The Jewel of Turmish - Mel Odom [76]
"The skeleton left a good set of tracks," he added.
Following Haarn's gaze in the direction of the rising sun, Druz said, "It's headed east."
"For now," Haarn agreed.
"I was surprised when it didn't try to kill us," Druz said. "Why would it just leave?"
"That's something I'd like to know too."
Haarn glanced at her then walked to where his clothing hung on a branch.
"You'd have been better off getting out of those clothes before sleeping last night," he said. "They would have been dry by now."
Druz didn't say anything. As a mercenary, she was used to nudity. Living in the field was a hardship that didn't differentiate between genders. The druid was different, though, but she didn't know why.
She looked at the coneys steaming on the spit and said, "I thought you didn't like to kill animals."
Haarn dressed, showing only a little stiffness in his movements.
"The rabbit population is rising too quickly here," Haarn said, settling his scimitar around his lean hips. "We need the meat after the way we've been pushing ourselves."
He padded barefoot through the mud, hardly leaving an impression despite the looseness of the ground. Druz watched him in wonder. The wolf had savaged him the night before, but Haarn hardly showed any sign of injury.
Haarn took one of the spitted coneys and handed it to Druz.
"Thank you," she said.
She sat, a dull headache throbbing at the base of her skull and spreading up through her temples. She pinched meat from the coney and dropped it into her mouth. The meat was almost too hot, but the flavor was amazing.
"It's very good."
Haarn nodded, but he seemed a little uncomfortable with the compliment. His eyes kept drifting to the hole in the earth.
"Where are the wolf pups?" Druz asked, remembering them for the first time that morning.
"I gave them to the pack," Haarn answered. "They made it through the night and seemed strong enough to survive."
Druz looked around and asked, "What of the pack?"
"They've gone."
"With no more trouble?"
Haarn shrugged. "They tried to hide Stonefur's body," he said, "but I found it."
He pointed at a hide-covered lump back by the mouth of the cave.
"I took Stonefur's head so you would have it as proof." Druz pulled more strips of meat from the coney and continued eating.
"Are we heading back today?" she asked.
A hot bath followed by a night in a feather bed seemed too good to be true. She promised to treat herself to both those things when she got back to Alaghфn.
"I'm not," Haarn said, making a neat pile of bones in front of him, each one broken where he had sucked the marrow from it.
"What are you going to do?"
Haarn looked east and said, "I'm going to follow the skeleton."
***
Terror filled Alaghфn as news of Borran Kiosk's return spread through the community. During the night, the stories had circulated through the sailors' bars and been taken with them back to their ships. By morning, the stories flowed to the townspeople buying bread and meat for their tables, washing back from the merchant ships to land like the tide, by way of cargo handlers and merchants. In each telling the stories of the watch's encounter with the mohrg and the violent deaths of the priests of Eldath grew fiercer and uglier.
High in one of the older buildings on the west side of Alaghфn, not far removed from the gate that allowed entrance in from the western trade routes, Borran Kiosk gazed down from between the slats of a boarded-over window. From there the mohrg watched people gather fearfully in the streets and along the docks.
"You take pride in your accomplishment," Allis said.
For a moment, Borran Kiosk did not answer. After whisking him away to this hiding place, traveling swiftly across the rooftops of the city for a time, then dropping down to the street level and managing all the twists and turns there, the werespider woman had disappeared. No longer of the flesh, the mohrg needed no sleep.