The Blood Curse (29 page)

Jaumé watched silently as Vught lowered the rope, as Bennick tied it under the princess’s armpits, as Vught hauled her up onto the road and laid her in the dirt. Her eyes were closed, her skin corpse-white except for the fading bruise on her cheek.

“Here.” Jaumé held out a blanket.

Vught took it and began drying the princess. His clothes were wet, plastered to his body, and his hair stuck to his scalp, seal-pelt sleek.

The other Brothers hoisted themselves up onto the road. Bennick was wet too, and Luit. Jaumé gave them blankets. “She’ll need dry clothes,” Bennick said, wiping his face.

“I’ll look for some,” Jaumé said. He cast a quick glance at the princess. She looked dead, but he knew she wasn’t. Not if Vught was drying her. Not if Bennick wanted clothes for her.

He hurried back to the packhorses. Part of him was glad the princess was alive, but part of him was sorry. He didn’t want her to be tied to a stake. He didn’t want Prince Harkeld to die.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

P
ETRUS TOOK OVER
from Justen at noon. “See any people?”

Justen pulled a face. “There’s a farm about three miles south of here, got a mill wheel. Don’t go there. It’s nasty.”

“How nasty?”

“Worse than you want to see.” Justen pulled on his trews, grabbed his boots. “There was a whole family there. Children.”

“The children are alive?” Petrus said, startled.

Justen shook his head. He shrugged into his shirt in silence, pulled on his jerkin, wrapped his cloak around himself. “There was a girl on the ground, and this man, he was raping her, and... I had to stop him, you know? Even if she was cursed. Except when I got close, I could see she was dead. Long dead. Half of her had been eaten. But he was still raping her.” He met Petrus’s eyes, grimaced, shook his head. “Worse than you want to see. Don’t go near that farm. ”

“I won’t,” Petrus said soberly. He stripped out of his clothes and flew up into the sky. Innis was already there, keeping watch over their cavalcade—wagon, riders, packhorses. He dipped his wings to her and began scouting, flying in ever-widening circles, looking for movement below.

The plateau was dry, rugged, almost barren, cut by eroding gullies, dotted with rocks and thorn trees twisted by the wind. The farmers had scraped a poor living from this land.

Smoke smeared the sky. Hamlets and villages burning. One large fire smoldered to the south and west, pushing up great plumes of smoke. The town of Andeol, he guessed. Where the elderly Fithians had probably come from.

Petrus flew in great sweeps across the plateau, investigating the road ahead, checking that no one followed them. The few hamlets were mainly charred rubble, but he inspected them carefully. He found hens and geese, goats, two black-faced sheep, cats and dogs, but no people. Always, at the center of his circles, were the wagon and long line of horses. Their progress seemed terribly slow, the roads endlessly long.

Mid-afternoon, he found a donkey grazing on sparse grass at the edge of the road. It was bridled, the reins dragging on the ground, and someone’s possessions were strapped on its back.

Petrus glided down to land and shifted into himself. “Lost your owner, have you?”

The donkey flicked its long ears at him.

It took him a minute to catch it—the beast kept sidling away—but finally he was able to grab the reins. “Stand
still
, curse it,” he told the donkey, shivering. “I’m trying to help you.”

Quickly, he removed the packsaddle and bridle, piling them to one side of the road. The stones were sharp and cold beneath his bare feet and the wind seemed to eat into his skin. “There, you’re on your own now.” He slapped the donkey’s rump, watched it trot away.

He found a body a few miles down the road. An elderly woman, several days dead. The donkey’s owner? Her throat was slit open. Blood had dried in a great pool around her. She’d been raped. Had the rape come first, or the murder?

For her sake, he hoped she’d been dead first.

Something had pecked out her eyes. Maggots writhed in the gaping ruin of her throat.

Petrus pulled the woman’s coarse gown down over her legs, covering her. He crouched and touched her bony, wrinkled hand with his fingertips. “All-Mother,” he whispered. “I give this woman to your care, that she may rest peacefully.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

T
HE PRINCESS WOKE
late in the afternoon. Doak, who was holding her, slid hastily down from his horse. The princess fell to hands and knees on the road, coughed several times, and then vomited. When she’d finished, Vught lifted her back onto Doak’s mount and they continued. The Brothers rode silently. No one said anything. Bennick didn’t whistle.

Jaumé didn’t dare look at the princess. He was afraid Bennick would see his secrets on his face: that he admired her courage; that he wanted Prince Harkeld to live.

When they halted for the night, he tended to his pony and then made haste to start a fire and lay out smoked sausages and thick slices of rye bread and brew the bitter tea the Brothers liked to drink.

“Good lad,” Bennick said, ruffling his hair. He sat down with a groan alongside Jaumé. “What a day.”

Vught grunted sourly and reached for a sausage. “It’ll give me great pleasure to kill that bitch.”

Someone muttered agreement. Luit, Jaumé thought. Doak was watchman.

“That arrowhead,” Bennick said, around a mouthful of bread. “Did she say where she got it?”

“Last night. In an old campfire.”

Bennick chewed, swallowed, nodded. “We need to stop her pulling any more stunts like that. Slows us down.”

“Punish her,” Luit said. “Tell her we’ll whip the skin off her back if she does it again.”

“Cut off a hand,” Bennick suggested. “She doesn’t need both of ’em, does she?”

Jaumé stopped chewing. He tried to see Bennick’s face in the dark. He was joking, wasn’t he?

“Rape,” Luit said. “There’s six of us. Bet she wouldn’t like that.” He grinned, his missing teeth black holes in his mouth.

“We’re not Sarkosians,” Vught said flatly. “We have a code.” He finished eating the sausage in silence, then rose to his feet and crossed to where the princess sat, huddled in a cloak. He bent over her.

Jaumé watched tensely. He wasn’t going to cut off one of her hands, was he?

The princess screamed, a high-pitched sound of pain.

Jaumé jerked convulsively and almost dropped his bread.

“Pressure point,” Bennick said. “To get her attention.”

Vught’s hand was fisted in the princess’s hair, his mouth pressed against her ear. After a moment, he stood and walked back to the fire. He sat, reached for another sausage, shoved it in his mouth, chewed.

Jaumé looked past Vught to the princess. There was a tight, uncomfortable feeling in his belly. Horror? Pity? Whatever it was, he had lost his appetite.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

A
FTER THE TENTS
were pitched, Harkeld went looking for Rand. The healer was at the fire, heating water and opening bundles of dried meat. “Those Fithians, the two old men... did you keep their throwing stars?”

Rand glanced up. “Petrus did. He thought you might want to practice burning them.”

“I do.” Harkeld turned on his heel, scanned the campsite, and found Petrus with the horses.

There were eight throwing stars, in two worn leather pouches. “Want me to chuck them in the air for you?” Petrus asked.

“Sure.”

They clambered over the stone wall to the next paddock. Gretel came, too. A chilly wind whipped their cloaks around their legs.

Petrus took one of the throwing stars from its pouch.

“Don’t throw that one,” Harkeld said. “Put it on a rock. I need to make sure I don’t use too much magic, otherwise I’ll incinerate us all.”

Petrus laid the throwing star on a rock and stepped prudently behind Harkeld.

Harkeld scanned the sky for shapeshifters, and found Innis hovering over the horses, a safe distance away. He flexed the fingers of his left hand and stared at the throwing star, concentrating on what he wanted to do. A burst of hot fire, the hottest he could summon, but small and focused.

White-hot. Small. Focused.

He put his right hand behind his back, raised his left hand, took a deep breath.
Burn
.

There was a loud crack of sound and a bright white flash of flame.

‘Is it gone?” Petrus asked. He stepped forward and examined the rock from all angles. “It’s gone.”

“I need to try that again,” Harkeld said. “I used too much magic.” If he’d done that when the one-eyed Fithian had attacked, he’d have burned his own face off.

Petrus laid another throwing star on the rock.

It took three more attempts before Harkeld was satisfied. “All right,” he said. “Throw them.”

Petrus opened the second pouch, took out a throwing star, and held it by one blade.

Harkeld gripped the back of his belt with his right hand, and nodded.

Petrus tossed the star in the air. It arced up, the blades reflecting the orange sunset.

Burn
.

A bright flash, a small clap of sound, a scattering of ashes.

Petrus tossed a second throwing star up.

Burn
.

“Gretel? Could you throw one, too, at the same time as Petrus? I’d like to see how fast I can do this.” Speed could save his life. Or someone else’s.

Gretel took the last throwing star and stood opposite Petrus.

Harkeld tightened his grip on his belt. He flexed the fingers of his left hand and shifted his weight, leaning a little forward.

“One, two, three,” the shapeshifter called. They flung the weapons in the air, Petrus’s almost straight up, Gretel’s curving in a parabola.

Burn. Burn
.

The wind whipped the ashes away.

There was a moment of silence, and then Petrus said, “If we meet any more Fithians I’m sticking close to you.”

Harkeld released his grip on his belt.

“Safest place to be,” Gretel agreed. She put her hands on her hips and observed Harkeld. “Have you tried burning stone?”

“Stone?” He shook his head.

“Meant to be harder to burn than metal—it’s raw, hasn’t been worked—but your grandfather could do it. I’d say there’s a good chance you can, too.”

“My grandfather?” Harkeld scowled.

Gretel’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“Nothing.” Harkeld bent and picked up one of the Fithian pouches. The leather was soft, supple.

“You dislike your grandfather?”

“Dislike?” Harkeld straightened. “My grandfather was a lying son of a whore. He pretended to be someone he wasn’t. He corrupted my mother’s bloodline. He bred
me
like I was a prize hound!”

“Your grandfather was a hero.”

“Hero?” Harkeld snorted. “He was a
liar
.”

Gretel took a step towards him. Her expression was fierce. “Your grandfather left his home knowing he would never,
ever
be able to return. Knowing he’d
never
see his family again. Knowing he could
never
be a Sentinel again. He lived the rest of his life unable to use his magic, hiding who he was, pretending, and yes, lying. Do you think he
enjoyed
that? Do you think he was happier in Vaere than he would have been in Rosny? Do you think it wasn’t painfully hard for him?”