“What’s this tattoo here?”
“Tattoo?” Nadar’s face darkens as she looks at it. “Shit.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a tribal tattoo. All the tribes have them. Once you’ve passed all the tests and are sworn into the tribe, they give you this mark, a ring around the neck. The symbolism implies that the only way to leave the tribe—”
“Is to lose your head,” says Mulaghesh.
“Right. All the tribes have different colors, patterns. This one is the Orskova tribe, a river clan. So this will piss off some important people, probably.”
Mulaghesh looks up at the farmhouse, whose back side is smoldering, and suddenly this is all too familiar: the smoking farmhouse; the wet, cold grass; the whine of the flies; and the smell of corpses….
Mulaghesh shakes herself. She stands and walks over, examining the crude wooden structure. Part of the back door has collapsed, like someone drove a truck into it. This must have broken open the hearth, which started the fire. “Lucky it’s wet,” she says aloud. “Otherwise we’d have a forest fire.” She looks back at Nadar. “You know what this is, don’t you?”
“I do?” says Nadar.
“Shorn of limbs, with the torsos vivisected and placed on stakes…”
Nadar thinks about it. Then her eyes spring wide. “Oh, by the seas…”
“Yeah. This is what Voortyashtani sentinels used to do to Saypuri slaves who rebelled or tried to escape. Breaking them down into components, I think is what they called it. Proving that we weren’t really humans in their eyes: just devices, instruments, easily taken apart. Then they put the bodies on display for everyone to see. You’re unlikely to resist slavery with something like that out your bedroom window.” She shakes her head. “I’ve read accounts of it happening, but…I’ve never seen someone try to duplicate it.”
Nadar and Mulaghesh lead their horses back around to the front of the farmhouse. “So you think it’s a message?” asks Nadar.
“This is your region, your backyard,” says Mulaghesh. “You tell me.”
“I do. He’s Orskova, and this is disputed territory among the tribes. Maybe this is an insult, or warning—betray us, and we’ll treat you like Saypuris.”
“Seems likely.” Mulaghesh brushes a fly off of her face. “This is going to fuck up your negotiations something fierce, isn’t it.”
Nadar groans and rubs her eyes. “Oh, definitely. Biswal and Rada will have a merry time trying to get the damned tribes to stop trying to murder one another after this abomination.”
“Rada?”
“Rada Smolisk. She’s the polis governor here.”
“Rada Smo…” Mulaghesh’s mouth opens as she realizes what Nadar’s suggesting. “That name…You mean the polis governor is a damned Continental?”
“Oh, yes,” says Nadar. “It’s one of the Ministry programs, trying to get more Continentals involved in governing themselves. Unlike other programs, though, this one turned out quite well. Rada’s a good sort. She’s a bit of a shrinking violet, but she’s a highly accomplished doctor. Goes all over the place fixing people up, even comes up to the fort to work on the wounded. She’s well liked.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing in my life! A Continental, as a polis governor!”
Nadar smirks. “I thought you were part of the minister’s cadre, General. Isn’t she quite the progressive?”
“There’s progressive and then there’s stark fucking barmy.” She shakes herself and tries to focus. “You said this had happened before?”
“What? Oh. Right. Yes, once, seven months ago. It was a couple, though, not a family, and the murder wasn’t nearly as…ornate as this.”
“No body parts on stakes?”
“No. From the patrol’s reading of the scene, a man killed his wife, removed her head and limbs. He didn’t get to vivisecting the torso, though. We found him dead in the same room in their little hut. The wolves had been at him.”
They begin walking back to the front yard. “No sign of foul play in his death?”
“Like I said, the wolves had been at him. But no. We thought he’d been drunk when he did it, maybe died of alcohol poisoning. Or had a heart attack. That scene wasn’t nearly as fresh as this one is—they’d been there for a while. We thought it was an isolated event. All kinds of horrible things happen here. But this…”
“Yeah,” says Mulaghesh. “It’s a trend now. Maybe the first one was a warning, too; they just didn’t complete the job the way they wanted to. They got sloppy. But now they’ve learned. They know how to do it right.”
Nadar looks off into the dark trees. “So it’ll happen again.”
“Probably, yeah. Unless you can find the person or, more likely, people who did this.”
“You think there’s more than one?”
“It’s tough, killing a whole family. Kids run. Someone comes at you with a knife, maybe. Best to bring some helping hands. Though I wouldn’t rule out poison or suffocation. Start a fire, choke them in their sleep. That’s one way they could do it alone, I suppose.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I just know.” She clucks her tongue and shakes her head. “They don’t mutilate the men, though. The rest are fair game. It’s damn odd.”
There’s a shout from the lane outside. Nadar and Mulaghesh remount and ride over to find Pandey and three other soldiers grouped at where the trees run along the road. “What is it?” asks Nadar.
“We found something, ma’am,” says Pandey. He points at the trees. “It’s like a deer blind, in a way.”
Nadar and Mulaghesh dismount again—Mulaghesh’s thighs are already complaining—and squat to see. There between two trees are dozens of fir cuttings, carefully arranged to make a crude wall.
Nadar parts the wall a bit with one hand and peers inside. “Needles have been cleared away,” she says softly. “Like someone sat here for a long time. Good eye, soldier.”
Mulaghesh stands and lines herself up with the blind. Its line of sight peers right through the fence to the side of the farmhouse, giving a clear view of anything that might be happening in the front or the back.
“They watched,” she says quietly. “Watched and waited until the time was right.”
***
It’s late evening by the time they return to the city proper. Mulaghesh is exhausted, and the muscles in her lower back feel like they can hardly keep her upright. “I’ll send a messenger to notify the Orskovas,” says Nadar as the gates to Fort Thinadeshi open, “as they’ll probably want to be the ones who’ll dispose of the bodies.”
“What’s the next step for you, Captain?” asks Mulaghesh.
“Send a patrol to start canvassing the area in the morning,” says Nadar. “Ask questions, see what looks suspicious. That’s as good a place to start as any. Will you be staying here tonight, General?”
“No, I think it’d be wiser to stay in the city,” says Mulaghesh. “Two generals under one roof…I don’t want to step on any toes.”