Servant of a Dark God (26 page)

“We have no beer,” said Talen.

“Then fetch me a draught of sweet water from your well,” said the bailiff.

Talen complied without hesitation, leaving Sugar alone with the men. One of the bailiff’s men stood on the far side of the room opening cupboards. She could hear the second upstairs and the third in the back room and still others out in the yard. The bailiff himself paced about the room and then noticed the cellar door.

“Girl,” he said. “Open this up.” Then he drew his sword and stepped back.

“You do not need to worry, Zu,” she said, indicating his sword. “I will gladly open the door, but nothing is down there. Only a few cabbages and potatoes. I saw them myself this morning.”

“Oh, is that the trysting spot for Koramite youth?” The bailiff shook his head. “I thought Talen was being prepared for a Mokaddian marriage. I expected more of Hogan.”

Sugar looked down. They would consider it filthy for him to sport with a Koramite. Was that why he’d been so stiff? She walked over to the door. She hoped Legs had heard the men and had hidden in the small cubby they’d made last night.

“Get a light,” he said.

“Yes, Zu,” she said, and then moved to the other side of the room to fetch a lamp.

The man searching this end of the main room was poking his sword deep into barrels of beans and barley. What he expected to find there she could not guess.

Sugar found one of Zu Hogan’s lamps and the oil jar. She poured a bit into the lamp. Then she took it to the fire, retrieved an ember with some small tongs, held it close and began to blow.

“I don’t understand why a girl from Koramtown would risk hunters, alone it seems, to come all the way up here.”

Sugar blew once more and the wick caught fire. “I came early yesterday,” she said. “News of the Sleth had not yet arrived.” Then she pulled up the cellar door.

He pointed at the stair with his sword, indicating she should go first.

Sugar nodded and began to descend the stairs a few steps. As she did her light illuminated the room below and the fact that while Legs had crawled into the cubby, he had not hidden his foot. It, along with the end of his trousers, was plain to see.

The bailiff positioned himself above to get a clearer view of the cellar.

Sugar switched the lamp to her other hand, moving it so that it cast a shadow over Legs.

“Lift it higher,” said the bailiff, “I can’t see.”

“Yes, Zu.” Her mind raced. What could she do? What lie could she tell him?

None came to her mind.

She shifted the lamp.

“Ho,” boomed Zu Hogan from the doorway. “What is this?”

The bailiff turned, and Sugar saw her chance. She quickly descended the remaining steps and hurried to stand in front of Leg’s foot. She held her lamp out as if she were trying to give the room its best possible illumination.

“What kind of a lunatic challenges Fir-Noy armsmen?” asked the bailiff.

Zu Hogan put his hands on his hips. “The same kind that challenges Bone-Faced rot.”

“That’s all good and fine,” said the bailiff. “But you’ve put me in a position. Do you know how lucky you are? Any other Koramite and you’d lose your head. I would have to take it myself.”

“We have far greater things than Fir-Noy honor to worry about,” said Zu Hogan. “The woman held in Whitecliff, she’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Stolen out of the tower by a creature that cast Droz and his whole guard about like puppets.”

The bailiff stood stunned. “Goh,” he finally said. “Her creation, then, come to free her? Or that of her hatchlings?”

“We don’t know where it came from or whence it bore her. The dogs can’t track it.”

Sugar sat down. There was no doubt about Mother now. She wondered what kind of creature it was that had rescued her. But she couldn’t imagine it. She couldn’t picture her mother as Sleth any more than she could picture her as a dog.

What would Zu Hogan do? He wouldn’t turn her in, would he? Not after hiding and lying for them.

“She’s probably all safely tucked away now in some wicked bolt hole.” The bailiff cursed. There was a brief pause in their conversation then the bailiff said, “This does not bode well for your people.”

“It does not bode well for any of us,” said Zu Hogan. “Because when you do find them, even if you take one hundred men, it won’t be enough. The creature was shot through with arrows and stabbed with spears. Captain Argoth delivered a blow that would have beheaded a horse. Nothing. The ballista men shot a dart and smote the beast squarely in the chest, and it still managed somehow to vanish. It cannot be harmed by normal means.”

The bailiff looked down at Sugar.

“What’s more,” said Hogan, “if it’s taken her, then I suspect it most certainly has the two hatchlings that escaped.”

The bailiff nodded. “We’re done here.”

He called his men off, and as suddenly as they’d come, they left.

Sugar whispered to Legs to stay put then she walked back up the stairs.

Hogan, Talen, and Nettle stood out in the yard. She joined them to watch the bailiff and his men walk back to the woods where they’d tied their horses.

“Do you think he suspects?” asked Nettle.

“No,” said Zu Hogan. “Although I do wonder how he missed marking Sugar.”

“We created a ruse,” said Talen.

“Oh?”

“We were . . .”

“Yes?”

“Sporting,” finished Sugar.

Nettle raised an eyebrow, but Zu Hogan looked down at her with a sad smile. “Purity’s daughter indeed,” he said.

What that meant, she could not tell. But she could guess what he was thinking. Her mother was a monster. So what did you do with the child of a monster? Sugar knew the answer to that question.

She also knew her mother. There would be an explanation if she could talk to her. There had to be.

About a quarter mile down the road from Hogan’s place, the bailiff halted the men. Prunes reined in his horse with the rest of them.

“I’ve been commanded to post a watch on Hogan,” said the bailiff. “So two of you are going to stay behind. Prunes, you and Gid will have the first day. I’ll send someone to relieve you in the morning.”

That was just Prunes’s luck. He gets an opportunity to sleep, but he has to do it with that garlic-eater at his side. Still, some rest was better than none at all. Prunes simply nodded then peeled his horse from the column, Gid following behind.

They hobbled their horses in a small glen on the far side of the hill and began hiking to find the right position to watch the Koramite.

A few steps up the slope and Gid began to sing under his breath. “A lady green with lips so wide, I could not help but kiss her. But when I’d had my fill of tongue, I put her in the roaster.”

“Will you shut up,” said Prunes.

“They’re not going to hear us.”

“I don’t care if they do hear us. We’re not going to find anything here.”

“How do you mean?”

“This is Captain Argoth’s brother-in-law. We’re not going to find anything here but some rest. And that’s what I intend to take. And that is also why you’re going to be quiet as a mouse.”

“You don’t know what loyalties flow in that Koramite’s veins,” said Gid. “In fact, for a Koramite on the run, this might be the very best place to hide.”

“See,” said Prunes, “that’s what comes of eating too much garlic. You get brain vapors.”

“It’s got nothing to do with what I eat.”

“Stinking vapors of the mind,” said Prunes.

Gid made a rude gesture, but Prunes ignored it.

Soon they found an outcropping of rock that gave a clear view of the farm, then positioned themselves just behind the brush line.

As soon as they sat down, Gid took out a whetstone and began sharpening his knife.

Stupid eager—that’s what he was. If Sleth did indeed pay the Koramite a visit, then they’d need more than knives. Goh, the Koramite’s reports of that creature in Whitecliff gave Prunes the shivers. And if that thing showed up, the best thing to do would be to run. Run or hide in some hole. Then Prunes realized he’d sat in the wrong place. “You need to sit over here,” said Prunes.

“Why?”

“Because that places me upwind of your stinking carcass.”

But Gid gave him a look that said he wasn’t moving. After a few moments, Prunes sighed in irritation. The man was an affliction, but it wasn’t worth a battle. He picked himself up and found a better spot. “You’ve got first watch,” said Prunes. “If I catch you sleeping, you’re going to dance to a hard pipe.”

Gid grunted. “And who do you think will be my partner?”

But Prunes had already laid back and closed his eyes and wasn’t even going to consider giving Gid an answer.

SUMMONS

T

alen stood in the house, facing his father who had just related the events at the Whitecliff fortress the night before. Da’s face was bruised from when the creature had knocked him aside. His throat was worse. It looked like he wore a blue-and-purple collar. The creature had throttled him and damaged his voice. When he finished his tale, none of the others spoke.

Talen didn’t care that the boy and the girl were standing right here with them. “The evidence, it appears, is overwhelming,” he said. “The Fir-Noy were not making this rot up.”

Earlier, he hadn’t known what to do. He and Nettle had not been able to sleep. They had discussed the situation from the moment the girl and boy had gone down into the cellar last night until the sun rose. They could give the girl and boy the benefit of the doubt, as it seemed Da, River, and Ke were willing to do, and assume huge risks. They could distract the two until Nettle could call the authorities to come collect them. Or they could kill them. But the questioners would want them alive. The laws of the hunt would demand punishment. Furthermore, if they were Sleth and there was a nest of them, then anyone who killed the boy and girl could expect the same retribution that was visited upon the village of Plum.

But to leave them alive in the house? And then the girl had confessed. All his talk of bold action, and he had been able to do nothing. Then the bailiff had shown up. But he hadn’t known it was the bailiff. He’d thought they were the Fir-Noy armsmen come back. He couldn’t tell
them
the boy and girl were the hatchlings. Those armsmen would automatically assume Talen’s family had been harboring them.

He should have never let her sit in his lap. Never let her kiss him. Lords, her tongue . . .

He kept expecting something to happen, to feel a shift of some kind. He could detect no change in himself, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t worked some kind of magic upon him with her touch. How could you kiss a Sleth child and not be changed?

It was obvious they had only two options—kill them or bring a hunt. And he preferred someone else face the ire of the nest. “It’s time to give them up,” said Talen.

“No,” said Da in his rough voice. “That will never happen.”

And yet there Da stood with that massive bruise on his face. Perhaps he was trying to tell Talen it was foolish to talk about such things in front of the boy and girl.

“River and Ke will be back soon enough. We’re going to keep them safe, Talen.”

Da wasn’t acting. He was serious. “With that woman’s beast looking for them?”

“We don’t know what that thing was,” said Da.

“Who cares what it was? It rescued her. That’s all we need to know.”

“That’s not all we need to know.”

It was obvious from the events at Whitecliff that there were powerful masters ruling this nest of Sleth. Had they gotten to Da? Had they themselves delivered the boy and girl here?

It was terrible to contemplate, but he wanted to know the situation. “You can tell me,” said Talen.

“No, I can’t. Not right now.”

“Have you been threatened by other members of this nest?”

“Son,” said Da. “Trust me.”

“Trust
me
,” Talen said. “If the masters of this nest have something hanging over us, I want to know. I want to help.”

“There are no masters,” said Da. “No threats. This is very simple. Sugar and Legs are innocent of any offense.”

“You’re kidding me?”

“No,” said Da.

Talen glanced over at Nettle for some help, but Nettle looked as concerned as he was. He turned back to his father. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I don’t think you’re in your right mind. If they’re innocent, then let the questioners absolve them.”

“Talen,” Da said more forcefully. “You don’t know of what you speak. So keep your mouth shut.”

Shut? When they had armsmen seeking their lives, a Sleth on the loose, and the children of that Sleth standing right there?

“Why don’t you enlighten me? I can clearly see the troubles these two have cost us. And it doesn’t require a lord’s councilor to multiply such troubles across all the rest of our people. You were a fool not to turn them in.”

The girl stood to the side of Da, cold calculation in her eyes. The boy was looking off into space, his head shaking oddly. It unnerved Talen. That right there was probably the result of some Sleth abomination.

Da’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll put a bung in that mouth of yours.”

“Somebody is going to die because of these two. And that’s not going to be me. I’d also like to avoid any torture that might be involved.”

“We’ll find them another place.” Da’s mouth was tight with anger.

Talen wondered if all this speaking hurt his throat, but someone needed to talk sense.

“Some wicked servant came to fetch their mother, and you want to harbor them?”

Da’s anger broke. He lifted up one side of the table and slammed it back down again. A leg gave way and the table slid over to one side. “I’m about to lose my temper!” If his voice had been normal, it would have come out as a bellow. But this voice, as if he were sick, was worse to hear.

Talen was going to say, don’t worry you’ve already done that, but Da’s eyes were as round as eggs. His face was red.

Years ago Da had let Ke and even River feel the open face of his hand. Ke had many a story; he also harbored much resentment that Talen didn’t receive the same good instruction. But Mother had made Da give it up before she died.

Da violently scratched the side of his head. He said, “I can forgive you your ignorance. But I won’t stand your disobedience. Do you truly think I’m such a drooling idiot that I would invite monsters into our house?”