Page 32 of The Infernal Battalion

The forest, in general, didn’t seem to have weathered the brief spate of unnatural blizzards well. Some trees had tentative buds, but others seemed dead in truth, or determined to wait out the true winter. The valley floors were choked with debris, rocks, and broken bits of wood. Abraham said these came from the breakup of ice dams and the resulting floods. He’d proven to be quite the authority on the natural world, in fact, while Alex was almost cheerfully ignorant.

“I still say it would have been easier to go south,” Alex said now, breathing hard. “We’re walking away from where we want to be.”

“This way we’re more likely to get there in one piece,” Winter said. “If we go south we’ve got half the Vordanai army and God knows how many Murnskai between us and Vordan.”

“We could get past them,” Alex said. She raised one hand, and her power gathered a globe of darkness at her fingertips.

“And if the Beast finds us?” Abraham said. He carried a long stick in one hand and used it to probe the muck as he walked. “You told me what it was like at Elysium. It will not give up easily.”

Alex went quiet. Winter stifled a sigh. They’d had the same conversation a number of times since they’d left the Mountain days before. She was glad for the company, and she couldn’t exactly blame the girl, but...

Abraham, on the other hand, rarely spoke but was always worth listening to. He’d already pointed out several places where edible mushrooms grew and the tracks that might lead them to beaver dens. At the moment their packs were still laden with dried meat and berries, but the mushrooms had been welcome, and eventually hunting might be necessary. We have a long way to go.

He paused beside Winter, stick outstretched, and wrinkled his nose. Alex, up ahead, half turned.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can smell something,” Abraham said. “Something dead.”

After a moment, Winter could, too, the sick-​sweet stench of rotting meat infiltrating the cleaner smell of decaying leaves.

“Another deer?” she said. They’d passed several corpses, all in an advanced state of decomposition, not even torn much by scavengers.

“Probably,” Abraham said. He sniffed again. “I think it’s up ahead.”

“I see it,” Alex said. “It’s not a deer.”

*

Either Abraham’s sense of smell wasn’t as good as Winter’s, or—​more likely—​his time working with the sick had bred a certain tolerance. Either way, he was the only one who could approach the body. Alex and Winter stood together, upwind and a little way off, and watched.

Winter had had—​unfortunately—​quite a bit of experience with fresh corpses, but this one represented new territory for her. The body sat at the foot of a tree as though it had simply taken a rest one day and never gotten back up. The skin was sloughing off, and the flesh beneath was black with rot, to the point where Winter couldn’t tell where the remnants of the clothes ended and the body began. Bits of pale bone peeked through around the face, and the eyes were gone, leaving only empty holes.

“Still some scavengers around,” Abraham said, kneeling in front of the vile thing. “Probably crows. It’d take more than a freeze or two to get rid of them.”

“Why are you messing with that thing?” Alex said. “Please don’t tell me you think we ought to bury it.”

“I’d like to, but the ground’s too rocky,” Abraham said. “No doubt the forest will take care of it soon enough. But I’d like to see if I can figure out who this was.”

“Why?” Alex said, then saw that Abraham had picked up a smaller stick to poke the body. “Oh, saints and martyrs.” She turned away, making a retching sound.

“Because if there’s one person out in the middle of nowhere, there might be more,” Winter said.

“Exactly.” Abraham bent a bit closer. “This was a woman. Middle-​aged. Wearing some kind of robe, nothing fancy. Probably Murnskai, by the hair.” He straightened up, tossed the stick aside, and shrugged. “Any idea why she’d be out in the woods?”

“Refugee from the war?” Winter said.

“We’re pretty far north,” Abraham said. “And you’d think a refugee would run to a town, especially if she was alone.”

“Maybe she was with a larger group, and she died on the way,” Alex said, still not looking around.

“And they just left her like this?” Abraham shrugged. “It’s possible, I suppose.”

“Maybe bandits cut her throat and left her as a warning,” Alex said. “Can we please move on?”

There weren’t any bandits in these woods, Winter reflected. Bandits needed prey, and here there was no one, just endless miles of forests and hills. She’d always known Murnsk was a vast country, but she hadn’t appreciated how much of it was no-man’s-land, undisturbed except for the occasional trapper. She’d read that in the north, the Murnskai territory didn’t end at a border so much as peter out amid the tundra, where the nomadic tribes acknowledged no king or emperor.

The smell of the corpse faded after a few minutes’ walk. It was Alex who spotted the next one, propped against a tree like the first. This one seemed like it had been outside longer, and there wasn’t much left but bones and scraps of dark fabric. They gave it a wide berth by common agreement, and kept moving.