Because Caden was watching Tim so carefully, he didn't miss the way the other man's eyes dimmed, madness filling them.
"This isn't how it was supposed to go," Tim whispered, glaring at the ground.
Caden frowned as the man rocked back and forth.
Sensing a change in the prisoner, Jane moved closer.
Tim reached up, grabbing handfuls of hair on either side of his temple. "This isn't right."
The behavior caught the attention of Gawain and Van, the two turning serious.
"What is he doing?"
"Not right. Not right," Tim screamed, the other prisoner echoing his cry as the same madness that affected Tim spread to him.
"Does anybody else find this creepy?" Van asked. "This is just unnatural."
Both men had thrown themselves face first onto the ground, madly scrabbling at the dirt until nothing remained of their fingernails but bloody stumps.
Even then they didn't stop.
A disgusted look filled Van's face as he drew back. Gawain moved around them, his head moving as he studied their behavior.
"Have you seen anything like this before?" Gawain asked.
Van sent him an incredulous look. "Are you joking?"
The men's breathing accelerated until they were panting. Just as quickly, their faces flushed red, the veins in their temples popping out.
"How about you? Is this behavior familiar to you?" Gawain asked the Tenrin.
The mythological shook his head, his features uncertain. Almost as spooked by the situation as Van.
"No," Merc said.
Screaming ripped from the prisoners' throats.
Every instinct in Caden screamed danger. "It's a trap. Get away from them."
Tim jackknifed onto his hands and feet, lifting his face for them to see. Blood leaked from his eyes and nose. Out of his ears.
It started as a drip but then came faster and faster. Until it poured from his orifices.
His mouth opened on a second scream that was silenced as a dagger embedded itself in his throat. An abrupt wheeze replaced his cry.
A gurgle left Tim as he choked on his own blood. His face slackened and his body tilted to the side, before toppling to the ground.
Gawain lowered his hand as he gave the other two a careless shrug. "The screaming was bothering me."
"Which meant you had to end it?" Van drawled.
Gawain smiled. "You understand."
At a signal from Caden, Jane drew her sword in a swift movement before burying it in the second prisoner's throat.
"Burn the bodies," Caden ordered. "Do it now."
His request went against Lowland tradition, who often considered the Trateri barbarians for the way they handled their dead, but that was only because they didn't understand their culture.
The Trateri saw fire as a release. If circumstances allowed, they preferred to burn their dead. Since they held a fondness for battle, this wasn't always possible.
In such cases, they would collect a piece of the body, such as hair, to bring back to their camps to burn later. It was also acceptable to offer a person's body up for sky burial, allowing the elements and nature to reclaim them.
These men didn't deserve such kindness. Caden would have been perfectly happy to let their soul's roam the land for eternity, but sometimes you had to take into account other variables.
"What are you thinking?" Gawain asked.
Caden studied the two men as he shook his head. "Something is very wrong."
"And burning them will fix that?"
There was no reproach in Gawain's face, only the expression of someone trying to understand.
It was why Caden didn't rebuke him for questioning his orders.
Now that Gawain had learned to get out of his own way, his opinion could hold some insight into the situation.
Caden shook his head. "I can't explain it. I just have a feeling these men need to be purified by fire."
They'd descended into madness too quickly. One second fine and the next they acted as if something else had control of their bodies.
Those screams had been agonizing. They weren't faked. It was like they were being eaten from the inside.
Caden had to wonder if his threat had actually come true. Had the swarm gotten to them? It wouldn't have taken much from what Chirron had said. One bite to seed their bodies with eggs.
As closely as they'd been watching the prisoners, it was still possible one of the swarm had gotten past them.
If that was the case, they didn't have time to waste. Their bodies needed to be disposed of in such a way that any eggs or newly hatched insects were destroyed.
"I don't know." Caden's confession burned. He didn't like not knowing and the fact he was in uncharted territory made him want to rip heads off bodies.
As he spoke, Jane crossed to her mount where she dug inside her saddle bags and withdrew a small pouch everyone there recognized.
They should, considering they each carried one exactly like it. Fire powder. It was used on their dead to make them burn faster and was almost as sacred as fire itself.
"Do it," Caden ordered when she glanced at him for permission.
Jane nodded once before emptying her pouch over both prisoners. Van made a give me motion to one of his Trateri who was holding a lit torch. One of the precautions they'd taken against the possibility of the swarm.
"Never thought I'd be releasing the souls of my enemies into the afterlife," Van said with a shake of his head.
"Desperate times," Gawain said without sympathy.
Van touched the torch to the second prisoner's body before moving toward the one who'd set this entire chain of events off by insisting he speak to Eva.
The fire powder ignited with a hiss behind Van. Fire spread across the second prisoner's body, a faint purplish glow enveloping him.
Van lowered the torch to the first prisoner's torso. A whoosh filled the air seconds before the prisoner's body sat up.
twenty-one
Van jerked backwards with a muffled shout. He dropped the torch, reaching for his sword and drawing it in a quick movement.
The torch bounced and then lay still as the prisoner slowly crawled onto his hands and knees.
Flames licked the front of his body, melting flesh as he stood. He listed to the side as he fixed milky white eyes on Caden.
He smiled.
There was no pain in his expression, and there was an emptiness behind his eyes. A void that felt like it wanted to suck away all emotion and life.
"Does somebody want to tell me how a dead man is moving?" Van hissed as the sound of hoof beats came from behind them.
Chirron reined to a stop with a horrified expression.
"Chirron, good. Maybe you can explain—" Van pointed at the human torch. "Whatever this is."
"Why is he on fire?" Chirron demanded. "Someone needs to put it out."
"You're entirely missing the point. Why did someone who was dead come back to life? Explain that. How is this even possible?"
In another set of circumstances, Caden might have found Van's unease humorous. The clan leader had always been overly confident, bordering on brash and impetuous. Seeing him brought down a peg should have been satisfying.
Except he wasn't the only person freaking out.
Caden could see fear and alarm on everyone's face.