The kid laughed. “I should hope not. What would we tell Emil?”
“You’d think up something.”
“Hey, what’s that?”
“What’s what, kid?”
“Something glittery. Big and glittery. Maybe a rose quartz cluster.”
Weren’t nothing there she could see.
He yelped, yanked one knee to his chest, and hopped around on one sandaled foot. “Sandblast it!”
She hustled toward him. “What’s wrong with you?” Should she laugh or worry? With the kid, it was always hard to tell.
“Blasted little monster stabbed me,” he howled. “Weaver’s pins, it hurts.” He hopped in tight circles like a five-year-old pretending to be a spool of thread on a spindle in the New Year’s parade.
Where’d he pick up a baby cuss word like Weaver’s pins? She surely never used it. She sputtered, trying not to giggle at his silly cussing or his comical dance. “What stabbed you?”
“A sandblasted little scorpion. A tiny thing, shouldn’t have much poison in it. But, Thunderdrums, it hurts.”
Hold on, there. Griffith said scorpions out here killed lots of little kids. “Maybe we should go back.”
“No, I’ll be all right. It was just a baby. Let’s go on.”
“You tell me right away if you get sick. Promise?”
“Sure.” The kid limped ahead, hobbling on the rocky sand like a peg-legged soldier. “Come on. The night’s being eaten whole.” He hobbled a few more steps.
She stood still and watched him. Something about the way he moved felt off. Horrible off. Like his whole back was twisting.
He turned back and glared at her. “Come on.” He shifted restlessly. “I feel better when I move around.”
“You don’t look so good, kid. Let’s go back. Emil’s gotta have something to take the pain out.”
The kid sighed and staggered toward her. Without another sound, he clutched his belly and sank to the ground.
His magic torch flickered and died.
“Kid?” Fear tickled her spine. “Viper?”
He didn’t answer.
She knelt and bent over him. At least he was breathing, labored and wheezing though it was. “I’m taking you home, kid.” She gathered up his rigid body and cradled him like a baby.
He didn’t complain. He had to be sick. Really sick.
She cuddled him tight and raced toward Kresh. Dread clogged her throat. The Monitor’s light mocked her fears, the pack beat against her back, the night air tore at her lungs.
She’d run her feet to tatters before she let him die.
The kid convulsed and knocked her off balance.
She recovered before they hit the ground, but her heart thundered loud, far louder than it should over a simple run.
“Sorry,” he whispered. His face looked sweaty and feverish.
“Hold onto the Loom.” She panted and fought to run faster. “Ain’t much farther.”
“I’m on the Shuttle.” The kid twisted in her arms. “A speck of dust.”
Lorel smiled through her tears. The kid remembered the weirdest things.
She dashed through the surface village, scattering all of the dagger birds in her path. Down the staircase in three bounds, along the narrow halls.
Nobody better be taking a walk. She’d run right over them.
Her head banged against the wall when she wrestled the kid’s twitching body around a sharp corner, but somehow she kept him from scraping against the wall.
“Emil!” she shrieked before she was completely through the door. “Griffith! Help!”
“Honestly, girl,” Emil scolded sleepily. But she gasped when she saw the kid. “What happened?”
Lorel laid him on the workroom table. His body was way too limp. “He got stung by a scorpion.”
“What kind?” Griffith stormed out of their bedroom, still pulling a shirt over his head. He checked the kid’s eyes. “What did it look like?”
“I didn’t see it.” Lorel leaned against the wall and sobbed. She’d let him down. She was supposed to protect him. Some bodyguard she was. She was just a fraying failure.
“Calm down, girl.” Emil took the kid’s hand. “Viper? What stung you?”
“Tiny little thing,” he whispered. He fought for another breath. “Skinny yellow squirt.”
“Kraken’s carbuncles.” Griffith rummaged through a drawer, pulling out towels, hunting for something he didn’t find. “You have such luck, boy. Girl, run and wake up the healer. She’ll come, even at this crappy hour.”
“I hate snakes.” The kid twisted and nearly fell off the table.
Emil grabbed him, but she looked startled. “You weren’t bitten by a snake, were you?”
“Was.” Viper threw his arm over his face. “Scorpion. Snake. Woman. Watches me. Wants to eat me.”
Emil glanced at Griffith. “Delirious.” She patted the kid’s hand. “Move out, girl.”
“It’s bad, ain’t it?” Lorel started to leave, but hesitated in the doorway. “A really poisonous one?”
“I’m afraid so.” Griffith looked up from the drawer. “He’s going to be sick for a long time, assuming he makes it. Now hurry. He needs the healer.”
Lorel sprinted out of the room. The Shuttle itself weighed on her back. The Deathsinger’s melody rang in her ears, and it trilled with the kid’s name.
She raced down the corridor, around an intersection, and up the incline. Finally she reached the healer’s heavy hide door. It resonated like a bass drum when she pounded on it.
Where were they? Why didn’t they hurry? The kid could die if they didn’t hurry.
After she thumped it a few more times, the healer’s husband opened the door. “She’s sleeping. This better be an emergency.”
“My friend got stung by a scorpion. On his foot. He’s really sick.”
The man sighed. “If he’s still alive in the morning, we’ll come round and cut it off.”
Her stomach sank into the sandy floor. “You can’t do that! He needs it. He’ll be a cripple without it.”
“Everybody needs their feet.” He shrugged. “Maybe he’ll be one of the lucky ones. Maybe he’ll live, and gangrene won’t set in. Don’t count on it.”
What did luck have to do with anything? The kid needed help.
She raised her hands to beg the fraying man to wake up the healer.
He shut the door in her face.
No matter how long or how hard she pounded on it, the door wouldn’t open.
Weaver drowned in tears. She’d failed the kid again.
Chapter 19.
Viper sat on a boulder in the dockyard, leaned his chin on his crutches, and contemplated luck.
It was pure luck that he had survived the scorpion’s venom, and still had both feet. Even though the left one hurt so much he sometimes wished he’d let the healer cut it off.
Griffith and Gharon both said that he may now be immune to scorpion venom. He didn’t want to test that kind of luck. He’d take his chances on board the ship.
The Tide Sprite waited in her cradle, fully laden and prepared for the long voyage ahead. Eight days upon the tossing sea would bring her to Toranan-Yiet, the southernmost city of Dureme-Lor.
Viper sighed deeply. His stomach was queasy just from listening to the ocean attack the seawall. Maybe staying in the desert wasn’t such a bad idea.
His gut cramped at the thought of hobbling around on crutches on the plunging deck. Or even in the lurching hold. How would he ever leave his bunk? Unless Lorel carried him. To the head? No way. He’d rather crawl.
He felt impossibly frayed and old, too old to survive another voyage. The captain would dump him overboard for wasting too much time feeding the fish. And he might not even care.
Cold stabbed through his injured foot. He tried to wiggle his toes to increase the circulation. They didn’t move.
Maybe the bandages were too tight? His toes had moved yesterday. But today they were even paler than before. His norm
ally tawny skin looked lemon yellow. And swollen. How was he going to get his foot back into a boot?
Griffith and Emil strolled up to him.
Emil squeezed his shoulder. “Here, you, take this.”
Griffith held out a melon-sized leather bag.
Dinner? Not more kraken, he hoped. The stuff was not staying in his belly anymore. Maybe she’d made seaweed candy?
The bag was surprisingly heavy. “Oh, no! You’ve given us a seawall rock.”
“We did not.” Emil huffed with mock indignation. “Those are some of the gemstones you two collected on your adventures. They should finance your travels for a while.”
“Yes,” he whispered. His throat tightened painfully. After all the trouble he’d caused her, despite the fact he’d disobeyed her direct orders, she still cared about him.
“You’re perishing weak.” Emil straightened and glared him. “You should go lie down.”
He slung the bag’s strap over his head and settled it onto his shoulder. Even if it was full of moss agate and petrified rock, it ought to pay for the next stage of their journey, maybe with enough left over to start a business.
He opened the top and peeked inside. His jaw dropped. Garnets and amethysts glittered up at him, alongside turquoise, malachite, and jasper.
Griffith winked at him.
“Thank you.” He tightened the drawstring with shaking hands. “Thunder travel with you.”
“Kid!” Lorel bellowed from the Tide Sprite’s deck. “Captain’s gonna cast off without you if you don’t move it.”
Viper laughed. Captain Pavimigar snarled more than the ocean did, but he’d already asked Gharon to doctor his injured foot. Sailors didn’t trust land-based healers, they’d said.
Emil and Griffith helped him stand and catch his balance on the blasted crutches. The bag of gemstones ruined his balance, but in a good way. Now he could stop worrying so much about their next moves. He might even dare buy a new book.
He hobbled towards the ship like an ancient, three-legged ox. His crutches sank into the loose sand. The pain in his foot flared, darkened, tried to swallow him. No way would he show how much he hurt. He may be too short to be a warrior, but he was trained in warrior discipline. His friends mustn’t know it hurt just to walk on soft sand.
He turned back, waved a crutch at them, and thumped up the ramp onto the vessel.
Lorel, still carrying all of their gear on her back, lingered near the gangplank. She hopped from deck to the rail to the deck, and back up to balance on the rail again. The show off. Was she rubbing his nose in the fact he couldn’t even walk anymore?
“Don’t bounce my mandolin,” he grumbled as he trudged up the plank. Would he ever walk normally again? Would his foot ever stop hurting?
“Why not?” she asked tonelessly. “You don’t never play it.”
“I do, too. I played it every time you went out on an errand.”
Lorel smiled shyly. “Honest?” Her smile sank into a fierce frown. “How come you never play it around me?”
“Because you say I play lousy.”
“Weaver drowned in tears.” She walked toward him, moving as though her whole body ached. She lifted the strap from around his neck and stowed the heavy leather pouch in her own pack. “If I promise not to gripe, will you play for me?”
Viper looked up at her. “Sure.” At least, he’d play until she started complaining. It never took long.
Lorel turned to wave at the couple standing in the dockyard. “Let’s get you downstairs to your bunk, kid. You ain’t moving too fast yet.”
He sighed, waved at their friends, and crutched to the stairwell. Once the ship started moving, he’d be lucky if he was able to move at all.
But once they finally reached land, he’d go back to adventuring again. His foot had to stop hurting by then.
Chapter 20.
Eight days later, while the Lady’s Luck was lowered into a cradle in Toranan-Yiet, Lorel leaned over the rail and stared. Had they landed in the middle of a magician’s tale?
Trees taller than Zedista’s clock tower stuck out of a lake next to the dockyard, their gnarly roots hanging high above the water line. Oxen bigger than war horses dragged little boats between the roots and reeds. Naked children rode the oxen – water buffalo, Gharon called them – and guided the beasties with skinny switches. Green slime coated everything, even the little kids.
Men working in the dockyard looked even stranger. Short and dark, with straight black hair, they only wore a yard or two of brilliantly-dyed fabric twisted around their hips. The rare woman wore five or six yards of the thin, flowery fabric, and it muffled them from head to foot. How on the Loom did all that cloth stay on? How did they stand it? She was ready to take all her clothes off.
The air felt sticky. And fraying hot, like she was standing over a pot of boiling noodles. But it didn’t smell like noodles. The air stung of resins and herbs and poisons.
Not a good place to take the poor gimpy kid. No choice though, unless she hauled him back to Kresh when the Lady’s Luck left in a few days. She figured he’d hate that. Neither of them could go home to Zedista. How long until whatever killed Trevor stopped hunting him?
How long until they stopped looking for Kraken’s killer? Maybe she’d never be able to go home.
The kid levered himself up off her pack with one crutch and hobbled over to her. His bad foot never got near the deck. He shouldn’t oughtta be out of bed. Again, no choice. Well, not much choice. She could carry him.
He gave her a dirty look like he knew what she was thinking.
She weren’t gonna fight with him now, though. Save it for when he fainted. “See that bluish-green building over there?”
He blinked and follow her pointing finger. “All the buildings are green.”
True. Slime from the lake was taking over the place. “The pointy one in the middle is the sailor’s inn that Gharon says is a good place to stay.”
“It’s not too far.” He leaned against the rail like he was already tired. “And it looks like it’s in a merchandising exchange. A market square.”
She knew that. Not from the fraying big words, but by all the carts and stalls and vendors hanging around.
The kid looked happy, though, so she didn’t snap at him. His eyes weren’t sunk so deep into his skull this morning. Maybe he was finally getting better.
He took a deep breath, gathered his crutches close to him, and thumped toward the off-loading ramp.
She grabbed their gear and hurried after him. Silly kid could really move when he put his muscles into it.
Men wearing dirty green wraps eyed them as they strolled toward the inn. Men in cleaner fabric sidled closer, all twitchy fingered, just like the pickpockets back home. She frowned at them and they backed away.
It was the ones in loose silvery robes that really worried her. They stared at the kid like they wanted to cook and eat him for supper.
Finally they reached the inn. No wonder it looked green, seeing as it was covered all over with moss. Only a little blue paint showed up in patches.
The kid thumped into the common room and looked around.
A fat man hardly taller than the kid waddled up and bowed to them both. He said something mushy that didn’t make no sense.
The kid shook his head and yakked back at him. They went back and forth a few times.
“Are we staying here or not, kid?”
The fat man looked at her and smiled. He made more mushy noises.
The kid sighed, shrugged, and reached into his pocket. He handed Fatty a few coins.
Fatty grinned and led the way down the hall.
“I’m not letting you watch next time I try to bargain.” The kid thumped down the hall like he’d like to whack something with a crutch. Maybe with both crutches. “I could’ve got a better deal if you didn’t stand there squirming.”
“I weren’t not squirming.” Weaver’s cold toes. She’d just shifted her weight a few times. The bag of rocks
was fraying heavy.
They approached a narrow staircase. Weaver’s chamberpot, she hoped their room wasn’t up there. She’d have to carry the kid, if it was. He’d frayed himself off the Loom every time Gharon had her carry him up or down the ship’s stairwell for a little sunshine.
The kid snarled something.
Fatty laughed, but led them past the stairs, to the room right under the staircase. He twisted a key in the lock and opened the door to a tiny room with two teensy beds. Fatty mushed out more words.
The kid glared at him and grumbled back.
Suddenly they both grinned, shook hands, and bowed to each other. Fatty handed the kid the key and waddled off.
“What was that all about?”
The kid thumped into the tiny space. “He included two meals a day for each of us instead of a better room.”
“And you said?”
He handed her the key. “That I hoped you ate him into poverty.”
She laughed. “You better tip the kitchen good, kid, ’cuz I just might.” She turned and locked the door. “You rest for a while. We can go check out the town later.”
The kid sighed and stretched out on the bed. His eyes closed and his whole body went limp. His crutches slipped to the side and clattered against the floor before she could catch them. He never even twitched.
Weaver drowned in tears. If he got that tired just walking a few blocks, how was he gonna travel north like they planned?
At least he never snored.
She laid down on the other toddler-sized bed. It was so short her knees practically touched her chin. Sunlight from the bread-loaf-sized window speared her eyes.
Did she dare leave him? With the way them silver robes watched him, she didn’t dare go far. She’d spotted that look in slavers’ eyes back home. Likely they’d never seen blond hair before, and sick or not, the kid was as tempting as New Year’s Day candy. After the snipped threads had time to get bored she’d head back to the common room and get something to eat.
Her stomach growled. Her calves cramped. She’d waited long enough.
She fished a few small coins out of the kid’s pocket for a tip. He still didn’t move. Was that normal? She’d never seen him sleep so hard, not even in Kresh when they’d adventured the night away.
Sorcery's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 2) Page 20