Jules lifted the torch, face grim as he stared at their "prisoner."
The thing wouldn't stop thrashing and roaring. Stocky, thick-built, skin so pale it looked like it had never seen daylight. Features all mashed together like someone had punched them flat. Even with Vito pinning him down, the bastard kept making wet, guttural heh-heh noises. Tiberius got one look at those yellow-black, crooked teeth and nearly gagged from the stench rolling out of his mouth.
He looked less like a man and more like something that had crawled out of a nightmare.
The knights' faces twisted with pure revulsion.
"Fuck me," Vito growled, still shaking out the wrist the ugly fucker had almost bitten. "What kind of god would even listen to prayers from this walking sack of shit? If I were a god and woke up to that kneeling in front of me, I'd lightning-bolt his ass into ash on the spot."
"He doesn't seem to talk," Jules said. They'd tried every language they knew—Common, High Valyrian, Lysene, even a few Ghiscari curses. Nothing. "Maybe he's a mute?"
"No, Uncle." Tiberius raised his own torch and swept it over the corpses of the four dead bandits. "This is bad. Really fucking bad."
He pointed with his throwing spear at their faces. Every single one had that same inbred, slack-jawed stupidity—pale skin, rotten yellow teeth.
"Products of close-kin marriages," Tiberius said, voice tight. "They've been fucking each other for generations. That explains the looks. They probably live in caves, that's why the skin's so white. But this—" he ripped a necklace off the nearest corpse "—this is the part that matters."
Jules took the "jewelry" into his palm and studied it. His eyes slowly filled with raw fury.
"All human bone," he muttered. "Some of these are children's finger bones. This one… and this… Seven Hells."
He jerked his head toward the prisoner still pinned under Vito. Sure enough, the brute wore a similar necklace of tiny bones. Braided into his wristbands were locks of different-colored hair—one of them a bright, unmistakable silver-gold that made every man there flinch.
"So they…" Jules's throat went dry. "They took those missing people and…"
"I'd bet my spear they ate them," Tiberius said quietly, lifting his torch to the strips of dried meat hanging from the corpses' belts.
"These bastards are one family. Look at the hair color—solid black across the board. Long-term inbreeding twisted their faces, and their food source… was everyone who vanished on Bloodwave Cape."
Most of Jules's knights were hardened veterans who'd seen every horror war could offer. But Tiberius's calm deduction drained the blood from their faces. The brief thrill of cracking the case died right there.
Zera let out a high, terrified scream.
"Then… Lady Seraphys… if they caught her…" She pointed a shaking finger at the prisoner and the meat strips.
Vito's face looked demonic in the firelight. He spat, drove his knee harder into the cannibal's spine until the man whimpered.
"You filthy animals," Vito snarled. "Pigs, cows, chickens—plenty of shit to eat, and you choose people?"
The prisoner just babbled meaningless noises.
"The only question left," Tiberius told Jules, "is where their nest is."
That was the real problem. Lys had swept Bloodwave Cape multiple times—hounds, trackers, whole companies of skirmishers. Nothing. And somewhere inside that nest was Lady Seraphys.
After a long silence, Jules asked Vito, who was heating a dagger in the torch flame, "Can't get a word out of him? Does he even speak?"
Vito set the red-hot blade down, frustrated. "Not really, boss. He knows a couple Common words, but that's it. Nothing that makes sense." He pressed the glowing steel against the cannibal's arm anyway. The man screamed. "Talk, you piece of shit!"
Tiberius noticed something else.
"Uncle." He pointed at the ragged linen "clothes" the prisoner wore—if you could even call those filthy rags clothes. "Salt stains on the hem. They came from the shoreline. Their lair has to be near the coast."
Jules looked impressed by the kid's sharp eye, then made the call.
"Right. We ride for the Bloodwave Cape shore. Now."
They galloped to the rocky coastline and searched by torchlight for a full hour. Nothing.
"Gods-damned animals—where the fuck is your hole?!" Jules finally roared, pressing his longsword to the prisoner's throat. "We've been riding these cliffs and rocks for ages. Where is your blasphemous family's den?!"
The cannibal just stared blankly. He didn't understand a single word.
"Uncle, wait a little longer," Tiberius said, voice calm even though his own stomach was twisting. If we don't find Lysandro's daughter, how the hell do I dodge the Volantis meat grinder? First step can't fail. Not now.
His steady tone actually earned him respectful glances. Jules gave a silent nod of approval.
[Kid's showing real commander's poise right now… Yes, calm and patience. That's what a leader needs.] Jules thought. [Killing that Ironborn really woke something in him.]
Zera, watching Tiberius stand calm and commanding under the moonlight, felt an unexpected flutter in her chest. He was nothing like the soft, poetry-spouting male slaves back at the estate. This boy was brave, battle-hardened, and… he actually cared how people felt.
She had already forgotten exactly who had dragged her into this nightmare in the first place.
"Everyone!" Tiberius called to the knights returning from their sweeps. "Stop looking for houses on the beach or poking around in the trees! If they were there, they'd have been found years ago. Search the cliffs and reefs—especially caves that flood at high tide!"
A few minutes later, Vito's voice rang out.
"Boss! Tiberius! Got a cave over here!"
They hurried over. Sure enough, a dark opening yawned at the base of the cliff.
"So that's how they stayed hidden," Jules muttered.
The entrance was viciously clever. At high tide the whole mouth—and most of the cave—would be underwater, invisible from outside. At low tide the jagged reefs made it almost impossible to spot from land.
Right now the water only lapped at their boots.
The moment the cannibal prisoner saw the cave mouth, his already-pale face went corpse-white.
How did these meat-bags even find it?
Jules was practically vibrating with excitement. "Tiberius, you've done it again—massive credit to you, lad!"
Inside, Tiberius thought, [No, Uncle. I just don't want to be cannon fodder. Finding Rogare's daughter is only step one.]
All that remained was going inside.
"We've got twenty men," Vito rasped, voice thick with confidence as he patted the heavy crossbow and longsword at his belt. "How many of them can there be? We already killed three and took one alive. They can't breed like rats, right? Tiberius, this is enough to slaughter every last one of these maggots. Let's drag them out of their hole and end them."
Jules and the rest of the knights burned with the same rage. What they'd just seen crossed every line even veteran sellswords could stomach. Cannibalism—deliberate, gleeful cannibalism.
"No. Don't kill them all," Tiberius said. He felt the same disgust, but he forced his mind to stay ice-cold. "We need live ones. At least a few who can talk. First, we need them to point out any other 'storage' spots—make sure we didn't miss any stragglers. Second, we hand them over to Lord Lysandro alive. Monsters who can confess their crimes in their own voices are worth ten times more than corpses. So keep the important ones breathing. Understood?"
Vito blinked, then grinned as the deeper meaning sank in.
Jules added, "Think about it, Vito. Lord Lysandro lost his daughter, then got her back. But he'll still want more. He'll want to vent his rage, display his power, show every lord and merchant in Lys what happens when you offend House Rogare. What better way than a public trial and the cruelest executions these cannibal bastards have ever seen?"
Tiberius picked up the thread for the knights. "And don't forget—the mystery of Bloodwave Cape, solved by House Rogare. That's another huge gift we're handing him. More prestige, more satisfaction than just rescuing his daughter."
"So, Tiberius," Vito chuckled, "just say it—the old man's going to pay us a shit-ton more gold."
"Exactly right, Vito!" Tiberius praised with a quick grin.
Jules handed Tiberius a throwing spear and a long knife.
"I'll go first," the captain said, buckling on his breastplate and drawing both longswords. He stepped into the dark mouth of the cave.