by Blake, Bruce
Ten paces later, the ol’ sailor encountered the first o’ a score o’ skeletons what’d once been men. Maybe the idea o’ foldin’ himself into a ball didn’t seem so bad, after all.
XII Stirk—Enin
Stirk crept along the alley, keeping close to the wall to hide in the shadows. At this time of night, there was little danger he’d meet anyone, at least no one sober enough to be a threat or to remember seeing him.
Since even the drunks kept to the wider avenues and avoided the cramped lanes, Stirk decided to approach Enin’s shop from the rear. Doing so would be less chancy than striding up to the front door, but he was unsure how he’d recognize the horse doctor’s when he reached it. Truthfully, the horse doctor might not be here, but here’s where he found himself when he woke, so he had to trust the healer’d be true to his word to show him the path.
The encounter remained fuzzy in his head. He remembered the creature agreeing to help and returning his hand—it resided in a pocket sewn inside the jerkin he wore, its weight bouncing reassuringly against his chest as he walked. Where the jerkin came from or how he’d gotten from the edge of Fishtown to the horse doctor’s in Middleton, he had no recollection and didn’t care to guess. At least he was in one piece—two, really. He snickered to himself.
The alley stank of piss and refuse, same as the one off which he and Bieta had lived. It took a conscious effort to keep his thoughts from the tiny storeroom and the memories it contained. Instead, he concentrated on the task at hand, thinking about wrapping his fingers around Enin’s throat and watching the light of life in his eyes dim and go out.
Another distinct odor added itself to the alley’s stench, and Stirk’s lips twisted into a lopsided smile when he detected it: horse manure. A horse wouldn’t have fit down the cluttered alley, so the scent meant he neared the horse doctor’s shop.
“Yer gonna get what’s comin’ to ya. You’ll pay for what happened to my ma.”
The words rumbled in his throat, half growl, half whisper. For the first time since he’d seen the axe fall across his mother’s neck, Stirk felt a purpose, a reason to live while his mother was dead.
A few more paces farther along the lane, the big man stopped outside a door with two handles allowing the top and bottom portions to open separately. Though he’d never been in the back room of the horse doctor’s shop, he recognized the style from the times Bieta sent him to pilfer the stables. They used the same type of doors for horses’ stalls.
A grin crept across Stirk’s face, but it was short-lived. What should he do next? How should he exact his revenge?
He leaned against the wall outside Enin’s shop, back pressed against it as he considered the possibilities. He had no weapon, no rope, no implements of death. Tiredness flooded him and he sank to the ground.
How do I kill him?
The question rattled around his mind, but the exhaustion leeching through his body kept it from finding purchase. In first his fear, then his focus on seeking vengeance, he’d failed to notice the ache in his muscles, the swirling edge of confusion in his brain.
His chin sagged, bounced on his chest; Stirk jerked his head back, blinking rapidly to fend off the threat of sleep. A movement in the pocket of his jerkin caught his attention, clearing his thoughts. He reached inside, where his fingers brushed against fingers. They moved and Stirk nearly yanked away in surprise, but then remembered. He clutched the severed hand and pulled it out of his pocket.
He held it on his outstretched palm, the fingers flexing, then releasing, flexing and releasing. After observing it for a few moments, he realized its pulsations matched the beat of his heart.
“I’m so glad to have you back,” he whispered.
For an instant, he considered lifting the hand toward his face, pressing the palm against his cheek the way Bieta used to caress him when he hurt himself or felt upset. He didn’t, though; someone might be watching.
Stirk drew a deep breath through parted lips and let it sigh out again. The hand continued following his heartbeat as he wrapped his thumb around it. The fingers folded closer at the touch, reacting to the stroke of the pad of his thumb on the palm.
With another sigh, Stirk raised his stump, touched the severed end against it. Warmth flowed up his arm.
“Wish you was attached,” he murmured, eyelids growing heavy. He concentrated and managed to curl the fingers into a fist, even thinking he sensed the pressure of his nails as they dug in.
His chin drooped again, but this time when it touched his chest, sleep kept it there.
***
Stirk woke with a snort, eyes opening for an instant, then closing tight again when he was surprised by the sun shining in them. Disoriented, he raised his arm to ward it off, his mind reeling as he attempted to discern why he didn’t awaken in the converted storeroom at the back of the tanner’s.
Because Bieta is dead.
The remembrance started a knot in his throat, but a pain in his side interrupted both memory and emotion. Stirk dropped his arm and looked up to find the horse doctor glaring at him, a pitch fork in his hand and his boot having freshly kicked the big man in the hip.
“What are you doing here?” Enin demanded. He didn’t need to sound angry, his expression made it plain, though his eyes held more than a touch of fear, as well.
Stirk tried to speak, but his dry throat gave up nothing more than a croak. He coughed and gave it another go. “Came looking for you.”
His gaze moved away from Enin to the end of his own arm where he hoped to find his hand had reattached itself while he slept. It hadn’t. The tight skin gleamed in the sunlight and anger seeped back into Stirk’s head, forcing sleep out as it took over. He raised his eyes to the horse doctor again.
Enin stared and Stirk realized the gaunt man hadn’t expected to see him again. When he left him at the healer’s, he’d assumed the robed fiend would finish what he’d started when he took Stirk’s hand.
He didn’t. Too bad for you.
His brow furrowed and he pushed himself against the wall, using it to leverage himself to his feet. Despite having the pitch fork to keep him at bay, Enin backed away a step.
“You’ve got to go,” the horse doctor said. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Shouldn’t be here,” Stirk echoed. “You figure I shouldn’t be here ‘cause you thought I’d be dead, like my ma. You though I’d be gone, like my hand.”
He raised his arm, waggled the stump at Enin, who fell back another pace, stepping into the doorway to his shop. Stirk’s heart jumped as he remembered holding the hand against his empty wrist before he’d dozed off.
Where’d it go?
He couldn’t recall returning to its hiding place in his jerkin, but fog still clouded his head. Eyes fixed on the horse doctor, he reached for the pocket, found it spot empty. It must have fallen while he slept but, with a pitchfork aimed at his belly, he didn’t dare take the time to search for it.
Its loss meant one more reason to make Enin pay.
Stirk glowered, bared his teeth, and took one step toward the horse doctor hoping to catch him off guard, to scare him. He didn’t know the man well but he didn’t think he had it in him to kill someone with his own hands—only to set in motion the events leading to their death, like he’d done with Bieta. If he’d misjudged, he’d end up with four holes in his gut and his life leaking out on the ground in a back alley.
He’d estimated correctly; Enin backed through the doorway, sending a half-hearted poke Stirk’s direction, meant to frighten, not to injure.
“You’ll pay for what happened to my ma.”
Not sure how I’ll get past your poker.
Enin shook his head and retreated into the makeshift paddock. The horse Stirk had heard in it the night before was gone and fresh hay lay on the floor. Its scent tickled his nose, gave him the urge to sneeze. He switched to breathing through his mouth hoping to avoid doing so.
“Not my fault.” Enin’s voice quaked.
That’s ri
ght, horse doctor. Beg for your life.
“You told the one-armed man about us.”
“No. I tried to keep them from you.”
“Failed pretty badly, didn’t ya?”
He backed away and Stirk followed him inside where it was cooler and dimmer. With the sun behind him, he’d be no more than a silhouette in the doorway to Enin’s eyes—the perfect opportunity to find his way past the tines of the pitchfork. He feigned a step to the right, then jerked back to the left, but Enin kept the barn tool pointed at him, preventing him from getting closer.
A movement in the dim shadow behind the horse doctor distracted Stirk for an instant, but he kept his eyes on the tall man. When it happened again, he dared a glance. The fresh straw on the floor shifted, stopped, shifted, stopped. Likely a rat or other vermin, but curiosity threatened to consume him, making him nearly forget the threat of the pitchfork pointed at his gut.
Something resembling a large, hairless spider missing three legs scuttled out of the hay. Seeing it made Stirk’s heart jump with fear—he loathed spiders—then he recognized it for what it was.
My hand!
It crossed the floor toward Enin on the tips of its fingers. Stirk found it difficult pulling his gaze from its movements, so much like an animal on the prowl, but forced himself to look away lest Enin guess its presence. He let a growl escape his throat, hoping to scare the horse doctor back.
“You have to believe me,” the gaunt man said. “I’d never do anything to hurt Bieta. Or you.”
“Just ‘cause you didn’t kill her with your own hands don’t mean you’re not responsible.”
Enin’s expression changed; the fear in his eyes loosened and they turned watery. The pitchfork sagged in his grip, the tines drooping toward the floor. Behind him, the hand inched forward, pausing a single pace back of the horse doctor’s heel.
“Stirk—”
“My ma’s dead. You deserve to join her.”
“You don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand? That if it weren’t for you, she’d be alive? And I’d have both hands?”
“You don’t understand that I wouldn’t hurt you or her because…”
His voice trailed off and his gaze fell away from Stirk’s. The big man’s heart leapt in his chest for fear he’d notice the hand, but he didn’t. Instead, the horse doctor tossed the pitchfork aside and looked back into Stirk’s eyes. Tears brimmed his lids; one spilled over and rolled down his cheek.
“I wouldn’t hurt you because I’m your father.”
Stirk stared at the man, struggling to decipher what he’d said. Somehow, this last time Enin opened his mouth, to Stirk’s ears it sounded as though he’d spoken a different language.
“What did you say?”
“I’m your father, Stirk.” Enin’s face relaxed a little. “Bieta didn’t want you to know. It’s why I protected you.”
Stirk’s head swirled. When had the horse doctor ever protected him? And how could he be his father? No, Stirk understood the process that made a man a father, but he didn’t know how he never suspected. Stirk had surveyed every man who ever visited his mother, searching for someone with similar features to his own, wondered if each might be the one.
He’d never considered Enin.
“Protected me?” He lifted his handless arm, pointed it at the horse doctor in accusation. The severed hand on the floor behind him scuttled closer. “You call this protecting me?”
“Yes. If we hadn’t ensured the prince’s life continued, you and Bieta would surely have been killed.”
“She was killed,” Stirk snapped. “Do you see her standin’ here by my side?”
Enin’s chin dropped to his chest. “It didn’t work out how I’d hoped.”
“Damn right it didn’t.” He took a step toward the horse doctor, jaw clamped tight and hand curled into a fist.
“But I had to try. I had to give you a chance to survive.”
“Bieta didn’t have no chance.”
“I wish I could bring her back.” Enin raised his head; dim light gleamed in the wetness on his cheeks. “I wish I could make you safe.”
Stirk went to move closer, but hesitated, the horse doctor’s tone giving him pause. Was it possible the man told the truth? His eyes narrowed and he surveyed Enin’s long, gaunt face, narrow shoulders, his sunken chest. He bore no resemblance to Stirk, and yet he wondered.
Is he my sire?
Under other circumstances, he’d have dismissed the notion. But after so much speculation, and with his mother gone, the prospect of having a father seemed more desirable than ever.
“Are you speakin’ the truth?”
Enin nodded fervently. “I am.”
“Then why didn’t ma tell me? Or you?”
“She begged me not to.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Season after season, I paid the tanner to let you stay in the storeroom of his shop, but Bieta didn’t want you to find out. She was a proud woman.”
He might tell the truth.
No proof. His lying.
He might be my father.
He’s a liar.
Enin must have seen the internal debate playing out across Stirk’s face. He reached out a comforting hand and took a long pace forward. During their exchange, neither of them noticed the severed hand make its way to Enin’s feet. It grabbed hold of his ankle as he took a second stride, the grip throwing him off balance.
Enin waved his arms in the air, attempting to prevent himself from toppling, but failed. He twisted as he fell, landing with his back to the ground and the pitchfork he’d cast aside. The four points sank deep into his flesh; he gasped a harsh breath through his mouth. He’d barely come to rest before the severed hand scuttled its way up his body faster than one might have imagined it could move.
Stirk stood motionless, gawking.
The fingers wrapped themselves around the horse doctor’s windpipe and squeezed; Stirk’s other hand mimicked the grip. Enin grasped at it, trying to pry it away, wincing at the pain of the pitchfork sticking him in the back as he did. He pulled at the fingers, but the severed hand’s grip proved too tight. His fingernails scratched the back of the hand and Stirk sucked in a quick, pained breath.
Enin directed his gaze toward Stirk, his eyes wide and bulging from the lack of air reaching his lungs. The big man recognized the pleading expression flickering in them amongst panic and fear. For an instant, he considered diving forward, prying the should-be-dead fingers from around his throat, and saving the fellow who claimed to be his sire.
Liar.
Bieta wouldn’t have kept it from him. She’d told him he’d never meet his father and, though he’d always watched for the person it might be, just in case, he didn’t believe his mother lied to him. The horse doctor, however, feared for his life.
A man’ll say anything when he’s afraid of dying.
“Stirk,” Enin wheezed. He held his hand out toward the big man, fingers splayed in a last, desperate act of begging for mercy and forgiveness.
“Liar.”
Stirk crossed his arms, acutely aware of the stump pressing against his chest as the hand that once resided there tightened its grip on the horse doctor’s throat. First, the color drained from the man’s face, then some returned as his lips turned blue. The arm he held out drooped, his energy draining until it settled onto the fresh hay scattered about the floor.
A spark of hope burned at the back of Stirk’s mind, wishing he had a father and Enin might be that man. But the spark was smaller than the fiery rage burning over the death of his mother, so he watched as the blue in the horse doctor’s lips spread to his cheeks and his eyes rolled back in his head.
The hand held on a while longer, like it wanted to make sure it had truly extinguished the man’s life before releasing its grip and crawling to Stirk like a dog awaiting a reward for a trick well performed.
He picked the hand up, stroked it, stored it in the pocket sewn in the lining of
his jerkin, and left the horse doctor’s shop determined that, the next time he took a life, he’d use the hand still his own.
XIII Trenan—Bound for Ikkundanna
They prompted their horses faster, passing a line of wagons leaving the city along the Sunset Road. A weapons merchant, a spice wagon, an open wain covered by a poorly tied sheet of canvas with fabrics of many colors bulging out from beneath. Three covered wagons accompanied them, each carrying a variety of foodstuffs and supplies as the caravan made its way to the kingdom’s many outlying towns to set up market and sell their wares.
As they found their way past the front of the column, Trenan glanced back and wondered if they should have searched the wagons. He slowed his mount, thinking he might go back to do just that, but then changed his mind. No merchants would offer transport to initiates of the Goddess, certainly not one dressed in the red cloak of deadly disease.
The master swordsman put his heels to his steed, urging it to catch up to Dansil. He settled his pace when he did, his mare keeping stride with the bigger gelding the queen’s guard had appropriated.
It’s just a horse.
But it was more. He’d need to keep a tight rein on the queen’s guard or their search for Danya might go seriously astray. He put the thought from his mind for a moment, thinking of the red shroud he’d glimpsed through the crowd when he heard the princess call his name. Might it be a clue where she went?
“Ikkundanna,” Trenan said, putting voice to his thoughts.
Dansil’s head jerked toward the master swordsman. “What did you say?”
“Ikkundanna. When I saw the princess and her companion fleeing the square, she was wearing the Goddess’ red smock.”
“So you think we should risk catching our deaths based on a cloak of crimson cloth? No fucking way.”
Trenan’s gut knotted and his jaw tightened, but he willed his body to release the tension.
“It’s the only clue we have,” he said, holding back the verbal lashing he’d rather have given the queen’s guard.
