Curse: The Dark God Book 2 (3 page)

However, Fire was tricky. Fire sometimes flared. Until you had the skill to control it, you risked being carried along into what was called the firelust where you’d burn up days, weeks, months of your life all in a moment. The body couldn’t handle such a surge and would break. At that point the Fire would recede, but such people never recovered. They usually died within a few days, if not hours.For this reason, all of those in Shim’s army who were new to the lore wore candidate weaves.

A door began to open in front of her. She was tempted to remove her weave, but drew her knife instead. She couldn’t afford someone calling out her position. A quick slash to the throat, and they wouldn’t know what had happened.But a little boy stepped out. Soby, the son of Lavender and Brash, who she’d tended a number of times just this last year.

He turned and saw her.

She brought a finger to her lips. “Shush,” she said and flew past.

She took a few more strides, thinking maybe he’d actually listen to her, but he soon found his tongue. “Mam!” he cried out. “She’s here!”

Thanks, Soby
. She flew down the crooked road, past the last two houses, and then through the half-built gate. She lengthened her stride, her bare feet hardly touching the hard road, and passed the pole where her father’s skull had hung. She scanned the fields that stretched out on both sides of her and saw nothing but a dark cluster of sheep in the distance.

Shouts and barking rose behind her. She glanced back.

A group of men were hurrying down the lane. Leading them was a man holding the leashes to six or seven straining dogs. The moon shone of the man’s bald head and revealed his long beard and massive single eyebrow. It was Solem, the hound breeder. There were dogs that hunted their prey mostly by scent and others that hunted them mostly by sight. Solem’s were sight hounds, which meant they were fast. And these were especially so.

Fear shot through her.

The dogs were barking, straining to be set free. Solem stopped and, with his two sons, removed the leashes. Then he pointed at her.

“Stu, boys!” he shouted. “Take her!”

And the dogs surged forth.

3

Dreadman

TALEN RAN DOWN the lane between two houses, his bare feet flying over the hard ground. Those greasy bowmen had certainly seen him, but now wasn’t the time to dive for cover—they’d catch him for sure. Now was the time run like a hare and put as much distance and as many buildings as he could between him and those whoreson, clay-brained, shriveled manhood, goat loving—

Someone moved on the roof of the house on Talen’s left. A Fir-Noy, gray in the moonlight, released an arrow. His bow hummed.

Talen darted left under the eaves of the house.

A moment later the arrow smacked into the dirt just behind him.

If he’d been unmultiplied, that arrow surely would have been his funeral! Talen ran past the junk the owner of this house had stacked against the wall. He leapt over a broken chair and smacked face first into a wind chime. The chime broke free, bits of metal and stone tangling about his head. Talen ripped the thing off and flung it to the ground.

“The boy’s here!” the man on the roof yelled.

“Go shag your nanny!” Talen yelled back and ran for the corner of the house, realizing that if he cut out into the lane beyond, the bowman would have another clear shot. So he stopped at the corner and pressed himself to the wall.

But that wasn’t going to do him any good, for another group of Fir-Noy turned into the lane a few houses down. And then the Fir-Noy dreadman entered the lane behind Talen, his half black, half white face looking like a horror.

Lords
, Talen thought and darted out into the lane beyond, making himself a splendid target for the man above. He jagged right, ran a few paces, jagged left. An arrow whispered past. Then he raced into an alley between a house and a barn. Someone had cobbled it, and his bare feet tapped as he ran over the smooth, cool stones.

He had only taken half a dozen strides when the dreadman entered the alley behind him. Holy Six, but that man was fast. Panic rose in Talen’s breast.

The alley opened up onto a lane. Talen didn’t look to his left or right. He ran straight for the other side and the chest-high stone wall that stood there.

Behind him the dreadman ran over the cobbles in the alley.

Talen rushed the wall. He was multiplied. His whole body was tense with power. He sprang to the top of the wall with one foot and leapt, soaring out over the enclosure below. To his right was a house or barn. Below him a herd of huge piebald pigs huddled together, sleeping on their sides in the moonlight.

He was going to land on them.
Lovely
. He cursed and tried to aim for a clear spot. It didn’t work—there were too many pigs, too close together. He landed squarely on the flank of one of the large animals. Ribs bent, then broke underneath him. The pig squealed with blood-curdling pain. Talen’s momentum carried him forward, and he stumbled and slammed into two of the huge brutes.

The pigs squealed. He scrambled up, got his feet underneath him, and trod upon the sides of two other pigs as he tried to get out. All about him pigs were struggling up in alarm, grunting, squealing. Behind Talen, the dreadman leapt to the top fence, surveyed the scene, and sprang for an open spot. Farther back, Fir-Noy soldiers raced along the cobblestone alley.

Ahead, the wall on the far side of the yard beckoned, but Talen knew he wouldn’t make it. That dreadman was too close. But Talen could slow him down if he could get into the house next to this pig yard and bar the door from the inside. Talen spotted a semi-open path through the pigs to the door. He hurdled one pig, then another, and raced for the building. When he got closer, he saw the door was already barred—from the
outside
.

His heart sank. This wasn’t a home, but a barn or shed of some type, which meant he wasn’t going to be able to slow anyone down. But the dreadman was too close for Talen to change direction.

He flung the locking bar up, yanked open one of the two double doors, and charged into the darkness, looking for an exit. The strong smell of blood and hanging meat slammed into him. He ran into a body hanging from the rafters, recoiled, knocked over a pail full of sticky liquid, and bumped into another hanging body.

Short stubby arms and hooves poked him in the face. Pigs, slaughtered and drained out. This was a large butchering shed. And the sticky liquid that was all over his foot was blood. Talen kicked the blood bucket away and weaved through the two rows of pigs to the back.

The dreadmen entered the doorway. The moonlight silhouetted his large frame and glinted off the edges of his brass cuirass.

Talen backed up, bumped into another hanging pig.

“Not a smart place to run,” the dreadman said. “I’d hoped for some intelligent sport. But I guess you are part Koramite, aren’t you? Shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. Still, we won’t have to fetch a meat hook to string you up, will we?”

There weren’t more than a few dozen dreadmen in all of the New Lands. Talen had watched this one compete in the games at Whitecliff. His name was Tenter. He was large, powerful, and murder with a blade.

“You’re the one that grew up in the swamp,” Talen said, trying to stall. “A bit of pond scum given a weave of might. I think I saw your woman lying out there in the yard. That one with a big snout.”

Tenter chuckled with satisfied menace and took another step forward, the white half of his face pale in the darkness.

Talen backed up. Drew his knife. The dreadman’s brass wasn’t the strongest metal, but it would still protect the big man from slashes. And even if Talen could break through with his knife, a direct thrust wasn’t going to be easy. Tenter would be wearing a padded tunic underneath which would help stop the blade. But attacking Tenter was madness anyway.

Maybe he could maneuver Tenter around the pigs so that the way back to the door opened up. But just then another one of the Fir-Noy caught up and entered the shed, ruining that idea. A third arrived and opened the double doors wide to let in more moonlight.

Talen took another step back. Tenter advanced past a swinging carcass.

Talen bumped into a table set against the back wall of the shed. His hand brushed the handle of something, and he grabbed it only to realize he’d picked up a large frying pan.

“You could join us, Tenter,” Talen said.

“Then I really would be mating with pigs.”

Talen hurled the pan at Tenter, but Tenter dodged, and the pan struck the side of a hog carcass and thudded to the floor.

Tenter yelled back to his men. “Wait by the doors. He comes your way, just stick him. This one’s nothing but a mouth.”

Talen was going to lose this fight. He was fast, multiplied, and had learned much in these last three months, but Tenter had been a dreadman since Talen was a boy. He was mature in his power. And he’d done nothing but study how to fight and kill.

Talen readied himself with his knife. Swallowed. He tried to remember his training. He glanced around one last time to fix the lay of his surroundings in his mind—the last thing he wanted to do was dodge himself onto a meat hook—and then he saw something behind him and to his right. The moonlight spilling into the shed was just enough to outline the frame of a small window. It was closed with a simple hook latch.

On the table lay a skinning knife, a coil of rope, and a few pots. Talen grasped the knife and hurled it. Tenter flinched to the side, and the knife flew past. Talen flung the rope. Tenter batted it away, but when he did, Talen reached up with the point of his knife and flicked the window’s latch off.

Tenter saw Talen’s intent. He lunged. Talen grabbed the edge of the table and swung it up, right into Tenter’s face. The dreadman tried to dodge, but he’d not expected the move, and the sound of Tenter’s head colliding with the wood made a satisfying thwack. Tenter staggered to the side.

Talen ripped open the small window and half leapt, half heaved his head and shoulders through the window. He pushed and wriggled forward, frantically trying to bring the other half of his body out.

“Rotted sleth!” Tenter said and grabbed one of Talen’s bare feet, crushing his foot bones in his iron grip.

Talen struggled, kicked with his free foot and connected with Tenter’s face. Three of his toes slipped into the man’s mouth and felt the hard teeth, the wet tongue. Talen kicked again with all his might. Connected. And suddenly, his foot was free, and Talen slid the rest of his body free. He tumbled to a garden below and landed between two rows of kale. Behind him was the pig yard; in front of him was freedom. He scrambled to his feet and shot down the rows of cold weather vegetables.

Behind him Tenter roared. The window was too small for that big man. But the wall was made of thin plank, not sturdy rock or wattle and daub. Tenter kicked a hole in the planking. He kicked again and another board made a sickening crack.

Talen leapt over the garden fence and out onto the wide lane. Across the way stood a barn and a hedge row. Beyond it lay the open fields and woods. It was the perfect escape, and therefore, exactly where Talen shouldn’t go. Tenter was fast, and if he broke free, Talen suspected he’d fail to outrun him in a straight race.

Back in the slaughter shed, Tenter cracked more boards with another kick and widened the hole. Other men shouted from the pig yard.

Off to the left stood a number of houses and outbuildings. All was silent there, and so Talen raced for them.

Behind Talen, Tenter broke another board and began to push through, but Talen rounded the corner of a house before Tenter got free. He ran to a barn, turned its corner, and saw River and Oaks sneaking along a fence line up ahead.

He hissed and raced toward them. They looked up in alarm.

“We’ve got to get across the field now,” he said.

“Where are the others?” River asked.

“No idea.”

“But you were with Sugar.”

“We split. I was hoping she’d joined up with you.”

“Last I saw, she was running,” River said. “We were forced a different way.”

Talen’s heart sank. Just then a pack of hounds began to bay over in the direction of the village gate.

“Shouldn’t we do something?” he asked. “We can’t just leave the others.”

“Sugar knows this land better than any of us—if anyone’s going to escape, it’s going to be her. As for the rest, Rooster was killed at the house. I’m fairly sure they got Shroud down by the bridge. And Black Knee—how far can you run with a shaft in your leg?”

“What about Felts?” asked Talen.

“He wasn’t even around the house when the arrows started,” Oaks said. “He’d gone to take a more forward security position.”

Talen sighed in frustration, sick with the thought of those that had fallen. To leave their bodies felt like a betrayal: the Fir-Noy would surely mutilate them.

“We’ll meet Sugar where we planned to rendezvous,” said River. “Now let’s move before it’s too late.”

Oaks hopped the fence to the field and ran out into a patch of scythed grass. River gestured for Talen to follow while she brought up the rear. The three of them were about halfway across the field when someone called out to them from behind. They turned to see Felts leaping over the fence. Felts was like an uncle.

Talen’s hopes rose. Maybe Sugar would make it as well.

But then Tenter entered the next field. A number of soldiers followed him as well as two men with dogs.

Oaks groaned. “Tenter. Of all the Fir-Noy, we had to pull that straw?”

“Just get to the woods,” River said. “We’ll lose them there.”

They ran, but before they slipped into the dark trees, Tenter spotted them. He yelled to his men and sprinted toward them, the men with the dogs following behind.

A few paces later, Talen and the others entered the first of the trees with Felts not far behind. Because these woods were close to the village, they’d been cleaned by those that gathered wood. There were also a number of trails leading deeper into the trees that shone in the wan moonlight that reached the forest floor.

They found a path and followed it as it snaked its way in for about a hundred yards, dodging branches, straining to see their way with the little moonlight that made it to the forest floor. Behind them the dogs barked.

They leapt a gully, and River stopped. She was breathing heavily, but not too hard. Talen himself felt good, strong, ready to run a few more miles. In the fight with Tenter, he’d lost the tie binding the finger he’d broken to its neighbor. He flexed his digits. His finger had felt strong for a number of days now; it was probably time to lose the binding anyway.

River said, “I swear we should have already come to the horse breeder’s place Sugar told us about.”

Talen thought back to the maps Sugar had drawn in the dirt as they had prepared for this sneak behind enemy lines. They’d discussed their escape routes and what to do if things went awry. Off to their left was what appeared to be a thin line of light, a clearing shining in the moonlight. “Is that it?”

The dogs were baying now, getting closer.

“If it’s not,” Oaks said, “I think we’ll feed you to Tenter first.”

“You’re far more juicy,” Talen said.

Felts had joined them by this point. He was an older man who kept his long graying beard in two braids. Despite his age, he was a strong, loyal, and formidable fighter. He caught his breath and said, “That whoreson has already eaten enough of our crew. How about we feed him nothing.”

“Come on,” said River, and they struck out for the clearing, speeding through a clump of bushes. Oaks followed her. Talen went next. And the thin branches that Oaks ran through sprang back and whipped Talen in the face.

Moments later they broke out of the woods and into the clearing with a fence. At the end of the field stood a house and a large barn.

This was surely the farm Sugar had described to them.

Back in the woods, the dogs barked, and men called to each other.

River hopped the fence which circled the field. The others followed, sprinting across the grass, passing by obstacles that had been set up for horse jumping, and came to three interconnected pens on the far side. Half a dozen horses stood in one of them. But River ignored those mounts because Sugar had said the horse breeder kept his best mounts in the stalls.