It wasn't celebrants crowding the city now. It was terrified refugees.
"We've seen no sign of bodies on the road," Sandor said. "And the people coming to the city are all the more reason we need everyone to stay here and protect them. This could be old, and from anywhere in the woods."
"Not that old," Ilan said. He'd become quite an expert in the aging of dead flesh.
"And what of the latest murder? You'd put that aside for something that might not be murder at all?"
"I'm not putting it aside. I'm being thorough. We all should be." It was on the tip of his tongue to point out the latest marks and their bloody poetry, to beg them to consider the stories refugees were telling more carefully.
Instinct won out, barely. Sandor had already rebuffed him once. If Abe also refused to accept that the weakened seal was actual dark magic and not just a matter of faith, Ilan would find himself branded a heretic and no longer in any place to do anything at all.
"Very well," Sandor said after a moment of standoff. "If you're so concerned, you can go. You're excused from our rounds if the Prelate thinks it wise."
Abe nodded. "We shouldn't abandon those seeking refuge here. They are ours, in the gates or out of it."
Ilan tried not to let the surprise show on his face. "Thank you. I'll take—"
"You'll go alone." Sandor followed.
They never went out alone.
"That doesn't seem safe." Ilan was confident in himself, but extra eyes were always helpful.
"Walking around in a forest scare you?" Sandor's smirk galled. "Still on about your demon tales? Well, if you don't think it's safe, stay here. I'm not sending more priests who are needed to defend a place more holy."
Ilan weighed the options and took a quieting breath. Instinct rarely led him wrong, and instinct told him to go. And to take Mihály. Finally the Izir could be useful for something.
"Fine," he said. "I'll report what I find. Come," he told the dog.
"And throw that curr out of the city while you're there. It's likely diseased if it's been feasting on corpses." Disgust dripped from Sandor's words.
Well, the dog was thin, his yellow-brown coat patchy, and he was in bad need of a delousing, but his eyes were clear, his temperament good. Ilan had grown up sneaking his father's hunting pack into his rooms on cold nights, and this pup would be an equally pleasant addition to their staff.
Sandor's annoyed scowl didn't fade as Ilan considered. That was the best argument for keeping the dog.
"He's my dog now, and he will stay with me."
The dog seemed to understand, stopping when his new master did and thumping his tail in confused happiness.
Abe shrugged. "It may prove useful to have a hound about. As long as he stays clean and you feed him, he's welcome to live out with your horse. Besides, he's likely to know where he found the corpse. Makes for quick work."
Ilan smiled, but it was the smallest of victories.
It would be a blessing if the owner of the hand was the only body outside.
23
Ilan
The dog pulled at the leash, nose alternating between the ground and the air. As he dragged Ilan and Mihály off the road and through brown brush tangle, his ears were pricked and his steps quick and sure.
At least one of them knew where they were going.
The Izir was uncharacteristically silent, trudging behind without a single comment about the ridiculousness of Ilan being forced to rely on him for protection. He should be grateful that the man wasn’t picking over the scabs of their failed plan or Ilan’s treatment of his followers, but the tense quiet was fertile ground for stewing thoughts over being sent out here alone as if his very rational plan was something Sandor was only humoring. At least Csilla had agreed to stay in the city, writing Elmere’s family. The church wouldn’t let her do anything else for him, and it meant one less person and her feelings to worry about.
The dog stopped, the short fur of his ruff raising slightly. His barks echoed off the trees as he paced at the base of a knobby oak.
The ground was like any other part of the forest, gray and brown leaf litter with a curls of hopeful vines springing through in spots, but there were broken branches, the pale and stringy roots of bushes knocked over. Signs of a struggle that were more than damage from old snowfall or passing badgers.
Mihály moved in front, kicking at the underbrush, then bending over to pull some aside. When he turned back, his face was pale.
“He’s here. Partially.”
Ilan breathed a prayer.
The woods hadn’t been kind to the body. Fresh meat was hard to come by before litters were born, and the animals, possibly even humans, had left the man in scraps. His eyes had been picked out to hollows, the meat of his cheek shredded to bone and the cords of his throat sharp and pale. A few early flies crawled over the blackening gash where the hand had been attached.
There was no clothing, not even tatters. A human had to have been involved somehow, if only to rob the man and leave him for dead. Animals wouldn’t have stripped him.
Ilan pulled the straining dog to heel and offered the lead to Mihály. “Well we shouldn’t leave him. Let’s take him to your barn. It will be easier to examine him there.”
Carrion birds cast slow scythe-winged shadows, waiting for a chance to steal a few more bites. Bigger, hungrier things might be pacing out of sight. Ilan glanced over at Mihály. The pair of them would be no match for a winter-starved wolf pack or a ravenous bear just out of hibernation.
One good thing about traveling with Mihály: he was big enough to carry the man’s body and barely look winded, and he’d held his tongue about the smell. Within the hour they’d gotten an old tablecloth from the farmstead, one molded with disuse, and wrapped the body. They pulled it onto the table, scattering the stiff animal corpses like so many children’s game tiles. Mihály straightened the corpse, laying him out with scientific precision. If he didn’t look pleased, neither did he look sick, and that was all Ilan required.
Most of the damage had been done by nature, which was, if cruel, at least not evil. The person was of average height and what was left of the hair was mussed and dirty blond over the patches of scalp. The breadth of him, though...He’d had plenty of weight on him before he was attacked. Not like someone living on the outskirts of society or who would be begging for a spot in the brilliant city. A man who had wealth enough to eat like that was a man who would be missed.
