Stalking Darkness

weren’t already dead just dropped in their tracks,” Micum mused as he and Seregil walked around the bodies, seeking faces they’d seen with Mardus in Wolde all those months ago. “You figure the dyrmagnos did that?”
    “Probably,” Seregil said. He was still wearing his baggy borrowed clothes and looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week. Micum knew for a fact that he’d sat awake with Nysander all night. They both had.
    “But I doubt they killed all of their own people,” Seregil went on, taking a closer look at a ragged, one-handed beggar. “Have you noticed that no one remembers seeing Mardusand the necromancers leave? Except Hwerlu, maybe. He said something about a huge dark shape rising over the House as he ran toward it. He didn’t get there until it was over, so that may have been Mardus’ exit. A dyrmagnos could have that kind of power.”
    Micum felt an unlucky chill go up his back. “Let’s hope we can stay clear of the thing, then. Anything that can lay Nysander low and then fly off like a bat is nothing I want to face down.”
    A swarthy man with a scar through his bottom lip caught his eye. “I know him. He’s one of Captain Tildus’ men,” Micum said, pointing him out to Seregil. “I drank with him a few times at the Pony in Wolde. He’s one of them who gave Alec a hard time.”
    “I see an old friend, too.” Seregil stood looking down at a lanky, rawboned man dressed in a soiled leather jerkin. “Farm the Fish, a gaterunner who came up missing a month ago. Tym mentioned him to me just before he disappeared himself. I don’t recognize any of the others. Probably all Plenimaran soldiers and spies brought in for the job.” He tapped his chin with one long forefinger as he frowned down at the dead. “You remember I ran into a Juggler up in Asengai’s dungeon, that night Alec and I first met?”
    “The Plenimaran assassins guild, you mean?”
    “Yes.” Seregil jerked a thumb at the corpses. “What would you bet there’s a guild mark on one or two of these fellows?”
    Micum grimaced in distaste. “Guess there’s only one way to find out. What’s it look like?”
    “Three small blue dots tattooed to form a triangle. They’re usually in the armpit,” Seregil told him, adding with a wry grin, “At least this is better than going to the charnel houses.”
    Even in the scented coolness of the Orëska garden, however, it was not pleasant work.
    Pulling at clothing and cold, stiff limbs, Micum found no tattoos, but two men did have suspicious scars about the size of a sester coin under their arms. The healed tissue was still pink and new.
    “I think this might be something,” he said.
    Seregil came over for a look and nodded. “There are three more just like it over there. That scar isn’t a burn or a puncture; the skin was sliced away on purpose. If it wasn’t a Juggler’s mark they cut out, then I’ll wager it was something similar.”
    “That Mardus is a cagey bastard,” Micum said with grudging admiration. “He wasn’t taking any chances. Not that we can prove it now, though.”
    Seregil examined the scar. “You know, I’ve heard that these skin marks go deep. What do you think?”
    Micum sighed. “It’s worth a try, so long as no drysians catch us at it.”
    Slipping a tiny, razorlike blade from the seam of his belt, Seregil held the skin on either side of the mark taut with two fingers and sliced away the surface of the scar. When he’d pulled back the flap of skin, he and Micum inspected the livid flesh beneath.
    “See anything?” asked Micum.
    “No, they must’ve cut deep on this one. Let’s try another.”
    Their second attempt was more successful. Scraping gently this time, Seregil uncovered the faint triangular imprint of the Juggler’s guild mark still visible in the flesh.
    Seregil rocked back on his heels with grim satisfaction. “That’s proof enough for me.”
    “Maker’s Mercy! What do you think you’re doing?” It was Darbia, the dark-haired drysian who’d been helping tend Nysander. Bristling with indignation, she strode up and made a quick blessing sign over the corpse.
    “Enemy or not, I cannot condone such barbarous behavior,” she snapped.
    “It’s not desecration,” Micum assured her, getting to his feet. “This man and several others wear the mark of Plenimaran spies. The Queen should be informed before any of these bodies are taken away.”
    The drysian crossed her arms, still scowling. “Very well then, I’ll