Major Gorkla Strongthighs, commander of the Carenburh City Guard, paced the downstairs hallway of 536 Greyfont Drive. Gorkla was not, by nature, patient. She would much rather be leading a raid on a smuggler encampment than overseeing routine investigations. That would usually be the job of Lepen or de Clare. They were already seeing if they could find out where all that blood came from. Gorkla knew she could not just leave. Her time as a szra, a trainer of new recruits in the Horde, had instilled in her a thorough appreciation of hierarchy. The murder of an ambassador was a serious crime. She was ultimately responsible for bringing the perpetrators to justice. Of course, she knew that she could not do it herself. That is why she was not upstairs looming over the evidence team as they worked; they knew what they were doing. That is why she called in that little meddler Hepplethwaite. He would handle the Duke and their court and keep them off her back.
Fridich Garton hesitated at the bottom of the stairs when he saw his commander. Zlobra were shapechangers. Their appearance reflected their mood. This morning, Gorkla’s frustration expressed itself by doubling the length of her tusks. Everyone who worked at Central Station knew what that meant. Most took it as a sign to avoid her, if possible. Gorkla, however, had spotted the lead of her evidence collection team.
“You done?” Gorkla asked, stopping in front of him.
“Just packing up, Major. We’ll release the scene in a few minutes. Want us to clean it up?” asked Garton. His partner Amila Marzeant was an adept whose magic could remove the remaining blood. “How about the bodies? We can let the coroner know on our way back to Central.”
“Ptah!” cursed Gorkla. She resumed her pacing. “Where is Dandywood? Can’t clean it up or move the corpses until he’s seen it. Shouldn’t have let you guys in, either. Couldn’t have waited.”
Gorkla stopped pacing, put her hands to her temples, and sighed. “Leave Marzeant here. She can do her stuff as soon as Dandywood’s been and gone. She can stop by the coroner.”
Gorkla strode to the door to look out the small window set into it.
“Almost light out. Won’t be able to move the corpses while it’s still dark. This won’t be secret much longer. Have the desk sergeant at Central pull a couple of guards off patrol. Send them up here. As soon as Dandywood and Marzeant are done, I’m leaving, too. They’ll have to secure the scene until the coroner’s team gets here.”
“Yes, Major. Not a problem,” said Garton, still standing on the bottom step. “Umm… Do you want to hear our report? Preliminary, you understand. Just what we’ve found so far?”
“Yes, of course. Will it take long? Can go into the parlor. No need to keep standing on the stairs.”
“No, no. I’ll be quick. Just a preliminary report.” Garton looked down at a notepad. “We took seventeen blood samples. Three from each of the bodies. One from the headboard. Two from blood spatters on the wall. Two each from the four largest blood pools. On one of each of these pairs, Amila cast a spell to keep it from drying out any further. We made sure that the pure sample of the pair was well away from her during her casting, to avoid masking any residual magic in the blood itself.
“The blood in two of the pools was notably more congealed than the blood in the other two. If the blood was brought in from outside the house, that could have been the result of differences in the containers in which the blood was transported. It could indicate that some of the blood had been outside its source for longer, or that it had been stored differently, or that there were multiple sources. Or that one portion of the room is or had been slightly warmer than the rest. No real way of telling yet.
“The knife has been extracted from the male victim and tagged for expedited analysis, as you instructed. It will be available to Inspector Alething at Central.
“There did not appear to be any extraneous material in or around the wounds of either victim. There were no other wounds, apart from the two obvious ones, that my team could detect. The coroner can look more closely during the autopsy than we can here.
“We collected the blanket. There were a pair of dressers in a closet adjoining the bedroom. One contained feminine clothes and one masculine. There were several sets of night clothes in each dresser. There were none in the bedroom itself. Nor did my team find any clothes that looked like they had been worn during the day,” concluded Garton.
“Thorough, as usual,” said Gorkla with a nod. “Get back to Central. I’ll send Amila along as soon as I can.”
Garton was relieved to see that the Major’s tusks had shortened by a good inch.
Lord Ethamiel Dandywood did not arrive at the house on Greyfont Drive for almost another half-hour.
“My dear Major, I had assumed that something dire had happened to have a member of the Guard arouse me this early in the morning. I had no idea that it would be so ominous that you would choose to attend yourself,” said the thin man with the snow white hair and goatee as Gorkla let him into the house. He was dressed formally in a burgundy tailcoat, white bowtie, white dress shirt, cream waistcoat, black trousers, and a matching black tophat. After the amount of her time he had wasted, Gorkla hoped he would slip and fall into one of the pools of blood. Of course, Amila would be able to clean any blood right off his fancy outfit.
“Glad you could make it, my Lord.” Gorkla’s growl contrasted sharply with her polite words. “The scene is upstairs. Follow me.”
“I would have been here sooner,” Dandywood said, “but I had attended a do at Lady Columbine’s last evening. It took me some time to assemble myself and to bid a proper farewell to my hostess.” Gorkla did not ask what had kept him at the notoriously decadent widow’s all night. Or what the old lech considered a “proper” farewell. She was afraid he would tell her.
Dandywood perused the room from the doorway, much as Hep had. Unlike Hep, Dandywood then proceeded to the bedside. Gorkla could not make out his murmurs as he bent over the body of the ambassador. The occultist pulled out a monocle and used it to examine her wound closely. He then moved to the sigil on the headboard. Gorkla did catch a distinct harrumph.
Dandywood returned to Gorkla after a few minutes.
“Someone wants you to think this is the work of the Iron Shadows, what? They did not do a very good job of it. Work of complete incompetents. Prnabg would not let any of his acolytes this inept out of Peroka.
“Take that hole in her chest, for example. Ribs hacked at, splintered. The miscreant took a knife to them. Anyone with any experience or even a bit of sense knows that you use a saw on the ribs. They used a knife on the veins and arteries, too. The cuts are too clean. Prnabg only accepts hearts that are ripped out of the chest by hand.” Dandywood looked thoughtful for a moment. “Probably a second knife. They would have dulled the first one mangling the ribs.
“The sigil, as well. The hand is that of a human. The Iron Shadows are dwarves. They would have used a dwarf hand. Dwarf fingers are shorter and thicker than a human’s. The proportions of the hammer are also wrong. Dwarven hammers have shorter handles, compared with the head. This is a hammer to be wielded by a human.
“I surmise that your culprit is a human. Perhaps they heard about the Iron Shadows in a pub and thought dwarves would be a good scapegoat. Certainly, they did not do the merest iota of research.”
“And all the blood?” asked Gorkla.
“My dear zlobra! I did not bother to mention it, because I thought you too clever to be fooled by such a ruse, Even more blatantly incompetent than the rest!” said Dandywood.
“Never hurts to get a conclusion corroborated,” said Gorkla. “What about the heart?”
“What about it?”
“It is missing. Probably in the belly of some stray dogs by now. Maybe not. Any value in keeping it? Selling it?” Gorkla asked.
“I would not think so,” said Dandywood. The ritual is the thing. Unless the heart is consumed as part of the ritual, it is only so much meat. Your culprit is quite untutored, though. Perhaps they think they need it as evidence of the deed. Proof of death, as it were. Perhaps they think that it would still have some mystic value and could be sold. It would go off quite quickly, I would think.”
“Can’t trace it, magically?” asked Gorkla.
Dandywood sniffed loudly. “Major, you mistake me for a dabbler in the arcane. I am a scholar! I am the foremost expert in these matters in all of Gwenddon. I have provided you with the fruits of that expertise. At no charge, I might add! Now, I am off to my rest.”
Dandywood turned to leave. He checked himself and looked behind him. His left shoe had left bloody footprints.
“Amila, my dear, if you would be so kind?” he asked, somewhat abashed.
Once Amila had cleaned Dandywood’s shoes and he had strode off down the stairs, she turned to Gorkla.
“I guess some of us dabblers in the arcane have our uses.”
Den of the Red Wolf 