“The sacks you slept under!” Alixa whispered to Shilara. “They’re still back there!”
“Oh, aye? We’ll go back for them then.” Shilara shook her head violently, twisting over her shoulder to shoot Alixa a dirty look. “I couldn’t give a goat’s anus if the scourge are making jackets out of the ruddy things. I don’t miss them, and neither will Terreas once we’re back with all this seed. So shut your know-it-all mouth for once in a—”
“Scourge!” Jasen cried, pointing—
Shilara turned—
Milo had jerked sideways as a pair padded out from behind the trees on the left, just ahead. The horse made to dodge, looked like it wanted to turn and gallop deeper into the woods—
But scourge were certainly in that direction too, and in any case, there was no traversing these trees. Milo could pass if he were unshackled, but the cart would never follow.
They’d fall prey to the beasts roaming the woods.
The scourge leapt forward—
Shilara yanked on the reins to steer Milo around them, keeping him on course rather than making for the nearest getaway between two tree trunks. A moment later she’d swung her spear around. Rising, she stabbed out as the cart thundered past in the night. One of the scourge leaned forward to snap, the maw that was its mouth wide as it loosed a bestial roar—
Shilara stabbed it in the throat.
“Take that, you scum!” she cried, already past.
Jasen rose to squint over the top of the barrels.
The stabbed scourge had stumbled sideways, and it coughed a spray of dark blood. But its partner was already surging past—and from another parting in the trees came another, and another, wrinkled heads pointed in the direction of the cart hurtling away from them on groaning wheels.
“Sit back, Jasen,” Shilara said. “And get a blade. Alixa, you’ve yours?”
“Yes,” she said quickly and patted down the small sack of possessions she’d brought. Her daggers were out in an instant, clutched in hands whose knuckles were surely bone white under the force of her grip.
Jasen retrieved one of the blades Shilara had brought along. It was perhaps ten inches long, not even a foot. Not quite the size of the one on her belt, but long enough, Jasen hoped, that a biting scourge would feel the tip drive through the roof of its mouth and back away before snapping down with its jaws and taking his forearm off. Or worse.
Sweat oiled his palm. He squeezed tight, but it made the hold of the hilt feel far from secure. Releasing it, he wiped his hands hard on his trouser leg, and retightened upon the blade’s handle. Not perfect, but solid enough—for now.
“What are they doing back there?” Shilara asked.
Jasen rose.
“Following,” he said, voice strangled and dry. “They’re gaining.”
“How many?”
“Six. At least.”
Another burst from the trees at the cart’s side.
“Seven!”
It leapt forward in a great bound—
The cart was already past, but it caught the back wooden panel. For an eternity that could have been only a quarter of a second, it hung there, both forelegs hooked, trapped between the barrels of grain and the rear of the cart—
It struggled upward, teeth gnashing. The smell of death was rancid, the strongest it had ever been—
It was going to vault the barrels and descend on them.
Then the wooden panel snapped off. One moment the scourge was there, hanging from it; the next Jasen saw a glimpse of its belly as it was left behind, a wooden oblong tumbling with it; then its brethren had overtaken.
“We lost the back of the cart!” Jasen cried.
Shilara swore.
“The cart is open?” Alixa peered into the dark.
“Calm yourself!” Shilara barked. “Now they’ll have a devil of a time clambering on.”
“But the seed!”
“If a barrel clouts one of them in the face, that’s a good thing.”
“But Terreas needs it!” And before Jasen could do a thing, Alixa had risen, and throwing herself around the row of barrels.
“Alixa!” he shouted, standing too.
“Would you bloody well sit down?” Shilara cried.
Alixa had woven into the gap. She sidestepped, pressed impossibly tight down a space Jasen knew he would never manage to slip into. He could not follow—but he could grapple her to safety—
He staggered toward his cousin—
The cart bounced. He felt his feet leave it for a moment, and cried—
He landed hard on his back. His head collided with the side of the cart. Whether his eyes had instinctively closed or not, he’d never know; the darkness made it damned hard to tell, and the explosion of white hot stars across his vision made it even more troublesome to tell.
“—you stop being so bloody stupid?” Shilara was shouting.
“The barrels moved!” Alixa cried back.
“Forget the bloody barrels!”
“But they’re what we came out here for!”
Jasen forced himself back to sitting. Oh, but he hurt so bad. Heat spread about his midriff, seeping around ribs back to front. Were they broken? Probably not—but then, the pain in his chest was contending with a violent headache now, so how could he really be sure?
“At least make yourself useful and tell me how many are behind us!” Shilara barked over her shoulder.
“Six!” Alixa replied.
Six? Weren’t there seven a moment ago? Where had the last gone?
Jasen had a confused image of one seeming to dangle in the air, clutching something long, with splintered edges—
We lost the back of the cart, he remembered, and jerked upright. The world gave a dizzying sway.
The cart. It thundered through the woods, wheels turning the fastest they must have ever gone. Breeze kissed his face—and yet it could not seem to force back the awful taste of rot that had marred the air, filling it, unrelenting, fighting to sink into his throat, take hold of his lungs—
He squinted ahead. Dark, of course—but there were so many trees still, a tunnel of them that led to some infinitely distant freedom.
And the trees, Jasen realized with dawning horror, were steadily becoming more and more tattered. Limbs were missing from those they past and those hurtling in a parallel line toward them; not all, but enough that they had a misshapen look about them. Long gouges were torn in the trees, milky against the dark, charcoal color of the trees themselves.
The scourge owned these woods. Like the trees before Wayforth, they were in the process of stripping it down to death.
And now the cart was surging deeper into the eye of the storm.
He felt sick—
The cart bounced hard again—
Alixa screamed.
Jasen’s head snapped around.
The lurch of the cart—over some small rise, Jasen guessed, or the cratered trail where the scourge had delved for the trees’ roots—had caused the barrels to jolt backward. One teetered. Alixa must have grabbed for it, because she held tight—
Then the barrel of grain tipped over the cart’s edge. Alixa tilted with it—
“ALIXA!”
She screamed, loosing her hold on the tilting barrel. Her legs swayed as she fought to correct, trying desperately to bring her center of gravity over the cart’s base again—
Jasen leapt over the barrels, sword thrown aside to free both hands for purchase—
But Alixa canted, unable to stop herself.
Her daggers disappeared behind her, lost to the scourge hurtling behind.
She flung a hand out, both—
“What’s happening?” Shilara cried.
“I’m coming!” Jasen shouted, Shilara forgotten. The barrels were high, awkward to vault, but he thrust over, hoping—
“Help me!” Alixa cried.
She was still on. Good. But as Jasen pushed over the last of the row of barrels, right to the cart’s edge, he saw how treacherous his cousin’s grip was.
She’d managed to force herself forward, grabbing out with one arm. Now she clung to the thin sliver of the cart she could hold, one arm and one leg, as though she was lying alongside it and wrapping in it a hug from behind.
It would take just one more energetic bounce to send her to her demise.
“Hold on, Alixa!” Jasen ordered. His heart hammered in his chest, hard, thudding against his throat. Ancestors, he was going to be sick. His whole body was cold, but oiled in sweat—and that scent of scourge chasing them, infesting the woods, these creatures’ domain as they destroyed all the life here too … it clogged his throat, nauseatingly thick.
“Jasen,” Alixa moaned. Her eyes were shut tight, her face screwed up. She’d managed to keep her head this side of the cart. Her cheek rested on the base, a third frantic gripping point. It juddered against the wood, surely needling her with splinters.
“I’m here,” he said. He looked for a place he might clamber down, where he could pull her back on—but the barrels had shunted too far back, making it difficult. Even Alixa, with her smaller frame, would struggle to squeeze into the free space remaining at the back of the cart. The little that did exist was occupied by her arm and leg thrown over. He could hardly ask her to shift them; if she lost her grip, or the cart gave another shuddering vibration at the wrong moment—
“Help me,” Alixa said, face pale like moonglow in the night.
“I’m going to,” Jasen breathed—but how, damn it? He was stuck atop these barrels, and even lying flat as he was, his arm would never stretch far enough to grab her hand, let alone pull her back on board.
Think, would you? There’s got to be some way of saving her. Think!
He racked his brain—
“Jasen, be ready with that sword!” Shilara cried from behind.
Huh?
He looked up—
The scourge had closed in. Alixa’s scent must have lured them enough to put a frenetic burst of speed on, because the gap was closing even now.
“Swipe at them, Jasen!” Shilara boomed.
Alixa screamed.
“I—I don’t have it!” he cried back, voice high and strained. “I threw it down back there to get Alixa!”
Shilara swore again, a whole ream of curse words.
The closest scourge opened its jaws wide—
It bounded forward, teeth deathly white, pointed and sharp and capable of tearing through flesh and muscle and bone—
“Alixa—!” Jasen cried, reaching out—
She screamed as if she knew—
And then Scourgey leapt through a gap between the trees. She rent the air with a keening roar and crashed headlong into the scourge just inches away from tearing Alixa’s throat out. They tumbled, and so did others alongside and behind, a cascade of dominoes all toppled at once as Scourgey leapt into the fray—
“What in the blazes was that?” Shilara cried.
“Scourgey,” Jasen breathed back. He stared, not daring to believe his eyes as the tumble of scourge limbs and gnashing jaws receded behind—
Then a shuddering breath from Alixa brought him back down to earth.
“Hold tight,” he ordered—and was that his voice shaking? To Shilara, he said, “Can you stop?”
“The scourge still behind us?”
“A way back,” said Jasen. “Scourgey jumped in. She saved us.”
“Well, I’ll be.” Shilara muttered something Jasen didn’t catch. “Can’t stop; this thing’ll take too long getting up to speed again if they change their mind. But I’ll slow.” She was already doing it in fact, and Jasen felt the rumble of wheels diminishing as Milo eased his pace. The barrels beneath Jasen vibrated less and less, and their weight quickly sapped the cart of momentum.
When it was slow enough that he felt steady, Jasen slipped into the spot between where Alixa’s left arm and leg held her to the back of the cart. It was a tight fit, but he held a barrel with one hand, trusting its weight to keep him from tipping the both of them over the edge. He half-squatted, and gripped Alixa’s arm in his other hand.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
She whimpered again. Her eyes were still shut firmly, so tight Jasen wasn’t convinced they would ever open again.
“I have you,” he promised—at least, he hoped he promised. Things might not be their direst if Alixa tumbled off now—the scourge were far behind now, impossible to see in the darkness, though their scent seemed to have scarred the air permanently, their rotten stink low but easily overriding what otherwise might have been the cool sweetness of foliage and the earth.
Looking back, once it was over, Jasen wasn’t entirely sure how he managed to bring Alixa back onto the cart. It took so very long, and he panicked at every moment that she would go over the back where the rear panel had snapped off. Yet she did not, and somehow, miraculously, Alixa was aboard again. Sometime a little later, she was once again sat in her usual spot by the side of the cart, where she cried, and Jasen slung an arm over her, telling her that it was okay, that she was safe. Even Shilara offered words of comfort, though they were sparse.
Sometime even later still, the cart rolling at its full speed, they broke out of the woods. Alixa’s tears had dried before then. She had instead lapsed into quiet.
The moon was sinking toward the horizon when they came out. Hours away still from departing to the dawn, but it was not overhead, or even close to it. Its fierce light outshone the surrounding stars, leaving it the single glowing orb in a pool of ink.
“How long until we’re back at Terreas?” Jasen asked.
“We could arrive by dawn,” said Shilara, “though it’ll be close. It means running Milo ragged, but … I’ll do it. I want to be back across that damned boundary before anything else goes wrong.”
“What if he tires before then?” Jasen asked. “Before we reach it?”
Shilara said nothing.
Jasen did not need her to. He knew well enough. With no more animal innards to hand, and the sweat of their fear and this pursuit having helped shed the last of their covering, they were not just unprotected; now their bodies were actively working to thwart them, to raise a voice to the heavens that screamed, “Human meat this way!”
And if any closed in before they passed over the boundary …
Things did not look good.
27
It was an hour of riding in near silence before the scent of death filled the air again.
Jasen tensed, as did Alixa. Shilara moved for her spear, twisting to squint an eye about her—
But there was something different about this smell, something familiar. And so Jasen said, knowing without being entirely sure of how he knew—for other scourge surely smelled the same as this one—”Scourgey’s back.”
Alixa hadn’t moved much at all since her sobs had died on their way out of the woods, merely sitting in a stunned silence, face morose. Now she did shift, rising so she might look over the barrels. Jasen mirrored her, peering into the dark landscape, the features of this gentle rise indistinct.
“Scourgey,” Alixa breathed.
“You see her?” Jasen asked.
Alixa nodded.
Jasen frowned. “Where?”
His cousin pointed.
He squinted into the dark, unable to discern the scourge from it.
Just as he was wondering if perhaps she were seeing things, Scourgey finally came close enough that he could pick her out. She loped to the cart, mouth open, head turned down, the way a dog might wander behind its master, sniffing the ground beneath its feet and relishing every one of the myriad smells that touched its nose.
“Can we stop?” Alixa asked.
“Why?” said Shilara.
“So I can thank Scourgey.”
“You going to hug it?”
“She saved me.”
Shilara pursed her lips. “I’m not stopping. Thank it with your voice instead.”
“Here, Scourgey,” Alixa called—whispered, really, though a louder one than before. She stood
up, leaning forward against the nearest barrels. Her hair, Jasen noticed, had spilled out of its braids, and fell to either side of her shoulders. It must’ve been like that for a long time—a long time that she had not bothered to swipe it back into its usual place.
Scourgey picked up her pace, and eventually lumbered alongside the cart.
“Thank you,” Alixa whispered. She reached out and touched the scourge’s flank—then, as it tilted its head closer, she leaned forward as far as she would go and wrapped arms about the creature’s neck.
It could kill her, Jasen thought.
No, not “it.” Scourgey was a “she.” And she wouldn’t harm Alixa. Nor would she harm any of them.
Scourgey was different.
How, Jasen didn’t know—couldn’t know, he suspected, unless he learned to speak scourge. But for some reason, this one had fought off its brothers and sisters, to protect them. Scourgey had appointed herself guardian to Jasen and Alixa and Shilara—because … why?
He took her in once Alixa had moved off. She did not look greatly worse for wear. A few new wounds along her body, oozing black blood. There was a coppery sort of tang to that, like rust gone furry and strange in the rain, but it was not what made Scourgey’s scent any different to the other scourge. If indeed it was different. Jasen suspected that perhaps there was nothing remotely dissimilar between Scourgey’s rotten odor and the fog that surrounded the other scourge; it was something in his mind, and his mind only.
Alixa stepped aside, and looked to Jasen expectantly.
He took her cue, and carefully climbed to his feet. Using the barrels to guide him, he joined Alixa’s side.
Reaching out, he pressed a hand to Scourgey’s cold, leathery skin.
“Uhm. Thank you.”
Scourgey looked back at him with one black pit of an eye … or at least Jasen thought she did. It was difficult to tell, honestly.
“You want to say anything to her?” Alixa asked Shilara—or demanded.
Shilara glanced at Scourgey sidelong. Her expression was tight, but perfectly readable: the last thing in the world she wanted to do was thank this creature. It was, after all, one of the beasts that had overrun Luukessia. She had fought them, tried to drive them back, and been almost broken by the horror of what they’d done.
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