Curse: The Dark God Book 2

by John D. Brown

“No pricking, no fear?”

  “No,” she said a bit confused.

  Urban nodded. “Do you know what it is?”

  She said nothing.

  He shook his head in disapproval. “Sometimes I wonder about the Grove here.”

  “They’ve been good to me,” said Sugar.

  “I do not doubt their intentions,” said Urban. “But their methods, well, that’s something we can discuss later. Right now we need to get you back. You’ve got a lot of people worried.”

  Behind them in the main room another soldier shouted. “Gods!” he said. “Urban!”

  Urban turned and hurried back down the short hallway. Another one of his crew held the door of the main bedroom open with the tip of his sword. “They’re like leeches.”

  Sugar picked up her sack and followed to get a view. A man with dirty feet lay on the floor in the room. He was naked except for his small clothes. All about him, lined up like suckling pigs, were a dozen grotesque creatures. Some were the size of rats, others as long as his arm. All of them looked starved. They were knobby and twisted, the color of pale driftwood. Their many fingers, as thin and spidery as the roots of a tree, grasped their prey. They were attached to his thighs, his stomach. One at his neck. The mass of them moved and undulated in the dim light, sucking the Fire from him.

  “Frights,” Sugar said.

  One of the things turned and looked up at her with one cancerous eye. Then the man on the floor opened his mouth and gasped.

  “Godsweed,” Urban said. “Fetch the godsweed!”

  The soldier ran out and came back moments later with a braid of godsweed, then took it to the hearth. He lit the braid in the embers of the dying fire, then brought it to Urban who took the smoking knot from him and walked into the room.

  Frights were creatures not wholly of the world of flesh. They fed on Fire, and so it was common to find them lurking about the sick and dying. They haunted battlefields. For reasons unknown to Sugar, when feeding they sometimes became visible to the naked eye. It was said they could kill a man, but there was one thing they didn’t like.

  Urban waved the smoking braid, spreading the sweet godsweed smoke about, poking the braids at the creatures. The frights began to become agitated. One struck at Urban. The soldier brought another smoking braid and waved it about. Urban waved his braid closer to the frights. Then one of the smaller frights detached from the man and fled out the window.

  Urban and his man continued to wave the smoking braids about. As the smoke in the room thickened, a number of the other frights detached. Then they all fled out of the room, some disappearing through the window. One of the bigger ones charged between Sugar’s legs and out into the common area.

  Sugar yelped and danced aside.

  “Creator’s love,” the big one cursed. “The filthy beasts.”

  Urban walked over to look down at the dying man. He was glassy-eyed and drooling. Urban bent down and took the man by the face. “Zu, what’s going on here?” he asked the man. “What happened?” But the man didn’t respond. It was clear he wasn’t long for this world.

  Another one of Urban’s crew entered the house. “Urban,” he said. “We’ve found the bulk of the villagers.”

  Urban gave orders to keep the room smoked and wait to see if the man revived. Then he followed the other crew member out. Sugar, not wanting to stay another moment in the house, joined them.

  They found the villagers lying at the edge of a cherry orchard by the remains of a bonfire. There were sixty-three in all, men, women, and children. The bodies were crawling with frights.

  Like the others, these villagers showed no marks that would indicate how they’d died. There were a lot of footprints, but nothing special.

  Another one of Urban’s men called out. He was crossing the road, carrying a girl and a boy in his arms. He was followed by another man carrying a second boy. All three were alive. None of the children looked older than seven or eight years. Their eyes shone with weary shock.

  “We opened the hay door to let some light in a barn, and there they were, three little owls lined up in a cubby.”

  Urban addressed the oldest boy. “What’s your name, son?”

  The boy did not speak, just looked at the dead bodies arrayed before him, dismay filling his face.

  “It’s all right. We’ll protect you.”

  Sugar stroked the girl’s hair. “Where’s your mother, Sweet?”

  The little girl’s face broke into tears. Then she leaned forward, holding her arms out.

  She was Fir-Noy, but it didn’t matter. “Come here, Precious,” Sugar said and took her. She clung to Sugar, heavy and solid as a little stone.

  “It’s okay,” Sugar said and stroked her hair.

  The girl buried her face in Sugar’s chest and panted like she would cry at any moment, but she didn’t cry. She just kept panting.

  “Boys,” Urban said to her brothers. “We need to know what happened here.”

  The older boy closed his eyes, his face scrunching up in pain.

  “The woods filled up with darkness,” the smaller boy said. “Da came running, and a man yelled, and the whole wood was breathing. And mother ran with us to the barn and told us to hide. But when we got to the cubby mother was gone.” His lip began to quiver and he stopped, the horror of that moment filling his eyes.

  The older boy finished the thought. “They took her to the horned evil in the smoke.”

  10

  Grass

  ON A HILL a few miles from the Fir-Noy fortress of Blue Towers, Berosus squatted next to the body of the young woman that had been with the Mungonite priest. She was a thing of beauty: dark hair, stunning jade eyes, and clear skin the color of caramel. But her body was merely a husk now because Berosus had removed the vast majority of her soul in preparation for the harvest.

  The remnant soul which lingered within might live on for a few days, maybe even a few weeks, but there was no point in allowing that to occur. The body would seek the familiar; it would walk back to some place it mistook for its home, go about its old habits. Maybe it would sit in a favorite chair, eat a piece of bread or go through the motions of drawing water. It wouldn’t respond to the conversations of those about her, or their later pleadings. Nor would it be able to resist the frights and other creatures from the world of the dead. Eventually it would succumb to them.

  But Berosus did not want to think of her that way. Such an untidy end would spoil this moment. So he killed the young woman’s body with a sharp twist to the neck and laid it down upon the dried autumn grass at his feet.

  The captain of Berosus’s guard had brought a small meal, and Berosus picked up a salted herring from the cloth spread upon the grass and took a bite. “Life is meant to be lived consciously,” Berosus said, “deliberately.”

  “Yes, Bright One,” the dreadmen said.

  Berosus ran a handful of the female’s luxurious dark hair through his fingers. He traced her brow and the ridge of her cheek bone, the delicate curve of her lips. She was so beautiful in her repose. As graceful and sensuous as the rich petals of an iris.

  “Every day a banquet is spread, Captain. And if you’re not careful, you’ll miss it.” Berosus disdained the Divines who sent others to do their work. Life was full of gifts, full of opportunities such as these. And every day they missed it. In their excess they thought they lived more, but in reality their excess constrained them like blinders upon a horse.

  He took another bite of herring.

  The captain said, “This fledgling Glory, do you want him alive or dead?”

  Berosus ignored him. The breeze blew gentle waves through the dry meadow grass about the girl. The heads of the grass nodded to and fro, as if reaching out to touch her.

  He contemplated her a moment more and picked up the rough, black gloryhorn where the essential parts of the girl’s soul
still lived on and put it in its sack.

  The gloryhorn was the weave he would use to call the souls, including those that had escaped during the time this land lacked a Divine. He could have used anyone’s soul to quicken it, but it pleased him to think of the girl in there, for every time he saw the horn, he would also think of her, this hill, and the grass rippling in the breeze. Sooner or later the soul in the horn would degrade, and he’d have to find another. Until then, he would relive this moment of beauty, this reminder of the fierce, short fire of life.

  Humans were grass—designed by the Creators to feed greater beings. It made no sense for grass to spend its days complaining about its lot. It made no sense to think about the dark when the sun was shining. Better to spend your days reveling in the feel of the wind and the sun and your roots growing deep.

  And yet, there were some who were spared, by the grace of the Mothers, to live on. For whom death wasn’t the end. He might become one of those. Then again, he might not. Other Divines soured the moments of their lives, jockeying for position and approbation. But he’d learned long ago that was fruitless. The Sublime Mothers graced who they would with a long life in the world of souls for their own reasons. And even those souls did not live forever.

  He finished the herring and sucked his two fingers clean. The dreadman captain stood silently waiting for his answer. He was a good man. One of the best. But he too one day would be grass. And another would grow up in his stead.

  In the distance, the blue towers of the Fir-Noy fortress rose above the trees. Berosus looked out at the towers and said, “The fledgling Glory is a holy thing, Captain. And useful. We would not want to lose the part of the Mother that quickened him. Take him alive. We’ll find out who fashioned him soon enough. And the Sublime Mother of Mokad will be pleased. If nothing else, she’ll feed upon him. And Her Exquisiteness shall add to herself the power placed in him. She will smile upon us. You have felt her approbation?”

  “One glorious time,” said the Captain.

  “Do well, and you shall feel it again.”

  “It shall be done, Bright One.”

  Berosus looked down upon the body of the girl. She had solid bone structure, wide hips for bearing children, a full set of teeth. She was good stock. She would have grown up to bear many fine children and increase the herd. She would have provided many souls as meat for the Mothers.

  “I need to get back to the traitors,” he said. “Be ready.”

  “Yes, Bright One.”

  Another of his dreadmen came up the hill. “We have a report, Bright One.”

  The wind gusted about the hill. Above them two red-tailed hawks circled. Berosus waited for the dreadman to continue.

  “There is an upland village called Redthorn. One of the sleth fled through that village earlier this morning. All of the inhabitants there are dead, including many animals and livestock.”

  Berosus shrugged. This was not news. One or two dreadmen, of sleth or Divine making, could easily kill any number of unorganized villagers.

  “I sent men,” the captain continued. “They say the frights are feeding, thick as fleas. There was no sign of struggle, but there was a living blackness, a wisp of mist. It lay upon the floor of a barn. When they opened the door, it attacked one of the men.”

  Berosus looked over at the captain. “A mist?”

  “That is their report, Holy One.”

  He narrowed his eyes. These sleth were turning out to be more formidable than he thought. How delightful. After all these years, had he found a true sleth challenge? “I want to see the bodies,” he said. “I want to see the ground.”

  * * *

  A few hours later Berosus stood before a pile of bodies that lay in front of an orchard of the village of Redthorn. A hammer of dreadmen had spread out in a perimeter around him. The rest of the hundred he’d brought with him were stationed back at the Fir-Noy fortress of Blue Towers. More were coming on the ships that should arrive in just a few days along with thousands of troops from Mokad and three other Glorydoms. His Skir Masters, who were going to be necessary both for the fighting and the harvests, would arrive with that armada as well.

  He bent down to the body of a dead woman. She was older, short, her hair beginning to streak with gray. There were no wounds upon her. No blackening of the skin around her neck or wrists that would indicate a Fire harvest. He cut open her tunic with his knife. The skin was clear, but there was a bruising that spread over her chest.

  He leaned in. Sniffed. There was something here. He’d smelled it when he’d first gotten close to the village. He leaned in closer and sniffed again.

  Magic. Old magic. Something about it tugged on his mind, but the memories were so old they had fallen to dust.

  Berosus stood and surveyed the stiffened bodies about him.

  “What is this?” the captain of his dreadmen asked.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. But it was powerful. He could feel it in his bones.

  “It’s a Fir-Noy village. Do you think Shim’s sleth drained them to fill their weaves?”

  “I think we’ll find out many things when we take the boy.”

  11

  Lust

  TALEN WALKED THE PARAPETS of Rogum’s Defense with Legs, watching for Sugar, until the captain of the guard told him if he was going to just walk around, he might as well be useful and help move some builder’s lime up for repairs. Workers sat on platforms that hung down the length of three towers, sealing gaps in the mortar and limewashing the wall.

  Talen helped work a crane atop one tower to haul two barrels of lime up. When he finished, there was still no sign of Sugar. The mistress over the washerwomen saw him at the well rinsing the lime powder off his arms and told him some nannies needed milking.

  The Mistress was not someone you said no to, and he needed to divert his thoughts, so after washing, he went to the pens. Legs decided to stay by the inner gate and wait.

  The goat pens were located on the north side of the outer bailey. In the early morning, those tasked with herding the goats would take them out to the pastures surrounding the fortress and bring them back in the afternoon. Only about a dozen goats were in the pens now, and it was easy to see which nannies needed to be milked. He opened the gate and walked through the wattle fence. The brown and white goats milled about him, and the smell of their Fire and souls called to him.

  He groaned inside.

  The Mistress carried in a bucket of feed for the chickens and saw him standing there. “You actually get down and squeeze it out,” she said and made the motions with her hands. “It’s called milking.”

  “Maybe you should demonstrate?” Talen asked.

  The Mistress rolled her eyes. “Take it into the kitchens when you’re done.”

  Talen faced the goats again. He wasn’t going to let this craving get the best of him, so he rolled up his sleeves and selected a nanny whose bag was so full it was almost half as big as she was and led her over to the stand. The milking stand looked like a rectangular table that stood about a foot off the ground. It was a little longer and wider than a goat. At one end was the head gate that consisted of two vertical boards with a narrow hole in the middle big enough to comfortably fit a goat’s neck. He moved one board of the head gate to the left, tempted the nanny with a bit of grain to stick her head between the two boards, and then he move the board back and locked her in. He gave her the grain, then took the leather hobble strap hanging on the board, brought the strap around her back legs just above the hocks, and cinched it up nice and tight so it squeezed the ligaments. When he was satisfied she was secure and wouldn’t kick, he fetched a bucket of water and a cloth.

  In a neighboring pen, the kid goats gamboled about a tree stump. In this one, another nanny came up and gave him the eye. Her Fire smelled delicious, but he waved her off. “Be gone,” he said.

  The goat regarded him.
>
  “Shoo.”

  The goat tilted its head and watched him like an old wife watches someone new to the task.

  “Fine,” Talen said and turned to the nanny on the stand. He mustered his courage, sat on the stool, and began to wash the nanny’s somewhat hairy udder with a cloth. As soon as he touched her, the smell of Fire and soul doubled. And by the blasted Creators, he wanted it.

  The first three squirts of milk from each teat went into a cup. He looked for abnormalities such as clots or blood. When he didn’t find any, he brought the wooden bucket around and went at it, the warm milk squirting into the bottom. She bleated. He cursed. And every second his hunger grew.

  Then next nanny hopped right up onto the table. He secured her and went through the whole process again. By the time he finished the third goat, he was beyond frustration. His hunger consumed him, and he had to concentrate like a mad tallystick man to simply get the job done.

  He put the lids on the two buckets and hauled a good six quarts of milk back to the inner bailey, passing Legs who was still standing at the gate, which meant Sugar still hadn’t returned. He was now truly worried for her. He went to the kitchens, set the buckets down where the cook directed him to, and walked back out into the bailey.

  Regret’s eyes, but this wasn’t right. Sugar missing, and him with these blasted desires for men, horses, and goats—it angered him!

  Why had Tenter singled him out? Probably for the same reason the Mother had singled him out down in the caves. He was different, maturing differently than others who had been awakened to their powers. Bred to be that way. Isn’t that what the Devourer had said?

  I will not become a villain, he told himself. I will not!

  But he’d felt the power of the Devourer—whatever sort of creature she was—down in the stone-wight warren. She’d been stunning, an object he’d wanted to worship. He didn’t want to become a villain, but what if he couldn’t help himself? What if that’s just what he was?

  He saw Scruff, River’s new horse, tied up outside the smithy, waiting to be shod. Ke had been taking him out on patrol, working with him, which meant Talen had been so flustered with the goats, he’d not even noticed Ke had ridden in.