Servant of a Dark God (55 page)

When she finished tying everything off, the Creek Widow walked to the well, drew a bucket of water, then carried it to the south side of her home where her almond tree starts stood in a single straight line of pots on a narrow table. She watered them, gently brushed each with her hand, then stood back and addressed the group. “I cannot promise I’ll return, lovelies. And there’s no time to put you where you belong.” She grunted over that fact and shook her head.

“No, I just can’t,” she said. She turned to Talen. “Bring me a spade.”

“But—”

“Cha!” she said.

Talen fetched a spade from the barn and brought it to her. “I thought we had to leave immediately.”

“Hush,” she said. “Gather an armful and follow me. Those pots will dry out in a day.”

They carried the nine starts to the garden and hastily planted them between two rows of cabbage.

“I know you’ll be a bit crowded,” she said to them. “But it will have to do.” Then she stood and said good-bye to her apple trees and the two walnuts she prized the most. She walked to the chicken coop, opened the door, and bid her birds farewell. Then she walked to Warrior lying on the porch.

“My lovely old man,” she said, giving him an affectionate rub about the neck. “Keep a good watch on the ladies. I’m counting on you.”

A branch cracked in the woods that started just on the other side of the road running by the house. All three of them froze. The crack was followed by the sound of someone pushing through brush.

The Creek Widow pointed at the barn. “Hide,” she whispered.

Talen took Legs by the hand and walked as quickly as he dared to the barn door. It squeaked, even though he only opened it wide enough for the two of them to slip inside.

There was more cracking and sweeping of limbs, then a “Hoy. Anyone?”

“Sugar!” Legs called. He let go of Talen’s grip and darted out of the barn, almost running toward the sound, one hand high, one low in front of him. “Sugar!”

“Hush,” said the Creek Widow.

Sugar ran to her brother and wrapped him in a hug. “Thank the Creators,” she said.

“Thank Talen,” said Legs.

Sugar looked over at him.

“Oh, we’ve become bosom buddies,” said Talen.

“Have you been followed?” asked the Creek Widow.

“No,” said Sugar. “Well, I don’t know.”

“There was no way you were coming back from chasing that monster,” said Talen.

“Well,” she whispered. “I guess you underestimated me.”

“Quickly,” said the Creek Widow, “give me the facts.”

Sugar related her tale of following River. She ended by saying, “I trailed the monster to its lair. But I did not go far. It returned. I was close enough to almost reach out and touch it. It chased me for a time, but I haven’t seen sign of it since this afternoon.”

“You’re a brave one,” said the Creek Widow. She looked at Talen. “That’s something to mark.”

He couldn’t tell if that meant Sugar was to be lauded, or that he was cowardly in comparison and should learn from his betters. Or was she suggesting he should consider Sugar as a potential quality mate.

“Are we going to help my mother?” asked Sugar.

“What happened to River?” Talen asked.

“Everything in its time,” said the Creek Widow. “And now is not a time to chat in the yard. You three will follow me. And not a word until I say so.”

Talen looked at Sugar for his answer.

“It took her,” she whispered. “I saw it, in the morning light, carrying her like a baby.”

“Sst,” said the Creek Widow to silence them. She pointed at Legs. “Get him up on the horse.”

Then she walked out into the road.

“Was she alive?” Talen asked.

Sugar hesitated. “I couldn’t tell.”

Talen nodded, then he lifted Legs onto the Tailor’s back. At least River wasn’t twisted in a broken heap like the Shoka they called Gid. He took the reins and followed the Creek Widow into the night.

At their departure, Warrior hauled himself up, padded over to the chicken coop, and dropped his bones squarely in front of the door. Talen considered the dog. Perhaps liveliness wasn’t the only asset a hound might possess.

Sugar walked alongside the Tailor, holding her brother’s ankle. She
had
been brave to follow that creature. Braver than he. The thought had never occurred to him to follow River. It was true that she’d ordered him away. But he hadn’t given it a second thought.

They walked in silence, the Creek Widow in the lead, Talen coming behind, leading the Tailor and Legs. Talen whispered a prayer to the ancestors to protect River.

The moon rose and moved across the starry heaven. Talen’s weariness threatened to overwhelm him. He tried walking with his eyes closed, but stumbled over a rock and upset the Tailor.

The old stallion jerked his head back and lurched to the side. Legs, who
had
drifted asleep, fell to the ground, and only cried out when he landed with a thump. Obviously, Sugar herself had been too tired to react swiftly enough to catch him. Talen steadied the horse and moved him away from Legs. Sugar moved to her brother’s side, feeling for breaks and cuts.

“I’m fine,” he said and got to his feet.

“Tie him in the saddle this time,” said the Creek Widow.

Talen moved to the saddlebags to find the rope the Creek Widow had put there.

“Look at the three of you,” the Creek Widow said. “Bone-tired.” She produced three sticks of horehound from a pocket and gave one to each of them. “A bit of sweet should help.” Then she cupped each of them in turn about the neck just as Da had cupped him about the neck when he’d tied the godsweed charm about his arm before they’d gone to Whitecliff. Just like Da’s, the Creek Widow’s hand was icy cold.

She smiled at him. “We cannot afford to be caught sleeping.”

In moments, his fatigue lessened, and he knew she’d just worked some Sleth business on him.

Talen sucked on his horehound. “What else have you got in those pockets?” he asked her.

She smiled. “That’s my secret.”

They continued on around hills, through black ravines, always traveling the smaller roads. Twice they took disused trails that had surrendered to weeds and thin saplings. Sucking the horehound did help keep him awake, but it disappeared too quickly. Even the effects of the Creek Widow’s magic eventually faded. The fatigue returned, and he plodded, wanting nothing more than to lie down in the dirt. He looked back at Sugar walking alongside the Tailor. The effect didn’t seem to be wearing off on her. She smiled at Talen and he turned back around. When they finally branched off onto what could be no more than an animal trail, the Creek Widow spoke. “I think we’re safe. The refuge is only a mile or so away.”

“This is by Boar’s Point, isn’t it?” asked Sugar.

On the south end of the settled lands, at the edge of a vast, fertile valley, a line of hills ran like a great crooked finger down toward the sea. At the tip of that finger two rivers converged. Sometimes, in the heat of the summer, you could see hundreds of boar there. They came to wallow in the mud on the banks of the shallow, wide river, not only to cool themselves, but also to protect their hides from insects.

“It is,” said the Creek Widow.

“Does this refuge have a bed?” asked Talen.

“Beds, baths, and dancing girls,” said the Creek Widow.

“You can watch the girls,” said Talen. “I’m going to sleep.”

“That’s a good boy.”

They walked a few more paces, then Talen asked, “And how will River know to come here?”

“Because it is the refuge.”

“And if she doesn’t come?”

The Creek Widow looked over at him. “What do you want me to say, Talen?”

He wanted her to say that everything would be all right, that this awful storm would blow over and they could go back to mowing hay in the autumn sun. But he knew that would never be. Everything was all wrong, and it would only get worse. “I don’t know,” he said. And suddenly the whole mess overwhelmed him. Da, River, the beast. It was too much, and his eyes began to sting.

A few paces more and the Creek Widow reached over and felt the tears on his cheek with the back of one finger.

When she pulled her hand away, she grunted. Then she turned and stopped them. “I want you three to listen to me.”

“I wasn’t weeping,” said Talen.

“Cha,” she said, cutting him off. “There is no shame in tears, especially when they’re motivated by love. But the strong do not wallow in bleakness. Until the very end, they look for leverage, for a way to make the best of the situation. They generate options and plans and act. Hope, we must never lose hope.”

“It’s not that easy,” said Talen.

“Of course not. That’s why it’s so powerful.” She pointed her finger at him. “Even death can be turned to victory.”

Talen did not see how that could be.

“Your mother did that,” she said.

“What was her victory?”

“You don’t believe me.”

“My mother was a soul-eater,” said Talen. He didn’t mean it that way, but that’s how it came out.

“Such words,” she said. “I should slap you down. Your mother was no soul-eater.”

“My mother doesn’t matter,” he said. “The question is what do we do about Da? What do we do about the creature and River?”

“We stop the creature,” she said. “As for your da, Ke will let us know the situation. We will slay him only as a last resort. Despite your da’s ardent wish for us to escape, I’m in command now. And I’m loath to leave that man behind.”

“That’s not a plan,” said Talen.

“Interrupting is not helpful,” she said.

“You’re right,” he said. “Let me begin again. What manner of creature is this?”

“That is a more fruitful question. We shall talk as we go.” They began walking the animal trail again.

She held a thin branch out of the way. Talen took it, made sure it didn’t smack the Tailor or Sugar, then joined her again.

“When Argoth told me about the fight in the tower with the beast, I began searching my memory. I remembered a small note on one of the sheets in a codex about a beast made from the thin branches of a willow, a wickerman, if you will. But it was only mentioned in passing. I think it was a copy of a fragment long forgotten.”

“But this thing was covered in grass.”

“Not quite wicker, is it? But I wonder.”

“So we don’t know what it is.”

“We have no name for the thing,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean we don’t know anything about it.”

“Do you think there are more? That this is some male claiming his territory? Or a female preparing to breed?”

“No. Not even the ancients knew the patterns that allow a creature to bring forth after its own kind. This thing was quickened by a lore master possessing breathtaking secrets. But the magic to breed was not one of them.”

“But every living thing breeds in some fashion.”

“No,” said the Creek Widow. “That’s not true. The armband your ridiculous father almost killed you with, that was a living thing. The weaves given to dreadmen—they live, after their fashion. You’d be surprised how many weaves of one kind and complexity or another there are in the world. But there’s a sharp dividing line between those that can bring a soul into the world and those that cannot.”

Those that can bring a soul into the world . . .

“People are weaves?” Sugar asked.

“Mark it,” she said. “A manifestation of the perceptive nature of females. I told your mother, may the Six keep her, you should have been brought inside the Grove last year.”

How could people be woven? It didn’t seem right. People, animals, even insects weren’t things to be fashioned. Of course, they could be bred, and wasn’t that a type of weaving? “So I’m a weave?” asked Talen.

“A bit shabby here and there, but yes, and with enough brilliant parts to capture the eye of those who can see it for what it is.”

But Talen wasn’t thinking about the compliment. He was thinking about the power to weave living things. And if this lore master could weave a wickerman, what other living things could he make?

“So,” continued the Creek Widow, “
if
this thing is akin to the creature I read about,
then
we have at least three options. We can kill it, bind it, or kill its master.”

“I don’t think the first is an option,” said Talen.

“Then it’s a good thing you’re not the one doing all the thinking.”

“How can you do what Da and Uncle Argoth and a whole cohort at the fortress could not?”

“What are you going to do?” she asked. “Talk or listen?”

“Listen,” he said. Of course, that was if she could get to the point.

“That’s better,” she said. “I’m telling you this because you’re now part of the Grove, do you understand? Whether you like it or not, you’re one of us. You’re in an inch, you’re in a mile.”

Indeed, Talen thought.

“We are not without hope. There is lore, very old lore. The Divines have their dreadmen: we have something else. I’m not saying their weaves are evil. They can be used for much good. But what I am saying is that there yet exists lore that is older than dreadmen, older than the Divines themselves.” She reached into one of the Tailor’s saddlebags and withdrew something wrapped in dark cloth.

“We need some light,” she said and stepped into a patch of ground fully lit by the moon. She motioned to him and Sugar. “Come here, both of you.”

Talen and Sugar stepped to the Widow’s side. Sugar stood so close their arms touched. He found it amazing that one day earlier he had been prepared to kill her.

The Creek Widow unwrapped the cloth. In it lay a square of gold half the size of his palm. “Look at it closely,” she said.

Talen leaned in close, but not so close that he obscured the moonlight. The face of the square was covered in an exceedingly intricate design. A leather strap dangled from each of two opposite sides. It looked like something you might tie around your arm. Even so, it was nothing impressive. He’d seen gold medallions and brooches far more intricate and weighty on the hats of fat town wives.

“We only know of five of these that survived the ancient wars. Three were destroyed. One taken by the Witch of Cathay. The final was lost.” She took the object over to Legs on the Tailor and let him feel it.