Servant of a Dark God (47 page)

As they rode away, he turned to survey his family and lands one last time. But the night still lay thick and all was dark.

Rubaloth, the Skir Master, stood on the deck of the ship watching the sun rise, the stiff morning breeze at his back. On the main deck half a dozen sailors guided the last pallet of barrels that contained seafire down into the main hold. “Report,” he said to Uram.

“Argoth and his escort are eating a fine breakfast at the Shark’s Tooth.”

“Did he give you trouble?”

“None, Great One. But I did find something odd.”

“Oh?”

“His son’s neck, Great One. In the early morning I caught the Clansman locking the door of a room. His boy was inside, lying on a bed. The Clansman told me the boy had fallen ill. And the pungent odor of a healing salve did fill the hallway, but underneath it all I thought I smelled the faintest trace of wizardsmeet. It was there one moment and then gone. Still, when my men had everyone outside, I went back in and quietly forced the door. They’d wrapped the boy’s neck with fresh linen and plastered it as if for a sore throat. But when I pulled the bandaging back, the skin on the boy’s neck had all the markings of a hasty and large harvest.”

Rubaloth nodded. He’d been right. These cursed Clansmen. Another scion from a vanquished line no doubt wielding old magics. Was he the one who had wrested Lumen from the Glory? If so, this could be tricky. But Rubaloth savored the challenge.

“When we’re a few miles from shore,” he said, “you will quietly search all his belongings.”

Uram bowed. “I shall, Great One.”

Yes, he’d have to be careful. But this Captain Argoth would soon find he was not the only one prepared for battle.

PURSUIT

S

ugar ran out of the cave into the light. She considered running back downhill to escape whatever it was coming at her in the inky dark of the cave, but because that was her first choice, she rejected it. It would expect her to run downhill; it would expect her to hide somewhere away from the cave, perhaps in the waters of the swamp. There was no way she could get far by trying to steal away quietly. Her very footfalls would make her an easy mark.

No, she wouldn’t run. She looked around for a place to hide close by and spotted one above the mouth of the cave behind an outcropping of rock. She didn’t know if it was big enough to hide her, but it would have to do.

Quickly, carefully, she moved away from the mouth and climbed up the small ridge that ran along the brow of the cave.

Something splashed through water just inside the mouth of the cave.

She pulled herself up the last few feet and slid behind the rock. But she didn’t have time to lie down, for the beast burst into view below her. It took a number of steps then stopped, surveying the slope below.

The creature stood like a man of freakish proportions. Heavy-limbed, wide, maybe seven feet tall, with a small, odd-shaped head. It was immense. She thought she saw an ear on the side of its head, but it was too ragged to tell exactly what it was. Shaggy grass grew unevenly over the whole of its body. Along its shoulder and back clung a large swath of blackened, ashy tufts and blades. Yet below the burned part, about where a man’s ribs would end, grew a patch of what appeared to be green grass mixed with the small white flowers of creeping wood sorrel.

If it turned around and looked up, it would see her. But she didn’t dare crouch, didn’t dare make adjustments for fear of making even the smallest of sounds.

The creature moved slightly and made a hideous sound that froze her spine.

It moved again. Again, the awful sound, and Sugar realized it was the intake of breath. A horrid gasp. Loud, like a man suffering from the black lung.

Was it trying to scent her?

The air about her was still, no morning updrafts or crosswinds. No downdrafts. The breeze in the cave blew outward, and so the thing would not have smelled her in there. But that also meant the breeze might, at this very moment, be carrying the scent that pooled about her.

A crack sounded from the woods below.

The creature turned to it.

Heartbeats pounded in her ears.

Then the thing moved, loping downhill in the direction of the sound, the grass about its body jolting with every stride.

Sugar realized she’d been holding her breath and gasped for air.

The creature leapt into the air, clearing a large tangle, and landed heavily on the other side. Two more strides, and then it was nothing but a flash through the trunks of the trees.

She gauged the distance it had covered in the few breaths since it had first moved. Never in her life could she have outrun it.

The rustling of a tree sounded from below, and she knew when it found nothing below, when it smelled her trail growing stale, it would come back.

Her legs shouted out for her to run, but she fought it. Sugar turned and carefully, oh, so carefully began to ascend the hill. She would find her escape on the other side, or not at all.

Hunger backtracked for about a quarter of a mile along the trail he’d taken earlier and then stopped under a cluster of tall pines. He had seen nothing. Heard nothing but a bunch of noisy grayfans. He would find nothing along this trail. The scent had been stronger back at the cave. He turned and began to walk back, looking, listening for anything at all.

He came to the tree in which the grayfans sat. He searched the ground and then looked up. It didn’t take long before he found it: one rotted branch hanging at a broken angle. Noisy birds cracking branches—that’s what he’d chased after. Or maybe some deer. It could have been anything that had made the noise earlier.

He cursed himself, crouched down on all fours, and began to follow the scent more closely. It was a woman; he could smell that.

Back up the slope he went, making sure to check for trails of scent leading away from this one. But he found none. He stood at the mouth of the cave, and could smell her in there. Could he have run by her in his haste? He followed her trail in, but found it ended not far inside.

If he’d run by, then she had come back out, but she hadn’t run downhill. No, Hunger examined the area around the mouth of the cave and found her scent clinging to the rock. He followed it up to a ridge and found a pool of her scent. She had stopped here. She could have been squatting right there when he’d run downhill like a fool.

But it didn’t matter. He had her scent and her trail. He would catch the wily thing and bring her back. He was the Mother’s now; his family depended on it.

He felt good to have such a clear purpose. He felt as if a burden had been lifted. Serving the Mother wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

Hunger followed the woman’s trail, sometimes loping on two limbs, sometimes staying close to the ground on all fours. He followed it up over the crest of the hill and back down into the valley on the other side and to the banks of a marshy river.

Wily, she was. But there were some parts of a person’s scent that did not sink into the depths. Some of it hung in the very air. Oh, water made it harder to track. Sometimes it flowed away at great speeds, erasing all traces of a trail, but not this sluggish river, this half marsh. He got down on all fours and strode out into the water and smelled her on the surface. The scent was faint, but it was thick enough to follow.

Then he lost it. She had fallen or dived under and swam. He searched in widening circles around the area where he last smelled her, and in a short time found her again and followed her to the far bank.

He began to lope, and her scent grew with every step. Fresher, stronger. Through the woods he ran, the dampness there and the cover from the sun keeping her trail together, making her as easy to follow as a slow parade of cattle.

Stronger and stronger it grew until he broke from the woods upon a small farmstead.

Hunger paused and watched. A small herd of brown-and-white milk goats grazed in a pasture beyond the house. The scent was strong here. Exceedingly strong.

He followed the woman’s trail to the barn. The doors stood open and he strode inside and stopped. He smelled horse and hay and harness. He smelled her as if she were standing in front of him.

He had her, had her trapped in this barn like a mouse in a box.

Hunger closed the doors to the tidy barn behind him. There was a stall and a loft of hay. He looked in the stall and found it empty. She was in the hay in the loft then.

He leapt to the loft and landed in a crouch, watiting for her to try to run by him. He waited. Nothing. He kicked through the hay, reached in to the deepest parts. But she wasn’t there.

Hunger cursed and walked back out and circled the barn. Only then did he realize what had happened. He breathed in deeply to smell it for sure—she’d taken the horse.

He followed the scent a number of paces down to the trail that led from this house.

She’d taken the horse and was at this very moment trotting away. He looked at the hoofprints. She was not galloping. Not that woman. She had shown herself too smart for that.

Hunger almost chased after her, but he stopped himself. He could match the speed of a horse, but not for long. He needed food. He would fail along the way if he didn’t replenish his Fire.

He pushed the door to the house open and found only a table and an orange cat hiding under a chair, looking up at him in fear. An old couple must live here. He saw one pair of large, muddy, wooden clogs next to the door. Or maybe it wasn’t a couple. Maybe it was just an old man and his cat.

He left the house and cat and went to the pasture. The brown-and-white goats scattered at his coming, but they were no match for his speed. He caught one whose horns had split into four curls and devoured its Fire and soul. It was not enough, and he chased down three others, leaving their bodies lying on the chewed grass.

When he’d drained the last one and felt satisfied, he stood. The power surged in his limbs. The scent of the horse mixed with the female still lay thick along the road. The sun and wind would disperse it. But not before he caught her.

CROSSROAD

T

alen squatted with Legs behind a tangle of blackberry brambles that grew at the wood’s edge. In front of them a small orchard of pear trees glistened in the moonlight. At the end of one of the rows and across a path stood Uncle Argoth’s home. And patrolling the grounds about the house were three Lions of Mokad, dreadmen all.

Talen had his bow and more than twenty arrows. He might be able to pin three regular soldiers down, might even be able to take out one of these Lions if his aim was true and the arrow took the man in a vital part, but the others would not stay put. And once they entered the woods, his arrows would be worth nothing.

So Talen sat and waited, and while he waited he practiced what River had taught him, to open and close himself. To pour out Fire and to stop it up. He could still feel the memory of suffocating, of her pressing into his being. And he wondered if what he did at this very moment was Slethery.

“He’s not coming,” whispered Legs. “It’s past time.”

What did this boy do—count the seconds? “Since when do the blind know what time it is?” asked Talen.

“The mosquitoes have begun to rise. The mice and deer are moving. Morning’s coming.”

Mice and mosquitoes? He realized he had indeed just shooed away a mosquito. He looked to the eastern horizon and saw the faintest lightening of the sky over the peaks of the mountains. The boy was right.

“So you’re not blind?” asked Talen.

“I’m blind. I just pay attention.”

Talen grunted. What had happened to Nettle? Was he sleeping peacefully, knowing to come out would only reveal them, or was he on some table being put to the question?

“What else have you paid attention to besides deer and mice?” asked Talen.

“Nothing,” said Legs. “If the dreadmen know we’re here, then they don’t care.”

“Or they’re waiting for daylight to get a good look at us. Give me your hand,” said Talen. “It’s time for us to go.”

“You’re just going to leave him?”

“I don’t see that we have much choice,” said Talen. “Besides, Uncle Argoth’s with him.”

“Maybe they have him too,” whispered Legs.

“Then our only hope is to muster the rest of this . . . Order.” “Nest” is what he wanted to say. But he just could not apply that term to Da, River, and Ke. He didn’t know what terms to use. Sleth, good soul-eaters, bad Divines—it was all a bewildering mess.

He took Legs’s hand and picked his way carefully down the line of brambles. The forest canopy here was thick, and as a result, squelched almost all growth on the forest floor. Still, he had to keep an eye out for branches.

They passed a fat chestnut and Legs pulled on Talen’s hand. “There’s something dead here.”

Talen paused and smelled the air. Some carcass was indeed rotting nearby. The leaves off to their left suddenly rustled.

Talen froze. The last thing he wanted was to stumble upon some bear’s or wildcat’s kill. But then, Argoth had dogs, and they would have smelled this out long ago. They would have chased off any cat or bear except he hadn’t seen or heard Argoth’s dogs.

The leaves rustled again.

Whatever made the noise, it was something smaller than a bear or wildcat, a weasel or badger perhaps. Talen’s heart stopped palpitating.

He realized he hadn’t seen or heard Blue or Queen last night. Where had his dogs been? They’d often go hunting in the evenings, but they never stayed away. They always came home before it got too late. Had they gone to River’s aid?

He thought of River running out to draw that thing and a gloom descended upon him. Da had fought it to no avail. It had eluded the cohorts of the fortress. Surely, one girl, even with River’s talents, could not best it. He wanted more than ever to get to the Creek Widow’s to see if River had arrived. They needed to move faster.

“This way,” he whispered to Legs and pulled on his hand. “We’re going to take the roads.”

“Won’t that be risky?” asked Legs.

“Yes, but I don’t know the woods in these parts like I do at home. We’ll be stumbling about. If we’re going to sneak, I want to do it quickly.”