Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) (48 page)

“Meat,” said Caenith from behind him.

He was so pleasantly contemplating his end that the pain had dimmed and he had not sensed Caenith’s regression to man or approach. He turned to a grisly if not altogether unsurprising sight of Caenith’s naked flesh bibbed in crimson. The Wolf lofted up a lizardy corpse about the size of a hound,
which Thackery recognized as a spinrex; he didn’t ask where the rest of the herd was—in Caenith’s belly, he presumed. Caenith handed him the lizard, and Thackery held it as one does with raw dead things, unsure of what he was to do.

“No water. Drink the blood and eat what meat you can. We move again in a few hourglasses,” said Caenith, squatting on his haunches and surveying the canyon, the stars, and the desert with his twitching senses. Without any further instruction to go on, Thackery unslung his pack, retrieved the dagger within it, and then joined Caenith on the ground and tried to figure out the intricacies of the art of meat carving. Many stumbles with a blade later, Caenith took the messy carcass from him quite rudely and fileted the spinrex as deftly as a mariner gutting a fish, with painterly strokes that removed skin from flesh from bone in the passing of a sand. Caenith placed the juicy hunks of flesh on a bed of scaly membranes that resembled a gory salad. He then popped the organs into his mouth, slurped up the entrails, and tossed the bones, finishing with a red smile.

“Eat,” commanded Caenith.

Thackery swallowed.
How rustic. An adventure, remember?
Embracing that adventurousness, Thackery consumed the rubbery chunks quickly. He tried to think of the oddly salty liquid as a fluid other than blood. The Wolf was wise, however, for the barbaric meal was as hydrating as it was nourishing, and it sat in his stomach with the fullness of porridge. That would sustain him for a time. The Wolf’s dangling nakedness was making him uncomfortable, so he looked up to see unfamiliar stars.

“How far have we come?” wondered Thackery.

“About half of Kor’Khul,” grunted the Wolf. “Another day and night and we should clear it. Morigan’s captors are ahead of us, but not by much. Perhaps…perhaps she will awaken, or I shall feel her warmth in me again before then.”

“Her warmth?”

“We are connected, she and I. In ways that you could never imagine. She is what I have hunted my whole long life for.”

Lately, Thackery’s imagination was being tested, stretched, and reassembled, and he could have guessed with relative accuracy at what strangeness united the Wolf and Morigan. Were he to draw parallels between what
he knew—the king and queen’s relationship was the most obvious, as incredible as it was—he felt that Morigan and the Wolf’s bond ran deeper.
Deeper than a love that has lasted one thousand years? Do you really believe that?
He did. When he had been at the Fuilimean, he had even read a twist of jealously on Lila’s golden self that told him this was true.
We shall find her, Caenith
, he promised. Glancing over to the Wolf, he saw the man sunken a little in his shoulders and majesty, and sought to change the subject.

“I would not question your skills as a tracker, but I am curious as to what road you mean to take to Menos. Past the deserts of Kor’Khul are the lordships of Blackmore, the fields of Canterbury, and the Iron Valley that precedes the Black City, though to get anywhere in the East, we shall have to cross the River Feordhan, which not even you could paw your way across with respectable speed.”

Caenith looked over, scowling. With the animal in control, he had not given honest thought to the sensibilities of their travel, and it had been centuries since he crossed to the West. Remembering wasn’t easy for him. “I took a boat last time. Landed at Taroch’s…Taroch’s…”

“Arm,” finished Thackery. “Taroch’s Arm is still where one catches a ferry, which takes a man to any number of docks in the East. We’ll want Blackforge, city of house Blackmore. We’re in a hurry, which is good, because we don’t want to stay in either port for a moment more than we have to. I don’t know what you recall, but as the bridge between East and West, those are two of the most dangerous cities in which a man can find himself. And while the Blackmore claim neutrality, they are thoroughly in the pocket of Menos, so we’d best not draw attention to ourselves. You will be needing your clothes once we get to Taroch’s Arm, and tempting as it might be to
wolf
around the countryside after that, it is ill-advised, as Menosian Crowes patrol the skies and have instruments specifically alerted by signs of unusual movement. We shall have to proceed on foot.”

“We can’t afford the delay!” growled Caenith, slapping his hands on the ground.

“Would you risk our own capture? We’ll be no good to Morigan then.”

“I shall never be chained,” declared the Wolf defiantly.

Thackery pursed his lips. “I would imagine every prisoner has said that before.”

The Wolf calmed his pride. “What do you propose, son of Thule?”

Do stop calling me that, and I shall ignore your complete incivility in most instances, like your balls dragging themselves in the sand. Can’t you feel that, you brute? Do you even care?
Thackery thought, but managed to answer with decency.

“I have some bonds that I can call upon in Taroch’s Arm from some fellows or their descendants, if I’ve outlived the debtor.” Thackery waved away the thought. “We’ll get to that when we get to it. Regardless, the bonds should certainly provide enough coin for the travel, and we can smuggle our way close to Menos on a caravan headed for the Iron City. That’s the best I can think of for a plan.”

Sparse as the strategy was, it was plenty enough for the Wolf; he stood and stretched. While it hadn’t been an hourglass, Thackery’s weariness cried out, for he knew that the beast-carriage would shortly be leaving. Agonizingly, Thackery trussed up the pack and placed his arms through the makeshift straps; they burned like pulled rope across his skin and fit into the red grooves on his flesh with familiar masochism. If not for his sleepless nights, he would surely have collapsed a dozen times over; he was still quite shocked that he had not.

He sighed. “Let’s go.”

The Wolf waved at him for silence and then darted up one of the sandy trails branching from the canyon. Thackery pursued him, climbing out of the windy channel to arrive on a plateau as lonely as an island in the wavy sea of the desert. At the edge of the island, the Wolf crouched and leaned into the night, sensing something that Thackery did not. Quietly, Thackery went to him and stood behind the man. He was no hunter, yet he could sense the tension in the night: the sudden stillness of the wind until the only scrape of sound was his hoarse breathing. Caenith pulled him down and covered Thackery’s mouth—his head actually, given the size of the hand—to silence even that. A prudent notion, for Thackery might have shouted at what appeared next. At first, his eyes deceived him into believing it was a second row of dunes superimposed over the first or that he was seeing double. Out in the desert, something massive, something the length of a city street, undulated through the desert. How silkily it moved that only the faintest mist of sand announced it, and by that, Thackery could estimate its absurd size. How
stealthily it swept under land, with at most a faint hum to warn—or mask—its menace. Once, a piece of the monstrosity exposed itself in a sinuous movement, and he saw a glimmering encrustation of shale and scurf. Had he not just eaten a lizard, he might not have made the comparison to scales. But his wonderstruck mind could not categorize what beast had scales of rock and gemstones, scales as large as the slab he trembled on.

What is the snake that eats the city…that swallows up man and house?
he wondered. The answer struck him as the glittering coil descended into the sands, and the vast entity glided its way along a trail of starlight. Soon its movements could no more be tracked, not by his eyes, and when the Wolf felt that they were out of danger, he uncapped Thackery’s mouth.

“I have seen it before,” said the Wolf, still quiet. “A beast from another age. It is not the only descendant of its kind that I have seen in Geadhain, and but a babe to the elementals of old.”

“That was a
wyrm
!” gasped Thackery.

“If that is what you call them, yes,” whispered Caenith. “A predator not even I would cross. Children of the Green Mother are they. Powers that not even you element-breakers can tame. Monsters of earth, fire, wind, and water swim in the body of the Green Mother. The ones that live in the sand or soil like this can hear the smallest vibrations, and running feet are like drums to them. Your scream—had you made one—would have been a dinner bell, for they hunt without mercy. We shall wait a few sands more; I do not wish to test if I can outrun one of the true masters of Geadhain.”

“I have never seen one. You hear of such things…read of them, even.”

Thackery was unable to say more. He could not capture his awe and insignificance in words. As if he were a child seeing magik for the first time, he felt that innocent and new. He found himself holding the Wolf’s warm arm and was pleased when the man did not instantly shake him off, as he needed the stability to tie down his soaring astonishment.

“Time is wasting,” said the Wolf.

Thackery removed his grip and stepped back to watch the freakish transformation that was to unfold.

“We shall take a longer rest for you once we have left the sands behind us, Thackery,” promised the Wolf.

Those were the last of Caenith’s words that Thackery would hear for a time, though their sincerity infused the old man’s limbs with the strength he would need to hold on to the Wolf again. For Caenith had addressed him by his name and with respect.

II

One quality that the Wolf never erred on was his honor, and true to his word, Thackery was allowed his first few hourglasses of solid sleep once Kor’Khul was a sandy memory. He was deposited somewhere softer than the last bed and twitched into a fevered sleep in specks. He dreamed of a wyrm of rock chasing him and eventually swallowing him whole. In that darkness he drifted; perhaps he was being digested, but he certainly wasn’t dead.

Under the gloomy mantle of dawn, he awoke from the strange dream. The grayness of a threateningly rainy journey was a refreshing change from the desert’s stinging light, against which he had squinted his eyes. In another welcome variation from the norm, Caenith had dressed himself in his sooty clothing and even tied up the wild nest of his hair with a strip of cloth. The third of the day’s small miracles was a cooked meal that had been prepared for Thackery, and it was the succulent smoldering of a hare’s gamy fat to which he awoke. He slapped his cheeks to liven himself and chewed on rabbit while breathing in the fertile mist of the lowlands that they had arrived at last night.

From their camp on a lightly treed hill, Thackery could stare east over a rolling valley. Deep glens glittered with water, and bushy dells dotted the green skin of the land. Here and there were piles of carbonized shale or half-risen cliffs that looked like tired old women in black robes and emerald shawls. From this dark stone, Ebon Vale got its name, and while the soil most immediately surrounding these deposits was not ideal for growth, pastures and farmsteads could be seen, their pens shuffling with fluffy shapes that Thackery guessed were sheep or cattle. After the blistering emptiness of Kor’Khul, these smoke-piped dwellings and their cozy comforts were exactly what Thackery needed to lift his spirits. Alas, he would be visiting none of
them, he figured, judging by the pout on the Wolf’s face. Surely, the strain of Morigan’s capture was chipping away at even Caenith’s great resolve by now.

He could feel the Wolf’s impatience weighing over him as he ate, thus he did so quickly. Once Thackery finished his meal, he cursed and hobbled himself up. The Wolf stomped out their fire and was promptly leading the way. On their brisk stroll down into Ebon Vale, a castoff rowan branch called for Thackery’s attention, and he picked it up and made a cane of it. Having the support of a third leg sped his huffing crawl into a limp that could almost keep pace with Caenith’s stride. As the crisp air of the valley cleared out Thackery’s fatigue, their last night of travel through the desert returned to him. His hands had finally unclenched from Caenith’s fur and he had fallen, which explained one of the greater aches on his hip among his collection of miseries. He remembered flopping in the sand, completely spent of any energy to right himself, and sobbing for Caenith to go on, thinking that this was the end for him. However, Caenith had not abandoned him, but carried him like a babe for what remained of Kor’Khul, eventually laying him down to rest.

“Thank you for not leaving me last night,” said Thackery.

“You love her, too,” replied Caenith, without turning around or slowing his stride. “I have hidden myself too long from man’s customs, and I shall need a guide in how you slow-walkers behave. We are in this together, you and I.”

As the morning yawned itself awake, the temperamental skies teased with thick shafts of sunlight as well as bursts of rain. The companions stamped over great tiles of slippery shale and along damp trails wending through bracken and bush, trading sand for mud and scratches, though happy with the exchange. Often and with longing, Thackery stared toward the distant farmsteads that Caenith never led them toward and wished for a warm bath, a blanket, or even a patch on his vagabond’s garments. While this unkemptness would do in the wilderness, they would have to clean themselves up properly before entering civilization. As if he had read the old sorcerer’s thoughts, Caenith veered from his eastward path and took them down a mossy chasm to emerge into a dell. There, a brook sprang from the wall of black bedrock and bled out into a lily-spotted pond. Without speaking, the men drank their fill and then stripped, bathed, and scrubbed their
clothes as clean as they could. Of the two, Thackery looked incomparably worse for wear when they were done, and Caenith offered him his voluminous shirt to wear over his rags, which made for a sort of nightgown.