“A battle. Sir.” A supercilious smile curled the lieutenant’s mouth at for once being ahead of Haranides. “Or, at least, a fight, but it must have been a big one. Hillmen attacked the bandits in camp and cut them up badly. We no longer need worry about the Red Hawk. An she still lives, she’s screaming over a torture-fire about now.”
“A very complete picture,” the captain said slowly. “Based on what?”
“Graves. One mass grave that must hold forty or more, and seventeen single graves. They’re upslope, to the north there.”
“Graves,” Haranides repeated thoughtfully. The hill tribes never acted in concert. In their dialects the words for ‘enemy’ and ‘one not of my clan’ were the same. But if they had found some compelling reason … . “But who won, lieutenant?”
“What?”
The hook-nosed captain shook his head. “Learn something about those you chase. None of the hill tribes bury their victims, and they take their own dead back to their villages so their spirits won’t have to wander among strangers. On the other hand, if the bandits won, why would they bury the hillman dead?”
“But the bandits wouldn’t bury tribesmen,” Aheranates protested.
“Exactly. So I suggest you take a few men and find out what’s in those graves.” It was Haranide’s turn to smile, at the consternation on the lieutenant’s face.
As the slender youth began to splutter about not being a graverobber, a bowlegged cavalryman ran to a panting halt before them. The edge of a bloodstained bandage showed under his helmet. “Captain,” he said nervously. “Sir, there’s something maybe you ought to see. It’s … .” He swallowed convulsively. “You’d best see for yourself, sir.”
Haranides frowned. He could not think of anything that would put one of these tough soldiers in this taking. “Lead the way, Narses.”
The soldier swallowed again, and turned back the way he had come with obvious reluctance. Haranides noted as he followed that Aheranates was clinging to his heels. He supposed that to the lieutenant’s mind, even something that made a seasoned campaigner turn green was better than opening day-old graves.
Near a thornbush springing from the crevice between two boulders a pair of soldiers stood, making an obvious effort not to look into the narrow opening. From chain mail and helmet to hook nose and bandy legs, they were like Narses, and like him, too, in the tightness around their eyes and the green tinge about their lips.
Narses stopped beside the two and pointed to the cleft. “In there, sir. Saw a trail of … of blood, sir, leading in, so I looked, and … .” He trailed off with a helpless shrug.
The blood trail was clear to be seen, dried black smears on the rock, and on the stony ground beneath the bush.
“Clear the brush away,” Haranides ordered irritably. Likely the bandits, or the tribesmen, had tortured someone and tossed the body here for the ravens. He liked looking at the results of torture even less than he liked listening to it, and if the men’s faces were any indication, this was a bad job of it. “Get a move on,” he added as the men fiddled with their swords.
“Yes, sir,” Narses said unhappily.
Swinging their swords like brush knives, to the accompaniment of grumbled curses as thorns found the chinks of their chain mail and broke off in the flesh, the bush was hacked to a stump and the limps dragged clear of the crevice. Haranides put his foot on the stump and levered himself up to peer into the crevice. His breath caught in his throat.
He found himself staring straight into sightless, inhuman eyes in a leathery scaled face. The fanged mouth was frozen in rictus, seemingly sneering at him. One preternaturally long bony hand, a length of severed rope dangling from the wrist, clutched with clawed fingers at a sword gash in chain mail stained with dried blood. All of its wounds appeared to be from swords, he noted, or at least from the sorts of weapons men bore.
“But then, what self-respecting vulture would touch it,” he muttered.
“What is it?” Aheranates demanded.
Haranides climbed down to let the lieutenant take his place. “Did you see anything else up this way?” the captain asked the three soldiers.
A shriek burst from Aheranates’ mouth, and the slender young officer half tumbled back to the ground. He stared wildly at the captain, at the three soldiers, scrubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. “Mitra’s Holies!” he whispered. “What is that?”
“Not a hillman,” Haranides said drily. With a sob the lieutenant stumbled a few steps and bent double, retching. Haranides shook his head and turned back to the soldiers. “Did you find anything?”
“Yes, sir,” Narses said. He seemed eager to talk about anything but what was in the crevice. “Horse tracks, sir. Maybe a score or more. Came from the camp down there, right past … past here, and went off that way, sir.” He flung a hand to the south.
“Following?” the captain mused half to himself.
“We must go back,” Aheranates panted suddenly. “We can’t fight demons.”
“This is the first demon I ever saw killed by a sword,” Haranides said flatly. He was relieved to see the momentary panic in the three soldiers’ eyes fade. “Get that thing down from there,” he went on, turning their looks to pure disgust. “We’ll see if our hillman friend knows what i
t is.”
Grumbling under their breath, the bow-legged cavalrymen climbed awkwardly into the cranny and worked the stiffened body free. Haranides started back while they were still lifting it down.
The hillman was spreadeagled between pegs in the ground, surrounded by cavalrymen betting among themselves on whether or not he would open up at the next application. From the coals of a small fire projected the handles of half a dozen irons. The smell of scorched flesh and the blisters on the soles of the hillman’s feet and on his dark, hairless chest told the use to which the irons had been put.