Horded - Kingdom Gone Book 2, page 9
“She means to kill us,” Tal hissed to his brother. He tugged on Torg’s sleeve and tried to pry his attention away from the siren. “She’s put a spell on you.”
“What?” The witch spat from the other side of him. “He’s the one that said to go this way.”
The shouts spread now, up the hill toward the denser cluster of buildings. Many feet pounded, and more than the jailor’s voice called out, “Gob-e-lin!”
Tal hissed at the witch and ground his teeth together. She stomped her feet back at him.
“Mounts,” Torg said.
“No time,” the witch whispered.
“They’re coming.” Tal stepped to one side and drew his knife.
“Mounts!” Torg growled and tried to move. The fence creaked, and the witch sagged under his brother’s weight.
Tal looked beyond the fence, followed his brother’s gaze and shook his head. “No. No, Torg.”
But the witch had read his meaning too and already slipped between the rails, creeping toward the beasts. Torg hung from the fence and watched her. He nodded, whispered “tir talus” and then glared at Tal. “Help her.”
“She’s not—” He tried, but Torg showed him teeth through cracked and scabbing lips. His argument died unborn. “Fine.”
The woman already had hold of a rope. On the other end of it, a swaybacked donkey slumped. She pulled and the beast stumbled forward. Tal searched the muddy square for a better option. What he found defied his best attempts at identification. It had hooves, short, bony legs and a coat so shaggy it rippled. The body was easily as wide as it was long, and a mound of hair covered what had to be the thing’s face. At least, that was the end that turned in his direction and displayed a wicked set of stout, yellow teeth.
When he stepped toward the monster, it spun around, and an apple-shaped bottom bounced and threatened him with sudden death. Tal backed away carefully.
The witch appeared at his side. She handed him her rope and stepped toward the evil thing, which had gone back to grinning at them. “Help him get up,” she said. “I’ll fetch the pony.”
Tal followed the line and found the donkey sulking at the end. Torg had already dragged himself along the fence. He reached the gate, and Tal hauled the donkey to his brother and helped him climb aboard. The critter grunted, released a fart and peeled back rubbery lips. It brayed loud enough to rattle the boards. It hardly mattered. The whole town descended on them now.
He listened to the hammering of feet and imagined the pitchforks.
“Get up behind him!” The witch trotted through the gate on the back of the evil creature. The pony’s gate rattled her words, making her teeth click like a gobelin’s and earning a face down chuckle from Torg, bent low over the donkey’s neck. “They’ll have to fetch horses. Hurry.”
Horses would catch these wretched animals before they reached the lake. They’d be overrun, even if the town stopped to groom and saddle their mounts, which Tal knew better than to hope for. He would die astride a donkey, fleeing on a fleabag without even a weapon in his hand.
Chapter Thirteen
As soon as Tal settled behind his brother, Maera kicked the pony hard in the belly. The thing’s trot jarred her spine, but it covered ground faster than human or gobelin legs could. She’d feared the donkey might balk, but when its pasture-mate bolted, the braying stopped and she heard the patter of hooves at their flank.
She looked back once to make sure the gobelins had retained their seats. Halfway up the road a crowd watched them. Molton Fayer leaned against the widow Fatfriar at the front of the mob. A cluster of women and children backed them, all scowling their hate at her. Maera leaned forward and urged the pony faster down the hill.
She knew why the rest of the men were missing. There’d be horses bearing down on them now, riders ready to skin her and stretch her out alongside her green companions. They’d take their time with her, with the traitor who had threatened her only friend in the world.
And he’d wanted her to be his mother.
Maera could guess why now. His father might have raised him to be kind, but Molton Fayer had a dark side too, a secret side that she didn’t want to think about. Poor Jaymi. Now she’d abandoned him as well, and there would be no taking it back. Most likely, she wouldn’t even survive it.
They could see the shore from here, had topped the final hump where Jaymi’s friends had told her about the gobelins in Ramstown. After the lake, she had no idea where they’d go. The gobelin’s brother was driving now, and she only prayed tir talus meant he didn’t intend to lead them to their deaths.
Hoof beats whispered down the hill behind them and the lake stretched like a purple mirror directly ahead. Maera fingered the pony’s reins just enough to let the donkey close in on her left side.
“Which way?” She shouted over the rush of air and the racing of her own heart.
Torg’s arm waved to the right and she dragged on the outside rein, wheeling the pony that way and hammering along the water’s edge with the donkey doing its best to remain glued to its buddy. The shore turned to scrub, threaded through by a maze of animal trails. Maera twisted and looked back, took the gobelin’s direction and a branching path that rose sharply toward the peaks. Good. She could hear the horses like thunder now, and a mountain trail would give their stout little mounts an advantage.
So long as the pocket was close by.
She lay forward and let the reins loosen, let the pony have its head and so work more efficiently over the lifting terrain. The donkey’s nose pressed right on the pony’s tail. Its leather nostrils stretched wide and its lips peeled back in a contrary grimace. She heard Torg shout, “Now left!”
She pressed her heel in and leaned to the side. The pony obliged her, slowing to a fast walk. The morning, now bright and clear around them, rang with the rattle of their pursuers. The Ramstown mob followed up the trail, but though their horses’ long legs might give them speed, they also negotiated the thin path more delicately. But Maera could see them below clearly enough. She could make out Ramsten Senior’s face, the twist of rage and triumph to his smile.
“Hurry!” She twisted and reined her pony to a crawl. The donkey had stopped. Torg sat on the ground, and his brother scrambled down as she watched. The donkey took the dismount as a cue to sit and plopped its large hindquarters unceremoniously in the middle of the trail. Tal ran to his brother and threw an arm out. Torg struggled to stand. The donkey brayed, and at least fifteen angry men rode up the trail to kill them.
If she meant to run for it, now was the time. The gobelins blocked the trail. The mob would deal with them first and come after her second. She had a pony that was surer of foot, that could slip through smaller spaces.
She shifted in her seat and looked down at the oncoming riders, then back to the gobelin who stood, watching her with his brother leaning on him like a drape.
“Did he fall?” Her pony twitched and side-stepped at the sound of her voice.
“No. The pocket’s there.” Tal’s eyes narrowed. He jerked his head to indicate they’d arrived at their escape, an escape directly into his people’s hands.
Her fingers tightened on the reins. The pony shifted its weight, snorted and waited for her instructions.
Tal dragged his brother off the trail. The riders pounded around the last bend, started up a short incline that would bring them down upon her. She felt the heartbeat, softly thrumming, or maybe it was only the horses’ hooves. Her pony snorted and stamped, and the wounded gobelin, Torg, lifted his head. He turned puffy eyes on her, opened his damaged mouth and whispered, “Tir talus.”
She kicked the beast’s sides and dragged on the reins. It wheeled, leapt two paces to its pasture mate and skidded to a stop. Maera jumped down and ran. She slid under Torg’s free arm and kept going, dragging both of the gobelins forward.
Ramsten’s voice shrieked her name, too close behind. She ran and ignored the look Tal flashed her over his brother’s back. She prayed with each step that they’d cross through the pocket wall. Torg groaned and moved his feet, but he got heavier as they went. Soon, a blade would land between her shoulders. She’d feel a hand snag the back of her collar and she’d go down, kicking and screaming her apologies to Jaymi.
Maybe to Westwood too.
She closed her eyes and waited. Only her feet moved, keeping a steady pace and letting Tal and the weight of his brother steer her. They pulled her left, and something smacked against her shins. She staggered right, felt Torg slip and opened her eyes in time to see the world around them change.
She’d meant to abandon them. Tal stood in the pocket and watched the witch lean down to check on Torg. She’d nearly run for it, and he had no idea what changed her mind, why she was even with them now. Unless his brother’s plea had meant something? She brushed Torg’s hair back from his face, examining a strand of it.
Tal shook off that idea, but it lingered in the way she helped Torg get to his feet, the expression he caught on her face before she noticed him watching.
“This way.” He didn’t say it as harshly as he’d meant to. “Over here.”
He stroked the pocket wall. It covered a broad stretch of slope and here, in the remnant of the world as it should be, the mountains bristled with spiky, purple and white flowers. The sky blazed like a sapphire overhead. Tal pictured camp and drew the alignment. He held the link and waited while the woman brought Torg up alongside. His brother could take her through. Then it wouldn’t be on Tal’s head. He’d done his part, and Torg was safe.
Tir talus or not, it was Torg safe that mattered in the end.
Tal waited until his brother and the witch had passed and then slid through to stand among his horde with things, more or less, back to normal. The bonfire was low and the sun already nearing its apex. Smaller campfires smoked under fat pots, and most of the men had wandered out to various tasks, leaving the horde women to tend camp.
Everyone stared at the spot where they stood, where Torg sagged in the witch’s grip. Tal could see it on their faces. No one had expected them to return. None of them had believed in him for a second. Perhaps it hadn’t been a test at all. When Gutra moved, however, when she waddled from the cooking fire set aside for the Sol buta, Tal saw something else in her expression. He didn’t understand it, but it sparked a small fear in his middle, a mistrust he bore toward any woman with a secret, toward anyone with the matriarch’s power and influence.
Gutra smiled a crackled grin. She spread her arms until her metal bangles rattled. “Ah,” she said. “And so, here you are.”
There they were, at her mercy without Olin, Dutat or even Vrau handy. Gutra came at them, trundling in her peculiar, rolling gate, and the Sol buta, as always, trailed behind her in silent support.
Tal moved closer to Torg. The old woman tottered up to face them. She opened her mouth so that they could see what was left of her teeth. “So,” she said.
“He needs healing.” The witch spoke first. Tal whipped a glance in her direction, but her eyes fixed on Gutra. She had no idea what that woman was, showed no trace of fear in the face of the Sol buta. She stuck out her human chin and stared down the whole group. “He’s badly injured.”
“Ahhhh.” Gutra nodded and her shoulders shook. A dry laugh whistled through her lips. “I’ve seen worse wounds on his dinner, human. Mind your tongue!”
The witch meant to argue. Tal could see it in her eyes, but the idea died with Gutra’s order, with the wizened hand the matriarch raised into the air.
“Torg Bonesplint, you have brought a human into our midst. You have broken our greatest law. You have risked a conflict with her people. What say you?”
His brother lifted his head. Tal cringed at the effort it cost him. The witch was right on that much, and Gutra had to see it. Torg needed healing a great deal more than he did questions. Still, he managed to grin, cocky as ever even under the blood and the scabbing. He looked the old woman dead in the face and stated proudly, “Tir talus.”
The Sol buta inhaled together. Gutra only grunted. She shifted her attention from Torg to the witch, squinting more than she needed and eyeing the woman up and down before grunting a second time. “We’ll see.”
The human’s mouth opened, but Gutra’s hand came up again to kill her protest. They stared at one another while Tal held his breath. He didn’t have the nuggets to match Gutra eye for eye, and he had to give the witch credit. Though, hadn’t he suspected her of powers as well? Didn’t he believe the human had put some spell upon Torg?
In the end, Torg broke the stalemate inadvertently. He groaned and shifted in the human’s grip, and both women immediately focused on him. The witch bent lower and took more of his weight, reminding Tal that he should be helping her. Before he could move, however, Gutra spoke her pronouncement, loud enough for the entire camp to hear.
“We will see. When Olin returns, we will discuss this thing. For now, tend to your man, tir talus.” She twisted the word into a mockery. “Tend to Torg and wait for our decision.”
Tal flinched when she turned to him. He scooted guiltily against his brother and tried his best to look like he’d been helping the entire time.
“Keep them in your camp, Tal,” Gutra ordered. He avoided looking directly at her. “Keep them there until Olin and I speak.”
With that, the Sol buta marched back to their camp, to the one section of the horde that was set apart, reserved for their families only. Gutra led them, forced them to a snail’s pace in order to remain respectfully behind her. Tal watched until they’d gone beyond the central fire and then turned to the witch.
“Follow me and take care.” He didn’t need her in trouble. It would reflect poorly on him and, he’d worked it out now, even more so on Torg. The golden child, it seemed, had won the critical eye of the horde. Tal never would have guessed it possible. But if he meant to convince them of his part in the prophecy, of the Gargoyle and the castle and his suspicions about Rulak’s horde, then he needed as little conflict as possible.
And he must tell them. Too much time had passed already. Too many things had disturbed the flow of events and, now, it was probably much too late. He’d tell Olin the moment the man returned. He’d let the horde leader make his own interpretations, but it would certainly not help Tal’s cause to have Torg in trouble, to have a human in his camp and a brother who’d challenged the very definition of the Sol buta.
And if Gutra’s actions were any indication, he’d be poorly received by Olin as well. Torg had defied more than horde laws. He’d crossed nature. He’d taken the tir talus, the thing most sacred to their people, and turned the very word into an insult.
Tal lifted his brother’s arm and relieved the witch of half her burden. He walked, and they walked with him, winding between the cooking fires to the open tent that was home, that was camp and that was only meant for him and Torg. Across his brother’s bloody hair, he eyed the woman who would now impose herself into that space. He saw her set jaw, the tightness of her lips, and the soft glance she dropped to his brother’s face when he groaned.
He couldn’t quite believe they’d brought the devil home, but if they had, she’d be sleeping under his roof tonight.
Chapter Fourteen
She carried Torg with his brother’s help, through the hostile camps and a sea of clicking, gnashing faces. All women today, but for a few, skinny camp dogs that kept to the shadows around the cooking pots.
They’d kill her before the night was out. She’d seen it in the old woman’s appraisal. They hated her, maybe even more than the people of Ramstown. Good. She could take their judgment and be done with it. She’d more than earned whatever they could dish out.
Now she focused on carrying the gobelin, her latest victim, to his camp. His odd rhythm, the music that only spawned from their close contact, whispered under her skin. It played a funeral march, leading her toward the inevitable end. She found it soothing, now that she understood it. This man would be her juror and her deliverance both.
His brother returned them to the tent, no more than an awning held aloft by pointy sticks and leather thongs. It had all but one side open and that was fixed to the ground through the weight of stones set along its hem. They’d arranged a pair of logs around a divot that must serve as their personal fire pit. The camp was strewn with packs, leather bags and the contents that Tal had removed from them in his frantic search for some way to postpone their rescue mission. From the look of it, small animals had moved in to finish messing up the camp.
“Inside.” Tal grunted and swiveled them in the awning’s direction. “On his furs.”
Maera had no clue which pile of fur belonged to whom, but she followed his lead and helped settle Torg on the nearest one. It was the larger of the two mounds, topped with a thick, silvery blanket that looked like fox.
Torg groaned when they put him down, closed his eyes, and whispered the pet name he’d chosen for her, tir talus. The movement opened one of the splits and set his lip bleeding again. Tend to your man, the fat old gobelin had instructed. Her man. Maera shrugged the misunderstanding away and focused on the task she’d been given.
“We’ll need water and rags.” She brushed the hair from Torg’s face, pried a few places free where the drying blood had stuck to his pale skin. Softer skin than she’d imagined, and warmer too. “Do you have anything in the way of medicine?”
Tal grunted and cast a frown across the clearing his horde occupied. “Prett, the healer might.”
He didn’t have to add that she wouldn’t loan any to them. Maera heard his resignation in the answer. “What about water?”
“There’s a stream outside the pocket.”
“Where I can’t get to it.”
“I’ll go.” Tal spun and looked around their ruined camp. “We have a pail somewhere.”
“And rags, and something I can tear up for bandages.” She needed medicine more, but agreed with his assessment of their situation. The green women watching covertly from the surrounding fires had no intention of making her job easier.
