Chapter 16: That Magnificent Mustache

We moved north through what had been thirty-one people’s camp and was now something else entirely. I kept a fast pace so that Dara and Bari would not be frozen by what they were seeing around them.

Dara stumbled, and I steadied her. Then, when I looked down, I saw that she had nearly tripped over the body of Mage Torvin near the overturned instrument tables, his magnificent mustache was covered with blood, and his dark blue field coat was dark with blood that had re-emerged from his body that had almost been cut in two from the neck down.

He was a researcher from the northern provinces whose name I had learned at the second evening meal.

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