like a wild animal. But it didn’t sound like any animal I had ever heard. We saw a very bright light shine in the field but it didn’t last long. We didn’t know what it was. But in the morning I took my sons out into the field to investigate and saw the killings.”
“How many dead?” asked Lathrin.
“Four,” the farmer replied.
“Where did this happen?”
The man turned, pointing into a field beyond his house. “It’s a short walk away, just follow the fence line and you will see it. I don’t know what will be left now with the scavengers and all. Sir, it looked like one of the men killed was a priest or maybe a cavalier. I have never seen one myself but he carried Ulren’s symbol. I didn’t touch anything; it had the feel of evil.”
“I see,” Lathrin replied. “Thank you. We will go have a look.” The farmer nodded and watched the horses thunder into the field.
It didn’t take them long to find the carnage. Lathrin could see the four forms ripped and torn to pieces even at a distance. Their dark blood had soaked into the ground, staining the otherwise beautiful grassland.
Lathrin dismounted and told the others to do the same. “Don’t touch anything,” he ordered his men. “Just look for any clues as to what may have caused this.”
Lathrin walked to one of the corpses on the ground. A large buzzard flapped its wings angrily as he approached before it was forced to fly away. The body’s chest was ripped open and it was missing an arm. The man’s face had been torn off as well. Lathrin covered his nose from the stench as he knelt by the corpse. The dead man was a warrior, that much was obvious. His metal chest plate had been ripped off and thrown to the side and his sword was lying about ten paces away. Lathrin could see four deep cuts, like claw marks, covering his right thigh. It was obvious that claws and teeth of some sort ripped open the man’s chest.
“What did this sir?” asked Pelimus, a veteran knight of twenty years.
“A beast of some kind. Something big and powerful. What of the other bodies?”
“Looks the same, sir. They were killed with tooth and claw. There are no other bodies about so whatever attacked them left no trace,” he said as he averted his eyes from the gruesome scene.
“Sir!” yelled one of his soldiers.
Lathrin stood up looking over his shoulder. About forty paces away one of his men was motioning for him. Lathrin and Pelimus jogged over to see what he was so excited about. “What is it, Caros?” asked Lathrin as he neared the warrior.
“Sir, I think you should look at this,” Caros said as he stepped aside to reveal another corpse. Lathrin looked down at the body and saw another mutilated corpse, this body worse than the others. His entire chest cavity had been ripped open and his entrails spread over the grass. The body was clawed repeatedly until most of the warrior’s arms and legs had been ripped of skin and flesh, exposing white bone underneath. The only thing left untouched was the man’s face, and Lathrin knew that face.
“I can’t believe it, that’s Hilius, cavalier to Bandris.”
“I thought so,” replied Caros. “I found this lying nearby.” Caros held up a silver necklace carrying a pendant marked with Bandris’s double bladed battle-axe. It was the cavalier’s religious symbol. “What could do this to a cavalier, sir?” asked the uneasy warrior.
“I don’t know, Caros,” Lathrin said kneeling next to the mutilated body and shaking his head sadly. They have been getting reports from scouts and travelers that cavaliers from Annure, Tarsis, and all the eastern lands of Kraawn, have been attacked and killed over the last year. The king had ordered his officers to keep the reports secret, but eventually word had spread through the troops and to the people of Finarth. It wasn’t long before it became common knowledge that something was hunting and killing cavaliers.
The people were becoming frightened and restless and the king had no answers for them. The only thing they did know was that an evil was awakening; there was no doubt of that. The knights of Finarth had been constantly roaming the lands trying to find the killer, or killers, but to no avail. Whatever was killing the cavaliers was eluding them.
“Bury these men,” ordered Lathrin. “Then we head back to Finarth. The king must be given word that