Slight and Shadow (Fate's Forsaken: Book Two) (21 page)

Perhaps Finks was the stupid kind of evil.

It wasn’t long before they had him completely exhausted. He was so out of breath that he ran with his head tilted upwards and his mouth agape, as if he could somehow catch a lungful of air without having to actually make the effort of breathing it in. And while Finks suffered, Brend seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself.

Kael watched him closely for a moment, and realized that Brend was commanding the entire prank. His whistling still carried on like a string of nonsense, but now there were subtle messages in the notes: when he struck a high note, or a steady low hum, a giant would obediently fall behind. Then he let out a warble that sounded like a bird’s song, and Declan fell back.

But it wasn’t just whistling. Sometimes when he would bend to drop some seed, Brend would have a different number of fingers propped against his scythe. These were signals, too. And the giants followed them dutifully.

At one point, Brend pretended to drop his scythe and then spent an obnoxious amount of time trying to pick it up. Finks caught sight of him and sprinted over, trudging across the high piles of soggy ground, murder in his eyes. But no sooner did he reach him than Brend had caught back up — and Declan was the one behind.

Kael waited until Finks had charged away before he elbowed Brend. “Did you come up with this on your own?”

He shrugged, but couldn’t quite hide his smile. “Oh, sure. Are you surprised, wee rat? Didn’t think the giants were good for anything but clobbering, now did you? Well, I …” He leaned back to glance at Kael’s shoulders, and his eyes widened. “I think your turn’s over for the day, wee rat.”

“Why? It doesn’t hurt,” he added quickly, when Brend shook his head. “It’s all gone numb.”

“A giant’s hide is a mightily thick thing — we can shoulder the blows.” He glanced at Kael’s back again and whistled. “But that’s not so for wee men. I can see the welts popping up through your shirt!”

“I can handle it,” Kael insisted. He suddenly had an idea, and he wanted the chance to try it out. “If you take me out of the game, I’ll just fall back anyways.”

Brend was about to respond when Finks’s shrilling voice suddenly cut over the top of him:

“Pick them up! Pick every last one of them up!” he cried, swinging mercilessly at the giant crouched at his feet.

It was Declan. The strap of his satchel must’ve broken: it lay on the ground and seed spilled from it, scattering across the dark earth. Though Declan tried to work quickly, his thick hands made things difficult. He shoveled through the dirt, trying to scoop the tiny bits of seed back into his pouch.

And Finks’s blows kept coming.

Even from a distance, Kael could hear the leather slapping against Declan’s flesh. He could see the angry red lines that blossomed across his head and down his neck. His teeth were bared against the pain.

Anger filled Kael like a red cloud, blotting out his reason. He didn’t have a chance to plan anything out. Instead, he did the first thing he could think of: he reared back and threw his scythe as far as he could.

The weapon landed clumsily, skittering across the dirt. It hadn’t gone as far as he’d wanted it to, but it still landed behind Declan — and that was far enough. Kael started walking, and Finks saw him.

“Where do you think you’re going, rat?” he shrilled.

“I dropped my scythe,” Kael said calmly. He walked at a leisurely pace, hoping to draw Finks away — and he did.

Finks charged, and Kael quickly drew up the memory of the mountain boulder again, imagining that the flesh on his back became like stone. He knew it was working because he could feel the extra weight in his knees as his skin hardened. When Finks’s whip came down, it took all of Kael’s concentration to keep the grin off his face: he could hear the whip slapping him, but couldn’t feel it.

He bent to retrieve his scythe — and nearly cried out when Finks’s whip struck him across the face. He hadn’t been expecting that, and for a few seconds, he lost his defenses.

“Trying to be a hero, rat?” Finks hissed. He wrenched Kael’s head back by the roots of his hair; a blast of tainted breath blew hot in his face. “Here — have a hero’s beating.”

Three blows landed across Kael’s back before he managed to get his skin hardened again. His legs shook under the weight of his stoned flesh, making his steps slow and heavy. He kept his eyes straight ahead as he walked back to the giants. He could feel them staring, but didn’t look at their faces. They were probably just laughing about how foolish he was, anyways.

But he didn’t care. His effort gave Declan the time he needed to pick up his seed and tie the broken strap of his satchel into a fresh knot. Brend fell back to relieve Kael, and the giants continued on with their game as if nothing had happened.

At sunset, they plodded back to the barns in silence. Kael spotted Declan walking at the head of the line, and ran to stop him.

“My scythe,” he explained, when Declan’s brows raised in confused arcs. “You said you’d take me to get it fixed.”

“Oh … eh, don’t worry about it,” he grumbled, snatching the weapon from him. “I’ll take it there, myself.”

Kael was fine with that: he hadn’t been looking forward to spending an extra hour at the blacksmith’s. All he wanted was a quiet dinner and a long night of rest.

Unfortunately for him, dinner was far from quiet.

Kael’s antics in the field
had
caught the giants’ attention — but it wasn’t the sort he’d been expecting. They didn’t laugh at him or reenact his beating. No, what they did instead was far more annoying.

Brend told Kael’s story as if it was the most legendary thing he’d ever seen. His voice carried through the rafters of the barn, rising and falling, drawing his audience in by the power of his words. While he spoke, the others listened silently — some with the porridge still hanging out of their mouths.

“Saved Declan from a hundred lashes, he did,” Brend said. Though his voice was hardly a whisper, the giants could hear him clearly: the only noise in the whole barn was of the Fallows as they snorted down their dinner. “That wee mountain rat — there, just as you see him.”

Kael’s face burned as several heads swiveled to look at him. This was the third time Brend had told the story, and it seemed to grow larger with every telling. He felt he ought to step in.

“It wasn’t anywhere near a hundred —”

“Oh, don’t be modest,” Brend said over the top of him. He swept his hands over the trough in a wide arc, and his audience leaned in. “With one mighty heave, the rat tossed his scythe to the back of the field —”

“It didn’t go quite that far,” Kael insisted, but no one was listening.

In fact, somebody shushed him.

“He strode past that slick-headed mage, bold as a crow after crops. And when Finks asked what he was after, do you know what he said?
I dropped my scythe
.”

There was a round of appreciative laughter, and Kael winced has a giant’s heavy arm plunked down across his shoulders.

“So Finks of Westbarn set upon him, striking with enough fury to split a man’s hide. But this wee rat … well, he took his beating without so much as a grimace.”

“I grimaced quite a lot, actually.”

“He stood there a full minute, blows raining down upon his reddened head. Never once did he budge —”

“What are you talking about? I got out of there as fast as I co — mft!”

The giant beside Kael clamped a hand over his mouth, giving Brend the chance to spin his wild yarn unhindered.

“He made his way back to us slowly, as if Finks’s whip were no more troublesome than the bite of a fly. Then the rat took up his scythe and without so much as a grumble about his wounds, went straight back to work.” Brend whistled, shaking his head. “I’ve not seen such a fierce look in a man’s eyes — I swear it by the plains mother.”

Kael was far more embarrassed by the giants’ awe than he’d ever been by their teasing. He knew there was no point in trying to set the tale straight: no sooner did the giants cheer than they were begging Brend to tell it again.

He happily obliged — and rather than listen to how he’d survived four hundred blows to the head, Kael retreated to the stall.

Declan was already curled up on his pallet, his face turned towards the wall. He’d sulked for most the day, eaten very little dinner, and then disappeared as soon as Brend started telling his stories. He was probably just angry. It must’ve been humiliating for Declan, to have his hide saved by a scrawny mountain rat.

So Kael didn’t worry too much about it.

Much of his sleeping space was still rather damp and covered in debris from the hole in the roof. But at least that meant he wouldn’t have to worry about any of the giants flinging their limbs into his space. He was growing rather tired of being slapped awake in the middle of the night.

As he got closer to his spot, he slowed. It took him a moment of staring before he finally realized why his spot looked so odd: it had been taken. The debris had been cleared away, and a small pallet had been set up in its place.

After a puzzling second, Kael realized that the pallet must’ve been meant for him. It was so thin and short that it wouldn’t have done any of the giants much good. But then who …?

He turned back to Declan, and noticed that a good portion of his bedding was missing. His legs hung off the straw at his calves.

Kael stood still for a long moment. He knew very well that a giant’s bed was his sole possession — the only thing he ever dared to call his own. And to think that Declan had given up a portion of his bed for Kael … he didn’t know what to say.

So he said the only thing he could think of, the only response that might possibly measure up:

“Thank you, Declan.”

Chapter 19

The Grandmot

The sky was just pink enough to scare the minceworms back to their burrows when Elena bid them all farewell — saying that she’d rather strike out on her own than tie her lot in with a mage. And though that seemed to hurt Jake’s feelings considerably, Kyleigh thought it was all for the best.

Once Elena was halfway to the dunes in the distance, Kyleigh turned to her next task at hand: discovering what it was that Jake was trying so desperately to hide in his pack.

“It’s just an experiment,” he grumbled. The pack squirmed a little, and he punched it roughly. “I’m trying to measure the effects of heat on minceworm skin,” he explained, when Kyleigh narrowed her eyes. “We know how fire effects them. But I’m trying to deduce whether it’s the light or the heat that keeps them hiding under the sand all day. Firelight doesn’t seem quite bright enough to harm them, but the sun —”

“All right — which of you did it?”

Kyleigh was slightly grateful when Elena chose that moment to come storming back into camp. She knew how long-winded Jake’s explanations could be. “Which of us did what?” she called as Elena approached them.

Good lord, that woman could melt flesh with her glare.

Her shoulders were stiff; her fingers curled into fists. An empty pack hung from her right hand. “Which of you did
this?
” she snapped, flinging the pack at Kyleigh’s feet. “All of my supplies are gone. My rations, my water — everything!”

“Why do you think
we’re
to blame?” Silas mumbled. He was lying on his back against the glass floor, smiling contently as the morning sun warmed it. “You left food out in the middle of the desert overnight. Did you not see the hundreds of hungry mouths waiting around our camp?”

“Yes, I saw them,” Elena said, with over exaggerated patience. “But did you not see,
cat
, that my pack isn’t torn to shreds? So unless the minceworms have discovered a way to work buckles and canteen caps, I’d say the head I ought to crack is somewhere amongst you three. Or perhaps I ought to just crack them all.”

They hadn’t been together an entire night, and Silas had already made Elena his enemy. When the morning sky was still dark, he’d snuck into Kyleigh’s tent in his lion form and let out an ear-rattling roar. It startled Elena so badly that she’d nearly torn a hole in the tent’s wall just trying to escape.

Silas had been chuckling about it all morning. Even now, his white teeth glinted as he grinned at her threat. “Well,
I
certainly didn’t do it.”

Elena spun on Kyleigh, and she shook her head quickly.

“I don’t trust you,” Elena snarled.

“Well, that’s probably for the best,” Kyleigh allowed. “But though I’m many things, a liar isn’t one of them.”

When Elena couldn’t match her glare, she stomped over to Jake.

“Hold on a moment.” He fumbled with the strings on his invisible canteens before he managed to pull one free. Then he held it out to her. “I didn’t do it. But here — take this.”

Kyleigh had to prop a fist under her chin to keep her mouth from falling open. She knew very well that the canteen he’d offered Elena was his last. And had she been a nicer person, the gesture might not have been all that astonishing. But as it was, Elena was about as nice as a cut under the fingernail.

She glared at Jake’s hand. “Are you mocking me?”

“Not at all. It just
looks
like nothing —”

“So you’ve stolen my rations, and now you’re content to sit back and laugh at me?”

“No, that isn’t it.” Jake got to his feet, and though he stood nearly a head over Elena, he hunched his shoulders forward and looked down at the ground. “I’m truly sorry for what happened to you. I’m only trying to help —”

“Don’t apologize to her,” Silas said, springing to his feet. He stuck his chest to Elena’s arm and met her fiercely in the eyes. “The shaman is far too polite,” he growled, “but I am not. Slight him again, and I’ll chew you into pieces.”

Elena glared daggers at Silas — who sneered defiantly back. And Jake, for whatever reason, looked remarkably close to tears. Kyleigh decided that now was probably the time to step between them.

She pushed Elena and Silas apart, with one firm hand on either of their chests. “I don’t know what happened to your pack,” Kyleigh said sharply, “but if Jake and I say we didn’t do it, then we didn’t do it. As for Silas —”

“You’ll never know!” he crowed, laughing in her face.

Elena’s hand twitched for one of her daggers.

Kyleigh grabbed her wrist. “Don’t even think about it,” she growled, shoving her back. “There’s no changing what’s been done, and we haven’t got enough supplies to share,” she added, with a pointed look at Jake. “So, you have two choices: follow us to water, or try to survive the journey back on your own. It’s entirely up to you.”

*******

By midday, Kyleigh was beginning to wish that she’d just killed them all and been done with it. They had no meat for breakfast, and so Silas had gone back to being one high pitched and never-ending moan of despair. Jake still asked her a thousand questions every hour — none of which she was able to answer to his liking. But now Elena was there to make it all worse.

When Silas whined, she’d very tartly turn around and tell him to shut it — which would start a fist-flying argument that Kyleigh had to step in and settle. Then Elena complained loudly about having to walk downwind from Jake, and he’d gotten rather hurt about it.

The next time Kyleigh turned, she spotted Jake several yards away from the main party, walking stubbornly in another direction.

So she made Silas and Elena sit with their backs to each other — and swore by the sky above them that if she had to separate one more fight, she’d reduce them both to smoldering craters. Then she went after Jake at a run.

“What are you doing, you silly mage?” she said when he was within shouting distance.

“I’m going home!” he snapped from over his shoulder.

“No, you’re going east.”

He stopped and squinted up at the sky. Then he spun around and with a good amount of cursing, began to walk in the opposite direction. “I can’t take it anymore,” he said as he drew even with her. He tried to push past her, but she wrangled him in by the shoulders. “Let me go!”

“Not until you tell me what’s the matter,” Kyleigh said, trying not to crush him as he struggled. “Was it what Elena said?”

“No,” he snapped back. Then all at once, his anger deflated. “I don’t like being a bother. Whisperers obviously can’t stand the smell of me. That’s part of the reason why I followed you out of Gravy Bay: I knew I was bothering Kael. He was nice about it, but I could tell that I bothered him. And I just …”

“Yes,” Kyleigh said after a moment. “He
was
nice about it. And do you know why that is?”

“No.”

“Because, underneath that prickly skin of his, he’s actually a very nice person.” It was surprisingly difficult to talk about Kael. She tried to keep her voice steady, but for some reason, her chest was suddenly tight. What in Kingdom’s name was wrong with her? She cleared her throat roughly and pressed on. “Elena, however, is not a nice person. She’s a terror and a child — a spoiled ruler’s pet who’s been given everything she ever asked for. Believe me, I’ve seen her type before.”

Jake shook his head. “No, you’re wrong.” He struggled again and this time, she released him. He dropped his pack on the ground and began to work the straps. “Here, I’ll leave you with the cook pot and —”

The pack opened and a cloud of ash whooshed out, covering Jake’s face and beard in soot. He swore.

“Perfect, just perfect,” he muttered. His brows bent into a glare, but his spectacles were so filthy that Kyleigh couldn’t see his eyes behind the lenses. “I can’t believe I forgot about that blasted minceworm — now my experiment is ruined! See? You’re better off without me.” He ripped his spectacles off and began to polish them furiously against the hem of his robe. “Elena would be nicer if I wasn’t here. If I stay, I’ll only make a mess of things.”

“Jake — she’s treating you like one of her servants. She orders you about, tells you to walk so many paces behind her, to give up a portion of your water, and instead of standing up to her — you just let her do it!” When he shook his head, Kyleigh dropped down to face him. “You are
not
her slave, do you understand? So what if she has a problem with you? That’s
her
problem — not yours. Silas and I don’t put up with her nonsense, and neither should you. So the next time she snaps at you, I want you to tell her to shove —”

“Dragoness!”

Kyleigh jerked her head around to yell back at Silas, and instead saw something that made her heart catch in her throat.

A monster barreled up from the south: a huge, swirling cloud of wind and sand. It blotted out the sky behind it, swallowed up the massive dunes in its path. The storm rushed towards them in a perfect wall, breaking across the earth like foamy surf upon the shore — and they were nothing but tiny fish about to be swept away.

The storm stretched from horizon to horizon, thundering as it raced to devour them. It seemed to gain speed as it tore across the dunes; the sands caught in the gales thickened it, reaching up to cover the sun in a dense, brownish cloak.

Kyleigh knew there was no escaping it.

A blur of movement caught her eye, and she looked down in time to see Elena tearing off in another direction. She followed her sprint and saw that she was heading for an outcrop of gray rock in the distance — the only thing in sight that wasn’t made of sand.

“Follow her!” Kyleigh shouted to Silas.

“What about the packs —?”

“Leave them! Go!”

The shrill in her voice seemed to convince him. He dropped on all fours and burst into his lion form. Kyleigh grabbed Jake by the hand and jerked him forward. She knew they didn’t have much hope of making it to shelter before the wall overcame them, but at least they wouldn’t be separated.

“It’s a sandstorm!” Jake gasped as he struggled to keep her pace. “I was beginning to think we wouldn’t see one. Is it true what they say? That sometimes the sand blows hard enough to strip flesh from bone —?”

“I don’t know, and I sure as Death don’t want to find out!” Kyleigh yelled over him. The storm thundered towards them, aiming to strike them in the side. She could feel its fury in the hot wind that cut across the nape of her neck.

Ahead of her, Silas had outstripped Elena by the power of his four legs. He was nearly at the rock shelter. Kyleigh reached with her free hand and pulled Jake’s turban over his eyes.

“Unless you want the sands to scratch them from their sockets, you’re going to have to keep them covered!” she said when he complained. “I’ll guide you — trust me!” She got one last glimpse of their target before she pulled her hood over her eyes — and not a breath too soon.

The gales struck them hard, blowing them sideways. Jake fell and Kyleigh nearly tripped over him as she struggled to keep her footing. She felt as if she was trapped beneath the ocean, with the currents ripping her limbs in every direction. It wasn’t long before she lost all sense of where she was, and the sand showed no mercy: it lashed her flesh, burning like flakes of hot ash.

She pulled Jake up by their clasped hands and heard him yell as she dragged him on. The fiery earth rose like floodwaters over their ankles and knees. As the sand tried to drag them under, they bent nearly double against the wind, fighting their way through the thick, burning drifts.

Grit caked Kyleigh’s tongue. She felt as if every gasping breath she drew was half-sand. She didn’t know how long they would have until they ran out of air. The shelter of the rocks was their only hope.

“Run!”

She pulled Jake into a desperate sprint. They moved quickly, jerking their legs stubbornly out of the drifts and dashing for a few steps along the shifting surface. Kyleigh wagered they would be at the rocks in thirty paces. Surely they could hold on until then.

She leapt free of another drift and went to take the next step, but her boot touched nothing. Her leg fell through an open space and dragged her body down with it. She was too shocked to let go of Jake. She heard him cry out as the weight of her body pulled him down.

The burning heat, the sand, the roar of the storm — it all suddenly disappeared, snuffed out as the earth sucked them downwards. Wind whistled across Kyleigh’s ears and she dragged her elbow against the wall behind her, trying to slow their fall. The path curved, and she grimaced as her rump struck unforgiving stone. Then the tunnel spat them out.

Kyleigh slid until her back struck a wall, jarring her innards. Jake certainly didn’t help things when he collided with her middle. She lay still for a moment, checking to make sure that she had all of her limbs. Once her arms and legs had all been accounted for, she looked to see where they’d landed.

Her eyes quickly adjusted to the dimness: gray walls of rock surrounded them. They must’ve fallen into some sort of cave.