Shadowrise (10 page)

The dead Follower was about the size of a squirrel, its round little head dominated by a jagged, wide mouth so that it looked like a melon broken under someone’s heel. The knobs of bone protruding through its greasy fur, hardened into gray lumps on the adult specimens Barrick had seen the day they found Gyir, were still pink and soft on this young one. It did not add to the thing’s beauty. “You want me to . . .” Barrick stared. “You want me to
eat
that . . . ?”

“You’ll get no nicer treat today,” the raven said crossly. “Trying to do you a favor, us was.”

It was all Barrick could do not to be immediately and violently ill.

After he had gathered his strength, he got back onto his feet. In one thing, anyway, the raven was undoubtedly right—it would not be wise to remain too long in this place where he had killed silkins.

“If you’re going to eat that horrid thing, eat it,” Barrick said. “Don’t make me look at it.”

“Bring it along, us will, in case you change your mind . . .”

“I’m not going to eat it!” Barrick raised his hand to smack at the black bird but did not have the strength. “Just hurry up and finish it so we can go.”

“Too big,” said the raven contentedly. “Us has to eat it slow, savory-like. But it’s too big for us to carry far, either. Can you . . . ?”

Barrick took a deep, slow breath. Much as it shamed him, he needed this bird. He couldn’t forget the loneliness that had surrounded him only an hour before when he thought the raven was gone. “Very well! I’ll carry it, if you can find some leaves or something to wrap it in.” He shuddered. “But if it starts to stink . . .”

“Then you mought get hungry, us knows. Never fear, us’n’ll find a place to stop before then.”

 

When they had covered enough ground that Barrick felt a little safer they settled into a hollow where he would be sheltered from the worst of the wind and mist by a large rock jutting from the side of the dell. Barrick would have given almost anything for a fire, but he had lost his flint and steel in Greatdeeps and he did not know how to make flame any other way.

Kendrick would have been able to do it,
he thought bitterly.
Father would, too.

“At least we seem to be leaving the silkins’ territory,” he said out loud. “We walked for hours without seeing any.”

“Silky Wood goes a long way,” the raven said at last. “Us doesn’t think we’re even halfway to the middle.”

“Blood of the gods, you’re joking!” Barrick felt despair slide over him like a thundercloud blotting the sun. “Do we have to walk straight through it? Can’t we go around it? Is this the only way to go to . . .” he wrestled with the throaty, alien words, “to Qul-na-Qar?”

“We could go round the wood, us guesses,” Skurn informed him, “but it would take a long time. We could go sunward of it and then pass through Blind Beggar lands instead. Or withershins, and then we’d be traveling Wormsward. Either way, though, us’ll still find trouble on the far side.

“Trouble?”

“Aye. Sunward, in the Beggar lands, us’ll have to look out sharp for Old Burning Eye and the Orchard of Metal Bats.”

Barrick gulped. He didn’t want to know anymore. “Then let’s go the other way around.”

Skurn nodded gravely. “ ’Cepting that if we go withershins, us’re in a swampy place us heard is called Melt-Your-Bones, and even if we miss the woodsworms we’ll have to look smart so we don’t get caught by the Suck-down Toothies.”

Barrick closed his eyes. He was finding his way back to prayer, he had discovered, although having met the demigod Jikuyin he still had difficulty believing the gods always had his best interests in mind. But with a choice between the murderous silkins, something called Metal Bats, and Suck-down Toothies, it couldn’t hurt to pray.

O Gods . . . O Great Ones in Heaven.
He tried to think of something to say.
Only a few short days ago I discovered I would have to travel across all this fearful, unknown land of demons and monsters with only two companions, a fairy warrior and the captain of my royal guard. Now I still must make that same journey with only one companion—a dung-eating, insolent bird. If you meant to ease my burdens, great ones, you could have done better.

It wasn’t much of a prayer, Barrick knew, but at least he and the gods were talking again.

“Wake me up if something’s going to kill me.” As he stretched out on the uneven ground he could hear the wet sounds of Skurn starting on the dead Follower. Barrick’s ribs ached; his arm felt like it was full of sharp pieces of broken pottery. “No, on second thought, don’t bother waking me. Maybe I’ll be lucky and die in my sleep.”

—from “A Treatise on the Fairy Peoples of Eion and Xand”

 

 

T
HE CHILD TOOK HER HAND and placed it against his narrow chest, a gesture Qinnitan knew meant, “I’m frightened.” She pulled him closer, held him as the movement of the Xixian ship rocked them both. “Don’t worry, Pigeon. He won’t hurt you. He only brought you to make sure I don’t dive over the side and try to swim back to Hierosol.”

He gave her a reproachful look: it wasn’t just for himself that he was frightened.

“Truly, we’ll be well,” she said, but they both knew she was lying. Qinnitan lowered her voice to a whisper. “You’ll see—we’ll find a chance to get away before we catch up with the autarch.”

Their cabin door abruptly swung open. The man who had snatched them from the streets of Hierosol stared at them, his eyes and face devoid of expression, as if he were thinking of something else entirely. While disguised as an old woman he had mimed feelings quite convincingly, but now he had thrown that aside as if human nature were only a mask he had been wearing.

“What do you want?” she asked. “Are you afraid we’re going to sneak out the locked door? Climb the mast and step off onto a cloud, perhaps?”

He ignored her as he walked past. He yanked hard at the bars on the window, testing them, then turned to survey the tiny cabin.

“What is your name?” Qinnitan demanded.

His lips twitched. “What does it matter?”

“We will be together on this ship until we reach the autarch and you can be paid your blood money. You certainly know my name, and much more—you must have spent weeks following me, watching everything I did. By the Sacred Hive, you even dressed up like an old woman so you could spy on me! The least you could do is tell me who you are.”

He didn’t respond, and his face remained as expressionless as a dead man’s as he turned and left the cabin, every movement as precise and fluid as those of a temple dancer. She might have almost admired it, but she knew it would be like a mouse admiring the murderous grace of a cat.

She felt something damp on her arm. Pigeon was crying.

“Here, here,” she said. “Shh, lamb. Don’t be afraid. I’ll tell you a story. Do you want to hear a story?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Have you heard the true story of Habbili the Crooked? I know you’ve heard of him—he was the son of the great god Nushash, but when his father was driven into exile, Habbili was treated very badly by Argal and the rest of the demon-gods. For a while it seemed there was no chance he would survive, but in the end he destroyed his enemies and saved his father and even Heaven itself. Do you want to hear about that?”

Pigeon was still sniffling, but she thought she felt him nod.

“Some of it is a little frightening so you have to be brave. Yes? Then I’ll tell you.” And she told him the tale just as her father had taught it to her.