging to Lord and Lady Flotterby who's wealth was in farms. Then, the next night the pub Breezy Pint, the houses belonging to the Geldings noble family and the Ocean View suburbs had been subject. It had built up, until one entire district had been hit, and even when the Breezy Pint bought more chickens, they died too. It was an epidemic of strange and eerie proportions, which no one could explain, save for the murmurs of Basilisks.
But the last time that kind of deadly serpent had been seen here had been decades past. And with the size that basilisks were meant to be it was certain someone would have noticed. The attacks were too sporadic as well, stretched over the whole of the city in a single happening. No wild beast would do that, therefore it had to be either planned, or a truly terrifying new beast.
“I see,” Stare sighed, feeling the despair. “And you said they were never stolen?”
“Every body 'ere fae meh to find,” the gardener nodded. “An’ I've seen 'em at neighbourin’ estates, lef’ and righ’.”
He gestured to either way, indicating the grand houses that peeked over the boundary hedges.
“I see,” the kenku said softly. She ran a hand through her feathers. “So it is someone or something that attacks … for …”
“Fae spor’, I reckon,” the gardener nodded.
The comment made Stare blink. “For … sport?”
“Aye, cause yeh ken meh reckonin’.” The hands on the how tensed as he leant forwards towards her.
He paused, and Stare blinked before answering hesitantly.
“... What?”
“The attacker ain’t ea’in’ 'em. A’ all.”
