The Blood Curse (43 page)

“Here.” Innis hurriedly spread her cloak on the stone floor.

“Face down?”

“For now, yes.”

They lowered Serril, grunting with effort. Innis knelt and cupped Serril’s head in her hands.

“All-Mother!” Adel said suddenly, and hurried back to the wreckage of the wagon.

Rand half-lay amid the splintered remains of the barrels. The healer was clutching his leg, an agonized grimace on his face. Petrus crouched alongside him, naked. “Get away from that water, Petrus!” Adel yelled. “Now!”

“But—”

“
Now
. And don’t walk! Fly. You get one splinter in your foot and you’re done for.”

Petrus shifted into a sparrow and flew to the rim of one broken barrel, perching there.

“Come on, Flin.” Adel crossed to Rand, treading carefully. “Don’t slip.”

They crouched beside the healer. He was sweating with pain. “Broken leg?” Harkeld asked.

“Kneecap and shin,” Rand said, his words a groan.

“Flin and I’ll carry you.” Adel glanced at Harkeld. “You got any cuts on your hands?”

Harkeld checked his hands. “No.”

They carried Rand to the back of the barn and put him alongside Serril.

“Help me turn Serril,” Innis said. “Try to keep his spine straight. I’ll hold his head.”

They rolled Serril over carefully. His body was as heavy and limp as a dead man’s, but his eyes were moving. They focused on Innis’s face. “How bad?” he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.

“Spine broken in three places.”

Harkeld saw denial on Serril’s face—and then, grim acceptance. “You have to leave me. Let me die.”

Innis sat back on her heels, her expression appalled. “No!”

“Can you heal him?” Harkeld asked.

“Yes.”

“How long will it take?”

“A couple of days.”

“Then we’re staying.” Harkeld pushed to his feet. “Come on, Adel. Let’s get a fire going.”

“The curse—” Serril said.

“Rut the curse!” Harkeld said. “I’m not letting you die!”

“You have to.”

“No!” Harkeld yelled, his voice echoing in the barn.

“Son, we’ve no choice—”

“Horseshit!” he said fiercely, leaning over the shapeshifter. “What about your wife and children? Don’t you want to see them again?”

The muscles in Serril’s face tightened. Harkeld saw anguish in his eyes.

“We’re staying until you’re healed,” Harkeld said flatly. “Come on, Adel, let’s get that fire going.”

Adel climbed to his feet.

“How much water’s left?” The voice was Rand’s, wheezy with pain.

A sparrow fluttered down, and shifted into Petrus. “Half a barrel.”

Half a barrel. Harkeld glanced at Adel and saw the same realization on the water mage’s face.
We’re going to run out
.

“We’ll go over the hills,” Petrus said. “Flin and me. The rest of you can stay here.”

Harkeld met Petrus’s eyes. “Over the hills? Can we?”

Petrus nodded. “There’s a track. We’ll take a few waterskins, leave the rest of the water behind. We’ll be at the anchor stone in two days.”

And I can end the curse before the half barrel is empty
. Relief swelled inside him. “Yes. Let’s go.” He turned towards the front of the barn, urgency thrumming in his blood. They had to move
fast
.

“No,” Rand said. “You’ll take Innis with you, and Justen.”

“And me,” Adel said.

Harkeld swung back. “But Serril—”

“I can heal him. And myself. It’ll take a little longer, is all.”

“But—”

“You’ll go over the hills, but you’ll take as much protection as possible. And a healer.” Rand’s voice was weak, but filled with authority. “Now, go outside and tell Justen what’s happening. And if someone could help me into dry clothes, I’d be grateful.”

CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE

T
HEY CAME TO
a crossroad and halted. It had snowed here overnight. There was snow on the roads and paddocks, snow in the ditches, snow on the branches of the gnarled old tree standing at the junction.

Vught unfolded the map Fortitude had given him, studied it for a moment, then pointed left. “That’s the road from Delpy. The prince’ll come that way.”

Jaumé heard the words with a jolt of alarm. He peered anxiously along the road. It was empty as far as he could see.

He craned his neck and looked around. They’d reached the end of another range of foothills. The hills ran back to the mountains, steep and bleak. One thin snow-covered road came from the left, around the end of the hills. The road from Delpy. The one the prince would take. It joined the road they were on, heading for the mountains, following the river.

“Unless he’s ahead of us,” Fortitude said. He slid from his saddle, walked to the middle of the crossroad, crouched, and made as if to brush the snow aside with his hand.

“Careful,” Bennick said. “The snow could be cursed.”

Fortitude glanced up, his black eyes unreadable.

Bennick shrugged. “What’s snow but frozen water?”

Fortitude stood. He began pushing snow aside with his boot.

Cursed snow? Jaumé’s toes curled inside his boots. He shuddered, and hunched into his sheepskin jacket, and hoped Bennick was wrong. There was snow
everywhere
.

Bennick had his spyglass out. He looked along the road to Delpy. “Nothing.”

“And nothing here,” Fortitude said. He’d cleared a strip across the road and was examining the ground. “Nothing fresh.”

“We’re ahead of them,” Hetchel said.

“Shall we use her here?” Soll asked. “It’s just about perfect. There’s even a tree in the right place.”

Kill the prince here? Jaumé’s heart gave a little skip of horror.

Vught examined the crossroad and the hills, the gnarled tree. He studied the map again, and rubbed his chin. Jaumé heard the harsh scratch of his whiskers. “They might go over the hills. Tancred’s marked a foot trail. We can’t risk it. We’ll use her at the stone. Doesn’t matter what route the prince takes, he’ll end up
there
. We’ll set up a welcome for him.” He grinned his shark’s grin.

Jaumé glanced at Bennick. He was grinning, too.

“How far to the stone from here?” Soll asked.

“We’ll get there tomorrow,” Vught said, and he looked even more like a shark.

CHAPTER NINETY-SIX

T
HE TRAIL ZIGZAGGED
upwards, winding its way around rocky outcrops and between black-trunked trees that looked like firs, but had lost their needles. Harkeld had never seen trees like them before, but Adel had. “Larch,” he said. “We have them at home.” Where the snow had melted, the ground was orange with larch needles.

Drifts of snow lay along the track, and on top of the snow lay the curse shadow.

The track became steeper. The horses began to have difficulty. Harkeld dismounted. “Let’s lead them. Spread out, though. Leave enough distance between us so that if a horse kicks up some snow, no one gets a mouthful.”

The larch needles were as slippery as the snow, Harkeld discovered. He climbed, slipping and sliding, sweating, swearing, panting. They had a mount and packhorse each, traveling light, traveling fast. If this slow uphill laboring could be called fast.

He stopped to catch his breath, to wipe his face, to unsling his waterskin and trickle some precious, uncursed water into his mouth.

Two zigzags ahead was Justen, and one zigzag behind, Innis. Trailing last was Adel. Harkeld stoppered his waterskin and stared down the wooded slope. Adel had let go of his horses. He was running up the track.

Harkeld couldn’t see Adel’s face—too many tree trunks, too much slanting light and shade—but he knew something was wrong. It was in the way Adel moved. There was nothing gangly or awkward about him, nothing puppyish. He ran like a predator. A wolf intent on his prey. Loping fast.

“Innis!” Harkeld called sharply.

“What?” She halted and looked up at him.

He ignored the track, ploughing through snow and larch needles to reach her. “Get back. Into the trees.”

Above, a hawk screamed. Petrus arrowed down, landed on the track in front of them, and changed into a lion. Did he think he was going to rip out Adel’s throat? Maul to death someone he’d trained with?

“No!” Harkeld shouted. “Get back, Petrus! I’ll do it.”

Adel was half a zigzag away now, running fast. He could see the water mage’s face. See the thick curse shadow. See the snarl and the madness.

“Petrus, get out of the way!” Harkeld bellowed. “Or I’ll burn you, too.”

The lion stepped to one side of the track and crouched there, growling, tail twitching.

Harkeld raised his hand.
All-Mother, forgive me
.

He summoned the hottest fire magic he was capable of. Adel wouldn’t die screaming like the assassin he’d burned in the gorge. His death would be instantaneous.

Burn
.

Adel flared alight in a white-hot
whoomp
of flame. He didn’t scream. One moment he was running, the next he was gone. No blackened, twisted body lay on the track. All that remained of Adel was ash, blowing in the wind.

Harkeld lowered his hand.

The silence lengthened—ten seconds, twenty seconds—then the lion turned its head and looked at him. It padded across to him and changed into Petrus.

They looked at each other for a long moment, and then Petrus gave a short nod.

Harkeld swallowed, and nodded back. He was shaking inside. If he spoke, he was afraid he might cry.

He heard someone running downhill towards them. Justen. He didn’t turn to look. His eyes were fixed on the spot where Adel had been.

Innis slipped a hand into his.

Justen reached them, panting. “What happened?”

“Adel got the curse,” Petrus said.

“How?”

“Don’t know,” Petrus said. “He slipped on some snow a minute ago. But he got right back up. His curse shadow was fine then.”

Harkeld gripped Innis’s hand tightly. He found control of his voice. “Maybe inhaled some snow.”

“Maybe.”

No one seemed to want to move. The terribleness of Adel’s death struck him. There was no body to bury. It was as if Adel had never existed.
I didn’t just kill him. I obliterated him
.

“We need to say words for him,” Innis said.

But saying words for Adel, giving him to the All-Mother’s care, didn’t ease the sense of terribleness. Nor did walking back down the track to capture Adel’s horses. Harkeld followed Adel’s footprints back up the zigzags. Big footprints, long strides... that just simply vanished.

“You all right?” Innis asked.

Harkeld looked down at the last of Adel’s boot marks. “It was better than Petrus doing it.”

He crouched, and laid his hand on the final footprint.
Forgive me, Adel
.

CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN

J
AUMÉ STAYED CLOSE
to Bennick. The slow, placid river frightened him. The water in it was cursed, and his imagination told him that if he got too close, it would reach out with thin, watery arms and touch him and he would become as mad as Da. He tried to ride with Valor and Bennick between him and the river. The snow scared him, too. What if Bennick was right? What if the snow on the ground
was
cursed?