Elyan found the first body just outside his forge.
It was the early hours of the morning, so he almost tripped over the thin, pale man as he went to get his forge open for business. He had traces of dark hair still attached to his scalp, a thin face, and clear blue eyes still open in an expression of sheer terror.
He turned around, found Arthur, and came back. Arthur stared down at the victim, turned around, and found Gaius. Gaius sent for Merlin, Merlin came, and there they stayed.
There was nothing remarkable about the victim. He was young, underfed- no one of any great importance. His body showed that he had fought back against his attacker and that he had been strangled to death. There was only one strange feature about the victim: His hair had been messily torn from his scalp.
A brief investigation led Arthur and Elyan to the lower town, where the young man (a lad with the unfortunate name Beavis) had worked at a local brothel and taken odd jobs in the lower town. He had no parents and four younger siblings who would starve without him. He had few friends, but most people said he was a generally pleasant person- he worked hard when he was being paid for it, he kept to himself and he had a strong moral code that kept him more or less out of trouble. No, he didn't have any enemies. Yes, he was a whore, but he had a family to feed so there was no dishonour in it. No, he hadn't complained about any aggressive customers lately.
The case seemed fairly open and closed. Beavis had been out one night, a client got drunk and aggressive and decided to take his hair for some reason before fleeing the scene. They determined that the killing was a one-off, put it out of their minds, and tried to never think of it again.
There was one other thing- a wound on his stomach, carved out by a knife. It read only the number five.
AN: I've written the first 4/5 chapters of this. I will post one a day. It is unbeta'd and it's no masterpiece; I just wrote in throughout my study breaks for bio and chem.
See anything that needs fixing? Just let me know and I'll get back to it when I have a second.