by John Brown
Many men came far and wide to wrestle Da. Few had thrown him. None had handled him with such force.
Da looked at Mother, his face full of shock. He shifted his mail tunic, then tried again to reach the door. But Mother planted herself in his path. He tried to push her out of the way, but could not budge her. He renewed his efforts, his arms and neck straining. But it was to no avail.
His expression turned from shock to angry determination.
He took a step back and then lunged at her, but Mother simply stepped out of his way and with one sweep of her foot took his legs out from underneath him.
Mother reached down to take his war maul. “I will face them,” she said calmly. “Take off your armor so you can ride more easily.”
Da grasped the head of the maul. “Purity,” he said.
“I will draw them to me,” she said. “And you will ride with the children. It will be best that way. They will not be orphaned or caught and sold as chattel. You can provide for and protect them as I never could.”
“I don’t understand,” Da said.
“Yes, you do,” she said, then she tugged the maul out of his grip.
Sugar stood back, confused and alarmed.
Mother turned to her. “The way to the woods will be clear. Be ready to fly.”
Then she walked to the front door and put her hand on the crossbar. She paused, taking them all in with her gaze. “I will be waiting for you in brightness.”
She lifted the bar, and in one fluid motion she flung open the door and raced outside. Clouds of smoke billowed in. The roar of the fire above them surged. Out back, Fancy cried with wild panic.
Luckily, neither Sugar nor Legs were standing anywhere within the line of sight from the doorway, for moments later more than a dozen arrows hissed through the smoke, some sticking into the walls, others glancing off a table or chair. Da had only just gained his feet when two struck him. One glanced off his breastplate, the other hit him in the mail over his thigh. He grunted at the second, but it did not have an armor-piercing head, and the arrow fell away.
Da stood and raced after Mother, but halted at the door. He coughed at the smoke and squatted to get under it. “Goh,” he said with a look of wonder on his face.
“Da,” said Sugar and rushed to shut the door. But as she grabbed the door, she saw what Da was looking at.
Mother had already reached the soldiers. Two men lay on the grass. One was dead. The other screamed out at the wound that had nearly taken his leg.
She moved like a snake, like the wind. She was graceful and absolutely horrible.
She swung into another man’s wooden shield and sent it flying. He cried out and stumbled backward, but before he could reach the ground, she smashed in the side of his head.
Sugar could not believe her eyes. She would not. Such speed and power was unnatural.
“Purity,” said Da, and Sugar could see the horror and disbelief on his face.
The great bulk of the men were falling back, some stumbling over one another. In his retreat, one of the bowmen loosed an arrow, but it flew wide of Mother and struck one of his fellows. Another man charged her with a spear, but she swung the maul with blinding speed and cleaved the spear into two.
The Crab yelled for his men to stand and close ranks.
Mother was about to put the whole mob on the run, but two men yelled and rushed her from behind, their javelins held high.
“Mother!” Sugar yelled.
Mother turned just as they cast them. She dodged one, but the other caught her in the shoulder and knocked her back.
Da roared.
He had been in shock, but fury now burned in his eyes.
Mother removed the spear and defended herself from the sword blows of the man who had thrown it.
A dozen archers came running round the corner from the back of the house. They began to form a line. Mother would not be able to dodge their arrows.
The flames thundered overhead.
“Get to Fancy,” Da commanded, “and ride.”
Then he rose and stepped out onto the porch and put his helmet upon his head. Someone shouted out a warning, and the mob turned to look.
Da stood in his dark, shining armor, the fire raging above his head, smoke pouring off the roof.
The men in the yard froze.
“You’ve met the mistress,” Da bellowed. “Now face the master!”
A man dropped his spear, panic shining in his wide eyes.
Da roared and and charged into the fray.
“Da!” Sugar called after him.
He had no weapon, and at first, Sugar thought that he too would fly into the soldiers as Mother had with that awful strength and speed. But Da did not show any sign of dark magic. He charged as a normal man would, an actor playing a role.
But the soldiers did not see through Da’s bluff, and they began to scatter.
Just then the Crab yelled out and galloped across Sugar’s view toward her parents, his sword held high and at the ready.
The house burned like a furnace. The heat began to scorch her lungs with each breath, and she dropped to the floor.
She watched Da run to one of the dead men and pick up his spear. Then he turned just in time to meet the Crab’s charge. Da yelled and shoved the spear into the neck of the Crab’s mount. The horse screamed, reared, and threw its rider.
“Sugar!” Legs called out.
She turned and saw him holding his hand to his chest. His hand was bleeding. She’d been wrong: one of the arrows had found a mark.
She could do nothing against soldiers. But she could help her brother.
“Open the door!” she shouted.
“I can’t,” he said.
He could, but was too frightened to do anything. The wisterwife charm he always kept about his neck had falled out of his tunic. Sugar hoped the wisterwives were indeed looking out for them. But the wisterwives would be able to do nothing if they let the house burn down on top of them. Sugar tore herself from the battle that raged out front and crawled to her brother.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“We’re going to the woods,” said Sugar. “And then…” And then she didn’t know where. No, they’d go to Horse.
She opened the door.
Fancy was gone. She looked out through the haze and billows of smoke to the edges of the yard and could see her nowhere. But neither could she see any soldiers. They all must have run to the front of the house to join the battle.
A log above them made a deafening burst.
“Take my hand,” said Sugar. “We’re going to run to the pond, and from there the river. Are you ready?”
There was an immense whoosh, and the heat at Sugar’s back seemed to increase tenfold.
“Now,” she said. And she and Legs bolted from the house. Down the path they went between the barn and the pheasant house.
When Legs knew a course, he only needed to know where he was at any moment and whether any new obstacles lay in the path. He did not count steps or need to feel about him.
They had taken the path to the new pond many times, for Legs loved the feel of the sun-heated water. And so Sugar only needed to call out his orientation points as they came to them. They ran past the garden and privy to Mother’s pheasant house.
Three of the soldiers far to her right fled the battle. She looked back, hoping to see that Mother and Da had scattered the small army.
The whole roof of the house raged with fire; the immense flames wheezed and roared dozens of feet into the sky. Beyond the fire, Da and Mother stood side by side. With one hand Mother pressed her wound; in the other she held a sword. Da held an axe and shield.
It appeared they had put the soldiers to flight. But then the soldiers stopped and turned, forming a line. They weren’t fleeing, they were making a space so that the bowmen could shoot without killing a number of their own.
Legs tugged on her.
Mother tried to charge the line, but Da stepped in front of her to stand between her and the
soldiers.
The bowmen loosed their arrows. These did not fly wide this time, and despite Da shielding her from most of the shafts, Mother fell to the earth.
Da’s battle cry sounded over the raging of the fire. He too charged. The arrows did not penetrate his armor, but a multitude of spears did.
A shout of triumph rose up from the mob.
“Sugar?” asked Legs.
The fire blazed into the sky. The heat, even at this distance, burned her face. She could not catch her breath.
The soldiers converged upon Da like a pack of wild dogs.
She watched their weapons rise and fall. Some began to run toward Mother, but the Crab shouted and brandished his sword to keep them away.
It was a nightmare, but Sugar could not tear her eyes from it.
A man raised a black sword high over Da. That was a Fire blade from the temple.
No, she thought. No.
Then the man swung the sword down like he was chopping a mighty block of wood and hacked Da’s head from his body.
She could not move. Could barely breathe. The Crab waved the black-bladed man away from Mother. Then a soldier pointed at her and Legs.
“Sugar,” said Legs. “Why are we stopped?”
She realized he had been asking her that over and over. His voice seemed to come from a great distance. It seemed she was watching the whole scene from a great distance.
“It’s too hot,” said Legs and tugged at her.
She took a step; Legs followed. She broke into a jog. “To the woods, straight through Galson’s fields.” That’s what Mother had said.
She glanced back and saw a number of soldiers running toward them.
“Then to the pond,” she said, her voice sounding strange to her ears. “Over the fence and to the pond.”
Hand in hand, they ran across Galson’s paddock. She felt the knife at her waist. The knife Da had given her. A voice in the back of her mind told her to fight. But the voice was small, so very small.
She saw Fancy lying in the grass, arrows sticking from her, but Sugar only noted it. Her mind was filled with the image of Mother and Da and that terrible black blade. Twice Legs stumbled because of her inattention.
When they reached the pond, Sugar looked back. Soldiers ran through Galson’s paddocks toward them. On the far edge of a paddock the district lord rode atop his horse looking for a gate through. She snapped back to the task at hand.
Sugar knew the woods well. She’d played hide-and-seek here and foraged for acorns and firewood. She’d hidden here from the village boys before Da taught her how to fight. The wood was old and in many places did not allow enough light to the ground to support much more than mushrooms. But mushrooms would not hide them. And even if they had cover, the mob would bring dogs.
So Sugar decided they would take the forest creek for their path. She and Legs had a small craft there they sometimes floated on. They would ride the water downstream. And just before they reached the confluence with the main river, they would leave the craft and escape into the woods on the other side.
Sugar looked down at the wisterwife charm Legs wore about his neck. Wisterwives were servants of the seven Creators. It was said that even Regret, the Creator who wanted to destroy the world, was served by them, but neither Mother nor Da had ever seen the creature that had left this charm. “Let us hope the wisterwife is watching us,” she said.
Sugar looked back one last time to where Da and Mother had fallen. One of the village women bent over Mother, probably stripping her. It flickered through Sugar’s mind that this was hopeless. She should stand here and meet her fate. But she quickly pushed that idea aside and faced the woods.
“You’ve done this a hundred times, brother. It’s over the bluff and to the river.”
8
PREY
Hunger lay under the towering, fat spruce that grew in his glade and felt some small thing, a very small thing, scratching about the grass on his chest. The Mother had said not to devour the men, but she’d never said anything about small things, so he cracked one eye and spied the creature.
It was a…
The name floated away.
He grunted.
The names always floated away. His thoughts continually ran from him. Everything fled before his appetite.
Hunger could smell the creature’s Fire, its tasty little Fire. Not much, not enough for a meal. But enough to taste.
He watched the creature grasp a stalk of grass on his chest and bend the ragged head of seeds to its mouth.
Before it could take a bite, Hunger snatched the creature up.
The little thing struggled, but in moments Hunger separated it. The Mother had shown him how to do that down in her cave. Fire, soul, and flesh: these three made up all living things, even him with his body of earth and grass. The Mother had shown him what bound the parts all together, and then she’d taugh him how to pick and pry until the binding unraveled in his hands. Of course, there were some things he had not yet been able to separate. But the little thing he had in his hands, he knew its secrets.
The tiny body he cast away. The Fire he bolted, increasing the hours of his life, but the soul-the soul he nibbled, oh, so slowly for it was sweet with thought and fear.
Above him a swarm of insects made their comforting click and buzz. Farther up, the tops of the ancient spruce trees moved with a gust of wind. He could smell the Fire in the trees. But their binding resisted him. It was very hard to steal from trees, and he thought that this must be because they had a hunger greater than his. Why else would they hold it so fiercely?
The wind gusted again, and the scent that it carried made him pause.
Could it be?
He opened his mouth to smell it better.
A stink?
He stretched wide his great maw and felt the scent fill him, felt it pool alongside his tongue and down his throat. He began to tremble in anticipation.
Magic. The stink of human magic.
Mother, he called. Mother!
He’d caught the scent before, but each time he followed it the trail had vanished before he could find the source. The Mother had told him that was to be expected. He was still young, still growing into his powers. She’d said she made him to smell and see for her, and so there was no doubt that’s what he’d do. It was just a matter of time.
He called again. It’s strong this time, strong like a river.
Soon words came into his mind: Yes, and can you smell a human female in it?
Hunger could.
You are ripening, the Mother said. You are ready. Find the female who wields the powers. Bring her and her brood to me.
Will you give me some? he asked.
No, she said.
I’ll eat them then, he said. I’ll eat them all.
You’ll bring them to me, and I’ll know if you take a bite.
I’ll eat them, he said. But he knew he wouldn’t.
Hunger wanted to taste their souls. He craved their thoughts. Even the thoughts of a little thing full of fear tasted good. So what must it be like to feed on a human?
But if he did, the Mother would know. And she would hurt him. She would send him to the others who had asked her if they might lick and nibble bits of him.
No, he wouldn’t tempt himself. He would find the woman and her brood and carry them back whole.
Hunger stood, dirt falling from him to the ground, and lumbered out of his dark glade toward the source of the scent.
Barg did not want to stand watch around the burning ruin of Sparrow’s house. Not in the dark. Not on this night. The hunt had gutted Sparrow, his horses, pigs, fowl, and dogs: every living thing. All of the organs went into the raging fires of the smithy and home, followed shortly thereafter by the chopped parts of the various carcasses.
Normally, a criminal’s flesh would be left to the vultures and foxes and beasts of the woods. And if no beast would touch it, there were always plenty of maggots. But the hunt dared not leave Sparrow to such a f
ate. No trace of him could remain. His bones, if any survived the fire, would be scattered on the sea.
They’d obtained a Fire sword from the temple in Whitecliff and used it on Sparrow and his beasts. And that gave them some comfort because a Fire sword, forged by the Kains, severed more than flesh. But they had no Seeker, no Divine with the powers to hunt Sleth, to confirm that the soul had fled, and the soul of such a man would be full of wrath. It would linger about. It might even try to possess and ride some weakened man or beast in an effort to exact vengeance. No, Barg did not want to go out. But some things had to be done.
He got up off the floor in front of his hearth. The cups and stones of a game of transfer lay before him. His daughter had just taken her turn and ruined his next move.
Their censer of godsweed had stopped smoking. So he picked up the tongs and fetched a hot coal from the fire. He put the coal in the censer and blew until the weed began to smoke again.
They’d burned godsweed until the air was thick with it. Burned it in every room as proof against the souls of the dead. Even so, Barg did not feel safe.
They’d done a wicked thing today, killing the smith. Everyone had said he’d fought with the strength of twenty men, but Barg had seen it. He’d been there with his spear, and he knew Sparrow. The smith was clean, may the Six bless him. And that was all the more reason for his soul to seek justice.
The smith’s wife, however, she was something else. She’d probably trapped Sparrow, trapped him like a spider. And like a spider, one day she would have eaten him. The clan lord had demanded they keep her alive for questioning. For bait. They placed the king’s collar they’d taken from the royal house around her neck, laid her in the back of a wagon, and had taken her away to the healers.
And it was a good thing, for those that were sent to chase the girl and boy had searched past the river, they’d scoured the woods all the way to the swamps. Lords, they’d even used dogs. But they found nothing. It was impossible-a girl and a blind boy! But the hunt had come back before dark, haggard and empty-handed. That right there was evidence the children knew her wicked ways.
No, Barg did not feel safe. But he wasn’t a coward. He felt a great welling satisfaction, for when others had run today, he had stood his ground. The Crab had noted it. And he wasn’t going to ruin that honor tonight.
