The Darkness Comes (The Second Book of the Small Gods Series) (5 page)

Seein’ them thin’s made Horace remember other thin’s: Dunal not understandin’ a fuckin’ thin’ what anyone said to him; Dunal hittin’ Horace in the head with the filthy mop; Dunal slappin’ him in the back and knockin’ him overboard; Dunal threatenin’ to tell if he didn’t get back to the ship. He saw the swabbie lyin’ on the bed on wheels in the doc’s shack, eyelids closed, pretendin’ to be unconscious. He recalled the feller’s eyes openin’, lookin’ at him all disappointed and angry. Then he pictured his fingers wrappin’ ‘round the swabbie’s throat, eyes bulgin’ and tongue danglin’ out the side o’ his gob.

Horace held up in his runnin’, the pig leg bouncin’ against this shoulder, the broken rib in his chest pokin’ somethin’ what it shouldn’t be pokin’.

“It ain’t Dunal what’s makin’ me feel this way,” he said to the trees and shrubs ‘round him. “Dunal deserved what he got.”

The ol’ sailor rubbed a hand across his mouth, smearin’ the fat left by grippin’ the pig leg across his lips, stirrin’ his stomach to growlin’. Despite the tasty meat leanin’ on his shoulder, he ignored the bellyachin’ and glanced back the way he’d come.

“Dunal deserved it, but the little feller ain’t done nothin’ to me. Ain’t no one deserves to die alone in the woods just for bein’ small and gray.”

He inhaled the aromas o’ the forest and the pungent scent o’ burnt pig, and shook his head as though disappointed with himself. Whether it might be for leavin’ in the first place, or for goin’ back, Horace himself weren’t sure.

The trip back he undertook at a slower pace’n when he’d left, lettin’ his tired legs and his painful rib dictate how fast he walked. It didn’t take him long to get back, though, because he hadn’t gotten quite so far away as he’d hoped.

Horace stood at the clearin’s edge, peerin’ in at his fire still burnin’ in the middle, the messed-up pile o’ wood, and the little gray man sittin’ on the dirt under the boughs o’ an ancient jackpine. His shoulders was hunched and his head hung so low, his chin touched his chest. His gray skin appeared grayer’n before—a color like ash left in a firepit when the flames’ve been out for more’n a day.

“Ahem.” Horace cleared his throat, not wantin’ to scare the feller. After bein’ dropped by a bird, fallin’ outta the tree, and bein’ skewered by a branch, he prob’bly didn’t need no more tribulations.

Thorn looked up and a grin crossed his lips what were colored a patchy shade o’ blue.

“You came back for Thorn,” he said and winced like speakin’ caused him pain.

“Yeah,” Horace said, stalkin’ into the clearin’. He hefted the pig leg. “Figured you might be gettin’ hungry.”

Thorn’s smile increased for a couple breaths, but melted to a grimace. His head sagged again.

Horace went a couple paces closer, lettin’ the chunk o’ pig swing at his side, but careful not to drag it in the dirt. The poor pig leg’d been through enough, too, after bein’ tossed out a window and cooked to shit o’er Horace’s fire.

The flesh ‘round the wound in the gray man’s side puckered up like whatever gods what made him’d put his porthole in the wrong spot. There were a scab in its middle, but it didn’t look nothin’ like the place where someone’d pulled out a tree branch. Thorn’s chest heaved with his breath as he sat cross-legged, his slack man-thing lyin’ in the dirt, a couple browned pine needles stickin’ to it.

Nothin’ ‘bout the feller made Horace suspect he might want to hurt him, so he moved closer, sat in front o’ him with the pig leg set across his lap. He squirmed at the uncomfortable feel o’ his packed breeches while the prospect o’ tasty meat made his mouth produce almost too much spit for it to hold, but politeness demanded he deal with Thorn before puttin’ his attention to eatin’.

“Are you all right?”

Thorn raised his eyes, but not his chin. “Thorn is getting better.”

Horace blew air out between his lips noisily. “Pppptt. Helluva tumble you took outta that tree.” He looked up into the branches. “Second one today.”

“Yes.”

Neither o’ them said anythin’ more for a bit. Thorn sat all slack like he might topple o’er at any time. Horace looked from the gray man, to the tree, to the pig leg, repeatin’ the circuit until the quiet felt more like disquiet.

“What happened?”

“A branch broke when I stepped on it.”

“That’ll happen when you’re gettin’ near the treetop.” He’d never been anywhere close to the top o’ a tree, but even from the ground he saw branches were skinnier and flimsier up near the top.

“None have ever broken before.”

The ol’ sailor nodded because he didn’t have no other way to answer. They both fell quiet again, but for shorter this time, and it were Thorn what spoke first the next time. He raised his hand and held it out, palm facin’ Horace. The blood smeared across it from the wound in the gray man’s side were startin’ to dry out and darkenin’ to the shade o’ bricks.

“What is this?”

“Your hand?” Horace didn’t imagine that were what he meant.

Thorn wiped his hand along his side, smearin’ the dryin’ blood across his ribs, then held it out toward Horace again.

“This.”

“Blood?” Horace said. He tilted his head to the right. “Ain’t you ever seen blood?”

“Not Thorn’s. Thorn doesn’t bleed.”

“I’m thinkin’ the poke in your side might be disagreein’.” Horace waved a finger at the gray man’s wound, the movement waftin’ another sniff o’ cooked pork up to his nose. His stomach grumbled again and he wondered it Thorn’d heard it. “But how come you ain’t bleedin’ no more?”

“Thorn healed it.”

“Thorn what?”

The gray feller raised his gaze and some o’ his normal gray color’d come back to his face and lips. “Healed it.”

“How’d you do that?”

Thorn shrugged, the muscles under his gray flesh flexin’, and it reminded Horace he weren’t speakin’ with no reg’lar man what happened to be a diff’rent shade’n him. This feller were somethin’ diff’rent. Somethin’ magical. Thinkin’ it made Horace want to shiver, but he wanted to know more, too. He leaned forward, lessenin’ the distance between them as if they was makin’ plans to mutiny. Horace even looked o’er his shoulder, though weren’t no way anyone’d be listenin’ in on them sittin’ here talkin’ in the middle o’ the woods.

“You healed it cause you’re a—”

“Because Thorn is from behind the veil.”

Horace swallowed hard ‘round a lump what decided his throat were a good place to reside. He looked away from the gray man and at the pig leg lyin’ in his lap, then the redness on his palm where the bone’d burned him. Not very long before, he’d cared ‘bout gettin’ that tasty meat into his mouth and runnin’ from this monster sittin’ before him, nothin’ more. But Thorn didn’t strike him as monstrous now. In fact, the ol’ seaman found himself wantin’ to know more. Scared though he might’ve been—and some o’ that continued livin’ in his belly and ticklin’ through his limbs—he couldn’t help himself.

Horace scooted his ass forward, cringin’ at his own dirt squishin’ between his cheeks. He looked from the pig leg on his lap up to Thorn’s face and found the little gray feller watchin’ him. Horace held up the chunk o’ meat.

“Want somethin’ to eat?”

Thorn leaned forward and sniffed, his nostrils flarin’ with the inhalation. “What is it?”

“Roast pig.”

The gray man wrinkled his nose, looked at the meat, then up at Horace.

“Pig,” Horace said. “You know, like a boar.”

Thorn’s mouth tightened in disgust and he leaned away. “Thorn doesn’t eat living things.”

“Really?” Horace pulled a chunk offa the bone and popped it into his mouth. The flavor flooded his tongue—a bit charred tastin’, but piggy enough to make him want to eat more. “Isss good,” he said through a mouthful. “You never ate it before?”

Thorn shook his head and his gaze returned to the pig leg. A faint growl rumbled in the gray man’s midsection and he glanced at his stomach as though the grumble’d startled him.

“See? You’re hungry. Try a chunk.”

Horace grabbed another piece between his thumb and finger to tear it off, but it slipped out as he pulled it.

“Ha. It’s kinda greasy,” he said, wipin’ his hand on the front o’ his breeches, “but it tastes like heaven come down to the forest.”

He gripped the chunk again and this time were successful in liberatin’ it from the bone. It looked as though it might be too big to fit in the gray man’s mouth, but he offered it to him, anyway. When Thorn didn’t take it immediately, he pushed it nearer. The gray feller examined it for the space o’ a few breaths until his belly gurgled again, coaxin’ him on, so he took it. He held it between his fingers, inspectin’ it for a moment, then sniffed it, then his little mouth opened wider’n Horace’d’ve guessed it’d be able and he inserted the whole chunk.

Horace watched him chew, his face goin’ from disgusted, to curious, to surprised, and finally ravenous.

“Thorn likes it,” he said after swallowin’ the chunk. “Can Thorn have more?”

Horace smiled and nodded; Thorn scooted closer to tear bits and pieces off the bone himself. Turned out he paric’larly liked the charred bites, which suited Horace just fine, because his opinion were they tasted too much like shit.

They sat in silence for a while, no sound passin’ between them but the noise o’ their chompers grindin’ away at their meal. Thorn kept eatin’ long after Horace’d stuffed his belly full enough to make him uncomfortable. After days with nothin’ to eat, stuffin’ himself were exactly what he’d hoped to accomplish.

“What’s it like?” Horace said, watchin’ Thorn open his mouth impossibly wide to insert a chunk o’ charred pig flesh between his square, flat teeth.

The gray man tilted his head, the muscles in his jaw flexin’ as he chewed. One eye opened wider’n the other, his face askin’ what his otherwise occupied mouth couldn’t.

“The Green,” Horace said. “What’s it like in the…what’s it you call the place?”

Thorn finished chewin’ and swallowed. “The land behind the veil?”

“Yeah. That place. Sounds nicer’n what we been callin’ it.”

“It is beautiful. The trees are…” He spread his arms o’er his head, tilted his head back, but the sentence laid in the air, incomplete. He let his arms fall and lowered his chin. “The hills are…”

Horace lifted a brow, not knowin’ what was goin’ on with the little feller. He considered askin’, but the expression on Thorn’s face kept him quiet, waitin’. The gray man’s gaze flickered ‘round the clearin’, settlin’ on nothin’, then came back to Horace.

“The beasts…” His voice trailed away and his face drooped, a shadow fallin’ across his expression. His head shook side to side. “Thorn doesn’t…Thorn doesn’t remember.”

Horace scrunched his face up. In all the turns o’ the seasons he spent aboard them accursed ships, he’d been to more’n a few places along the coast, and a bunch in Leeward, too. He’d tell ‘bout them all if asked; he might not recall much beyond the dock, the inn, and the local whorin’ establishment, but at least he remembered it.

“What do you mean you don’t remember?”

Thorn’s head continued shakin’ and his shoulders sagged, his hands fallin’ into his lap, pig fat and his own blood smeared across the palms and fingers. Them few jackpine needles still stuck on his man-thing, too, but Horace tried his best not to look at that.

A surge o’ despair crossed the space between them, strikin’ Horace in the chest as surely as if someone’d bounced a rock off him. It coaxed a pain where the rib were pokin’ him, but also squeezed his heart the way it might’ve been squeezed if he lost somethin’ precious. His throat started closin’ up and he suspected if he gave in to it, he might find a tear squeakin’ outta his eye. He coughed into his fist, snorted and spat into a nearby bush. His snotty saliva hit a leaf and hung there, droolin’ its way down.

“Thorn…Thorn doesn’t remember his home.”

Horace reached out with the unconscious intention o’ layin’ his hand on the little feller’s for comfort, but caught himself before his finger’s touched the gray flesh. He pulled away, unsure what’d happen if he on purpose touched a Small God.

“It’ll come back to you,” Horace said, curlin’ his fingers up and sittin’ his hand back in his lap by the pig leg. “You prob’bly bashed your head when you fell, is all.”

Thorn raised both hands and put them on either side o’ his head. He held onto it for a while, like he were keepin’ it from poppin’ off, then lowered them again. They left faint marks behind, faded imprints o’ his fingers in blood and grease. He stared at the puckered scar on his side before raisin’ his eyes to Horace, an understandin’ expression dawnin’ across his face.

“Thorn’s magic didn’t work the way it should,” he said. “Things are different this side of the veil. That’s why Father Raven stopped talking to Thorn. Why he didn’t understand.”

“Father Raven?”

“That’s why he threw Thorn off,” he continued as though he hadn’t noticed Horace speakin’. “Thorn must get back to the land behind the veil.”

This time, the gray man reached out his hand, but didn’t stop short. Horace jerked back, but the little feller’s fingers touched his knee. The ol’ sailor tensed, halfway expectin’ a jolt, or at least a tinglin’ along the surface o’ his skin. Turned out there weren’t nothin’ but the light touch o’ skinny fingers. Horace stared at the gray man’s hand, noticin’ for the first time he didn’t have nails on the ends o’ them lengthy digits. When he raised his gaze again, Thorn were lookin’ at him, eyes shinin’ like tears might be comin’, an implorin’ aspect to his face.

“Will you help Thorn get home?”

Horace gazed at him, unblinkin’, unbreathin’, close to forgettin’ everythin’ what his body should do to keep him alive until his lungs let him know they wasn’t happy with the decision. He sucked a deep sigh through his nose—the scent o’ trees and roast pig strong, the stink o’ the dirt crushed into the inside o’ his britches floatin’ underneath, embarrassin’ him. Before he had a chance to consider it, his head bobbed in a gesture no one’d misconstrue for anythin’ but the affirmative. After that, his mouth got to talkin’.

“If I’m gonna help you, we have to get you a pair o’ breeches.” He nodded to the space between Thorn’s legs. “I ain’t traipsin’ all over the kingdom with that little snake o’ yours danglin’ in the wind.”