NIGHTSEED 6
By Heck

Comments to heck@heckster.co.uk

CHAPTER SIX

  After breakfast, Brenhya lifted Shandri carefully onto Opal, 
Lon's grey. She mounted Maakar and offered a strong hand to Lon 
who, upon grasping the long, muscular arm, found himself 
effortlessly hoisted up to sit behind her. On Thraxx, Brannagh took 
Opal's reins to lead the old lady, that person being unfamiliar 
with riding horseback. 
  At a walk, they made the fairly short journey into the hamlet. 
There were no outward signs of the tragedy, but people they passed 
were strangely subdued, merely nodding to Shandri and making no 
comment on the unfamiliar sight of their local wisewoman sitting 
astride a horse.
  Outside the neat little cottage, which continued to look warm and 
inviting with its colourful garden and roses around the door, they 
tethered their horses to the fence and Brenhya helped her old 
friend to dismount. The local constable, a stout, red-faced man, 
having made the day-and-a-half journey from Gyre's End, came 
forward to greet them.
  "Morning, Mother Shandri". The officer tried to give a cheery 
greeting, but even he could not keep the solemnity from his face. 
There had been nothing like this in these parts for ten years or 
more, when what was now his home village had been destroyed by a 
band of raiders; the same raid that had sent Brenhya on her 
original quest. The community had revived somewhat, since that dark 
day, and was slowly being repopulated and regaining some of its 
former vitality.
  "Morning, Jorvil". The old woman sorted out her sticks and 
shambled toward the gate. "Getting anywhere?"
  The constable removed his brass helmet and scratched his balding 
pate. "Maybe, maybe. Who're these?"
  "This is an old friend of mine, Brenhya, and this is Brannagh. 
This young gentleman is......" Shandri searched her memory. 
"Um......."
  "Lon", the young wizard supplied, his face reddening.
  "That's it!", Shandri grinned, her remaining six teeth showing 
like off-white tombstones. "Lon! The young lady is a trained 
warrior. She thought she might help".
  "Good morning, Constable", Brenhya said, holding out a hand. The 
constable shook it, faintly alarmed at the strength of the grip 
that took his meaty ham of a hand. "Can we look inside the 
cottage?"
  "Don't see why not. This is a strange one. I can use all the help 
I can get." He held the door open, and the party trooped inside.
  "Everybody stand still", Brenhya instructed. "Don't disturb 
anything. Is this exactly as you found it?"
  Jorvil nodded. "Exactly", he said. "Apart from removing the 
...remains, nobody's touched anything".
  The four visitors looked about the room. It was clear that this 
had been a well-kept, clean and homely place, a fact that made the 
recent tragedy all the more poignant. The beautifully made 
furniture and fittings still occupied the same positions, and the 
wall hangings and ornaments were undisturbed. But the whole room 
was spattered with blood and little sticky bits of entrails, now 
turning brown as they dried and giving the whole place the stench 
of an abattoir. Brannagh snorted with disgust, and Lon turned his 
face away, turning a little green around the cheeks and placing a 
hand over his mouth.
  "Excuse me", he mumbled, rushing for the door.
  Grim-faced, Brenhya surveyed the scene. She could imagine the 
terror of the two occupants when whatever had happened, had 
happened, but could gain no insight into the event from 
observation. 
  "Didn't anyone hear anything?", she asked Jorvil.
  "No", he replied. "This house stands a bit away from the rest, as 
you can see. Either there wasn't any noise, or what there was 
didn't rouse anybody".
  From his lower viewpoint, Brannagh could see something that the 
others had missed. "'Ere!", he said, his gruff voice holding the 
tone of one who has made a great discovery. "Looks 'ere!"
  Brenhya knelt down to bring herself close to the dwarf's eye 
level, and looked where he pointed. Following his stubby finger 
with her gaze, she saw a brown discolouration on the packed earth 
floor, hidden from human view by the edge of the table that 
overhung it.
  On closer examination, the mark turned out to be the bloody print 
of a three-toed foot. Brenhya laid her own long, sandalled foot 
beside it, and noted with not a little dismay that it was fully 
twice as long.
  "What the hell made that?", the constable demanded.
  "Dunno", Brannagh said. "But I doesn't wants to gets in th' ways 
of 'un".
  Brenhya noticed Shandri's shoulders sag as her lined old face 
paled with shock. She went to her elderly friend and put a 
supporting arm round her. "What's wrong, Shandri?"
  "Nothing, nothing", she sighed. "Just taken sideways, a bit".
  "Why? Do you know what it is?"
  "No. Not exactly. But in some of the books my mother had, the 
lithographs of daemons always showed them with three toes and 
fingers".
  Shandri's mother had been a full witch, well respected and 
revered for her healing powers and helpful magic. She had hoped 
that her daughter would follow in her footsteps, but in her youth 
Shandri had been a wayward girl, and as soon as she could she had 
left home and set out to travel, only returning many years later to 
find her mother in failing health. Feeling a sense of familial 
duty, Shandri drew upon what little she had learned in her 
childhood and gleaned as much new knowledge as she could, assisting 
her mother in her work in her declining years. Upon her death, a 
void had been left in the local community that Shandri had tried 
her best to fill, but her neglect of studies that would usually 
take decades had left her unable to reach the status of witch and 
she had to be content with becoming a fey woman. Her healing skills 
flourished, however, and she soon carved out a niche for herself as 
an indispensable member of society.
  "Daemons?", Brenhya queried. 
  "There might be something in that". Lon said, putting his face 
back round the door. "There were similar illustrations in my 
Master's books".
  "I hates thingses like thats", Brannagh complained. "Nuffin' good 
ever comes from daemonses".
  "Well, duh", Lon sneered. "That's a brilliant observation".
  The dwarf glared at him, looking ready to bite his legs. Brenhya 
stepped in between them. "Cut it out, you two. Lon, you have a lot 
to learn about dwarves. Mind your manners. And you", she said, 
looking down at the ferocious whiskered face. "Curb your temper, 
please. Shandri, I thought all the daemons had been destroyed in 
the Mage Wars, along with the Great Wizards".
  "Bless you, no, my dear", the old lady said. "You can destroy a 
single daemon, but not the idea of them. They arise from pure evil, 
and can be generated independently to serve any master capable of 
that amount of depravity".
  While Brenhya looked pensive for a moment, Lon stepped back 
outside to take some fresh air. He wandered back to the road, and 
stood staring vacantly down the road while his churning stomach 
returned to some semblance of normality. Most of the road was hard 
packed earth, but in a few places, the dirt remained quite loose. 
Quite by accident, his gaze fell upon a strange mark in the dirt. 
It pricked his curiosity, and he hunkered down beside it for a 
closer look. Not far away, about eight or nine feet there was 
another, and then another, about the same distance. And after a gap 
of several yards, he found another, each mark having been made in a 
spot where the road surface was less compacted.
  Inside the cottage, Brenhya was roused from her reverie by Lon, 
urgently calling her name. Hand on the hilt of her broadsword, she 
strode outside, closely followed by Brannagh and the constable. Her 
questing eyes found Lon about fifty yards away, crouching on the 
road, beckoning for her to join him.
  "Look at 'un", Brannagh grunted. "Bloody idiots, playin' in th' 
dirts".
  "No, I think he's found something", Brenhya replied, jogging off 
to see what it was. Her long, powerful stride brought her to his 
side in seconds.
  "Look at this", Lon said, a touch of pride in his voice. "I think 
I've found a clue".
  Brenhya squatted beside him, and looked where his finger 
indicated. The imprint of a long, three-toed foot with claw marks 
at the end of each toe, showed clearly in the soft earth, clearly 
made by the same foot that had left the bloody print in the 
cottage, and just as clearly heading away from the hamlet.
  Brannagh bustled up to join them. His impression that Lon had 
been playing about was obviously erroneous, and he looked suitably 
abashed. "Tha's th' sames as indoors", he said, unnecessarily.
  "That's the kiddie", Brenhya agreed. "And it seems to be heading 
in the same direction as us".
  "This isn't the best news I've heard today", Lon commented.
  "Constable", the tall woman called. "Can I see the bodies, now?"
  Jorvil, coming up the road toward them, nodded. "I've put them in 
an outhouse", he said. "Nobody wanted them in their house, and I 
don't blame them".
  "If you don't mind", Lon said, mindful of his stomach as much as 
his desire to be of help. "I'll see if I can follow these prints, a 
little way".
  "Good idea", Brenhya said sympathetically. "And well spotted, by 
the way".
  Delighted by the praise, Lon turned back to his self-imposed 
task, while the others followed the officer to an outhouse behind a 
stand of beech trees. It was an abandoned charcoal burner's hut, 
and still bore the characteristic and not unpleasant aroma of 
slowly burnt wood. Inside, on a hastily erected trestle table, two 
ominous mounds were covered with an old tarpaulin. The vile, 
sickly-sweet stink of death filled the place, and even Brannagh's 
strong stomach rebelled at the stench.
  "Seemed the best place to put 'em", the constable explained, 
flapping his hands at the thousands of flies that filled the air 
with their seemingly aimless buzzing. "'til we can get 'em buried 
proper, like".
  Brenhya merely nodded, her hand covering her nose and mouth. She 
steadied herself for what she knew would be an horrific sight  when 
Jorvil drew back the tarpaulin, and signalled for the policeman to 
do so. Her fears were well founded, she found, when the cover was 
removed to reveal one of the most appalling sights she had ever 
seen.
  One body had been, she assumed, female, but only because the 
other was so obviously male. It was blackened and dried beyond all 
recognition of gender or anything else, and looked as if it would 
crumble to dust at the merest touch. The mouth was agape as if in 
terror, lips drawn back from the teeth, incongruously still bone 
white, as the woman had gasped her life away.
  It's as if, Brenhya thought to herself, not knowing how close to 
the truth she was, her very life has been sucked dry.
  The male corpse had died very differently indeed. The body was in 
two parts, separated just below the ribcage. The diaphragm was, 
somehow, still intact, so that the heart and lungs, at least, 
remained in place, but the rest of the entrails had been piled on 
the table next to the legs and lower torso. Drained of blood, the 
flesh was grey and starting to turn a horrible greenish colour as 
the process of decomposition advanced, and the face was frozen in a 
rictus of abject fear.
  Thinking of the constable, faced with the task of moving these 
two horrors, Brenhya marvelled at his fortitude.
  The male cadaver, the warrior could see, had been torn apart 
rather that cut. Thinking about the inhuman strength and viciously 
explosive power that would be necessary to perform such an act, 
Brenhya felt herself quail ever so slightly. For the first time in 
her life, she may be called upon to deal with someone, or rather, 
something that she might not be able to overcome by use of her own 
prodigious strength and fighting skills alone. Surreptitiously, she 
flexed a magnificent bicep and ran her hand over it's hard 
contours. Suddenly her splendid body, with its sleek and powerful 
musculature, seemed somehow inadequate.
  She shook off the unfamiliar feeling as she realised that the 
constable was speaking to her.
  "I found this in his hand", the man was saying, handing a 
carpenter's chisel to the woman. She took it from him, and turned 
it over as she examined it. The last half inch or so of the blade 
was covered with a thick, black, tarry substance that was sticky to 
the touch and smelled faintly of burnt tin.
  "I've never seen anything like this stuff before. What is it?", 
she asked. The constable recovered the bodies and was about to 
reply that he did not know either, when he was interrupted by a 
voice from the door. Shandri had just shuffled up to join them.
  "Ichor", she said. "That black stuff's called ichor".
  "Ikker? Wha's Ikker?", Brannagh demanded, as the three emerged 
from the outhouse.
  "Daemon's blood", the old lady explained. "Or what they use for 
blood, at any rate. Don't know if it circulates, like ours does. 
All I know is what was in my mother's books. I do know that it's 
poisonous, though, if you get a lot of it on you".
  "What else do you know about daemons", Brenhya asked, wiping her 
fingers on a tuft of grass as they made their way, at Shandri's 
pace, back to the road to rejoin Lon.
  "Not very much, I'm afraid. Each one is supposed to be unique. 
Some consume their victims in fire. Some feed on the life force. 
Others don't kill you at all, but leave you with a terrible 
madness. Each has it's own evil way. From the look of poor Joyly, 
I'd say that this one feeds off the life force". Shandri gave a 
deep sigh. "Poor kids. I'd only just told Joyly she was expecting. 
Imtalt would have been delighted".
  "Well, us knows one things", Brannagh put in, a savage grin 
appearing on his fierce dwarvish visage. "It can bleeds. An' if 'un 
can bleeds, us can kills it".
  Brenhya made no reply to this, seeming lost in thought for a 
minute, thinking of ways in which to proceed. As they reached the 
horses, Lon came ambling up, a self-satisfied grin on his pleasant, 
if homely, features
  "The prints leave the road about 100 yards further on", he said, 
pleased to have something to report. "They disappear across the 
fields, then, and I can't follow them any further". His eyes took 
in the solemn faces, and read therein some of the horror they had 
seen. "Bad, was it?", he enquired, remembering how he had felt at 
the mere sight of the blood spattered cottage, and thinking how 
much worse it must have been for these to have actually seen the 
grisly bodies. He imagined that dwarves must not be easily moved, 
and he knew Brenhya was not, so he deduced that the aspect of the 
corpses must have been horrific indeed.
  As if guessing that he had made this deduction, nobody made the 
effort to answer his query.          "So, is us gonna foller them 
printses, now, an' mebbe catches we a daemons?" Brannagh wanted to 
know.
  "No", said Brenhya after some thought. "We'll keep to the path 
we're on. I have a feeling our paths will cross soon enough.