The sky was overcast that day. Dark clouds hung above them, and rumblings of thunder were heard from the heavens above. After getting through the forest, the troupe came across a path that was flanked by rocky walls. Halfway through the valley, the troupe stopped, for they noticed a fresh trail of blood on the ground.
Everyone started whispering, while Roy brought his guard up. It looked like someone or something dragged the bloodied body up the path. The victim’s body must’ve been cut up by the sharp rocks as it got dragged along, leaving chunks of flesh behind. It was obvious that that place was ground zero. Aside from the trail of blood, there were also strips of cloth, some boots, a few rusty hoes, and weapons improvised from farming implements.
The trail extended ahead. Behind the boulders flanking the path ahead stood a destroyed spike, though every piece was as big as a carriage. “What kind of monster did this?”
Alan quickly ordered the troupe to get out of the valley. Everyone backed off, and Alan decided to investigate the scene along with some of the members. The duo insisted on joining the recon team, and Alan failed to dissuade them, so he let them do what they wanted.
The putrid stench of blood filled the scene. Letho sniffed the air to look for clues, and then he hunkered down to observe the flesh and blood on the ground. He touched them and pondered for a while. “This is fresh. The attack probably happened last night.”
Surprisingly, nobody was shocked to hear that. Instead, they were calm, abnormally so. Roy was used to it, since he practically killed a mountain of nekkers, but he didn’t expect the troupe members to be as well. So they came across something similar before.
“Be careful, Letho. You aren’t fully healed yet, and god knows if there’s anything in there,” Alan suddenly told them.
“I can hold my own.”
The team approached the boulders ahead of them, which were as big as the destroyed blockage behind the boulders. The road narrowed to a small path that only allowed one carriage to cross.
Roy leaped onto the boulder and looked down. “This is a natural barrier. It’s perfect if you want to hold the fort, and anyone who wishes to travel to Ellander must pass this valley. I’d stop any travelers and extort them too if I were in the same position.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“This isn’t Ellander’s official checkpoint. Shire’s chief is right. The path to Ellander is blocked by bandits, but these guys got caught in something bad.”
“Where are they right now?”
The team went around the boulders and saw the three-hundred-pound blockade, then they noticed the small hill of human corpses. Some had their throats slit open, some were disemboweled, some had their spines broken, and some were torn to pieces. The tattered clothes they were wearing were already drenched in blood.
Roy was reminded of the revolutionists he’d met outside Aldersberg. The Temeria wilds are full of resources. Even if these guys hated farming, they could’ve become poachers. That’d still put food on the table. Why’d they become bandits anyway?
The hill of corpses finally sent the team into panic. A scrawny man stood up. “W-why don’t w-we g-go around, Alan?”
“Foolishness,” a muscular, mustached man retorted. “The bandits are dead, and the blockade is smashed to pieces. Why should we go around? I say we go ahead!”
“Yes!” someone agreed. “These bastards deserved it!”
“This must be retribution from Melitele!” a devout believer said.
“Melitele, huh?” Roy dismissed it. Melitele wouldn’t be so cruel as to break anyone’s body. He and Letho looked at each other before going in to investigate the corpses. There were fifteen of them. Most of the deceased were adults, but there were two kids and an old man.
When Roy found twenty crowns on the corpses, the pious member went into a frenzy. “See? I told you this is divine retribution. Melitele’s giving me her blessing. She’s always generous and helps her believers. Nobody else would’ve stumbled upon those crowns.”
“Yeah, there are a lot of crowns.” A guy with scabies on his head laughed. “Enough for a few pints, eh?”
“Shut up! That’s blasphemy!”
Nobody noticed Roy and Letho looking more and more worried as the investigation went on.
The bandits suffered the same wounds the kikimores had.
But we left that place days ago. Did it follow us?
“What happened, Letho? Is something wrong?”
Letho gazed at everyone sharply, and some of the members shivered from the intensity of his gaze. “What happened?”
Letho didn’t answer, so Alan turned to Roy. Roy snapped out of it and gulped. “The killer isn’t human. No human has this kind of strength, nor do they have claws, and the footprints aren’t human either, but the killer isn’t Melitele.”
“What is it then?”
Everyone was waiting for the answer nervously, but Roy changed the topic. “Hey, you said Melitele ‘always’ helps you out, didn’t you? Did she clear the path every time you guys ran into the same problem?”
“Yeah. I’ve been traveling with the troupe for two years, and something this freaky happened twice.”
Another guy backed him up, albeit without certainty. “Now that you say it, it’s actually true.”
“Once in Dol Blathanna.”
“And Ard Carraigh!”
The team started making a ruckus, but one snort from Alan shut them up. Alan went up to Roy and grinned toothily. “Letho, Roy.” He let out a hearty laugh. “Let’s call it a day, eh? The bandits are dead, and you guys got some money out of it. Now, let’s go back and push forward. No matter what it is, it helped us out, didn’t it?”
“Yeah!” his team said.
Letho answered calmly, “Very well then. We’ll call it a day.”
***
Roy went back silently, but once he got into the carriage, he mumbled, “I saw a scar on his neck. That scar’s new. We got everything wrong. The one who killed the kikimores wasn’t in Shire. He’s always been with the troupe. We’re playing with fire.”
“But it doesn’t seem to be hostile at the moment, nor did it do anything unforgivable.” Letho looked confused too, since all that monster knew was chaos and mindless murder.
“Can beasts really possess human intelligence?”
“The proof is in the pudding. Let’s just keep quiet and watch,” Letho answered. They couldn’t do anything else anyway. And Letho started wiping Gwyhyr, while Roy looked weirdly at Alan, who was calming everyone else down.
