System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 90
A sullen day, thunderheads massing on the horizon, faint tongues of lightning and distant thunder brooding within them.
Cliffs rose on either side, and The Sea Scorpion’s Enigma caravan halted abruptly as it passed through the narrow gorge. People began to whisper, eyes skittering over the nauseating streaks of red on the ground.
Roy’s expression hardened; these weren’t simple flowing bloodstains, but marks left where human or animal bodies had been dragged along the earth.
He could almost imagine the poor victims’ skin, muscle and bone torn by the rough, sharp stones as they scraped across the ground, leaving a carpet of minced flesh.
Without doubt, this was the primary scene of slaughter—besides the blood, fragments of linen torn from clothing lay scattered, a few discarded leather boots, several rusted pitchforks, and crude weapons fashioned by sharpening farm tools.
Their gazes followed the trail of gore past the overlapping boulders on either side of the gorge, and there, smashed to pieces like a wagon-sized caltrop, loomed a spiked roadblock.
“What could make such devastating damage?!”
Aaron decided at once to pull the caravan back from the gorge and sent men to clear the sides, preparing to lead a few able-bodied fellows to investigate.
Roy and the Witcher insisted on going. Aaron’s pleading failed, and he had to let them.
When they approached the blood, a sickeningly strong stench of blood hit them. The Witcher flared his nostrils as if trying to discern something, then crouched and plunged his fingers into the blood and shredded flesh on the ground. After a moment’s thought he said, “Fresh human gore, should be from last night.”
Yet despite the horror of the scene, everyone present remained unnaturally composed, little shock showing on their faces.
Roy was somewhat surprised; he himself had hardened against such sights after crawling out of Nekker corpses, and yet even ordinary members of The Sea Scorpion’s Enigma displayed this level of nerve. Clearly they had been through this before.
“Master Letho, your body hasn’t healed completely, if anything sudden happens later, be careful.” Aaron turned and said to the two of them, his tone flat.
“I can still defend myself.” The Witcher replied.
The party reached the twin boulders that formed a pinch in the gorge, a spot wide enough for two wagons to pass side by side, roughly matching the size of the ruined roadblock ahead.
Roy moved like a hare and sprang onto a boulder, looking down. “This spot is a natural choke point. Terrain’s perfect, easy to hold, hard to assault, and it’s on the road to Ellander. If I were them, I’d pick a place like this to waylay travelers and collect tolls.”
“You mean...?”
“Clearly not a legitimate Ellander guard post.”
“Just as the elder of Shaerrawedd said; there are hidden robber posts on the road to Ellander that extort travelers. They just had rotten luck.”
The caravan skirted the boulders and after a few steps came upon a heap of human corpses behind the three-hundred-pound roadblock, a mound of smashed, bloodied bodies.
Their deaths were varied; throats ripped open, bellies torn out, broken spines, bodies torn into pieces.
They were blood-soaked, still wearing simple, poor clothing.
Roy recalled the Revolutionary Army they’d encountered outside Aldersberg; the same grim business. He wondered, given Temeria’s abundance in the wilds, why any band that didn’t farm at least managed to hunt would resort to murder and plunder like this.
Facing such a pile of mutilated corpses, the caravan’s members finally lost their composure.
A thin, monkey-faced man stepped forward, stammering, “Boss Aaron, maybe—maybe we should take another road?”
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