Hunt of the Bandham (The Bowl of Souls: Book Three) by Trevor H. Cooley

more natural means . . .” She turned towards the mage tower and her jaw dropped. Vannya looked back at Locksher with a large grin. “The perloi!”
     
    Locksher clapped. “See, I knew you could figure it out.”
     
    “But how can you know for sure? If the body was fed to the perloi, there would be no traces left.”
     
    “Which is exactly why it is such an ingenious method. However, what most students wouldn’t know, is that there are ways to tell what a perloi has been eating. Come on, let me show you.”
     
    They walked over to the moat that surrounded the Mage School and Locksher peered over the edge. Vannya leaned over and could see the dark shapes that were the perloi swimming under the water. Locksher looked back at her and smiled.
     
    “You know why the perloi are here, right?”
     
    She nodded. “They are one of the last defenses of the school. If the outer walls were ever breached, everyone would retreat to the Mage Tower and the perloi would be activated.”
     
    “Have you ever seen one up close?” he asked.
     
    Vannya shook her head and took a step back. She had seen them fed before though and that was enough. Every once in a while, the mages would throw a goat in. The water would foam up and thrash around and the goat would be gone, devoured bones and all.
     
    “It’s okay, watch this,” Locksher said. He knelt near the edge and stuck one hand into the water.
     
    She gasped and cried out, “No, wait!”
     
    Locksher leaned in further, plunging his arm deeper into the water, then stiffened and pulled his arm out of the water. He pulled something else out of the water with him. It was about two feet long and looked like a frog except that its head was very large and round. Locksher held it by the waist. It was slumped over limp and its eyes were closed like it was asleep.
     
    “This, dear Vannya, is a perloi. They are really fast swimmers,” He lifted up one of its hands and she saw nasty claws on the end of webbed toes. “They were magically designed to be the perfect little feeding machine, too, take a look at its teeth.”
     
    He pried its jaw open carefully and Vannya saw wicked curved teeth.
     
    “Now it is asleep right now. All of them are. It’s part of the spell on the moat. They swim in their sleep, that is their habit. The only time a perloi becomes awake is when they are fed. It has to be that way or any student that slipped and fell too close to the water would be pounced on and eaten alive in minutes.” At the frightened look in her eyes, he added, “Did I mention they can jump out of the water?
     
    “At any rate, they are harmless until they are awakened by the spell that tells them it is time to feed. They are only fed twice a year and for a week afterwards, their eyes turn orange. During times of war, a different spell is used that wakes them fully and they will attack and devour anyone or anything. If they were ever to eat anything human, their eyes turn red for a month.” He reached for its eye, then paused. “Uh, you might want to take a step back.”
     
    He gently pried back the perloi’s eyelid. The eye beneath was red as blood. The moment its eye was opened, it hissed and squirmed in Locksher’s grip, snapping and slashing. He stood and tossed it back into the water. Its shadow moved around erratically for a moment and then it rejoined the other shapes swimming in their lazy circle around the Mage Tower .
     
    “So whoever killed Piledon was somehow able to waken the perloi long enough for them to eat the body before putting them back to sleep.” Locksher said. “Anyone that spent enough time in the library could find out this information if they looked in the right place. This makes Justan look pretty suspicious. We knew he was preparing a report on weaknesses in the school’s defenses. I believe that this is Randolph ’s crucial bit of evidence he wants to bring up at Justan’s trial, if it comes to that.”
     
    “Justan told me about that