A wood elf male was laid out across a table in the middle of the room, his throat cut. Dried blood made a trail from his neck down to a circle of blood on the floor. His emerald eyes were vacant as they stared up at the exposed log beam ceiling of the cottage. Another body was slumped over in a chair nearby, a female wood elf, but her skin was too pale for her to still be alive. Gin stood frozen in the doorway, her hands pressed to her mouth to keep herself from screaming.
“Wait here, Gin,” Sath said, not knowing if she would obey, but also not waiting to find out. He moved with total stealth as he entered the cottage, sniffing the air for traces of anything living. Only the metallic tang of blood filled his nostrils. Magic had been used here as well; Sath could sense the aftershocks still hanging in the air as well as the charred stench of fire magic. He drew close to the table and could see the blackened skin around the male’s hands. Defensive magic? Sath rubbed a hand over the top of his head. From the armor worn by the dead couple, he had already suspected that they were druids, but the charred flesh and leftover magic stink confirmed it. But who had done this?
Respectfully he closed the male’s eyes and then approached the female. Her dark hair hung in ropes that had come loose from a bun still perched precariously on the back of her head. Sath had seen hairstyles like that on wood elves only in books that he had studied in the Outpost while still hunting druids and rangers—and on Gin, when she was serving as the Nature Walker. It was the color of Gin’s hair as well, a fact that gave him undue pause for several moments as he studied the corpse. She wore the rings of marriage common to Gin’s kind; he had gotten paid handsomely for so many of those after he’d been out hunting. Carefully Sath lifted her head to find a ragged wound across her throat. She had died slowly, in horrible pain, and most likely watching her mate die on the table across from her. Sath closed her pale blue dead eyes and let her head hang back as he had found it.
“Who…did this?” Gin hissed at him from the doorway. Sath turned around and shrugged his shoulders at her. He placed a finger to his lips. All of the color had drained from her face, and she was gripping the doorway with white-knuckle ferocity. At least she wasn’t screaming.
“I don’t know, but it was a magic-user,” Sath whispered back. “Stay put while I check the back rooms. Whoever it was might still be here.” He padded back through the large room into a smaller one but found only a bed and some clothes were thrown about inside. The killer had clearly been looking for something and had turned the bedroom inside out to find it. Dropping silently to all fours, Sath lowered himself down to look under the bed and found nothing there. He got back to his feet and stuck his head out into the larger room. “Clear, come on in,” he whispered. Gin stood very still and did not move from her spot by the door.
“No. I can’t…” Gin’s voice was quivering—with anger.
“Gin, you’ve seen death before, you need to come in here with me so that if whoever did this comes back they won’t get you as well,” Sath pleaded with her in hushed tones. He could see sparks forming around her hands and had to get her inside before she attracted attention. There was one way to break her concentration, but he hated to do it. “Please, Ginny…”
Gin’s eyes flared as she met his gaze. “Do not call me that,” she hissed. As quickly as she could, she dashed past the grim scene at the table and darted past Sath into the bedroom. He closed the door behind her and sank to the floor for a moment. “Any clues back here?” Gin paced about the tiny room.
“No, none, only that someone was clearly looking for something in here,” Sath said. “I have never seen that kind of wound before either. I can only imagine what kind of weapon made them, as jagged as they are—almost looks like an animal attacked them, but then there’s the state of them, laid out on the table like that.”
“Ikedrians,” Gin spat. “Abominations. They are the antithesis of all that is right and holy and good. They are the twisted creations of the Father of the Underworld, Ikara.” Sath stared up at her as she ranted. He had never seen this side of her—this rage—not even after the wizard took her. “Look at the cruelty, making her watch while her mate died on the table? That is the calling card of the Ikedrians. They are the absolute masters of sadism, and that is what happened to that poor couple out there.” She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve, wincing as it hit the rough chainmail of her tunic. “Stop staring at me. I know that my home is named for an Ikedrian, but I also know that I might still have Cursik had he not fallen in love with one of them.”
Sath covered his face with his hands for a moment, and then rubbed them over the top of his head in frustration. “I think we need to stay here and keep hidden for now. Tomorrow, when the sun comes up, we will make for the treeline tunnel as fast as we can. From there, we will hopefully pass back through the Void to home—or at least somewhere on our side of the world,” Sath said, hoping that she would accept his rambling as a viable plan. The truth was that he had no idea what to
