Ash snatched the edge and, with Rae’s help, managed to drag himself over the side where he lay panting in the bottom.
Rae tumbled in after him, chest heaving.
As Ash’s vision cleared, so too did his thoughts. He bolted upright. “You came in after me.”
Rae gave him a flat look and wrung water from her hair.
“You shouldn’t have done that. You could have been killed.”
“And let you die?” Rae said. “Besides, the pain in my leg was killing me.” She gestured to Ash’s leg. Deep tooth marks poured blood into the bottom of the boat. “We’ve got to get out of here before you attract more of those things.”
She snatched the remaining oar from the bottom of the boat and paddled across the swamp.
Ash gritted his teeth against the pain in his calf and clutched just below his knee to slow the flow of blood. His head spun but he clung to consciousness; if Rae could paddle through the pain, the least he could do was stay conscious.
3
Rae staggered under Ash’s weight and fell against a twisted tree.
“I should have let the bloody thing have you,” she said between gasps.
Ash clutched his leg. “It hurts.”
“As if I don’t know!”
Rae shifted her arm under his body. It took them twice as long as usual to make the journey through the maze of small islands from the dock to the outskirts of Wichden.
The last house, farthest from town, leaned sideways on uneven poles and the rickety ladder leading up sported missing rungs and rust-covered nails.
A skinny cow stood tethered to the poles, as far from the water as possible, munching on a few molding pieces of straw.
“Hey, Mylk,” Ash said, wincing as they went past.
“Worst name for a cow,” Rae said. “You first.” She set his arms onto the first rung of the ladder and helped boost his uninjured leg up.
Ash dragged his body up and lay panting on the thin walkway that separated their front door from the ladder. His vision spun and his injured leg throbbed with every beat of his heart.
Rae’s head appeared at the top of the ladder as the front door flew open.
Their mother stood in the opening, red-faced and glaring, with a long, wooden spoon clutched in her fist. “Where have you been? And what did you do?” She thrust the spoon toward Ash’s bloody leg.
Ash and Rae shared a glance.
Rae set the tangle of nets, including the fish, beside Ash. “I’m sure you saw the Faceless were in town…”
Their mother scowled. “So you thought you could just disappear for the whole afternoon while I slave away here? Talon, grant me strength because the two of you will see me dead.”
She stormed back through the doorway into the kitchen beyond.
Rae helped Ash inside. Their father sat in a chair by the window, staring out at the setting sun just visible above the twisted trees. He didn’t look at them, but his knuckles shone white where they clenched his knees.
Ash bit his lip. He knew it was no good arguing with his mother, but doing nothing was almost as hard.
Their mother slashed the spoon through the air. “It’s punishment from the Nameless One. If your useless, cowardly father had killed you like he was supposed to, none of this would have happened! I’d be living in a nice house, people would talk to me, and my real children wouldn’t disappear for whole afternoons!”
Their father stood and strode for the door.
“There he goes! The greatest coward that ever lived!” Their mother’s screeching voice escaped into the evening after their father’s retreating back.
Rae pulled the door closed with a soft click.
“And what’s your excuse for that?” Their mother gestured again at Ash’s leg.
“Swamp lizard. Can’t you see he needs a healer?” Rae said.
“Are you an idiot, girl?” their mother said. “Call a healer here now? The first thing she’ll ask is where you were, and don’t you think she’ll get suspicious when she finds out you went to the outer swamps just as the Faceless arrived?”
Ash squeezed his eyes closed and let himself fall into the nearest chair before he collapsed to the floor.
“He needs something or he’ll die of blood loss.”
“That would solve some of my problems.”
“Mother! Ash needs—”
“A good beating! Bring me the Book of Truth. One more word out of you and I’ll knock out every tooth you have!”
Rae went to the lone shelf that hung crooked against the wall. A single book lay on it with a rough leather case and musty yellow pages.
“Page four hundred,” their mother said.
Rae clutched the book to her chest. “And so the twins—”
“No! You nasty, spiteful girl; always showing off. Read it from the book, not from your wretched, unnatural head!”
Rae sighed, laid the book on the table, and heaved it open. The pages fluttered as she skimmed through the scriptures to the right page.
“Go on then.”
“… and so the twins Ovo and Ava wrought such destruction on the world that from that day forward any two matching items or people are forbidden. It is the duty of the Faceless Monks to uphold this law and to ensure—”
“That all twins are killed at birth.” Their mother glared at Ash and Rae as if she expected them to drop dead right on the kitchen floor.
Ash leaned against the table, sure that he wasn’t far from it. He wanted to reach out and strangle his mother; he and Rae couldn’t help that they were born together and yet it had defined every second of their lives.
“Bed. No dinner. I can’t even stand to look at you a second longer.” Their mother turned to the fire where a bubbling pot gave off unpleasant smells of too-old meat and rotting vegetation.
“But he needs—”
Their mother rounded on Rae. “You want to save his miserable life? Then you can do it yourself.” Their mother strode into the next room and returned with a tattered book with a symbol on its spine, a circle with two lines through it. “Here!”
She hurled it at Rae. The pages fluttered and tore as it fell through the air into Rae’s unprepared hands. The sound of tearing pages filled the small room. Their mother scowled. “Haven’t had it two seconds and you’re already breaking it! If it weren’t for you two miserable children I would have been a great healer. People would have respected me. Now…”
Rae hooked her spare arm under Ash’s and dragged him into the small cupboard-like space that served as their room. “That could have gone better.”
4
Rae eased the door shut behind them while Ash lit a short candle that gave off tendrils of black smoke and a dull flickering light. The orange glow bounced off of rough, wooden walls, stained black at the top where wet and rot snaked down from the broken roof. The smell of mold filled the tight space like a physical presence that surrounded the twins.
Ash eased himself down onto a thin mattress that barely separated him from the hard, wooden floorboards. Some black thing with too many legs scurried out from beneath the mattress and disappeared into a hole in the wall.
He hung his pounding head and tried to focus on the spinning floor. Quiet rage bubbled inside him, as useless as it had ever been.
Rae sat beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Look on the bright side; at least we got a book out of it.”
She placed the book on the floor and flicked through the yellowed sheets. Pictures of plants and people filled the pages alongside scribbled notes and recipes.
“Does it tell you how to fix my leg?” Ash said.
Rae turned back to the front where a list of contents took up four whole pages. She ran her finger down the maladies, coming to a stop on Animal Bite. She turned to the relevant page and her eyes scanned down the text. Ash tried to read along but the words kept jumping and spinning, making his stomach turn. He settled with glaring at the floor.
“It’s got some herbs for pain. Of cours
e we don’t have any of them.”
“Of course.”
“I can stitch it up, at least that will stop some of the bleeding.”
“Sounds painful.”
Rae nodded. “But first, Eucyl oil.” She took a vial from her pocket and dribbled it over Ash’s leg.
It washed away the blood but burned the deep gashes like hot flames. Ash gasped and clutched his thigh as stars flashed across his vision.
“Sorry,” Rae said, teeth clenched. “According to the book it stops infection.”
Ash didn’t trust himself to reply.
Rae put the vial back and reached into the small box that held all of their belongings; an old toy soldier they’d found washed up from the swamp, a small knife just big enough for cutting vegetables, and one change of clothes each. From the bottom she pulled out a needle and thread. She held the needle over the flame for a few moments until it glowed red.
“Are you ready?”
“No,” Ash said, squeezing his eyes shut and tensing his shoulders.
A sharp pain stung his calf and tugged at the loose skin surrounding the wound. He winced and clutched the edge of his thin mattress.
“Trust me, it’s harder from this end,” Rae said.
A second sharp sting accompanied a pulling sensation as his skin was drawn together.
Eight stabbing pains later, Rae tied off the string and returned the needle to their box.
“Done.”
Ash opened his eyes and reached a hand to his leg. A bumpy ridge ran up his calf.
Rae laid her hand on the book. “There are some plants in here that I’ve seen before. We can get them tomorrow to help with the pain and stop infection.”
Ash nodded. The throb in his leg dropped to a dull ache and the walls stopped spinning.
“It’s not pretty,” Rae said. “Of course Healer Malina would have done better.”
Ash snorted and eased himself back so that his spine rested against the wooden walls of their small room. He pulled the tattered blanket from his bed and wrapped it over his chest; it did little to stop the nighttime chill. “Mother wouldn’t call Healer Malina here to help us even if we were about to die.”
Rae sighed and returned to reading the healing book. “I know.”
“They’d probably be happy if we did die; both her and Mother.”
Rae nodded.
“We could run away tonight,” Ash said. He watched Rae’s face for any reaction but it remained an impassive mask.
If only she said yes; they’d take everything they could carry from the pantry and leave. They’d see the southern mountains and the ocean; some people said it stretched as far as you could see in all directions, but Ash wasn’t sure he believed that.
Rae snorted. “Not with that leg we can’t. Now come on, we could become master healers and put Malina out of a job.”
Ash rolled his eyes; no one in the village would come to him and Rae for healing, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to learn what the book had to offer.
He huddled closer to Rae and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. The small candle gave off only a tiny glow of heat that did nothing to stop the frosty cold. Their breaths created white clouds in the air. Ash hated Wichden; during the day, heat seared his flesh, and at night, biting cold threatened to take his toes by frostbite.
Rae opened the book and tilted it so it caught the candlelight.
They read together until raised voices sounded from the kitchen and took their attention from the section titled Infections.
“Where have you been?” Their mother’s voice filled the small home like a wailing demon.
“Fishing,” their father replied, voice flat.
“Right. And I was having tea with Lady Aldoak. You leave me here with those devil children while you’re off doing Talon-knows-what. I’m your wife! I’m the head of this household, and you will not walk out on me again.”
Their father said something they couldn’t quite hear and a slap rang through the hut.
Rae and Ash winced and huddled closer together. Ash knew that sound all too well; he’d been on the receiving end of his mother’s wooden spoon on more occasions than he liked to remember.
More words were followed by another slap, louder than the first. Ash could almost feel the sting of the wooden implement on his cheek. His father would have dark bruises by morning. A scuffle, and then the sound of a wooden chair hitting the floorboards made both of them jump.
“Let go of me!”
“I curse the day I ever married you, wretched woman,” their father said.
“The feeling’s mutual, you cowardly son-of-a-bitch.”
“If you ever hit me again, I’ll do the same to you.”
Their mother cackled. “You wouldn’t dare. I’d have you thrown in lockup faster than you could lift your hand.”
“Lockup would be better than being trapped here with you.” Their father’s heavy footsteps stomped across the floor, and the front door slammed shut.
Their mother cursed and swore… then came the sound of glass bottles clinking.
Ash swallowed and forced his attention back to the book. “Methods for preventing infection,” he read aloud.
Half an hour later, a ragged snore replaced the cursing and chinking glass.
Ash let his shoulders relax. They were safe, at least until morning when their hungover mother would stagger in and probably kick them awake. Still, that was better than her drunken beatings.
At the end of the last page, Rae snapped the book shut and turned, grinning, to Ash. “A test?”
Ash smiled and thoughts of his mother fled his mind. “A test.”
Rae bit her lip. “All right. Blacksmith Bingam— oh.”
“Not much we can do for him now.”
“No. I suppose not. Okay, Graham has a hacking cough and trouble breathing. What—?”
Ash visualized the pages, turning back to Coughs, and reading down the page of notes. “Easy. He’s inhaled too many fumes. I’d tell him to stay away from the forge for a couple of days and have some camphor tea.”
“I started with an easy one; your turn.”
“Okay, Annalise Baker is covered in red, itchy spots and has a high fever.”
“She’s got Meadowflu, give her some red mint root and send her home to rest.”
Ash nodded and shifted his weight. The thin mattress did nothing to soften the hard floor beneath him and his back ached. He pushed the thoughts away, if he were going to beat Rae in a battle of the minds then he needed his full attention.
“Healer Malina has a red rash on her neck and blackened fingernails,” Rae said.
“Butterflower seed. Little Johnny has stinging pain on his hands and legs.” Ash barely paused to think, Rae was picking easy ones; she was more tired than she looked.
“He went into the nettles again. Make up a paste of lemon root,” Rae said. “Healer Malina keeps vomiting.”
“Probably food poisoning. Give her some Willowsprout to calm her stomach.”
As soon as the words left Ash’s mouth he wanted to rip them back. Rae’s grin widened and a mischievous glint danced in her eyes.
Ash smacked his forehead.
“But you just gave her Butterflower seed,” Rae said in a sweet tone. “The side-effects of Willowsprout and Butterflower together—”
“You cheated! That doesn’t count.” Ash’s chest burned. It wasn’t fair; Rae had taken advantage of him being injured.
“Ash—”
“I didn’t know you were going to connect them all. It doesn’t count!” Ash’s hands clenched into fists.
“Butterflower and Willowsprout together will make her bleed from her eyeballs and die painfully.”
“Maybe that was the effect I was going for!”
Rae patted his shoulder. “Don’t feel too bad, I would have said the same thing.”
Rae’s hand on Ash’s shoulder chased away some of his rage and he let out a deep breath. “You lulled me into a false sens
e of security.”
Rae winked and crawled to her own bed. “I’m just looking out for the poor citizens of Wichden.”
Ash chuckled and tucked the book against the wall where their mother wouldn’t see it. Hopefully she’d forget she’d given it to them and not take it back. “Next time, I’ll win.”
“We’ll see. Although you may want to do some revision before then.” She got up on one elbow and blew out their flickering candle.
Ash groaned. Until he beat Rae, she’d never let it go.
He lay on his back, and stared out through the hole in their ceiling; he could just make out a spattering of stars. He closed his eyes and mentally turned to the first page of the healing book, running through each note and memorizing them. There was no way he’d let Rae beat him a second time; she wasn’t the only one who could be tricky.
His throbbing leg kept him awake for another hour, but the rage had subsided. Rae always managed to calm him down and show him the better side of life. He smiled as he drifted into a sleep filled with plants and remedies.
5
A sudden cramping pain in Ash’s stomach wrenched him awake and he gasped for breath with winded lungs. He curled into a ball and wrapped his arms over his head.
“Get up, you wretched vermin!” His mother landed another solid kick to Ash’s side.
Ash scrambled to his feet and pressed his back against the far wall. Rae was already there, her hair tussled. The wood against Ash’s back left a chill along his spine and scratched him with splinters. The pale light of early dawn leaked through the hole in the roof and bathed their room in pink tones.
Their mother looked like a demon from the Book of Truth. Her bloodshot eyes squinted at them from beneath a tangled web of black hair and her lips pulled back from her teeth in a silent snarl.
“Just because it’s the Day of Talon doesn’t mean you can laze about! We’ve got to be at the temple by midmorning, and you two have got a lot to do by then.”
She staggered away from the door and back into the kitchen. The crumpled dress she’d been wearing the day before sported patches of dirt and spilled drink, and she left a trailing stench of sweat and vomit.
Shadow of a Slave (The Blood Mage Chronicles Book 1) Page 2