Servant: The Dark God Book One (Volume 1) (13 page)

A wave of her ease washed over him. What did it matter what she wanted? Or if she lied. She was so beautiful. So kind.

His alarm faded away.

“They are hidden, the ones that stink. Hidden so even the Mother who stole this herd from my ancestors could not find them. But you have been created to root them out.”

A word came to him for the ones that stink—sleth. That was their name. And he immediately knew where the men had taken one of them. He’d learned this not from following any scent trail, for the scent had ended in the fires. No, that knowledge had been one of the first things that had tumbled into him from Barg. Purity Sleth was going to be held in a stone cage in Whitecliff. He also knew that if he caught her, he could catch the rest of them because sleth would do anything to keep their secrets. They would hunt and kill their own to keep them quiet, which meant he could use Purity as bait.

“If I find them,” he asked, “will you spare these?”

“Your kind is so weak. How you ever overpowered the Mothers I will never know.”

“Will you spare them?”

“You have two nights,” she said. She held up the stomach that contained his family. “If you fail, know that I and my daughters are hungry, and these firstlings will be prepared for our feast.”

13

Snare

BLUE WOULDN’T LET Talen near the wound, so he watched as the dog licked until the bleeding stopped, knowing that if corruption set in and spread, they would have to put him down. He stroked Blue’s head. He could not believe Blue had been stabbed. He could not believe his family had run off a hammer of stinking Fir-Noy armsmen, which was both wonderful and terrible. It was wonderful because he couldn’t wait to tell the story in Koramtown; it was terrible because Da was wrong—those men would be back.

Talen stood and looked down at Blue. “There’s nothing else we can do for him.”

“We can catch those hatchlings,” Nettle said.

“Aye, that we can. And then rub it in the faces of those Fir-Noy.”

Talen imagined how that would be and exited the barn. He and Nettle walked across the yard to the house and found Ke sitting at the table, propping himself up with his elbows. Da stood at the hearth, three large red onions roasting on a pile of embers there. A pot of porridge hung from a crane over a cooking fire. The fish they’d filleted earlier were sizzling in a yet another pan. Da poked at them with a knife. The ends of his beard braids were tucked into the collar of his tunic to keep them from getting into the fire or falling into the food.

“Shouldn’t River be back by now?” asked Talen.

Da swung the crane, and the pot of barley that hung from it, out of the hearth. “Don’t you worry about River. She’ll be fine.”

Da was probably right. River could take care of herself. She might not be as strong as Ke, but she knew woodcraft. She had her bow. And, if it came to it, he doubted any but a dreadman could run her down.

Da lifted the pot off the crane with a hook and brought it to the table. He took off the lid and dropped a large spoonful into each of their bowls, then he put a small chunk of butter onto the top. They rarely ate their porridge in the sweet, Mungo style. “By the time you’ve eaten that, the fish and onions will be ready.”

Talen turned to Ke. “What did you find?”

“I followed the armsmen to their mounts,” said Ke. “Then I followed them to the edge of the forest. They’re headed out to Fir-Noy lands.”

That could mean the armsmen had given up or were going to make an official complaint. But Talen doubted that was the case. Da had just humiliated a Hammer; that surely wouldn’t go unpunished. “They’re probably circling round or going to gather a mob,” said Talen. He turned to Da. “We’re sitting here like a bunch of cattle.”

“We’ll watch,” said Da. “And it’s true somebody needs to go talk to the Bailiff, but it’s too late now. I don’t want anyone out past dark with the country full of imbeciles like those who showed up today. There’s nothing we else we can do at the moment.”

But that wasn’t true. The armsmen weren’t the real threat. Sleth were. Talen looked at Nettle, who was chewing a huge mouthful of the porridge. They’d discussed their plans, but he didn’t want to blurt them out now. Da needed to first see the prints. Only then would he listen.

Da walked back to the hearth. He grabbed the small frying pan from the wall. He put a knife full of lard in it and stuck the pan next on the andiron above the coals. When the lard melted and began to sizzle, he produced a large brown egg from his pocket, cracked it, and dropped the contents into the pan.

“Where did you get that?” asked Ke.

“Mol,” said Da. “I got half-a-dozen.” He grinned. “And if you’re polite and grovel like a proper son, I might save you one for when you end your fast. But you must promise to help me. We’re going to be treating our four new ladies like fat Mokaddian city wives for the next few weeks. We’ll need grasshoppers and sliced squash every day.”

Da was so quick to get back to his meal that he was overlooking the obvious. “Da,” said Talen. “There
is
something we can do right now. We can solve the root of the problem.”

“You’re not going to reconcile Koramites with Fir-Noy,” said Da and turned back to his pan. “We’re oil and water.” He added a strip of fatback to his egg and let it all sizzle.

“I wasn’t talking about that. I’m talking about the hatchlings.”

Ke groaned. “Och, here he goes again about a monster running about the woods wanting his pants to cover up its naked bum—”

“They’ve got sleth caged in Whitecliff,” said Talen, “and you seem to think the world is a safe as a pie bake.”

“Perhaps the woman in Whitecliff isn’t as dangerous as you think,” said Da. “What’s needed now are calm heads.”

“I agree,” said Talen. “And I am calm. But what you need to know is that not only did I see one of them, in broad daylight, but we’ve got its footprints in the yard.”

* * *

Da and Ke followed Talen out to the footprints. The sun had sunk low, but there was still enough light to see by. In fact, the angle of the light made the track clearer. He led them to the one by the old sod-roofed house and then finally brought them to the one by the pig pen.

“That’s too small for Sammesh,” said Talen. He put his foot next to it to make the point.

Ke stretched one of his massive arms to scratch a spot on his back. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a killer.”

“Oh, come on,” said Talen. “Look at it.”

A horsefly landed on Da’s arm. He looked down at it, let it prepare to bite, then smacked the horsefly with the flat of his hand and let it fall to the dirt where he ground it with his foot. “That print could be anybody’s,” said Da. “Could be one of the children that came with that tinker family. They were here just last week.”

It could have been them. “But that doesn’t explain the sighting and my missing pants.”

“Yes,” said Da, “the missing pants that were under your bed.”

“I saw something today,” said Talen.

“I’m sure you did. But I’m also sure that your beating this morning has you rattled. Do you remember when you were a boy and saw the shadows of a number of og in the yard?”

Talen remembered. Their wagon had cast a shadow in the light of a full moon. And he’d been sure the creatures were in the yard ready to tear them all to pieces. Of course, Da had taken him by the hand, kicking and screaming, and forced him to face the fact that it was only moon shadows.

“I saw a leg,” said Talen. “I don’t understand why you’re not concerned.”

“Concerned?” said Da. “I’m mortally concerned, but not about hatchlings. Nobody knows that the woman they’ve caged is sleth. There was no Seeker, no proving.”

“What I heard,” said Nettle, “was that she moved with unnatural speed.”

“Things are perceived differently in battle. When your mind is tinged with fear, the foe’s strength and speed and ferocity are always exaggerated. But let’s assume the worst. Let’s assume she did move with power. She might have been wearing a weave. Did you think of that?”

“That’s treason right there,” said Talen.

“Is it?” asked Da. “A weave bestowed by some Koramite Divine to her family a century ago?”

“It is if she didn’t bring it forth.”

“But that’s different from slethwork, isn’t it? It’s a legitimate weave, outlawed, not because it’s evil, but because it might pose a threat to the Mokaddian lords.”

Talen sighed. Da never had anything good to say about Divines. Talen remembered when he was a child and had learned “The Six Paths” from a friend’s mother. The poem described the different orders of Divines. He came home excited to perform and began to recite the poem with the appropriate actions.

The Fire Wizards harvest.

The Kains forge and store.

The Skir Masters ride the powers with traps and ancient lore.

At this point in the poem, Da’s face began to sour, but Talen had thought it was because he’d done something wrong. He’d continued, trying his best to remember the hand movements.

The Guardians live like dragons.

The Green Ones heal the dead.

And the Glories rule o’r them all with centuries in their heads.

Da had clapped in a perfunctory way. “You’re a sharp one, for sure,” he’d said. “And such a sharp mind needs to be kept that way.” Then he’d made Talen learn a poem he’d never heard before. It was long and started with a traveler visiting a tavern.

The Host spreads his table then calls with honeyed charm:

A steaming loaf of Ignorance to keep your belly warm,

An unending keg of Fear to turn your wit to froth,

And tender cuts of poisoned Pride to turn your gentle heart.

The poem continued, describing two companions, one who takes the host’s offer and another who refuses. The first one is treated with firmness but kindness and put out, like a steer to pasture, to enjoy the gardens, orchards, and plenitudes of the vale. The second faces privation and a multitude of dangers trying to get his friend to leave. In the end, he fails, and the first one, the one who trusted the smiling host, is brought forth for butchering. The second makes a brave attempt to rescue him from his captors, but fails, barely escaping with his life. Powerless, he watches from afar as the mighty inhabitants of that awful vale kill, roast, and then serve his friend up on platters for a community feast.

It was a long poem, but the story was so fascinating Talen memorized it in less than a day. At first, Talen thought Da made him memorize it because he’d wanted to challenge, and thereby increase, Talen’s mental skills. But after he’d learned it, he began to consider the story and see it was a moral tale, teaching how a man could be self-reliant and wise. For a long time he thought that was Da’s purpose in making him memorize it.

But as he grew older, Talen began to suspect Da had planted that poem in him for another reason altogether. There were six families in that vale that seemed to correspond to the six paths of the Divine. The butchering was performed during the annual Festival of Gifts, which is when the Divines asked for the annual sacrifices. The name of the host meant the same thing as the name of the first Glory of ancient times. As he grew, Talen found many more connections between the inhabitants of that vale and the six paths.

It was as if Da had planted that poem in him so that it might bring forth, in its due time, a suspicion of all things Divine. But why?

He’d once asked Da what it all meant, but Da only shrugged and said it was only an old poem he’d learned as a child. Talen tried to detect prevarication in Da’s answer, but found none. Nevertheless, he knew Da was hiding something.

Talen had known two Divines in his life. Lumen and the Green Beggar. Lumen looked down upon the Koramites. But the Green Beggar went around healing people and teaching them the paths to joy. He refused all authority. Refused pomp, choosing instead to live in a log hut he made himself. He leased land to farm, established a following, and had done nothing but bless goats and vegetable gardens. Three years ago he’d sailed away, waving good-bye to the throngs of his “fellows” standing on the docks. Many still wore the green shoulder patch that marked his followers.

“What about the Green Beggar?” asked Talen. “He would have spoken out against the sleth woman’s use of the weave.”

“What about him?” asked Ke. “The Goat King, the Witch of Cath, the Scarlet Tiger, they were all once Glories of great nations. Benefactors who had preyed upon their own people. Who can say what the Green Beggar’s real purpose was?”

Talen knew all the stories about those Glories who had gone mad and eaten the souls of those they ruled.

“Let us not forget that every Divine was once a man,” Da said.

“Yes,” Talen said. “Men that were raised to wield the powers of life and become almost immortal. The stories of Divines who turned on the Six are few and far between.”

“What if Lumen himself ate souls?” asked Da. “Who would have known it? Nobody. Isn’t that a greater horror than some farmer’s wife who uses a little weave to bless her and her family?”

“But the power doesn’t come from the same source,” said Talen. “It’s like comparing an ale brewed using pure water with another made using swamp scum. They may look the same from a distance, but in the mouth they’re night and day.”

“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Da. “I don’t think this has anything to do with magicks. I think this is nothing more than a bunch of cowards worried about their cattle and land.”

“You don’t believe the reports?”

“I believe that men see what they want to see. And what they saw was a Koramite smith who was richer than any seven of them combined.”

Talen had seen his father’s judgment blinded before by his pride and anger. And even though it grated, the Mokaddians weren’t always in the wrong. “Maybe all you choose to see is the wrongs done to our people. To admit that one of us was evil would spoil your arguments. Wouldn’t it be better to cut out the corrupted part than let it ruin the rest of us?”

“This is why we need a Divine protecting our shores,” said Nettle.

They all looked at him.

Nettle had brought his bowl outside. He stuffed a large spoonful of porridge in his mouth. “A mere human cannot hope to unravel such mysteries.”

“That’s true,” said Ke. “But you don’t need one to know there’s no greater risk now than there was before. Let’s say Talen is right. It is no more dangerous to walk about now than it was yesterday or the day before. If there are sleth lurking about, they were there before.”

“What kind of logic is that?” asked Talen. “If you find out there are wildcats in the woods, then you take precautions. You don’t assume they pose no danger.”

“Ah,” said Ke, “but if the wildcats always kept to themselves, are they really a danger now? Perhaps a hunt will only corner them and make them fight.”

“Yes,” said Talen. “But wildcats don’t murder whole families and devour their souls.”

“Maybe Talen’s right,” said Da. “We should take precautions. But this all leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The Fir-Noy had no authority to organize a hunt in the village of Plum. That band of armsmen today had no authority to hunt here either. So even if there are sleth, there are far more Fir-Noy eager to run a Koramite through.”

“We need to post a watch,” said Talen.

“Aye,” said Da. “I suspect there’s more than one group of idiots in the woods.”

There were more than idiots in the woods, and Talen knew it. He was going to catch whoever had been lurking about. Normally, you only masked your scent when trapping animals, but it was possible that the hatchlings had eaten the souls of some beast in an attempt to obtain its finer sense of smell. He did not have days to let the snare weather, nor did he have any urine or gall from the last deer he’d killed to mask his and Nettle’s scent, so after Da and Ke lost interest in the prints, Talen led Nettle into the fading light, down to a swampy bend in the river. He found a spot where there was plenty of rotting vegetation and dug out a pail full of mud.