The Jewel of Turmish - Mel Odom [74]
He'd been a member of the watch for seventeen years and not much surprised him. He'd been privy to murder and every kind of sadistic abuse a thinking creature could do to another.
Dorric Chansin, Tahrass's young aide de camp, knelt beside the stripped man. Chansin wore rain leathers but they did little to mask the lean hardness of his body. A tracker, his hands roamed the area around the bodies.
"Priests," Chansin answered.
"Priests?" Tahrass shook his head, hoping Dorric was wrong. "What makes you think that?"
Chansin took up one of the corpse's hands. "They're dressed in robes. Their hands are soft. The men don't have much coin between them, but they don't look poor." He held up an object that dangled by a string from his fingers. "And they all carried these."
"Symbols of Eldath."
Chansin closed his fist over the symbol and gazed up, eyes slitted against the rain. "You follow Eldath's teachings?"
"It is my wife's faith," Tahrass said, "and my two daughters'. I have my own. Eldath's ways of peace are not for someone like me."
Chansin gave a short nod and turned his attention back to the bodies. "There are some who say Eldath is taking a more active hand in the affairs of the lands around the Sea of Fallen Stars, in light of the return of Myth Nantar to the knowledge of men."
"Even so," Tahrass said, "why would these men come to this place in the dead of night?"
"I don't know." Chansin took a slim-bladed dagger from his boot and used the point to examine the gaping wound in the naked priest's head. "I would like to know what made this. I've never seen the like."
"Magic, mayhap," Tahrass suggested.
He glanced up from the body, feeling uncomfortable gazing at a fresh corpse in a place where so many old ones were kept.
"Maybe they were already dead," he added.
"And climbed up out of their graves?" Chansin smiled despite the harsh circumstances.
"Could be," Tahrass replied, taking no offense. "During the years I've stood watch over Alaghфn, I've heard several tales of the dead walking out of graveyards or ambushing people when they come into them."
"How many have you seen yourself?"
"None."
"There you go," Chansin said. "With mages poking into everything, and necromancers tinkering with things best left alone, I know it's possible that such a thing could happen, but I've never seen it."
"You're too young to remember," a creaky, hoarse voice said.
Turning, Tahrass spotted a thin old man approaching them. Chansin stood, showing respect.
"Mage Vorahl, I meant no disrespect."
Vorahl was ancient even by standards set by mages. His skin, even though his health and life had been prolonged by spells, clung to his bones like coarse parchment. Age had pulled the man in on himself, collapsing him a lot over the twenty years that Tahrass had known him.
Rain had turned Vorahl's gray hair dark, but silver highlights glinted from the lantern light. His dark purple robes held the badges of his office in the watch, and the intricate sigils of his craft. His staff, once just a tool, now supported his infirm steps. He glanced at the assembled bodies.
With pain showing on his face from the effort involved, Vorahl bent over to look at the corpse. His sticklike fingers clung to the staff for support. He shook with palsy and perhaps from the cold.
"You shouldn't be out here," Tahrass said. "We can take care of this."
The soaking cold was almost too much for him, and his rain leathers offered more proof against the elements than the mage's robes.
Vorahl waved the watch commander's words away and said, "When I heard about this, I knew I had to come."
Tahrass waited, watching the agony the old mage put himself through to examine all the priests' bodies.
"Six of them?" Vorahl asked as he gazed at the yawning mouth of the violated crypt.
"Yes," Chansin answered.
"And you got them all?"
"We think so."
Anger clouded Vorahl's crumpled face as he turned back to the two guardsmen. "You think so?"
"We took out all we found," Tahrass said.
In all the years he'd known the old mage, he'd never seen Vorahl so close to losing control.