“They’re mine!” he roared.
The Guardian paid him no mind. He rode up to the lead dogman and said something in their tongue. The dogman replied.
Lord Hash trotted up in a huff and reined in his mount. “They murdered my wife!”
The Guardian looked at the Lord. He did not raise his voice. “You will go away now, Lord Hash.”
“Zu,” said Lord Hash, “I demand blood!”
“You do not demand anything. Now you will go away.” He turned back to the dogman and asked him a question in the man’s language. The dogman responded.
“I—”
But before Lord Hash could say more, a number of the dreadmen turned their spears on him. He looked at their spears, looked at the Divine who had turned back to the dogman. He leveled a gaze of hate at Sugar and Oaks, then turned his horse and gave it his heels.
The Guardian dismounted, handed the reins of his horse to one of his soldiers, called for a torch. While he was waiting, she quickly adjusted the collar of her tunic to hide the weave.
The Guardian walked over and looked down at her. He examined her broken nose in the torchlight, then must have seen something, for he fished the necklace out of her tunic and fingered the weave.
His hair was trimmed short and tidy. The cords of his muscles stood out on his arms and throat. He didn’t say a word to her, just retrieved a silver collar from his pocket and clasped it about her neck. Sugar closed her doors as tightly as she could, but moments later she found it increasingly difficult to maintain her Fire. The Guardian put another such collar around Oaks’s neck, then pointed at a dreadman. “Take their names. Make a full report.”
Then the Divine turned and mounted his horse. Other dreadmen came forward and bound Sugar’s wrists behind her back. They bound Oaks’s as well, even though his arm was broken. Then they led them up to and through the gate of Blue Towers.
As they crossed the inner bailey, she spotted the outside of the grand apartment and the wind-torn balcony. Then they were led through a door at the base of one of the towers and down a stair into a dark cellar below. Sugar was still wet and freezing, and the stones of this dungeon only offered more cold on her bare feet, but she felt relief being out of the cold wind.
The dreadmen exited the pitch black room and barred the door behind them with a ka-thunk. The silence was thick, and then she heard the wind moaning softly over the edges of an opening somewhere high in the wall.
Oaks said, “You think you might ease my knots?”
Sugar used her shoulder and elbow to locate him next to her in the darkness. Then she turned her back to his so she could feel his knots with her own bound hands. She ran her fingers along the knot. It took some time and some gritting of teeth on Oaks’s part to loosen the cord. When it was off him, he moaned a thanks. Then he turned and with his free hand worked her bond. He said, “Six of us for a Skir Master. I’d say that’s a good trade. Although I’m not too happy about being one of the six.”
“I suppose,” Sugar said and thought of Urban and his ship fleeing over the waves in the moonlight. She’d been a fool. Maybe she had needed to stay, but Legs hadn’t. Why hadn’t she sent him with Urban?
“It’s not going to be pretty,” said Oaks. “You and I are in for some hard experience.”
* * *
She didn’t know how long they sat there on the cold stone floor of the dungeon, wet and freezing, but it was still dark outside the small window when the door opened and three dreadmen came for her. One held a lamp, the other two handled her roughly, binding her again. Then they barred the door, leaving Oaks behind, and led her up the stairs and out onto the bailey.
The moon had moved to the west and so she knew she’d been down there a few hours. They crossed the bailey, away from the grand apartment and Lord Hash’s tower, to another one of the towers, and led her up to a room on the second level. A fire blazing in the hearth and a number of candles on corbel shelves illuminated the room.
There was no bed, only a few tables, chairs, and a desk. A bear skin lay on the floor. There were casements for books and other objects. Like Lord Hash’s room, the walls were plastered and painted with a mural, this one depicting a great battle where men wore livery of bright yellows and oranges. The warmth of the fire felt good, and she desperately wanted to edge closer, but the two men held her between them and waited.
A few minutes later, a tall hooded figure walked in holding a cup of steaming liquid on a saucer. He dismissed the two guards with a wave of his hand. She couldn’t see his face clearly in the fire and candlelight. But when the two guards were gone and the door shut, he pulled back his hood and smiled at her.
It was Flax.
She couldn’t believe her eyes. “How did you . . .” It was impossible. Truly, the Hand was amazing.
He led her over to a chair. She sat, her wrists still bound behind her, and tried to get closer to the lovely warmth of the fire.
“Take a sip,” he said and raised the cup he was holding to her lips. “You must be very cold.” He tipped the cup, and she couldn’t help but take a sip. The liquid was warm and bitter and felt good going down her throat.
She pitched her voice low so she wouldn’t be overheard outside the room. “How are we going to get out of here?”
“One more drink,” he said and tipped the cup again.
When she’d swallowed, he set the cup aside and pulled up a chair. “Your broken nose is unfortunate; it mars an otherwise beautiful face. Not a stunning face, mind you, but coupled with your courage and grit, it all works together into something quite nice. You are someone who needs to be known to be appreciated.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m appreciating your breeding,” he said. “Which brings me to your brother. He’s an interesting study. He doesn’t have a fully developed seed in him, but he has power. I want to know what happened to him.”
Why wasn’t he asking about the attack? Why didn’t he release her bonds? “How are we going to get out?” she asked.
“My dear, you’re not getting out.”
“But—”
“No, you’ve done quite enough damage for one night’s work. I have to hand it to Shim. We didn’t see the attack coming. Not like this.”
She tried to process what he had just said, and then the dreadful truth came to her. “You? You’re allied with Mokad?”
He smiled.
“You’re the traitor?”
“No,” he said as if patiently instructing a child. “I am loyalty itself. My job is to protect and preserve.”
Alarm filled her. She tried to get out of the chair but he pushed her down.
“You made your first mistake drinking the tea,” he said. “There are herbs that ease the process. By now you will find it’s a bit more difficult to close your doors.”
Sugar tried to close the doors of her soul, but they were sluggish to respond. “No,” she said.
He reached forward and felt her mother’s weave. Then he turned it, undid the clasp, and held it up. “This whole Grove is full of surprises and unexpected skills,” he said. He looked at it a few moments more, then set her mother’s necklace on the small table. He rolled the cuff of his left shirt sleeve up.
How could this be? How could they not have detected a Divine among them?
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“You will now have the pleasure of a seeking. Let’s see how well they taught you to resist.”
“You won’t get anything from me.”
Flax raised his hand. In the palm, standing out from all the tattoos there, was the burning eye of Mokad. Flax placed the palm of his hand on her forehead.
“No,” she said. It was barely a whisper.
Then he forced himself into her flesh and through the closed doors of her soul as if they were made of paper. She tried to sh
ut him out, but it was like trying to hold back a stream of water with your hand—he just flowed around her. The weight of him pressed in upon her, and she felt as if she were suffocating. Then she heard him in her mind.
“You shall begin,” he said, “by telling me about your mother.”
* * *
Sugar told Flax everything: her mother’s history, what happened with her little brother Cotton, Legs. She told him about Urban and his crew and the strap Withers gave her that she wore across her back. Through it all Flax stood above her, the palm of his hand on her forehead, the eye burning in her mind. There were no threats or shouts. Only methodical questions.
When he finished, Flax removed his hand and rubbed his palm. He was sweating. He stood back, picked up a large mug he’d left on the table, and drank its contents. He pulled his hood up, hiding his face in its shadows, and called for the guards to bring him a bowl of water and a towel. All the while he looked at her.
She felt defiled. Horrified. She was sure she’d just endangered her friends in ways she probably couldn’t comprehend. And she’d done it with hardly a fight.
Sugar had never been raped, but she wondered if this was how it felt. Her mind was raw. For a few moments she could do nothing but curl in over herself.
“If it were up to me, I’d put a thrall on you and let you help me from the inside when the fighting starts. But I don’t want you to die by accident because I think you’d be put to much better use in a bit of a spectacle we’ll hold in Whitecliff. You know, at first, we thought the attack tonight was Nilliam. But this couldn’t be better. We’ll let all of the herd in this land see the Divine killers brought to justice. Let them see Mokad has power to protect. We’ll sacrifice you on the altar at Whitecliff. When the priests finish, your body will go to the dogmen. And in that way, not a scrap of you will be wasted.”
“It was worth it,” she said. “A trade of six dreadmen for one Skir Master.”
“That is a good trade, except our fat friend is not quite dead yet. There are gifts given to those who serve the Mother. If you’d cut off his head, or burned him alive like you did those Kains, that might be one thing. But his wounds were not enough to overcome the grace that grows in the Mother’s servants. He will be with us tomorrow when we begin the harvest. Injured, but very much present. He will be with us when Shim and the others fall into our trap.”
Her heart sank, and she thought of Urban—why hadn’t she listened?
Flax’s man opened the door and walked in with his bowl of water and wash cloth.
Sugar saw her chance and bolted for the open door, but Flax snatched her arm before she’d taken two steps. She struggled, but he wrestled her to the floor.
“I wish half the sleth I have taken were as lively as you,” Flax said, then told his man to call her escort. A moment later the guards came and bound her.
Flax picked up her mother’s necklace from the table by the hearth and put it in a red lacquered box on the desk. Next to the box lay the strap Withers had given her. She wondered if it still held the blackspine.
“You should know I was going to preserve your brother. But our glorious Sublime wants him culled. He will be in the spectacle with you. That should give you comfort—knowing you’ll see him again before the end.”
* * *
When they returned Sugar to the tower dungeon, she found Oaks gone. They chained her to rings bolted to the stone walls and shut the door, leaving her with nothing but the cold stone floor, the darkness, and the wind murmuring over the edges of the small opening.
She sat and contemplated her end. Everyone’s end. Argoth, Shim, the Creek Widow, the Mistress—they were all going to die. Ke had never returned. Nobody knew where River and Talen were. Sugar herself would be torn to pieces in body and soul. She had always thought of death as a doorway to something better, and maybe for some it was, but for her there would be no happy reunion. No perilous adventure to brightness. She’d seen the skir harvesting the souls, and she knew that, for her, death would be the end.
She thought about killing herself to escape the devouring. She could flee this place, hide in the mountains. But there was no way to hang herself with the chains. Besides, she needed to be there for Legs. She would not leave him to face his last moments alone.
They brought Oaks back some time later and chained him to another spot on the wall. In the lamplight she saw his arm had been splinted. When the guards closed the door again, she said, “I told Flax everything I knew. Everything I’d sworn to keep secret.”
“Yes,” he said in defeat. He sighed. “Who could have guessed that a Divine was right there sharing our swamp and bread? He had them splint my arm. They want me whole. I’m to be put in the arena, pitted against a lion or mauler.”
“Part of a spectacle,” she said.
“Which won’t end with me hacking off the dog’s head. They’ll be sure of that.”
“Did he tell you about the Skir Master?”
“No.”
“He’s not dead.”
“Of course not,” Oaks said with a sigh. “Why should mankind get any breaks? The Creators are set against us.”
There wasn’t much to say after that. Sugar sat in the darkness next to Oaks. Eventually, she too concluded the Creators must be set against humankind. After all, hadn’t the Creators given life to the Devourers? All this time, humans thought they were the masters of the earth. But they were exactly what the Skir Master called them—meat for beings of greater power.
11
Hunting
TALEN LAY IN the darkness of the onion-shaped hut contemplating what he’d done to that weem. He was slipping into a vile blackness. He was crawling slowly to his own doom because even if he didn’t give into his lusts tomorrow or the next day or the next, he was bound to slip up again sometime. Maybe a few days from now. Maybe a few hours. A little slip here, another there. They would add up, and in a few years what would he be? Some horrid amalgamation of insects and people and animals. He would go mad. And when he’d lost his mind, what would he do then?
He sighed. All those nights he thought he was dreaming of a yellow world—it had been nothing more than his roamling on the prowl.
He wanted fresh air. He wanted out of the hut, but that wasn’t going to happen, so he recited poems to himself and cataloged the day’s events. He did push-ups and sit-ups in the little space that was his until he lost count. When he couldn’t do another, he stood and pinched himself mercilessly to keep himself awake. From the turning of the stars, he knew a few hours had passed. But he also knew there were more to come, and his weariness was growing. He’d been multiplied for almost a whole day, consumed perhaps a week of his life, and his body needed rest. But if he slept, who knew where his roamlings would go?
He closed one eye, thinking that maybe he could rest them in turns, but the other eye soon followed. He told himself that he would open his eyes again in just a moment, just one moment.
He roused himself. Slapped his face hard, but the sting could not remove his weariness. He was going to lose this fight. In the end, he was going to lose. But not tonight. Not here. He moved over to the little window and knelt before it, letting the cool air refresh his face and began mumbling what he could remember of the Proverbs of Hismayas.
* * *
A scream shocked Talen from his slumber.
He jumped and banged the back of his head against the wall of their onion shaped hut and thanked the Six he hadn’t been sleeping on one of the many tree platforms he’d seen. If he had been, he would have startled himself right over the side and to his death.
Something large inside the hut screamed again, a long, hideous caterwaul that sent a surge of fear through him and made the hairs on his neck stand on end. He scrabbled back, away from the sound. In reflex, he sent forth a roamling to see what it was.
Harnock was standing up in the center of the hut, stoop
ing from the low ceiling. It was Harnock making the noise!
“Harnock,” River said rolling up from her sleep. She threw a pack at him.
The caterwaul changed pitch to a moan. Then a growl.
“Harnock!” River shouted.
The growling stopped.
Outside the hut, the woodikin guard shouted something. He banged on the door, shouted something again. Harnock replied to the guard in Woodikin.
“What’s going on?” Talen asked, his heart still thumping.
Harnock was breathing hard. He hissed in anger and slammed the side of the hut with his fist. The walls shuddered. “Sometimes we hate it,” he spat. “Sometimes we both hate it.”
“You were sleep walking, weren’t you?” River asked.
“I was running,” he said. “We were running, and I was caught.”
Talen assumed the “we” Harnock was talking about included the lion.
“One of these days,” said Harnock, “the lion will be free. I will be free.” He yelled something at the woodikin outside, then stomped the door with his foot. The door buckled. He stomped again and broke it open.
“Harnock,” River said in alarm. She grabbed him by his belt, failed to move him, then put herself between him and the door.
Outside the shouts of many woodikin rose, racing to the hut.
“You will stay!” a woodikin shouted. It was the troop leader who had captured them.
“I will not be caged,” Harnock said.
The troop leader held a short spear. “You will stay, or you will die. It was agreed.”
“He’s not running away,” River said.
“You will die,” said the troop leader.
“It was agreed,” River said, and she pushed Harnock back.
More armed woodikin began to arrive on branches around them.
Harnock clenched his fists, and looked like he was going to charge past River through the small door, but he sighed heavily instead and snarled in resignation.
Raveler: The Dark God Book 3 Page 12
