He checked River’s lashings to make sure they were not too loose or tight, then climbed the hill on this side, crested, and dropped down into the hollow on the other side. When they reached the bottom, River pointed the direction they should go.
Talen didn’t think she had much time left, and he began to run along an animal trail under the drenched canopy of trees. The storm rumbled overhead, darkening the sky. The rain was falling hard, erasing any tracks they left. He thanked the Six for the cover, even if it was cold.
They followed the folds of the hills and hollows, twisting and turning, and he soon realized why people entered this place and never found their way out again. He counted the cutoffs and then couldn’t remember if he’d counted five or six. Or was he at seven? Had he missed the cutoff entirely? Then he saw a break in the trees up one rocky slope and the large formation that looked like a rabbit’s head.
This was it. “We’re almost there,” He said. “Hold on.” He turned up the hollow. A creek ran noisily down the middle. Talen hurried along a thin trail that ran alongside it.
The rain lessened and then stopped, even though water still dropped from the leaves. He led Scruff along a trail at the bottom of a hollow that ended in a bowl. Harnock’s vale was just on the other side of one of the slopes, but without the sun, he couldn’t tell his directions. But even if he could, he’d forgotten which way River had said to go.
“River,” he said. He turned and found her leaning back, her arms limp at her side. Her hood had fallen back, exposing her face to the sky. She sat like someone petitioning the clouds, her face upturned, her open mouth collecting the rain.
“River!” he repeated and grabbed her hand.
She did not respond.
Scruff blew out in weariness and shifted his weight. River sagged to one side and would have fallen if not for his lashings.
“Lords, no,” he said, and righted her. He patted her hand, slapped her face. No response. He felt for a pulse in her hand and found only the faintest beat.
Which direction had she told him to go? Had she said left? He couldn’t see any sign of a trail that might tell him which slope to choose. He dithered for a moment, then decided it didn’t matter which slope he chose. If necessary, he would try them all.
The low cloud ceiling was beginning to rise, and he knew he had to find Harnock before those crows began to fly. He followed an animal path up a slope, scrabbled over the ridge at the top, and found a narrow hollow below, but River had said Harnock lived in a wide vale.
He didn’t panic. Instead, he stayed on top of the ridge and circled around, trying to keep the low branches from whipping River. When he’d gone a good way around, the trees parted and revealed a wide meadow in the vale below.
This had to be Harnock’s. He knew there was a place where he was supposed to stand and call out his desire to visit, but had no idea where that was and knew River couldn’t wait. So he skirted a cliff and descended the slope, calling Harnock’s name as he went. When he got to the bottom, he began to alternate the calls with loud whistles.
He broke from the trees into the meadow he’d seen from above. A well worn path cut through the waist-high grass and his spirits soared. This had to be the right vale, which meant Harnock’s house would be somewhere up ahead.
“Harnock!” he called and entered the path. The grass here was lush, perfect for grazing livestock. Harnock’s home was probably down the vale a bit, maybe behind the trees a few hundred yards ahead.
Still holding the reins, Talen picked up his speed. Scruff broke into a fast trot behind him. River didn’t sit the bouncing well, but his lashes held her on.
He followed the smooth trail for a hundred yards, running with the speed of his Fire. Then the trail took a tight turn, and Talen stumbled into a burrow six feet across. Scruff stumbled in after him and knocked him flat on his face partway down the gaping hole.
Scruff nickered and climbed out, River sagging to one side in the saddle. Talen raised up on his hands and knees and wiped mud from his face.
The burrow’s run was well-worn and smooth, angling gently downward into blackness. Whatever lived here was large. Fear washed over him. An odd odor rose from the depths. It was sharp, almost like vinegar, almost—
Wurm scent! He’d stumbled into a wurm hole.
He scrambled out of the hole in a panic. Two paths led away from this burrow. Another smaller burrow sank into the ground only a half dozen yards away.Beyond it was another, and another.
Wurms lived in colonies. He hadn’t run out into a grazing meadow, but a wurm field. Furthermore, he wasn’t at its edge. He was inside the outer ring.
A deer or wild goat would see the grass of this meadow and be unable to resist coming down to take a bite. And when enough had come, the wurms would rise and devour them. It was said that wurms waited underground, listening. And all this time he’d been whistling and hollering with Scruff clomping behind. His mouth went dry.
He had to get out. There was no way to muffle the thuds of Scruff’s hooves. They were going to have to run for it. He turned to flee back the way he’d come, but a dark figure on horseback emerged at the edge of the woods there. A black and brown dog was with him. It padded forward to sniff about the edge of the tall grass. A hooded crow flew low over the field and cawed. Then it turned and swooped over to light on the man’s shoulder.
The man wore high leather riding boots, a dark padded tunic, and a sword. His hair was cropped short. His face had a long scar running down one side. Moments later riders filtered out of the trees behind him.
Talen looked at the Mokaddian dreadmen. How had they found him? The rain had been so intense it would have quickly covered any tracks they would have made. Then he looked at that dog. His mind shot back to the shape he’d seen on the slope behind him after he’d crossed the marsh and lazy river. It had been the dog flashing through the trees, not some woodikin or badger.
“Holy One,” the lead dreadman called across the meadow. “It’s useless to run.”
Maybe, but if these greasy whoresons wanted him, they would have to catch him. He grabbed the saddle and swung up behind River. It was awkward, holding the reins from behind.
“Holy One, come out of there.”
“Better the wurms than you!” Talen called back and dug his heels into Scruff’s flanks. The stallion surged forward, springing past the large wurm burrow and deeper into the field.
From his height atop Scruff, the crisscrossed wurm trails were now easy to see. What a fool he’d been. He urged Scruff faster.
Behind him the lead dreadman kicked his horse and galloped forward. The crow sprang to the air. The dog barked and shot out ahead. Some of the dreadmen skirted the meadow on the near side. The rest followed their leader into the tall grass.
The wurms would be listening below. And what they’d hear was one lone horse running out front and a number behind. Talen hoped they were greedy.
Scruff leapt over a wurm burrow and just about unseated Talen, but he righted himself and tightened his grip with his thighs. They galloped for a number of yards, but a thick clump of burrows lay up ahead. So Talen pulled the reins and turned Scruff off the path into the grass. He pointed Scruff for the far side of the meadow.
River, unable to support herself, bounced to the side. Talen tried to hold onto her and the reins and keep himself from falling off, but it was a mad juggle, and he had to slow to right her. He glanced back.The lead dreadmen was closing the distance, his face hard as stone.
Suddenly a low sound began to rise about the meadow. Low like the wind, moaning through the trees, except there were no trees out here. He turned his head; the sound was coming from in front of him. He changed course. A few moments later the sound rose in front of him again.
His first impulse was to turn yet again, but perhaps that’s exactly what the wurms wanted. It was said that wurms liked to confuse and surround th
eir prey. Maybe this was how they tricked their prey into running around in circles. He held his course, urged Scruff on, straight toward the sound.
Off to Talen’s right, something large moved through the tall grass. Ahead lay a cluster of three wurm holes. The grass around them had been beaten low. If he could get past them, he’d have a clear shot to the edge of the meadow.
The odd moaning of the wind about the field grew. “Come on,” Talen said and urged Scruff faster. But then Scruff’s ears pricked forward and to the side, and he balked. Came to a complete halt.
A moment later a wurm shot out of a hole in front of them and rose twelve feet into the air, the rest of its long length disappearing down its hole. The wurm was as thick as Talen’s leg with wrinkled gray skin. The head was shaggy, not with hair, but odd growths of skin. Its eyes were small and ugly like a salamander’s.
Scruff whinnied in fright, jerked to the side, throwing Talen. He landed with a thud in the grass just a few feet in front of the wurm. Talen scrambled to his feet, the sharp tang of the creature filling his nostrils.
The wurm pulled back to strike, opened its mouth full of short sharp teeth.
Scruff ran wildly toward the edge of the field, River jerking on his back. Talen, filled with Fire, shot out after them.
But the wurm was surprisingly fast. It struck, slamming him with the side of its head, and knocked him down. Talen rolled away, sprang to his feet, shot forward. The wurm slammed him again, this time with much more force, disorienting him. Talen sprawled to the ground, stunned.
The wurm pulled back, opened its mouth.
At that moment the dreadman with the scar rode up at a full gallop and hurled himself from the saddle, sword flashing. He struck the wurm and sliced deep.
The wurm pulled back in pain and rent the air with an ear-splitting bellow.
The dreadman landed in the tall grass, rolled, and charged back, sword ready. This time when he swung, he almost cleaved the wurm in two. Blood pumped out in a huge arc, bone popped, and then the severed portion toppled heavily to the tall grass.
All about the field a clamor arose as if they’d awakened all of Regret’s foul minions. Wurms of various sizes rose out of a multitude of holes.
One struck a dreadmen, pulling him from his saddle. Another one attacked the scarred dreadman’s horse, biting into its throat. Someone shot an arrow into the wurm’s body. It trumpeted in pain and turned to face the threat.
Talen sprinted after Scruff and River only to find another beast rising in front of him. Then another dreadman rode up behind Talen, grabbed him by the back of his tunic, and lifted him up, laying him across the withers in front of the saddle. They raced past the wurm for the slope ahead.
Behind them the field of tall grass writhed. Dreadmen fought and ducked. A monstrous wurm as big around as a cow slammed its head into the rump of a horse and sent both horse and rider sprawling.
The scarred dreadman and the others that had not been trapped by the wurms galloped for the edge of the field. A horse tried to dart through a gap between two creatures, but the wurm closest to it struck, biting deep into the horse’s leg. Another dreadman on foot turned to defend himself, but a smaller creature struck at him, bit into his arm, and yanked him to the ground.
Talen and the dreadman thundered past the edge of the field and began to climb up the slope above the vale. Below them the black and brown dog broke from the grass and ran up the hill, followed by the scarred leader running with multiplied speed. In the field, the wurms converged on the horses and men they’d caught and injured.
Talen’s heart was pounding. He was not going to be captured by these men. And where was River? He looked about and didn’t see her. Lords, was she still back on that field?
He pushed off the horse, stumbled and crashed into the ground, but then he was up and began to sprint away. But the dreadman who had lifted him onto the horse flew from the saddle and bore him to the ground.
Talen drew his knife, but the dreadman knocked it away. Talen swung his elbow back into the man’s jaw, tried to twist free, but the dreadman was too fast. He wrapped around Talen like a snake and held him fast.
Moments later the scarred dreadman caught up. He slid something cool around Talen’s neck. When he snapped the clasp shut, something slipped inside—his grip on his Fire weakened. And then it was like trying to hold a fish with frozen hands, and it was gone.
Talen bucked and fought, but the vigor in his limbs leaked away.
The scarred dreadman bound Talen’s hands, then rolled him over. “Now, Holy One,” he said, “we will take you to your master.”
He reached out to pull Talen up, and Talen got a good look at the honors on the man’s hands. He wasn’t merely a dreadman.
“Filth!” Talen spat.
“Holy One—”
“I’m not your holy anything,” Talen said. “I do not betray my own kind and serve them up on platters.”
“Sooner or later, we are all meat,” the scarred Divine said. “It is the order of creation.”
Another one of the men rode up leading Scruff along by his reins. River was still lashed to the saddle.
Below them the wurms in the field moaned and sighed like the wind. A smaller one broke from the grass and began to slither up the slope.
“We’re not out of this yet,” the Divine said. “Move.”
* * *
About a mile from the wurm field they stopped in a piney wood. Talen had been put up on a horse with one of the dreadmen riders. The scarred Divine, his horse dead on the field, had been running. He now walked over to Scruff and began to cut River free.
“We need to get her some help,” Talen said.
“We do not have time to bear the dead,” said the Divine. “She will not last the hour. Your sister’s soul will be free. You should rejoice in her good fortune.” He removed the lashing from her legs and stirrups and slid her from the horse. Then he laid her upon the thick carpet of pine needles that covered the ground.
River’s skin was pale. Her hair was wet and tangled. She lay unmoving. Just hours before she had been springing about Len’s barn, giving him instructorly wallops. This didn’t seem real. “You keep calling me holy, then do as I say. Help her.”
“My skills do not lie in that path,” he said and began to lower the stirrups to accommodate his greater height.
This wasn’t happening. River couldn’t die. She couldn’t!
“You may bid her farewell,” said the Divine. “Then we must go.”
The dreadman holding Talen helped him slide off the horse, then led him over to her. Talen knelt beside her, stroking her face with his bound hands. “River,” he said, but she did not respond.
He smoothed her wet hair back with his bound hands. Why hadn’t he insisted on taking her the other way? They should have gone to the coast.
The Divine finished adjusting Scruff’s stirrups and mounted. “It is time.”
Talen ignored the Divine and bent over to kiss her brow. Then the dreadman he’d been riding with hauled him up by the arm.
“Leave me alone!” Talen growled and snatched his arm back.
But the dreadman did not listen. He grabbed Talen by the arm again and half dragged him back to the horse.
River lay motionless. He’d missed Harnock’s vale. He’d failed, and she was going to die. Despair and anger roiled in him. He hated them. He hated them all.
The dreadman bent over and cupped his hands to give Talen a leg up.
“Deliver me to your dark master,” Talen said, “and one day it will be me coming for you and your children.”
“Holy One,” the scarred dreadman said. “Put your foot into his hand, or we’ll just throw you across.”
These men were blind, but he could see there was no use fighting. Talen did as he was told and was soon sitting astride the horse. The dreadman got up be
hind him, and then they all rode forward through the trees. The dog padded along by Scruff’s side. The crows cawed above the pines.
As they rode away, Talen turned to get one last glimpse of River. She lay like a pale flower in the shadows of the forest floor. The sight of her stabbed him through the heart. He’d broken when Da died. He was breaking now.
They rode around some high scrub, and River disappeared completely from his view. He thought he might catch one last glimpse, but she was gone, lost in the shadows of the wood.
Talen turned around, grief mixing with his rage. He’d had no mother. She’d died when he was but a boy. So River had taken her place. River had been his mainstay; she’d been everything. She’d laughed with him, chased him, thrown innumerable spoons at his head. She tried to teach him how to talk to girls. She’d always been there for him. An image rose in his mind of the time she’d shown him the trick of how to fillet fish down by the river, the sun glistening off the water. Why that should rise now, he had no idea, but it filled him with a terrible loss. Some awful denizen of the Wilds would find her body. As for her soul, would Da come? Was he even around?
Talen’s grief crested, and in that pain he saw what he had to do. He was not going to allow himself to be delivered to Mokad’s master. When the time came, he’d simply remove himself from their clutches permanently. He would not turn River’s and Da’s sacrifices into things of naught. Until that moment came, there had to be some way to fight these men. If he could get free, if River just hung on, he might be able to deliver her yet. And with that thought his anger rose.
Curse: The Dark God Book 2 Page 31