Husk: A Maresman Tale (17 page)

Something shouted at Jeb deep down in his mind. Something was not quite right with his thinking. Sure, she was a succubus, a demon that preyed on men, but she was acting above and beyond her nature. Revenge, he could understand, if Marlec was right about Mortis driving her away, depriving her of her child, but that didn’t account for the Outlanders. That had all the hallmarks of unfettered blood lust, of rage, of… despair?

He settled back against the trunk. He needed to stop. Speculation was all well and good, but if you went too far in the wrong direction, you’d likely miss the facts when they were staring you in the face. He had to return to basics, establish what it was he really knew. Facts, backed by evidence, not hearsay or the imaginings of a child.

Sweet and Maisie had fought; Sweet claimed she was some kind of demon, and Marlec said it was the husk, said it was Jeb’s mother. It didn’t change a thing as far as he was concerned. Still had to be dealt with, one way or another. Either he did it, or someone else would. He entertained the idea of giving her a chance to flee, never come back, but that wouldn’t wash with the Maresmen. So much harm had been done already, he wouldn’t put it past them to follow her over the Farfalls into Qlippoth. It wouldn’t be the first time.

His mother…

He cut off the head of the thought with a guillotine blade of darkness. Nostalgia would only get him killed, and when it came down to it, he’d sooner it was her than him. After all, she’d left him, any way you looked at it, and most likely deprived him of a father, too. A husk is what it was he was here to deal with, a husk like any other. Hunt or be hunted, he reminded himself for the thousandth time. There was no more to it than that.

Jeb tilted his chin. There was something in the air: a scent wafting toward him on the breeze. He couldn’t quite place it—sage, maybe; a hint of spice. Reminded him of the incense burned by the soothsayers in Malfen, bunch of money-grabbing tricksters that they were. He scanned the field before him for a source, but couldn’t make anything out in the dawn light. The wind gusted and changed direction, and then the smell was gone.

He relaxed himself with a few deep breaths. Patience is what was called for, same as the times he’d hunted wild turkey and waited hours for them to come close enough to get off an arrow. Not that he had a bow anymore. Hadn’t seen the need for one once he’d acquired the flintlock. That was an example of why never to be too hasty. Bloody gobbler would no doubt squawk with laughter if he tried to shoot it with that piece of shite.

Thinking about the flintlock reminded him to reload it, but before he could, it needed a damned good clean. It was a weapon of last resort, and he’d sooner not have to use it, but if he did, he wasn’t gonna chance it misfiring like it had done for Tharn. Might be a piece of crap, but at least he could make it a functioning piece of crap.

As he worked on the barrel with a strip of oily cloth wrapped about the tip of the ramrod, the ghosts of the past had their way with his thoughts.

He’d always had the notion Uncle Joe and Aunt Mary were too quick to leave it that his mother was dead and never take the conversation further. It struck him many a time they were jealous of not being his real parents and glad to have her out of the way. After finding them murdered, though, he’d started to reappraise them, and reckoned they’d just being trying to protect him. Likely, they’d known a whole lot more than they’d let on, and were maybe even planning on sharing it with him when he was older. No, any way you looked at it, they were paragons of virtue by Malfen’s standards, and decent folk by anyone else’s.

Still didn’t help him with what he was gonna do if he ran into Maisie again, though. He couldn’t help thinking of the husk that way; somehow, it was more natural than calling it Mom. If she attacked him, the choice would be easy. Not choice at all, really. He’d kill her on instinct, before he’d thought enough to regret it.

But she’d showed no signs of wanting to harm him, other than goading Sweet into giving him one hell of a beating. There was the thing of it. Had she done that to frighten him off, as Sweet had said, knowing full well what was coming if he remained and eventually uncovered her? If that were the case, either she was looking out for herself, or protecting him. She’d killed Maresmen before, all three of them tough men Jeb wouldn’t want to stand toe to toe with.

He sighted the barrel then blew down it to get rid of any lingering pockets of dust. Satisfied it was clean and shiny as new, he painstakingly reloaded it and eased it back in its holster.

The twin suns staggered into the sky above the smudge of forest that skirted distant Arnk. Jeb stood and sniffed in the cool morning air, and there it was again: that smell of spice and herbs. This time, it was stronger from where the wind had turned once more, and now he could see a thin plume of smoke snaking through the space left by the hanging barn door. That was a long way for a smell to travel. Must’ve been more than a couple of hundred yards.

Dark flecks moved from the trees edging Boss’s land and converged on the barn. Jeb narrowed his eyes to bring them into focus, and he smacked his lips. There it was again, that intuition that had a way of coming true. The flecks were turkeys, wild turkeys, like the kind he used to stalk. Must have been eight or nine of them, all running for the barn.

It was the smell, Jeb realized, making the connection with the Malfen soothsayers. Incense, but not quite natural. It was a lure, and a magical one at that. He was already moving toward Tubal when the turkeys reached the barn doors. Even over the distance, he heard their gobbling. He paused, hands still unwinding Tubal’s reins from the tree, as the stygian burst between the doors and snatched a turkey by the neck in each hand. That was all Jeb needed to see. Next thing, he was in the saddle and taking a wide arc through the forest, aiming to get behind the barn without being seen from the house.

Tubal wove in and out of the trees like he was bred for it, and all Jeb felt was the thrill of looming danger and the overwhelming relief he didn’t have to break into the house. Eight guards weren’t beyond his skills with the blade, but it was a risk he could well do without.

By the time he left the trees, the turkeys were scattering in every direction, but there was no sign of the stygian chasing them. He’d likely got what he needed and had gone back inside to consume his meal.

Jeb’s eyes fell on a missing plank on the barn’s back wall. Those surrounding it were thick with rot, and it suddenly looked like an invitation he couldn’t refuse.

He shortened the reins and walked Tubal toward the barn. If he dismounted there and barged through the back wall, he’d likely take the stygian by surprise. He knew Tubal would stand his ground, be there waiting if he needed to make a break for it. That was the thing about a horse like that: he was worth his weight in—

Tubal whinnied and reared, sending Jeb tumbling backward out of the saddle. He threw an arm out and rolled. Pain lanced through his shoulder, but he was lucky. He started to stand, rubbing his arm and relieved he hadn’t broken anything. This time, Tubal’s whinny was more like a scream.

Inky vapors coiled about the colt’s legs. Tubal stomped and bucked, but the tendrils tightened and slammed him to the ground.

Jeb’s saber leapt to his hand and he swiped at a strand. The blade passed straight through it, as if it weren’t there. Roasting meat inflamed his nostrils, and Tubal thrashed about wildly, whinnying in panic. Steam plumed from where the dark limbs touched him, hair charred, and the skin beneath sizzled and popped.

The shogging stygian!
Jeb realized.
Magical wards
. Why hadn’t he thought of that? It’s what stygians were known for.

A spasm rippled throughout Tubal’s body, and then he burst into flame. Jeb cried out, but had no choice but to back away.

Cries went up from the ranch, and he heard the doors on the far side of the barn creaking open. Throwing caution to the wind, he launched himself at the rotten planks and burst through the back wall.

The stygian turned, one hand still on the barn door, the other clutching the bloodied carcass of a turkey. It opened its mouth, unleashing a stream of garbled words that could only have been a spell, but Jeb was on it in an instant, aiming a wild swing at its neck. The stygian swayed aside at the last second, and the blade bit into its shoulder. Jeb followed up with a punch to its head that pitched it to the hard earth.

He raised his saber for the kill, but the stygian put up a hand and cried in a guttural voice, “I find it! Husk you seek!”

Jeb gritted his teeth, kept the saber poised to strike. A hundred thoughts vied for his attention at the same time: duty, the husk, Maisie, his mother, the cries from the house…

Through the gap in the doors, he could see half a dozen guards pounding toward him. He grabbed the stygian by the strands of oily hair tufting from its scalp and dragged it away from the doors. It groaned, and he kicked it in the jaw for good measure. Then, he hurried back to the doors and pulled them closed, cursing at the one hanging from only its top hinge.

He cast about for something to slow the guards down. The place was rank, with hundreds of picked-clean bones littering the floor, and a pile of soiled hay the stygian must’ve slept on. There was a cart with a broken axle it would’ve taken two men at least to shift, but there was a wall of crates stacked four high just inside the entrance. Jeb got in behind it and shoved, and the top crates came crashing down in front of the doors, spilling their contents of dried leaves and powder across the ground. It wasn’t much, but it might be enough of an obstacle while he escaped through the hole in the back wall.

“Talk!” he said, striding to the stygian and kicking it again. “Thirty seconds, and then I don’t care what you’ve got to say.”

“Yes,” the stygian said, propping itself up on one elbow and sniffing at Jeb. “Yes, thought this, I did, other night. Half husk, like all Maresmen, but more than that. Hah! She your kin, this one you seek. Your… mother.”

Jeb punched it in the head and got astride it, touching his saber blade to its throat.

“How do I find it? Quickly!”

The guards were almost at the barn. Their footfalls were like an avalanche, and he could hear their panting.

The stygian smirked and held up its amulet. “This. Your mother has same wards inside her.” He thumped his chest.

“What?” Jeb said. “Wards? You mean an amulet that deadens the blood trail?”

“No. Not amulet. No body, remember. Just smoke, like clouds.”

Jeb snatched the amulet and yanked its chain free. “How, then? How’s she do it?”

The stygian’s eyes widened, and it looked over Jeb’s shoulder. Jeb followed its gaze, saw someone dart back from the gap in the doors. Whispered voices sounded from outside, then more footfalls, stealthier this time.

“Shog,” Jeb cursed under his breath. They were coming round the back, cutting off his escape. How did they know?

The stygian grinned, exposing its blood-stained teeth. “Not just tentacles, hah! Triggered sorcerer’s eye, you did, and humans see what set off my wards. Yes, Boss be pleased very much, I say.”

Jeb pressed the blade harder against the stygian’s flesh and drew a drop of black blood.

“You killed my horse, shogger. One more wrong word—”

“Came to me, she did, your mother. In Qlippoth. Made me do it; made me give her power.”

“To block the blood trail?” Jeb asked.

The stygian nodded.

“So she could go after the Maresmen?”

“Hates them, she does,” the stygian said. “But more than block. Leave false trail, she can. Lure them, like turkeys.”

“And this helps how?” Jeb said, shaking the amulet.

“Brightens when she near. Same magic, it is, one in the amulet, other melded. She has no body, I say, so I weave great magic in her… spirit. She pleased, yes. Very pleased, but did not know.”

“Know what?” Jeb asked. He glanced over his shoulder at the hole in the wall. There was movement from outside.

“She gain power over blood trail but lose something in return. It law of sorcery.”

“What?” Jeb said, shaking him. “What did she lose?”

“Oi!” someone cried.

Jeb threw another look at the hole in the wall. A guard stepped through, spear leveled. There were others behind him, and at the same time, someone pulled open the broken barn door.

Jeb’s eyes flitted both ways. In the distance, more figures streamed from the house, and at their rear, snug in a fluffy white gown, came Boss himself, puffing on a weedstick.

Jeb was torn between charging the guards and finishing what he’d come to do, and he didn’t have the luxury of delay.

Three men came through the doors, another three from the back.

“Drop the blade!” one yelled.

“Back away,” said another, clambering over the wreckage of a crate and kicking stray bits of wood aside.

The stygian tilted its head and sniggered, and that did it for Jeb.

In one fluid motion, he stood and swung down with the saber. The smirk froze on the stygian’s face, and then its head rolled across the floor. Jeb stopped it with a foot, then reached down to snag it by the hair.

“Job done,” he said, brandishing the severed head like a badge of authority. “No need for anyone else to get hurt.”

The guards looked dumbly at each other, spear tips wavering. Jeb turned to the barn doors and threw down the stygian’s head. The three men there gawped at it, and one of them retched.

The other door swung open, and Clovis stood there, drinking in the scene with glazed eyes. A vein stood out on his neck, and one of his cheeks twitched rhythmically.

Bones slipped in beside him, a naked blade in his hand. Looked like a scalpel to Jeb. A huddle of hard-faced men pressed in behind them, kicking a path through the debris left by the crates. Most looked like they’d have fit in with the rabble at the Sea Bed, though what they were doing over at Boss’s place this early in the morning was anybody’s guess.

There was a flash of white, and they parted to let Boss through. He eyed the stygian’s head almost sadly, staring at the river of black blood it was spilling. Then he took in its crumpled body and the black-smeared saber in Jeb’s hand.