Servant of a Dark God (35 page)

“Jump,” said Nettle. “I’ll catch you.”

Talen smiled. And it was enough to take the edge off his fear. He saw a branch he could let himself down to. Then another and another until he swung down the trunk and shinnied to the ground.

Nettle held a hand to his ear. Blood stained his fingers.

“Did they cut you?”

“You owe me,” said Nettle. He pulled his hand away. The ear was bloody from a slice nearly an inch long.

“Goh!” said Talen. “That’s going to require sewing.”

“Just get into the wagon bed.”

Talen put a hand on the sideboard and sprang over. “We’re not going to be able to take the normal roads home.”

“Brilliant deduction,” said Nettle.

“And there’s something else.” His legs, arms, his whole body itched to move. “I’m not quite right.”

“I’d say,” said Nettle.

“No,” said Talen. “I’m telling you, something inside is very, very wrong.”

It made no sense. There was a Koramite boy in the district who had difficulty breathing and was always carrying camphor of peppermint about to clear his lungs. But this didn’t feel like he couldn’t get air. This felt like he did when he sprinted a great distance, except he hadn’t sprinted, hadn’t felt any awful exertion.

Talen fetched one of the last ginger cookies. “Taste this.”

“I don’t want your nasties.”

“Taste it. I think our baker put come-backs in here.”

Nettle took the cookie, broke it, and examined the pieces. “If anything’s in here, then the baker must have ground it into powder.” He took a nibble and grimaced. “There could be horse plop in here and it wouldn’t taste any worse.” He handed the cookie bits back to Talen.

“What do you think he put in here?”

“I don’t know,” said Nettle. He looked up at the tree Talen had jumped into. “That’s quite a jump you made.”

“What are you saying?”

“I want to try something. Take the reins. Swing the wagon around and approach the spot like we did before.”

“Don’t we need to get out of here?”

“Just do it,” said Nettle.

Talen took the reins, turned the wagon around, and approached the tree as they had before. Nettle stood on the wagon seat as Talen had when he’d jumped. They rolled under the tree. Despite his injured ear Nettle leaped, tried for the branch, and grabbed nothing but air. He landed with a grunt and rolled.

He stood and put a hand back to his ear. Leaves were clinging to his back. “How close did I come?”

He hadn’t come close at all. “Two, maybe three feet away. You’re about as lively as a pile of lead.”

“I don’t think it’s lead.”

“Inferior breeding then. What are you trying to prove?”

Nettle looked at him, as sober as stone. “Are you sure that girl didn’t do something to you?”

Of course he was sure. “This odd exhilaration didn’t start until we left the city gates. I’m telling you: it’s come-backs. I’ll bet your smelly little linens on it.”

“Maybe,” said Nettle. “But what herb changes a man that much?”

“Maybe I’ve got stag legs,” said Talen.

“You’ve got the legs of a scarecrow,” said Nettle.

“Then you’re a piss-poor jumper,” said Talen. “Try it again.”

“I saw you up there, clinging like a bug. It wasn’t natural.”

“Try it again,” Talen said. He didn’t want to hear this. Lords, if this was Sleth work—but it couldn’t be. It wasn’t.

Nettle shook his head but he got back up on the wagon. Talen wheeled around, and they tried it again.

“Concentrate,” said Talen.

Nettle crouched. He breathed deeply. But he didn’t come close to anything except spraining his ankle.

When Nettle was back in the wagon, Talen shook his head and made a small sound like he had empathy for Nettle’s plight. “All your da’s gold and cattle and you can’t outjump a runt like me.”

Nettle’s ear had started bleeding again. He put his hand to it, pressed, and gave Talen the eye.

“Don’t look at me like that,” said Talen.

“Maybe their magic is like some mushroom that takes a while to work its effects.”

“She was on my lap and then off,” said Talen. “She didn’t have time to do anything.”

Nettle raised his eyebrows. “She had time to kiss you.”

“And what’s a kiss? Nothing.”

“You don’t know that.”

Those words sliced right to his heart. He didn’t know. Besides, she could have worked something in the night. She’d almost admitted doing just that.

Rot those hatchlings. Rot them.

Talen looked at the ginger cookie in his hand. “What we need to do is get one of these to River. She can ferret out what the baker used.”

“And if it isn’t come-backs?”

“Then I’ll become a Sleth toy,” said Talen. “And my first depradation will be to wring your neck.” He handed the reins to Nettle and stepped out of the wagon. “What are you doing?” asked Nettle.

“Getting away from your stink,” said Talen.

Now that Talen had said it, he realized that he did smell more than before. Or that what he did smell was stronger. The smell of Iron Boy, the road dust, the woods, Nettle’s clothes that had sat in a cedar chest—the scents all lay heavily in the air.

What’s more, the itch in his limbs almost compelled him to move. “I’m going to jog a bit,” he said. “All we’ve got to do is work these come-backs through my system. A few hours and I’ll be right as rain.”

Hunger stood in a grove of trees smelling the the dead hanging about him, smelling the burning boy on the breeze. He’d been here. Been here recently.

He looked up at the bodies slowly twisting. A trio of magpies stood on the shoulders of one carcass that had a rope punched through its ribs. They jostled one another, flapped about, and pecked at the old flesh on the head.

He knew this place, but the name slipped away.

Hunger walked to the road. The scent lay here like a river. It took him a few moments walking up and back to discover the direction the boy had traveled.

He tried to guess how far he was behind. It was not far. Perhaps no more than an hour.

The smell of horses and men drew his attention. Hunger looked up the road. He couldn’t see them, but he could see the haze of dust they kicked up. The riders were coming fast.

He did not want to draw attention, did not want to delay reaching the boy, so he slipped off the trail and squatted behind a thick clump of brush.

The riders soon crested the hill. Six of them wearing Shoka colors, two wearing Fir-Noy. He watched them gallop by, watched them fade in the distance.

Hunger stepped out of his hiding place and suddenly knew where he was: this was Gallow’s Grove. A piece of the map in his mind locked into place. He knew where this road led. It led back to the hills where the boy was from.

Hunger checked the road once more in both directions and then began to lope after his prey.

THE GLASS MASTER’S DAUGHTERS

W

hen they came to the crossroads, Talen decided he’d jogged far enough. His legs didn’t feel tired. But Talen’s thirst had steadily grown since the run-in with the riders and it felt like the back of his throat was going to cleave to the front.

He dipped the water ladle into the small barrel lashed to the side of the wagon and drank. He’d drawn this fresh from the well this morning. It was warm and clean and tasted of the oak barrel, but it did not quench his thirst. He took another drink, then a third.

This was an unnatural thirst. “That baker should be hung,” he said. “These come-backs are killing me.”

Nettle’s ear had stopped bleeding, but didn’t look any less horrible. He gave Talen a look that said they both knew this wasn’t come-backs. “I’m worried about the Fir-Noy,” said Nettle. “If Shoka were looking for us then you know the Fir-Noy are. They’ve probably sent riders to search the roads from Whitecliff to your farmstead.”

“Fabbis,” Talen said with disgust. He pointed at the crossroads. “So which path do we risk?”

The crossroads sat at the juncture of five roads. It was a large oval that often was the place for gatherings or a small market. But no matter what was going on, there was usually a Shoka tinsmith here. His rat dog would lie in the shade under the wagon while he sat with his tin goods and tools under a blue awning that folded out of the side. Today there was nothing here but grasshoppers and the rutted and dry roads stretching out from the place like spidery fingers.

“Why risk any of them?” asked Nettle. “We should leave the wagon and set out on foot through the woods.”

“That’s reasonable,” said Talen. “Except the woods are most likely already full of Sleth hunters who have set a multitude of snares and traps. And I’m not leaving Iron Boy tied to a post, which means we’ll have him clomping along with us. I’d dare say the woods are more dangerous than the roads. Besides, it makes us look guilty.”

“You,” said Nettle.

“Huh?” asked Talen.

“You’re the one who will look guilty. I’m just along for the ride.”

“Thanks,” said Talen, “you’re always such a big support.”

Nettle sighed with exaggerated humility. “I suppose I am. Especially when I’ve been promised a throttling.”

Talen waved Nettle off. “Look, I’ve got a better idea—what we need is an escort.”

“An escort?” Nettle asked. He looked at Talen as if he’d just sprouted a cabbage out his ear. He motioned at the empty field. “Who are you going to get? Grasshoppers?”

“If we were close to your home, we’d get a number of your father’s men to go with us. But we’re not. So we get someone who is a friend of your father’s.”

“And who would that be? I say we go through the woods. If we run into anyone, we tell them we were hunting Sleth. We just don’t tell them we’ve found them already.”

“We don’t have any black cloth for armbands. And even if we did, we have no tokens. Anybody we came across would spot us in a minute.” Talen pointed to the road at the far end of the crossroads. “We’re going to the glass master’s.” He was a powerful man with many men in his employ.

Talen would not have considered this, but Uncle Argoth had recommended Talen to a number of respectable Mokaddian families, including Bartem the glass master. And the glass master had expressed some interest should Talen get his Shoka clan wrist.

Uncle Argoth had once told Talen that his mother’s Shoka blood would eventually overpower the Koramite blood he’d gotten from Da. This, of course, had incited Da, but then that’s why Uncle Argoth had said it in the first place. The two of them liked to dig each other as much as he and Nettle did. But lately, Da had come around to Uncle Argoth’s arguments that what Koramites needed was some binding to the Clans. Talen was almost too old to apprentice himself out, but there were other ways Uncle Argoth might find a place for him among the Shoka. It wouldn’t be a powerful position, but it would be better than being an unconnected Koramite.

Just at that moment, a Shoka boy, holding a throwing stick in one hand and two dead ducks in the other, walked from one of the roads into the clearing.

“Lords,” said Talen. All they needed was someone to see them.

“Keep calm,” said Nettle and hailed the boy.

When the boy came close, he said, “There’s men looking for you. Hunters.” The boy was short for his age, but wide.

“Oh?”

The boy looked at Nettle’s ear, but did not remark upon it. “A group of about ten Fir-Noy.” He pointed up one of the roads. “They accosted me. Asked me what I’d seen.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them I hadn’t seen nothing but ducks.”

“You keep telling them that,” said Nettle.

“They accused you of Slethery, but I spoke up, told them Captain Argoth was worth all ten of them.”

The boy had done no such thing, Talen thought. What’s more: he was a risk. What were they going to do with him?

“Fir-Noy rot,” said Nettle and spat. “Always blaming their troubles on someone else. This whole Sleth madness started in one of their own villages. Not ours.”

“Aye,” said the boy. “But we’ll catch them. My da and I, we’ve got ourselves half a dozen traps set in the woods.”

“You’re a brave one,” said Nettle, “walking out here on your own.”

The boy puffed up a bit.

“If enough Shoka take the initiative like you and your da,” Nettle said, “we’ll have the Sleth for sure. And if any other Fir-Noy come by, you’ve seen nothing but ducks.”

“Aye,” said the boy and raised the end of his throwing stick to the side of his nose.

Nettle flicked the reins and directed Iron Boy toward the glass master’s road.

Talen considered his cousin: he’d handled that situation well. Of course, the boy was still a risk.

When the boy was out of earshot, Nettle said, “I hope your glass master is willing.”

“Of course, he’ll be willing. He trusts your father. Your father trusts me.”

Nettle nodded. “Well, then let’s get out of here before some Fir-Noy finds us and prevents us from testing your theory.”

The road to the glass master’s was broad, but it wasn’t straight, and they were constantly worrying they’d turn a bend and run into some vigilante patrol, but they never did. When they came to the part of the road that crested a hill and gave them a view of the glass master’s vale, Talen heaved a sigh of relief: there were no Fir-Noy to be seen. Just the fields, the main buildings, and the glasshouse belching smoke out of three of its five chimneys.

Talen had walked the whole way. Now he told Nettle to pull up. He drank deeply from the barrel, then dumped the rest over his head. He was more thirsty than ever. And the itch in his legs had grown.

He hadn’t worked anything out of his system. In fact, he wondered if there had been anything in his system to begin with.

“You know the stories of peopled bewitched to dance until they starved,” Talen asked, “until their very bones turned to dust? Do you think it’s possible to curse someone like that?”

“So now our hatchling wasn’t just a post when she kissed you?” asked Nettle.

“She was a post,” said Talen. “It’s just my legs have put me to thinking what could have happened in the night.”

“Who knows?” said Nettle. “If you wake up tomorrow and find yourself doing a chicken trot with Prince Conroy, then I’ll be leaning towards curse.”