“Is it over? Is he healed?” Rigan sounded as if he had been crying.
“It’s done.”
“Will he live?” Kell voice betrayed his fear.
“He’ll live. The poison’s gone.”
Corran opened his eyes, pleasantly surprised that they no longer felt like they were filled with sand. He expected to find himself lying in a pool of yellow ichor, but he was completely dry.
“Thank you,” he managed, the words barely a whisper. Aiden nodded. “You were quite a challenge.”
“Kell, get Aiden something to eat and some tea,” Rigan said. “He needs to replenish his strength.” Corran saw the strain in Aiden’s face, and his hunched posture spoke of utter weariness.
“You’re welcome to stay the night,” Rigan offered. “Safer than going out so late.”
Aiden shook his head. “Safer for all of you, the sooner I’m gone. The wardings should have kept others from sensing the magic worked here, but just in case, I need to be on my way.”
“Pay you…” Corran rasped.
“Rigan already paid my fee,” Aiden replied with a glance at Rigan that Corran could not decipher. “It’s taken care of.”
Once Aiden had left, Rigan and Kell helped Corran onto one of the clean worktables and made him comfortable. “I’ll sit with him,” Rigan said.
“Nearly morning by now,” Kell replied with a yawn. “Don’t expect more than bread and jam for breakfast.” He laid a hand on Corran’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re all right,” he said quietly with a tremor in his voice. “You scared me.”
“Scared me, too,” Corran admitted. Rigan’s hand tightened on Corran’s wrist, as though to reassure his brother he would not let go.
Tomorrow, Corran would ask how Rigan knew the witch, and what price the healer had demanded. But right now, he could not fight sleep. He drifted off, marveling that he was still alive.
When Corran woke, Rigan had not moved from his chair next to the worktable. “I’m glad you got away,” he said, “but you took an awful chance.”
“Do you understand why I couldn’t tell you and Kell?” Corran asked. He was too tired to argue, but right now, it mattered to him that Rigan understood this was not a game.
“If someone else had fought the monsters, maybe Mama wouldn’t be dead.” Or Jora.
“We fight to keep others’ parents, and wives, and children safe,” Corran said. “I keep thinking about that when we’re fighting.” He looked up at Rigan fiercely, challenging him to disagree. “It was worth it.”
To his surprise, Rigan did not argue. “Yes, it was. But Kell and I need you alive, here.”
“I know.”
Rigan wrinkled his nose. “Kell scrubbed you down pretty good, but you still stink. You’re my brother, but there are limits, and you’re going to need a few more baths before you’re allowed upstairs.”
“Thanks,” Corran said dourly.
“Any time,” Rigan returned brightly. He sobered. “Seriously, I’m glad you got away. I’ve got no desire to send you to the gods.”
“I’m not planning to go anytime soon.”
Kell squeezed past Rigan, carrying a hot kettle and a cup, along with some cheese, sausage, and bread. Corran felt weary enough to collapse, but he knew the food and drink would do him good.
“You smell really bad,” Kell observed, dancing back out of range as quickly as he could. “Burn some candles. People will think we left a body to rot in here.”
“We’ll figure out a way to get the stink off you,” Rigan promised. “Maybe Mamme Solan has special soap.”
“Thanks,” Corran replied wearily.
Rigan grinned. “Sure. What are brothers for?” Rigan helped him sit up to eat, and Corran noticed that the salt lines and the chalk sigils from the night before were gone.
A knock sounded at the back door. Rigan and Kell exchanged glances, and each of them picked up a knife, keeping the weapons hidden as Rigan went to open the door.
Calfon stood in the doorway, Allery’s limp body in his arms. “He’s dead.”
“Get inside!” Rigan hissed.
Ragged wounds covered Allery’s arms and neck where the beetles had burrowed into his flesh. His head lolled, eyes open, blankly staring.
“I couldn’t leave him,” Calfon said. “He was still alive when the guards came. Those insect things ate him alive, from the inside. I thought I could double back, get him somewhere safe to bind up the wounds, stop the bleeding, until the guards were gone. But when I finally stopped, he was dead.” Calfon looked up defiantly. “I didn’t know what to do with his body. He fought like a hero. He deserves to have the rites said over him.” Only then did Corran’s pallor seem to register with the hunter. “What happened to you?”
“He jumped in the sewer to get away,” Rigan said. “Nearly killed him.”
“Put Allery on one of the tables,” Kell said. “The sooner he’s painted and shrouded, the better our chances of keeping clear of the hangman’s noose.”
Pounding on the front door of the shop made them flinch. “I wouldn’t bet on it,” Corran said. He thought about trying to help, but his body would not cooperate.
“I’ll stall them,” Kell said. “Shroud the body.”
Kell headed for the front of the shop, closing and locking the workshop door behind him.
“We’re looking for a fugitive,” the guard said when he opened the door.
“I was upstairs sleeping,” Kell replied.
“Are you alone?”
“Me and my brothers.”
“Where are they?”
“In the back, cutting up the bodies. Been a busy week. Lots of dead people.”
“Cutting them up?”
“What did you think happens when you die?” Kell replied, sounding so innocently surprised that Rigan rolled his eyes.
“Take me back there!”
“Do you throw up easily? Because people do, you know. That’s why we don’t really like to have the families of the dead in the shop. They get queasy when we take off the top of the skull and scoop out the brains, and then by the time we’ve peeled the face down over the chin, a lot of them have retched.”
“Why do you peel off the face?”
“Because we’re all faceless when we go to the gods,” Kell replied, a complete fabrication. “Of course, that’s before we break open the ribs, yank out the organs, and burn the whole body with quicklime. It’s really not pretty. Smells awful. You’re better off not knowing. But if you insist—”
The door to the street opened and closed. A few minutes later, Kell returned, locking the door behind him. “They’re gone,” he said, grinning in triumph.
“What were you thinking?” Rigan challenged. “Peel off their faces? Scoop out the brains? What’s going to happen when that gets around?”
“We’re still the only undertaker in this part of Wrighton,” Kell pointed out. “Most people have no idea what happens here. We can always say they misunderstood.”
“I think it was bloody brilliant,” Calfon replied. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think when I came here. I put you in danger. I should have just left Allery. He’s past caring now, after all.”
“What’s done is done,” Corran replied with a shrug. “We can’t admit to his family that we know what happened to him.”
“I understand.”
“We’ll take care of him,” Rigan promised. “We can’t give him the full Potters’ Guild burial, but we can make sure he has a proper one.”
“The gods favored us last night,” Calfon said. “But it could have been even worse.”
“Yeah. I was thinking the same thing.” Corran looked at Allery’s corpse. “This is my responsibility.”
Rigan walked over and began mixing the pigments “I’ll see to him. You’re in no shape yourself. We’ll get him finished up and out with the new burials tomorrow.” He spared a backward glance. “I’m just glad things worked out the way they did,” he added.
“So am I.”
FOUR DAYS LATER, four bodies lay on the worktables: two men, a child, and a woman. Wide tracks, dark with black blood, showed beneath the corpses’ pale skin. “Let’s get to it,” Rigan said. “It’s already late, and there’s a lot of work to do.”
Rigan mixed the pigments, while Corran got the tools. Kell was upstairs, cleaning up after dinner. He had left them two buckets of the specially prepared water used to bathe the bodies, and stoked the fire in the brazier to take the chill off the workroom.
Corran had insisted on returning to work. He felt nearly like himself again, and had to admit that the healer’s magic had been powerful enough to bring him back from the brink of death. Every attempt he made to discover how Rigan knew the witch met with vague answers and prevarication. He’s hiding something. I’ll figure out what, eventually.
Corran’s knife made a clean incision on the corpse’s abdomen. Dark tracks laced from the man’s legs to his belly. Bloody trails criss-crossed his back and chest. The second man’s body looked much the same. There were fewer tracks on the child, and Corran guessed the insect had burrowed straight into his gut. The woman’s body was the worst. The creature had entered through her mouth, ripping out much of her throat as it went, working its way down the chest. Corran swallowed hard and turned back to his work.
The skin of the second man’s abdomen opened cleanly beneath the edge of the sharp blade. Black blood oozed from the incision— and beneath the blood, something trembled.
“Rigan!”
Rigan turned, and followed Corran’s gaze. “Oh, gods.” Its black chitin glistening, the creature struggled free in a spray of the dead man’s blood.
The creature easily measured eight inches long. Front pincers snapped at Rigan and six jointed legs ending in tough, hook-shaped claws cycled wildly, trying to get purchase.
“Burn it!” Corran ordered.
“Watch out!” Rigan yelled. He picked up a pair of long metal tongs, grabbed the insect and turned to shove it into the brazier’s hot coals. The monster screeched as its shell blackened and peeled.
“There’s a second one!” Corran yelled.
“I see it,” Rigan replied, lunging and missing. The beetle moved fast, even bloated as it was with blood.
“What’s going on down there?” Kell yelled.
“Stay in the kitchen and close the door,” Corran snapped.
The dead woman’s belly trembled, and Rigan could see the rounded carapace of a beetle pushing against the skin from inside. Fire might kill the insects, but catching them and getting them to the brazier was another matter.
“Where’s the other one?” Corran looked around, worried.
“There!” Rigan smacked the back of a heavy iron shovel onto the insect, then turned the shovel and brought the blade down twohanded, finally breaking its tough shell.
“Oh, no, no, no,” Rigan muttered. Another beetle tore through the dead child’s belly. The three other corpses trembled as insects dug for the surface.
“Get them to the brazier!” Corran yelled. He scooped his shovel under one of the creatures and lobbed it onto the coals. The fire flared, and the insect sizzled and split.
“You tend to the boy, I’ll tend to the woman, and then we’ll work on the other man.”
Two more beetles climbed out of the child’s abdomen and dropped next to the corpse. Rigan swung his shovel, slamming the back of the blade down hard. The monster dodged the blow and Rigan brought the iron blade down again, this time splitting the insect’s shell, splattering himself with its stinking black ichor.
Corran dove toward the brazier and laid the flat of the shovel on the coals, heating it for as long as he dared. He then laid the redhot iron across the belly of the first man’s corpse, burning the dead flesh and searing the creatures struggling to emerge. The insects screeched, and the corpse shuddered with their death throes.
Rigan grabbed another wriggling insect with the tongs, hurrying past Corran to get to the brazier.
“Hold steady!”
“You hold steady. I’m keeping this damned thing as far away from us as I can!”
“Drop it in the fire!” Corran yelled.
“I’m trying!”
Getting the blood-slick creature to the fire was easier said than done. Rigan nearly lost his hold on the insect. He sidestepped toward the brazier and dove forward, pushing the creature into the burning coals.
“Oh, gods! The smell!” Rigan moaned. The insect hissed and spit as fire licked around its hard shell. A second later, the carapace split, splattering more black blood across the workshop.
Corran stepped up behind his brother, with another of the things skewered and writhing on a long, sharp knife. Swearing under his breath, he stabbed the knife into the coals, and the creature sizzled.
Cautiously, Rigan returned to the woman’s body. “Do you think they’re still alive in there?” The hot iron shovel had burned the corpse’s skin black. He grabbed the leather gloves from the worktable and then pulled a shovelful of glowing coals from the brazier.
“Only one way to find out.” Corran’s knife slit the woman’s belly from ribs to crotch, revealing the last two bloody insects. Corran dodged back while Rigan thrust the hot coals into the cavity. The creatures screeched as the fire destroyed them.
“That’s all of them,” Rigan said. He shook off the thick blood clinging to his clothing, lip curling with distaste. “How many more do you think are out there?” He jerked his head toward the door.
Corran stared at him, equally blood-splattered. “Who knows? It takes maybe two to kill an adult; one for a child. There don’t have to be many.”
“We’d better get this cleaned up,” Rigan said, looking at the mess. “Kell will have our asses if we leave it for him, and I don’t even want to think about the smell.” Black ichor pooled on the floor and splattered the walls. The shovel, dented and bent, leaned against a table.
“Wonderful that we can roast the things to death,” Rigan said. “Now—how do we do that without setting the whole damn city on fire?”
“I don’t know,” Corran admitted. “And there’s nothing to say that the next time monsters show up, it’ll be these things. Just like the ghouls—we figured out how to fight them, and then we had azrikk. Now we get man-eating beetles.”
“What are azrikk?”
Corran sighed. “Horrible.”
Lye soap and the shovel did a good job of cleaning up the workroom, though the smell remained. Corran figured they would need to burn their clothing. Once the fight was over, Rigan grew quiet, deep in thought.
“You all right?”
Rigan shrugged. “How do the monsters just… appear and disappear? Surely someone has seen where they come from?”
Corran shrugged. “Ravenwood is full of old tunnels and drains, and plenty of abandoned buildings. I imagine the monsters are at least as good as rats and roaches at figuring out how to disappear. They’ve plagued Ravenwood for years. Maybe they’ve been here forever.”
“Do you think they’re natural?”
“What?”
“Do you think the monsters are occurring naturally? Or they have been summoned to the city somehow?” Rigan asked, thinking of his conversation with the ghost.
Corran regarded the blackened shells in the brazier. “I imagine they come to the city for the same reason rats and stray cats do— lots of food.”
“But they aren’t here all the time,” Rigan pressed. “So why some times and not others? Why some parts of the city, and not others? And if they go away, where do they go, and why do they come back?”
“Why all the questions?” Corran asked, watching his brother closely.
Rigan looked away. “Just thinking about things, that’s all.”
Just then, three sharp knocks came at the back door. Corran looked up. “I’ve got to go.”
“I’m going with you,” Rigan replied.
“No, you’re not. You haven’t been trained. Stay here and keep Kel
l safe.” Corran grabbed his cloak and sword and headed into the night.
Kell came down the stairs. “He’s gone hunting,” Rigan said, answering his brother’s unspoken question.
“Now what?”
“I’m not going to wait around for the monsters to find us,” Rigan said. “What do we have that’s really, really sticky?”
Kell grinned and headed over to a corner of the workshop returning with pots of glue and tar.
“We can heat these on the brazier,” he said. “The place can’t stink any more than it already does.”
Kell and Rigan donned leather gloves and heavy work aprons. A strange scratching and scrabbling noise came from outside the shop as they heated the buckets. “Do you think that’s them?” Kell asked.
“There’s something out there, and I’m not about to go look,” Rigan replied. “Go stuff rags under the door—just in case.”
While Kell hurried to block the opening, Rigan found several long strips of heavy canvas as well as wide leather straps. Kell watched, perplexed, as Rigan began to wind the canvas around himself from ankle to crotch.
“Have you lost your mind?” Kell asked.
“Your turn,” Rigan said. “You can use the leather, it’s even tougher for them to get through.”
“You’re serious?”
“Want to end up like them?” Rigan snapped, with a jerk of his head toward the corpses.
Kell shuddered. “I can wrap myself. Go stir the tar.”
A few minutes later, Kell was finished. He walked stiff-legged over to where Rigan stood by the brazier. “As armor, this leaves a lot to be desired. I can hardly bend my knees.”
“Have you ever seen the Lord Mayor’s personal guard?” Rigan asked. “All done up in their tin suits for fancy occasions. I don’t imagine they can take a piss, let alone bend anything.”
More scrabbling, louder and closer than before. Kell glanced toward the door to the front of the shop. “Do you think they got in?”
“No idea. How long does this stuff take to soften?” Rigan said, prodding at the tar. “We don’t have all night.”
A thud against the alley door made them both jump. “Look!” Kell whispered, pointing.
Scourge Page 25
