The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [31]
“And yet you think something has frightened them into hiding?”
Gilmer shook his head. “No,” he said sadly, “I fear they’re nay hidin’ at all.”
The door opened with no more protest than a faint creak, but their entry drew no response. Muttering to himself, Gilmer took out his tinderbox and struck light to a candle.
“Holy saints!” Leoff gasped, when the light fell about them.
There were indeed a lot of people in the Paiter’s Fatem, or what had once been people. They lay or slumped in groups, unmoving. Leoff had no doubt whatever that they were dead. Even in the warm light of fire, their flesh was whiter than bone.
“Their eyes,” Gilmer said, his voice thick with emotion.
Leoff noticed then, and he doubled to the floor, retching. The very earth seemed to reel beneath him and the sky to press down.
None of the dead in the tavern had eyes, only ashy pits.
Gilmer clapped his hand on Leoff’s shoulder. “Easy,” he said. “We don’t want them as did this to hear us, do we?” The old man’s voice was quavering.
“I can’t . . .” Another wave of nausea came over Leoff and he pressed his forehead to the hardwood floor.
It was many long moments before he could look up again.
When he did, it was to find Gilmer studying the corpses.
“Why would they burn out their eyes?” Leoff managed.
“Saints know. But they didn’t do it with brands or hot irons. The eyes are still there, just gone to charcoal.”
“Shinecraft,” Leoff whispered.
“Auy. Shinecraft most foul.”
“But why?”
Gilmer straightened, his face grim. “So’s they can break the dike and have no hindrance or witness.” His lips puckered. “But they aens’t broken it yet, have they? There’s still time.”
“Time to do what?” Leoff asked incredulously.
Gilmer’s face went flat. “These people were my friends,” he said. “You stay here, if you please.”
He searched through the corpses for a moment and finally came up with a knife.
“Whoever did this aens’t counted on anyone living now. They don’t know about us.”
“And when they do, we’ll end just like these,” Leoff said desperately.
“Auy, could well be,” Gilmer said, and walked toward the door.
Leoff looked again at the dead and sighed. “I’m coming,” he said.
When they were back on the street, he glanced again at the cobbles. “What was her name?” he asked.
“Eh?”
“The bride.”
“Ah. Lihta. Lihta Rungsdautar.”
“And her fiancé? What became of him?”
Gilmer’s mouth quirked. “He never married. He became a windsmith, like his father. Hush, now—the floodgate isn’t far.”
They passed more dead in the streets, all with the same empty gaze. Not just people, but animals, as well—dogs, horses—even rats. Some had expressions of terror frozen on their faces, while others looked merely puzzled. Some—the worst somehow—seemed to have died in rapture.
Leoff noticed something else, as well—a smell, a faint odor of putrefaction. Yet it did not have the scent of the grave or butcher shop. There was no hint of maggots or sulfury gases. It reminded him of dry rot—subtle, not really unpleasant, with a faint perfume of burnt sugar.
As he progressed, he made out a noise, as well—a rhythmic hammering—not like a single hammer, but like many, all beating the bass line of the same dirge.
“That’s them working at the wall!” Gilmer said. “Hurry.”
He led them to the city wall and the stone stairs that went up it. They stepped over dead guardsmen to reach the top. From there they looked down.
Newland was moon-frosted to the horizon, but just below them, the wall cast a shadow down the embanked dike it stood upon. Torches burned there, flames straight and unwavering in the windless dark. Five men stripped to their waists were working at a stone section of the