The Fork-Tongue Charmers (3 page)

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ever in all of Good Harper Killpenny's many years had the Mud Sleigh been robbed, accosted, or otherwise bothered by bandits or highwaymen. In fact, he rode under the protection of the most fearsome outlaws of all. Thanks to a bargain struck between the Luck Uglies and generations of Good Harpers before him, Killpenny traveled safely without guards, comfortable in the knowledge that a harsh and swift reckoning would befall any opportunist foolish enough to trouble him on his journey.

That was what he told Rye, anyway, as they left Drowning under a clear morning sky. She suspected that this was precisely the reason her father had arranged for her passage on the Mud Sleigh, and the only reason her mother had allowed it. Rye looked back, waved to Abby, Lottie, and Quinn, and examined the contents of the coach. Its hold was loaded up with more gold and silver than a flush noble's treasure hole.

The River Drowning was still frozen over in long stretches, light snow cover transforming it into a wide, smooth roadway. Rye twitched with the excitement of a new adventure as the village's twisted rooftops disappeared behind them, the horses pulling the sleigh along the ice so swiftly that the wind rustled her hair. Soon she was shifting in her seat to get a better view of the Western Woods as they traveled southwest, farther from home than she had ever been before. Eventually, however, all the trees began to look the same. She asked Good Harper four times if they were almost there, until he said something about having a bad ear and stopped responding altogether. She sang a song to pass the time. Rye's voice must have miraculously cured Good Harper's hearing, because he begged her to stop it right away. She sighed and thrust her chin into her hands. It was only midday.

Dusk came early, and by nightfall Rye's boredom had been replaced by a dull anxiety as she huddled
under a heavy blanket on top of the driver's box. They had stopped to make camp on the frozen river itself, at a particular bend where Good Harper said they were to wait for Rye's father to come collect her. Rye tried to take comfort in the Mud Sleigh's unblemished history as she listened to howls in the distance. The horses kicked at the ice and shuffled nervously around their camp. These animals must have seen and heard it all in these woods over the years, but tonight something had them spooked.

From his seat next to Rye, Good Harper scratched his beard and popped a cinnamon candy into his mouth. He offered one to Rye, but she just shook her head. It would have been a whole lot nicer if he'd left some for her last night. Good Harper offered her a potato. She turned that down too.

“You've gone quiet,” he remarked, which wasn't entirely true. The fact was, Rye could hardly sneak a word in between his own ramblings. After his long months alone on the Mud Sleigh, Good Harper was well-practiced in talking to himself.

“It's a shame,” he said with a snort. “Good conversation, or even polite small talk, has become harder and harder to come by.”

“I'm sorry, I don't mean to be—”

“The Shale folk have grown stingy,” Good Harper
continued, as if he hadn't heard her at all. “Nowadays they fill their shoes out of nothing more than habit. There seems to be no genuine concern for the needy, not even a healthy fear of bad luck. Drowning is the worst of the lot. It's a glorified mud hole with its creeping bogs and notorious forest. Most of its residents barely muster up more than a few token bronze bits, and those who do put out shoes that smell like last month's cheese.” He cast her a quick glance. “No offense, by the way.”

“None taken,” Rye said flatly. That was all true, she had to admit.

“The Earl didn't even invite me to his Silvermas Eve Feast this year,” Good Harper grumbled on. “He's got himself a new Constable—can't say I care for him one bit. The wag turned me away at the gates without so much as a carrot for the horses.”

Nobody had seen much of Earl Morningwig Longchance all winter—not that anyone was complaining. But Rye had heard he'd enlisted the services of an infamous lawman-for-hire in recent days. The law seldom found its way to Mud Puddle Lane—its residents too poor or unimportant to warrant protection—but Folly said this one had already made some harsh changes in other parts of the village. Rye doubted he could be any worse than his predecessor.

She gazed up at the sky and sighed. Behind the
cloak of the invisible Black Moon, the stars shone like a thousand glowing candles on the Dead Fish Inn's bone chandelier. She wished she was there right now, celebrating Silvermas with Folly and her family. Her thoughts were interrupted by another howl from somewhere across the ice. Good Harper seemed to be paying closer attention to the howls himself.

“Good Harper,” Rye said, now that he'd finally fallen silent. “Why did you leave me this? Was I really so terrible this year?” She held out the black stone she had found in her boot.

Good Harper pursed his lips and took the stone between his fingers. “Eh?” he said, examining it closely. “This isn't from me. Someone's playing a joke on you.” He huffed and shook his head. “Drowning—those villagers are rotten to the core.”

With a flick of his wrist he threw the stone out across the river. Rye heard it hit the ice and skid for a long distance before finally coming to a stop. When she looked out toward where the stone might have settled, she noticed the three distant torches streaking in their direction.

“Over there,” she said, and pointed.

“Hmm,” Good Harper grunted, and peered out from under the wide brim of his hat.

“What are they?” she asked.

Good Harper rubbed his beard again and sucked his candy. “Can't say for certain, but they look to be sleds.”

They were in fact three sleds, pulled by teams of enormous black dogs. They came to a halt in the shadows just outside of Good Harper's camp. The animals' claws scraped at the ice and their eyes glowed in the torchlight. They snapped and snarled at one another. Angry and distracted, they were too big to be sled dogs. Wolves?

Rye fidgeted in anticipation. A hooded figure stepped off the lead sled and approached. Other cloaked men stayed with their sled teams and shifted in the shadows. She reached back to get the satchel her mother had packed before climbing down to meet her father.

Good Harper placed a hand on Rye's shoulder before she could get up. “Lass, why don't you duck inside the coach?”

“Are they not Luck Uglies?” Rye asked, peering at the animals and sled drivers. Although, now that she thought about it, this is not how she would expect her father to greet her.

“It would seem so,” Good Harper said quickly. “I'll call you out as soon as I know for certain.” He stepped down from the driver's box. “But,” he added, in a coarse whisper, “if you hear anything amiss, get out and run
for the trees. Don't look back.”

Rye clambered into the back of the Mud Sleigh as she was told, ignoring the chittering of dozens of caged mice—“treats” for those on Good Harper's naughty list had to come from somewhere. She parted the sleigh's heavy curtain so she could peek through. Good Harper met the cloaked man by the small campfire. Rye could see that he was wearing a mask under his hood.

“Fine evening, neighbor,” Good Harper said in an even tone. “That's a most unusual sled team you and your men ride.”

“Indeed,” the man replied, and looked toward the animals, who erupted into a choir of howls. “The wolves can be quarrelsome, but their size allows them to pull much larger loads than dogs.”

The man's voice was a faraway hiss that resonated like an echo from a bottomless well. It wasn't Rye's father's voice. She didn't like it one bit.

“I see,” Good Harper said with affected cheer. “And what loads are you carrying that you need such a team?”

“None just yet. But you have quite the heavy cargo in your sleigh. I think I shall need the strength of each and every one of these wolves to haul it.”

Rye gripped the curtains with both hands. What was going on here? Good Harper's tone shifted quickly, his voice now stern.

“Neighbor, do you know who I am? This charity is for the needy and downtrodden. The Luck Uglies have ensured my safe passage on these roads for many years, and for that reason I pass no judgment on you or your kind. But I suggest you be on your way in search of a more appropriate mark.”

“If it gives you some solace,” the man said, “let's just say I am the neediest soul I know. Now step aside.”

He placed a firm hand on Good Harper's arm, showing no intention of asking again.

Good Harper gritted his teeth and, to Rye's great surprise, lashed out in anger with an old knotted fist. His blow didn't buckle the marauder, but it knocked his mask to the ice.

The man smiled, revealing the red patchwork seams of his gums. Then he returned the blow. It crumpled Good Harper to his knees.

Without thinking, Rye lurched from inside the coach to help. The assailant towered over the fallen Good Harper and moved as if he might kick him. But Rye's appearance on top of the Mud Sleigh caused him to pause and glance upward. His gaze froze her before she jumped down. Most of the man's ashen white face was shrouded in the shadows of his hood, but she could see that Good Harper's blow had drawn blood from his black lips. He licked the corner of his mouth with his
tongue. Rye recoiled when she saw that it was forked like a snake's, the two pink ends dancing over his lips like blind, probing serpents.

Rye darted back inside the coach. She clambered over the mountain of coin purses and kicked aside the mouse cages so she could shove open the back door of the Mud Sleigh. The woods were straight ahead. But as she leaped down, her boots skidded out from under her and she landed hard on the ice. By the time she regained her footing, the fork-tongued man had stepped in front of her, blocking her way to the river's edge. He affixed his mask back over his face.

Rye took a deep breath, her heart pounding. Her mother had told her once:
Walk strong, act like you belong, and no one will be the wiser
. If these were Luck Uglies, she should have nothing to fear. She took a step to her left. The man moved to block her path. She took a step back to the right. He did the same.

“Who are you?” Rye demanded, doing her best to channel her mother's voice.

The reply came from deep inside a hollow. “Names are a precious paint to be shared cautiously. Offer yours first, and I'll tell you mine.”

“Rye O'Chanter,” she said, forcing herself to stand straight and stare hard at the masked face in front of her.

The man reached forward with a long gloved finger. Before she could flinch, he pulled her hood from her head. He leaned in closer, as if studying her. His mask was scaled armor the texture of an adder's skin, his own eyes just slits behind its red-ringed eyeholes. Unlike all of the other Luck Uglies' masks she had ever seen, this one had no nose. But a gaping maw loomed open, part of a grotesquely distended chin that extended all the way to his chest.

“I've seen you before.” He was close enough that she felt his breath when he said it.

“What's
your
name?” she asked sternly, ignoring the knot tightening in her stomach. “Before you do something you'll regret, you should know that my father is a Luck Ugly too.”

“Slinister,” he said from deep behind his mask. “Now you say it.”

“What?” Rye asked, in a retreating voice that was very much
unlike
her mother's.

“You asked me my name and I told you. Now repeat it.”

“Slinister,” Rye said quietly. If words had taste, this one would have rolled sour off her tongue.

“That's correct,” he said. “And yes, I know very well who your father is. In fact, I know him better than you do.”

The hollow of his masked mouth was so black and wide it seemed it might swallow her. She took a step away. When he didn't move to follow her, she took another.

“You may go,” Slinister said, waving a dismissive hand. “Perhaps we'll have a chance to visit another day.”

Rye's steps quickened as she moved along the ice, never taking her eyes off the man named Slinister. She found Good Harper struggling to regain his feet. She grabbed him by the shoulders and helped him up, then hurried him across the frozen river. His plum-colored scarf dragged behind them.

“Remember my name, Rye O'Chanter,” Slinister called as he watched her go. She glanced back over her shoulder just once and was relieved that the night now shrouded his fiendish mask.

As Rye and Good Harper took refuge in the safety of the woods, Slinister's cohorts slipped from the shadows and plundered the Mud Sleigh, loading their own sleds with every last gold grommet and silver shim. They unhitched the horses and led them away. Finally, when the sleigh was stripped to nothing more than an empty shell, the looters lit a raging ring of fire around the camp. Their sleds had disappeared far downriver by the time the sleigh broke through the melting ice and sank beneath the frigid water.