Servant of a Dark God (24 page)

Ke had suggested a cover to Zu Hogan when she’d first come. “She could be a girl from Koramtown,” Ke’d said, “visiting.”

“Visiting who?” Zu Hogan had asked.

“Have your pick,” said Ke. “Both Talen and I are of marriageable age. Or maybe she’s visiting River as a friend.”

“Maybe,” said Zu Hogan. “Maybe.” But he’d never come back to tell her what he’d decided. Sugar had visited friends regularly in Koramtown. They were some of the happiest moments of her life. There was such an ease being among your equals. She knew what friends did when they visited. And while Ke was of marriageable age, all the neighbors around this farmstead would already know who he was courting and what his prospects were. Her tale would be news to them. And she didn’t want to be news. She wanted to be nothing. Talen would probably not be making such arrangements. So he was an option. But she couldn’t be sure. It would be easier if Sugar was River’s friend visting from Koramtown. Someone come to help with the harvest.

“Sugar?” Legs asked in a quiet voice.

She said nothing, and stacked another potato. He hadn’t slept all last night and needed rest.

“You’re not sleeping,” he said.

“Oh?” she said.

“You breathe different when you sleep,” he said. “It’s something like this.” He began to make small grunting noises like a pig.

“I don’t either.”

“Yes,” he said. “You do. But then so did Mother.”

A momentary silence fell upon them both. Sugar should have felt something in that silence, but she was empty still. How was it that she could not feel?

“Does,” Sugar corrected. “She’s not dead. You heard those soldiers. And not only that, but it’s possible she will be freed.”

Those had been Zu Hogan’s words when he’d shown them the dog warren: “Have hope; if your mother survives her wounds and is taken to Whitecliff, then there is a chance I can free her.”

“But how can that be true?” Legs asked. “He’s just a Koramite.”

And Mother was just a smith’s wife. Sugar had not yet told Legs what she had witnessed of the battle and Mother’s horrible speed.

Sugar put down the leggy potato in her hands and moved back next to him. She reached out and began to smooth his hair, tracing the whorls of his wild cowlicks.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Zu Hogan has a powerful brother-in-law. A captain of the Shoka. Perhaps he will save her.”

But he wouldn’t. Not even a Mokaddian territory lord would save a Sleth.

The lines of her world were shifting, and where they’d stop she did not know. It was like the one time she’d seen a perfect rock to rest upon, but as she neared it the lines and shadows shifted and she realized the rough stem she’d thought was a weed at the base of the rock was really a brown viper, coiled in the dry grass and ready to strike.

“This isn’t a good place to hide,” he said.

“I know,” said Sugar.

“We should make a cubby,” he said. “Like we did in the woods to escape the miller’s son.”

There weren’t enough cabbages and potatoes to make a pile big enough to hide both of them. But if she used the bushel basket there might be enough for Legs.

“You’re right,” she said and began to move the piles she’d already made.

Before they’d finished, Sugar heard someone walk on the floor above her. Alarm shot through her. They weren’t ready with the cubby. Then she heard River singing the fisherman’s lullaby, the all-clear signal, and relaxed.

But Sugar did not join River above. It was safer down here in the dark and they needed to finish what they’d begun. After some time, someone came to the cellar door and stopped. She heard them grab the hook and then the door opened, spilling in the dim light of early morning.

River looked down at her. “Did you not hear me?”

“Yes,” Sugar said. “We did.”

“I see,” said River. “Well, come on up; eat while you can. The boys are all out in the yard doing chores.”

“Do you have a chamber pot?” asked Legs.

River smiled. “Somewhere,” she said. “We refused to carry out each other’s stink years ago. And who wants to carry their own when you can trot out to the privy? But I don’t think we threw it away. Besides, I know someone who would benefit from playing the good host. Come up. You can eat and take care of your business like people instead of grubs.”

Sugar and Legs climbed out of the cellar. A hard loaf of bread sat on the table. Fat slices of dark sausage sizzled in a pan over the fire. And a thick broth, for softening the bread, bubbled in a pot.

River led Legs to the back room. When she returned, she sawed off a sizeable piece of bread and gave Sugar a bowl of the broth.

The three boys came in shortly after that, taking off their muddy boots and setting them alongside the wall next to the door. When Talen saw Sugar, he stopped short.

“What is she doing up here?” he asked.

“It looks like she’s eating,” said Ke and shoved Talen along.

Talen gave her an angry glance, then he handed Nettle the fish.

Nettle walked over to River, eyeing Sugar the whole way, opened the creel he was carrying and pulled out an enormous catfish that had been cleaned, gutted, and skinned. “Here’s our afternoon soup.”

“Put it in there,” River said, motioning with her chin toward an empty pot on the floor.

Nettle slid the fish in the pot.

Talen still stood on the other side of the room, brooding.

“What are you doing?” River asked him. “Go sit down.”

“I’m not getting anywhere close to that,” Talen said and pointed at Sugar.

Just then Legs appeared in the doorway of the back room holding the covered chamber pot.

“Sugar,” River corrected. “And you are going to be the gracious host. In fact, it appears you have a little business in the back room that needs to be dealt with.”

“A little business?” asked Talen in amazement. He turned and saw Legs standing there. “No.” He shook his head. “I will not.”

“You will empty the chamber pot for him, and then you will empty it for Sugar.”

“No,” said Sugar. “Please.” They’d already put this family in grave danger. She didn’t want them to do one thing more.

“You can’t go outside,” said River. “That would be foolhardy. Besides, we wouldn’t have this problem except for Talen. So he can take responsibility for the messes he makes.”

“I’m not doing it,” said Talen. He looked at Nettle.

Nettle held up both hands. “This is your house, not mine.”

Ke shifted his enormous frame in his seat to face Talen squarely. “You’re going to be the little chamber pot man,” said Ke. “And you’re going to be happy about it.”

The threat was obvious, but Talen didn’t move. The tension built for a moment, but then Ke stood and took a step toward Talen.

“Fine,” said Talen. “Tell him to put it down and step out of the doorway.”

“Legs,” said Sugar. “Come. We’ll go back down.”

Legs set the pot on the floor, then felt his way to Sugar’s position. Only then did Talen brush past. He picked up the pot with great distaste and went outside.

“Please stay here,” River said to Sugar. “Talen will be all right. You just sit down and enjoy your meal.”

It felt so good to stand straight and see sunlight. Perhaps she could stay up here for just a little while.

“I can understand his reluctance,” said Sugar.

“He’s not the only one that’s reluctant,” said Nettle.

They ate in relative silence, River asking Sugar questions that would make any normal guest feel comfortable. But these were not normal circumstances, and they only made the meal more strained.

Toward the end, River turned to Talen and said, “Because of last night, Ke and I now must find Sugar and Legs another place. So we’ll be hunting one up today. That means you’re going to stay here to finish the chores and to keep an eye out. Sugar and Legs are your charge until we return.”

Talen just looked into his bowl.

“Look at me, Talen. Do you think Da and I are stupid people? I know Ke, of course, is suspect.” She grinned.

It was a good effort to break the tension, but Talen did not accept it. “Yes, given the facts, I do think you’re stupid. But then I know you’re not stupid, so that means you’re hiding some of the facts.”

River glanced at Ke, then back to Talen.

“And you’ve been hiding them for quite some time,” said Talen.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” she said. “Da knows these people. They’re good, Talen. And there’s more to this than you realize. So much more. But now’s not the time or place to explain. All you have to do is finish the chores and keep an eye out. I want you to give Sugar and Legs some time up here. And that means you’ll have to stay in the house. Because you won’t be able to warn them or cover their retreat if you’re outside.”

“Then how do I do the chores?”

Both River and Ke looked at Nettle.

“Right,” said Nettle. “I’ll be out in the fields.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” said Talen. “You’re not leaving me alone with these two.”

“Chores have got to be done,” said Ke. “It will look odd, a fine day like today and nobody working. Besides, a man shoulders his own burdens.”

“Sure,” said Talen. “And when these two eat me, I guess you’ll be the one cleaning up what’s left.”

“Look at them, Talen,” River said. “They are not dangerous.”

“Just the presence of them,” Talen said, “is enough to put a noose around every one of our necks.”

While River had been there, Sugar, for the first time since the awful events, felt a lightening in her mood. There were some people that possessed such great quantities of openness and hope that it spilled over to others. River was one of these people.

Of course, when River closed the door behind her, Sugar and Legs were left with Talen.

He threw the bar on the door then turned to her. He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe his predicament, then he picked up his bow and withdrew two arrows from one of the three tall baskets that hung on the wall. Each basket held arrows that were ringed with a different color just below the fletching. She assumed the colors distinguished a different spine strength and weight, matched to the strength of the bow. He nocked one of the arrows marked with an ochre ring. The other he kept in the hand that held the bow. Both had gray goose feathers. Both were plain, but they had clearly been heated and straightened and would fly true to deliver the iron tips that shone with grease to keep the rust off.

“Here’s the first thing we’re going to get straight,” said Talen. “Me and my immortal parts are off-limits. You see that smudge on the lintel of the doorway to the loft?”

Sugar turned to look where he pointed. But before she had fully turned her head, she heard the bow hum. The second shaft flew almost as the first hit a dark coloration on the pale whitewashed lintel.

She turned back to him. He held another two more of the ochre-ringed arrows, one nocked just as before.

Legs sat at the table eating the last scraps of his food. He put down his spoon and held very still.

“I’ve been thinking all morning,” Talen said. “I don’t know what game my father is playing, but I do know this: you cross me, I won’t hesitate. In fact, by all rights, I should shoot you down now.”

Sugar knew the look in his eyes. She knew he was considering it. Her father had taught her to never show fear in a fight. Never show pain. Never give an opponent any reason for courage unless you wanted to lure them into a trap. What kind of a fighter was Talen? Was he one that only respected force? Or was he one that was more interested in avoiding a fight?

“Why does my father harbor a hatchling?” he asked.

“I’m not a hatchling,” she said.

“Whatever you call it.”

“I practice no dark art,” she said.

“No, you wouldn’t think it dark, would you?”

“I don’t know
any
lore,” she said.

“But your parents do.”

She had no response to that.

“Right,” he said. “So what’s been done to my father? Or is some threat being hung over us?”

“Nothing has been done,” she said. “There are no threats.”

He was agitated. Angry. Scared. She could read it all in his face. And she would have the same reaction in his situation, was having the same reaction to what her mother had done.

“How do I know River and Ke aren’t already under the spell of some foul master?” he asked. “How do I know they’ll even return?”

He raised his bow to the verge of drawing it. “Nettle said to wait. But I can’t see how that will help.”

He was serious: he did want to slay her. He truly believed she was Sleth, and prevarication would only confirm that assessment. She and Legs would not survive the afternoon with him in this state. That much was clear. “I will not lie to you,” she said. “My mother did things that—”

She didn’t want to say it. Legs sat as motionless as a heron at the table, his wild hair sticking up. She didn’t want for him to hear it this way. But that wasn’t the reason she’d stopped. She didn’t want to name Mother aloud. There were other explanations for what she’d seen. Maybe what she saw her mother do had been distorted by her fears. Maybe Cotton had indeed been stolen and magicked by woodikin. Maybe a dark soul rode in the body of the stork they’d found. There were a dozen maybes.

But the easiest explanation would not go away. She had to face the truth. There was no salvation in lies. “I saw my mother charge an army. I saw her cleave a man’s head in two. I saw her move with a dark grace that horrified me. And I saw the Sleth signs on the dead body of my little brother.”

The words dropped from her lips like heavy stones.

“I know you have no reason to believe me,” she said. “But I found out about this only a day before you.”

He had not raised his bow, but he hadn’t lowered it either.

“I am not associated with any murder of Sleth. I have nothing to do with any art, unless my mother has done something to me like she did to my brother. But I don’t know what that would be. I’m as confused as you are, Talen.

“Think on this as well,” she added. “If we were so wicked, wouldn’t we have risen from the cellar early this morning and worked our mischief on you when you were all asleep?”