duty by Warden Fields. He would brook no other authority.
He waved her forward. “Clear.” Lorr sniffed the air. Bred to be a tracker in the ancient forests of Idlewyld, he had been blessed with Grace, his senses of smell heightened by air, his skill at woodlore gifted by loam. He cocked his head high, his profile clearly showing the slight protuberance of the lower half of his face as he scented the air.
“There’s an old trail of blood through here,” he said. “I would’ve missed it if not for Barrin here. Someone was killed nearby. Murder, I’d say, from the tang of fear in the air.”
Kathryn moved to his side. “How old is the trail?”
“No older than the turn of one moon.” He glanced back at her.
Kathryn studied the crossroad of corridors. Her first worry was for Castellan Mirra. “Are you certain?”
“Blood is blood,” he said and waved Barrin down the hall.
“Can you follow the trail?”
Lorr shrugged. “Certainly, until the blood runs out. Barrin and Hern may be able to follow it even farther. But what of this letter you wanted delivered? The trail is old. It can wait the night.”
Kathryn shook her head, sensing a need for urgency. “No, we must pursue it.” She nodded for him to follow.
He balked for a moment, clearly wondering if it was wise to lead his charge along such a path. But his eyes drifted to the trail with beastly longing. Blood was in the air. There was a track to follow.
Finally he huffed at Barrin and pointed. The bullhound continued down the new passage, nose close to the stones. This passage led into parts of Tashijan that had seen little use in ages.
Warden Fields had been correct in his assessment of the current state of affairs, here and across Myrillia. The number of knights and those who sought to serve the gods had been slowly eroding over the past four centuries. So slow was the attrition, it was hard to note, like water wearing a path through stone.
They continued into the lonely passages. Rooms were boarded up, even some windows. Dust grew thicker as they wound down a twisting narrow stairway. Older footsteps disturbed the grime, coming and going.
Lorr would stop and finger some of the steps. “Fresher,” he said. “Other trackers have been this way.”
“So the blood trail has already been followed,” Kathryn said, disappointment hardening her words. She pictured the scores of men and women, trackers and knights, even ilk-beasts, who had searched for Castellan Mirra. None had met with success. If this path had already been followed…
Lorr straightened. “There are no sharper noses than those of a bullhound. Where others have given up, we may push farther.” A hint of excitement rushed his words. “We move on.”
As they searched, Kathryn remembered stories told of Chrismferry. The colossal, ancient city was so broad of scope and breadth that vast areas had fallen into disrepair and returned to wildlands within the heart of the city. Most of the city folk seldom traveled past their own four city blocks. The rest was foreign lands.
The same was true here, Kathryn realized. Tashijan was the size of a small city, half above ground, half below, but much had fallen away and was forgotten. Knights and masters stuck to the corridors they knew. Few ventured into those hidden corners. Warden Fields had warned about the impossibility of defending against Tylar’s attempt to enter Tashijan. It had too many forgotten battlements, entries, and secret halls. Kathryn saw the proof of that here.
Lorr was finally forced to light a torch as the corridors grew too dark… though Kathryn suspected the light was mostly for her benefit. The wyldman’s eyes glowed with a trace of Grace.
“The blood trail grows too thin for me to follow,” Lorr said, halting at a spot where the corridor branched in three directions. He knelt and studied the stone. “Someone used a blessing of air to breeze away the dust, hiding their footsteps.”
“So we can go no farther?”
“We have bullhounds,” said Lorr.
Barrin had already wandered ahead and sniffed at the three passages. He grumbled at the one on the left. A rope of drool dripped from one corner of his lip and sizzled on the stone, etching it. Hern, behind them, simply stood on guard, tongue lolling, waiting on his master.
“This way,” Lorr said, stepping toward the left passage. “Careful of the drool.”
Kathryn followed behind Lorr. The corridors here were low and narrow. Barrin filled the entire passage ahead, Hern behind. Kathryn felt an intense pang of unease. No one knew she was down here… and bullhounds had the capability for consuming all, even the bones, of their prey.
Was that how Castellan Mirra had vanished? Into the gullet of such monsters? Kathryn’s steps began to slow. Her hand drifted to the pommel of her sword. Had she walked willingly to her own doom?
They continued for another quarter bell, moving in line, slipping from one passage to the next, climbing crumbled stairs.
A hiss from Lorr drew her attention. He pointed ahead. Barrin had entered a cavernous room. Lorr followed next. He waved for Kathryn to stay at the entrance.
With torch in hand, Lorr moved into the room. The firelight danced shadows on the high-raftered room. It looked like a small gathering hall. Tiered benches circled the walls, though one section had collapsed down upon itself.
Barrin hunched over a mound in the room’s center.
Kathryn held a fist to her throat as Lorr’s approaching torch revealed a sprawled body, naked, white as bone, arms out wide, legs together. The head was blocked by Barrin’s shaggy shoulder. Lorr circled the body, eyes on the form.
Kathryn could wait no longer. Castellan Mirra…
She hurried into the room. Hern shambled after her, always her shadow.
She rushed to the body on the floor. She quickly saw her mistake. The bared loins revealed the slaughtered figure was a man, not a woman, not Castellan Mirra.
Kathryn stumbled to a stop, aghast.
The man’s throat had been cut, his chest cleaved open. A trough, hacked crudely from the stone floor, circled his body. His wrists, also slashed, hung over the trough to either side.
Lorr lowered his torch.
Blood, crusted and dried, caked the trough.
“They bled him like a pig,” Lorr said, spitting to the side.
Barrin hung back. The great beast mewled softly, almost fearfully. What could scare such a monster? What did its sharpened senses discern that theirs did not?
Kathryn crossed around and knelt by the man’s head. Three stripes darkened his features, from the outside corner of the eye to each temple. A knight. She did not recognize the young man, but he must be new to his third stripe. It appeared freshly tattooed, which meant he had just been gifted with the full Grace of a Shadowknight, his blood freshly blessed, ripe and potent. Such knights were often quickly placed among the Hundred, to bend a knee and serve one of the gods. His disappearance could be easily hidden.
She stood up. Hern made a gruff snort off to the side.
Lorr and Kathryn moved together to one side of the room.
A well opened in the floor there, an old hearth, similar to the Hearthstone in Tashijan’s Grand Court. Only this hole did not dance brightly with flame.
Lorr leaned his torch over the pit. It was filled with broken branches, cracked and charred. Kathryn blinked as a flicker of torchlight revealed a leering skull, blackened by soot, one cheekbone crushed, peering out among the branches.
She instantly saw her mistake.
It was not branches that filled the pit, but…
“Bones,” Lorr said, almost a moan.
Kathryn swung away, her stomach churning. Whatever fire had been lit in this pit had been fueled with flesh. She stared at the prostrate, slaughtered young man. Knights. The pit was full of the bones of murdered knights.
“A lair of Dark Grace,” Lorr said with a fierce growl. “Here in Tashijan. We must tell the warden.”
Kathryn eyed the dead knight. His arms had been forced wide, legs together, forming a cross, encircled by a ring of blood, once surely aglow with fresh Grace.
