The Darkness Comes (The Second Book of the Small Gods Series) (22 page)

“Ayegot taname ferya.” Sunlight glimmered in his eyes and he clapped his hands together once, the sharp crack startling the birds in the rafters. “Yername sgunnabee jakazz.”

A barking laugh spilled out of the man’s beard. He closed his eyes and rocked forward, one hand on his belly, the other slapping his knee. The man dressed in white and red watched, curious and more than a little worried. When the laughter ceased, the burly man stood straight, snorted and spat a wad of snot on the floor. He wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt that looked as though it wasn’t the first time things had been wiped on it.

The two men regarded each other. The rafter birds the stocky fellow’s outburst had disturbed settled back on their perches, their whistles and coos the lone sounds interrupting the barn’s heavy silence. The dog’s front paws danced on the dirt floor like it couldn’t stand remaining in one place but didn’t dare to disobey its master.

Mirth disappeared from the stout man’s eyes and he put his hands on his hips.

“Welliv yergunna stayear, yergunna dewsumwerk, jakazz.”

He chuckled at whatever he’d said and took one step toward the spike in the floor, then stopped. The man in the white shirt watched, waited, unsure what to expect. He thought the other fellow—Jud-dah’s—laughter might be a good sign, but his demeanor otherwise was unreadable.

Jud-dah raised his arm and pointed to a spot beyond him.

“Giddoverthar.”

The white-and-red clad man peered over his shoulder at the pile of sacks. What did Jud-dah want him to do? He couldn’t reach the sacks, had no idea what they contained. Didn’t he realize that? He faced the stocky man again but did nothing.

A cloud fell across the small section of face visible through the shock of Jud-dah’s hair. He stomped his foot on the floor, raising a puff of dust, and pointed again.

“Giddoverthar orall sikoojonya,” he said, his voice raised.

The chained man flinched and faltered back a step. Jud-dah stabbed the air with his finger a third time, making him realize the stout fellow wanted him to move away. He obliged, the chain clanking with each step until it went taut.

“Goodnow staythar.”

Jud-dah stalked across the floor toward the spike without removing his gaze from the chained man. The heel of one of his boots was loose, and it flopped and slapped every time he took a step. When he reached the stake, he stuck meaty fingers into a pocket in the bib of his overalls and pulled out a piece of metal with one round end and one long and straight. He crouched and grabbed the device fastening the chain to the spike, slid the slender end into a hole the chained man hadn’t noticed, and the mechanism opened. Jud-dah slipped the device from around the stake and the chain fell slack.

“Donchoomoov,” he said, pointing with his free hand. The dog growled.

He gripped the device in his fist and looped the chain twice around his wrist, then stood. A breeze lifted the whatever-it-was hanging against the outside of the barn wall and let it drop, rattling the boards and distracting the chained man. He looked back when he felt the chain tug against his ankle.

Jud-dah had moved toward the row of tools leaning against the wall, but the chain didn’t give enough length for him to reach. He yanked on it again, hard enough to move the fellow’s foot, prompting him to take a step, then another. Jud-dah reached the tools and stopped but the man kept moving.

“Yewstopwokken.”

The words made no sense, so he took another step. Jud-dah snatched a spade from the row of tools and raised it threateningly.

“Stayritethar, jakazz.”

The dog jumped to its feet, lips pulled away from sharp teeth, its ears laid back on its head. The man stopped, Jud-dah’s meaning and the dog’s threat clear in their actions. Any hope the stocky man’s laughter meant he might not be a danger disappeared. He held up his hands, palms out in a gesture of surrender.

“Thasbedder.” He turned to his animal. “Siddownkooj.”

The dog sat and Jud-dah returned his attention to the tools. He selected a long spike similar to the one he’d fastened the chain to, and an instrument with a medium-length wooden handle and a lump of iron on the end. It was unfamiliar to the man wearing the red breeches, but it looked dangerous. Jud-dah held the three tools with the thick fingers of one hand and jerked the chain again with the other.

“Cumonan follame.”

He headed for the door, the tether between the two of them pulling taut, giving the man no choice but to follow. Jud-dah’s heel flopped as he walked, each step slapping it up against the faded leather boot.

Sunlight spilled into the barn when he thrust the door open with his shoulder.

“Cmonkooj.”

The dog trotted after his master as he continued through without pause. The chained man followed, noticing loops of thick, worn rope held the portal in place, not hinges—one near the top, a second near the bottom.

Jud-dah led him out of the barn and he squinted against the sunlight. Across a small yard of tall grass, a shack smaller than the barn stood, its boards fitted together no better than the outbuilding, but mud and grass plugged the cracks and gaps in an attempt to keep out the elements. A cow stood at the far end of the grounds where the yellowed grass ended and the tree line began. It looked up from its feast and regarded the two men with round, brown eyes before returning to the monumental task of taming the yard’s vegetation.

The man waved his hand toward the shack. “Gosidd ona porchkooj.”

The dog amended its path, heading for the front of the broken-down house, its tongue lolling out of one side of its mouth. It glanced back at them once before settling on a porch outside the front door of the shack.

The chain links clanked together as they crossed the yard, moving in a direction that took them between the barn and the shack, away from the forest and the cow. They went ten paces before Jud-dah halted and held up the hand with the chain looped around it.

“Stawp!”

The word was foreign, but the man understood the gesture. He stopped, waiting as Jud-dah jammed the tip of the spade into the ground and unlooped the chain from his fist. He put the device at the end of it down and set his boot on top of it, pinning it to the dirt.

“Donchew gitno eyedeas,” he said before setting the point of the spike against the ground.

The iron end of the other tool clanged against the head of the stake, driving it into the dirt. Jud-dah hit it five times before he seemed satisfied it would hold. The chained man watched, curious why he’d moved him outside but thankful for the exposure to the sun and fresh air.

Jud-dah threw the tool he’d used as a hammer aside and crouched. The man couldn’t see what he was doing, but he assumed he’d be using the device to attach the chain to this spike. The light breeze carried the click of metal against metal to his ears, confirming his thoughts. Jud-dah straightened and gestured with his finger.

“C’mere.”

When the man didn’t move, he reached down and grabbed the chain, yanked it hard enough he almost pulled his foot out from under him.

“C’mere, jakazz.”

He stumbled his way through the tall grass that ended a few paces short of where Jud-dah stood. The dirt by the stocky man’s feet was loose, as though it had been worked.

“Yergunna diggmeawel.”

Jud-dah swept his hand toward the loose earth expectantly. The stranger looked at the ground but didn’t respond, so Jud-dah huffed an exasperated breath and grabbed the spade’s handle, pulled it out of the dirt.

“Dig. Dig, jakazz.”

He sank the tip back into the soil, gathering dirt on its surface, then lifted it and deposited it on a shallow pile, then repeated the action.

“Dig. Yougotid?”

Jud-dah held the spade out toward the man, who looked at it for an instant. He pictured himself grasping its long handle, swinging it around to hit Jud-dah in the head with its wide blade. He imagined teeth and blood spewing from the mouth hidden within his beard, but the images brought a sickly wave rolling through his belly and he abandoned them. Jud-dah thrust the spade at him again and this time he wrapped his fingers around the handle, taking it from the stocky man. Jud-dah danced back a few steps as though he’d seen what the man had been thinking. He bent quickly and retrieved the hammer, held it in front of himself defensively.

“Dig, jakazz.” He nodded toward the ground.

The man took the spade in both hands and scooped a blade full of dirt, then tipped it off onto the same small pile Jud-dah had. He repeated the process a second time, then a third. Doing so appeared to please his captor.

“Gud,” Jud-dah said, walking toward his ramshackle dwelling. “Iffnya diggagudwell, maybel gitya sumfinta eet.”

The chained man leaned on the end of the handle with the spade’s tip buried in the dirt and watched Jud-dah push his way through the tall grass, then disappear into the leaning shack. With the stocky man gone, he returned to the task set out for him, pleased to be physically occupied.

As he worked, he found his muscles aching as though recently exerted to the peak of their abilities. He concentrated on his other worries to distract himself from the modest pain.

First, he wondered about Jud-dah’s intentions but, as the size of the pile on which he dumped dirt grew, deeper concerns resurfaced, creasing his sweat-misted brow.

How did I get here?

Where am I from?

Who am I?

The scrape of the spade’s metal blade on dirt and rock provided no answer.

XXI Teryk - Hiding the Prize

By the time he reached the end of the alley, Stirk realized sauntering through the streets with an unconscious man slung over his shoulder would draw attention.

He paused and glanced back over his shoulder. Bieta had disappeared back into their room, for which he gave thanks. She’d pulled the remnants of the door closed behind her and the boards Enin had nailed across it hung askew, one of them split in half, making their lodgings conspicuous.

Part of him hoped the one-armed man found her.

Stirk shook his head, remembering that wasn’t why he’d looked back. He needed to find a way to conceal the prince while he took him to get rid of him.

For good.

Scraps of garbage scattered the alley’s chipped pavers, but nothing he might use. He shuffled his feet, felt cloth brush against his bare ankle, and peered down at a burlap sack lying at his feet. Just what he needed.

He dropped the prince off his shoulder without care; his skull bouncing against the ground brought Stirk a sliver of satisfaction and a slender smile. With a lopsided smirk on his lips, he pulled the torn sack out from under his feet and set to putting the prince inside it.

The bag turned out to be one of the big sacks used for hauling loads of potatoes and such. Though a split along one side rendered it useless for holding turnips and whatnot, it’d do to contain a man the size of the heir to the throne. Stirk put him in headfirst and curled him up into a ball to make him fit. When he finished, he stepped back to admire his work. Other than a bit of pink flesh peeking through the rip, it might’ve been any old sack of veggies.

Stirk bent and stuck his fingers into a pile of what might have been either mud or dung—he didn’t care to find out which—and smeared it on the prince’s leg showing through the tear. Camouflage, he thought it might be called.

Satisfied the next in line to rule the kingdom resembled no more than a sack of vegetables, Stirk reached to pick him up and realized the biggest challenge was going to be carrying him with one hand.

“If you weren’t here, I’d still have two,” he muttered and grasped the top of the sack. “And I wouldn’t need to carry you.”

He entwined the sack’s opening in his fingers, pulling it closed, wrapped the excess burlap around his wrist, and heaved the sack up. His joints protested with the effort, but he got it over his shoulder. The prince hung uncomfortably against his back, a knee or elbow sticking into Stirk’s spine. At least he might be able to get away without everyone knowing what he carried.

Where am I going to go?

At the end of the alley, he stopped and looked both ways. Workshops of various kinds lined the avenue and people bustled back and forth between them. No chance he’d find anywhere close by to hide the prince.

Could throw him in the river and be done.

Not a good idea. The cleaners constantly monitored the water, watching for things like this clogging the grate where the river flowed from the outer city to the inner. Probably they’d find the prince before he had time to drown.

A touch of panic stirred in Stirk’s belly. His mother seemed convinced the one-armed man’d find them going through the cellar, but what if he didn’t? What if he walked out the front door of the tannery and came around the end of the block to the alley’s entrance? The soldier might show up at any moment to find Stirk with a lumpy sack of prince hanging over his shoulder.

Got to get out of here.

Where didn’t matter, just that he got rid of the incriminating evidence. He struck out, heading left, away from the corner leading along the avenue to the front of the tannery. Stirk’s feet dragged on the street’s dirt-strewn broken cobble stones, but no one cast him a sideward glance as they went about their own business.

Two blocks on he’d find Sunset, the part of the outer city where the Horseshoe’s brothels, pleasure dens, and drug houses did business alongside those that catered to the even less desirable element. Somewhere amongst the twisted mess of streets and desires would be the Guild of Healers, secreted away where only those meant to find it could. Stirk considered ditching the prince and searching out the healer who took his hand, demanding its return, but he wouldn’t know where to start looking. He resigned himself to the task at hand, expecting he’d find a suitable place in Sunset to dispose of the prince. If not, the docks of Waterside lay beyond, and then the sea.

I’ll get rid of him where no one’ll ever find him.

A strained smile twisted his lips as he hefted the lumpy sack to ease the pressure on his shoulder and lowered his head, determined to complete his task.