Abomination (24 page)

She halted, suddenly alert. Something had stirred in the woods ahead. For a moment she was unsure if the rustling sound had been a trick of her imagination, but Venator had heard it, too; his feathers bristled, his talons gripped Indra’s shoulder more tightly than before. She stood a moment, listening. Nothing, just the soft whispering of the wind in the trees.

As the silence of the forest settled in around her, Indra turned to look back along the road—and there was no road. So consumed had she been by her own thoughts that somewhere along the way she had wandered from it without noticing. Now she had no idea where she was or in what direction she had been walking. She was lost.

There it was again; there was no mistaking it now. Something beyond the trees, not far from her, moving about in the undergrowth. Too large to be anything but perhaps a deer. No, larger than that. What, then?

She stiffened.
The abomination
.

Could it be? In her self-absorption, she had almost forgotten why she was out here. She had been wandering through an area where an abomination might well be at large with her head down, brooding, oblivious to her surroundings, to anything that might be stalking her. Her failings back at the crossroads were bad enough; this one could have got her killed.

It might still.

But as she gathered her thoughts, it occurred to her that this was likely not an abomination. It was still hours before nightfall, and from her study of the Bestiary, she knew that most were nocturnal. They hunted by night, their oily black hides near invisible in the dark, and sought shelter in caves and burrows during the day to sleep. In her fantasies, played out a thousand times and
more, Indra imagined sneaking up on one as it slept and waking it with a thrust of her sword—just long enough for it to see her face in the broad daylight, for her to look into its eyes as she sank her blade deeper, until all the life bled out.

No, whatever this was could not be an abomination.
Mostly nocturnal
.

Mostly
.

She looked again in the direction from which the sounds had come. She saw nothing, no movement, but the trees were so dense they might be hiding anything. Reaching over her shoulder, she drew one of her swords and began to move carefully, quietly, forward.

Wulfric had almost finished gathering wood for a fire. He had decided to stop for the night, having traveled far and deep enough into the woods that if the beast should break free when it woke tonight, it was unlikely to find its way back to the crossroads and the village there. But in truth, he knew there could be no guarantee of that; as ever, all he could do was trust that the chain would hold. He hoped the blacksmith’s work was as good as his promise, and that it had broken previously only because of a single flawed link, weaker than the rest. The alternative did not bear thinking about.

He had debated venturing farther, as there was still time before sunset, but he was tired. The sight of that star-shaped medallion back in the village had caused him to take flight without even thinking, a reflexive action, and had spurred him this far before it had finally dawned on him: that girl could not possibly have been of the Order. The Order was a shadow of what it had once been, and even in years past, when its knights were hundreds strong, they never traveled alone but in groups. And a female paladin? A mere slip of a girl given a King’s commission to hunt and kill abominations? The thought was preposterous.

In fact, it seemed so glaringly obvious to Wulfric now that he chided himself for having needlessly left behind a perfectly good beer. True, the seal the girl carried had looked real enough, but it would not have been the first to be stolen or counterfeited. A decade ago, at the height of the scourge, the Order’s paladins had been famed and given a hero’s welcome in towns and villages up and down the land, their money no good anywhere. Even now, with their work all but done and little left to fear, that seal of silver and gold still meant something. It was a rare and valuable commodity on the black market.

Looking back, the biggest clue of all was that the girl had gone out of her way to help him. Paladins of the Order were not typical knights and did not engage in chivalry. Their first and only duty was to rid the land of abominations. They believed it a divine calling, to do battle with hell’s own spawn, and thought all else beneath them. A paladin would never bother himself with such a mundane act as lending aid to a stranger—a beggar, what’s more.

That episode still nagged at him. The gift of a drink was uncommon enough, and more charity than Wulfric had been accustomed to in many years, but to come to his defense against three armed men? He had never seen the like of it. It was not the question of why she would do such a commendable and foolhardy thing that ate at him, though it was riddle enough, but the fact that he had slipped away and allowed her to face those men alone. She had gone out on a limb for him, and he had rewarded her kindness and courage by abandoning her to her fate, to be beaten, and worse. What kind of a man had he become?

He grunted to himself and pushed the thought from his mind as he crouched by the small pyre he had made and began striking a rock against a shard of flint to light it. It was not for him to feel guilt over this. He had not asked for her help—she had made her own lot. He reminded himself that he already spent every waking moment of every day trying to protect others, doing all he could to keep them safe from the thing he became each night.

He looked again at the chain, gathered at the base of the tree, to which he would lash himself later. Again he found himself hoping that it was enough. That the beast had not grown stronger still.

The night would tell, soon enough.

Indra was close enough now to see it: an indistinct form, difficult to make out through the dense thicket of bushes and trees. It was the motion of the thing that she had spotted, and she halted to watch it rooting about in the small clearing ahead. Dark and misshapen, at least as large as a man; she heard it grunt as it hunched over, lower to the ground.

She moved closer, her breath held in her chest, careful of every footfall. Now just a single line of trees separated them. She pressed her back against a tree and sidled slowly around it, then peeked into the clearing to see the dark shape standing only a few yards ahead of her, suddenly much closer than it had been.

Indra bolted backward in alarm, tripping over a tangle of roots. Venator squawked, flapping his wings to keep his balance on her shoulder as she stumbled and almost fell, but she thrust out her free hand and grabbed a branch to steady herself. Then she saw that the thing before her was no beast but a man in a rumpled, filthy hooded cloak that had disguised the shape beneath. It was the beggar she had tried to help back at the crossroads.

He stood unmoving, silently regarding her. She composed herself and stepped forward into the clearing, her sword still drawn but held at her side, ready if needed.

“What are you doing here, child?” asked the dark face behind the hood. The tone of his voice suggested not aggression, but caution. He was not afraid of her, but he was guarded, wary.

Indra’s first instinct was to bristle angrily at being called a child, but now was not the time. “Looking for a place to make camp for
the night,” she said, glancing behind him at the flicker of the fire that was just beginning to take hold. “The same as you.”

The beggar looked at her for a moment. “Look somewhere else,” he said gruffly, then turned away and moved back toward his fire. Indra watched him, her curiosity about this strange man returning. She could see the heavy iron chain he had been carrying back at the crossroads resting in a pile at the base of an oak tree next to his campfire. Out here in the middle of nowhere. More and more of a puzzle. She had to know.

Wulfric sat down next to the fire. He looked up and saw, to his consternation, that the girl was still there, looking at him curiously.

“I said, look somewhere else!” he growled, his tone harsher than before. “This place is claimed.” He waved his hand around in a wide circle to make sure she knew that he was referring not just to this little clearing but to the whole area around it. For her own protection, she was not welcome anywhere near here. Near him.

“I will,” said Indra as she took a step closer, resheathing her sword over her back to show that she was no threat. “But I wonder if you might share your fire for a while first. It’s been a long day.”

Wulfric sighed irritably. “No. Go on now, on your way! I will not tell you again!” He rubbed his hands together and warmed them by the fire, staring into the flames as though she were already gone.

Indra could see that there would be no bargaining with the man. For a brief moment, she was annoyed by his ingratitude after the charity she had shown him earlier in the day. But true charity expected no recompense. To ask for something in return would only undermine the goodness of the original act. And so she quietly nodded and said, “I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

Wulfric watched her walk away, back into the forest, and something tugged at him. The girl had done him a kindness, not once but twice, back at the crossroads. He had already wrestled with the guilt of leaving her in the lurch back there; here, perhaps, was his opportunity to show his gratitude, and he was turning it away? He
looked up at the sky through the treetops. The sun was still some way from setting. And though the instinct that had guided him to protect others for fifteen years was telling him to let the girl go, he stood and called out after her.

“Wait.”

She stopped, looked back. Wulfric motioned toward the fire. “For a short while only,” he said. “You must be on your way before sundown.”

She nodded and made her way back across the clearing toward him. The hawk she carried took flight from her shoulder and found a nearby branch overlooking the campfire as the girl laid down her staff. She waited for Wulfric to reseat himself, then sat before the fire across from him.

“Thank you,” she said.

Wulfric said nothing in reply, just gazed into the fire.

“I am Indra,” she offered cheerfully, clearly trying to appear friendly and open.

Wulfric offered only a quiet grunt of acknowledgment as he poked at the fire with a stub of branch. He had no intention of reciprocating.

There was an awkward pause before she tried again. “I wonder if—”

“No talking.” Wulfric cut her off with a sharp look. “That is my condition. Sit and warm yourself if you wish, but remain quiet. If you cannot do that, go.”

His tone made it clear there was to be no further discussion. Indra simply nodded and warmed her hands, sharing the simple comfort of the fire.

“Why did you help me?”

Indra looked up. Only now did she realize that the nameless beggar had been looking at her. She had become so entranced by the flickering and dancing of the flames that she had no idea how much time had passed since she sat down. All she knew was that she had felt a greater calm in that time than she could ever remember, a deep sense of serenity and well-being that was all but unknown in her young life. She wished it could have lasted forever.

“I thought we were not—”

“It is my condition, so my condition to break,” said Wulfric. He paused for a moment, then, “You do not have to answer. Forget that I asked.” He looked back into the fire. He appeared to Indra to regret having spoken. What could happen in a life, she wondered, to turn someone into this—a man seemingly afraid of even the most basic human contact?

“Why does any soul help another?” she replied. Was it wise to answer his question with a question? This conversation was new and fragile, and the man across from her was clearly unsure about having started it. If she appeared too clever or coy, he might retreat to silence, and there was much she still wanted to know.

“I’m a Christian,” Indra said. “At least I try to be. It’s my duty to help those in need.” She took a branch from the ground and poked at the fire. “Besides, I don’t like bullies.”

He nodded, seeming satisfied by her answer but also perhaps a little surprised. “Not much Christian charity around nowadays,” he observed, grim.