Kell went to wash his hands in a bucket by the door. “Trent came by while you and Corran were out. There’s been another attack, three dead. He wants you to go have a look and take care of the bodies.”
Rigan and Corran exchanged a glance. “What kind of attack?”
Kell sighed. “What kind do you think? Creatures.” He hesitated. “I got the feeling from Trent this was worse than usual.”
“Did Trent say what kind of creatures?” Corran asked, and Rigan picked up on an edge to his brother’s voice.
Kell nodded. “Ghouls.”
Corran swore under his breath and looked away, pushing back old memories. “All right,” he said, not quite managing to hide a shudder. “Let’s go get the bodies before it gets any later. We’re going to have our hands full tonight.”
“Kell and I can go, if you want to start on the ones here,” Rigan offered.
Corran shook his head. “No. I’m not much use as an undertaker if I can’t go get the corpses no matter how they came to an end,” Corran said.
Rigan heard the undercurrent in his tone. Kell glanced at Rigan, who gave a barely perceptible nod, warning Kell to say nothing. Corran’s dealing with the memories the best way he knows how, Rigan thought. I just wish there weren’t so many reminders.
“I’ll prepare the wash and the pigments, and get the shrouds ready,” Kell said. “I’ll have these folks ready for your part of the ritual by the time you get back.” He gestured to the bodies already laid out. “Might have to park the new ones in the cart for a bit and switch out—tables are scarce.”
Corran grimaced. “That’ll help.” He turned to Rigan. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
Kell gave them the directions Trent had provided. Corran took up the long poles of the undertaker’s cart, which clattered behind him as they walked. Rigan knew better than to talk to his brother when he was in this kind of mood. At best he could be present, keep Corran from having to deal with the ghouls’ victims alone, and sit up with him afterward.
It’s only been three months since he buried Jora, since we almost had to bury him. The memory’s raw, although he won’t mention it. But Kell and I both hear what he shouts in his sleep. He’s still fighting them in his dreams, and still losing.
Rigan’s memories of that night were bad enough—Trent stumbling to the back door of the shop, carrying Corran, bloody and unconscious; Corran’s too-still body on one of the mortuary tables; Kell praying to Doharmu and any god who would listen to stave off death; Trent, covered in Corran’s blood, telling them how he had found their brother and Jora out in the tavern barn, the ghoul that attacked them already feasting on Jora’s fresh corpse.
Rigan never did understand why Trent had gone to the barn that night, or how he managed to fight off the ghoul. Corran and Jora, no doubt, had slipped away for a tryst, expecting the barn to be safe and private. Corran said little of the attack, and Rigan hoped his brother truly did not remember all the details.
“We’re here.” Corran’s rough voice and expressionless face revealed more than any words.
Ross, the farrier, met them at the door. “I’m sorry to have to call you out,” he said.
“It’s our job,” Corran replied. “I’m just sorry the godsdamned ghouls are back.”
“Not for long,” Ross said under his breath. A glance passed between Corran and Ross. Rigan filed it away to ask Corran about later.
The stench hit Rigan as soon as they entered the barn. Two horses lay gutted in their stalls and partially dismembered. Blood spattered the wooden walls and soaked the sawdust. Flies swarmed on what the ghouls had left behind.
“They’re over here,” Ross said. The bodies of two men and a woman had been tossed aside like discarded bones at a feast. Rigan swallowed down bile. Corran paled, his jaw working as he ground his teeth.
Rigan and Corran knew better than most what remained of a corpse once a ghoul had finished with it. Belly torn open to get to the soft organs; ribs split wide to access the heart. How much of the flesh remained depended on the ghoul’s hunger and whether or not it feasted undisturbed. Given the state these bodies were in—their faces were the only parts left untouched—the ghouls had taken their time. Rigan closed his eyes and took a deep breath, willing himself not to retch.
“What about the creatures?” Corran asked.
“Must have fled when they heard us coming,” Ross said. “We were making plenty of noise.” Ross handed them each a shovel, and took one up himself. “There’s not much left, and what’s there is… loose.”
“Who were they?” Rigan asked, not sure Corran felt up to asking questions.
Ross swallowed hard. “One of the men was my cousin, Tad. The other two were customers. They brought in the two horses late in the day, and my cousin said he’d handle it.”
Rigan heard the guilt in Ross’s tone.
“Guild honors?” Corran asked, finding his voice, and Ross nodded.
Rigan brought the cart into the barn, stopping as close as possible to the mangled corpses. The bodies were likely to fall to pieces as soon as they began shoveling.
“Yeah,” Ross replied, getting past the lump in his throat. “Send them off right.” He shook his head. “They say the monsters are all part of the Balance, like life and death cancel each other out somehow. That’s bullshit, if you ask me.”
The three men bent to their work, trying not to think of the slippery bones and bloody bits as bodies. Carcasses. Like what’s left when the butcher’s done with a hog, or the vultures are finished with a cow, Rigan thought. The barn smelled of blood and entrails, copper and shit. Rigan looked at what they loaded into the cart. Only the skulls made it possible to tell that the remains had once been human.
“I’m sorry about this, but I need to do it—to keep them from rising as ghouls or restless spirits,” Rigan said. He pulled a glass bottle from the bag at the front of the wagon, and carefully removed the stopper, sprinkling the bodies with green vitriol to burn the flesh and prevent the corpses from rising. The acid sizzled, sending up noxious tendrils of smoke. Rigan stoppered the bottle and pulled out a bag of the salt-aconite-amanita mixture, dusting it over the bodies, assuring that the spirits would remain at rest.
Ross nodded. “Better than having them return as one of those… things,” he said, shuddering.
“We’ll have them buried tomorrow,” Corran said as Rigan secured their grisly load.
“That’s more than fair,” Ross agreed. “Corran—you know if I’d had a choice about calling you—”
“It’s our job.” Corran cut off the apology. Ross knew about Jora’s death. That didn’t change the fact that they were the only Guild undertakers in this area of Ravenwood, and Ross was a friend.
“I’ll be by tomorrow afternoon with the money,” Ross said, accompanying them to the door.
“We’ll be done by then,” Corran replied. Rigan went to pick up the cart’s poles, but Corran shook his head and lifted them himself.
Rigan did not argue. Easier for him to haul the wagon; that way he doesn’t have to look at the bodies and remember when Jora’s brother brought her for burial.
Rigan felt for the reassuring bulk of his knife beneath his cloak—a steel blade rather than the iron weapon they used in the banishing rite. No one knew the true nature of the monsters, or why so many more had started appearing in Ravenwood of late. Ghouls weren’t like angry ghosts or restless spirits that could be banished with salt, aconite, and iron. Whatever darkness spawned them and the rest of their monstrous brethren, they were creatures of skin and bone; only beheading would stop them.
Rigan kept his blade sharpened.
Chapter Two
“WE’VE BEEN TRACKING the ghouls and we think we know where their lair is.” Trent met Corran as he entered the cellar in the abandoned building.
“You think they’re the same creatures that killed Ross’s cousin?” Corran asked.
Trent shrugged. Dark haired and dark eyed, he was a butcher by trade,
skills that came in handy now that there were other, more dangerous uses for knives. “No way to tell. Ghouls all kind of look alike. But whether they are or not, they’ll kill again—unless we stop them.”
“Lead on.” Corran followed Trent into a small room. Eight other men, all roughly Corran’s age, murmured greetings as they entered. Corran crossed to the chest that held his equipment and readied himself for the night’s work. He already wore his steel sword in a scabbard on his belt. Wearing a sword in public risked trouble; the Lord Mayor’s guards took a dim view of weapons larger than knives. Not that the guards themselves do much of anything to protect us, gods know, he thought. He already risked a beating—or worse— being out past curfew. And if they were caught hunting monsters, they would earn a noose, not a jail cell. Monster hunting was the official purview of the city, not the business of unruly citizens.
The only creatures more feared than monsters were the Lord Mayor’s corrupt guards. Corran’s father had died at their hands, along with so many others. While monsters came and went, the guards remained a constant threat. Bribes only went so far in assuring safety. Beatings, extortion, and rape kept Ravenwood’s residents compliant—excesses that the Guilds and the Lord Mayor chose to ignore. The guards needed no infraction of the law to earn their ire; merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time sufficed. Any slight, real or imagined, presented cause for swift, brutal retaliation. Corran never learned what caused his father’s fatal beating, since any witnesses feared to speak out and the guards did not explain themselves.
“I’m surprised you didn’t bring Rigan with you,” Trent said.
Corran shook his head. “Not going to happen. I want Rigan and Kell kept out of this. Bad enough we lost Papa to the guards and Mama to one of those things. I won’t lose my brothers, too.”
“Didn’t you say Rigan’s banishing magic is stronger than yours?” Ross said. “Might come in handy—”
“No,” Corran said in a flat, hard voice. “They don’t know I’m here, and they aren’t going to. I told Trent that when I agreed to hunt.”
Ross raised his hands in appeasement. “All right. I get it. Just thinking we can use all the help we can get.”
“Get the help somewhere else, then. Keep my brothers out of it.”
Monsters returned time and again to Ravenwood, and when they did, tradesmen became hunters. The guards’ ineffectual protection forced residents to take matters into their own hands, even at the risk of a beating—or worse—if caught.
Groups of hunters—bound by blood, grief, or friendship—formed in secret, fought, and disbanded on their own, without central authority, rising up when necessary and fading away into the night once the threat had been neutralized. Most people became hunters because they had lost someone to the monsters, doing what they could to ensure no one else would feel that pain.
Corran pulled on a padded jacket and slung a bandolier of knives— iron, steel, and obsidian—across his chest. In his rucksack, he had plenty of the salt and aconite mixture he used in the banishing ritual. He straightened, ready for the hunt. “All right. What’s the plan?”
Mir, the blacksmith’s son, pointed to several glass bottles on a battered table. “It’s not as much of the green vitriol as I’d like, but it’s damnably difficult to make, and I didn’t want Father asking questions.”
“If it takes more than that, we’ve got bigger problems.” Calfon, a lamp merchant, stepped away from where he had been leaning against the wall. His sandy hair was shorn close, and his muscular body testified to his vigorous training. “Six ghouls are enough of a problem as it is.”
“Six?” Bant echoed. He was a tanner, and the smell of his trade never completely left him. Given his skills with a blade, they forgave the odor. Even so, Pav, one of the weaver’s sons, and Jott, a carpenter by trade, stayed upwind of him.
“Yeah. Don’t know if it’s the only nest, but it’s close enough to the farrier’s barn. It’s a good bet they’re the ones who killed those folks,” Calfon said.
Ross stood to one side, near Allery, the potter’s eldest son. Ross kept clenching and unclenching his fists, readying himself for the fight. Corran knew that, for him, tonight was personal.
Corran blinked, trying to shut down the memories of another hunt, another night, when it had been his vengeance the hunters sought; vengeance and something near enough to justice for Jora. What happened that night never strayed far from his mind, waking or sleeping.
* * *
“SURELY YOUR FATHER will come around.” Corran’s lips brushed Jora’s ear. He kissed her gently, and felt her shiver.
“I don’t know,” Jora whispered, leaning into him. “He always said he wanted me to marry into the Guild, to keep the business in the family.”
Corran buried his face in her long, dark hair, and kissed her neck. “You have brothers. They’ll inherit the business. Where will that leave you? But if you marry me, I’m the eldest, the one in charge. And undertakers are guaranteed steady work.”
Jora chuckled and pulled him close, returning his kisses. She slid her hand across his back, then let it tangle in the dark blond curls of his hair. “Is that a proposal, Corran Valmonde?”
“You know it is.”
“Then I accept.”
Corran kissed her, long and slow. “I’m glad to hear it. The question is, when do we go to your father?”
“Later,” she whispered, pulling him into the shadows, where fresh hay would make a comfortable trysting place. “There’s no rush.”
A strange, scratching noise made them freeze. “What’s that?”
Jora said, digging her fingers into Corran’s arm.
“I don’t know,” he replied, glancing around. The stable should have been empty. Jora’s father had taken their horse on his trip.
The scratching sounded again, closer. A low, guttural wail sent a chill down Corran’s spine. He strained to see in the dim moonlight filtering through cracks between the boards, which left much of the stable in shadow.
“Stay here,” Corran breathed. He grabbed a solidly-built rake with iron tines from where it leaned against the wall.
“Forget that.” Jora reached for a shovel. Whatever made the scratching noise blocked the way out.
“Probably just rats,” Corran said, trying to sound hopeful. “Big rats.” Jora sounded unconvinced. She looked as spooked as Corran felt, although she’d never admit it. With two older brothers, Jora knew how to hold her own.
The creature barreled into Corran, knocking him to the floor before he could get in a good swing with his rake. The thing that attacked him looked like a withered corpse, but moved swiftly and fought savagely. Sharp teeth snapped just inches from his throat; a bony hand pinned his left arm, digging its nails through his shirt and deep into his flesh.
“Get out of here, Jora!” Corran yelled, twisting to evade the creature’s snapping teeth. He thumped the ghoul hard on the head with the handle of his rake, and brought his knees up into its belly. Jora swung the shovel with all her might. The iron blade came down hard on the ghoul’s back, with enough force to break bone.
The creature shrieked, but it did not release its hold on Corran. “Go get help!” he shouted.
“I’m not leaving you.” Jora swung again, and the blade of the shovel clanged against the creature’s skull.
Corran gritted his teeth as he ripped his arm free and rolled out from beneath the ghoul. He swung his rake, sinking the sharp metal tines into the creature’s side.
The ghoul grabbed Jora’s arm and threw her aside with inhuman force, before backhanding Corran hard enough to blur his vision and set his ears ringing. Jora scrambled to her feet, coming back at full speed, swinging her shovel for a killing blow. The ghoul wrenched the shovel from her hands, grabbed her by the throat, and twisted. Her neck snapped with a sickening crunch and her body fell to the ground.
Fear and anger burned through Corran, and he stepped toward the monster, scything the rake. Blood ran down his left arm,
hot and sticky. He forced himself past the pain and brought the rake up as the ghoul sprang at him, catching it in the jaw and opening a wide, bloody gash in its face.
The monster paid no attention to its injuries, stalking Corran with hunger in its eyes. It sprang forward, and Corran barely escaped the worst of its bite as its yellowed teeth dug a bloody furrow in his thigh. He bit back a cry of pain and swung his rake again, bashing the solid iron tines against the creature’s skull.
Icy hands threw Corran to the ground, breaking the rake’s handle, and he thrust the broken shaft up like a stake. It caught the monster in the ribs and the thing howled, tearing free and leaving a bloody trail.
Pain and blood loss made Corran light-headed. He could no longer feel his left arm, and the gash in his thigh burned unbearably. He tried to get to his feet, but his injured leg gave out on him. The ghoul picked him up and threw him across the floor, knocking Corran out. Corran awoke to witness the ghoul ripping at Jora’s still-warm corpse with its teeth. Corran staggered to his feet and advanced, gripping the blood-slick broken rake. With a feral cry, the creature launched itself at Corran. In the same instant, the stable door slammed open and a man stood silhouetted in the moonlight.
Corran heard a whirring noise and saw a flash of steel. The ghoul landed on top of Corran, and he braced himself for teeth to close on his throat.
“Still alive?” Trent spared a worried glance at Corran before he hauled the ghoul clear. He withdrew his knife from the ghoul’s back, then sawed it across the monster’s neck, severing the head. Trent pulled out a flask and poured a stream of green liquid that sizzled and burned when it hit the ghoul’s flesh, then took a vial from the pouch on his belt and sprinkled powder over the monster’s corpse. “Jora—” Corran managed. Blood soaked his shirt and slicked his skin; his own and that of the monster. He rolled onto his good arm and started to crawl toward where the monster had thrown his lover.
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