The Blood Curse (44 page)

They were heading up a valley, with foothills on both sides and mountains ahead, and the valley and hills and mountains were almost as frightening as the river and the snow, because the curse stone was somewhere close by, and if the Brothers reached it before the witches, they were going to kill Prince Harkeld.

I have to stop them
. But how?

The only thing he could think of was the feverwort roots. If the Brothers were ill, they’d have to stop. And maybe the princess and her soldier could even escape.

But if he did that and Vught found out...

Nolt had been tough, but Vught was tougher. He had an edge of cruelty Nolt hadn’t had.

Vught would kill him, if he found out.

Agitation gnawed in Jaumé’s chest. He didn’t know what to do. His mind kept returning to the feverwort and its pale roots—

Vught, riding in front, gave a shout. The wagon halted. Bennick and Valor spurred their horses ahead. Jaumé’s pony trotted to catch up.

“People on the road,” Vught said. “You carrying that spyglass?”

Bennick fished it out from under his cloak. He extended it, held it to his eye, looked for a long moment. “Hillmen,” he said, offering the spyglass to Vught.

Vught peered through it, and grunted. He gave the spyglass back to Bennick. “Six of ’em. We’ll use bows. Bennick and...”

“Me,” Valor said.

They rode at a slow trot, the wagon trundling behind them, and behind that, the packhorses. “I’m going to get all six,” Valor told Bennick. “While you’re still fumbling for your first arrow, so you may as well not bother.”

Bennick snorted. “You? I’m twice as fast as you.”

“Twice?” This time it was Valor who snorted. “You think you’re better than you actually are. Always been your problem.”

Bennick wasn’t offended. He grinned. “All right, then. Let’s see who’s fastest. Three each.”

Valor grinned, too. “You’re on.”

Jaumé looked away. They made it sound like a game, killing people.

M
OUNTED AND BEARING
weapons, the hillmen had been terrifying, but they were even more terrifying running in a pack, naked and unarmed, their skulls shaved except for long, matted manes of hair. They looked inhuman. Wild beasts, not men. They bounded through the snow, each straining to pass the others. Their eyes bulged from their skulls. Sinews stood out in their throats. They made no wolf howl this time. Their eagerness to kill was savage, silent.

The Brothers halted. Jaumé unsheathed his throwing knife and gripped it nervously. He glanced back. Soll was with the packhorses. Vught and Fortitude had gone back to the wagon. Did they think the princess might try to escape now?

Bennick and Valor dismounted. Bennick was grinning. He nocked an arrow, drew the bowstring back until his fingers touched his jaw. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Bennick released the arrow—reached for another one—and another one.

It was over before Jaumé had time to draw breath. The hillmen lay dead. Silence echoed between the hills.

Bennick lowered his bow. “I won.”

“Did not—”

“One of yours is still alive.” Bennick pointed, and Jaumé saw he was right: one of the hillmen was twisting on the ground.

“Rut it.” Valor slung his bow over his shoulder and trudged through the snow. He took his knife from its sheath, crouched, and grabbed the man’s mane of hair.

The hillman didn’t try to pull away; he lunged, like a snake striking, his teeth fastening on Valor’s hand.

Jaumé yelped and almost dropped his knife.

Valor didn’t yelp or drop his knife. He put his knee on the hillman’s throat, pressed down until the man’s jaws opened, yanked his hand free, then wrenched back on the mane of hair and sliced the arching throat in a quick movement.

Jaumé looked hastily away. He sheathed his knife. When he looked back, Valor was climbing to his feet. He shook his hand, spraying blood.

“I’ll get a bandage,” Jaumé said. He slid off the pony and ran back to the packhorses.

He was rummaging through a packsaddle, when he heard a shout. He looked up. Bennick and Valor were fighting, grappling with one another, arms locked, swaying.

Jaumé watched with his mouth open. He saw Hetchel leap down from the wagon and pull them apart, saw Valor turn on
him
, saw Valor and Hetchel roll in the snow. And then Soll was there, too, and Fortitude and Vught, and they were all fighting.

And then he understood. It was the curse.

Someone screamed. A high, mad sound. Vught slashed at the ground with his sword, and the screaming stopped. Only Vught and Bennick were standing. The other Brothers were lying down. Dead?

Vught threw away his sword. Bennick turned and jogged towards Jaumé.

Is he coming for me?
Panic flared inside him. Jaumé fumbled for his bow, hastily nocked an arrow, and drew the bowstring. His heat hammered in his chest.

But Bennick paused at the back of the wagon and said something, a brusque order, before jogging back to the packhorses. He stopped and looked at Jaumé, at the nocked arrow, and gave a curt nod. “Good lad.”

Jaumé stared anxiously at his face. Bennick looked hard-eyed and grim, but not mad.

He lowered his bow. “The curse got Valor?”

“And Valor got Hetchel, or the snow did. And they got Soll and Fort.”

“But... but Valor didn’t drink the water.”

“He was bitten. Seems that’s enough.”

“He didn’t bite you?” Jaumé asked anxiously.

“No.” Bennick’s face relaxed fractionally. He reached out and ruffled Jaumé’s hair. “Vught and I are fine. Now, I need you to ride with the packhorses while I drive the wagon. Can you do that?”

Jaumé nodded.

“Good lad. Go fetch your pony.”

Jaumé hurried to obey. He tried not to look at the dead Brothers, but his eyes kept turning that way. He saw that Vught hadn’t pointed the Brothers to face north, or taken their pouches of Stars to send back to Fith. Bennick hadn’t gathered the arrows from the hillmen, and Vught’s sword lay half-buried in the snow, where he’d flung it, blood on the blade.

Jaumé scrambled up on his pony, trying to figure out why. Were they afraid they’d catch the curse if they touched any blood?

If it doesn’t snow again, Prince Harkeld and the witches will see the bodies and know we’re ahead of them
. He glanced at the sky. It was gray. The kind of gray that brought snow.

CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT

“F
OUR OF THEM
dead,” the princess said, peering out between the flaps. “Looks like they killed each other.”

“The curse?” Karel asked.

“Must have been.”

He thought about that for a moment, while the wagon rattled and jolted. The Fithians knew not to drink the water. They were smart, cautious—and yet in a matter of minutes, the curse had got
four
of them. And then he stopped thinking about
how
and
why
, and started thinking about what it meant. Four dead. “There are only two left.”

“Yes.” Britta crawled back to him. “Bennick and Vught. And Jaumé.”

Much better odds
.

“If I set the wagon on fire and distract them, you can take one of the horses and—”

“No.”

T
HEY WERE STILL
arguing when the wagon lurched to a halt. The princess peered out again, and then held the flap back for Jaumé. The boy scrambled up into the wagon. He had two empty waterskins slung over his shoulder and a bundle under one arm. “Lunch.”

Jaumé dumped the waterskins and pouch on the floor, turned to go, and paused. He looked back at the princess. “Vught reckons we’ll get to the curse stone tomorrow.”

And then he jumped down from the wagon.

Karel and the princess looked at each other. “Was that a warning?” she asked.

“I think so.”

The wagon lurched forward again.

The princess opened the pouch. “Dried goat’s meat. Are you hungry?”

The pouch was full. Enough meat to feed ten men. Karel looked at the pouch, and at the waterskins, and at the barrels of water. “He wants you to escape.”

Britta frowned swiftly. “What?”

“We already have two waterskins, and yet he gives us two more.
And
enough meat for a week. And tells us we’ll reach the curse stone tomorrow. He wants you to escape, Britta.” He pushed up to sit, ignoring the pain from his ribs. “If he helps us, we can do it. I can set fire to the wagon, and while Vught and Bennick put it out,
you
take a horse and go. Jaumé can let the other horses loose, scatter them. That’d give you a head start. If you get a couple of miles’ lead, they’ll never catch you.”

“But what about you?”

“Forget about me.”

“But—”

“Britta, didn’t you hear what he said? Vught reckons we’ll reach the curse stone
tomorrow
.”

Britta clutched the pouch, distress furrowing her face.

“You’ve got to escape. Today or tonight. If Jaumé helps...”

Karel rubbed his face with his left hand, trying to think. It all hinged on the boy.
Maybe I can persuade Jaumé to go with her? She’d be safer.
“You said Jaumé has a small bow? How big is it?”

Britta put down the pouch and silently showed him with her hands.

“If my right arm’s strong enough, I could kill Vught and Bennick—”

“Jaumé will never help you kill Bennick. He loves him.”

“But I could kill Vught...”
And that would leave just me and Bennick
. No question who would win
that
contest, but the princess would be gone. She couldn’t be used as bait to kill Prince Harkeld. The Ivek Curse would be broken, the Seven Kingdoms saved. And Britta would live.

A wagon fire. The bow. Horses let loose.

Ideas spun in Karel’s mind. Possibilities that hadn’t been there half an hour ago.

It all hinged on the boy.

CHAPTER NINETY-NINE

T
HE MOUNTAINS DREW
nearer. Peaks as sharp and white as wolf’s teeth speared the gray sky. Jaumé saw crags and ridges and gullies. The valley they rode up narrowed. Steep foothills crowded close on either side. Everything was white or black or gray—the mountains, the hills, the trees, the road, the abandoned farmhouses, even the river, with its black water and white ice-rimed banks. Wind blew from the mountains, ice-cold, ice-sharp, but other than the river and the wind, nothing moved.

The emptiness made Jaumé shiver. It gave him a dull, hollow ache in his chest.

In the late afternoon, Vught halted at a fortified farmhouse. It was like the one they’d stayed at last night: square, windowless, a jetty by the river, and a wide, iron-studded door facing the road.

“Give me that spyglass,” Vught told Bennick. “I want to see what’s up ahead.”

The solid wooden door was barred from the inside, but Vught climbed up on the wagon seat, and put one foot in Bennick’s cupped hands, and Bennick heaved Vught high enough to catch hold of the top of the wall.

Vught swung himself up, grunting with effort, and walked across the roof and put the spyglass to his eye, peering up the valley.

Jaumé looked at the mountains, at the sky, at the desolate white and black and gray emptiness. He hoped they were going to stop here.

“We’ll keep going,’ Vught called down.

He didn’t swing down off the roof, but disappeared from view. A couple of minutes later, Jaumé heard the rasp of a door bar being removed, and one half of the big door swung open. Vught came out. He carried slab of ham in one hand and a string of dried sausages in the other. “There’re a couple more farmhouses ahead,” he told Bennick. “We’ll stop at one of them for the night.”

T
HE NEXT FARMHOUSE
hadn’t been shut up. One half of the main door stood open. The air smelled faintly of old smoke.

Jaumé stared at the open door and smelled the smoke and felt his skin crawl. Something bad had happened here.

Vught turned in his saddle and signaled to Bennick.

Bennick jumped down from the wagon. He drew his sword.

Jaumé watched with horror as Bennick trod through the snow and eased cautiously through the door. He wanted to run after Bennick and stop him. He had a sudden, terrible certainty that something dangerous lay on the other side of that half-open door.