NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: The Adventures of the Creeping Bam (BOOK 4: The Hunt)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: VIFRI

Ceinog left us with Tormed and his crew as soon as he was sure we were settled, but by then I was glad to be rid of him. I mean I'm not that pissed at him now, I see the sense in what he's done and now we're actually in it it's clear enough there's a real opportunity here. It's just the way he went about it's really rubbed me up the wrong way, and I reckon if he'd hung round us beyond the initial meeting I might've been tempted to stick it to him more'n I really should've. He's s'posed to be my superior officer, but for better or worse – mostly worse, I'll admit – he's also my friend. So it's better if that don't get too abused.

Tormed took us into the house itself and ... well, that was quite an experience. Once I got a look at that I realised there was a strong, if ultimately still quite subtle difference between what's happening here and what we saw back in our Barricade days. The body counts, for one, are significantly higher, the bodies scattered with a good deal more brutal intensity, it looks like, and once I started getting a look at how the bodies were actually arranged, noticed something startlingly else different too. Something I was quick to point out to Tormed and his fellow investigators.

Most o' these poor bastards were set upon before they knew there was any real danger, and likely even those who did have enough time to muster were killed quicker than they could adequately respond, suggesting they were hit all at once. That's not like the kinds of attacks I remember from Barricade. Well, mostly not.

This idea seemed to ring true with what the investigators were already picking up with their more educated eyes, at least compared to ours. Mostly what I know about reading what's happened on a battlefield is through my own personal experience, with a little more additional insight gleaned from what I learned from da. But this lot were trained specifically to read these scenes from coming in cold after the fact, and picking up on what clues are available in order to rebuild a relatively complete picture of what probably happened. And from what I can tell, they're real good at it, too.

Especially Milvolm Faldabri, who seems to be a true prodigy at just taking one look at a complete mess of wreckage and, after a few minutes just picking over it with a particularly sharp eye, knowing exactly what happened. The rest of 'em are damned sharp, but he is ... honestly, it's kinda spooky. And it makes him a little weird at times, too.

I mean I've known men like him before, through my father, forensic experts who know their fields so well it becomes all they really know how to think about, fuelled by a dedication so profoundly focused that it approaches unconditional love. Or maybe more like obsession, cuz he's pretty nutty. But I can't help liking him anyway.

A big part o' that might be down to the fact he's a tanuki. I've known a few of the yokai raccoon-folk before now, they're a good deal more common in Tektehr than they are in Rundao, I've learned, likely since they seem to prefer the cooler climate up there, but he's definitely the most thoroughly hyperactive I've met to date. But despite his overexcitability when he finds a particularly intriguing clue, and a strong propensity to become very easily distracted, he's clearly dedicated to his work, as well as the people he works with, and I got a whole lot of admiration for that. He's also easily the most friendly of Tormed's crew, which has definitely helped to endear him to me.

We met the rest of Tormed's team in a second estate, just a ten minute walk away, when a messenger ran in and summoned the lieutenant on order of his superiors. Turned out there'd been something a little different about this one, not so much the actual massacre itself but more some additional details that had come up in the interim. Tormed and Faldabri had originally set out with the advance force from their neighbouring barracks, while the rest of his team had been getting their equipment ready with the intention of following along when they were ready. He'd insisted on it, maintaining professional efficiency over rushed haste that might see them making mistakes or leaving some vital piece of equipment behind. But then word came down about this new incident and the rest of the team went straight there instead, shadowing another advance team. And they made some startling discoveries.