Initiate of the Jackal by Laura Greenwood

Author:Laura Greenwood [Greenwood, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Drowlgon Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Ten

"Are you sure Matia is allowed in here?" I ask Khafre. "They normally ban her from the mortuary." And with good reason. I love Matia dearly, but there's no changing the fact she's a jackal, bringing a scavenger around dead bodies doesn't seem like the smartest move.

"It'll be fine," Khafre promises. "Your bond with her is sufficient to keep her from doing anything."

I glance at my jackal. She cocks her head to the side and stares at me as if to promise she won't misbehave. I want to believe her, especially as I've never had her in here to know how she normally is.

"I don't feel like our bond has changed very much," I admit.

Khafre nods. "That makes sense, yours is one of the stronger ones I've seen at the beginning of the bonding process. I suspect it's the extra time you had at the beginning without me. You must have started it without realising."

"Oh." I suppose that makes sense. Matia has always been well behaved, perhaps this is why.

"You have to trust her or your bond won't be sustainable," Khafre says.

"I do." I reach out and scratch Matia's head, hoping it lets her know how true my words are. She leans into my hand, whether because of my sentiments, or because I'm hitting just the right spot, I'm not sure, but I suppose it doesn't matter.

"All right, now we've sorted that out, we're going to start our lesson. Are you ready?"

I nod. "Why are we not in the hall we normally use?" I ask.

"You'll see."

I frown. Why is he suddenly being so cryptic? If there's one thing I particularly appreciate about Khafre, it's that he doesn't do the whole confusingly cryptic thing. He always explains the things we're doing. I like that he never makes me feel as if he's excluding me from my training.

Which means there's going to be a reason for what he's doing today.

He pushes the door in front of us open and I'm immediately hit by the stench of rotting.

"Sorry, there's no real way to prepare you for this bit," he says as we step inside.

"I've never been in here before," I admit.

"You might have. It doesn't always contain body parts," he says, gesturing towards the table.

"That's a relief," I mutter. I have no idea what we're doing here, but hopefully, we can be done quickly so I can get out of here and have the hottest shower I can manage.

"I'm sure you've learned about noticing the signs of decomposition from the outside," Khafre says.

"And inside."

He chuckles. "Well yes, I meant including inside the body cavities."

"It's one of the first things Hori and Addaya taught us."

"Ah, yes, Addaya is particularly adept at it. He entered the priesthood later than most and was training to be a doctor before."

My eyebrows shoot up. I had no idea of that. Addaya may be one of our supervisors, but he has less to do with us than Hori does.

"Anyway, one of the skills you have as someone Blessed by Anubis is to sense decay in a different way.

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