This took Thranic by surprise.
“Oh yes, the officers knew of your nightly visits to the cargo. It is a small ship, sir, and the officers’ bunks were just above. We heard you every night torturing them, and I fear a good deal more than that. I am no great fan of elves, but by Maribor, there are limits to the abuses conscience permits! No, sir, I do not think I will be turning Seaman Melborn over to your authority anytime soon. Even should I trust you to treat him honorably, I need all the hands I can get, and as we both know, you are not an honorable man.”
“It’s a pity to see such a young, promising lad throw his life away,” Thranic fumed. “I’ll see that you are executed for this.”
“To do so, we must return to Avryn. Let us hope we both live to see that day.”
At dawn the crew of the Emerald Storm left the village and once more plunged into the jungle, traveling northeast of the Oudorro Valley by a narrow, barely visible path. The rain had left the ground swamped, but it had stopped at last. On the third day, cliffs and chasms barred their path. They followed ridgelines where a stumble could send a man falling hundreds of feet, walked perilous rope bridges that spanned raging rivers, and followed rocky clefts down into dark valleys. In the lower ravines it was dark, even at midday. Trees created phantom images. Rocks looked like crouching animals, and stunted, gnarled bushes appeared like monsters in the mist.
Royce’s health steadily improved, though his disposition remained unchanged. He was able to walk on his own most of the day, and thanks to Fan Irlanu’s balm, his wounds no longer required a bandage.
They found the bodies on the fourth day out of Oudorro. Corpses, dressed in clothes similar to those of Dilladrum and the Vintu, lay on the path. Flies hovered, and the stench of decay lingered in the air. They had been dead for some time, and many were missing limbs or showed evidence of bites.
“Animals?” Wesley asked.
“Maybe.” Dilladrum looked off toward the east. “But perhaps the Panther is not able to contain his beasts, just as Burandu told us.”
“You’re saying the Ghazel did this?”
Dilladrum paused to study the jungle around them. “Impossible to say, yet these bodies are weeks old and it’s not like the jungle to let them rot. Animals don’t like Ghazel and will avoid an area with their smell, even if it means passing up a free meal.
“This man is Hingara.” Dilladrum pointed to the body of a swarthy little man in a red cap. “He’s a guide, like me. He set out for the Palace of the Four Winds with a party like ours weeks ago. He was a good man. He knew the jungle well, and as you can see, his group was large—as many as thirty men in all. What kind of animal do you think would attack so large a company? A pack of wolves, perhaps? A pride of lions? No, they would never attack a party this large. And what animal could kill without leaving a single body of their own behind? Ghazel, on the other hand …”
“What about them?” Wesley asked.
“They’re like ghosts. Hingara could not have seen them coming. Imagine beings as nimble and at ease in these jungles as monkeys, but possessing the strength and ferocity of tigers. They have the instinct of beasts but the intelligence of men. On a rainy day they can smell a human three leagues away. This was a safe path, but I fear things have changed.”
“There are only about eighteen bodies here,” Wesley observed. “If he set out with thirty men, where are the rest?”
Dilladrum let his sight settle on the naval officer. “Where, indeed.”
Wesley grimaced as he looked at the dead. “Are you saying they took them to eat?”
“That’s what they do.” Dilladrum pointed to the torn and mutilated bodies. “They ate some on the spot in the fever following the battle, but I think they carried the rest back to their den, where I can only guess they feasted by barbecuing them on spits and drinking warmed blood from the men’s skulls.”
“You don’t know that!” Wesley challenged.
Dilladrum shook his head. “As I said, I’m guessing. No one truly knows what goes on in their camps any more than a deer knows what goes on in the dining halls of a king.”
“You make it sound as if they’re our betters.”
“In these jungles, they are. Here they’re the hunters and we’re the prey. I told you the trip would be harder from now on. We’ll burn no fire, cook no food, and pitch no tent. Our only hope of survival lies in slipping through unnoticed.”
“Should we bury them?” Wesley asked.
“What the animals do not touch, neither should we. It would announce our presence to the whole jungle. It’s also not wise to linger. We should press on with all haste.”