Scourge of the Betrayer (16 page)

Sure the question would come out wrong no matter how I phrased it, I asked, “How does Bloodsounder… tell you these things?”

His lip twitched, and the twin scars with it. “I wouldn’t use that word. Tell. That implies voices, where there are none. Unless you mean in the sense of signs. Tracks in the earth can tell you what made them, how many travel, what direction they go, if you know how to read them. If that’s your meaning, then yes, Bloodsounder tells me he’s dead. In so many signs.” He closed his eyes and said, “I now know several things about the man-child I struck down. Things I’d much sooner not know.”

He inhaled deeply through his nose, nostrils flaring, and closed his eyes. “He loved pears. The smell of their blossoms in the spring, an invisible cloud. The texture of their skin, when perfectly ripe. But especially the taste. And the fact that he first bedded a lass in no bed at all, but underneath the pear tree on his farm. In their rutting, they rolled over the overripe pears that had fallen, soiled their clothes in the juice as the bees buzzed around them.”

I watched his face, eyes still pressed shut, and he looked pained as he spoke. “That same girl whose purity he stole among the pears, he married. Under the very same tree. And they had some small life together, happy, as far as small lives go. But it didn’t last long. He was recruited by the Hornmen and quartered in a castle, far from the farm, the pears, and his new ripe wife. His duties kept him on the road for most of the next year. When he was finally allowed to return, he discovered she’d been struck a mortal blow defending the farm from bandits. An arrow… ” His forehead wrinkled. “No… not an arrow, a spear, a spear thrust. Spear or sword, but most likely spear—the wound was too large to be made by an arrow. But by the time our boy had returned a Hornman, it was too late. She was alive, but there was no forestalling the end, as the wound had festered.

“He sat by her side, three days, four, wiping her brow as the wound worked its greasy green magic, burrowing deeper into her flesh, filling her with a raging heat no damp cloth would absolve. It would’ve been awful enough if she’d been screaming. But she whimpered mostly, waiting for the end, which was somehow worse. Whimpered and mewed and called out nonsensical things while the fever burned the life out of her. But one thing she kept repeating wasn’t gibberish. He prayed he heard wrong, but after the tenth repetition, he could no longer pretend he had. A name. His brother’s name. His brother who had stayed behind while he trained as a Hornling.

“While I don’t know if he murdered his brother, I do know he remained with his faithless wife in her last moments as she tossed and turned in the fester dream. I think he hated her, but still he stayed. I would have abandoned her to murder the brother, but he stayed. And would remember those last days and hours with horrible vividness. Her lying there, sweat-slicked hair plastered to the mattress, face blanched, all the color having gone to the wound and the sick, hot flesh around it. And the choking stench rising off her. Like a thousand rotting pears.”

He opened his eyes, blinking quickly. “And now I remember it as well. As if I’d been standing in that very sickroom with the dying slattern and the heart-wounded soldier. This, Bloodsounder does. Bombards me with memories such as these. Random, horrible, stolen memories. And these signs, this telling? That’s how I know the final thing. That young Hornman, who stood by his faithless wife and watched her die, and later rode out into the grass with his greedy fat captain… he’s now dead himself. Because the stolen memories only come to me after a man I’ve struck with the flail dies.”

He stared at the flail head with equal parts hate and disgust. After a long pause, he added, “The other I killed with this grotesque little monster and its twin, in the wagon, his stolen memories have been flooding into mine already. Yesterday. Last night. This morning. But the boy’s have just begun.” He dropped the flail head and it clinked off the other. “And if previous experience is any measure, they won’t stop. At least, not until I’m cleansed.”

“Cleansed? What… how—”

He turned and regarded me, “I will either be cleansed or I won’t. If it happens, it will be explained, and if not… not.”

I pressed on, “And if you can’t be… cleansed?”

He rattled the chains. “Difficult to say. Each time is a little different. But one thing is the same—the onslaught of stolen memories will continue. They begin to blot out my own already. How much more, I can’t say. I only killed two men with the flail. It could be worse. But even two…? It will be nothing good, I tell you that. Better to be tormented by ghosts, I think. That must be easier to endure. But these memories… the most heinous grave robbing imaginable. It’s as if I’d killed someone I knew intimately. I learn things about the dead their closest comrades weren’t privy to, secrets and fears and dreams that should’ve died with them and yet live in me. And it fills me with corrosive grief.”

I sat in stunned silence, completely out of questions.

He let out a long sigh and leaned forward, his usual rigid posture broken. “I can see you’re struggling with this. But struggle somewhere else just now.”

I didn’t move right away and he shouted, “I said enough! Leave me!”

When I finally started to rise, he grabbed my wrist and squeezed tighter than a shackle. “One last thing. I’ve revealed something to you few enough know. Reveal it to anyone else, and I won’t need Bloodsounder to tell me you’re dead. Your spattered brains will be proof enough. Do you understand?”

I nodded quickly and he released me. I climbed inside, sweat coming fast, mind drowning in too many thoughts to name. Stealing memories from the dead? The stuff of dark fairy tales. What else could it be but madness? And yet… what of the bleeding scar? His foreknowledge of the approach of the Hornmen? I saw those. Didn’t I? If not madness, what was it? Was he hounded by demons? Spirits? Something else?

All I knew was, an inanimate object couldn’t do these things.

Could it?

I began to wonder if the endless steppe sapped a man of his wits. Maybe it was me who was going mad. Perhaps we were losing our minds in tandem.

Nearly getting impaled by a spear had been the most frightening thing I’d ever experienced. And yet, his revelation filled me with a dread far more gripping. And far less temporary.

The wind picked up again, buffeting the wagon, and I sat and listened to it howl. I’d entered the wild with a haunted, cursed, or blighted man, and I prayed I’d find my way back out again.

⊕

The next days, Braylar retreated as far away as a person can who still sits right next to you, like a snake disappearing into a hole. His eyes, when open, took no real notice of the surroundings. He closed them for long stretches, apparently trusting the horse’s judgment. He paid no attention to the huge flies plaguing us, even when they landed on him. One looked ready to crawl across his eye until he absently swatted at it.

As I passed through the flap at the front and looked out, I spotted something in the distance. It looked large, though it was difficult to judge such things on those flat plains. Out of habit, I asked Braylar what it was, and why we appeared to be heading towards it, but as might be expected, if he knew the answer to either he kept them a secret.

As we got closer, I saw it was some kind of structure built entirely of sod. While it was only one story tall, it was built on three very thick tiers of sod. I wondered if the building was some kind of meeting place, and that filled me with equal parts hope and anxiety.

While the construction was crude, the building otherwise had all of the regular features—walls, windows, an open doorway. The far corner had collapsed, revealing that the walls were several feet thick. The roof also was made of large slabs of sod, and in a choice surely more whimsical than practical, the builders left the grass on top of the roof, and the old, brittle, yellow blades rubbed against each other in the breeze, producing an endless chorus of tiny clicks and clacks like a thousand miniature wood chimes.

I craned my neck to see it as we traveled past. Part of me longed to jump off the wagon, run back to the earthen hall, and scream for him to halt, to turn around, but I was sure he’d simply leave me there, and possibly not even notice my absence.

And so I moved back inside the wagon and sat down near the rear. I watched the blighted structure recede into the distance as it lost distinction and form and eventually disappeared altogether. I thought it might be the last building I ever saw.

I closed the flap and tied it shut.

⊕

T
he wagon battle had occurred five days prior, and just when I didn’t think it was possible, things took a turn for the worse. Near midday, I was walking alongside, expecting him to stop and care for the horses, but he didn’t.

I asked him why we hadn’t halted, but he ignored me entirely, maintaining his maddening half-lidded stare. While the last few days he’d performed all the necessary tasks like a man nearly asleep, at least he performed them. But he had degenerated from the taciturn, cantankerous patron who brought me into the grass into a husk. I told him the horses needed to rest, to eat, but there was no response; he only sat there, back rigid, eyes locked onto the patch of grass directly ahead of us.

I wasn’t sure what to do, and was weighing the wisdom or folly in trying to wrest the reins from him, when he closed his eyes and toppled over, smacking his head on the bench.

The horses took that as their cue to finally stop. I ran over to him, climbed onto the wagon. He was completely unresponsive when I shook him.

I got a flask of water, dipped the hem of my tunic in it, and pressed the cloth against his forehead and stubbly cheek, but he didn’t stir. Unsure whether to move him or not, I finally decided to try, which proved more difficult than I would’ve imagined, as his body was completely limp, like a drunkard’s. I carried/dragged him into the wagon and lay him down, with a sleeping roll propped under his head. His chest rose and fell, small shallow breaths, but that was the only sign of life. I probably could’ve set fire to his shoes and he wouldn’t have stirred.

I had no idea how to help the captain, so I went back outside to attend to the horses. After grooming one, I checked on him again, but nothing had changed. And nothing changed the rest of the afternoon.

Dusk came on, and he might as well have been a stone effigy. Though I argued with myself before doing it, I finally lit the lantern and hung it overhead. The light coming through the horn panels bathed the interior of the wagon in a buttery glow.

I secretly hoped this blatant violation of his orders would’ve roused him, but there was no movement.

He was still fully clothed, and while I didn’t plan on stripping him down entirely, I unwrapped the scarf from around his neck and removed his leather shoes. Neither action prompted a reaction. Trying to think of what else might make him comfortable, I looked at his weapon belts, and then pulled the long dagger free and set it on a barrel.

I reached out twice to pull Bloodsounder off the hook, but fear stopped me short. I tried a third time, but as my hand wrapped around the handle, Braylar moaned in his deep slumber, a low tortured sound, and his body spasmed until I released my hold.

While I doubted the ugly weapon was the cause of his condition, I had to acknowledge that small possibility. And if that were true, I was left to wonder if Bloodsounder could afflict others the same way it had damaged him. I had no intention of striking anyone with it, but thought that merely holding it could be enough. And that convinced me to stay my hand. I felt foolish, but better foolish than bedeviled.

I loaded the crossbow, set it within easy reach, and sat there, trying to stay alert.

And failed.

I jolted awake when a hand shook me and almost shot a bolt through the roof. I thought Braylar had finally risen, but it took me a moment to realize he was still lying there. I started to spin with the crossbow to face whoever had woken me.

Lloi grabbed the weapon and whistled. “Easy there. I like the holes I got where I got them. No need for no new ones.”

I looked at her and said, rather stupidly, “Lloi?”

She smiled her gap-toothed grin. “Bookmaster.” Then she looked down at Braylar, and her smile disappeared.

I set the crossbow down, and tried to explain, “We were worried, well, at least I was, that a ripper had… that you weren’t coming back. What happened to you? Where have you been?”

She hunkered down next to Braylar and slapped his cheek, not altogether gently. His head shifted position, but otherwise he didn’t move or respond. She asked, “How many?”

I looked at her, wondering if I were still asleep.

“Killed. With that flail of his? How many?”

“Two,” I replied, and then for reasons unknown, repeated it, “two.”

“About four days back? Five?”

“Yes, five days. Well, one didn’t die right away. At least, Braylar—that is, Captain Killcoin—he said he didn’t. That he knew he hadn’t. He thought he died a day or two after the attack.”

She grunted and then lifted his tunic up, looking at his belly and chest. “How long has Captain Noose been laid low?”

“He fell yesterday. Driving the wagon.” I moved closer and looked over her shoulder. “What’s… what’s wrong with him, Lloi?”

She responded not with an answer but with another question, after looking at the two-headed flail and then back to me. “You try to take it?”

I felt like a child caught stealing, though I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“I was going to try to make him more comfortable, so he could rest. But…”

“But he didn’t like that none, did he? Tried it, too, first time he went down like this. Actually got it off his belt, and he started screaming like I was murdering him with something hot and sharp. And he’s not like to give it up more if he’s awake neither.”

I glanced at Bloodsounder and then back to her. As was usually the case, I felt like there was more to what she was saying than what she was saying. “The weapon warns him sometimes. Of violence. That much I get. But the cost seems high. The nausea, the wounds that aren’t his, now this. Why wouldn’t he just be rid of it, Lloi?”

She arched her bushy eyebrows. “Thinking you would’ve puzzled that clear by now. More a matter of can’t than won’t.”

“Can’t?”

“On balance, you’re on the mark—that wicked thing on his belt done more harm than good. He had any choice, he’d be rid of it already, I’m thinking.”

“But he… can’t be rid of it?”

“Thinking we established that, bookmaster.”

I sighed. “So we did. What I mean is, why? Why can’t he be rid of it?”

“Wasn’t with him, but heard tell he tried burying it once, figuring that was where it come from. Back to the ground, like a body you don’t want nobody else to find. Him and some Nooses with him. Dropped the last dirt on top, probably without a whole lot of eulogizing, and then rode off. Didn’t get real far, though.”

She stopped. I waited. When she didn’t continue, I started to open my mouth and she said, “Guessing you’ll want to know what happened after that, too, so I’ll just tell you. Crippling pain brought him down. They thought he was dying. Like to have, until they knocked their heads together long enough to figure out what to do. Rushed back, got those shovels dirty again, and brought that vicious thing back out of the earth. Seemed it didn’t much like being buried like that. Captain stopped screaming when it was back in his hands.”

I was about to ask something else, but she held up her nubs. “Right now, the whyfores of getting rid of it got nothing to do with us. I just got to get him through this spell.”

We both looked at Braylar for a long moment and then I asked, “So you’ll be able to help him, then?”

“Won’t be any kind of easy. I been here right after… But two killed, and five days? Done that many, but never that long. Memoridon could manage. Least, that’s what’s said. But none of their kind wandering out this way. So I’ll do what I can do.” She laid her palm on Braylar’s forehead. Quietly, and directed to the prone man on the floor, she said, “I would’ve been here sooner if I was able. Fact was, I was trying to lead danger the opposite way, keep you out of another scrape. But you wouldn’t have it. Ordered me away. I told you you ought not to, but…” She sighed. “Now you might not never wake to hear how right I was.”

I understood little and less. “I have no idea what’s happening here, Lloi.”

“You ever seen a man bit by a snake? Got the poison coursing through him? Now, maybe it’s a pit snake, just hurts the man bad, or maybe it’s a brass viper, kills him dead. Either way, you catch it early, open the wound, draw it out, that man might get better. Might not. But wait too long? Real sick or real dead. This is that, only the flail the thing done the biting, and those dead memories are the poison. Can’t say how bad Captain Noose is like to get—this is the worst I seen him. But I got to get that poison out, and I got to do it now, so you step on back and let me get to draining.”

I stood up. “What can I do to help?”

“Make sure I drink plenty,” she said. “Water, fine, wine, better. Do that, and keep your lips locked, that’ll be the rightest kind of help you can give.”

I found a flask and watched as Lloi knelt next to him, her good hand on his belly, and the nubby stump on his forehead. She lowered her head until it touched his sternum, then slowly raised it, rolling and turning it side to side slightly as she began to chant something I assumed was in her native tongue, until she tilted her head back as far as it would go, chin pointing at the canvas. She did this over and over, the only small changes coming in her humming or chanting.

I sat and watched, feeling equally mystified and obtrusive, as if I were witnessing some deviant act or sacred rite meant to be private. And yet what else was I supposed to do, go outside and sit in the dark?

And so I waited and held my tongue. After a time, my eyes began closing, but Lloi’s chanting, while lilting, wasn’t rhythmic or repetitive enough to allow me to fall asleep. Every time I was close, the pitch or delivery changed, or a new kind of alien syllable was introduced, and my eyes opened again.

I looked over after one such occurrence, and she paused her chanting, although the strange bobbing continued, and she looked over at me and opened her mouth. I remembered her request, and started to hand her the flask, but she shook her head. She paused mid-rise long enough for me to put the flask to her lips and tip it up. She took several swallows before pulling her lips away as wine dribbled down her chin and fell on Braylar’s chest.

And then she continued her ritual, with a smear of wine on her forehead after she touched down again, and I immediately thought of the large blood stain I’d hidden in the rear of the wagon.

This went on the remainder of the night, with Lloi pausing briefly on occasion to take some wine, and the chanting undergoing subtle changes, and little other variation as the hours crept by. As dawn came on, I put out the lantern and chewed some goat that was especially stringy. I offered some to Lloi, but she only looked at the flask, which I gave her. By now, we’d worked out the transfer of liquid so nothing was spilled, but Lloi’s hair was sticky and matted in front from our previous slips. I patted at her with a damp cloth as best I could and settled back against the side of the wagon.

I was nodding off again when Lloi finally stopped chanting. I looked at her as she fell back against a barrel, eyes shut, face pale. She pointed her toes away from her and then rolled her sandaled feet in circles, to either work out stiff muscles or keep them from seizing up.

I asked if she wanted food or drink but she declined both. I looked at Braylar, but besides the splotches of wine on his skin, he seemed unchanged. I whispered, “What happens next?”

She pulled her legs up to her chest and laid her head on her knees. She sounded absolutely exhausted and hoarse when she finally replied, “Can’t say.” Then she forced herself up, legs wobbly, holding the barrel for support. “Need some rest now. He wakes, you wake me. Otherwise, you leave me be.”

She disappeared through the front flap and the wagon rocked as she jumped off. A few moments later, I heard her vomiting. Even after I was sure she’d emptied her stomach, she continued to make awful clenching, heaving, sputtering noises.

I wasn’t sure which was the greater oddity—a Syldoon whose Deserter-inspired weapon allegedly stole memories from the dead, or a disfigured Grass Dog who presumably drew those memories out of him like poison. Or an archivist who believed either one.

And that was the last thought I had before falling into a depthless dreamless slumber.

⊕

I woke when the wagon began moving forward, feeling so tired I was unsure whether I’d slept for mere moments or a month. I sat up and the first thing I noticed was that a prone Braylar had been replaced by a seated Lloi, facing the rear of the wagon.

I stretched and sat up as well. When she heard me, she turned and offered me her small pouch of seeds in her nubby hand, which I declined. She popped a few more in her mouth, working them open with a dexterity rodents would have admired before spitting out the shells. “Captain Noose figured he been drifting off course long enough. Time to get rolling right and center again. Didn’t bother waking you, on account of you not sleeping last night. I already told him what befell while I was riding solo, but he cautioned me to be ready to retell it again, should you have questions. Which we both figured you might, as you can’t seem to help yourself. So,” she offered me the seed pouch again, which I accepted this time. “Ask what you got to ask.”

I wasn’t sure where to begin. My questions came in a flood, “What happened to you? Where did you disappear? Were you outrunning the ripper, or—”