B2MEM Day 4:

“Down the swift dark stream you go

Back to lands you once did know!”

TH, Barrels out of Bond, p. 143 Nook edition

Crocodiles

          As the second (legitimate) son of his father the Farozi, Sohrabi was charged with removing whatever wild beasts might enter the region around Thetos that might prey on human beings or their creatures.  On occasion a lion might somehow have found its way across the desert into the fertile lands along the course of the Risenmouthe, but the most common predator was the crocodile.  The delta region where the life-giving river met the Great Sea drew them, and they fed on fish, the many sea birds that teemed in the rushes, smaller predators, sometimes the small oxen that powered the wheels that lifted water into the ditches watering the fields in the dry months, and all too often those individuals who entered the twisting waterways in search of papyrus or ducks or fish.

          They had caught three crocodiles today, Sohrabi and his fellow wardens, and had been forced to kill a fourth.  Crocodiles were sacred to Seti.  Seti might be the Lord of dark and evil tendencies, but still there was a place in the world for his influence.  Sohrabi did not hate his beasts, however.  No, he actually admired them for their beauty, their combination of patience, cunning, and swiftness when they hunted, and their place in keeping the populations of fish and water beasts in balance.  He was grateful that these three were going back up the river to their proper place, however.  A child had died in the jaws of one of these, and he did not wish to see any more children die betimes.  His land would need its children once the Death Eater no longer held sway over it.