by Joseph Lallo
“And what of the life of a malthrope? Running from humans always. Being hated by all for no reason. Is this life any better?”
“It is a terrible life, but at least it is a life! At least you can hope to find a place where you can be happy. Inside those walls, you aren't a living thing. You are a tool, a piece of equipment. Your grave is as good as dug the moment they press the brand to your arm.”
“They are men. They deserve what they get.”
“What you say about them is no different than what they say about us! We are the same, Sorrel. Neither of us may realize it, but humans and malthropes are just creatures, living in a world, doing what we believe we must, and hoping to see another day.”
“If you do things like you did today, there will be little hope for you to see another day. What do you think? That if you can do this thing, what happened to you will be undone? Do you think that if you get killed doing this thing, then you will be redeemed for the things that you have done? You are what you are, Teyn. You cannot change the past.”
“This isn't about the past. This is about the future. It is about what I can do to change things for the others. I can't just hide in the shadows and live for the sake of living, Sorrel. Life needs a purpose or there is no point in living it. This is mine. It is the reason I am here. And now that I realize it, there is nothing more important to me.”
Sorrel's eyes narrowed and she pulled back, a hard expression on her face. “Nothing?”
Teyn's eyes widened as he realized his words. “I didn't mean that—”
“Stop, Teyn.”
“We can do this together! We can—”
“I said stop!” she cried, for the moment forgetting that they were hiding. “I am asking you to forget this. This is a dangerous thing.”
“You and I have done dangerous things before.”
“That time is gone.”
“Why?”
“Because it is, that is why. Listen. You need to choose, and you need to choose right now. Do you want to do this, or do you want to be with me?”
“Why do I have to choose? Why won't you tell me why you aren't willing to take this risk?”
“Because if something is important to you, you don't need to know the reason to make the choice. You don't need time, you don't need to think. Like that—” She clapped. “The choice is made. You did it when you saw that man and followed him to this place. Now I ask you to do it again. Choose this thing, whatever it is, or promise me that you will come with me and you will put this out of your mind forever.”
“But—”
“No but, Teyn! If you do not make this promise then one day—maybe tomorrow, maybe in years—you will go, you will do this thing, and you will not come back. I will not give my tomorrow, I will not give my years, and I will not give my heart to a malthrope who would let that happen. Now promise me, Teyn.”
He looked into her eyes. The resolve he saw in them dispelled any hope that her mind might be changed. He tried to will himself to say the words, to promise her that he could set this epiphany aside and return to the paradise that he had with her . . . but he couldn't. His mouth hung open, but he could not bring himself to say the words when he knew they weren't true, to make a promise he knew he couldn't keep.
“I understand.”
“We can—”
“There is no we in this, Teyn.” Her voice was shaking now. “If you want to spend your life doing this thing, that is fine. But do not expect me to do it with you, and do not expect me to watch while it kills you.”
“But . . . but, Sorrel, I love—”
“Do not,” she said, putting her fingers to his chin and pressing his mouth shut. “Do not say those words. Not anymore. Maybe you believe them. Maybe I do as well. Maybe even they are true, but it will be easier for us both if you do not say them now.” She gathered her pack and cast a careful eye to the surroundings to see that the way was clear. When she was certain, she stood, tears running freely but her face steady as stone. “I hope you find peace one day, Teyn. And I hope you never learn the real price of your purpose. Do not try to follow me. Goodbye.”
“Sorrel, don't go,” he pleaded as she turned away. Her footsteps sped to a run. “Sorrel! Sorrel!”
Teyn gasped with pain as he fought to his feet and rushed out from under the bridge. All he saw was the back of her cloak as she disappeared over a rise and down into the field below. He tried to climb the bank of the brook, but his battered leg betrayed him and he stumbled. By the time he reached the crest of the same hill, she was gone.
He stood there for a long time, in the open and heedless of the pouring rain. He could follow. He could run after her for days, following her scent and tracking her footprints, but he knew it would be no use. Over the last two years, in those rare times that she'd decided she wanted to be alone, he'd never once been able to find her. If she wanted to disappear, she would disappear, and nothing he'd learned would lead him to her.
Even if he could, there was truth to her words. What he had resolved to do could very well mean his end. It was wrong to bring such a fate upon her as well. It was his purpose, not hers. The pain of his body fell away as the pain of his heart surged. It felt as though the foundation of his world had been torn away and he was tumbling downward into an uncertain darkness. Worse than the feeling of loss was how common such a feeling had been. His mother, Ben, and now Sorrel. Everyone he'd ever cared about . . . they were all gone.
But Sorrel was the first who had chosen to leave him, and that was what stung worst of all. She hadn't been taken . . . she had slipped through his fingers.
At the edge of his vision, he saw movement far along the road and managed to coax himself back under the bridge lest he be seen. He crumbled to the ground, tears brimming in his eyes, and looked aside. Among the river stones beside him was the rag she'd held just moments before she left. He picked it up and held it tight in his fist. To the other side lay the sword, blood staining the handle. He grasped that as well. For a time, he remained there. Hidden from the world. Alone with his thoughts.
As time passed and the day slid into night, the darkness crept into his mind as well. He thought back to those who had been taken, and those who had left. He though back to the many times he'd endured this pain . . . and he resolved never to allow it to happen again. This was the last time he would be abandoned, left with a hole in his heart. If that meant hardening his soul, closing it to others, then so be it. The purpose was all that mattered.
After a final, reverent squeeze, he tucked the rag safely into his tunic and hauled himself to his feet. He slipped the blade into his belt and turned toward the nearest city. From this day forward, there was a job to be done.
Chapter 17
Now that he was alone again, there was no reason for Teyn to return to the Great Forest. It was safe there, but he was through being safe, and there was little he could do there to make any difference. Instead, he found his way to an old shack in a rough and overgrown patch of unworkable land at the edge of a cluster of farms. From the looks of them, neither the shack nor the path leading to it had been used for years. It still wasn't the best choice of shelter—humans had a way of reclaiming places like this without a moment's notice—but until he had healed some of his more troublesome injuries, it would have to do.
Keeping himself fed was tricky with so many towns and so few hunting grounds in the area, but he'd learned quite a bit from Sorrel when it came to “finding” things he needed among the humans. Local farmers lost a chicken or pig from time to time, and bakeries in nearby towns began to lose loaves of bread. He was careful not to prey upon any one place too often, and ate only what he needed to survive. His attack on the slave camp had no doubt put the fear of malthropes into the area, and he could not afford to have the locals suspect that there was one hiding nearby.
While he nursed his wounds, he tried to develop the skills he would need to achieve his goals. It was humans and those like them who seemed to control the plantations and the s
lave trade, so if he wished to end the slave trade, he would need to be among them. He would need to learn from them. Each time he ventured into the towns to scrape together a meal, he lingered longer, opening his ears and learning the dark corners and unwatched areas that would hide him from prying eyes.
Taverns and inns were valuable sources of information. People gathered there and spoke freely about anything and everything that had happened in their world. He trained his ears to follow conversations, listening closer to voices that sounded hushed or anxious. Those who spoke loudly seemed as often as not to be boasting or lying, telling stories to impress their friends and entice the affections of others. The truth always seemed to come in whispers.
While information was easy enough to come by, hiding places were much trickier. Back alleys seemed, at first, to be the best choice, but the fact of the matter was that only the largest of the towns in the area had them, and too often they were already occupied by townsfolk engaged in dealings of their own that were best kept from prying eyes. Once his injuries had improved enough to permit it, he found that rooftops were a much better choice. People very seldom thought to glance upward when seeking out the source of an unexpected sound, and the poorly tanned hide of his cloak was a close match for the color of the thatch that made up most roofs in the region. If he moved with care and chose carefully, he could spend the whole of the night along the roofs of a village without turning a single head.
The most stubborn of his wounds, the slash to his side, had finally been reduced to a dull soreness by the time he was comfortable abandoning his adopted home. He'd taken to moving from place to place, scouting out a safe shelter to spend the day and sneaking into the cities at night. Though he'd believed he was choosing the cities to target at random, he realized in time that, without being aware of it, he was following a scent. Through some instinct or perhaps simple fate, he'd found the weak and lingering scent of the man he'd injured, the man called Dihsaad. Since then, he had been working his way along the path forged by the scent. Each day it grew a bit stronger. Here, he found the inn where Dihsaad must have spent the night not long ago. There, he found a market at which he must have lingered.
Teyn couldn't explain why, but something compelled him to find the slaver again. Perhaps he felt if he knew how the slavers moved, where they went, he would be better equipped to combat them. Or perhaps it was because it had been Dihsaad who had drawn him out of the safety of the Great Forest and revealed to him his purpose, and thus in finding him again the next step might reveal itself. Or perhaps it was just the darkest part of him urging him forward, eager for a second chance to take the life that had been spared.
After a few weeks Teyn found himself at the northern edge of the smaller of Tressor's two deserts, the Makaat Oduun. There was a chill to the air now. This far south, the mild nippiness to the breeze at sundown was as near as Tressor came to feeling the bite of winter. As the plains gave way to dusty scrublands; the thatched roofs had steadily shifted to mounded and sculpted curves of red clay. At first, he'd been concerned that he would not be able to blend himself with the bright red masonry, but after a few strong gusts of wind, anyone outside was coated with a layer of the same red dust, stirred up from the parched ground. It was reason enough for the people of the area to move quickly, keeping their heads down and eagerly rushing indoors to get out of the dust and wind. It was thus even simpler to escape notice here, and he was able to spend a good deal more time listening and less time watching and worrying. It meant that he could devote more time to tracking Dihsaad, until it was not his scent but his voice that Teyn was following.
Currently, the malthrope was nestled in the crook of an oddly-shaped roof. Below him, the patrons of a tavern they called The Last Makaat Oasis were washing the dust from their throats with a strong-smelling drink that Teyn could not identify. The scent reminded him of Gurruk's concoction from his plantation days, but not quite to the same nostril-burning intensity. The customers called it “bahk,” and drank it by the pitcher. Apparently Dihsaad was a regular here, and he was having more of the potent beverage than he usually did. Teyn knew this because the tavern keeper had started up a conversation that had already become so familiar, the malthrope was beginning to wonder if each such man had received the same training.
“That's your fourth tankard,” came the standard line, “something troubling you?”
Dihsaad made a sound of disgust. “Where do I start?”
“Something go wrong?”
“Everything.”
“How so?”
Dihsaad grumbled. “A few weeks back. I was attacked. That's where I got this nice little slice on the cheek. The scoundrel released a fortune's worth of slaves.”
“It was you that got attacked? Word's been getting around about something like that. I've been hearing some strange tales about what happened.”
“Doesn't surprise me. I've heard a dozen different stories from my own men. Half of them insist it was some sort of demon. Ten feet tall. Strength of three men. Moved faster than you could blink. Complete rubbish. They think it came down from the sky, and went straight for me. They say it was like a ghost, swords and clubs passing through it without any effect.”
“Not the way you remember it?”
“The thing took a few lumps. One of us drew blood. It was no demon. I looked it dead in the eyes. Trust me. It was a creature of this world.”
“If you looked it in the eye, you must know what it was.”
Teyn held his breath.
“It was . . .” Dihsaad began, pausing as if he didn't like what his mind was telling him to say next. “I was meant to think it was a mally.”
“How's that? Meant to think it was a mally?” the bartender said with confusion.
“It had a muzzle, like one of those blasted beasts . . . but it was too big. Yes, too big to be a real mally. And the muzzle was red, but it was dripping. Could have been paint dripping off it, or maybe blood . . . anyway, it caught me by surprise. Got me down. It carved my cheek up, and it said to me, 'Never again.' Then it stuck the knife in the ground and left me there.”
“If it looked like a mally, it was a mally.”
“Couldn't have been a mally,” Dihsaad insisted.
“Why not?”
“I faced down plenty of mallies in my day. I used to hunt the cursed things. A mally never could have got me down like that. You ever hear of a mally that could beat a man in a fair fight? And not just against me, but against a whole slave camp? Not likely. And even if it did make it through the camp and straight to me, have you ever heard of a mally who would pass up a chance to kill a man?”
“You can never be too sure with those things. Sometimes they get wrapped up in dark magic and the like. Remember that story they tell about that farm back east.”
“Which one is that?”
“Oh, you must have heard it. This is years ago. Rakka plantation.”
“Doesn't sound familiar.”
“Let's see . . . been a while since I heard it . . . it was a place that made those seeds the soldiers carry. Used to do a good job of it, but then something happened, new owners or some such. Place went bad awful quick. People say he made some deals he shouldn't have, trying to scrape things back together. Guess one of them came due. One day, everything is just as it had been for years, the next—” There was a snap. “Dead. The owner. The owner's family. The slave-drivers. Everyone. 'Cept for a little boy, screaming about a monster doing the deed. Everyone figured the kid was seeing things, but then the slaves started to pop up. Seems whatever it was that did the killing, it had left the slaves alone. As each one got caught, they all told their own stories about what happened. Some of them said it was a mally that the owner kept.”
“The owner kept a mally? What, as a pet? Feh. That'll be the reason his farm died out. Those things will bring a curse upon your land. Who ever heard of a mally as a slave . . .” Dihsaad's voice trailed off. A moment later he began to mutter, so quietly, Teyn had to strain to hear
it. “Mally slave . . . rakka farm . . .”
“What's that now?” the tender asked.
“Nothing. Nothing. No. You listen to me, I know a mally couldn't have done what happened to me, and I know that it couldn't have done what you said happened on that farm. Mallies are cowards. No such thing as a fair fight for one of them. They only stab you in the back, or in your sleep. I hear they'll turn tail and run if you stare 'em in the eye. And I stared this thing down. But you say this thing let those slaves go? And it let mine go. We could just be dealing with the same scoundrel. He said 'Never again' . . . I'll bet you, I'll just bet you that it is another slaver. Or someone working for him. I've got quite a reputation. Made my share of enemies. I'll bet someone with deep pockets, someone looking to be the only slave trader around, sent him in to shut me down. Disguised himself as a mally to do it, to keep people guessing.”
“I suppose that's one explanation.”
“Well, they're going to get their wish. I've had it. Watching those idiots at the camp rounding up those slaves he let out was reason enough to call it quits. It took them weeks to fetch them all. If someone out there has the money to hire a blade to play dress-up and warn me never to track another slave, then so be it. I'm through! Now, you going to stand there all day spinning yarns, or are you going to pour me another?”
The conversation continued, but Teyn had heard enough. He'd heard too much. Eyes shut and fists tightened, he let the voices recede into the general din and struggled with what they'd taught him. The slaves he'd freed had been caught, and those who had shared his suffering under Marret had been caught again as well. Nothing he'd done had mattered. Blood had been spilled, lives had been taken, and for nothing. It wouldn't be enough to simply release the slaves.
