“He’s got nothing in him but the devil,” said a low voice from the darkest corner, a voice so sure of itself that it seemed almost bored with the observation. “No heart, no soul. It’s a devil in a boy’s body.” All eyes peered into that dark corner. “The witch breathed it into him.”
One of the sailors grabbed a lantern and swung it toward the speaker so he could be seen by the rest of them. It was Mutter Cabe, the old sailor who, it was rumored, was part Achawuk warrior. He would never admit to it, but he didn’t go far to deny it either.
Mutter’s face was deeply lined, his limbs scrawny; he seemed ancient, but his strength was equal to that of men half his age. He had a dark presence about him that kept him from making friends, even among those who had sailed with him for years. Achawuk ancestry was an acceptable rationale for all of his oddities. Plus, as was often noted, he talked to himself.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mutter,” Marcus Pile blurted out. The room’s attention, and the lantern, swung toward the young man. He was agitated, eyes fierce. “I talked to him. Me and Delaney did. We know him, don’t we, Delaney?”
“Aye, we do. Seems nothing like a devil, just the contrary. He’s a swordsman and a Christian.”
Mutter laughed again. Attention, and the lantern, swung back his way. He smiled thinly. “Convinced you two, anyway.” His look suggested that such a deception might not be too difficult. There was laughter.
Delaney felt his audience slipping away. “He wouldn’t join a mutiny even though he was a prisoner. Who’d do that but a Christian?”
“Mutiny? What mutiny?” several asked, alarmed.
Delaney pulled on his mangled ear, wishing he hadn’t mentioned it. “It was just the Captain’s orders, to try him with a story, that’s all. Just a false mutiny, to test his honorable intentions. Which he passed, as might not well you or I in the same irons with him!” There were several quizzical expressions. Delaney was sorrowful now about the way his words seemed to come out jumbled. His oratory powers had fled.
“Would the devil announce himself?” Mutter asked, again quietly, but not aimed at Delaney or Marcus. He was asking all the rest, convincing them that these two were in utter error. “Or would he act the part of a gentleman, to deceive you?”
In the silence that followed, dark wings spread in each man’s mind. The boy, if he could swing steel against Delaney without effort, certainly had something supernatural about him.
Delaney grew defiant. “He could have killed me. He had the right. He chose to show mercy, and gave me this instead.” Delaney pointed to his swollen head.
Silence followed again, and eyes shifted back to Mutter. “He struck you down. Yet you swear allegiance. I want none of him, if that’s what his mercy looks like.”
Delaney could see that this was not going well. “All I can say is, next time, I want him fighting beside me and not against me.”
There were a few murmurs of agreement.
Delaney turned on Mutter. “Mutter, you best not be speaking that way around the Cap’n. He hates that sort of talk, you know, spirits and whatnot. You’ll find yourself keelhauled, and no witch will stop you from staying dead.”
Mutter held up a hand, shook his head.
The issue had not been put to rest by any means, Delaney knew. Mutter was a talebearer, and the worst kind. But he and Marcus had done what they could, and at least kept the opinion of Packer from solidifying around Mutter’s view. The debate was on.
The stranger was a woman. Panna fought back disappointment, reminding herself that not all women were as she was. Or rather, as she had been. This one was dressed as a forester, and carried both a sword and a knife. It passed through Panna’s mind that before her might be the very woman who had accompanied the pirates to the inn, the woman in her dream, but she let that thought go. There was too much hope in it. That woman, for good or ill, would know exactly how to find Packer Throme. More likely, there were strong fighting women like this everywhere outside the fishing villages. Perhaps in all the world, women worked and rode and fought and sailed as men did, in all the world except the fishing villages of Nearing Vast. Panna simply didn’t know. What else had they not told her?
This woman had a nasty scar on her left cheek, from her eye down to her jaw, and then down again on her neck. There was a story behind that slash, Panna thought. Perhaps she’d tell it. The woman’s dark hair was knotted and braided alongside her head. She wasn’t particularly beautiful, but she was exotic. Her sharp features, her olive-dark skin, high cheekbones and deep-set eyes…Panna’s heart beat faster. A woman who knew the ways of the world might be the best companion possible. Better even than a man, a man who might do anything, try anything. A woman, even a fighting woman, would understand her. Wouldn’t she?
Panna knelt beside her, reached out a hand and laid it gently on the castaway’s shoulder. The leather jacket was cold and wet. She shook her gently. The woman didn’t stir. Panna swallowed hard. Very carefully, trembling slightly, she put her hand on the woman’s cheek. It was like ice.
Panna pulled her hand away. Was the woman dead? Fear rose. Was she breathing? Panna couldn’t tell. She shook the woman harder, but with no response. Panna looked up and down the empty beach, as though help might be in sight. Then, still kneeling, she took the woman’s face between her hands. “Wake up,” she said softly.
Nothing.
Panna shook the woman’s head. “Please,” she said more loudly. “Please wake up. I need you.”
Talon’s face twitched.
“Good. Good—open your eyes now,” Panna implored.
Talon struggled, but opened her eyes. She had trouble focusing, and when she succeeded, was confused by what she saw. It seemed to be a girl, smiling at her.
“Are you all right? You’re so cold.” Panna took off her knapsack and pulled her autumn cloak from it, laid it over the woman. “You must have been in the water for a long time. Was it a shipwreck?”
Talon tried to force her mind to work. She vaguely remembered being adrift. Was she cold? She didn’t feel cold. An alarm rang deep within her. The healing arts in which she had been schooled worked through to her awareness. The numbness, the disorientation. She was suffering from exposure. “Fire…” she whispered. She was sleepy, and the single word came out without urgency, like a distant longing not likely to be fulfilled.
Panna shook her head. She had matches, and a flint. But she couldn’t risk a fire; they’d be seen. “You stay under that cloak—it’s the warmest thing I own.”
Talon tried to reach for her flintlock, not thinking how wet it would be. She couldn’t find it. She fumbled for her sword or her knife, but her fingers were too numb.
Panna didn’t understand what the woman was trying to do. “I have some dry clothes, if that’s what you need…” She had one extra peasant dress in her knapsack.
“Fire,” Talon said again, even less urgently. The exhaustion was creeping over her, pulling her back in. She knew now it wasn’t sleep that beckoned, but something permanent, unending.
Panna smiled. “You’ll be warm in a minute or two.”
Talon tried to focus on the girl, this stupid, happy girl who would let her die. But her mind drifted, and she closed her eyes.
Panna became alarmed. Unconscious, the woman looked lifeless once again. And her skin was still ice-cold. “Stay awake now,” Panna said urgently, patting her hand. “Ma’am?”
Talon was in the water, warm water, floating face up, bobbing gently up and down under the moon and stars. Something was pulling her under, pulling her downward, and she longed to succumb, to quit struggling. But the voice, the sweet, angelic voice kept probing, asking her something, demanding she stay on the surface. There was light growing, light in the voice. Talon didn’t want to go there, where it beckoned.
She let her head slide under the black water, let it overtake her. The darkness was cool, the sounds echoing, pleasant, reassuring. And then she was looking into those yellow eyes again, tho
se huge, haunting, powerful, intelligent eyes—smiling, greedy, ravenous. The beast’s mouth opened, its teeth crackled with lightning.
Talon surfaced in a panic. She reached a cold hand out to Panna. It rested on her neck, producing a chill that shot down Panna’s spine.
Panna felt the urgency now, she couldn’t miss it. “What do you need?” she asked fearfully.
The beast rose up from below the water, its teeth on either side of Talon, swallowing her whole. She could see nothing else. “Fire…” She could not complete the word, she could not name the beast. The single syllable was all she could manage. Her eyes stayed locked on Panna’s for a moment, then they rolled upward. And then they closed. Her hand dropped.
Panna could not reawaken her.
“Strip down to your skivvies, Packer,” Mrs. Throme had ordered, and seven-year-old Packer, wide-eyed and embarrassed, obeyed with tears. His mother had ordered him to lie beside the boy, whose clothes were already shed and whose skin was all ashen. Mr. Throme then wrapped the two of them together in blankets. Panna was there, and remembered Packer saying softly how cold he was, lying there with his back to the boy’s icy stomach, and Panna remembered Packer’s shivers and blue lips, gotten from trying to warm the boy with his own body’s heat.
Packer’s father, Dayton Throme, had pulled the boy out of the water, a victim of a shipwreck, and sailed home as quickly as he could. The boy was wrapped in blankets when he arrived on a cart, Mr. Throme lashing the mule and yelling to Mrs. Throme, who ran out, took one look, and sent Packer to light the fire and heat some water. By the time the boy was inside the Throme house, the entire town seemed to be there as well, and several women went fetching hot water they already had boiling in their kitchens.
“Into the wineskins!” Tamma Throme had ordered as women arrived with their kettles of water. Packer’s mother had directed the pouring of the steaming liquid into the wine flasks, the sealing of them, the placement against the boy’s back. “Not too warm, now,” she had said. She scolded her husband for bringing the boy all the way home, when fire and warmth were available in Inbenigh. “He’s got the exposure. He’ll die without warmth. But he’ll die if he warms up too fast.”
Panna opened her eyes, thankful for the memory. That boy had lived, and his father had rewarded Dayton and Packer by schooling Packer far above his station. Now Panna had to take a risk, or let the woman die. She couldn’t heat water, but she could build a fire. She’d very possibly draw any search party’s attention, but at least she’d be able to defend herself, or flee if necessary. Or she could avoid building a fire, and risk being found here, nigh on naked, trying to warm this woman with her own body, unable to run or to fight.
Panna would certainly save the woman’s life. She hated what it might cost her, but how could she ever live with herself, or with Packer for that matter, if she sacrificed so basic a principle as this at the first opportunity? She may be an outlaw, but she was still a Christian. Which risk to take was not a difficult choice. Panna needed to be ready to run or to fight, or to go get help as necessary. She quickly entered the woods to gather tinder and kindling.
Dog Blestoe held the man’s shoulders, looking closely at the bruises and cuts. Riley Odoms, the fisherman from Red Point, well known to Dog and others in Hangman’s Cliffs, was a mess. His nose was broken, both eyes swollen almost shut, lips cut in several places. Dog nodded knowingly. “Was it Packer Throme who did this to you?” Dog had only just arrived here in Inbenigh, following up on the news given him by Hen Hillis.
“I don’t know,” Riley said, slitted eyes riveted on Dog as though he were both a judge and jury. Odoms was not much more than a wisp of a man even in his prime, which was a good decade past, and was not known for his backbone. He was altogether the wrong man to leave guarding boats, not only for his demeanor, but because he was prone to drink more than he could hold. Dog smelled alcohol on him now. “I don’t think I ever seen him before in my life.”
“But you didn’t get a clear look at him.”
Riley shook head. “Not really. I mean, it was dark.”
“So it could have been Packer Throme.”
“I…I guess. Coulda been anybody.” Now Riley glanced at the other fishermen, those watching him. They stood on the creaking docks of Inbenigh—Riley, Dog, Ned Basser, and Duck Tillham, also of Red Point. These last two had yet to join the manhunt now underway throughout the woods because they had taken the time to return home for what they felt were the most necessary supplies, which they now concealed under their coats. The goings-on of the night before were still the only agenda of the day. Fishing could be done tomorrow.
“Did he have a beard?” Dog asked.
Riley paused, then shook his head. “No.”
“Was he my height?”
“No, shorter.”
“You’re sure?”
“Well…yeah. He was standing uphill from me a little bit, but not much. He wasn’t as tall as you.”
“Old man?”
“No.”
“Young then?”
“Yeah, I guess. Pretty young.”
“Yellow hair?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Did you get a good look at it? At his hair?”
“No. Like I said, it was dark.”
“So it could have been blond?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“You know you’ve just described Packer Throme, don’t you?”
“I guess. I don’t know the boy that well.”
“You’re lucky. He cut me here, and here.” Dog pointed to his hands. “And put his sword right here.” He pointed to his throat. “And would have run me through if it hadn’t been for so many witnesses to his murderous ways.” The only eyewitness here present was Ned Basser, the man who had egged Dog on by tossing him Cap’s sword. If he disagreed with Dog’s assessment, he didn’t show it.
“More to the point, Hen Hillis told me that Panna Seline left home last night to meet up with Packer. He lured her away. Now she’s missing, and you’re half killed. What does that tell you?”
Ned Basser cursed Packer Throme’s parentage. “Come on, Riley. Let’s us go a-huntin,’ ” he said quietly. His silver-tinged hair was swept back like he’d just stepped in out of a windstorm; his visage looked like he was aching to step right back into one. He opened his coat to show Riley and Dog his “supplies,” the flintlock pistol he’d stuck in his waistband.
Duck, bigger and wider than Dog, though not as tall, showed off his pistol as well. Then he held out a sheathed hunting knife for Riley to take. “I brought this for you. For carving out some justice.”
Riley was uncomfortable. Sympathy he’d take by the gallon, but he had no stomach for revenge. “Maybe we ought to let the sheriff handle it,” he said weakly.
“The sheriff?” Dog scoffed. “He’s got to come from Mann, if he cares to come at all, which I doubt. Which means even if he does come, he won’t be around till tomorrow at least.”
“And all he’ll do,” Ned chimed in, “is post a reward, and then the woods will be crawling with bounty hunters. You want some stranger getting your justice for you, walking off with a reward?”
That would suit Riley just fine, but he didn’t say it. He shook his head. “I don’t know, boys. My back’s still hurtin’.” He squirmed a bit, wincing, to prove his point. Then he touched his puffy eye and looked at the inn at the top of the docks. He felt suddenly dry. He longed to be inside its doors. “Maybe I’ll just stay here and get a drink, if you don’t mind. You know, heal up some.”
Ned spat, angry. “You gonna sit around and moan while everyone else tracks him down for you?”
“Well, yeah…”
Dog stepped in before Ned let loose. “Riley should stay and heal up. You and Duck’ll move faster without him anyway. The important thing is catching Packer.”
“How about you?” Ned grunted. “You coming with us? Seems like you’ve got as much reason to hunt the boy as anyone.”
Dog
hadn’t considered traipsing through the woods himself. But now that Ned was leaning into him, there seemed little way to shake free of it. “I’ll go with you some. I want to circle back here, though, now and again, see what the other groups have found. Mostly, I want to make sure he’s caught.”
The village fishermen were not woodsmen. Despite the best efforts of some of their number to organize into parties, or perhaps because of their best efforts, the fanning out, circling, and tracking down degenerated within the first hour into aimless wandering and the occasional shout, which brought any within earshot running. It was fortunate that so few had any weapons, since the strangers they continually encountered and accosted turned out, without exception, to be themselves. Then, once it was determined that all present were true and honest fishermen, handshakes and pipe-smoking commenced, flasks flashed and were passed liberally, until eventually it occurred to one or more that they had spent a good long while in one spot strategizing while the scoundrel they so valiantly hunted had perhaps moved farther afield, at which time they reluctantly returned to the search. What most of the villagers actually sought was their own safety, and they managed to find it everywhere they turned.
But those who sought danger found that as well. Dog, Duck, and Ned kept themselves apart from the larger groups, avoiding their peers, cursing them from a distance for ignoring and even running off the prey. Ned, Duck, and Dog also drank liberally from their flasks, but the same liquid that lessened their peers’ keenness for the hunt had the opposite effect on them. As the day wore on, the three grew more and more bent on the heroic dispensing of justice that was certainly their right, they being the ones truly serious about the mission.
It was this agitated and armed threesome that, late in the day, flasks now fully emptied into bloodstreams, stalked their way through the woods toward the sea, a mile-and-a-half north of Inbenigh, toward the spot where a gray tree trunk lay just outside the woods, parallel with the shoreline.
The Trophy Chase Saga Page 17