The road wound through the forest, narrow and uneven beneath the wagon wheels. The horse maintained a steady pace, though the ground grew softer wherever the melting frost had left patches of mud.
Veyl sat at the front, holding the reins loosely in one hand while keeping his attention on the road ahead. Every so often, he glanced between the trees, checking the bends and the occasional break in the undergrowth before allowing the horse to continue.\
Gavril sat beside him, leaning back against the wooden frame. The worst of the sedative had passed, but he had yet to recover his usual strength. His limbs felt heavier than they should have, and the jolts of the wagon did little to improve his mood.
"Remind me never to drink anything offered by a friendly merchant again." He muttered, shifting to find a more comfortable position. "At least not without watching him take a mouthful first."
Veyl kept his eyes on the road. "You were watching him."
"I was watching his hands. I thought he was going to add something. I didn't expect him to have already poisoned the cup."
"Perhaps you should be more careful."
Gavril gave him a look. "You know, people might find you more pleasant company if you tried to be more encouraging."
Veyl didn't said anything.
"Say something." Said Gavril, annoyed.
Viktor, sitting back listened without interrupting. Gavril sounded more like himself than he had the previous evening, even if he still lacked the energy to argue with quite as much enthusiasm as usual.
The exchange gave the journey a welcoming sense, though nobody mistook it for comfort. They had little choice but to keep moving, and the sooner they reached the nearest town, the sooner they could put the night behind them and decide what to do next.
After sometime, Veyl slowed the horse where the road widened, he checked the supplies secured behind them, tightened a loosened strap and took a moment to let the horse catch its breath.
When he returned to the front, his hand briefly touched the inside of his coat, where the ledger remained concealed.
Gavril noticed the movement. "You still have the book?"
"I do."
"Anything useful in it?"
"Nothing solid."
"Then why keep it tucked away?"
"Because it may be evidence."
Gavril's expression lost some of its amusement. He looked towards Viktor, then back at Veyl.
"Evidence of what we already know, or something more?"
"I don't know, I have noticed repeated entries and destination before we left. There was a pattern, but I haven't established what it means."
Veyl brought the horse forward again, leaving the rough patch behind them. For a while, the only sounds were the creaking of the wagon and the dull rhythm of the wheels over the packed earth. Then Viktor spoke.
"They were delivering the bodies to Maw, weren't they?"
Neither man answered immediately.
"They may have been," Veyl said at last. "We know the Maw uses bodies, and these merchants were killing people to sell their remains. The connection is worth investigating, but we haven't seen anything that proves they were dealing with the Maw directly."
"They had a perfectly good business to begin with. They could make a living without cutting people down the road. But someone offered them more money for something far worse and they decided it was worth doing." Gavril said.
He rubbed his hands together, trying to work some warmth back into his fingers. There was no sympathy in his voice for the men, only contempt for the choice they had made.
Viktor considered this. "So, they knew what they were doing, but not who they were doing it for."
"Yes, and we shouldn't assume the Maw is the one that might pay for human bodies."
Gavril turned towards Veyl. "Who else would want them? The dead aren't much use to anyone."
"That depends on what the buyer wants." Veyl's voice remained steady. "Some nobles believe they can recover their youth by bathing in the blood of the young. The blood must first be prepared by mages, enchanted to produce the effect they desire. Whether it works as well as they claim is another question, but there are people wealthy enough to pay for it regardless."
For a moment, Gavril seemed to have forgotten his lingering weakness.
"You are telling me people actually do that?" he asked, his face twisting in disgust. "They have someone killed, take their blood, and bathe in it because they think it will make them young again?"
"Yes. It happens, not every rumour about a noble's private indulgences is true. But this isn't something I would dismiss as a tavern story."
"Gods above." Gavril stared at him in disbelief. "And here I thought the merchants were the lowest sort of people we'd have to deal with."
"They are not the only ones willing to profit from another person's suffering," Veyl replied. "The ones paying for it simply have the means to keep their own hands clean."
He adjusted this grip on the reins as the wagon passed between two leaning trees.
"There are other buyers too. Some wealthy patrons pay anatomists to examine human bodies and study how they work. They want to understand the movement of blood, the effects of wounds and the working of the body itself. Some pursue genuine knowledge, others have fewer scruple about where their subjects come from, so long as the bodies arrive intact."
Viktor listened quietly, trying to make sense of the different reasons Veyl had described, he had known that people could be cruel and that the Maw was dangerous, but he had never considered how many different people might find a use for a dead body or how far some would go to get one.