And Night Descends (The Third Book of the Small Gods Series) (17 page)

Kuneprius stared at the gray man lying on the ground only four arm’s lengths away, and Thorn looked back. A moment passed and neither of them spoke; during that time, Kuneprius noticed a lack of need burning in his chest for the first time in days. His body didn’t yearn for water to lave his sins, his balls didn’t ache to spread his seed. Was this the sort of enchantment Thorn had chosen to cast upon him? He took stock of the rest of himself and found nothing else out of sorts.

“What have you done to me?”

“Thorn has done nothing but offer his friendship.”

The corner of Kuneprius’ mouth quivered and tilted up despite his not meaning it to. After so many seasons spent amongst the Brothers, he’d only ever considered one person a friend.

He raised his eyes, looked beyond the gray man at the golem standing guard beside the dirt track they’d followed to get here. The clay abomination didn’t move, the dark night making it impossible to distinguish him from a statue set at the road’s edge. Nothing about him indicated a man within. Kuneprius’ chest cinched tight around his heart. He sighed through his nose and returned his gaze to Thorn.

“You are a Small God, aren’t you? From the Green.”

“That is what Horace Seaman told Thorn. Horace Seaman doesn’t lie.”

For an instant, Kuneprius considered asking who Horace Seaman was, but he thought better of it. Common sense suggested it to be the man the golem killed when they took the Small God, but why remind Thorn of that now? Still, he wondered how a man and a Small God came to be traveling together outside the veil.

Because the prophecy said it should be so.

“You aren’t aware of what is to happen to a Small God who strays from the Green?”

Thorn stared at him, one eye cocked in the manner of raising his brow if he had such things. Kuneprius took it to mean he wasn’t aware and was about to explain how dire his situation was when Thorn burst out laughing. He put both hands on his belly and rolled back and forth on the ground. Kuneprius looked up at the golem, worried the outburst might penetrate whatever glamour Thorn had cast, but the clay man didn’t move.

The laughter went on longer than Kuneprius expected, causing a coil of discomfort in his gut. Each moment it continued made it more likely the creature who was once his friend Ves would be alerted to their conversation. Then what?

“Shh. Be quiet.”

With obvious effort, Thorn calmed himself. The laughter faded to chuckles and then subsided. The gray man wiped mirthful tears away on his forearm and propped himself up on an elbow to study his companion. Kuneprius shot him a scornful look, but it appeared to make no impression on him.

“Kuneprius speaks of the prophecy?”

It shocked Kuneprius that Thorn knew of the scroll hidden in the room without doors where High Priest Kristeus communicated with the Small Gods of the sky. No one but he had ever touched the ancient parchment and the Brothers only knew what they did because Kristeus chose to tell them.

“How did you—?”

“No one believes it. Nothing but a story to scare the newly created into remaining behind the veil.”

“So all of your…kind are aware of the prophecy?”

“Of course. Thorn has read the words supposedly written by the Goddess’ own hand.”

Kuneprius shook his head. “Impossible. The scroll resides in a chamber at Murtikara. No hands but those of the High Priest have ever touched it since its writing by the death of Ine’vesi, the evenstar.”

He raised his eyes skyward as he spoke the Small God’s name, searching through overhead boughs to find the bright glow amongst the other, dimmer ones. He’d have said the requisite prayer as well, but another laugh from the gray man interrupted him.

“The parchment gets passed to whoever needs a scare thrown into them. It has been with us since the creation of the Green. Few believe the words contain any truth, no matter where it came from. How can a mother be barren? Or a man survive the God of the Deep, if such a thing exists?”

Thorn’s last few words trailed off and something shifted on his face, but Kuneprius’ confusion at the gray man’s words blurred its meaning from him.

“The prophecy doesn’t mention the God of the Deep, only a man from across the sea. Others were sent for him as we were sent for you.”

Thorn seemed not to have heard him, his eyes unfocused and staring as though he saw right through Kuneprius. It made him uncomfortable and he shifted under the Small God’s gaze, the worry he might cast an enchantment on him returning. Thorn blinked hard, appearing to clear the miasma blurring his vision, and raised his eyes to Kuneprius’. When he spoke again, his voice was so quiet, Kuneprius had to strain to hear his words.

“Horace Seaman survived meeting the God of the Deep. If the prophecy speaks of him, then the rest must be truth.”

Thorn sat up, his head gently moving side to side, eyes widening. Kuneprius knew what the small man’s expression meant, but he found no words to speak. He fought the urge to reach out and touch the Small God’s arm, to comfort him and attempt to take away his fear. But how could he do so when he caused the fear?

“Kuneprius,” Thorn whispered. “You mean to take Thorn to his death.”

The man’s lips parted, though he didn’t know what might emerge from his mouth given the chance. A denial? Words of comfort? The truth?

A movement behind Thorn startled Kuneprius from his thoughts and he didn’t get to find out what he might have said.

The golem loomed a pace behind the Small God, forcing everything from his head but for his own fear.

XVII Man From Across the Sea—Kooj

He sat on the dirt floor, elbows resting on knees pulled up to his chest, head hung, eyes closed.

His mind whirled, struggling to recall anything prior to waking in the barn with sunlight squeezing between its warped and ill-fitting boards. No matter how hard he tried, he saw only water. It enveloped him, splashed over his head, found its way into his mouth and nose. It choked his throat and threatened to fill his lungs.

Water. The sea and nothing more.

He opened his eyes, lifted his chin off his chest and found the sun shining between the boards again. Another sunrise, the second since the man called Jud-dah locked him in the barn with the cow and the dog. At first, he’d worried the dog might make a meal of him if his master stayed away too long, but Kooj had proven himself an excellent ratter—an unusual skill for a canine of his size and ferocity.

Kooj lay on the dirt floor by the door, teeth tearing into the guts of a rat with a body the length of a man’s forearm. Droplets of blood glistened on the dog’s muzzle and a string of meat hung from the corner of his mouth. The sight disgusted the man but also flooded saliva across his tongue and set his stomach grumbling. He wanted to divert his eyes rather than watch the dog eviscerate the oversized vermin, but hunger pinned his gaze to the spectacle.

The dog tore another strip with a sickening rending of flesh and the man pried his eyes away, shifting them to the pitcher on the floor beside him. He picked it up, raised it to his mouth and tilted it so the last drop slithered along the side toward the lip. It reached the edge and dangled on the cusp, taunting him for an instant before plummeting onto his outstretched tongue.

The single drop proved enough to tease, but not enough to satiate the thirst burning in his throat. Hoping for one more, he shook the pitcher; none came. He threw it across the barn where it thumped on the dirt floor and rolled to a stop against a barrel stuffed with rusted weapons and tools. The man sighed and licked his rough lips, seeking to return moisture to them with a tongue possessing none of its own.

He wiped a frustrated hand across his face and returned his attention to the dog. Kooj had stopped feasting and sat with head tilted and ears pricked. At first, he thought the pitcher hitting the ground had disturbed the canine’s meal, but the dog stared off into the air, not at him or at the jug.

He’s heard something.

The man jerked in the direction of the dog’s stare and listened. The barn creaked, a baby bird twittered in the rafters, his own stomach gurgled. Nothing else. Kooj rose and trotted toward the side of the barn, leaving his feast unattended.

The scent of spilled blood wafted to the man’s nose, making his belly gurgle again. He swallowed hard and leaned forward, clambering to hands and knees with a clank of the chain attached to his ankle. A quick glance showed him Kooj standing near the barn’s side wall paying him no attention.

Despite the protests in his head, the man’s aching gut drove him scuttling across the floor in the direction of the half-eaten vermin lying flayed in front of the door. His stomach growled in hunger and nausea at the thought of it as his hands and knees scuffled through the dirt throwing puffs off dust into the air.

Two body lengths from the rat’s corpse, the chain attached to his ankle went taut. He peeked back at it, pulled with a clank, then returned his attention to the dead animal. He lay flat on the dirt floor, stretching out to his fullest, reaching, grasping.

The potential meal, equally tempting and nausea-inducing, lay beyond his fingertips. He strained, reaching further, wiggling his fingers, but to no avail.

Kooj snarled, barked. The man froze, waiting for the dog’s jaws to clamp around his outstretched arm, his razor teeth to tear at his flesh as they’d done the rat’s.

Instead of biting, the dog barked again and the man jerked his head around to peer over his shoulder. The beast stared at the wall, lips pulled back from savage teeth, a string of saliva tinted pink with rat’s blood hanging from its jaws.

The man scuffled back from the canine’s food, happy to forgo the stomach-turning meal in exchange for saving his own skin. He climbed to his feet and wiped sticky spit off his lips with his forearm, directed his attention to the wall Kooj stared at. Movement flickered in the space between the boards.

The dog leaped forward a half-step, barking furiously. The man fell into a crouch, squinting against light shining through the gaps to see if it was Jud-dah who’d returned, or someone come to rescue him.

Whoever was outside moved toward the front of the barn, the dark shape blocking the sunlight squeezing between the wall boards in succession as it went. Kooj followed along with it, barking and slathering all the way.

A moment later, the barn door’s handle rattled. The dog stalked toward the sound, a growl rumbling in its throat and chest, one paw stepping in the remains of the disemboweled rat, then leaving a bloody print in the dirt with its next step. The handle clattered a second time and the door opened a crack. He glimpsed a hand wrapped in a dirty bandage before Kooj launched himself against the wooden panels.

The dog hit it with a heavy thud, but the fellow outside must have expected the beast’s action and leaned against the door to prevent it opening. It moved but the width of a finger.

Kooj fell back to the floor, his furious barking renewed, muzzle prodding the space between door and frame. He stood on his hind legs, front paws pushing against the wood, and the intruder slammed the door shut.

Movement flickered again, this time headed away from the building. The man watched the silhouette beat a retreat toward the tree line, a dark shape making its way through the grass. Kooj trotted around the inside of the barn, growling and barking, pacing first one direction, then the other. The dog’s dark eyes gleamed with what the man might have interpreted as anger and hatred had the beast been human, but it wasn’t. It only sought to protect its home.

Or so he thought until the dog directed its attention toward him.

Kooj glared at him, lips still pulled back from his sharp teeth. The dog took one slow step his direction, then another. He backed away a step, arms raised in defense. He cast his gaze around for something to use for protection, cursed himself for having tossed the pitcher out of reach.

The dog took another step and he bent over, grasped the chain binding him in his prison. He looped it once around each hand, unsure what he meant to do with it, and backed up as far as his tether allowed.

Kooj took one more slow step, then launched himself across the barn.

XVIII Ailyssa—Juddah’s

The day passed, the sun warming Ailyssa’s cheeks. The same sun coaxed sweat on Juddah’s back and arms and she did her best to find separation between herself and her rescuer—a difficult task sitting together on horseback. His perspiration dampened the front of her smock despite her attempts.

They stopped once during the day to slake their thirsts at a stream and eat cured meat and hard cheese. She thought to ask him what kind of meat he fed her, but her grumbling stomach preferred not to know. After emptying her bladder—dubious of her privacy—they were back ahorse and continuing their journey.

The comparative chill of night touched the flesh of her arms, the white haze of her blindness changing little as the day’s light faded. The rhythm of the horse’s gait lulled Ailyssa into a state of semi-consciousness. Whenever her chin sagged toward her chest, she jerked her head back, waking herself for fear if she truly dozed, she’d fall from her perch. Would he stop for her if she did?

Each time a sliver of sleep came, she saw Claris’ face, imagined her children, and she’d jerk awake with the pain of regret poking her heart.

At least I’m alive. I couldn’t help her if I was dead.

The night passed, like the day before it, and after what felt an impossibly long time in Ailyssa’s unseeing world, the sun rose again.

“How much longer before we reach your home?”

“Soon,” Juddah grunted in reply and said no more.

Ailyssa knew ‘soon’ was a relative term, with no clear definition to any but he who spoke it. And so the morning dragged past with but one more stop to eat, drink, and piss. By her reckoning, midday was near when she noticed the change.

Juddah’s aroma and the forest’s scent disguised it at first, but her nose detected another odor beneath the perfumes of cedar trees and loamy earth; a tang she’d not experienced before. It tickled her nostrils and gave her hope the end of their journey neared, an eventuality her aching thighs and buttocks longed for.