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Dubric pulled his charger to a halt. "Do you smell that?"
"Something died," Dien said, dismounting. "Something big, by the smell." He pulled a battered lantern off the back of his saddle and lit it.
Marsden led his horse to a scraggly tree. "I didn't smell anything coming out."
"The wind has changed," Dubric said. He tied his charger beside Marsden's horse.
Dien held the lantern high and squinted into the evening. "I'm betting on that field, sir."
"Let us go see, then," Dubric said, climbing over the low stone fence.
Letting their noses guide them, they walked across a field of young oats as it sloped down toward a creek. The wind freshened, cool and damp, but the stench nearly knocked them back.
"It's been dead longer than a couple of days, whatever it is," Dien said.
They searched the creek bed but found nothing of interest, then climbed the bank to the next field, this one planted with sorghum. They continued on, the stench growing so strong on the far side of the field that it made Dubric gag. Beside him, Marsden retched.
A scattering of carcasses, dogs and sheep, lay in the rows of sorghum and the brush edging the field. The carcasses were dismembered, their limbs removed, their heads gone, their bodies cut in two.
"How many, sir?" Dien asked, holding the lantern high as Dubric glanced back the way they had come. He estimated they were two furlongs or more from the road, far enough for winds to disperse most of the smell.
"I estimate ten dogs and a score or so sheep," he said, kneeling. The nearest carcass, the headless front portion of a half-grown pup, had rotted nearly to bones and dry, matted fur. Dubric checked along the spine but there was no skin for a mage mark to be written upon and what little remained was blackened and in patches. "This dog has been dead at least a phase," Dubric said, standing, "if not two."
"And the scavengers have got to them," Dien said. "There’s not much left but wool and bones."
"But none have been completely consumed." Dubric turned to Marsden. "Have you found any dead scavengers? Coyotes? Raccoons? Weasels? Ravens?"
"Yes, milord, a few, but I never thought much of it. Some folks set out tainted bait. And I never thought much of a few missing dogs, either. They just run off sometimes. I hadn't seen any butchered like this before."
"The meat of these animals may be poisoned," Dubric said, pulling his notebook from his pocket. "But I have no way of knowing if the animals themselves died of poison." He sighed and sketched the arrangement of carcasses.
His sketch finished, he picked his way across the scattered carcasses, looking for anything out of place. Seeing a bit of dark glass reflecting the lantern light, he knelt and wriggled a vial out from beneath a legless, eviscerated dog. What have we here? He held it up to the light.
"What is it, sir?" Dien asked.
"A medicine vial," Dubric replied. "And there is a bit of fluid inside." He uncorked the vial and sniffed, then promptly replaced the cork and pulled an evidence bag from his pocket. "Laudanum."
"That's not something you can just pick up anywhere," Dien said.