Husk: A Maresman Tale (5 page)

Was that what he’d sensed? Had Ilesa Fana come back to Portis? Would have meant she’d been close to the Farfalls, mind, given where the blood trail had taken him; maybe even crossed over to Qlippoth for a while. Guessed it was possible. Depended on exactly what she’d done all those years ago; why she’d left. Good place to start would be questioning her brother, but it didn’t take a whole lot of shrewdness to know that’d use up what little grace Jeb had with Boss and his goons.

You had to ask, though, if it was Ilesa, why no one had clapped eyes on her. Surely folk in town would have recognized her, even after ten years, not least of all her own brother. Could’ve been a shapeshifter, he supposed; he’d tackled a couple in his time and couldn’t say he relished the prospect none. There was also the possibility she was invisible, and that was a whole other level of tricky. That was the problem with husks: there was no limit to what they might be, what they could do. Anything the Maker could dream, was the truth of it, coz that’s what the husks were, folks older and wiser than Jeb said: nightmares of the Cynocephalus, the god at the heart of the world. Then it struck him: if Ilesa was the husk—and it was still a big ‘if’—then what about Davy? Assuming they had the same mother… If that were true, though, any husk nature Davy might have had must’ve been dormant. It had been barely a whiff Jeb had picked up. No, it was better to assume nothing about the boy at this stage. He couldn’t imagine Davy being the one doing those things to the victims, least of all not to the Outlanders so far from Portis. If Davy turned out to be a husk, let someone else discover it. Last thing Jeb wanted was to be making decisions over whether the boy lived or died. Everyone deserved a chance, but not the kind of chance Mortis had slung Jeb’s way.

He stifled a yawn, failed with the next one. The creak of the stairs roused him for a moment, but when the thud of booted feet passed his door, he supposed it was a drunk patron turning in for the night. He was torn between lying back and giving sway to the night horrors again and making an even earlier start, scouting out the town while most folk were still asleep. Neither struck him as particularly desirable, and so, for want of something better to do, he pulled out the flintlock and took to appraising it in the lamplight.

Sure looked pretty, even with the greenish patina coating the brass trimmings. He turned it over and over, found himself thinking it would look good above a mantel, if ever he had a mantel.

That was a new one—a new thought: Jebediah Skayne taking off and finding himself a cottage out in the sticks. He shook his head and scoffed. Maybe he was getting soft; or maybe he was just too darned tired of moving from place to place, all so he could kill one husk and go after the next. The idea struck him he’d need a woman for a place like that; a woman who could keep it clean, raise him up a couple of kids. A woman like Maisie the barmaid: hard-worker from what he’d seen, and partial to a bit of pleasuring when the mood was on him—which was pretty much all the time.

Trouble was, he thought, shutting down that particular fantasy, the Maresmen would never let him go. The minute he left their service, Mortis or some other scary bastard would be on him like a ton of manure.

He peered down the barrel and cursed. There was a buildup of black residue from where he hadn’t cleaned it properly the last couple of uses. Here and there were tiny pocks of corrosion eating away at the metal. And it wasn’t liked he’d used it more’n a handful of times, just trying to get the measure of the weapon. Worse than useless, it was, but something about it—its reputed antiquity, or the evident craftsmanship, he couldn’t say which—kept him from slinging it away. He was about to pull off the silver-tipped, hickory ramrod, when there was a light rap at the door.

Jeb rubbed his finger along the barrel, a smile he knew was smug tugging at the corner of his mouth. Spinning the flintlock, he stood and holstered it at the same time, smoothed down his hair, and crossed to the door. Not too quick, mind; always best to keep them waiting.

“Maisie,” he said as he twisted the doorknob. “What’s up, can’t sleep?” With one arm on the jamb, he swung his head through the opening—

—and pain exploded in his face from a skull-jolting punch.

Jeb fell back under a barrage of follow-ups that had him reeling. He raised his hands, but his vision was so blurry, he couldn’t tell where they were in relation to his face.

Through the haze, he saw Terabin Sweet snarling at him, spittle flying with the whuff that accompanied every blow. The man knew how to hit, and hit hard.

Jeb’s knees buckled, and he fell against the bed. Sweet was on him without mercy, one shovel-sized hand gripping him by the collar, other pounding him over and over. Felt like Jeb’s teeth belonged to someone else, and his mouth was thick with blood. He tried to speak, tell Sweet to wait, let him explain, but the hammering went on till he crumpled to the floor atop his discarded coat.

“She’s mine, you hear?” Sweet yelled in a voice that seemed too piping and high-pitched for a man of his frame. “I see you even look at her again, and you’re dead, Maresman. Got it?”

Jeb couldn’t do anything but whimper and cover his head with his hands. Didn’t stop Sweet none, though; he stomped down on Jeb’s ribs, then gave him a parting kick to the fruits. Jeb would’ve howled in pain, if he’d had the breath for it. All he could do was lie there and groan.

He heard Sweet’s heavy footfalls backing out the room. The slamming of the door shook the entire building, and from somewhere down the corridor a man called for quiet. Whispers were exchanged. There was someone with Sweet? Sounded like a woman. Was it Maisie?

The pounding of Sweet’s boots on the stairs was like a stampede, echoed by a lighter patter following. The front door of the Crawfish banged shut, and quiet fell.

Jeb suppressed a sob. He twitched his fingers, then risked straightening his arm. When he rolled to his side, needles of pain shot through his ribs, taking his mind off his aching fruits. He coughed, and warm blood spattered his chin. He wiped it off with the back of his hand, used the bed to lever himself to a kneeling position. The floor tilted, and he retched. When he’d finished, the whole room took to gently swaying, like he was on board ship.

He’d suffered a few beatings in his time, but never without giving his fair share of damage. He’d not stood a chance. Sweet had swung for him before he knew what was coming. Never even got his guard up, and after that first sledgehammer punch, never had the chance to get set.

Should’ve been angry, he told himself. Should’ve been fired up and after revenge, but right then, with every inch of his body either numb or hurting, all he could think of was to get away, lick his wounds. He couldn’t risk being seen like this. A Maresman thrived on fear and reputation. Worse than that, though, he couldn’t risk Maisie seeing him.

Even as the thought struck, he knew it was ridiculous. He’d barely met the woman, and despite her obvious attractions, she wasn’t that different from all the other women he’d known. Must’ve been the pounding to his head messing with his mind. It was like his stupid fantasy of a cottage and a good woman by his side had taken root. What the Abyss had Maisie done, put a spell on him?

Then he recalled the woman’s whispered voice. He couldn’t be sure it was Maisie, but a gnawing at the back of his mind told him she’d set this up, confirmed Sweet in his suspicions and pushed him into it. Why should he think that? Why would she even do such a thing? Maybe it was someone else, Jeb figured. Maybe he was just hearing things.

Gathering up his coat and hat, and taking hold of his boots, he crept from the room in his socks and stepped lightly down the stairs. Every creak got him thinking someone would fire up an oil lamp, gasp at the state of his face, but mercifully the whole place was still. Looked like the Crawfish had a closing time, after all.

He slipped out the front entrance, casting about nervously in case Sweet had decided to hang around. Soon as he knew the coast was clear, he pulled on his boots and headed for the stables.

8

T
UBAL’S HOOF BEATS
rang out like a hammer on an anvil as Jeb steered him off the high street into an alley lit by nothing but a lone red light from an upper story window. The rest of the streets and byways he rode down were the kind of black a blind man would feel at home in; the kind of dark that’d cloak his shame.

Once or twice, voices called to him from the inky depths of porches, and when someone tugged at his coat, he spurred Tubal to a canter, trusting the colt to find a way free of the town, take him some place far from prying eyes and taunting jibes; some place he wouldn’t have to explain his bruises to Maisie.

Why he cared what she thought, Jeb couldn’t say. He only knew that he did, that she was in his blood more’n any other woman had been, save maybe his mother. Made no sense. He’d only just met her, barely even knew her. Heck, he’d not even seen her naked. Maybe it was because she’d refused him; that didn’t happen often. He was the one women couldn’t resist, and more than a few—the married ones most—had accused him of beguiling them come the cold light of day.

Jeb’s head still swam from the beating, and the mere act of breathing sent shards of glass slicing through his lungs. Before he reached the edge of town, he flopped forward over Tubal’s neck, clutching a handful of mane to keep from falling. Time he reached the bridge, Jeb barely had the strength to unloop the rope from the saddle horn and lash himself in place. After that, he was dimly aware of the steady clop, clop, clop of the colt’s hooves on the cobbles growing muffled as they must’ve hit the packed dirt on the far side.

He desperately wished he could tell Tubal not to head back the way they’d come. That would have been foolish, to say the least. A Maresman not finishing the job brought himself into question. Others would be sent after the husk he’d let go free, and then they’d come to him for answers. Chances are, they’d not take kindly to excuses. Better safe than sorry, was the way of things among them. He’d be back to the mud before they’d got to hear how he was beaten senseless over a woman he’d just clapped eyes on.

Jeb sighed with relief as he felt Tubal veer right and head onto higher ground. Brambles snagged his britches. Branches whipped back against the top of his hat, no matter how low he pressed against the colt’s mane. They slowed to a plod, and the last Jeb remembered was Tubal stopping to munch on grass.

9

W
HEN HE CAME
to, it wasn’t chomping that woke him; it was the sound of his own snoring. Must’ve been whatever damage Sweet had done to his nose choking up the airways. There was something else, too: voices, low and muffled, a ways off and carried on the breeze.

Dawn’s first glimmers reminded him of nothing so much as nails raked down the flesh of his back: bloody streaks across the lightening skies. Happened so often, the clawing, last he craned his neck for a look in the mirror, his back was crisscrossed with scars, old and new. Gave the impression he’d been flogged for a thousand misdemeanors. Not that he minded none; and besides, the fault was his. Could hardly blame a woman for growing frenzied under the influence of the blood he’d inherited from his mother. Closest Mortis had come to describing her was a demon with a compulsion for mating with men and then killing them. Jeb would sooner pass on the men, and he’d no inclination for murder, but he’d definitely inherited a need, same as a boozer had for whiskey. Only, in his case, his husk blood ensured there was no danger of a drought; more often than not, women came to him. Some of them even paid.

The pain of the beating he’d taken had none of the sweetness of his bed wounds.
Sweetness!
Terabin Sweet even loaded that word with bitterness.

The thought of facing him down seeped weakness into Jeb’s limbs. The man was a titan, and Jeb had been a helpless babe beneath his blows. How could you stand up to a force like that? His fingers stroked the hilt of his saber, lingered there a second and then withdrew. Had to be a fair fight, the way he saw it, otherwise his pride would never recover. If he was gonna face Sweet again, it would have to be with fists, man to man.

Tubal had come to rest within a copse of silver birches decked with green leaves that reached down toward the weeds and bracken tufting around their roots. In a year or two, the trunks would be cocooned in a tangle of vegetation, swallowed up by twining vines and creepers. That’s what happened when there was no one to do the pruning, root the weeds out. Same thing would happen to the entire land of Malkuth without the Maresmen to cull the husks coming over the mountains, and yet here Jeb was, beaten black and blue, and the blood trail as dead as he’d likely be if the incursion went unchecked.

Every inch of his body was stiff and sore, and he was still slumped over Tubal’s neck. His legs were numb, and strips of his back were chafed raw beneath his shirt and coat—not from his love scratches this time. Must’ve been from where the rope he’d used to keep in the saddle had cinched too tight.

He raised his head the better to listen and twisted in the direction of the voices. There, through the trees, a covered wagon was parked at the edge of a crop field some hundred yards away. Three men were loading packages wrapped in hessian into the back. Another man, cloaked and hooded, was overseeing the work, checking things off on a ledger. Beyond them, past a couple of empty corrals, was a brick-built ranch, low and sprawling. It was skirted by a covered porch, and the now pinkish light of the rising suns glinted from the helms and spear tips of half a dozen sentries.

With a grunt of effort, Jeb reached down and took his boot knife out, used it to cut through his bindings. Wincing at the pain in his ribs, he rolled out the saddle. His knees folded the instant he put weight on his legs, and he went sprawling to the dirt like a flaccid—that word again—jellyfish.

He heard sounds of commotion from the wagon, and twitched his toes to get the blood flowing, grimacing against the prickling in his veins. He slapped at his thighs, rolled to his knees, and sat back on his haunches till he got some relief.