“Set the pole down. No, not there! Gross! Fine. Yes, that’s fine. Right there. Lovely belly you have here, lady corpse, don’t mind me while I rest on it a moment. And now, Izolda, if you’ll put your first two fingers in my mouth.”
“You accused me once of not having the imagination to dream of what you might do with only a head. If this is a part of it, then I beg you not to go on.”
He rolled his eyes. “Before you had too little imagination, now you have too much? Just shove them in there and spread them wide.”
Grimacing, I acquiesced.
To my surprise, Grosbeak pursed his lips around them and made a piercing whistle that seemed to echo far over the heaps of the dead, reverberating back and back until it returned to us. He repeated his whistle twice and then around my fingers he spoke.
“Et em oww ow.”
I took my fingers out.
“I fear that has turned my stomach,” he said, looking miserable.
“Yourstomach?” I repeated as I wiped my sticky fingers on my dress. “You must be joking. I am the one with dead-person spit on me, and I should note it smells of rotted fish.”
“You’re one to talk. If I had an hourglass I could only watch a fraction of the sand run before I’d have to give a speech atyourfuneral.” He paused to pull a long face. “She was wishy-washy as dishwater, never grabbing hold entirely of her opportunities, but never having the good grace to be properly stamped into the ground either, and those who most hoped she would be a practical heroine were most devastated to discover she was human after all.”
“If I die in the next few minutes,” I said as I heaved myself back up and then his pole with me. “Then I shall die cursing your name for all the gods and angels to hear.”
“I would have it no other way.”
But before he was finished speaking there was a tremble in the ground like the sound of many horses and as my eyes were still widening, they came thundering over the dead toward us, kicking up cobwebs and insects as they went.
“You had these at your disposal all along?” I asked him in wonder.
“I forgot until you mentioned it, but I think I wouldn’t mind a last ride before I die.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” I said absently, watching as the great mass of bodies thundered toward us.
There were maybe fifty of them — great stamping, hearty warhorses. Had I been buying for the king, I would have bought every single one, even knowing they were made of clay and not able to breed more. They held their necks in perfectly formed curves, ears back properly, hooves and limbs still bearing marks as if they’d been cut from premium clay by a fettling knife.
They moved like real horses, not cracking or jointed like a man-made thing, but their expressions changed not one whit, and their eyes were lifeless. With all the furor of a cavalry exhibition, they ran up and wheeled in front of us, stomping and neighing and throwing back heads as they approached.
“These will take us to your husband,” Grosbeak said.
“A kingly gift,” I said a little breathlessly.
“Not a gift,” he objected. “Not at all. You’ve done tasks for everyone else. You’ll do one now for me.”
“Don’t you see I am running out of time?” I asked, almost wailing in my despair.
“Which is why you must do this first,” he insisted, his horrible face screwing up in hostility. “Or else you’ll be dead and it will be too late.”
“Fine then,” I practically spat through my numb lips. “What will it be? Shall I give my other hand? A foot? My still beating heart?”
“Take my pole and strike the nearest horse in the neck.”
“You’re mad!” I said, furious now, but I did exactly as he said, hitting the horse across the neck as hard as I could. I did not want to look at its feet for fear of what those clay hooves might have done to the bodies sleeping in eternal rest, so I did not see what size of shards the head and neck broke into, but they shattered like struck clay pots, leaving only a jagged stump where once had been a head and neck.
The other horses did not care.
“I think it’s best you mount,” I told the other brides. “If I survive his task, there will be little time to ride.”
“Follow me!” Tigraine said jubilantly as if her whole life had been leading up to the moment she could ride a clay horse over a heap of corpses.
I turned to Grosbeak. “You have what you wished.”
