Read The King's Justice for Free Online

enters a clearing. It is well hidden, and he sees that a number of men have lived there. Perhaps they had women with them. Several sturdy shelters more elaborate than lean-tos stand at the edges of the open space. Discarded garments and bundles litter the ground. Among them he sees a short sword, several truncheons, an empty quiver. He does notneed to look in order to know that the shelters once held stores of food, of meat and bread. These have been much ravaged by animals, but the decay of the remains informs him of their former presence.
    In the center of the clearing is a wide fire-pit, its ashes sodden and cold. It has been abandoned for many days, more than a fortnight. And the corpse sprawled among the ashes has also been abandoned. Most of its flesh has been torn from the bones, the bones themselves have been cracked and gnawed, and the scraps of its motley garments lie scattered around the pit. The mangling of the body prevents Black from knowing whether the lungs and liver were taken intact. Still the scent that he seeks is strong here, despite the putrid sweetness of rot. He does not doubt that he is looking at another ritual murder.
    The crime is old, but its age does not prevent him from imagining the scene. A band of brigands made this clearing their home. After their attacks on caravans and wagons, they returned here, hid here. But one night a man or men killed one of their sentries among the trees. When the lungs and liver were taken, and the man—no, the men—were ready, they burst into the clearing. They discarded their victim on the fire. By force of arms, or perhaps by mere surprise, they scattered the brigands.
    And then—?
    Black adjusts his senses to ignore the miasma of decay and feeding. He walks his horse once around the clearing, twice. Then he picks a faint track similar to the one that brought him here and follows it.
    Within a hundred paces, he finds a second corpse. Hidden in the brush to his left, he discovers a third. Both are old and badly ravaged. He cannot determine how or why they were killed. Still the smell of evil clings to them. Studying them with a veteran’s eye in the rising daylight, he concludes that both died the same night their sentry was cast into the fire.
    He suspected the truth earlier. Now he is sure. The butchering of innocence is the end of the ritual, not the start. Therefore he is also sure that the culmination of the crimes, the completion of their purpose, will be soon.
    Because he does not understand that purpose, he cannot guess why it was not acted upon immediately after Tamlin Marker’s death. Still he believes that he has little time. He is reassured only by the knowledge that three men and a boy are not enough.
    But half a league deeper in the forest, he finds a fourth corpse—and after another half-league, the shredded remains of three women tossed into the pit left by the falling of a dead tree. The count now stands at seven. If it reaches ten, it will be enough, if the ritual is of a kind that Black knows. If it climbs still higher, he will be in serious danger.
    It does not stop at ten. Eventually he locates seven more bodies, men and women, all brigands by their apparel and weapons. Their odor tells him that their deaths are more recent than the first seven. In two instances, the condition of the corpses allows him to see that the lungs and livers have been harvested.
    To himself, Black acknowledges that the perpetrator of this ritual is clever. Brigands who raid from coverts are idealvictims. Their absence will be noticed with gratitude. The reason for their absence will interest no one.
    Alarmed now, he suspects that if he wanders the woods around Settle’s Crossway for days, he will find a number of similar deaths. Some will be older than those he has already found. Perhaps some will be more recent. The source of this evil is growing stronger. Its intent must be extreme, if it requires such bloodshed. Why else has its