Servant of a Dark God (16 page)

He was going to tell her to free the souls inside, but he knew she must not know they meant anything to him.

“Freedom,” he said.

She laughed.

“You need a servant,” he said. “But you don’t need me. I will find you another, and you will give me this boon: you will dissolve this body and let me go.”

“And the souls inside you?” she asked.

Her face flickered like smoke. Alarm shot through him. He took a step back, but she grabbed him by the arm, and such was the power of her ease that his panic lost its grip. He knew he should run, but could not.

She thrust her other hand into his sodden chest. She reached deep into him with that powerful hand and grasped the part of him that held his family.

He wanted to struggle, but could not.

With a yank she broke them free—his bright daughter, his handsome sons, his admirable wife—and withdrew his monster’s heart.

Hunger fought her ease with all his might and managed to grasp her hand. He felt what she held. It was then he realized she hadn’t grasped his heart, if he even had one.

No, what she’d taken from his chest was a stomach.

It was a weave of willows. He’d been there when she’d made them; he himself had fetched the thin flexible willow branches she used for such weaving. They smelled of her magic. His body was packed with stomachs. Empty stomachs waiting to be filled. But this one was not empty. In this one Hunger could feel the souls of his family caught like moths in a wicker web.

The Mother pushed at him and yanked her hand away. “You stupid thing,” she said. “I will devour them.”

“No,” he begged. “Please.”

“Then help me prepare for the harvest. Bring me the ones that stink, all those that could fight against me. Bring me the young male that would be their leader. This is your duty. And when you have fulfilled that duty you will receive the boon you seek.”

The pull of her dazzling beauty and the desires for his family tugged against each other. He wanted to obey her. But he also knew she was lying. She would not keep her promise to free his loved ones.

Then something she’d just said sparked an idea in his mind. She had spoken of a harvest before, but he had not known then what the word meant. “What do you want to harvest? I am strong. I can serve you as the harvest master and you can let these go.”

Her anger seemed to flow away at this offer and her countenance smiled upon him. “It has been too long since any in my family have handled humans. So facile.”

This made no sense to Hunger and he could not tell if she had been talking to him or herself.

“You do not understand,” she said. “This herd of humans is mine. Mine by right. It was my mother’s mother’s before me and will produce for my daughters. But humans rebel against the natural order of things. It has ever been so. And if they would rebel against me, then think what they’d do if one such as yourself was set to watch over and harvest them. No, humans do best when one of their own sits at their head. Your part is to cull the herd. Nothing more.”

A part of Hunger recoiled at this information. Harvesting humans? Then he thought of how she taught him to unravel things, and he knew what she wanted to harvest.

A wave of her ease washed over him. What did it matter what she wanted. Or if she lied. She was so beautiful. So kind.

His alarm faded away.

“They are hidden, the ones that stink. Hidden so even the Mother who stole this herd from my ancestors could not find them. But you have been created to root them out.”

Hunger thought. A word came to him for the ones that stink—Sleth. That was their name. And he immediately knew where the men had taken one of them. He’d learned this not from following any scent trail, for the scent had ended in the fires. No, that knowledge had been one of the first things that had tumbled into him from Barg. Purity the Sleth was going to be held in a stone cage in Whitecliff. He could take her. Sleth would do anything to keep their secrets. They would go so far as to hunt and kill captured members of their nests, which meant if he did take her, he could then use her as bait to find the others.

“You will spare these?” he asked.

“Your kind is so weak. How you ever overpowered the Mothers I will never know.”

“Will you spare them?”

“You have two nights,” she said. She held up the stomach that contained his family. “If you fail, know that I and my daughters are hungry, and these firstlings will be prepared for our feast.”

SNARE

B

lue wouldn’t let Talen near the wound. The dog had licked until the bleeding stopped, but if corruption set in and spread, they would have to put him down. Talen could not believe what had just happened. And Da was wrong: those men would be back.

He and Nettle went back to the house and found Da standing at the hearth. Three large red onions sat roasting on a pile of embers there. A pot of porridge hung from a crane over a cooking fire. The fish they’d filleted earlier were sizzling in a yet another pan. Da poked at them with a knife. The ends of his beard braids were tucked into the collar of his tunic to keep them from getting into the fire or falling into the food.

Ke sat at the table, propping himself up with his elbows. There was no bowl or plate before him.

“Shouldn’t River be back by now?” asked Talen.

Da swung the crane, and the pot of barley that hung from it, out of the hearth. “Don’t you worry about River. She’ll be fine.”

Da was probably right. River could take care of herself. She might not be as strong as Ke, but she knew woodcraft. She had her bow. And, if it came to it, he doubted any but a dreadman could run her down.

Da lifted the pot off the crane with a hook and brought it to the table. He took off the lid and dropped a large spoonful into each of their bowls, then he put a small chunk of butter onto the top. They rarely ate their porridge in the sweet Mungo style. “By the time you’ve eaten that, the fish and onions will be ready.”

Talen turned to Ke. “What did you find?”

“I followed the armsmen to their mounts,” said Ke. “Then I followed them to the edge of the forest. They’re headed out to Fir-Noy lands.”

That could mean the armsmen had given up or were going to make an official complaint. But Talen doubted that was the case. Da had just humiliated a Hammer; that surely wouldn’t go unpunished. “They’re probably circling round or going to gather a mob,” said Talen. He turned to Da. “We’re sitting here like a bunch of cattle.”

“We’ll watch,” said Da. “And it’s true somebody needs to go talk to the bailiff, but it’s too late now. I don’t want anyone out past dark with the country full of imbeciles like those who showed up today. There’s nothing else we can do at the moment.”

But that wasn’t true. The armsmen weren’t the real threat. Sleth were. Talen looked at Nettle, who was chewing a huge mouthful of the porridge. They’d discussed their plans, but he didn’t want to blurt them out now. Da needed to first see the prints. Only then would he listen.

Da walked back to the hearth. He grabbed the small frying pan from the wall. He put a knife full of lard in it and stuck the pan next to the andiron above the coals. When the lard melted and began to sizzle, he produced a large brown egg from his pocket, cracked it, and dropped the contents into the pan.

“Where did you get that?” asked Ke.

“Mol,” said Da. “I got half a dozen.” He grinned. “And if you’re polite and grovel like a proper son I might save you one for when you end your fast. But you must promise to help me. We’re going to be treating our four new ladies like fat Mokaddian city wives for the next few weeks. We need to hand-feed them grasshoppers and a slice of squash every day.”

“Da,” said Talen. “There
is
something we can do right now. We can solve the root of the problem.”

“You’re not going to reconcile Koramites with Fir-Noy,” said Da and turned back to his pan. “We’re oil and water.” He added a strip of fatback to his egg and let it all sizzle.

“I wasn’t talking about that. I’m talking about the hatchlings.”

Ke groaned. “Och, here he goes again about a monster running about the woods wanting his pants to cover up its naked bum—”

“They’ve got Sleth caged in Whitecliff,” said Talen, “and you seem to think the world is as safe as a pie bake.”

“Perhaps the woman in Whitecliff isn’t as dangerous as you think,” said Da. “What’s needed now is calm heads.”

“I agree,” said Talen. “And I am calm. But what you need to know is that not only did I see one of them, in broad daylight, but we’ve got its footprints in the yard.”

Da and Ke followed Talen out to the footprints. The sun had sunk low, but there was still enough light to see by. In fact, the angle of the light made the track clearer. He led them to the one by the old sod-roofed house and then finally brought them to the one by the pigpen.

“That’s too small for Sammesh,” said Talen. He put his foot next to it to make the point.

Ke stretched one of his massive arms to scratch a spot on his back. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a killer.”

“Oh, come on,” said Talen. “Look at it.”

A horsefly landed on Da’s arm. He looked down at it and let it prepare to bite. “That print could be anybody’s,” said Da. “Could be one of the children that came with that tinker family. They were here just last week.”

It could have been them. “But that doesn’t explain the sighting and my missing pants.”

Da smacked the horsefly with the flat of his hand. It fell to the dirt where Da ground it in with his foot. “Yes,” said Da, “the missing pants that were under your bed.”

“I saw something today,” said Talen.

“I’m sure you did. But I’m also sure that your beating this morning has you rattled. Do you remember when you were a boy and saw the shadows of a number of Og in the yard?”

Talen remembered. Their wagon had cast a shadow in the light of a full moon. And he’d been sure the creatures were in the yard ready to tear them all to pieces. Of course, Da had taken him by the hand, kicking and screaming, and forced him to face the fact that it was only moon shadows.

“I saw a leg,” said Talen. “Why won’t you believe me? I don’t understand why you’re not concerned.”

“Concerned?” said Da. “I’m mortally concerned. But not about hatchlings. Nobody knows that the woman they’ve caged is Sleth. There was no Seeker, no proving.”

“What I heard,” said Nettle, “was that she moved with unnatural speed.”

“Things are perceived differently in battle. When your mind is tinged with fear, the foe’s strength and speed and ferocity are always exaggerated. But let’s assume the worst. Let’s assume she did move with power. She might have been wearing a weave. Did you think of that?”

“That’s treason right there,” said Talen.

“Is it?” asked Da. “A weave bestowed by some Koramite Divine to her family a century ago?”

“It is if she didn’t bring it forth.”

“But that’s different from Slethwork, isn’t it? It’s a legitimate weave, outlawed not because it’s evil, but because it might pose a threat to the current oppressors.”

Talen sighed. Da never had anything good to say about Divines. Talen remembered when he was a child and had learned “The Six Paths” from a friend’s mother. The poem described the different orders of Divines. He came home excited to perform and began to recite the poem with the appropriate actions.

The Fire Wizards harvest.

The Kains forge and store.

The Skir Masters ride the powers with traps and ancient lore.

At this point in the poem, Da’s face began to sour, but Talen had thought it was because he’d done something wrong. He continued trying his best to remember the hand movements.

The Guardians live like dragons.

The Green Ones heal the dead.

And the Glories rule o’r them all with centuries in their heads.

Da had clapped in a perfunctory way. “You’re a sharp one, for sure,” he’d said. “And such a sharp mind needs to be kept that way.” Then he’d made Talen learn a poem he’d never heard before. It was long and started with a traveler visiting a tavern.

The Host spreads his table then calls with honeyed charm:

A steaming loaf of Ignorance to keep your belly warm,

An unending keg of Fear to turn your wit to froth,

And tender cuts of poisoned Pride to turn your gentle heart.

The poem continued, describing two companions, one who takes the host’s offer and another who refuses. The first one is treated with firmness but kindness and put out, like a steer to pasture, to enjoy the gardens, orchards, and plenitudes of the vale. The second faces privation and a multitude of dangers trying to get his friend to leave. In the end, he fails, and the first one, the one who trusted the smiling host, is brought forth for butchering. The second makes a brave attempt to rescue him from his captors, but fails, barely escaping with his life. Powerless, he watches from afar as the mighty inhabitants of that awful vale kill, roast, and then serve his friend up on platters for a community feast.

It was a long poem, but the story was so fascinating Talen memorized it in less than a day. At first, Talen thought Da made him memorize it because he’d wanted to challenge, and thereby increase, Talen’s mental skills. But after he’d learned it, he began to consider the story and see it was a moral tale, teaching how a man could be self-reliant and wise. For a long time he thought that was Da’s purpose in making him memorize it.