Curse: The Dark God Book 2 (22 page)

24

Alert

ARGOTH WAS EXHAUSTED. He and Matiga had spent the whole night forcing candidates. One had died. More than twenty others lay broken. But two hundred and twelve had been raised. It was an awesome thing to contemplate, even if he feared their numbers weren’t going to be enough.

He stood in the smoky great hall checking the pulse of a man who’d just broken. He was a strong fellow from Bain, the brother of one of Mokad’s official Shoka dreadmen.

“Such a waste,” Matiga said, bringing a thick woolen quilt over.

He didn’t want to think about that. The fall of each one of these men hurt him.“We’ll hope for the best,” said Argoth. “I’m sure he’ll recover.”

“I’m not,” she said and unfurled the quilt over him. Argoth helped her wrap the man up. They checked the others who had broken, making sure their hearts were still beating and their Fire hadn’t broken forth again.

Matiga fetched another bit of godsweed and put it in the fire. “We should take a break,” she said. “Get some sun. We’ve still got a stretch to go.”

“Aye,” he said, but it took him a moment to muster the strength to leave the hall. Outside in the bailey, some troops had already begun to move out. Eresh and Ke were somewhere else practicing with the new dreadmen. Argoth made his way over to his family’s quarters. He entered to find Serah packing up a bundle of clothes.

Nettle squatted over by the wall, tracking a spider as it ran across the floor. Just as it was about to slip under a bed, he crushed the spider with one finger, then brought up the gooey remains to examine them. He paused a moment, then flicked his tongue out to taste it.

“Nettle,” Serah said, reprimanding him.

Argoth’s heart sank. Nettle was getting worse.

Serah folded a tunic and looked at Argoth. She didn’t say a word, but he knew what that look meant. She still didn’t forgive him for what he’d done to their son.

“We’re more than halfway through the candidates,” he said.

She didn’t reply, just picked up a pair of woolen socks and rolled them together.

A commotion arose outside. A moment later a man rushed to the open door. It was one of those he’d sent to watch the ways leading to Talen’s and River’s hideout.

“Captain,” the soldier said. “We spotted a hammer of mounted men moving along the road you told us to watch, proceeding toward West Hill by way of Smoky Ridge.”

“Why did you not engage them?”

“We did. They were dreadmen, and there weren’t enough of us.”

Argoth cursed. Mokad
was
here. And it was more than a few spies. He wondered how many dreadmen had already arrived and why Shim’s ears had not even heard a rumor. Worse still, West Hill was where Len’s farm lay. There was nothing of value to Mokad out there, not unless you knew about Talen. But how could Mokad have found out Talen’s true location? Nobody but he, Ke, Shim, and Matiga knew where he’d hidden the boy. The driver who’d taken the wagon out hadn’t even driven to Len’s place. Argoth had sent him elsewhere so River and Talen could slip through the woods on foot and attract no attention at all. Even Eresh was in the dark.

“Thank you,” Argoth said to the man. “Find Oaks. I want a hundred of the new dreadmen mounted up immediately.” Mokad was taking a roundabout way to Len’s farm. If he took the direct route, he just might beat them there.

The man nodded and raced back out into the bailey.

Serah looked at Argoth, then back down to her folding.

Argoth followed the soldier out. Less than ten minutes later he and a terror of Shim’s new dreadmen were mounted on horses and thundering through the outer gate.

25

Scruff

TALEN DIDN’T HAVE time to step back and avoid the blow that surely would have broken his jaw. Instead, he leaned away and turned his face, River’s fist just barely brushing past his cheek. Her swing had exposed her, but before he could strike, she moved, elbowed his forehead, and the next thing Talen knew, he was thudding to the barn’s dirt floor, a small puff of dust and hay flecks rising about him.

River put her fists on her hips and shook her head. “Your footwork is sloppy. You’ve got to remember to keep a stance that will let you move. Stand up like a wall and someone’s going to knock you down.”

Talen felt his forehead where she’d struck him, then climbed to his feet. They’d been practicing combat sequences the whole morning and were now using them in an open fight. All their work had raised a cloud of dust in the barn. “I’m choking,” he said. “We need to open a window.”

“Cleaner air isn’t going to get you to stand right.”

He was sweating and itchy from the flakes of hay and dust that stuck to him. He knew they shouldn’t risk open windows, but the farm was secure. Len and his wife Tinker were as loyal to Uncle Argoth as any of his soldiers. In fact, three of their older sons had fought under Argoth’s personal command. But it went beyond that. They had a true friendship with him. So much that the farmer had posted three of his younger sons and daughters to watch the roads. “I’m opening a window,” Talen said.

River rushed him, as he knew she would. He dodged left, spun, and delivered a perfect kick to her side. Except by the time his foot arrived, she wasn’t there, and his perfect kick mortally wounded nothing but a few dust motes.

She snatched Talen’s leg in a two-arm hold, and before he could cry out in dismay, she twisted and he was off his feet and thudding to the ground yet again. Another puff of dust and hay flecks curled up around him.

She pointed at him. “How many times have I killed you today?”

Talen groaned. “I think you just broke my back.” He rolled over and got up, gingerly feeling just above his tail bone. “It’s not quite a fair fight.”

“No,” she said. “Fights never are. Do you think Mokad’s dreadmen are going to tie a hand behind their backs to give you a sporting chance?”

Talen was irritated now. River had forced him to a higher level, and he was still dealing with the vestiges of clumsiness that came with his newfound power. But even if he’d mastered this new level, River was still stronger than he was, faster, more experienced. “The only way to even the odds is to run away from you and come back with help,” he said.

“That’s one way,” she said. “But what if that option isn’t available?”

He sprang to the top of the horse stall wall about five feet off the ground.

“What are you doing up there?”

“Despite your powers, you’re not as nimble up here as I.”

River picked up a block of wood from a small stack leaning against the wall and hucked it at him. He tried to move, but it struck him in the side. River was a thrower and always had been. Deadly with shoes, cooking spoons, and pots.

“Don’t restrict your movement,” she said. “Restrict mine. Find an equalizer, something to let you strike from a distance or block my blows.”

His eyes stung; his head was buzzing. She was going to send him to the world of souls before any of Mokad’s dreadmen had the chance. And as if to prove him right, she picked up another block of wood and threw it at his head. He ducked, and it banged into the wall.

He spotted a hay fork, jumped down, and ran to it. He brought it around like a staff. River came at him with a stick of firewood in her hand.

He was tired and angry. She was supposed to train him, not beat him to a pulp. If she wanted him to equalize this fight, he’d equalize it.

“Careful,” River replied. “You’re losing your calm. You need to be angry, but not enough that you can’t think. It’s a fine balance.” She was going to throw that stick and immediately follow it with an attack. But he wasn’t going to let her get that far. Talen charged her with the business end of the fork. He didn’t hold back.

River moved to the side. He shifted his weight and swung the other end of the hay fork at her head. She blocked the blow with her stick. He parried, but as he did so, she grabbed the shaft of the hay fork, wrenched, and the hay fork leapt from his hands.

Impossible.

She shook her head. She was going to teach him a lesson. He could see it in her face. She swung the handle end of the hayfork around to clout him.

But Talen had had enough. His anger rose, and suddenly he was in two places. The part of him that was in front of her ducked, barely avoiding a blow to the head. The other part reached around and struck her from behind.

Her eyes went wide and she faltered. That gave Talen an opening, and he took it, striking her solidly in the gut.

She gasped and winced. He struck again. “Ha!” he said.

River clutched her stomach and stepped back. “What did you just do?” she asked.

“Taught you some respect,” he said. Although he still didn’t feel quite himself and the double vision was confusing him. He closed his eyes.

“I felt you clawing at me.”

It was like the dream he’d had the night before where he’d seen the slayer upon the wall. “I don’t know,” he said, blinking. The room whirled, and then his vision resolved.

“Yes, you do,” she said, “and you’re going to tell me even if I have to beat it out of you.”

“I think that’s exactly what you just—”

River held her hand up for silence. Outside someone whistled loudly.

That was the signal warning of danger coming down the road. Talen raised his eyebrows. They ran to the window and cracked the shutter. A dark column of smoke rose in the distance.

Farmer Len had placed his children to watch both of the approaches to the farm. When a pair spotted someone on the road, one of them was to ride back to the farm on a pony. If the other that stayed behind perceived danger, he or she was to ignite a heap of straw that would burn with a thick black smoke, and then flee.

“Saddle Scruff,” River said and ran for the barn door.

His given name was Blue Boot, an obvious reference to the coloring of his legs, which was the coloring of the wild horses on the Kish plains. But Scruff wasn’t one of those wild horses; he was a mix of who knew what. His body was a sandy brown that gave way to a neck and head of mottled gray. His coat was a bit too long in places. His build was odd, looking to be a poor mix of charger and runner. However, the important thing was not his lack of beauty, his ancestry, or name, but his surprising acceleration and sure foot. River had been training with him to become a firesteed. But not like the mounts some dreadmen rode that wore weaves full of horse Fire. Scruff received Fire directly from River’s touch, often to his neck or withers. This meant she had some control over his multiplication. The weave was only there to help guide her.

Fire, Talen had learned, could be given without harm from any living thing to another. But it was not so when taken. Filtering rods could catch much of the soul of the specific creature, but there were essential parts of a species that no rod could touch. And so humans couldn’t breed animals for their Fire because humans couldn’t consume animal Fire without consuming those essential parts and becoming twisted by them.

Scruff had taken to the training. He liked to run and jump. But horses, just like men, had to learn to wear their power, and that took a lot of time. Scruff was not a full firesteed yet. If River pushed him too hard, his body would be overmatched. He’d suffer the clumsiness Talen did. But even worse, it would become easier to run the animal to death. One had to be careful and give the animal plenty of time to recover from a firerun.

Scruff stood in the corral outside the barn, snuffling the last bits of hay from his feeding. Talen grabbed the bridle, opened the door to the corral, and whistled. River did not believe in using food to entice a horse to you because what happened if you needed to catch the horse while out riding and didn’t have some treat? She felt it was a bad lesson to teach them. So Talen hadn’t used food to catch Scruff, but that hadn’t prevented him from using food to curry some friendship. He had an old carrot in his pocket; he held it up and whistled again. Scruff eyed the carrot, then began to mosey over. Talen didn’t want to spook him, so he didn’t run to the animal, but did quicken his gait. When he reached the horse, he slipped the bit into Scruff’s mouth and the bridle onto his head. Then he fed the horse the carrot.

Two hooded crows swooped low over the corral, cawed, and took positions on top of the fence. Behind them the thin pillar of black smoke rose in the distance above the trees.

Talen tied Scruff to a post and fetched the blanket and his special saddle. The saddle used by firesteeds was slightly different from a normal saddle because both the front and back were built higher to help keep the rider upon the animal. Talen put the big saddle on the horse and straightened it. He attached the saddle bags and tightened the belly strap.

River came running to the corral with Farmer Len, carrying a water bladder. “Quickly,” Len said. “Out the back!”

Because firesteeds accelerated and stopped so quickly, they required both chest and rump straps as well. Talen tightened the chest straps while River secured the rump.

Len packed the water and some food in the saddle bags, and they mounted. Then Len opened the gate to the corral. “Go!” he said and waved them out.

Scruff wanted to run. If they’d been training, they would have made sure to trot him for a distance first, but this wasn’t training. River gave him his head, and Scruff shot forth with such a surge that if Talen hadn’t been clinging to River, he would have tumbled right off the rump.

A group of hens scratched the dirt in the road. Scruff raced toward them; the hens looked up in alarm, then scattered with squawks and a flutter of wings.

Talen scooted closer to River and took a better grip on the saddle. Just before they turned a bend in the narrow road, he looked back. Len was closing the gate and was motioning to his wife and girl to walk slowly and act calm.

Talen hadn’t really known Len, Tinker, or any of their children. Yet they’d been willing to put themselves in terrible danger for his sake. His heart swelled with gratitude. He hoped this was all a false alarm and that whoever was coming just passed through.

The road bent left into the trees and then down into a small wash and out of view of the farm. Water ran in a small stream at the bottom. Scruff raced down the bank, splashed through the water, surged up the other side onto a good path with not too much incline, allowing him to stretch his gait into a full gallop.

Talen leaned forward. “Have you multiplied him?”

“Not yet,” River shot back.

She obviously wanted to give him time to warm his body. They galloped for a short distance along the trail through the wood, Scruff kicking up the fallen autumn leaves that littered the ground. Behind them, the trail was mostly long and straight. Anyone coming up from the wash would see them, and Talen expected someone to appear at any moment.

His tension built until River rode Scruff around a bend along the base of a hill, and Talen sighed in relief. They galloped down a short stretch, and then River cursed and brought Scruff up short. It took Scruff a number of steps to stop, and Talen had to brace himself from falling forward and off the horse.

“What is it?” he asked. The road continued in a line for about fifty more yards and then opened onto a wide meadowland where some of the Shoka lords ran cattle and goats. The trees had dropped a good portion of their leaves and the meadow was visible through the gray trunks.

“There’s someone up ahead.”

Talen looked, but couldn’t see anything. Scruff snorted. His ears pricked forward.

“I saw the hind end of a horse,” River said.

“You sure it wasn’t some stray cow?”

“With a saddle on it?”

River backed Scruff up. Up ahead, those who were waiting must have known their game was up, for there was a sudden commotion, and three men and their horses rose from the ground. A fourth charged out, already on his mount.

The men did not wear any clan colors, only dark clothing. The same clothing he’d seen the night of the attack. “Lovely,” Talen said.

River turned Scruff and gave him her heels. Again, he shot forth with his marvelous acceleration. They galloped back down the short stretch to the bend around the hill only to find three more riders down at the far end of the long trail from Len’s, pushing their horses hard.

That made at least seven of them. There was no way he and River would ever equalize those odds.

River slowed Scruff from a gallop into a trot. “Watch the branches,” she said and turned Scruff off the road into the trees. There would be no galloping here.

A small branch whacked Talen in the face. He ducked the next one. River bent as low as she could over Scruff’s neck. Talen bent low with her.

“We should go back to the fortress,” he said.

“No,” said River. “They’ll be expecting that. And there’s only one way back, which means they’ll probably have men waiting on that road.”

“We can go along the coast, cut through the woods.”

“And remove Scruff’s speed? They’ll catch us for sure. No. I’m taking you where I should have to begin with.”

“Where’s that?”

“Shush,” said River and led Scruff deeper into the woods. They skirted a tangle of brambles, pushed through a wet area, Scruff’s hooves sinking deep, then quietly rode through a scattering of large stones. Talen could hear their pursuit shouting through the trees. They were fast.

He realized the children watching this approach should have lit their warning beacon, but there wasn’t any smoke. He hoped they hadn’t been caught. But how had the dreadmen even known to come here? How had they known to set a trap? Nobody had visited this farmer. In fact, Len had hung yellow scarves on the road to warn travelers that people were sick with fever and they should stay away.

He and River rode into a clearing made by a fallen elm and turned toward the meadow again. Above him two hooded crows cawed. There had been two hooded crows back at the farm. Crows and ravens knew to follow armies because they’d eventually get a feast. But there was no army here.