The Sword-Edged blonde (20 page)

Before this banter got any wittier, I heard a familiar whinny. I looked up to see my horse coming up the trail, led none too happily by a dark figure I couldn’t quite make out. This figure let out the same yell I’d heard earlier, and as the light reached him I felt a cold chill despite the fire.

He was younger than this other guy, and more slender. He had a cleft palate, and as he neared I heard the wet sound of his breath wheezing through the opening. One eye was considerably higher than the other, and his left hand sported fingers that were too small and too numerous. He wore nothing except crude moccasins.

“Hey, Paw-Paw,” he said, although the words were slurred and gummy. “Lookee what I found!”

“That’s good, John-Thomas,” the bearded Paw-Paw said. His voice had the patient quality of an easygoing parent. “We’ll butcher it up in just a bit.”

“Hey, wait, that’s
my
horse,” I said.

John-Thomas walked up to me, put his face way too close and stared. If possible, he smelled worse than the rotting deer. I knew what inbreeding could do in animals, but this was the first time I’d seen it manifest in a human being.

“Back up a little, would you?” I said as firmly as I dared, and reached to take the reins from him.

Before I could, he let out that same screech again. This close, borne on breath that could melt rock, I nearly threw up right in his malformed face. At the last moment he turned and sort of danced away toward Paw-Paw, still holding the reins.

“He’s good and plump, Paw-Paw,” John-Thomas said. “Just like we always like.”

“That’s true,” Paw-Paw said flatly.

Uh-oh. Did he mean the horse or me?

John-Thomas rushed over to me again.
“Goodanplump, goodanplump,
” he repeated. A mixture of his spit and mucus splattered on my face, and I reached up to wipe it off.

“John-Thomas!” Paw-Paw said sternly. The younger man backed away, still staring at me and continuing to hold my horse’s reins.

“That’s my horse,” I repeated.

“Around here, things that get left belong to the people who pick ’em up,” Paw-Paw said.

“Yeah, well, where I’m from, we respect other people’s property.”

“I get his tongue, Paw-Paw!” John-Thomas cackled. “I get his tongue all for mine!”

“Okay, that’s it,” I said and snatched the reins from John-Thomas.

John-Thomas let out a squeal of absolute, primal petulance and ran off into the night. The horse moved next to me, nuzzling me gratefully with her big head. I did not take my eyes off Paw-Paw. “Not tryin’ to start trouble,” I said. “Just didn’t want him hurtin’ my horse.”

I was now thoroughly creeped out, and the last thing I wanted was to spend any more time with these two. The smell of danger was almost stronger than the odor of decay that clung to them. I’d return and search the cottage during the day, when hopefully they’d be out doing whatever they did. “Sorry to bother you fellas,” I said, and raised my foot to the stirrup. The horse whinnied, and only that high, sharp sound gave me the warning I needed.

John-Thomas came shrieking out of the darkness, eyes wide and a crude hatchet high above his head. He swung at me with all his strength and momentum, and I felt the wind from the blow as I barely stepped aside. He tumbled past me, rolled awkwardly and almost landed in the fire. But he caught himself, got to his feet and immediately attacked again.

I had time to get set, and blocked his hatchet arm with my own. I tried to grab his wrist, but his skin was too greasy and he easily twisted free. He viciously swung the hatchet at my chest, and again I barely stepped aside. He tripped over his own feet and fell, and this gave me time to draw my sword. When he turned and attacked again I was ready, and his own forward motion lopped off his hatchet hand at the wrist.

If I thought he’d screeched before, it was nothing compared to the sound he made now. He grabbed the stump of his wrist, dropped to the ground and practically convulsed with rage and pain. His thrashing kicked up a cloud of dust that glowed orange in the firelight. I looked around for Paw-Paw, but he had vanished into the darkness.

I had no desire to prolong this. I sheathed my sword, grabbed my horse’s reins again and swung into the saddle. Just as I was about to dig my heels into her ribs, a hand grabbed my jacket from behind and pulled me to the ground.

I landed right, so it didn’t knock the breath from me. Paw-Paw raised a long trident-like spear over his head and hurled it straight down at my face. He roared, a full-throated adult variation on John-Thomas’ horrendous shriek. I rolled aside, grabbed his legs below his
knees and shoved him onto his back. He broke the shaft of his spear as he fell.

He was bigger and stronger than me, and unlike his son was not foolish enough to lose his cool. He kicked me in the chest, got to his knees and produced a long, jagged knife. I’d seen the results of that knife on those deer carcasses, and it galvanized me into action. I slipped my own knife from my boot, rolled under his first blow and plunged my blade deep into his belly. I stood, using my legs to drive a two-foot slice across his stomach, then spun behind him, grabbed him by the hair and rammed my knee into his spine, hard. The impact made his intestines burst through the incision and splatter onto the dusty ground.

I released him and jumped quickly out of knife range, ready in case he threw the weapon as a last gesture. But he only stared down at his bloody organs for a moment, then fell forward atop them with a
splat
I’ll remember for a long time.

Through all this, John-Thomas continued screeching and thrashing. By now blood shot from his severed wrist, shimmering as it caught the firelight in great surging arcs. I drew my sword again and stepped over to him. “Hey!” I said sharply, and when he didn’t respond I nudged him with my boot.
“Hey!”

He froze, absolutely still. The change was so sudden it made me jump. His only movement was the steady pump of blood from his wrist.

“I don’t want to kill you,” I said. “I’m sorry it came to this. Let me help you.”

The mismatched eyes in the malformed face showed no comprehension. He turned his head and saw his father, face down atop his own insides. He began to
screech again, and flung himself at me with renewed fury.

He was weaker, though, and I was ready. I sidestepped him and brought my sword blade down in a hard, sharp blow to the back of his neck. His body hit the ground with a solid thud, followed a moment later by his head a few feet away.

I stood between the two bodies for a long time, waiting for my own heart to decide it wanted to stay in my chest. Finally I sheathed my sword and sat down on the far side of the fire. My hands shook and my head hurt. The horse came around to stand near me, a gesture that I appreciated but couldn’t really acknowledge at the moment.

Sometime after midnight I tossed both corpses into the fire, followed by the deer carcasses and all the other myriad animal parts I found scattered around the area. The smell grew even more ghastly. I led the horse a short distance upwind and sat in the grass watching the fire. It faded at dawn, and by the time the sun reached the tops of the trees, it had settled down to copiously smoking embers. I figured it was now safe to search the old cottage.

I peered through one of the windows and saw the reason they’d built the lean-to instead of moving into the building. The skeletal remains of dozens, if not hundreds of dead animals had been tossed inside, and now lay in a haphazard pile that sloped down and spread from the windows and door. I saw deer, bear, beaver and a few bones I was pretty sure were human. To Paw-Paw and John-Thomas, I imagine they were all just meat for the fire. The dense, massive piles must’ve accumulated over several years, and perhaps
that explained why no one had ever resettled the valley. I was almost sick again, but since this was my last obstacle, I choked it down and continued.

I kicked several deer rib cages aside and entered the old cottage. How had I felt all those years ago, doing the same thing? The experience had been so intense that even now I could imagine the place as I’d seen it then, the rot and debris replaced by Epona’s accoutrements.

I reached the old hearth, took a deep breath and forced myself to look at the place as an impartial investigator. It was difficult, but not impossible. Beneath the carcasses, all of Epona’s original belongings had decayed pretty much where I’d last seen them. Evidently Paw-Paw and John-Thomas had not bothered to loot the place before they started using it as their garbage pile. I cleared the dirt and dust from the edge of the hearth and sat in the same spot I’d occupied all those years ago, when Epona held court for me. The frame of the old rocking chair, minus its long-decayed woven seat but miraculously upright, sat like a throne awaiting the return of its queen.

That night I had continued up the trail alone after leaving Nicole, and Epona had greeted me at the door. “Hello, Baron Edward LaCrosse of Arentia,” she had said then. The words still practically hung in the cottage’s air.

H
ello, Epona Gray of the little house in the big woods,” I had replied, mimicking her tone. “Come in,” she said, and stepped aside, “before you catch your death of moonlight.” Her movement was languid and yet somehow entrancing. I didn’t move, but not from fear; I just couldn’t take my eyes off her.

“Don’t tell me the old village conjurer has bewitched the cynical young soldier,” she said. Her voice was throaty, her tone gentle, so the mocking didn’t grate. I saw that she was barefoot and held a wine bottle loose in one hand. “If it’ll make you feel better, call me Eppie. Eddie and Eppie; has a nice lilt, don’t you think?”

“That seems a little disrespectful,” I said. I still didn’t move. “I thought you were a goddess.”

She laughed, and I got a look at her exquisite profile against the fire. “All women are goddesses, didn’t you know that? Look into one’s eyes sometime. Really look.” Then she faced me again. “Or, since that’s beyond you right now, remember what you saw in Janet’s eyes. Not in that portrait in the palace; in the real eyes that looked up at you that night after the harvest festival.”

I went battle-cold at that comment. The fumbling of two awkward teenagers in an unused guest room—the first time for us both—was a memory I’d never shared with anyone. I couldn’t imagine Janet gossiping about it, either. I strode forward, grabbed the woman by the wrist and jerked her out of the doorway. “You goddam bitch, who do you think you are?” I snarled.

I got my first look at her gleaming, sweaty face then. It was an exquisite set of features, not so perfect as to be intimidating, yet somehow enough to make you momentarily forget all other faces. Age-wise, she seemed both a grown woman in her thirties and simultaneously a teenage girl. She had big dark eyes and brown hair that fell over her forehead. Her smile was at once rapacious and tender. “Easy, Eddie,” she said softly.

From the treetops, the mysterious night birds cried out in alarm, and big shapes rustled ominously in the nearby woods. “It’s all right,” she murmured, and they instantly fell silent.

“Who the hell are you?” I demanded. I smelled wine on her breath, and another vague odor I couldn’t identify. “Why did you want to see me?”

She rubbed her eyes with her free hand, as if struck by a sudden headache. “Wow,” she whispered. “Can we continue the melodrama indoors? I need to sit down.” She didn’t wait for an answer, but pulled her arm from my grip and went inside.

I stopped in the doorway and surveyed the room. The place looked like a tavern after a long weekend. Bottles lay scattered on the floor, the chairs were in disarray and dirty clothes had been tossed haphazardly aside. The fire blazed so brightly it was like a sauna, which explained the almost sheer gown Epona Gray
wore. She picked up an overturned rocking chair, placed it by the hearth and sat heavily. She took a long drink then offered the bottle to me.

“No, thanks,” I said as I undid my jacket against the heat. “I’m not worthy to drink a goddess’ backwash.”

She looked at the bottle. “Your loss. About the wine, I mean. I save this for special occasions. It’s great stuff.”

Behind a privacy curtain I saw a large bed, the covers and pillows rumpled. The kitchen cabinets were in disarray, and dishes filled the washbasin. For a goddess, she was a slob. “Are you going to tell me what I’m here for, or
is
there a reason?”

She ran a hand through her hair. “Reason, reason, reason. That’s a big thing for you, isn’t it? Everything has to have a reason, everyone has to be reasonable.” She turned to me. With the chair and the fire, she now looked the part of a village hedge witch. “Cathy spoke highly of you. She loves you, you know.”

I blinked in surprise. If she meant something about the previous night at the river, I didn’t believe for a minute that Cathy would tell this woman anything so personal. “I think that’s the wine talking, Eppie.”

“You people,” she laughed. “Eddie, I didn’t say she was
good
at it. She doesn’t have a clue how to express it. She was raped as a child, again as a teenager and swore she would never feel love of any sort again. She took back power over herself, and in the process cut herself off from every tender feeling in her heart.” She pointed at me with the bottle. “Until she met you, bright boy. But you turned her down at her most vulnerable.”