Servant of a Dark God

by John Brown

  Hogan said nothing.

  Harnock, rarely seen, was a ghost of man and beast. It was he, in his secret mountain valley, who kept the seed, the hope that would start the One Grove. It was he who kept the Book and Crown of Hismayas, the ancient god who had founded the Order. Into these two objects Hismayas was said to have put all his knowledge and power. The problem was, none had yet found the way to unlock them. Nevertheless, if those two objects fell into the enemy’s hands, the Order might never recover.

  “I have a better plan,” said Argoth. One that just might save the Grove here and all the unknowing wives, sons, and daughters who would not be able to flee with the power of the lore. One that would not only discover what exactly the Skir Master knew, but also ensure that any secrets he had extracted would never reach the other side of the sea. One that would allow Argoth to put the tools he had before he came to the Order to a righteous purpose.

  “No,” said Hogan.

  “Yes,” said Argoth. “I’m going to run right into his teeth.”

  22

  RIDERS

  Talen suspected the Mokaddians would be watching for him at Farmer’s Gate. For that matter, they’d be watching for him at all the lesser gates on that side of the city. So he decided to use a gate on the far side.

  Gallow’s Gate was manned not by the city guard but by commoners performing their required three-day service. A city guardsman oversaw them. But the bulk of the dozen men here were commoners, mustered for this purpose. One man eating slices of raw fish with his fingers, saw Nettle, knew him, and waved them through with a “give the Lord the Lani family’s compliments.”

  Nettle nodded, and they passed through the gate. They rolled through the dry moat, over a slight rise, and continued on toward the river. They’d made it out!

  Talen felt a surge of relief and something he didn’t expect-sympathy for the hatchlings. Perhaps it was as Da said: perhaps what was wrong was that the world was full of Fabbises.

  With every rod they traveled it seemed that Talen felt better and better. A great sense of energy and well-being washed over him. He felt like a spring day, one where the mud had dried and the leaves had begun to break their buds and color the world with a light green. It was odd. It was as if the earth itself had touched him and given him an extra portion of life. Perhaps he’d been more scared than he thought and so felt a greater relief.

  The wagon bumped along and kicked up a haze of powdery dust. Not far down the road, along a bend of the river, rose a fat grove of cottonwoods.

  A number of naked bodies hung on ropes from the massive limbs of the trees. They were criminals. Of course, Sleth would never hang here. Sleth were dealt with in an entirely different manner.

  “I want to ask you something,” said Nettle. “And I want a straight answer.”

  Talen looked at his cousin.

  “When that hatchling girl kissed you, did you feel anything odd?”

  “Besides being panicked out of my mind?”

  “I’ve heard the lovemaking of Sleth is feral.”

  “Goh,” said Talen. “We weren’t lovemaking. You need to get out more. Forget your parents’ ban. Slip out and kiss a girl now and again. You have enough who are willing.”

  “Are you joking? My father would skin me. Especially after the incident with the fuller’s maid. You’d think I’ve got a life of cake and pie. But my parents have got me so hemmed in and roped down I’m going crazy.”

  “The bailiff was right outside,” said Talen. “You think we had time for sport?”

  “But you said she put her tongue in your mouth. That’s going a bit far for playacting, isn’t it? And I’m not interested so much about the lovemaking anyway. What I’m wondering is if she did something to you.”

  She’d done nothing to him. Nothing he could feel. But Nettle wanted a story and it was clear he wouldn’t be put off. Talen gave him an earnest look. “You won’t tell anybody?”

  Nettle’s face lit with curiosity. He raised his hand in oath. “Silent as a mole.”

  Talen took a deep breath. “I was helpless.”

  “Helpless?”

  “Yes, she took my arms and pressed them down so I couldn’t do a thing. You wouldn’t think a slip of a girl could do that. I wanted to tell her to get back, but the words wouldn’t form. I was helpless before her. You cannot imagine what it felt like when she pressed in close to me.”

  Talen paused for effect and waited. He could almost feel the silence drawing Nettle’s curiosity like a bow.

  “So she pressed in?”

  “Oh, snug as a glove. It wasn’t proper. And that’s the troubling thing. Despite all logic, despite my fears, I cannot deny the desire that rose in me.”

  “I see.”

  They were almost upon Gallow’s Grove, and the stench of those twisting in the breeze made Talen bring his tunic up over his nose.

  These trees could hold a prodigious number of bodies. After last year’s battles with the Bone Faces, a horde of prisoners had been executed. They’d hung along these limbs thick as candles on dipping rods. But those had been cut down. These here were criminals. The rumors of their deeds and hangings had spread quickly. Such news was always part of the talk in the houses of the alewives.

  Talen motioned at the bloated and decayed bodies. “Look at that one. I bet he’s that cattle thief from the Sinks.” The man in question had obviously been dragged behind a horse. His flesh was torn and open. He had no eyes. He had no hands for that matter. Those had been cut off. Wasps mixed with the flies in a cloud, all of them buzzing in to get their tiny bites.

  Nettle pulled his tunic over his nose.

  Some of the bodies here had been hanging for weeks. The first was withered, but it was clear he’d been emasculated. When they rode close to the second, a hawk that had been tugging at the flesh of the man’s face rose and flapped away, revealing a half-eaten, gruesome smile.

  They passed another. Talen stopped the wagon by the fourth and fifth, a man and a woman. The man was hung with a thick rope punched through the skin and threaded through his ribs. The woman’s dark hair hung over her ruined face. She tilted slightly, twisting gently in the evening breeze, one arm sticking out as if she were reaching for them. Both had been in the trees long enough for the maggots to hatch.

  “Killed her mother-in-law,” said Talen. “They said she struggled and bucked for the better part of an hour.”

  “I don’t need a history,” said Nettle. “Move it along.”

  But Talen didn’t want to move it along. He looked up at the bodies hanging about him. If anyone found out about the girl and boy at his house, this is where his life would end.

  Why would Da risk something like that?

  Talen started Iron Boy again. When he put enough distance between them and the grove to erase the stink, he pulled his tunic from his nose.

  Nettle did the same.

  They were both quiet for a time, then Nettle produced another half loaf of bread pudding. Where he’d been hiding it, Talen had no idea.

  Nettle took a big bite. When he’d gulped it down, he said, “So?”

  “So what?”

  “So, what did she do after she slid in?”

  Good old Nettle, Talen thought. Not even death hanging about in the trees could sway him from girls or his gut.

  “I was fearing for my soul,” said Talen. “But not minding it either. The hunters were outside, and yet I could not think of them. Only the creature on my lap.” Talen shook his head. “She took my hand and pressed it to her.”

  “Her side?”

  “Oh, no,” said Talen. And he gave Nettle a look that said she’d done nothing as innocent as that.

  Nettle’s eyebrows rose and Talen fought to suppress his smile.

  “You mean?” said Nettle.

  Talen nodded. “I tell you, I was paralyzed; my brain was cider muzzy. Her with a wicked gleam in her eyes, and me thinking to myself that she’s done this before, these are experienced hands. I am only thankful sh
e exposed herself when armsmen were about. Who knows what she would have forced me to do. As it is, I fear I’ve been touched.”

  “It is said that they make sounds.”

  “Sounds?”

  “The beast in their natures takes over.”

  “There was no sound,” said Talen. “But she did indeed bite.”

  Nettle narrowed his eyes. Talen could see he’d pushed the tale a bit too far.

  “You’re such a bad liar,” said Nettle.

  Talen pulled his collar down to show Nettle his neck. “Look for yourself.”

  “I don’t see anything. Why I ever listen to you, I’ll never know.”

  “Look,” Talen said and pointed.

  Nettle leaned in close. “There’s nothing here.”

  Talen clopped him on the side of the head. “Of course, there isn’t. No glamour, no petting, no grunts, or lustful moans. No wicked babies conceived. I told you. It was like kissing the wall.” Except that wasn’t entirely true.

  “Look,” said Talen. “If she’s there when we get back, you can have a go. Tell her to not forget the tongue.”

  “She wasn’t that bad-looking,” said Nettle, as if considering the idea. “Better than most.”

  “Who cares?” said Talen. “She’s a hatchling.”

  “You yourself said nothing happened.”

  Nettle was considering it. “You can’t be serious,” said Talen.

  “Gotcha,” said Nettle and grinned.

  Talen pointed at him. “You can’t fool me. You were actually thinking of kissing her.”

  “If if makes you happy to think that, go right ahead and think it.”

  Talen refused to rise to his bait, instead he fetched one of the last of his ginger cookies and plopped it in his mouth.

  They had just entered the trees on the hill that lay beyond Gallow’s Grove, and Talen wanted to see if there was any sign of pursuit. He stopped the wagon, hopped out, and went back to the tree line. Nettle followed.

  About a mile back, well before Gallow’s Grove, a group of mounted men followed the road. He watched them disappear behind a small hill. Talen groaned “You think they’re looking for us?”

  “I think we’d better act as if they are,” said Nettle.

  They scrambled back to the road and got into the wagon. Talen urged Iron Boy on, knowing there was no way two boys in a wagon could outrun mounted men.

  23

  SCENT

  Hunger lost the scent of the Koramite and his son. At first, it didn’t bother him. He watched the people and animals come and go. But toward late afternoon it occurred to him that the Koramite and his son might not have gone to the city at all. They might have simply ridden on by.

  This gave him pause. What if they weren’t coming back this way? What if they weren’t coming back at all? Argoth might hold lands in that other direction. They might be gone visiting; they might be gone for a weeklong hunt for all he knew.

  He shouldn’t have let them go. No, he’d made a miscalculation. He should have given them chase.

  But then he calmed himself. They were either in the city or they were beyond it. The wind was blowing in from the sea. All he needed to do was walk the edge of the forest in a line running toward the city.

  If the Koramite and his boy were in the city or going to travel back, he’d pick up their scent. And if they weren’t, well, then they had quite a start on him.

  But Hunger would find them. Of that he had no doubt. He’d been a great hunter in his time. At least, one of those he’d eaten had been.

  Hunger stood and began making his way down the hill. Below him on the road, three boys in red hats herded a large flock of sheep. Their long-haired, black and white dogs barked to keep the sheep from straying too far from the road.

  Hunger stepped out of the brush into the middle of the flock and sent the sheep running. The second boy, walking perhaps only a dozen feet ahead, looked back. His expression of curiosity turned to horror.

  Hunger could catch the shepherd and eat him. He paused. He could smell him, taste him on the wind. He could eat them all.

  No, he told himself. He would not. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself the next time.

  One of the dogs began barking.

  Something drifted to him on the breeze. He opened his mouth.

  The burning boy. The scent was faint but unmistakable.

  This time, Hunger thought, you won’t get away. He turned from the shepherd and his sheep.

  The dog followed him to the brush on the far side of the road, snarling. The young man found his voice and yelled a warning. But another three steps and Hunger was well into the wood, the sounds of the shepherds and their dogs receeding behind him.

  24

  TREES

  T

  alen peered out from the wagon bed. The men following them had begun to trot their horses.

  “I’m jumping out around that next bend,” said Talen. Nettle could continue with the wagon while Talen tried to escape on foot.

  “They’ve already seen you,” said Nettle.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “You don’t know that they haven’t.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  “Just act normal,” said Nettle.

  “Will you shut up with your normal nonsense.”

  “I’m Captain Argoth’s son. It will count for something.”

  “Yeah,” said Talen. “That’s why I was standing around this morning at the city gate batting horseflies from my naked body.”

  “As soon as they realize you’re gone, they’ll know. They’ll send one back for help. The rest will watch the area. And the woods here don’t run unbroken. They’ll see you.”

  “No,” said Talen. “They won’t.” But he knew they would. By the stinking lord of pigs, they would.

  Unless he hid so well, so quietly, like a mouse in a tuft of grass, that they’d have to be standing right on him to know he was there.

  “Just get me to the bend in the road,” said Talen. They didn’t have dogs, and it would be dark before they could bring them. That was the only thing he had in his favor.

  Talen caught another glimpse of the men, perhaps a half-dozen rods behind. There were eight of them, all Shoka.

  The wagon bumped along, making it difficult for Talen to keep himself flat and out of sight in the wagon bed. At this pace they weren’t going to make the bend. “Speed it up,” hissed Talen.

  “We’ll say you’re sick.”

  “It won’t work,” said Talen.

  Behind them, the men urged their horses into a canter.

  “Faster,” said Talen.

  Nettle flipped the reins and Iron Boy began to trot. The wagon bounced off a rut.

  Talen readied himself.

  It was odd, but the sensation of energy and well-being he’d noticed passing through the city gate had not vanished. If anything, it had built. He felt as if he could keep pace with a horse, maybe outrun one.

  Of course, that was stupid. Still, with every jolt of the wagon his strength grew. He could feel it, like a crazy itch seeping through him. He wondered about the ginger cookies. This would not be the first baker to mix a come-back into his breads. Come-backs were something to make a body depend on his bread, something besides taste to make a person come back and continue to buy. Of course, such herbs were outlawed in the New Lands, but it had been a Whitecliff baker. He probably didn’t think such rules applied to him.

  “We’re almost to the bend,” said Nettle.

  The men were closing fast. One of them yelled out.

  The wagon passed into the shade of trees and out of the the men’s sight.

  Nettle reined in Iron Boy to slow the wagon.

  Talen rose to his feet.

  “You’re not going to have time to find cover.”

  Not if he ran into the woods. The forest floor was covered with leaves that would crackle underfoot. If they didn’t see his tracks, then they’d be sure to hear any step he took
.

  Talen looked up. The trees here were massive giants. All the lower limbs had been cut by clan road gangs, and the closest branch towered more than a dozen feet overhead.

  It was an impossible height for him. Except, he knew he could reach them. His limbs ached to jump. What did he have to lose?

  Talen stood on the wagon seat and eyed the limb of a towering elm in front of them. The branch was as thick as his leg and hung almost twenty feet above the trail.

  The tree limb was too high. He knew it. But he couldn’t help himself. His legs cried out for a sudden burst of power. He had never imagined his growth would come upon him in this fashion.

  He stood on the wagon seat and held his hands out to the side for balance. He would jump a bit to the side just in case he missed.

  “You’ll never make it,” said Nettle.

  “Maybe my legs are as quick as my hands.”

  “That wasn’t quickness back there with Fabbis,” said Nettle. “That was you grabbing a snake that was just about dead.”

  No, Talen thought. It had been as live and wriggling as any serpent he’d ever held. Not to mention that he’d moved quickly enough to take both Fabbis and Cat off guard. Talen steadied himself; he was still a bit light-headed, but the itch inside him had built. He could feel the power.

  The sound of the horse hooves beating the ground sped from a canter to a full gallop.

  “They’re on us!” hissed Nettle. “Sit down!”

  Talen focused on the branch. “Tell them I struck out on foot after leaving the gate.”

  He was almost there.

  The galloping sounded as if it were right behind them.

  The wagon passed underneath the branch, and Talen leapt.

  He soared.

  He must have got a bounce from the seat, because the branch was suddenly within reach.

  He grabbed it with one hand, and the wagon passed below him.

  Talen reached up with his other hand and swung over.