“By the Lord Ruler!” Mennis whispered. “What happened here?”
“He killed them all.”
Mennis turned. The speaker was Jess’s girl. She stood looking down at the fallen house, a satisfied expression on her youthful face.
“They were dead when he brought me out,” she said. “All of them—the soldiers, the taskmasters, the lords…dead. Even Lord Tresting and his obligators. The master had left me, going to investigate when the noises began. On the way out, I saw him lying in his own blood, stab wounds in his chest. The man who saved me threw a torch in the building as we left.”
“This man,” Mennis said. “He had scars on his hands and arms, reaching past the elbows?”
The girl nodded silently.
“What kind of demon was that man?” one of the skaa muttered uncomfortably.