Chapter-71

The hands were brought back and laid in the coroner's desk for examination. The imperial guards were left in the court to clean the area. So they returned with only 3 guards. The hands were cold and started to stiffen. Yuvan and others were keenly watching his examination.

"This was amputated when the victim was alive."

"What!! That was brutal."

"And, Ashok continued with a deep sigh; he was tortured badly before death. Look.." he pointed to the wounds in the hands and at the wrist. "Look there are deep marks of rope. That is he was tied and tortured. Most probably this man died from excess blood loss."

"Expected from cobras." Charan punched his fist in the air.

Tick..Tick..

They heard a violent knock in the door. They grabbed their swords in hand and looked around. Charan walked towards the gate with Abhik and two soldiers leaving Yuvan and Ashok alone with the cold hands.

"Prince, I am afraid whether he was more tortured or not." Ashok looked at the hands with a sense of empathy.

Abhik slowly opened the doors with a lighted lamp in his hands. He kneeled and brought the lamp towards a clumsy medium sized thing in the dark. It was a sack. He touched it and felt a bit of moisture. It was rather sticky and thick. Charan came forward asking Abhik to step back and slowly untied the rope wrangled around the sack. The next moment made their heart skip a beat. He quickly covered it with the rope and rushed to his lord with Abhik.

"Bruddah... there...a corpse... in blood" Abhik was really scared as he couldn't spell the words correctly.

"Corpse??" Yuvan came over and patted Abhik who was shivering from shock.

"Lord" The guards brought the sack. Ashok asked them to take out the body.

The real condition of the body left them speechless.

"This.." It didn't have two hands and the face was not clear as it was covered with blood. "So we got the victim." Ashok cleaned the face of the corpse.

"Lord, this man.., Charan came forward looking at Ashok. This man was included in the list. I remember.

Abhik was sent back. Ashok started with the procedure of post mortem. He checked the overall body and felt odd when he was going through the chest. He cleaned the blood and saw a big stitch in the chest. He ripped it and the sight shocked him.

"Yuvan.." He stepped back pointing at the corpse.

A rock was placed instead of the heart.

Yuvan bit his lips in anger and anxiety, "now I know the missing line in the message, ' REPLACE THE HEART OF ROCK.."