by Grace Draven
“What caught Halani?” Kursak eyed the water, and Halani followed his gaze. Her skin crawled at the sensation that something malevolent and hungry watched their group from the veil of sedge grass and black water.
Malachus shrugged. “I don’t know what lives in your wilds here, but in my country, we have fen hags. Ambush predators who possess a touch of water magic.” His gaze slid to Halani. “Yours is earth sorcery, but all magic comes from the same source. It must have sensed you the moment you dipped your toe in the water and started a hunt.”
“Well, that fen hag is still out there, so are we trapped here?” Kursak had unsheathed the dagger he always carried, ready to hack away at anything that might break the water’s surface.
Pinned by Malachus’s chilly scrutiny, Halani could only stare back and wish she’d never, ever agreed to investigate this barrow. Malachus’s voice was no warmer than his stare. “No. We can wade back as a group. Stay close together. Hags always go for a single individual. If this one tries a second time, it will go for Halani again.”
“I’ll carry her back,” Seydom volunteered.
“I will.” The veiled threat in Malachus’s voice deterred any argument.
A knowing expression settled over Kursak’s features before a scowl took its place. “Halani said she heard gold or silver when she walked the barrow’s perimeter.”
Malachus spoke to her directly once more. “Disguises make an ambush predator effective. So do traps, which I’d wager is exactly what this barrow is. One kind of magic can manipulate another. Earth and fire, water and air, but especially earth and water. The hag knew how to manipulate yours.”
Mortified, Halani closed her eyes for a moment and wished herself anywhere but here.
“You mean there’s no gold or silver in there?” Seydom stared at the barrow, aghast.
“Probably not, but you can always check for yourself.” Malachus bent and lifted a silent Halani in his arms. “I’m not staying while you do. Neither is Halani.”
No one stayed behind to search. The free traders struggled to keep up with Malachus as he waded toward the road and the small crowd waiting for them, their lamps firefly beacons of safety amid the perilous fen. Halani gasped when Malachus suddenly stumbled. She choked back an alarmed cry and clutched his shoulders.
Malachus’s dark chuckle lacked any humor or warmth. “You’ll not find me easy prey, hag,” he said, addressing a fleet black shadow that sped away just under the water’s surface.
They continued their journey in a silence thicker than the mud at the bottom of the fen and twice as cold. Malachus held her close but not in the way of the lover she’d embraced earlier. Had that been only a couple of hours earlier? It felt like a lifetime.
Grave robbing wasn’t outlawed in the Empire, but it was frowned upon by most, and those who did it tended not to speak about such nefarious actions. While Hamod never suffered a moment’s hesitation in desecrating a grave for the purpose of enriching himself and his caravan, it had never set easy with Halani. She’d participated in the activity since she was a child and Hamod discovered her talent for “hearing” the sounds of precious metals hidden deep in buried caches and stored away among the skeletons and decaying corpses of a rich family’s barrow. He’d exploited that talent, using everything from threats to indebtedness to gain her cooperation.
But Hamod wasn’t here, and she should have followed her first instinct and refused to accompany the others to this barrow. She’d almost died because of her poor judgment, and while she’d half expected Malachus’s disapproval if he found out what she’d done, she hadn’t anticipated this quiet, seething loathing that poured off of him now.
“This was free trader business. I didn’t think you needed to know,” she said in a soft voice.
“Believe me, I wish I didn’t.”
Some inner voice warned her to stop, to say nothing else as his arms tensed even more around her. She dared a glance at his face, so grim and hard, it might have been chiseled from stone. “Once we reach the road, will you let me explain?”
He stared straight ahead. “No. I’ve no interest in what you have to say.” When he finally deigned to look at her, her heart withered inside her chest. So much contempt. “Thieves of the living are like ticks on a dog. Parasitic, repulsive, unavoidably common. Thieves of the dead, though . . . that is a special kind of serpent, and one just slithered out of my bed.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The moment his feet hit the road, Malachus set Halani down and walked away from her. His shoes squished with each step, and he was waterlogged from the waist down. If he was lucky, he didn’t have a leech or two attached to him. And it could always be worse. A fen hag attached to him was infinitely worse.
Halani. Beautiful, compassionate Halani, who desecrated the dead for the chance of obtaining a necklace or a belsha, no better than those who’d looted the Sovatin necropolis and stole his mother-bond. “Gods,” he said under his breath, sick to his soul at the discovery.
He entered the provender wagon, closed the door behind him, kicked off his shoes, and stripped naked. Inside, the wagon was a tomb itself, so dark Malachus could barely make out the shape of his hand when he held it in front of him. He sat down on the wooden floor, avoiding the bed within arm’s reach. The rumpled covers still held the musky scent of lovemaking in their folds, evoking memories that should have brought pleasure but instead sent a spike of pain through his chest worse than any poisoned broadhead.
The dark whelped other memories as well, ones older but equally painful. Images of the monastery and a journey he’d taken as a child with some of the brotherhood and a bevy of other fosterlings to the Necropolis of Zersha, where the monks from the beginning of the brotherhood’s existence were interred when they died. It had been a pilgrimage to pay respects to those who kept alive the faith in Pernu and offered sanctuary to Vuri Silyn’s offspring.
They had journeyed there, excited, eager, ready to pay their respects, only to discover destruction and chaos. The monks with the fosters had fallen to their knees, rent their clothes, and cried out their grief at the sight of the ransacked necropolis, its tombs destroyed, bones strewn like garbage across the loggia and down the hillside, carvings and reliefs on the walls defaced or obliterated completely by hammer and chisel. With the exception of a few, the treasures there were of modest value and didn’t justify the devastation the thieves had visited on the necropolis.
Of the things the robbers had made off with, one was priceless—Malachus’s mother-bond. Those who’d first stolen it were long dead before he was old enough to leave the monastery and exact his revenge, and he’d spent a lot of time and a lot of fruitless effort—not to mention spilled blood and an attempted murder—since then trying to retrieve it.
A faint protest struggled to break from his consuming fury. That isn’t Halani.
But the rage prevailed. It is Halani. A thief who steals from the dead because the dead can’t protest, can’t fight back. Not only a greedy thief, but a craven one.
Never before had he doubted the accuracy of his judgment. Until recently, with the exception of the monks who’d raised him, he’d at first found humans generally detestable. They tended toward pettiness and cruelty, their short lives defined by a ferocious need to rise in the world by whatever means necessary and motivated by an avarice that defied and superseded any greed ever assigned to the most rapacious draga.
The monks, and his own experiences in the world outside the monastery, had taught him not all humanity was that way. The free traders’ care of him and generosity toward him had confirmed it. Or so he’d thought. They were no better than the worst of their kind. Venal and deceptive, and Halani with her somber gray eyes the worst of them all.
Had she made love to him because she wanted it as much as he did, or had it simply been a means by which to distract him? Reason told him the second possibility made no sense on multipl
e levels, and he discarded the notion. But why she’d chosen tonight to be with him didn’t make much sense either, especially when they’d been on the verge of falling into bed together before this.
He raked his hands through his hair, ignoring the heat rising in the closed wagon, from both the temperatures of a summer night and his anger, which had once more awakened the draga. Halani’s departure from his bed had been a furtive one. The care she took in trying not to wake him had been motivated not by thoughtfulness but by fear. He could smell it on her as she peeled back the blankets and eased out of his arms, her steps a slow, mindful tread. She’d gathered her clothes in her arms, opening the door just enough to squeeze through before gently shutting it behind her. A woman willing to stand naked outside in the dark to put her clothes back on wasn’t one worried about waking a sleeping lover but one terrified of doing so.
As soon as she walked away from the wagon and he no longer heard her footsteps, Malachus rose, dressed, and followed her. Except for the ubiquitous sound of slumbering animals, the camp was quiet. He spotted a movement near the livestock, likely whoever was assigned watch for the evening, and kept to the shadows. The faint glow of a single lamp flickered in the clerestory windows of her wagon, and Malachus listened to the splash of water and shuffle of feet.
Was she bathing the memory of his touch off her body? The thought saddened him. His melancholy evaporated when Seydom suddenly appeared, knocked on the side of the wagon, and waited at the steps until Halani appeared at the door and joined him, dressed in the same clothes she’d worn earlier, a grim look on her moonlit features.
Malachus had followed the two, unnoticed, to the front of the caravan, where Kursak and Tursom waited. Puzzled by their clandestine gathering, he stayed out of sight, watching as they waded into the fen. Shock seized him the instant he guessed their destination and their intention. The fury that followed nearly blinded him. Grave robbers. They were grave robbers.
The memory of the destroyed necropolis with its scattered skeletons and grief-stricken monks burst across his mind’s eye. The men responsible for the desecration were grave robbers as well. Tombs stripped of things not worth half a belsha, and his mother-bond, his mother’s gift to him, his very heritage, trading hands across cities, countries, even lifetimes, as thieves stole from each other for the chance at filling their money pouches from the sale of things that didn’t belong to them.
Neither shock nor rage had kept him on the road when the fen hag yanked Halani into the water. The emotions had served only to fuel his strength and speed while he cut a swath through the water toward her and the panicked trio struggling to hold on to her as the fen hag pulled her relentlessly deeper into the fen. He hadn’t feared for himself or hesitated in plunging his hands into the waves, where a cadaverous shape clawed at Halani’s leg.
Draga power surged through his muscles as he broke the hag’s grip by snapping off its bony fingers like dried twigs. The thing convulsed, raking its other hand against his leg as it thrashed away from him. He barely resisted the urge to crush Halani to him as he carried her back to the road, torn by his revulsion for her actions and his terror at witnessing her almost drown.
She’d displayed no surprise at his anger, just a sorrowing acceptance, which made his rage burn even hotter. He couldn’t set her down and walk away fast enough.
The night crawled on broken legs toward the dawn as Malachus packed his possessions into his satchels and wrenched the draga within him back into submission. He was done here, forgetting his original purpose while under the enchantment of an earth witch who corrupted her sorcerous gift in the worst way. Lightning had shown him her image for reasons other than possession of the mother-bond. She’d saved his life and he’d now done the same for her. His debt was paid in full. He no longer owed her anything, and she had taken more than enough from him already.
A few of the free traders nodded good morning to him or called a greeting as he strode toward the back of the caravan to retrieve Batraza. He ignored them all. Batraza was the only one whose greeting he responded to, and he set to brushing her down before tossing pad and saddle over her back.
“Leaving us?”
Malachus didn’t bother turning around. He’d wondered when Kursak might turn up. “I should have left days ago.”
“Have you told Halani goodbye?”
Malachus’s bark of laughter sounded harsh to his own ears. “You can tell her for me.”
Kursak was suddenly beside him, his eyes sparking with an anger to match Malachus’s. “You killed two men while half dead from arrow wounds to defend yourself and faced down a fen hag to save her. I never took you for a coward.” He allowed a lengthy pause to hover between them. “Until now.”
Malachus ignored the insult and obvious challenge. He had nothing to prove to a grave robber.
When he didn’t respond, Kursak exhaled a frustrated breath. “Halani has never approved of the barrow raiding.”
“Good for Halani.”
Kursak yanked on his arm. “Is it really the barrow raiding or the fact that she sneaked out of your bed to do it?”
The thin cord keeping his anger in check snapped. Malachus seized Kursak by the throat with one hand, jerking him forward until they were nose to nose. “Touch me again, and I’ll break you in two.” He shoved the wide-eyed wagon master away hard enough to make him fall. “I don’t owe you an explanation for a godsdamn thing.”
He had to admire Kursak’s persistence, reckless though it was. The man scrambled to his feet, red-faced but determined as he approached once more.
“Maybe not, but you owe her one. She headed for your wagon this morning to thank you for saving her from the hag. I stopped her. Figured this would be the kind of reception she’d get from you. I’m here to thank you as well and to ask you to at least bid her farewell. Think about it. She’s taking her turn minding the sheep.”
Having had his say, he marched off, leaving Malachus to stare unseeing into the middle distance. The mare’s short whuffle snapped him out of the mire of his thoughts. He finished bridling and saddling her, tied his satchels and weapons to the saddle rings, and led her to where the livestock milled on the road.
He found Halani standing amid a cluster of sheep, serenaded by their bleats and surrounded by clouds of flies. He didn’t come any closer, so as not to panic the flock. When she saw him, her face paled and her mouth thinned, but she waded her way toward him, whistling for the dogs to keep to their tasks. Dressed in different clothes and no longer muddy, she made his gut clench. A thief more beautiful than the moon.
Her gaze, even more solemn now than when he’d first met her, passed over him and Batraza. “You’re leaving. Did Kursak send you?”
Malachus nodded. “He has a persistent manner.”
“One of his many good traits.” A shadow drifted over her face. “I came to see you earlier. To thank you for saving me.”
“He told me. He was wise to stop you.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Why? Would you have shouted at me? Struck me? Called me names in front of the others?” A faint warble entered her voice. “What was it you said? ‘A special kind of serpent.’”
He’d meant to draw blood with that insult. It seemed he’d succeeded. He felt no triumph at the thought. “Why do you thieve from the dead?” If there was one thing he had to know before he left the free traders, it was this.
Her face cleared of all expression, settling into an inscrutable mask that restoked his anger. “Because they won’t care if something comes up missing.”
His hand clenched Batraza’s reins. “And that makes it right?”
Halani eyed his hand before meeting his gaze once more. “No, but it makes it easy.”
The draga inside him thrashed, restless. “It doesn’t matter if that barrow had been stuffed to the roof with gold. You and the others had no right to it.”
She snorte
d. “Of course we didn’t have a right to it. It wouldn’t be called ‘raiding’ if we did.” Her tone gentled. “I know you disapprove, that it disgusts you, and I wish you’d never found out. Why do you think I sneaked away? I hoped you’d sleep through the night and waken never knowing what we’d done. None of us expected a fen hag.” A flash of horror passed through her eyes. Malachus toyed with the idea of breaking Kursak’s nose for his recklessness in putting Halani’s life in danger.
“I was already awake and watching you four wade toward the barrow,” he said. “You aren’t who I assumed you to be. None of you are.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What did you think we were? Paragons of virtue saving wayward outlanders who manage to get themselves shot full of arrows by mercenaries? And now you feel made a fool of by all of us because of those assumptions.” The blade of her mockery cut deep. “We’re free traders, Malachus, not bandits, and most of the time not even barrow raiders. But sometimes we take from the dead to help the living. Necklaces decorating skeletons, belshas hidden under burial shrouds. What good are they to those who’ve died? We take what we find and resell it on the markets, use the money to buy supplies, food, thread and needle, iron for wagon hardware. Things those of us still living use to survive.”
He blinked, stunned by her ability not only to justify their thievery but to turn it into something noble. “And you must think me the perfect dupe. How much horseshit are you hoping to shove down my throat before I’ve had enough and walk away? Is there no limit to humanity’s greed and its power over their every action?”
“Spoken like a man who’s never known the joy of starvation,” she snapped. “I’m not defending, only explaining. It is wrong. No one here will argue that with you, especially me. Condemn us if you will, but know why we do it, not why you think we do it.”
