“What else does it do?” asked Kieran.
Sorak shrugged. “It makes me wish I had been born someone else. In fact, I used to be someone else every now and then.”
Kieran frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It’s a long story,” Sorak said. “But we still have about a day’s ride ahead. I’ll tell you all about it on the way to Altaruk.”
“Well then, let’s ride,” said Kieran. “I’d like to see just what’s waiting for us when we get there.”
“It’s me they’re waiting for,” said Sorak. “You do not need to involve yourself.”
“In case you have forgotten,” Kieran said, “you’ve saved my life twice, and my caravan once. The way I see it, I’m involved.”
“I did what I chose to do,” said Sorak. “You are under no obligation to me, Kieran.”
“That’s not the way I see it. And I will brook no arguments. I am still your superior officer, if you’ll recall.”
Sorak smiled. “Whatever you say, Captain.”
“I say we’ve wasted enough time,” Kieran replied. “Mount up.”
Chapter Eleven
It was, Matullus thought, a truly lousy way to start the day. His weak stomach notwithstanding, he had somehow managed to hold his gorge down when he walked into the room and saw the carnage. Perhaps he was getting used to it. And that was bad enough in itself.
The first thing that hit him was the smell. The bodies had been dead only a few hours, but in the desert, the morning temperatures rose quickly, and they were already stinking. And the blood. It was splattered everywhere. Its coppery smell commingled with the stench of bowels that had released at the moment of death. Matullus was still young and had never fought in a full-fledged campaign. He had never seen a war. But this morning, he finally understood what the old veterans meant when they said that a battlefield smelled like human waste.
Bad enough to be murdered, he thought, but to be found like this, mangled and begrimed with feces… if this was any indication of what it was like to die in battle, he could see no glory in it. Better to die old in bed, he thought, of a ruptured heart, wrapped in the arms of a young woman. That was a sort of glory he could understand.
The sound of flies buzzing in the room was almost as oppressive as the stench. He covered the lower half of his face with the free end of his turban and looked around.
“Gith’s blood!” said one of his men behind him, clapping his hand over his mouth and nose as he came in. “What kind of animal would do a thing like this?”
“The kind that walks on two legs,” Matullus said grimly. He stepped around and over the corpses, looking down at each one and giving it a cursory examination. “This one was stabbed in the stomach, disemboweled. This one had his throat slashed from ear to ear. Look at that stroke. It practically decapitated him. And this one had his back broken. This one had his neck snapped. The head was almost twisted right off the spinal column. This one was stabbed straight in the heart. The blade smashed right through the ribs. And this one was strangled. See the bruises on the neck? Look at this…” He laid his hand across the discolorations, matching his fingers to the marks. “The killer did it with just one hand.”
“Look at the white veils dropped on the bodies,” I one of the men said. “Just like with the last one.”
“A calling card, perhaps?” Matullus asked rhetorically. “Did the Veiled Alliance kill these men, or are we supposed to believe they were killed because they were in the Alliance, themselves?”
“Lord Ankhor isn’t going to like this,” one of the men said.
“No, he certainly will not,” Matullus agreed. “And Lord Jhamri will like it even less. This sort of thing is bad for business.”
“What are we going to do, sir?” one of the younger guards asked.
“Dispose of the bodies,” said Matullus. “There is little else we can do. And then we will spread out through the neighborhood and make inquires. Someone must know these men. But if they were in the Alliance, none will admit it. An admission would be self-incriminating. We may learn their names, but I doubt we’ll learn anything else.”
“The caravan from Balic should be in tonight, shouldn’t it?” one of the guards asked.
Matullus nodded. “If they are on schedule. Our new captain is going to inherit this sorry mess. I doubt he will be pleased to start his job on such a note. And if Kieran is displeased, I fear we’ll be the first to feel that displeasure.”
“This isn’t going to stop, is it?”
Matullus shook his head. “No. Not unless we stop it. Whoever is doing this is good at killing. The bastard likes it.”
“Surely this isn’t the work of one man?” one the guards asked with astonishment.
“Each of these men was killed by someone very powerful,” Matullus said. “And it was done very quickly. Two of them didn’t have a chance to draw weapons. And if they were adepts, they certainly did not have a chance to cast defensive spells. This one here had drawn his dagger. It’s still grasped in his hand, for all the good it did him. One dagger was thrown.” He pointed to where it was embedded in the wall. “I think… by that one, there. Obviously, he missed, and it cost him his life. The others were all disarmed before they died. And quickly, too, for the killer toyed with them.” He indicated the smashed table and overturned chairs.
“One was thrown across the room, onto that table, and while he was stunned, another was disposed of. Then another was thrown against that wall there, where the spice jars have fallen off the shelf and shattered on the floor. Stun one, grab another, and so forth, like a mountain cat
