An antipersonnel machine gun sat on a swivel mount, facing to the south. A high-speed, medium-sized scorpio sat behind the machine gun on a rotating mount. Shaped like a very large crossbow, the scorpio was the Roman equivalent of a machine gun. It fired arrows with enough speed to pierce armor, and judging by the cranks, this one was a serial-fire, self-loading siege engine. It would take two people to operate, but once they cranked it up, the scorpio would spit enough arrows to cut down a small army. Both the gun and the scorpio rested on a rotating platform, and switching between them in case of a magic wave would take mere seconds. Smart, Hugh. Very smart. We’d have to steal this setup for the Keep. Assuming we made it back to the Keep.

Two djigits stood by the siege engines. Both seemed pale.

Hibla nodded and they moved aside, revealing a long bloody smear on the stone. A severed arm lay against the wall. Long, thin fingers. Could be female. I crouched. Scratches marked the stone. To the right, bits of jackal fur stuck to the blocks, glued with dried blood. Next to them lay an orange scale. Hibla’s jackal had gone down fighting.

I pulled a small plastic bag out and picked up the scale to take back to Doolittle. There was more than one of these things out there.

Derek inhaled, crouched low, and smelled the stones.

“There are four tower lookouts,” Hibla said. “The shift changes every twelve hours, at six in the morning and six in the evening. This morning Tamara relieved the night lookout. This is all we have left of her.”

“Who has access to the tower?” I asked.

“Nobody. Once the lookouts enter the tower, they bar the door behind them. The door was still barred when Karim came to relieve her. We had to take it off its hinges.”

“Did the other lookouts hear anything?”

“No.”

I looked at Derek. “Anything?”

“Similar scent as in the hallway,” he said.

Locked door, heavy weaponry. The only access was from the air. So the wings had been functional after all. Still, the one I’d killed didn’t have a wingspan wide enough for it to fly. It was a heavy bastard, too. I turned. The main building of the castle rose in front of me. Tall, blocky, with a blue roof.

“It glides,” I said. “It probably took off from the main keep, swooped down, and rammed Tamara.” The fight must’ve been brutal and quick, because the werejackal didn’t have a chance to call for help.

“Why did it take the body?” Hibla asked.

“I don’t know.” Something had taken the other guard too, the one who’d stood over the mechanism guarding the hallway gate. “Have you ever heard about anything like that?”

Hibla shook her head. “It is not local. I know all of the local creatures.”