This story is being rewritten! The new version, A Price in Memory, can be found here. 

 I highly suggest you read the new version as this one won't be completed. Also, there has been a lot of changes so you won't be able to continue with the other where this one left off.

Rhone stood at the edge of the broken bridge, peering into the darkness. In the starlight, he could just make out the glittering reflection of the light off of the surface of the enormous river running below.

"Well… shit," Holin muttered at his side. "What do you reckon did this?"

Rhone turned to him. The lowlight revealed the new skin covering the side of the man’s face. It was smooth and stretched, pulling the side of his mouth into a sneer. The most disturbing part was the that the new skin had grown to cover the hollow left by his missing eye, leaving an indent that he kept scratching at.

"Could be age," Rhone said. "No one maintained the thing. It’s not much of a surprise that it finally gave in.”

"We’re not going to get the cart through that river," Holin said.

Rhone nodded. "We'll have to find another way around. Erah’s Crossing could work, but that would set us back too long. Two weeks to get there and another two to get back on the right path."

"How about Blackflow?" Holin asked.

Rhone rubbed his chin in thought. If the bridge there was still intact they could shave more than a week off of their journey.

"Worth a shot," he said, walking back to the head of the bridge where the others were waiting.

"No way to get across the river, we're going to try Blackflow," Rhone said as he and Holin joined them.

"Blackflow?" Kali asked with a look of confusion.

"Old settlement," Holin replied. "It was built next to the river, at the mouth of an even older bridge. It was overrun by a horde some two terms back."

"How do we get there?" Y'rid asked.

"We actually passed the road heading towards it a few hours ago," Holin said. "Though the entire thing was overgrown, since the only place that path leads to is the settlement."

"No one tried to reclaim this settlement?" Y'rid asked.

Holin shook his head. "Not that I know of, but I guess we'll know for certain soon enough."

"Let's get going,” Rhone said. “We should be able to reach it by tomorrow evening. If everything goes well, we can be out of this forest by the end of the week."

"Finally," Kali muttered. "I've had enough of this place."

She and him both. This stretch of the world before you reached the Glowing Hills always made him uneasy. The long hours spent in darkness brought up memories of the Eternal Night. No, he much preferred the welcoming light of the vine-covered Hills.

Thankfully the journey had been mostly quiet since they had left Dusk. He was old enough to prefer a dull journey.

***

After two days’ travel, they reached Blackflow. The path they had taken could barely be called a path at all. All manner of plants had reclaimed the area abandoned by humanity. From time to time they had to stop to clear out some of the bigger bushes to allow the cart to pass through. It was a slow process and one that set them back by another full day.

Y’rid looked towards their destination. Through the trees, he could just make out walls that were mostly covered in greenery leaving only a few places where the grey stone could still be seen. The scene made it seem as though the place was some long forgotten fort, instead of a supposedly thriving settlement merely two terms ago.

As they exited the treeline he could make out more of the wall, or more precisely, he could make out more places where there were supposed to be wall but wasn’t. The path led straight to the gateway, through the gates themselves were no longer in place. One laid off to the side, partially sticking out from a hedge while the other was nowhere to be seen.

“Guess that settles the question as to whether someone tried to reclaim it,” Y’rid muttered under his breath.

“Not that surprising,” Holin said. “Not many people want to live in this part of the world. The only reason it was built in the first place was to serve as a waypoint for people travelling through the forest. In recent times, Erah’s Crossing was quickly replacing Blackflow, even before it fell.”

“Erah’s Crossing huh.”

“Half a copper if you can guess the name of the noble who founded it.”

Y’rid looked at the man. He kept expecting to see the face he had grown used to. The spell, while clearly having worked wonders, couldn’t reconstruct his face as it had been before.

“I’m going to take a shot in the dark and say Erah,” Y’rid said.

Holin held out a hand. Y’rid paused for a moment before holding out his own, into which Holin dropped half a piece of a bent copper coin.

“Lovely,” Y’rid said in a flat voice. Where did the man even find half a coin?

Except for the occasional bird call and scurrying of some small animals, the settlement was quiet as they entered. The houses were torn and broken, some even half collapsed under the assault they had faced. The streets were overgrown with weeds sticking out of the cracks in the hard compacted earth and cobblestones.

“Let’s find some place to rest,” Rhone said. “Then we can check on the bridge.”

The others nodded and they began making their way down the main path through the once flourishing city. Walking through the silent ruins of civilisation gave off an eerie feeling that made Y’rid’s skin crawl.

“Hold on a moment,” Holin said as they reached an intersection with another road heading deeper into the settlement. He crouched down and traced over the surface of the ground. Y’rid walked up to him and looked over the man’s shoulder. It was faint, but he could just make out a thin impression in the dirt.

Holin stood up and walked a few steps looking at a few more places where the tracks were visible. Here and there a small shrub growing in the road was partially flattened, small twigs broke off from the stems.

“A cart passed through here not too long ago, probably only a few days, otherwise the rain would have erased the signs already.”

“Can you tell how many people?” Rhone asked.

“No… not too many though. A small group maybe.”

“Scavengers?”

“Can’t see their returning tracks,” Holin said. “Though they could have gone back with another route.”

“Maybe they were travellers heading north?” Kali suggested.

“It’s possible,” Holin said while nodding. “A good sign for our hopefully still intact bridge.”

They followed the tracks heading deeper into the city.

“There,” Kali said after a while pointing to the side of a building. Lying next to it was the remains of a beast. Most of it had been reduced to bones, though here and there a few pieces of flesh still clung to it. It was difficult to tell but it looked like it would have reached about the height of his waist when it was still alive.

“Nhilynx,” Holin stated as he knelt next to it. He grabbed its remaining hind leg and twisted it, revealing the shaft of an arrow that had broken off. “Killed maybe a week ago.”

“The people whose tracks we saw?” Y’rid asked.

Holin raised his head. “I’d wager it was them.”

“Come on,” Rhone said. “I doubt we’re going to find anything useful from what’s left of it.”

They continued and soon found a caravan overturned in the road. Its covering had been ripped open and the contents sprawled out into the dirt. A mass of wooden crates containing everything from clothes to fine sets of cutlery was pouring out of the caravan.

“Scavengers,” Red stated walking over to the pile of things on the ground.

“Holin,” Rhone said grabbing the man’s attention. He nodded off to a building on the other side of the street when the man caught his gaze. Its door was broken down leaving the entrance wide open, the light spilt in through the open doorway and onto the red-stained floor inside.

Holin nodded towards Rhone and the two made their way over. Y’rid followed behind them, curious as to what they hoped to find.

“Red, you and Kali stay here with the cart. See if you can find anything valuable among the remains, and keep an eye out for movement.” Rhone said.

Red nodded as Kali unslung her bow and began to string it.

Y’rid scanned the houses surrounding the street and walked up to Holin as the man looked towards the ground at the side of the house.

“Something was dragged out here, then carried off,” the man said.

“Dragged off by that… nhilynx?” Y’rid asked.

“Not likely. The trail’s wrong. I’d say this happened afterwards.”

“What do you expect to find here if all of this happened a week ago?”

It was Rhone that answered him. “Hopefully nothing. But some beasts take to making their dens in the ruins of old cities. With the other bridge down, more people might be taking this route. If we have the opportunity to make it a little safer, shouldn’t we do so?”

The three entered the house. Y’rid glanced at the dried bloodstain as he stepped past. The stain they saw was only the end of a much larger one that stretched from further within. He could make out bloody handprints and scratches left in the wooden floor. Whoever had died here had not done so easily.

Two doors branched out to either side, stretching into large rooms just visible from his line of sight, while a corridor stretched further into the building.

Rhone nodded to Holin then pointed at the two rooms to the side before he stepped towards one of them. Holin gestured to Y’rid and walked to the other. Y’rid followed him, trying to keep his footsteps as soft as he could.

They reached the doorway and Holin stepped inside, quickly scanning the room. Y’rid went up beside him. It was once perhaps a rather lavish room. Now the carpet on the floor was stained with dirt. The table in the middle of the room was overturned and missing one of its legs and the cupboards to the side had their drawers pulled out and scattered over the floor.

Y’rid snapped his head to the side as he felt a tap on his shoulder. Looking up at Holin he saw the man gesture back to the hallway with a jerk of his head. He nodded and followed him back. Rhone was already waiting for them as the stepped into the hallway.

They made their way down the corridor, passing two other rooms with more of the same inside. Approaching the last room at the end of the hallway, they found the door broken open, leaving only a piece still on its hinges.

Rhone strode through with Holin and Y’rid short on his heels. Y’rid’s eyes were instantly drawn to the rotting corpse at the far wall, next to a broken window. The head and lower half of the body was nowhere to be found but the ripped leather partially covering the torso proved that it had once been a person. Its chest was torn open with large chunks of flesh missing.

Holin gave the corpse a glance before looking at the window. “Blood on the edges. Perhaps the poor bastard tried to escape? No sign of a den though, even temporary one.”

“No,” Rhone said. “Nilynxs don’t hunt like this in any case. If they got one and pulled him outside, they would have settled.”

Holin grunted. “Yeah. This was probably some roaming beast that smelled the blood of the one they killed. Just bad luck.”

They moved back outside. Red and Hadi were busy poking through the wreckage of the caravan while Kali was keeping a lookout.

“Find anything interesting?” Holin asked as they made their way over.

Red shrugged while still looking through some of the wooden crates that littered the ground. “A few pieces of jewellery. Some coin.”

“Place those on the cart and let’s find a place to rest,” Rhone said.

They quickly found a building still mostly intact near the centre of the town, not too far away from the wreckage of the caravan. It was a large two-floor construct made of stone that probably belonged to a noble of sorts or maybe a rich merchant. Now the windows were broken and the door hung askew on its frame.

A musty smell entered his nostrils as Y’rid stepped inside, a faded and frayed carpet laid in front of the doorway, whatever design it had once held had been worn out by the weather and covered by dust.

“Secure the building,” Rhone said as he moved to the hallway, Red followed him as Kali waited outside with Hadi by the d’yar. Holin and Y’rid took the stairs to the second floor, the half-rotten wooden steps creaking as they did so.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

The second floor opened into a square room a dozen strides across, with two doors leading to rooms to the side and back. Y’rid made for the side door as Holin made his way to the back. He pushed on the handle of the door but it refused to budge. Using a bit of effort he drove his shoulder into the door and forced it open. Dust swirled into the air, lighted by the sunlight drifting in through a window to the side. He pressed down on his nose trying to prevent the sneeze that was building up, given the amount of dust in the air he knew he would be hard-pressed to stop once it started.

After a moment he managed to hold back and looked inside of the room. A bed stood at one end next to a desk with an old wardrobe to the side covered in carvings of vines and flowers, thought the thick layer of dust and cracks spread across it detracted from the beauty it must have once held. The doors of the wardrobe were wide open and some of the clothes were tossed onto the ground alongside the drawers from the desk. The floor itself was covered with a soft brown fur from a beast’s skin that served as a carpet.

Y’rid looked around and was about to step back outside when something caught his eyes above the desk. It was a drawing of a family, the edges of the parchment it was done on had been eaten away by something but the image at the centre was still relatively unmarred.

He stepped closer and traced his hand over the edges of the picture. A tall man stood next to a smiling woman with a small girl standing in front of them, all facing towards the artist that had drawn them.

Did they manage to escape the horde? Was the family living their lives somewhere else, or was this the last piece of evidence that they had ever existed?

“Don’t dwell on it,” Holin’s voice came from the doorway. Y’rid turned towards the man.

“You see something like that,” – Holin nodded towards the picture – “you ignore it and go on with whatever you were doing. That’s why it’s the only thing untouched in here.”

Y’rid looked around at the mess that was made of the room. “Why didn’t they take it with them?”

Holin shook his head. “This wasn’t done by those that lived here. This was the scavengers that came after.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“When a horde breaches the walls of a city, you don’t have time to search for everything you have of value. You just grab your coin and run. No, this was done by scavengers. Also explains why the picture was avoided. Old superstition among those that pick through ruins.”

“Is it common for people to loot fallen cities?”

“Oh yes. There are even a few ‘salvaging’ teams that do just that. The city lord of Lok probably sent out a team to Riversedge himself the day we left. Provided he could find a few loyal enough not to disappear with whatever they found.” He said with a chuckle.

“You seem to know a lot about that,” Y’rid said.

Holin shrugged. “We all started somewhere.”

Y’rid stared at Holin’s back as he left before he shook his head and followed the man down to the first floor.

“Clear,” Holin said as he joined Rhone at the entrance to the house.

Rhone nodded. “On our side too. We can stay here.”

Red unstrapped the d’yar’s harness and led it inside before giving it water while the rest of them unpacked the cart.

Rhone moved to the fireplace and started scouring through the house for firewood, which he eventually found. It was dry and cracked, having been cut down long ago. But, like most things, it would still burn.

“I’m going to see if the bridge is still intact while we still have daylight left,” Holin said. “Anyone want to come?”

“I’ll go,” Red answered.

“Sure,” Y’rid said. “I want to see a bit more of the city while we can.”

Treading through the forest quickly became tedious, especially when they were travelling through the night half the time.

“I want to go too,” Hadi said.

Y’rid smiled at the boy. “Sure, you can come with us.”

They left the house leaving Rhone and Kali behind to tend the fire and keep watch. They continued down the way they had been going when they found the house, roughly in the direction of the river at the northern edge of town.

“Have either of you been here when the city was still alive?” Y’rid asked as they walked through the settlement.

“I’ve been here once,” Holin said. “It was a long time ago, back when I first joined the order.”

“You weren’t born in the order?” Y’rid asked. He didn’t think the man was but from what he knew most of the beast-eaters were born in Stronghold, they joined the order because their parents were a part of it.

“No, I joined just before Red did.”

Red nodded.

“So what did you do before?”

“This and that,” Holin said with a half-smile, twisted by the new skin.

Y’rid waited a few moments but it seemed that the man had no intention of elaborating.

“What was the city like?” Y’rid asked getting back to his original question.

“Like most cities. Lots of people trying to make enough to live by. From what I heard, it did better than many though. Its location was its greatest asset. Trade flowed in between the north and the south. And having the river to one side meant they didn’t have to worry about attacks from a large area. Not that it mattered in the end.”

The group fell silent after that. Y’rid looked around as they walked, trying to imagine the place two terms back. A place filled with life. He tried to rebuild the houses in his mind, and fill the streets with people, but each time his gaze would get caught on the ruin of a house or the overgrown weeds in the road, breaking the illusion.

A dull pain ran through his gut causing him to sigh in resignation. He had put it off long enough.

“You go on,” He said to the others. “I’ll catch up after I deal with nature.”

“Good luck,” Holin said with a chuckle. “Last night’s stew won’t do you any favours. Hopefully some creature doesn’t join the fight. Wouldn’t want you to be outnumbered.”

Y’rid groaned, thinking back to the stew of last night. Hadi had convinced Kali to let him help, who in turn had convinced Rhone. A pinch of fireroot ended up being the whole satchel. The meal had quickly turned into a battle of willpower, with tears streaming down his face with each bite. The only one who seemed fine was Red. He even went back for seconds.

He was not looking forward to this.

***

Y’rid walked out of the alleyway, one hand supporting him against the wall of the building at his side. He stepped out into the road, closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief, enjoying the cool air of the evening as it brushed against his sweat-stained forehead.

Never again.

He’d rather starve.

On a whim, he set off down the road, deciding to take a small detour to the riverside. It shouldn’t be hard to find the bridge and the others. He just had to reach the river, and then he could walk along it.

Gazing at the broken stones the street consisted of, he noticed an impression the size of his chest every few steps with cracks spraying out of its sides. These cracks had long since been filled with grass and other greenery. But even then it failed to completely hide the indents.

With a start, he realised that he was looking at tracks. They were tracks. Tracks of something massive. They were obviously old, the tracks being overgrown as they were, but this did little to ease his mind. Perhaps they were created during the invasion of the horde that fell the city. He could just imagine people screaming as they fled for their lives from such a monster.

He pulled his thoughts away from the subject, lifting his gaze to the sky. Perhaps he was overthinking it. He had been feeling morbid ever since they entered the city. There wasn’t much he could do about it, being surrounded by all of this. He obviously had no personal connection to the people that lived here, but seeing the ruins had left him with a bleak state of mind that he could not seem to shake.

Y’rid sniffed the air as the wind turned, carrying a faint sour smell with it. He looked around trying to catch a glimpse of the cause but couldn’t. Shaking his head he continued along the path. The smell did not go away, instead, it grew stronger as he went further, eventually forcing him to breathe through his mouth in an effort to lessen it.

He was just starting to consider finding another way when he saw an unmoving figure lying on the floor of a building across the street. The entire front wall had been ripped away, exposing the interior and causing the roof to sag dangerously.

With hesitant steps, he approached the building, the sickening smell of rot mixed in with the sour stench as he did so. Suppressing the urge to gag, he stepped inside the building. He saw the figure lying inside was only half of one. Only the top half remained, the waist ending in a bloody mess, with a streak of blood and entrails leading deeper into the building.

The blood on the floor had long since dried and hardened, but it still seemed more recent than that scavenger they had found. That was as much as he could tell though. He would need to get Holin over here if he wanted to know more.

The man, judging by what was left of the face, wore leather armour. Though it had been so thoroughly stained and matted with gore that it was hard to tell at first. An empty sheath was slung across his back, the blade it once contained nowhere to be seen. The only arm the corpse had left was splayed out to the side, some of the flesh gone, displaying red and white bone beneath.

What caught his attention however, was the ring on the man’s finger. The blood failed to completely cover its golden surface, though even this was secondary to the markings on it. Lines of faintly glowing runes surrounding some unknown design were engraved on its surface.

Y’rid knelt down and tried to pull the ring off to get a better look at it. He frowned as it wouldn’t loosen from the ruined digit it was on. He pulled out his dagger and slowly drove the tip of the blade into the base of the finger, severing it, before he removed the ring.

Unable to stand the smell any longer he stood up and turned to leave when he heard a faint high-pitched growling sound.

He froze. Slowly he turned around and scanned the building. The sound came again, from the direction of the blood trail and through a doorway led deeper within.

Y’rid glanced back at the opening to the outside, the fading light beckoning him. Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself and drew his sword as silently as he could. With his eyes on the doorway, he snuck forward, regulating his breathing to steady his heart.

He reached the edge of the doorway and peered through. Beyond was a large room, sparsely furnished and worn down by age and disuse. At the end of the room, he saw bloody tracks leading to the source of the sound.

Against the far wall, was a litter of strange creatures, lying on top of each other in their sleep. They were about two feet long with four legs and oversized heads, covered in brown patchy fur. He saw one of the creatures give a growl and bite one of the others causing it to yelp and roll over making more room on the pile for it.

Y’rid drew his eyes away from the litter and scanned the room for any signs of the parent. There were none. Silently breathing a sigh of relief, he turned to walk away before stopping.

They were only pups, but they would grow up. That’s what pups do. And when they did…

Best to end them now.

He stood up and quietly made his way over the sleeping brood, he had made it halfway across the room before one noticed him, blinking its eyes as it looked at him. Three eyes, one in the middle of its head and one at either side.

It opened its mouth, the lower jaw splitting in two as it weakly roared at him, doing its best to scare off the threat.

Knowing there was no point in stealth anymore, Y’rid quickly closed the ground between them as the others started to stir. He raised his sword and thrust forward, through the open mouth of the small beast and into its skull, ending its scream.

Y’rid yanked out the blade and stood over the others, stabbing down repeatedly as the pups began struggling, each thrust claiming a life and, hopefully, saving even more.

Quiet returned to the area as the last of the creatures died.

Y’rid didn’t stay any longer. Keeping an eye out for any sign of the creatures’ parents, he exited the house and headed in the direction Holin and the others had gone.

The sounds of rushing water entered his hearing a few minutes later. He emerged from the line of buildings to a slope leading down to the running river a few strides away. A short wall was built between it and the path leading along its bank. Far to the right, he could see the bridge. From here it looked like a massive structure spanning the breadth of the river with supporting pillars sinking into the water. He could just make out the three figures he was looking for on top of it.

Y’rid walked to the low wall and jumped over it. He knelt at the edge of the river and dipped his sword into the water, using his hands to wipe the blade clean and drying it on his shirt before returning it to its sheath.

Putting the thoughts of the beast litter out of his mind, he walked over to the bridge. He could see Hadi waving to him as he approached. A smile touched his lips as he waved back.

“You survived!” Holin shouted from the bridge. “Would have hated to put all those hours into your training only for you to be defeated by something that’s already dead.”

Y’rid shook his head, suppressing a smile.

Cocky one-eyed bastard.

Red snorted. “It wasn’t nearly as bad as you say. I’ll make you some hasra sometime. Then you can see what real food tastes like.”

Holin paled a bit. “Oh, gods no. I’m not eating your sand poison. Can you even cook?”

Red shrugged. “You can judge for yourself.”

“Look at what you’ve done,” Holin said turning to Y’rid as he joined them. “We had a nice thing going here before you showed up.” - He paused, his smile turning into a grin - “Not so bad my arse. Or should I say yours? Look, the man almost lost his stomach.”

Y’rid looked down, following the man’s gaze, to see a few bloodstains from the pups still clinging to his leather boots.

“You almost died!” Hadi asked, looking at Y’rid.

“No no,” Y’rid said and ruffled the boy’s hair. “Holin is just speaking through his arse. Don’t listen to him.”

“I found one of those dens Rhone mentioned,” Y’rid continued, looking back at Holin.

“Oh?” Holin said with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, his surprise clearly too exaggerated for it to be real.

“Just a few young ones,” Y’rid continued. “Barely old enough to walk.”

Holin’s smile faded as a frown creased his forehead. “The den was unguarded?”

Y’rid nodded.

“Strange,” Holin said. “Nhilynxes?”

“That’s the corpse we found heading into the city right? I Don’t think so. Unless they change a hell of a lot as they grow up. These had three eyes and a split jaw.”

Holin’s frown deepened. He turned to Red after a moment of silence. “You know of anything like that?”

Red shook his head.

“Show me,” Holin said turning back to Y’rid.

“Sure,” he replied turning back the way he came. “Does it matter though? They’re dead now.”

“Killing a beast’s young is a tried and tested way of getting yourself hunted down. Best you know what’s coming for you.”

The thought gave Y’rid pause. “For us, you mean.”

“Do I?” Holin asked.

Y’rid ignored the man and thought back to the litter. The thought of a beast wanting revenge hadn’t entered his mind. “So I shouldn’t have killed them?”

“I would have suggested using the young as bait for a trap. You could still try, but many beasts can recognise death among their own even better than we can.”

“Maybe the parents got themselves killed?” Y’rid suggested.

“It never hurt being positive, I guess.”

They made their way back along the river to the street that Y’rid had emerged from.

“This territory is claimed,” Holin said.

Y’rid looked at him to see the man scrunching up his nose. He sniffed the air the faint sour smell entered his nose again.

“It gets worse,” Y’rid said as he led them down the street.

It did get worse the closer they got to the building. By the time they reached it, Hadi had covered his mouth and nose with his shirt in an attempt to block out the stench. Y’rid stopped walking as he looked at the boy, remembering the body inside the house. The boy had seen worse during the horde, but there was no need to put him through more. Y’rid turned to Red.

“I’ll stay here with him,” Red said as he opened his mouth. The big man reached down to pick up the boy and place him on his shoulder.

Y’rid gave the man a grateful nod.

He and Holin entered the building. Holin barely looked at the corpse before moving on, following Y’rid as he went to the dead pups.

Holin tilted his head as they reached them. He reached down and picked up one by the head turning it around to face him.

“So?” Y’rid asked. “What are they?”

Holin was silent for a moment before answering. “I don’t know…”

The man frowned and picked up another, holding the two side by side. As he did so, Y’rid noticed small differences. Both and three eyes and split jaws, but one’s centre eye was a bit to the side and higher up than the other. The other’s lower jaw seemed a bit misshapen, one half being longer than the other giving it a lopsided appearance.

“This is wrong,” Holin said. He put the two to the side and reached for another pulling up its paw. It had five digits on the limb, while its other limbs had four.

“Subtle differences among creatures of the same species is not uncommon, but this… this isn’t subtle at all. And in one litter. Look at that one, it doesn’t even have a tail like the others, and there is no sign of a wound. Still though…”

He stood up and threw away the pup in his hands without sparing it a glance as it hit the floor with a thud. “These things have certain traits that almost look reminiscent of a nhilynx.”

He turned and walked back to the entrance with Y’rid behind him.

“A species you just haven’t seen yet?” Y’rid asked

“Doesn’t explain the variation. They were changed somehow.”

“You think these are the same as that floating creature you killed?”

“That one had runes carved into its flesh. It was twisted by someone,” Holin said. “These were born.”

A thought struck Y’rid as he heard this. “A second generation?”

Holin took a moment before replying. “That’s what I thought as well…” – He shook his head – “We’ll need to see the parent. If it really is…”

Holin paused as they stepped into the first room and looked down at the corpse of the man on the floor.

“This man wasn’t killed here. He was dragged from somewhere else. This happened a two or three days after the scavengers passed through I’d wager.”

He nudged the corpse’s hand with his boot, where the finger had been severed.

“Oh right,” Y’rid said pulling out the ring. “I found this on the man.”

Holin took the ring and turned it over. He licked his thumb and rubbed the ring clean of blood, showing the runes surrounding the sigil in the middle.

“Tale’s Flight,” He muttered.

“What is that?”

“Messengers. The best there is. Founded and supported by a group of mages, they only accept those who can use runes to join them. Each of them has a few runecrafted toys to use when the need arises. Few other than mages can hire them… unless you shit gold and piss silver. They always get the job done though.”

“For that reason,” – he knelt down next to the corpse and looked it over carefully, turning it around and tracing his hands across the armour, – “they are sometimes used to send word to other cities of dire threats. Such as hordes.”

He scratched at a piece of the leather vest on the chest, clearing the dried blood from it. A small cut, no wider than Y’rid’s thumb was long, could be seen piercing through the leather.

Pulling out his dagger he plunged it into the chest next to the cut. He wiggled the blade to widen the cut enough to stick two fingers into the chest of the corpse. Y’rid could see him concentrate as he felt around before his eyes widened. With a grunt, he yanked out his hand pulling out something else as well.

Using the cleanest part of the corpse’s clothing he wiped the object and then turned it over.

They both stared down at the black arrowhead lying in his palm.

“Well… shit.”