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Ralnor
Larn
Dar Eherdir
Fae O' Elum
The Singing Cannibal
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> Come here… dear.
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> Don't wait for dawn, whence wicked dreams are born
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> Listen for that tone, made of skin badly sewn…
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> ‘n cured in briny waters.
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> -
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> Presumably heard/sang in large port-cities and dark alleys,
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> Unknown composer.
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> Unknown date.
The guard at the gates, the one not sleeping on his spear, turned his tired eyes on him. Ralnor had the setting sun on his back and his face was shaded by the hood. He nodded once to alleviate the man’s qualms for his late arrival and made to climb down from his horse.
“A Lorian?” The sergeant at the gates asked and the guard stirred trying to wake up. Ralnor stopped the effort to climb down from Dar and returned the officer’s stare. He was under the thick shade of the gatehouse and Ralnor had missed him on his approach.
“From Levacum,” He replied in a clear loud voice.
“Where’s that son?” The sergeant asked him.
“In Lesia.”
“Ah, a merchant?”
“Looking to deal in cheap wine,” Ralnor replied.
“Buy or sell?”
“Buy.”
“Lots of that around,” The sergeant said, looking at his expensive boots. “But with the war, the prices might shock you.”
“It’s a risk,” Ralnor said. “I’m willing to take. I’ll leave ye lads a bottle, if I get a good deal.”
“Let him through,” The sergeant ordered the sleepy guards with a smile.
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The inn across the Big Sparrow, was called the Bony Dog. Ralnor left Dar in the former’s stables and walked towards the ill repute inn and tavern, observing the crowd moving about, mostly towards Castalor’s Eastport. He stood at a street corner for an hour watching the entrance, the shades hiding him from everyone and waited for the night to come fully and quiet down the city.
Tout arrived at the spot half an hour later, horrifically scarred face giving the former street urchin the chance to beg for coin from richly dressed passersby’s. He got almost a silver’s worth of coin from it, as the city’s best whorehouses were located but a street away and the people heading there were ready to spend. He also managed to steal a sweaty and real merchant’s good purse, while the man was rewarding the boy’s beggaring with a copper from his other one.
Ralnor sighed and stepped out of the shadows, whilst the little ‘beggar’ counted his haul.
“We got to move,” He said and Tout flinched scared, but recovered quickly, ruined mouth cracking in a grotesque smile. The scar on his face half hidden under the leather patch he had on his empty eye socket. “He’ll come back,” Ralnor added.
“There’s five gold in here. Some silver,” Tout counted and followed after him.
Ralnor paused outside the Bony Dog and stared warningly at a toothless ‘whore’ smoking next to the entrance and effectively blocking it. Her skin marred with red and black spots.
“What did the man at Caspo O’ Bor said—?” Tout tried to say, but he put a hand on his mouth to cut him off. The whore grunted, blew smoke out her badly painted lips and walked away with difficulty.
“Less talk, try to keep up,” Ralnor rustled and went inside.
Loud voices and songs assaulted them the moment they stepped foot inside, noise dressed as music, young wenches and old prancing about, drunken fools and just fools mixed in with the shady night crowd. Burglars and cheap scoundrels, professional thieves, out-of-luck slavers, vacationing cutthroats and right killers. The latter not always for hire.
The man behind the bar had more eyebrows than eyes and forehead. A thin-lipped Issir was talking to him, head shaven and gleaming in the light of the oil lamps. The bartender eyed Ralnor gliding through the crowd ever approaching, ducking under large trays and away from protruding elbows. He narrowed his eyes, those great eyebrows contracting and stopped the other man from talking.
“Need a drink?” The bartender asked Ralnor when he reached them and the assassin put a gloved hand on the surface of the wide counter.
“The kid will have one,” Ralnor rustled and the shifty bartender moved the wooden toothpick in his mouth to the side and eyed Tout’s mangled face. The boy crooked the working side of his mouth up in a hideous half-grin.
“What’s wrong wit him? Did he fell into a lit forge or something?”
“I’ll have a beer,” Tout replied remembering the merchant’s words, only a bit of unruly hair showing over the counter. “And a bowl of green olives.”
The bartender snorted and glanced at Ralnor again.
“I’ll need to search at the back for the olives,” He said and Ralnor nodded, removing his hand from the counter and revealing the silver Eagle underneath. The man reached and covered it with a dirty cloth, then scooped it up and walked away through a hidden small door. He left it open behind him. Ralnor turned his head and stared at the hired thug watching him in silence. The Issir grimaced, smacked his lips and walked away from the counter as well.
The next moment Tout was on and over it, with Ralnor following after him. They reached the small left open door and stooping walked inside. Ralnor had to almost double over as this was a meter high opening, whilst Tout just rushed ahead in the dark hidden corridor.
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The corridor led them to the back of the building where another store was located. It didn’t have an outside entrance, or windows facing the street behind the inn. A heavy scent of rot, natron and resin oils all mixed in made their eyes water and the many small holes near the ceiling used for ventilation were doing a poor job.
There were four dead bodies inside the large workshop, covered in sheets on the large tables and in various states of decomposition. Tout grimaced, turning green in the face and the bartender pointed at an Issir wearing a bloody apron, short cut white hair and cleanly shaved face, over a thin body working on one of them.
“That’s Berg. I’m out of here,” He said and disappeared back inside the small tunnel.
Berg glanced at the blank-faced Ralnor and stopped his work. He wiped his hands with a filthy cloth and turned around to walk to a desk of sorts. The embalmer poured a dark liquid in a bronze cup and drunk it with a grimace.
“Malt whisky,” He explained to the silent Ralnor. “You better give the kid some afore he pukes all over the place.”
“A sip,” Ralnor ordered Tout and the boy reached for a second cup Berg offered him. He started coughing after testing the strong drink.
“You have a recently deceased?” Berg asked.
“Verlon said you regulated the trade up the coast,” Ralnor said.
“Big words,” Berg replied with a shrug. “There’s a war, people died. Everyone in the trade has more work these days.”
“People want the dead preserved?”
“Some people, there are uses for a good body,” Berg explained. “You can display it, or keep it in a vault, if it’s a relative’s. It helps people cope with loss.”
“What else?”
“Deviants, not all necrophiliacs’ are poor bastards,” Berg replied with a shrug.
“A large order was placed in Caspo O’ Bor,” Ralnor started with a grimace. “For unclaimed dead from the battle of the Small Plains near Riverdor. A man paid for it, but the dead disappeared Berg.”
“I only got a couple of bodies this week,” Berg replied. “All locals.”
“Any ideas on what happened?”
“If Verlon didn’t know, why do you think I do?” Berg defended himself.
Ralnor walked near a table that had a small girl’s body covered with a white sheet.
“Fever,” Berg said watching him. “Her father wants her preserved.”
“Why keep it so secure?” Ralnor asked him, looking under the sheet. The grey-white face of the girl peaceful in death.
“It’s a dangerous business,” Berg replied measuring his words. “Especially lately.”
“What is dangerous about it?”
Berg grimaced and poured some more whisky into his cup.
“How many of the bodies were lost?” He asked dodging his query.
“Ten military wagons. Over forty corpses. It’s quite the scandal in Caspo O’ Bor, as some of the dead had families left behind,” Ralnor elucidated. “It created waves and made me take an interest at it.”
“So this is a Guild business?” Berg asked sipping from his cup nervously.
“What is dangerous about it?” Ralnor repeated his previous question.
“People go missing all the time, some of them get killed or die,” Berg said gulping down. “But eventually their bodies turn up, be it poor or rich.”
“What changed?”
“Say a family gets mugged on the road,” Berg replied. “We find the parents but not the child, when everything points out that it hadn’t run away. Two people get murdered in a dark alley, only one of them is found the next morning.”
“A slave ring?”
“Who needs a dead slave?”
“A ring of deviants setting up shop?” Ralnor chanced.
“There’s talk of a killer roaming the docks,” Berg said his hands shaking. “Up and down the coast. Every year in a different city and port. Caspo O’ Bor, Issir’s Eagle, Colle and Castalor.”
“A serial killer?” Ralnor asked raising a shaved brow. “What need does he have of bodies?”
It was absurd as a theory, but live for a long time and you learn to respect all leads, he decided.
“He sings to lure his victims in them dark places,” Berg croaked and Ralnor smacked his lips unimpressed.
“He steals bodies,” He said not convinced. “Why?”
Berg grimaced and walking near the assassin covered the dead girl’s head again with the sheet.
“People say he’s a cannibal,” Berg finally said. “But even he, wouldn’t steal all those bodies.”
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“Did Verlon lie?” A slightly inebriated Tout asked him an hour later. Ralnor pressed his back on the moist wall of the alley, an eye on the busy whorehouses and taverns of Westport, the other on the dark side alley stretching out behind them.
“No, he didn’t,” Ralnor replied. “The army packed the corpses and sent them to Caspo O’ Bor and their families. The families never got any of them back, but the delivery was made.”
“Where are they then? Did this ghoul got to them first?”
“That’s a lot of bodies,” Ralnor said thoughtfully.
“Maybe are a lot of cannibals on the loose?” Tout queried and put a roasted sausage into his mouth. He used the good side to chew on it and then wiped his lips with a piece of fresh bread. Tout gulped that down as well right after.
“How was the food?” Ralnor asked feeling a little famished himself.
“Good, not a lot of rat in that sausage.”
“Flesh tastes like it sometimes,” Ralnor explained reminiscing. “When well-prepared.”
“Better to eat a rat,” Tout countered and Ralnor grimaced.
No it isn’t.
“He’s around,” The assassin said instead. “Too much heat in Caspo O’ Bor and Issir’s Eagle is on a war footing. Castalor is the more neutral city with Scaldingport keeping out of it for now.”
“People say Regia has a Queen now,” Tout said, looking about them for the elusive cannibal. The irony not lost on Ralnor.
“A Queen Regent.”
“What’s the difference?”
“There’s someone waiting to take her place,” Ralnor replied and thought of Maja. Had she left something out? Some detail that would give a little more context to what was going on here? Barlow had disappeared. The last trace of him ending with a missive ordering the bodies to Caspo O’ Bor, a charitable gesture to alleviate the burden on some of the poorer soldier’s families, from a man that didn’t have a philanthropic bone in his body whilst living.
Ralnor doubted Barlow got one after getting eaten alive.
Where in Oras Hell’s did you go?
Across the street a man got out of the pleasure house, his hands and face all over a young whore. A guard patrol admonished him for the public spectacle and the Issir with the fancy redingote apologized cackling clearly inebriated. The guards let them go with a warning, the night late and a bit chilly so near the docks. The couple walked away behaving for the scowling guards, their conversation lost under the noise coming from the still working taverns. Ralnor turned his eyes to the dark loading docks beyond the square, but the place looked as abandoned as one would expect it to be for the late time.
Sometimes a ship would start loading early to take advantage of the tide, but this needed someone to foot the bill and get a crew working overtime.
“They are going into the alley,” Tout said with a burp, adding in a serious voice. “Lots of groping is to be expected.”
Ralnor glanced at the boy, but Tout was obviously still riding high on Berg’s whisky and he let it slide. He turned his eyes on the couple instead, the young whore not very happy to be dragged inside. Their disagreement not appearing sexual in nature, but something else.
Hmm.
Ralnor looked to see if the guards were still around, but they had moved away and by the time he turned his head towards the couple again, they had disappeared.
Come here…
A girl sang when he entered the dark alley. It was a children’s lullaby, its rhythm mellow. The voice melodic and pleasant to the ear. Each word tagging at his heartstrings.
Dear…
Ralnor snapped his head right and then left, but saw nothing and as his eyes got used to the dark, -the side alley being next to the whorehouse- the blackness all around him turned to a greyish hue. He spotted the man sprawled on the cobblestone five meters away, smelled the scent of fresh blood coming from him and reached for a throwing knife.
He rushed two quick strides ahead and Tout stepped inside the alley right behind him, just as the unseen girl started singing again. Her voice dancing from sultry, to high pitched. A honeyed delight of warmth and promises. As much a spell as a song, such was her talent.
Don't wait for dawn…
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The alluring voice sang to him in Common.
Whence wicked dreams… are born.
Ralnor made another two steps forward approaching the fallen man he’d seen coming out of the brothel. The man was missing his right arm and half his face, skin, right eye and soft flesh peeled off to the bones leaving part of his bloody skull showing.
Listen for that tone, made of skin badly sewn…
The girl hummed and Ralnor saw her at last near a puddle of water, skin so white her blue veins were showing on her hands and neck. Straight coal black hair, very long and covering her naked torso. Nothing between her legs as if she was an unbled small girl still and not a clearly mature woman.
“What happened?” Ralnor grunted, an eye on the naked woman and the other on the butchered patron. There was blood everywhere, he noticed and heard something clicking at the exit of the alley. A woman’s heels striking the paved road.
“There!” Tout yelled and started hoofing it towards the light at the end of the narrow alley, small feet bravely pounding at the paved street. Ralnor glanced back towards the strange woman and realized he couldn’t see her pupils at all. Only a blue-black orb and a hauntingly attractive face covered in shadows. She was staring at a point across from them as if completely blind.
Damn.
Ralnor went after the boy, caught up with him before the exit, paused briefly seeing the young whore sprawled down and bleeding out on the cobblestone with her throat slashed open and then started after a fast shadow that turned a corner across the main road.
By the time Ralnor got there, the culprit was gone.
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Oras hells.
The blind woman had disappeared as well. Not that Ralnor could blame her. Hearing two people get murdered next to you must have been nigh upsetting.
Terrifying.
Her singing was upsetting as well.
Even creepy, if one was into that sort of things.
What had Berg said?
“Why take the arm?” Tout asked examining the man’s corpse, breaking his concentration.
Some of us like a bit of bone with our meat.
“No time,” Ralnor said, looking about them. His eyes were helping him see things in the dark Toutatis couldn’t. “We interrupted him.”
“You think it’s the same guy?”
“I don’t know, but I also fail to see robbery as the motive here,” Ralnor replied.
“Where was he taking the whore?” Tout asked searching the man’s pockets for his purse.
“Leave it,” Ralnor told him. “We need to move.”
“Why waste the coin?” Tout asked him and Ralnor frowned realizing the boy was right.
“Search both of them thoroughly,” He said and went to look for the mysterious blind woman.
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The morning found him on the roof of Bony Dog’s two story building. He’d left Tout to sleep in a rented room at the Big Sparrow inn and returned to the docks to search the premises. They had discovered the dead woman first and then the man, both of them partially eaten by rats. The city guards were on the lookout ever since, but whomever had done the murders was gone.
A night creature, Ralnor thought and decided to pay another visit to the tavern.
The bartender hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep and just grunted when he saw him walk inside the empty tavern.
“He’s sleeping,” He said and reached for his tea. “You want something to eat?”
Ralnor would, but the venue didn’t serve any of his favorite dishes.
“There was a double murder last night,” He informed the bartender.
“Talk with Captain Thies Caspers about it.”
“I think he knows,” Ralnor noted.
“There you go then. Fancy a beer?”
“Sure.”
“That will be two coppers.”
Ralnor paid him and took the large goblet to an empty table. He put his back on the wall and watched the entrance silently deep in his thoughts.
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Berg had nothing to give him, so Ralnor left the asphyxiating workshop and returned to Castalor’s Westport. He spent eight hours watching the workers and sailors working on the ships getting ready, or unloading and listened to people talking about the current news of the realm.
Almost everyone seemed to talk about the catastrophic failure of the conference in Riverdor and the madness of the now late king Alistair’s firstborn. The young heir had lost his mind over a northern lass apparently, led a force into Lord Vanzon’s lands, killed the man and his heirs, much as people do and installed her in his place. Now why the love struck young Lord didn’t take the seat of Krakenhall for himself, or married the Duchess, no one seemed able to answer.
When something doesn’t make sense, Ralnor thought, his cold eyes following everyone that didn’t seem to belong, then you got it all wrong, or you missed something important.
A man bumped onto him at one of the port’s busy entry points, large burlap sack over his shoulder all heavy. Almost as heavy as the smell of death on him. Ralnor twisted around and caught sight of the tall man moving away through the crowd. A merchant’s cart got in the way, when he made to go after him. The lice covered donkey protested loudly and refused to budge another meter, effectively blocking everyone from moving. People started cursing the merchant, someone threw a large cut piece of melon that exploded on the cart and the man standing closer to it recoiled in anger covered in fresh fruit juice and swung a fist back in the blind.
A hapless woman caught his punch flat on the nose the injury catastrophic and the misunderstanding turned into an ugly riot. Ralnor ducked under a cane that took out the old man standing next to him, broke the offender’s ankle with a low kick and slipped between two girls that were busy robbing a fat merchant wearing a red robe and a white pointy hat.
He reached the side of a one story house, put a foot on the closed window lip and lithely jumped on the rooftop, an awed boy seeing his sudden leap opening his mouth wide and pointed his way with a dirty hand. Ralnor pressed a long finger on his thin lips and retreating near a tall chimney stepped into its shadow leaving a strong smell of incense behind.
Ralnor stepped out of another shadow on the roof of the building across and above the street where the brawl was now raging and run without breaking any tiles until he reached the edge. He leaped again over Castalor’s main boulevard, traveled for ten meters over the unassuming people’s heads, legs and arms pumping at the air and grabbed at an open window’s wooden cover. He used it to break his momentum and immediately let go of it hearing the old hinges cracking and coming apart. Ralnor landed before a young couple, a bad landing, the Issir lady’s eyes opening alike saucers at the sudden scare.
“Good grief!” The man said his hands shaking.
“Apologies,” Ralnor told them in his most polite manner, powering through the pain. “The other road was blocked.”
The man gave a nod of bewilderment and Ralnor seeing the man with the sack hurrying to get away, returned the fancy dressed man’s nod and went after him. Slower at first as the stunned couple was still watching him and he sported a limp, or even a broken bone, but soon he’d cut the distance between them. The man managed to make a sharp turn saving his neck, reached the port’s gates and entered Westport again after leading Ralnor around.
Like a dog.
A frustrated Ralnor made to follow, but the guard wearing the chainmail lowered his spear threateningly almost taking out his left eye. He took a step back and stared at the young Issir soldier half in the mind to kill him swiftly and move on with his business, but the voice of an older man with authority forced him to abandon that idiotic plan.
“Lose the hood Lorian,” The officer ordered, thick white beard sprouting down his chin, the rest of his head protected by a typical conned guard helm.
“There’s no need for that,” The assassin said and pushed his hood away from his sweaty face. The officer frowned seeing his pale skin and maimed ears.
“Pray Uher, what happened there?”
“Rats on a ship in Lesia,” Ralnor rustled grimacing as the man was getting away with each passing moment. “I’m looking to catch another one about to leave the port officer.”
“You have a name? I’m Captain Caspers,” The man said and Ralnor groaned inwardly.
“Larn.”
“What ship?” Captain Caspers asked him.
“I was a youngling—”
“What ship are you looking to catch, Mister Larn,” Caspers repeated his voice hardening. “You remember that?”
“Ah,” Ralnor sighed and took another step back, his right ankle swollen. What in Oras hell is this foolishness? “I think it’s gone Captain.”
“Where are you staying mister Larn?”
Great, now this fool suspects me.
“The Big Sparrow.”
“It’s not cheap.”
Ask the Mayor to pay more you buffoon!
“No it isn’t,” He went along with him.
“Will I find your name on the registry, if we go there now mister Larn?”
“You’ll find two names. Me and my son,” Ralnor replied.
“You were gonna leave him behind?”
“I just wanted to secure the space.”
“Any particular reason you’re in a hurry to leave Castalor?” Caspers asked him, his breath smelling of cheese and fried onions.
“Not really, Captain. As a matter of fact,” Ralnor replied and reaching behind his back raised his hood again. “I think I’ll stay for a while more.”
The man was gone.
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An Owl was heard over their heads and Tout mimicked it, much to the amusement of the whore with the ugly spotted skin. Ralnor kept his distance just in case. He was running low on healing potions and he’d already used one to mend a broken ankle earlier. Landing from two story buildings on solid cobblestone comes with risks.
At least Aelrindel knew how to make one that didn’t send you straight into a coma for an hour. It would have been nigh unhelpful to use it in a pitch otherwise, plus the sorceress flavored hers nicely. The latter being a sweet orange that left a nice aftertaste in his mouth.
“Eliza, aye, I knew her,” The sick whore said and sucked at her pipe, the rot in her mouth enough to turn a cannibal vegetarian. “Poor girl.”
“What’s the word on the street?”
“A robbery gone wrong. Sick bastards, low-life scum.”
Indeed.
“How much do you charge for the night?”
The whore stared at the moons over their heads as if to gauge the time.
“For ye, or the boy?”
Tout perked up at that and stared at her sagging breasts with interest.
Hmm.
“I need someone to wait with me by the docks.”
“That doesn’t sound very legal mister…”
Good grief.
“Larn. I’m a bounty hunter.”
“Uhm. Wait by the docks. All night?”
Hopefully not.
Then again…
“How much?”
“A silver,” She thought about it some. “And a bottle of ale. Two.”
“Go get your bottle,” Ralnor told her and flicked a coin her way. She snatched it out of the air like a cobra surprising him.
“That’s a gold.”
“It might be a long night,” Ralnor deadpanned.
And dangerous.
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A warm breeze came from the Scalding Sea, it rapped on the moored ships tied sails. Masts creaked, bells rang, sails flapped and roped hissed. The owl came again, as if he’d followed them from the tavern, but after that first call it remained silent and watched.
Much as Ralnor had.
Aimes the whore was in her second bottle, legs dangling from the water barrel she’d used for an improvised seat. An hour after the last sailor had passed them, stumbling and drunk out of his wits, a shadow appeared out of a side alley leading from the city to the docks, one of many. He walked confidently towards the drinking and sinking whore, paused to check no one was around and then opened his stride.
Huh, Ralnor thought impressed.
You are gonna attack her right away.
Either you’re desperate after yesterday’s fail, or you just don’t give a shit.
“It’s over,” He said loud enough for the man to hear and stepped out of the corner he’d been hiding.
The man with the sack.
Not a night creature exclusively.
He flinched hearing his voice, turned to see who it was and immediately dashed for the alley he’d come out of.
Ugh, Ralnor groaned rushing after him a hand reaching for his satchel. You can’t escape me in the night you fool.
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He walked behind him for a kilometer, entered after him in a small house in the poorest part of town and waited for him to lock the door with a heavy padlock afore speaking again. The man almost had a heart attack seeing him in his house.
“Who… are you?” He croaked, a hand reaching for a razor he had sheathed on his waist.
Ralnor raised his small crossbow and aimed it at his chest.
“Don’t be an idiot,” He advised the killer and the man raised his arms high taking Ralnor’s advice. “Do you have a name?”
“Deker Snow,” The Issir said. He had short cut white hair and a strong jaw. All his teeth and he was muscular but on the thinner side. About thirty years of age, give or take a few.
“Name’s Larn,” Ralnor replied. “I’m a bounty hunter among other things.”
Deker licked his lips, he’d a week’s old growth on his face. “There’s no coin on me Larn.”
“Unfortunately for you,” Ralnor said and waved for him to sit on the chair. There weren’t a lot of furniture in the small house. A bed and a table, plus a small kitchen area, all in the same space. “I don’t do this for coin.”
“Who sent you?”
“Where’s the arm?” Ralnor asked him disregarding his question.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’ve killed a whore and her client yesterday,” Ralnor said and Deker frowned not expecting his words. He looked around him, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“It was you? I heard a boy.”
“What did you do with the bodies?”
“What bodies? It was a fucking robbery man!” Deker protested.
“Yeah, it wasn’t though,” Ralnor sighed and fired a bolt through his knee without a warning. It stuck on the leg of the chair he was seating on and despite him violently recoiling in pain, it kept him seated. “Now,” Ralnor said, hooking the crossbow and getting one of his straight knives out. “Let me ask you again.”
He approached him and took the razor from his sheath.
“I’ll tell you,” Deker groaned grasping at his bleeding knee. A piece of bone protruding through his torn pants. “You don’t have to use the knife.”
“Why,” Ralnor said and flipped his razor on his left hand opening it. “See now, the thing is I will,” He added with a smirk and slashed his right ear off with surgical precision, the severed part dropping between them.
After I use your razor.
Deker tried to get away, but Ralnor was stronger than him. The killer toppled the chair in his spasms and Ralnor had to pick him up again. The ordeal opening the wound on his knee even more, when the bolt got torn away. He helped him sit again and gave him a cloth to bandage his knee and water from a carafe he found on the table.
“Clean the ear, bind the knee,” He advised the groaning and whimpering man whilst he stooped and picked the piece of flesh from the ground. Ralnor used some of the water to clean it under Deker’s ogling and feverish eyes. Then he placed it in his mouth, showing a good amount of hideous teeth and started chewing on it slowly.
“What… in Uher’s holy name… are you?” Deker gasped in preternatural horror.
“I’m also a fellow cannibal,” Ralnor replied still chomping at the crunchy bloody flesh. “You’ll have to excuse me, but I’m quite famished.”
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Half an hour later he splashed some water on Deker’s face to wake him up. Ralnor had tied him up properly with a piece of thin but strong rope he carried with him. Bandaged his knee properly and put a cloth in the bleeding hole where his ear had been. He also worked on the killer’s right hand some, severing all the fingers there carefully and placing them in a clean piece of cloth. He bandaged the hand afterwards, but the man had lost a lot of blood, most of it pooling under the chair. Searching the small house had taken him less than ten minutes.
“Gah,” Deker groaned waking up, his sweaty face pale and sporting large blue circles under his eyes. “What… argh, gods… what did you do?”
Ralnor picked an index finger from the table he’d dragged near them. Worked on the flesh first cleaning it thoroughly, under the freaked out killer’s scrutiny.
“Don’t faint,” He advised him and started sucking the fluids from the knuckles, working the softer parts with his predator’s teeth. Ralnor smacked his bloody lips when he finished and tossed the thin bone on the table. “If you do, I’ll eat some more of you, whilst I wait for you to wake up.”
The man started shaking and pissing himself. Ralnor sighed.
“What happened to the bodies?” He asked him again.
“I don’t… please, you got the wrong man!” Deker pleaded on the verge of collapse, urine dripping down his pants and mixing with blood under his chair.
“Ten wagons,” Ralnor repeated and tossed him a heavy purse he’d found in the kitchen under a loose floorboard. “There’s a note in it. Written in code. What does it say?”
“I just… I gave them the sergeant’s name,” Deker said with difficulty.
“That’s forty pieces of gold there,” Ralnor replied. “It was strange not getting the purse off your victims. Why not do it anyway right?” He continued. “Make it look like a robbery. Nah, you were already paid. This was extra. For you. Am I wrong?”
“I didn’t…”
“The sergeant turned a blind eye,” Ralnor said. “The wagons entered the city late at night. Where are they now mister Deker?”
“I don’t know!” Deker cried out. “The pain… please, I need help…”
Ralnor sighed and stared at the meaty thumb. He licked his lips gathering the dried blood there.
“He never told me…” Deker whispered. “He knew…”
“Knew you were a cannibal?” Ralnor said turning his eyes on him.
“What… no, I never…”
“You just kill for the fun of it?” Ralnor asked him, curious for his motives.
“I can’t help it,” Deker admitted and started crying. “Please… I can’t feel my hand.”
“The hand is gone,” Ralnor informed him. “Where did they take the bodies?”
Deker’s breathing turned rugged, his wounds still bleeding over the bandages, but not as much.
“His man… took them to the port.”
Hmm.
“What was his name?” Ralnor asked him.
“Holmes… one of them.”
“What was the name of the other?”
“Barlow, aye…” Deker murmured.
He didn’t have long now.
“Why did you take the arm? Where is it?” Ralnor asked him, since this was the part he couldn’t figure out.
“Whence… wicked dreams… are born,” Deker said incoherently.
“What did you say?” Ralnor queried, a jolt running down his spine and stooped not to miss the maimed killer’s final words.
“…Skin badly sewn…” Deker murmured, struggling to breathe. “…cured… in briny… waters.”
He sings to lure his victims in them dark places, Berg had said.
Oras black heart.
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Ralnor followed the killer’s earlier route from memory. He’d left the dead Deker tied on his chair, missing several good cuts of flesh. Ralnor had stored the flesh on Dar and then led him through the empty roads back to Castalor’s Westport.
He retraced Deker’s path to the docks, where he had lost him the first time. Ralnor stared at the transport and merchant ships moored in the dark waters of the port.
Where did you drop the sack?
He counted two Barque’s, two Brigs and four schooner’s. Several fishing boats moored after them in the smaller wooden docks further up ahead. The road leading there unpaved, more grit and mud. Large boulders beyond the finished part of the port. A beach with small pebbles amidst the cut rocks, the waters clear there and the woods starting at the edge of the small beach neighboring Westport. The lights of Eastport barely visible at the distance.
Ralnor grunted and turned back to head towards his horse. He walked past the fishing boats again, navigating through mounts of nets, coils of rope and piles of large baskets. The sea splashing on the boats, seagulls complaining and that melodic hum returning.
A child’s lullaby, a bit more melancholic now, as if in mourning. Ralnor stopped and turned to examine the dark black waters amidst the boats. Yeah, he decided. It makes sense, however impossible it may appear. The song had stopped as suddenly as it had started, leaving only the sounds of the dark sea behind, the waves coming and going restless.
I’m sorry, the assassin thought and got a piece of bloody flesh out, the size of his palm. He hefted it once and then tossed it into the sea. It splashed creating white froth twenty meters away from him and then surfaced again. For a while it bobbed up and down on the brackish waters and then a thin arm with fingers like claws came out of the darkness to snatch it viciously.
And it was gone.