The Charnel Prince (23 page)

“How far is z’Espino?” Neil asked restlessly.

“Ten chenperichi. We should reach it tomorrow.”

“What did the countess tell you?”

“You’re looking for two girls, one with red hair and another with golden. They might be with Cazio and z’Acatto.”

“Who are Cazio and z’Acatto?” Neil asked.

“Former guests of the countess,” Vaseto answered.

“Why would they be with these girls?”

“Cazio was courting one of them. The night the coven burned, Cazio and z’Acatto vanished, as well. I found some sign of their trail.”

“You did?”

“Yes,” Vaseto answered. “
I
did.”

“And you think they were together?”

Vaseto rolled his eyes. “Three sets of tracks, two small, one large, all pursued by mounted men. They met at some ruins where a third man joined them—z’Acatto, by the torn sole of his boot. They fought the horsemen, and won after a fashion. All four left together.”

Neil regarded Vaseto for a few moments, considered the authoritative ring of his voice.

“You’re older than I thought,” he said.

“Probably,” Vaseto replied.

“And you’re not a boy.”

Vaseto gave him a small smirk. “I wondered if you would ever work that out,” she said. “They must make you thick, up north. Not that men down here are generally any smarter.”

“You’re dressed like a boy. Your hair is cut like a boy’s. And the countess called you male.”

“So I am, and so it is, and so she did,” Vaseto said. “And that’s plenty of talk on that subject. Anyway, we’ve other things to worry about at the moment.”

“Such as?”

For answer, an arrow thumped into the trunk of an olive tree, just a yard from Neil’s head.

ASPAR LOOSED AN ARROW at the thing before he could even see what it was. It hit, he was certain, but the arrow didn’t seem to have much effect. A long, clawed limb whipped out and struck Stephen to the ground.

As Aspar loosed his second arrow, a film of light seemed to settle on everything. The leaves that had concealed the pit where the creature had been hiding turned slowly as they fell, each distinct—ironoak, ash, haurnbagm, poplar.

As the leaves settled, the utin was revealed. The first impression was of a huge spider—though it had only four limbs, they were long and spindly, attached to a torso so compact as to be boxlike, a mass of muscle covered in what looked like brown scales and sparse greenish hair that grew thicker on its upper spine and ruffed a short, thick neck. Yellow eyes glared from an enormous oblong of dark-green horn with only slits for nostrils and holes for ears. Its mouth was the laugh of a Black Mary, a slit that cut the head in two and champed around wicked, black, uneven teeth.

The second arrow took it high in the chest, where its heart ought to have been. The creature turned away from Stephen and dropped to all fours, then sprang toward Aspar with terrible speed.

Aspar got off another shot, and so did Ehawk, and then the monster was on them. Its stench hit Aspar in the gut, and his gorge rose as he discarded the bow and yanked out his fighting dirk and throwing ax. He struck hard with the latter and dodged as the thing swept by. A six-clawed hand swiped at him and narrowly missed.

He whirled and fell into a fighting crouch.

The utin paused, bouncing slowly up and down on its two weird long legs, its body upright, fingers tapping at the ground. It towered a kingsyard above Aspar.

Aspar shifted back, hoping he was a little out of reach.

“Winna,” he said. “Get away from here, now.”

Ehawk, he noticed, was slowly creeping to get behind the beast.

“
Wüüünaaah
,” the thing croaked, and Aspar’s flesh went as crawly as if he’d stumbled into a nest of worms.

“
Wünaah gooh, yah. I find you later. Make fun.
”

The language was the local dialect of Almannish.

“Grim’s eye,” Aspar swore. “What the sceat are you?”

For answer, the utin swayed forward a bit, then plucked one of the arrows from its chest. Aspar saw the scales were more like bony plates, natural armor—the shaft hadn’t penetrated deep. More and more he was reminded of the greffyn, which had also had much of the reptile about it.

If this thing was poisonous like the greffyn, Stephen was already as good as dead. So was he, if it touched him.

He waited for its next move, looking for soft spots. The head was plated, too, and was probably mostly bone. He might hit one of the eyes with a good throw. The throat, maybe?

No. All too far in. Its limbs were everywhere. He shifted his knife hand slightly.

The utin suddenly blurred toward him. Ehawk gave a cry and fired an arrow; Aspar ducked, leapt inside the reaching claws, and slashed at the inner thigh, then stabbed toward the groin. He felt flesh part at the first cut, and the thing howled. His thrust missed as the monster leapfrogged over him and then dealt him a terrific kick that sent him sprawling. It turned before he could even think about getting up, tore a branch from a tree, and hurled it. Aspar heard Ehawk cry out, and the thump of a body hitting the ground. Then the utin bounded toward him. From the corner of his eye, he saw Winna armed only with a dagger, rushing in to help.

“No!” Aspar shouted, levering himself up, lifting his ax.

But the utin struck Winna with the back of its hand, and as she staggered, it grabbed her with the other. Aspar hurled the ax, but it bounced harmlessly from the monster’s head. In the next instant it leapt straight up, taking Winna with it. It caught a low-hanging branch, swung, clenched another branch with its hand-like feet. It moved off through the trees faster than a man could run.

“No!” Aspar repeated. He pushed to his feet, retrieved his bow, and chased after the rapidly receding monster. A sort of shivering was in him, a feeling he had never known before.

He pushed the emotion down and ran, reached to his belt for the arrow case the praifec had given him, and extracted the black arrow.

The utin was quickly vanishing from sight, here-again-gone-again behind trunk and branch. Breath tore harshly through Aspar’s lips as he set the relic to his string. He stopped, got his stance, and for an instant the world was quiet again. He felt the immensity of the earth beneath him, the faint breeze pushing itself over the land, the deep slow breath of the trees. He drew.

The utin vanished behind a bole, reappeared, and vanished again. Aspar aimed at the narrow gap where he thought it would appear again, felt the time come right, and released.

The ebony shaft spiraled out and away from him, hissing past leaf and branch, to where the utin’s broad back was a brief occlusion between two trees.

The quiet stretched, but stillness did not. Aspar ran again, already taking out another shaft, cursing under his breath, his heart tightening like an angry fist.

He found Winna first. She lay like an abandoned doll in a patch of autumn-reddened bracken, her dress smeared with blood. The utin sprawled a few feet away, its back to a tree, watching him come. Aspar could see the head of the black arrow protruding from its chest.

Aspar knelt by Winna, feeling for her pulse, but he kept his gaze fixed on the utin. It gurgled and spat out blood, and blinked, as if tired. It raised a six-fingered hand to touch the arrowhead.

“Not fair, mannish,” it husked. “Not weal. An unholy thing, yes? And yet it will slay you, too. Your doom is the same as mine.”

Then it vomited blood, wheezed two more times, and looked beyond the lands of fate.

“Winna?” Aspar said. “Winna?” His heart tripped, but she still had a pulse, and a strong one. He touched her cheek, and she stirred.

“Eh?” she said.

“Stay still,” Aspar said. “You fell, I don’t know how far. Do you have any pain?”

“Yes,” she said. “Every part of me hurts. I feel like I’ve been put in a bag and kicked by six mules.” She suddenly gasped and jerked up to a sitting position. “The utin—!”

“It’s dead. Still, now, until we’re sure nothing’s broken. How far did you fall?”

“I don’t know. After it hit me, everything is cloudy.”

He began inspecting her legs, feeling for breaks.

“Aspar White. Do you always get so romantic after killing an utin?” she asked.

“Always,” he said. “Every single time.” He kissed her then, from sheer relief. As he did it, he realized that in the past few moments he had known the greatest terror of his life. It was elevated so far above any fear he had ever known before, he hadn’t recognized it.

“Winna—” he began, but a faint noise made him look up, and in the thicket behind the dead utin, he had a brief glimpse of a cowled figure, half hidden by a tree, face as white as bone, and one green eye—

“Fend!” he snarled, and reached for the bow.

When he turned, the figure was gone. He set the arrow and waited.

“Can you walk?” he asked softly.

“Yah.” She stood. “Was it really him?”

“It was a Sefry, for certain. I didn’t get a better look.”

“There’s someone coming behind us,” she said.

“Yah. That’s Stephen and Ehawk. I recognize their gaits.”

The two younger men arrived a moment later.

Stephen gasped when he saw the dead creature. “Saints!”

Aspar didn’t take his gaze from the woods. “There’s a Sefry out there,” he said.

“The tracks we saw earlier?” Ehawk asked.

“Most likely. Are you okay?” Aspar asked.

“Yes, I’m fine, thanks,” Stephen said. “A little bruised, that’s all.”

“The boy?” Winna asked.

Stephen’s voice sobered. “He died.”

No one said anything at that. There wasn’t much to say.

The forest was still, its normal sounds returning.

“You two stay with her,” Aspar said. “I’m going to see what became of our friend’s companion.”

“Aspar, wait,” Winna said. “What if it is Fend? What if he’s leading you into another trap?”

He touched her hand. “I think the one trap was all he had planned. If we hadn’t had the praifec’s arrow, it would have worked well enough.”

“You used the arrow?” Stephen said.

“It had Winna,” Aspar said. “It was in the trees. There was nothing else I could do.”

Stephen frowned, but then nodded. He walked over to the utin, knelt near the corpse, and gingerly removed the dart.

“I see what you mean,” he said. “The other arrows didn’t even penetrate a fingerbreadth.” He shot them a wry grin. “At least we know it works.”

“Yah. On utins,” Aspar allowed. “I’ll be back.” He squeezed Winna’s hand. “And I’ll be careful.”

He followed the tracks for a few hundred yards, which was as far as he dared alone. He’d told Winna the truth—he didn’t fear a trap—but he did fear that the Sefry was working his way back to Stephen and Winna, to catch them while he was away. Fend would like nothing more than to kill someone else Aspar loved, and he’d just come as close to losing Winna as he ever wanted to.

———«»——————«»——————«»———

“It still looks like he’s alone,” Aspar said.

They had been following the Sefry trail for the better part of a day. “Traveling fast,” Ehawk said. “But he wants to be followed.”

“Yah, I reckon that, too,” Aspar said.

“What do you mean?” Stephen asked.

“The trail is obvious—sloppy even. He’s making no effort to lose
us.”

“Ehawk just said he seems to be in a hurry.”

“That’s not enough to account for it. He hasn’t even tried the simplest tricks to throw us off. He crossed three brooks, and never even waded up or down the stream. Werlic, Ehawk is right—he wants us to follow him for some reason.”

“If it’s Fend, he’s likely leading us somewhere unpleasant,” Winna said.

Aspar scratched the stubble on his chin. “I’m not sure it
is
Fend. I didn’t get a very clear look, but I didn’t see an eye patch. And the prints look too small.”

“But whoever it was, he was traveling with the utin, just as Fend and Brother Desmond traveled with the greffyn. So it’s probably one of Fend’s bunch, right?”

“Well, so far as I know, Fend’s outlaws are the only Sefry left in the forest,” Aspar agreed. “The rest left months ago.”

The trail had pulled them deep into the forest. Here there was no sign of the black thorns. Huge chestnut trees rose around them, and the ground was littered with their stickery issue. Somewhere near, a woodpecker drummed away, and now and then they heard the honking of geese, far overhead.

“What could they be up to?” Winna wondered aloud.

“I reckon we’ll find out,” Aspar said.

———«»——————«»——————«»———

Evening came, and they made camp. Winna and Stephen rubbed down the horses while Ehawk started a fire. Aspar scouted, memorizing the land so he might know it in the dark.