The Jack of Ruin

by Stephen Merlino

  Caris gave an impatient shake of her head. “If you could, yes. But beheading an armored immortal is very difficult. It is easier to kill their Phyros. That’s what they did in the Cleansing.”

  “That were the whole trick of the Cleansing,” Kogan said. “No one ever attacked their Phyros before. But Will did. It was Will’s idea, and it saved the kingdom, because once the Phyros is dead, it’s only a matter of time before the rider’s mortal. Most of all, Will broke the spell. Ten centuries of Harm no holy Phyros and Raise no fire against them, and Will threw it all away. Freed us from the yoke. He made everything possible.”

  Harric tied off the second cuisse, and Caris jerked away as if she’d anticipated the fraction of the instant he’d finish.

  Willard mounted Molly. “To horse,” he said. “We ride for our lives.”

  They all hurried to their mounts as Willard and Kogan rode down to the horse camp. While Caris loaded Rag, Harric went to Mudruffle, who waited by Idgit to be lifted to his saddle-basket. “Thank you,” Harric said, laying a hand upon the site of his scalp wound and bowing deeply.

  “I only do what I am sworn to do, Master Harric. I heal what needs healing. Though I do wonder at the source of the injury.”

  The tenderness in the golem’s ridiculous voice was too much for Harric. The bubble of emptiness in his chest rose into his throat and choked off his words. As foolish tears came to his eyes, he bowed again so none would see.

  “As I thought,” said Mudruffle. “It is not Caris, Master Harric. It is the enchantments upon her.”

  Harric did not trust himself to speak, so he nodded and shrugged as if to say, I’m not so sure, but I hope so. Then he straightened and lifted the golem into his saddle-basket.

  “Silence!” Willard said. All eyes turned to him, where he sat motionless in Molly’s saddle, hand to his ear.

  Very faintly in the distance to the south, Harric heard a deep, thrumming roar. It sounded like the rumble of a distant landslide mixed with a baritone bellow. It came and went again, and after several repetitions was joined by the unmistakable sound of horns—one louder and apparently nearer—answering and echoing from the hillsides. From the difference in pitch and volume, Harric identified four separate horns.

  The group traded glances as Willard remained still, listening. Gradually, the roar dwindled, as if its source were moving away from them, though two of the nearer horns continued to sound.

  Willard lowered his hand and sucked a lungful of ragleaf from a fresh roll. “Yoab. Big one, obviously.”

  Kogan chuckled. “You think Bannus mighta stumbled over that king yoab Caris seen?”

  “We can hope. And if so, may he pass through its bowels before he hunts again. But these horns are the horns of his men, and from the sound of them, they are in several parts of the valley behind us, and the false trail only served to divert part of his force.” Willard turned Molly abruptly. “Follow. We have no time to waste.”

  Before the Rule of Sir Anatos, those who drank of the Blood fell helpless to the Blood rage, which stripped from them all humanity. “Rage Slaves,” Anatos named them, and, being one himself, labored to master it. …therefore, made he the Rule of Anatos, which is on two laws founded: the first is Eat no Flesh of Any Beast, for All Flesh Feeds the Fire; and the second is Master the Blue Meditations and Make Them Your Continual Practice. …Upon this Rule, Anatos founded the Blue Order.

  —From A History of Arkendian Immortality, by Nicola Clouch

  42

  Yoab Maze

  Willard set out at a swift pace and did not let up. The journey quickly blurred into a continuous stream of green forest, lumpy trails, and aching muscles. The horses blew and steamed with sweat, and Harric felt his limbs hardening in crooked shapes that he feared would never straighten if he were ever allowed to return to the ground.

  But by midday, the relentless pace fell off as they entered what Mudruffle called the Yoab Maze. Though the highway that ran through the maze was generally wider and deeper and more clearly established than the runs of the maze, some of the crisscrossing offshoots and junctions were hard to distinguish from the highway itself. Even with Mudruffle’s map and help, they had to backtrack several times when they discovered the run they thought was the highway ended abruptly or curved south.

  “Like the maze in ‘Willard and the Labyrinth,’” Kogan said, during a pause in which they consulted the map and argued. “Only instead of Blood Trophies, there’s yoabs.”

  Harric did not find the reference humorous, since each time they had to backtrack, they lost ground against Bannus. At one point, they executed such a monumental reverse that he half expected them to come face to face with Sir Bannus as he rode up their trail.

  And they encountered abundant evidence of recent yoab activity in the maze. In places, they found fields of raw, plowed soil, stripped of anything green—yoab feeding sites—checkering the forest floor for as far as they could see.

  “These sites are fresh,” Willard said, as they halted on a rise between two of these sites. “The yoab are definitely down from the hills for the winter. With luck, we won’t meet one as big as Caris met. But regardless, this means the horses will be nervous as we pass through here. I advise we travel in strict silence today, to avoid unwanted attention.” His eyes flicked to Mudruffle.

  As if anticipating this, Mudruffle held a cloth to his little slit of a mouth. “Since my vocal apparatus is too simplistic for a whisper, I will endeavor to remain silent with this muffle applied to my mouth.” His voice came through the cloth as a murmur. “Only in the event of an emergency will I speak without obstruction.”

  Willard managed a doubtful nod, and they forged on.

  Whenever they reached a stretch where Mudruffle was confident of their direction, Willard rode ahead on scouting forays, and on occasion returned with reports that he’d been able to scare several younger yoab away from the highway. Another time, he spotted one asleep in the midst of one of these newly plowed fields beside the highway, and doubled back to ensure the group’s silence as they circumnavigated its bed. What they passed looked exactly like a ferny hillock, with the difference that, unlike a hillock, it snored like a giant’s bellows, so loudly that Harric doubted even Mudruffle could match its volume.

  It was during one of Willard’s absences that Kogan pointed out bright red blood on the highway. Blood had filled one of Molly’s hoof prints. All around the bloody hoof print, it looked like Molly had been running in tight circles. Then her prints tore off up the road, and the blood followed in her wake, splashing the earth beside huge clawed prints. A yoab’s prints. It looked like a yoab—and an injured yoab, too—had chased Molly and Willard up the run.

  Unless the red blood is Willard’s. Harric chewed his upper lip. No. The knight’s cheeks were now blue, which meant the blood in his veins must now be continuously blue. Willard must have injured it and led it on a chase away from the horses.

  They followed the blood trail a quarter mile up the highway, and watched as it slowly dwindled until it terminated in the carcass of a yoab as big as a carriage.

  The horses refused to approach with riders, but Caris calmed them enough that they allowed themselves to be led past on foot. As Harric guided Snapper and Idgit, Kogan followed with Geraldine and pointed to a wound behind the yoab’s gigantic foreleg.

  “Lance,” Kogan said. “And this much blood must’ve been a heart wound.” The priest shook his head and gave the stinking flesh a rub. “Ran half the valley with its heart split. Noble beast.”

  “Your spirit beast,” Harric whispered.

  Harric pushed Snapper hard on Willard’s trail, but Molly proved impossible to match. She appeared to be tireless, and Harric often lost sight of Willard for long stretches. Sir Bannus’s Phyros, Gygon, would be equally tireless, of course. And since Gygon had no mortal horses to slow him down—like Sir Willard did—it seemed he would catch up to them very quickly.

  “But he does have mortal horses with him,” Willard said
, when Harric brought that up. “His men perform for him many tasks that are below the dignity of his Exalted and Celebrated Ur-Holiness. Mortal men get down and track for him. They wrangle abandoned horses for him. They cook the prodigious piles of meat he requires. They pitch his pavilion and adorn it with living captives.” Willard rode in silence for a few long moments, then cast a grim glance at Harric. “So he was in the old days. And he’s given me no reason to think he’s changed.”

  “But he has dogs with him,” Harric said, echoing Fink’s point. “Once he finds our trail, he’ll make time on us.”

  To that, Willard said nothing, but picked up the pace.

  At around noon, the ancient trees and their canopy ended abruptly at the edge of a mudslide that descended the hillside and crossed their path like a mile-long tongue of mud. It spanned the hillside for about as far as a bowshot, straight across, and had leveled and swept away even the largest trees. As they paused at the edge of the trees, unfiltered sunshine dazzled their eyes, and the horses snorted and pricked their ears, alert and curious despite their long labor.

  Nothing remained standing where the mudslide had passed. Trees, plants, all had been swept down the mountain and deposited in a heap of rubble as big as a castle, right on top of the river. The river had backed up behind it and formed a small lake before eventually finding its way around the west side, in a sharp bow.

  Judging by the scarcity of the brush and fireweed on the slide, it was a new one. It must have slid during the previous winter. Fortunately for the horses, some enterprising young yoab had already reestablished the Yoab Highway across it. It wasn’t the great rammed-through trough of the mature yoab highway, but at least the little cub had marked where it ought to go, and flattened the mud, knocking smaller obstacles from its way. Larger, older yoab would deepen the furrow and plow up the larger boulders and stray trunks.

  Willard made them smother their armor and weapons in blankets before they crossed the open space, to prevent a stray glint of metal from revealing their location to any scouts on the opposite ridge. When they set out across it, Harric studied the western skyline, now blackened and smoking, and the fires to the northwest, where the ridge boiled with orange flame and the sky choked on columns of smoke.

  “The fire is still ahead of us,” Mudruffle honked, still muffled by a cloth at his mouth. “I fear if the wind remains from the south, the fire may descend into this valley at a place I named Many Rivers. We must make haste to arrive there tomorrow.”

  They crossed the clearing quickly and rode on, and when Harric believed Snapper would probably drop with exhaustion and his own body would never unbend from the saddle, Willard called them to a halt.

  Willard had chosen a spot where a stream crossed the highway and paused just below it in a pool. “Rest and water the horses here,” he said. “Have a swim, father. This northerly wind makes it hard to ride before you.”

  Harric dismounted with a groan. His pants stuck to his legs with sweat from the heat of Snapper’s labor, and his back bent almost double with stiffness. Wincing with every step, he led the blowing gelding to the stream to drink. As the horse sucked at the water, Harric limped to the edge of the highway and looked down to the pool below. Blue, deep, and very likely a yoab wallow at one time, it was now a gorgeous swimming hole. He knew if he wanted to swim it, he ought to get in before Kogan’s monumentally unwashed body fouled it. And he knew his body could use a bath, and that it might be good for his spirits, too.

  But he couldn’t summon the will to care.

  The spot of sun on his shoulders gave him no pleasure. The water wouldn’t refresh. And he knew he was being pathetic. He could practically hear Fink saying, Feeling melodramatic today? But he didn’t care about that either. “It’s all yours, father,” he said. Maybe after Kogan had a good soak, Harric would summon the will to carve EVIL WATERS in a tree beside it, like they did for contaminated pools along the Free Road. But probably not.

  “Caris and I will return within the hour,” Willard said, pushing Molly onward up the highway. Caris still sat on Rag, well back on the trail, apparently waiting for Willard to move before she brought Rag to the stream. She’d maintained a greater distance than usual all day, and Rag had been strangely unmanageable. Despite his weariness, Harric noticed Rag’s behavior seemed to upset Caris, too, and he worried it had something to do with Willard bringing her to bleed Molly.

  “Come, Caris,” said Willard.

  It took a moment for Willard’s intention to register for Harric, but when it did, he looked up in surprise. “You’re leaving us again? I thought this was a short rest, and that we’d keep pushing on.”

  Willard ignored him.

  “But, sir, you already took the Blood today—”

  “And I’ll bloody take it again!” Willard whirled Molly to face Harric. “If I do not take it, nothing will protect us from Sir Bannus when he finds us.”

  “An hour is long in our race with the fire,” Mudruffle honked.

  Willard’s face darkened. For many moments, he pressed his lips together and clenched his jaw as if struggling against the urge to lay waste to those who questioned him. Harric glanced at Brolli for support, but the Kwendi still slept in the saddle under his blanket. His look was not lost upon Sir Willard, however, and this reminder of the ambassador’s presence seemed to sober him.

  “I would have you push ahead while I take the Blood, and then catch up to you, but I can’t risk you meeting a yoab without me or Caris present. I will make this as quick as I can, but hurrying the process means that when we return to you, the rage will still be strong in me. To control it, I will be deep in the meditations of the Blue Men.”

  Kogan looked up from rummaging in his cheese bag.

  “This is important,” Willard said, “so listen closely to what I’m about to say. Especially you, Kogan. When we return, mount up and fall in line silently. Do not speak to me until you hear me speak. And it may be hours before I do. If you disrupt the meditation, you do so at your peril.”

  “Quiet as the grave, Will,” Kogan said.

  Willard turned Molly and rode north with Caris behind.

  Harric watched as they disappeared into the darkness beneath the gigantic trees.

  “I am uncertain of the wisdom in this,” said Mudruffle.

  “You and everyone,” said Harric. “He acts like it’s a sure thing that Bannus followed the horses south down the false trail, but he doesn’t know any more than we do.” He crossed his arms and hugged them in tight, startled by his own agitation—at the heartbeat that now drummed in his chest. But he’d seen what Bannus did to bastards, and he was scared. Death was one thing, eternal torture quite another.

  “It’s the Blood in him,” said Kogan. Pungent odor announced the priest’s arrival at Harric’s side. “Once they start, it’s all they think about. No worrying on it now.”

  Harric took a long breath and let it out. Then another. “I’ll get Captain Gren’s pack. You get Worsic. At least we can get her ready during the delay.”

  *

  Caris shook her head and crossed her arms when Willard held out the razor and cup to her. “I can’t cut her for you,” she said. “She’ll stab at me again. You’ll have to draw the Blood yourself, then I’ll bind you and give it to you.”

  They stood beside a fir at the edge of a ravine with a rattling stream at the bottom. The tree was close enough to the crumbling edge of the ravine to require care in navigating around it, lest she slide down the bank into the stream, but it was the only tree among the giant trunks that was small enough for the chains to reach around.

  She took a step back from him, and Willard’s brow wrinkled. “Your armor will protect you from her—”

  “Not enough.” She gave an emphatic shake of her head and stood her ground. All morning she’d silently rehearsed what she would say. “I’m not cutting Molly again. It’s because of Rag. The merest touch of Molly’s mind or Blood repels her. I can’t lose her. I can’t.”

  The
Blood in her veins had prevented her from reaching out to Rag—it still burned in her; she could feel it—and her grief and loneliness steeled her resolve.

  Willard licked his lips. “Girl, I don’t…know if I can. I mean I don’t know if I can stop myself from drinking it once the cup’s full and in my hand.” His eyes flicked up to hers, an expression in them she didn’t recognize. “The desire.”

  She stared at him, frustrated that she couldn’t tell what he was getting at. Desire? Did he mean the craving for the Blood? Impatient with herself, she shrugged. “If you try, I’ll knock it from your lips.” It was probably the wrong thing to say, but she was past caring; she was not going to cut for him.

  Willard gave a grim laugh. “Yes, I’d wager you would. But it is unwise to come between the lion and his prey. Can’t be sure I wouldn’t bleed you if it came to that.”

  Heart thudding in her chest, she clamped her mouth shut and waited him out.

  Willard sighed. “Very well.” He turned toward Molly, still holding the cup and razor. “I’ll try. But you might as well put on your moon-blasted helmet. Can’t be too careful.”

  Caris did not have to knock the cup from his hands. Sweating and pale, he handed the brimming cup to her and allowed her to bind him before he drank. She gagged him as soon as he’d swallowed, and then walked back to Rag, whom she’d tethered so far away that they could barely hear his bellows in the distance. His noise would be enough to scare away most yoab, but if an old bull came to see what the noise was about, Molly’s snarls would alert Caris.

  Then…what? She had to smile. She’d lance it behind the foreleg, as Willard had done to the one on the road that day. Or she’d get it to chase her. She had experience with that.

  As soon as Willard’s bellowing ceased, Caris left Rag and trudged back to him. It hadn’t even been half an hour, but he’d told her to test him when he fell silent. She found him sagging from the chains around the fir. Below the tree, the stream rattled in its channel, and she had to be careful not to step too close to the brink of the bank lest it crumble and she slide down.