the bedside and Denser pulled the shroud gently from the body, folding it back to expose his head and bare chest. In the flickering light, Erienne could make out a young, angular face. No bruising was evident on the dark skin.
She placed her hands on his chest, hearing a hiss of indrawn breath from Kild’aar. The skin was cold, hard and waxy. She ignored the unpleasant sensation and tuned herself to the mana spectrum, directing a sheet of mana across the body slowly from head to toe, her fingers picking up everything it touched and penetrated.
Almost immediately she felt a surge of nausea, like gulping rancid air. She fought to keep her concentration, focussing hard on her task, driving her mind to analyse what the mana stream fed back to her. The construct she was using borrowed heavily from the Body-Cast spell, but Mercuun couldn’t have been saved even by this most powerful healer casting. It could knit bone, repair muscle and organ, stop bleeding and soothe bruising. But it couldn’t reverse rot and decay.
She withdrew from Mercuun’s body, nodding at Denser to replace the shroud. For a moment she remained on her knees, rubbing her hands slowly down the top of her thighs. She breathed deeply to clear her head of the fetid sensations she’d experienced and returned her mind to its normal state.
‘All right, love?’ asked Denser, squatting down beside her and stroking her cheek.
‘Yes,’ she said, and looked across at Ren. ‘I need to know some things. Ask her how long he’s been dead.’
Ren nodded and asked the question.
‘Two days,’ she relayed. ‘They are waiting for Rebraal before they commit his body to the forest.’
Erienne shuddered. ‘So recent?’ She spared Denser an anxious glance. ‘Ask her if his bone breaks were tended to.’
‘They were,’ came the delayed reply. ‘They could be treated and they responded. Still he died.’
‘That’s because they weren’t the problem,’ said Erienne grimly. ‘What else do they know?’
‘Nothing,’ translated Ren. ‘He never regained consciousness.’
‘And what about the others who are sick?’ Erienne got to her feet, helped by Denser.
There was a longer delay, Ren listening to what she was hearing with a frown deepening on her beautiful features. She asked a couple of questions then took a deep breath and turned to Erienne.
‘It sounds horrible,’ she said. ‘Loss of balance, bleeding from ears, nose and anus, grinding pain in the gut and chest, loss of vision and hearing, muscle weakness and the clawing of hands and feet. I think there’s probably more but that covers the most common symptoms. The worst thing is, nothing seems to reverse or even ease the symptoms, and death has occurred in as little as four days. No one has survived yet.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Erienne. ‘How many are suffering at the moment?’
‘A hundred and thirty-three.’
‘Oh no,’ said Erienne, putting a hand over her mouth, the size of the problem sending her reeling inside. ‘No wonder she’s been so hostile.’
Erienne walked up to Kild’aar and gripped her folded arms with both hands. She saw a pleading in the elf’s eyes behind the stern mask, a barely repressed fear born of a lack of any answer.
‘I’m sorry, Kild’aar,’ said Erienne. ‘But I need you to show me one of those still alive.’
Kild’aar nodded but didn’t understand her words, only her expression and the emotion in her voice. Ren translated Erienne’s words and was asked another question.
‘She wants to know what you found.’
Erienne bit her lip. ‘He was rotten inside,’ she said as calmly as she could, recalling the feelings of decay and disease that had pervaded her so strongly. ‘All his organs just so much mush inside his body, some of them barely recognisable. His brain was the same. His bones were brittle, no calcium, like he was an elf hundreds of years older than he was. I’ve never seen anything like it. Outwardly, he was fine. On the inside, like he’d been dead for weeks. But I need to see a live patient. Someone I can talk to. Quickly.’
Ren was momentarily dumbfounded by Erienne’s description. She pulled herself together but shivered as she related the awful symptoms to Kild’aar, who gasped as Mercuun’s fate was relayed to her. She looked across at Erienne, all the anger replaced with shock and sadness. She spoke a few words.
‘Kild’aar asks if there is anything you can do.’
Erienne shrugged uselessly. ‘I don’t know. I hope so but I don’t know. I’ve never encountered anything like this.’
Kild’aar didn’t need her words translated. Beckoning them,