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But Achoo was not howling at the cart. She had halted there, but she stared into the woods, making that dreadful sound. I followed her, whispering, “Diamlah, Achoo!” in case the bandits were still nearby. I heard the jingle of reins and looked back, but it was only my partners. Their faces were as horrified as I felt. Achoo sounded more human than hound.
I went to see what had drawn her attention and fear. It was a pile that buzzed. I knew that sound, just as I knew the smell that was carried to me on the breeze. Enough, I thought, even as my feet carried me closer. First last night, and now this. How much can one Dog take?
The flies rose from the corpses as I came near, buzzing like demons chased from their treat. I slid my baton into its loop, knowing it could do no good against flies and it could not help the dead.
“Stop there, Beka,” I heard Farmer say. “Don’t go any closer. It could be a trap.”
A woman of full years lay closest to me. Of them all, she was the only one who had not been killed by a sword. Her face was bloated and black from the time she had lain here in the sun. She crawled with maggots. They all did. Even yesterday’s rain had not stopped the flies.
Some of the dead were younger, twenty and less, dressed in simple shifts. Some were blocky with muscle and armed with swords. None were as young as four.
“Is it a trap?” I heard Tunstall ask.
I couldn’t speak. My throat was too dry.
“I’ll find out. Beka, Achoo, move back,” Farmer said.
“What if it’s a trap for you?” Sabine wanted to know. “We can’t be too careful, Farmer.”
I slipped my bit of mirror out of my belt pouch. It showed me no magic, only flies, maggots, and day-old flesh. I let my partners look in their turn. “My mirror isn’t as strong as any Farmer could make,” I explained, “but if they’re rigging spells to catch Farmer, it would show here.”
“Will this take too much of your strength?” Tunstall demanded of Farmer. “If it does, you do nothing. We need your Gift for our defense.”
Farmer looked at Tunstall and raised his eyebrows. The expression on his face turned him into a mage who would not be ordered about. I fought the urge to step back, knowing this wave of greatness that flooded from him was as much a part of Farmer as his silliness. Any who cared for him must deal with that.
“Strange,” Farmer said. “I thought my Gift was needed to help find our lad.” He rubbed his hands together, as he had over Vintor’s body, back in the swamp. His blue fire spilled from his fingers, sparkling as it went, until it covered that entire dreadful pile completely. Once all of the dead were sealed under that cover, Farmer did something different. He thrust his hands forward, palms down, then raised them. The sparkling cover turned solid, or mostly so, and rose up until it stood before him. By moving his hands, Farmer arranged it so that images of the piled dead were separated, letting us see each of them as clearly as if they’d been painted in bright colors on gauze. They looked as they must have done in their lives. The ones in shifts were comely lads and gixies with cloth-wrapped ropes hobbling their ankles, in order not to leave scars. The blockier ones were hired muscle, guards in dark red tunics with the sign of the four turned-in leaves at their right shoulders. These wore sword belts and weapons. Two carried whips. One, in a maroon tunic with no weapons, must have been the driver of the cart. And the mot was the Viper. I knew her face from the night I’d watched Farmer trap her.
“Stop it,” Sabine told our mage, her face white under its tan. “It’s too horrible. The youngsters’ promise is gone. I don’t weep for the guards, but those slaves … Please stop.”
Farmer closed his hands. The seeming vanished. The flies, scared off by the presence of magic as they often were, returned to their feast.
“We can’t get much from this,” Tunstall said with disgust. “It would be lovely to think we’d frightened them into getting rid of the extra weight, but for all we know, bandits stopped them and killed anyone they couldn’t carry.”
“It’s the wagon that was described to us,” Sabine reminded him.
“That’s the Viper,” Farmer and I began at once. He looked at me with the tiniest of smiles and went on. “When I cast the cocoon spell at the poisoned stream, we saw the mage who cast it. This woman is the Viper, and no sword touched her body. She was slain by magic. Strong magic, to break through the trap I had on her and defeat her own power.” Farmer glared down at the mot’s maggot-covered corpse. “I wanted to watch her stand trial, by Mithros, I did.”
“There are more of them,” Sabine reminded him. “The one that killed her, or the ones, and those who lead this rebellion. We shall have the chance to watch their trials. They’ll pay for all the lives they’ve ruined.”
I walked back toward the wagon. “Do you think there’s a shovel in there?”
“Cooper!” Tunstall called. “There’s no time! We’ve got fourteen dead. That’s a poxy deep hole to dig, even with four of us wielding shovels. Another good rain and we’re finished—the scent is fading. Whoever did this, they took the boy!”
“You’d leave them here?” I asked, turning to face him while I tried not to weep. “To the flies and the beasts?” I knew Tunstall was right, but it seemed to me that when we started to abandon the dead, we became more like the killers. By caring naught for them that were slaughtered, we made it possible for our hearts to care little for the living.
“I can burn them,” Farmer suggested.
“And warn any who are watching? Waste your Gift some more?” Tunstall demanded. “Use your common sense!”
Pounce and Achoo walked past us. They had been waiting by the wagon, where we’d left the horses. Now they came to sit a foot from the dead, watching that horrible pile with fixed attention. I opened my mouth to call Achoo, at least, back to me, but closed it again. She seemed to be waiting for sommat.
Farmer was arguing softly with Tunstall. “She’s worked herself to a shadow, running her legs off. Give her something human, before she starts to break.”
“Lads,” Sabine told them, her voice soft, “be silent.”
By then I could hear what she heard, mayhap what Achoo and Pounce had heard. It was the beating of wings, lots of them. The sky went briefly dark as the wood pigeons flew to the clearing to land all around it in every tree, each branch loaded with as many of the birds as it could take. They settled, fluttered their wings one last time, and folded them. They stared at the pile of the dead. I turned to face it to see what they did.
On the opposite side from me a great shape took form, one that was as big as the tall tree behind it. It was a being in a robe, its face hidden under the folds of a hood. At first the robe seemed black, as it always was in the statues. Then it changed color, turning brown, orange, white, blue, chestnut, yellow, and every other color that might possibly exist.
You need not try to bury them, my finest priestess. I will do so, he told me.
The god I’d been taught to call black reached out hands gloved in ever-changing colors, holding them over the murdered slaves, the guards, and the Viper. Suddenly green tendrils sprouted from the earth, twining around limbs and bodies like so many agile snakes. As they moved they grew, turning thicker and putting out leaves. Buds formed and sprouted until the bodies were covered by a riot of flowers of every shade in the god’s robe. They continue to grow solid and fat as the mound beneath them shrank and collapsed. By the time they had stopped, the ground where the dead had lain was sunken. It looked as if their remains had been placed there decades ago and only flowers remained.
I glanced back at my companions. They were on their knees, their heads bent. I wondered if I ought to do the same. Surely I’d have felt the need to bow if the god had expected it of me.
He raised a hand and pushed his hood back from his face. I say he, but he could as well have been a she. He didn’t correct me, so I continue to think of him as I have always done.
I cannot remember his face, though I do remember his words.
They are safe i
n my Realm. They shall have a rest, and then another chance. Continue your work, Rebakah Cooper. You are a good servant to me, and a good friend to my messengers.
Thinking of all the times I’d been wing-slapped, pecked, bitten, and splattered with pigeon piss and dung, I could not think the birds agreed with their master, but I bowed my head and nodded.
He was gone, just like that. The pigeons leaped into the air in an explosion of powerful wings, a feathered clap of thunder that made all of us duck.
We dared not let our feelings overwhelm us for too long. We still had a Hunt. The prince had been missing from that ugly pile, and the second mage reported to be with the cart was not there, either. Immediately after we returned to the road, we found horse tracks pressed into the mud, sixteen sets altogether. Could these be the killers who had left with the prince? Important to us, was the mage who had helped the Viper among them? And why had they killed the slaves, the guards, and the Viper here, particularly? Bandits would have kept the slaves—they were worth money. They wouldn’t have needed a mage of their own because Farmer’s spell would have brought down the Viper the moment she used her Gift to fight bandits. Only another, stronger mage would have left her in that pile.
I was struggling with my questions when Achoo found another midden. She caught the prince’s scent off to the side of his companions’ piddle. Had he thought to do so himself, to keep his scent from being covered by those who had taken him? I hoped so, but the lad was only four. I could not expect too much.
Shortly after that I saw a road sign ahead. Achoo turned into the road leading away from the one we’d been following. She’d gone but a couple of yards that way when she shrieked and leaped into the air, dropping to the ground like a stone. I screamed and cut across the grassy turf between me and her, running for all I was worth. It was when I reached her that everything went white.
When I roused, I was sitting upright on a horse’s back. My head throbbed and my nose ran. I felt in my breeches pocket for a handkerchief and discovered I was hobbled so tight around my waist that I couldn’t reach very far. I had to bend over to blow my nose. I could reach my saddle horn, but not the reins. My feet were tied to the stirrups and the mount was being led. I blew my nose and cringed from the pain.
“I know,” a mot’s voice said. “That spell would rip a monkey’s gut out with the monkey on the fly. Try this.” A hand gloved in fine gray kid pressed a lump of green jellylike stuff into my hand. “Doesn’t taste very grand, but it’s good for the aches.”
I was tied to a horse—not Saucebox, but one of our spares. I held my hand out and let the lump roll off his withers to the ground.
“Suit yourself,” the mot said carelessly. “It’s no hair off my head if you want to waste it.”
I squinted at her through bright sunlight that made everything sparkle, or mayhap that was just the magic that seemed to float everywhere around us. She rode beside me on a gray mare that matched her gloves and boots. The mot herself was my age, a glorious creature in pink silk leggings and a matching pink silk tunic. She had fine, shining blond hair pinned up in loops around her head, with a frivolous sheer white veil over it. When she turned and smiled, I thought I was looking at the most beautiful lady in the world, even more beautiful than the queen. Her gray eyes glittered.
“What a scruffy thing you are,” she told me, her voice soft, pretty, and playful. “I can’t believe so much worry and thought has been expended on you. Does Farmer keep you going? I never thought he was so dedicated a Hunter, myself, but I have never had a chance to speak with him at length. Sabine’s just a crude brawler, mad for sex and fighting. I can’t say much for her latest toy, but maybe he’s more clever than he looks.”
For a moment rage filled my head over her saying those things about my friends, but suddenly my mood reversed. I wanted her to like me. She was so beautiful and sweet. If she didn’t like me, why would the friendship of those other three dirty, tattered people matter? I was confused by the change of my own feelings, so I looked around instead.
My fellow Hunters were alive. Like me they rode upright in the saddle, tied to it as I was, their horses each led by a guard. Farmer rode a little way behind me, a small frown on his face, staring into the distance. Sabine and Tunstall were ahead in our line of riders, encircled by rough-looking huntsmen, those behind and on both sides holding crossbows aimed straight at them. Sabine happened to glance back as I was looking at her. She gave me a tiny nod before the guard at her side punched her arm.
The warriors beside and behind Farmer also bore crossbows. Another row of archers rode farther out, their bows pointed at Farmer as well. Far behind Farmer’s guard rode a small group of men, but the light was too bright for me to make out their faces. Either I was not regarded as a threat or no one wished to risk shooting my riding companion, because we only had a cove to lead my horse. Nowhere did I see Pounce or Achoo. I closed my eyes and sent a brief prayer of thanks to the gods. Then I looked at the delightful creature beside me again.
“Who are you, what have you done to Farmer, and where are we going?” I demanded. All those archers told me how they kept Sabine and Tunstall under control. I just couldn’t see a mere clutch of archers slowing Farmer, even a double ring of them. I’d had a sense he held more of his power back than he was letting on. Why wasn’t he putting it to use?
She simpered. “I am Dolsa Silkweb. Farmer is fine, such as he is. Really, is he the best you people could get?”
Part of my mind said, He’s better than you, while another part said, He certainly isn’t as good as you! I didn’t know which was real, not entirely. I settled for blandness. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I know all about your little Hunt,” Dolsa told me. “We tried and tried to stop you, but it never pays to use hirelings. My lord said to cut our losses and bring you four straight to him. For days I rode in that stinky little cart with your brat of a prince and that bossy woman! My lord had best remember my sacrifices for this.” Her gray eyes slanted sidelong with a glitter like ice. “Or I’ll help him remember.”
So she had been aiding the Viper.
“What have you done to Farmer?” I insisted on asking. It seemed she would only talk at length about herself.
“Oh, he still thinks he’s riding along the road after you. He’s terrible at illusions, I’m sad to say. Why don’t you call in that hound?” She asked it quickly, without warning, her charm gripping me so tight that my mouth instantly opened to call Achoo. I remembered Achoo lying on the ground, the killing wound open in her side, Farmer with his hand on her, and shut my mouth. For good measure, I ground my teeth together.
Dolsa looked at me for a long moment, her slender brows knit. I could feel the need to please her press on me, wrap around me, even seek ways into me through my nose, ears, and eyes. I bit the inside of my cheek until it bled to fight her Gift, forcing myself to see Achoo beg me for scraps, curl up with Pounce, and chase her toy in the park with Tunstall.
At last Dolsa sighed. “I suppose you have some charm or other on you, to fight my spells. Or you’re like most common dullards, not imaginative enough for my Gift. We’ll have any protective magic off you before nightfall, you know.” She tugged her gloves until they sat her hands more neatly. “Truly, the hound isn’t necessary. I just thought you’d be more pliable, if we had your animal to work on. Still, the woods aren’t kind hereabouts. Something will get her, eventually. Maybe even one of our own hunters.”
“Where do you come from, Lady Silkweb?” I asked, letting her spell squeeze the lady out of me. “Who do you serve?”
She laughed. It was a musical sound that made a number of the guards turn to smile at her. She snapped her fingers imperiously. Every one of them yelped and flinched, as if that dull snap of the fingers—it didn’t work in gloves—had the power to hurt them. I had the feeling it had done just that. “Idiots!” she cried. She’d made her voice louder somehow, so everyone could hear. “Keep your eyes on your prisoner! Next time it won’t be
a bite on the ear!” She looked at me. “That’s the punishment,” she told me, her voice at its normal loudness for only me to hear. “I took the pain from the time a horse bit me and tucked it into a little spell. I touched each guard on the shoulder as we readied to go, and …” She shrugged one shoulder, very pleased with herself.
“Like brats pulling wings off flies,” I said, meeting her eyes.
She gave that sparkling, musical laugh again. “You’re very brave, aren’t you, Dog?” Silkweb asked when she stopped laughing. “You think you and your friends have a chance? Lady Sabine will be lucky to live, since she’s so entrenched on the king’s side. You Dogs? Trash. Farmer? I can dance rings around your Dogs’ mage, and I’m not the only one here who can. Tell me, brave Dog—”
If she said Dog that way again, charm spell or no, I was going to do my best to bite her like that horse she’d mentioned.
